Pray for the Damned (Forbidden Pleasures #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

EMMETT

T EN YEARS AGO

The gun is heavy in my shaking hand as I approach the house.

The thumping in my chest grows with each step I take, to the point I’m worried my heart might give out before this is all over.

I glance over my shoulder, but there’s no one there. No one I can see, at least.

They’re there.

My father and twin brother lurk within the shadows to make sure I go through with this. To ensure I’m initiated into the family business.

It’s what I’ve trained my whole life for, but it doesn’t make it an easier pill to swallow.

Not for me at least.

Part of me wishes I let go of my soul the way Kade did. His first kill was months ago, but I’ve put mine off for as long as I can, and for as long as they would allow.

But tonight is the night.

Tonight is the night I end someone else’s life in order to preserve my own.

I swallow heavily as my tattered boots hit the bottom porch step of the decrepit house.

Why someone would bother ordering the kill of someone that lives in a house like this is beyond me. It seems pointless, but then again, someone that lives in these conditions isn’t going to bring more business in, so why bother keeping them alive?

The wood beneath my feet creaks as I move closer to the door.

Kade said it was unlocked when he did surveillance earlier tonight, and when I wrap my gloved fingers around the tarnished doorknob, I find that’s still the case.

I let out a breath to steady myself. Get in and out.

Someone else will take care of the rest.

That’s the other part that doesn’t sit right with me. As if killing a man weren’t bad enough, the people who hired me want his sixteen-year-old daughter as penance for his sins.

Maybe if it was just Jeremy Fitzgerald dying tonight, I could live with myself for what I’m about to do. But the idea that an innocent girl is going to be forced into a life of misery makes my stomach clench every time I think about it.

Don’t let your emotions get in the way.

Their words repeat in my mind over and over again, but they don’t sink in as I move through the small house. The floorboards are old and worn. The paint chips off the walls, and there’s a smell that lingers in the air that is likely always present. The pungent scent of alcohol and cigarette burns my nostrils with every breath I take, but that’s the least I deserve.

I deserve to burn in hell for the sins I’m about to commit.

The house is almost too quiet, and each step I take is loud to my own ears as I move toward Jeremy’s bedroom at the back of the house. It’s after midnight, so it’s unlikely that the girl will wake up until they come for her, but I don’t need any unnecessary complications during my first kill either.

When I reach the door, I pause, forcing deep breaths into my lungs to settle the trembles that rack through my entire body.

I can do this. I have to do this. I repeat the words to myself a few times over before my shaking hand wraps around the doorknob.

No turning back now.

With one final deep breath, I push the door open as quietly as I can manage, but even the sound of the bottom of the door scraping along the worn carpet seems too loud.

It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness in here without the moon and streetlights filtering through the window like the rest of the house, but when they finally come good, I’m staring at my target.

Jeremy Fitzgerald is not a good man by any means.

He’s a lowlife.

But that doesn’t make ending his existence any easier.

I swallow heavily as I move closer to the edge of the bed, his sleeping form still fully dressed in ratty clothes and a worn pair of sneakers that have the sole falling off them, and the offensive snore he lets out tells me the recon we did was spot-on.

He’s drunk.

I could have walked through this house with a beatbox and an airhorn, and he probably wouldn’t have woken.

But his daughter would have, and although her fate is sealed, her waking up before I could get the job done would have been unfortunate. A complication I couldn’t allow.

I lift my shaking hands and aim the gun at Jeremy’s sleeping body, but I’m shaking too much to get a good shot.

I sigh and drop my arms, taking a few deep breaths to get a handle on myself. I learned to shoot a gun when I was seven years old. I know I can do this, but now that I’m standing here, with another man’s life solely in my hands, I’m not sure I can pull the trigger.

You don’t have a choice, I remind myself.

I’ve never had a choice.

I was born into this life, and at seventeen, I’ve never had a chance to be anything else. To be anyone else.

With one final breath, I lift the gun and set my sights on his forehead. My finger presses against the trigger, and I only hesitate for another second before I pull it.

The silencer mutes the sound of the gun going off, but it still seems too loud to me. I can’t help but look over my shoulder to make sure the daughter didn’t hear.

Long moments tick by as I wait for footsteps, but they never come, and I allow my shoulders to relax.

All I have to do now is get out.

Retrace my steps to the front door, walk up the street, and Kade and my dad will be waiting for me.

I shove my gun into the back of my cargo pants and move back the way I came, my sights set on the front door.

I’m only a few steps away when the sound of a door opening makes me stop in place, my breath stuttering in my chest as I press my back to the closest wall.

But when I turn around, I realize I’m too late.

I’ve been spotted.

Staring back at me is the girl that will soon meet her own fate, one that’s perhaps worse than the one her father just met.

Her shock of dark curls are messy, and her startling green eyes are still hazy with sleep as she stares back at me.

There’s something about the girl that makes my chest ache for her, but perhaps that’s just what’s left of my conscience screaming at me to do the right thing.

She’s pretty. Even with her body covered with a baggy T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that should have been thrown out years ago, it’s not her looks that captivates me. It’s the broken soul staring back at me that mirrors my own. It’s the evidence of a rough childhood that’s clear without her ever having to open her mouth.

“Did you kill him?” The words are so soft I wonder if I’ve imagined them, but her pale lips definitely moved, so they must have come from her.

I open my mouth to respond, but I can’t find the words to tell the girl I just killed the only person she has in the world.

Her eyes dart to the back of the house before she sighs. “I’m probably not that lucky.”

My brows tug together in confusion. “You want him dead?” The words fall from between my lips of their own accord, my voice coming out raspy and uncertain. If Kade and my dad heard me right now, I’m sure I’d never hear the end of it.

Her head jerks in a nod. “More than anything.” The sadness in her voice does something to me, something foreign that I can’t quite identify. I suppose this is what happens when you grow up in an emotionally stunted family of assassins, you can’t always figure out exactly what it is that you’re feeling.

She swallows heavily as she shuffles in place, and my gaze drops to her bare feet. It’s the middle of winter in South Dakota, so it’s cold as fuck, making my chest clench for her again.

A car backfiring makes us both jump, but the way her eyes dart around the otherwise quiet night tells me she’s scared. I mean, of course she is. She’s staring at the man that just broke into her house to kill her piece-of-shit father. But when the emerald orbs meet mine again, it’s not fear that stares back at me.

It’s trust.

Before I can stop myself, I move toward her, closing the distance in a few quick steps, but she’s rooted in place with wide eyes and her breath caught in her throat.

“You need to go,” I rush out.

“What?” Her brows pull together.

“You need to pack and get out of this house right now. Your father owed Salvatore Draper a lot of money, and he’s going to send someone to collect you. To pay the debt.”

Her delicate body flinches at my choice of words, but she doesn’t make a move to do as I’ve told her.

I flick my gaze to the front door. I don’t have much time before Kade will come to check on me. I’ve already been in the house for too long. And yet I push past the wisp of a girl, forcing myself not to notice how fucking tiny she is up close, and find a beat-up suitcase on top of her closet.

Before I can think too much about what I’m doing, I tear open the first drawer I find and start throwing anything I find inside, a protective urge I’ve never felt before forcing me to keep moving even when I should be walking the fuck out of this house.

The clothes and shoes she owns barely half fill the suitcase, and a growl rises up the back of my throat at that thought, but I push past it, quickly zipping it and moving on to shoving her old-as-hell laptop and textbooks into the worn backpack. Is everything this girl owns older than she is?

I don’t let myself think about that because at this point I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my mind, and that rabbit hole isn’t likely to help me find it.

When I look up, she’s standing in the doorway, her entire body trembling.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispers. “Why are you helping me?”

“Because you don’t deserve to go to hell for your father’s sins.”