Ride with the Devil (Deal with the Devil #5)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

KYLIE

S ome people kill because they have the urge. They’re twisted, or they’re evil.

Me? I kill because it’s fun .

Money’s good, too. Money’s fucking great . Do you know how much people will pay to get rid of somebody they hate? And not even hate sometimes. You’d be amazed how often my clients will give me a target for the most ridiculous and asinine reasons.

Do I care what they are? Nope. As long as I have the cash in hand or the full amount wired into one of my three offshore accounts when I’m done, I don’t give a shit about their petty justifications. Though, I’ll admit, I get a better sense of satisfaction if the hit is on an asshole.

I live to eliminate assholes.

Too bad I’m a little iffy on tonight’s target.

Whenever I take a job, I get my kicks putting a little spin on it. I get the name, research the name, and pick a way to kill them that screams poetic justice. At the beginning of my career, I went with a gun nine times out of ten. That was too easy before long. Where’s the pizazz, right? Where’s the statement?

Where’s the signature?

Some little girls grow up and want to be a teacher or a ballerina or a homemaker. Not baby Kylie. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do until I shot my dad’s .22 and made my first kill. And while that was a clear-cut case of self-defense—and, as a wide-eyed, baby-faced sixteen-year-old, no one would’ve believed I wanted Jason to die—something sparked to life inside of me that day. Now, a decade later, I’ve made this my career, and I’m pretty damn good at it.

I’m the Hummingbird. And while I know that my chosen name wasn’t picked out to strike fear into those I’m gunning for, the fact that anyone who knows it will be frightened… hey. I get my kicks where I can, and I love how such a seemingly innocent bird can mean death.

Hummingbirds are fast. They’re light. They have big brains, an impressive memory, and are surprisingly territorial.

Plus, I found a box of, like, three-hundred hummingbird crystal figurines at a yard sale back in Westfield when I was seventeen and was just dying for some way to use them. At the time, I never thought they’d be my signature—the token I leave behind at every kill to take credit for the hit—but hey… waste not, want not, right?

I have one in my ‘go’ bag right now. Looking like an oversized canvas tote, my bag is slung over my shoulder. My wild, curly hair is currently tamed by the pair of over-the-ear headphones I have on. I’m not playing any music through the speakers since I need to hear my surroundings, but they’re a perfect addition to my costume.

Between my artfully ripped jeans, the light hooded sweatshirt that would be overkill during a mid-July afternoon but perfect for the late hour, my bag, and my headphones, I look like a mid-twenties art student rushing home after a late night out. Taking the trip down Third Avenue, passing the shops—all closed now—that a woman like me would patronize, before reaching the apartments in this part of the West Side of Springfield.

Only I don’t live in Springfield. Don’t live anywhere, really, since putting down roots would make it easier to get nabbed by those looking to cage up the Hummingbird. I usually find a hotel or two—trading halfway throughout my stay—when I’m plotting a hit, then blowing town as soon as the job is done.

I’ve staked this street out enough over the last two weeks to know that it’s empty once the stores all close up. The costume is just in case, and because while I might have a need for adrenaline and a bit of a death wish, my rep is everything to me. I’ve been in the hitwoman business for four years now, and all it will take is one sloppy kill for the jobs to stop coming. So I have a healthy bank account already. You can’t take it with you, but I can make sure I have enough to enjoy myself before I go.

I’m meeting my client here in about fifteen minutes. Knowing how much of a hard-on he has for this, I wouldn’t be surprised if she shows up earlier. I’ll tack on an added fee if he does—I don’t work with an audience—but for the moment, at least, everything is quiet.

Calm.

Not for much longer.

Hefting up my tote, sensing the slosh of the liquid in its canister, I slow my roll until I’m standing just outside of my target: Sinners and Saints tattoo shop.

The guy who hired me for this hit, Mickey Kelly, claimed that Carlos ‘Cross’ da Silva was a creep who forced himself on an innocent virgin, and when Mickey tried to stop him from raping the girl, the cruel tattooist lunged at him, his teeth taking a chunk out of the poor guy’s dick.

Now, I’m not an idiot. There are so many holes in his story, it’s like a slice of Swiss cheese. To get the tip of his cock bitten off, that implies he was waving his dick around—so maybe it wasn’t da Silva who was planning on assaulting this Libellula chick. Then again, Kelly said it was, and he was willing to pay me a cool fifteen grand upfront to get rid of a predator.

For fifteen grand now, fifteen grand transferred after I leave behind my hummingbird and Kelly verifies that da Silva’s dead, if the guy says da Silva needs to die, I’ve got it.

And, like always, I’m going to have fun with it.

The hummingbird figurines aren’t my only signature, even if they’re the most obvious ones. When the time allows for it—and the client is okay with it—I like to tailor my kills to the targets. Especially if they seem like they’re a trash person, it amuses me to know that the way I off them is personal.

Just like tonight’s will be.

I did my research. Back when da Silva was a kid, his family died in a fire. He survived, so did his stepfather, but his mother and two siblings died. The stepfather eventually got fingered for setting the blaze, but there were enough questions at the time that made it seem Carlos was in on it, too.

Even if he wasn’t, he’s a Sinner. Literally.

A member of the Sinners Syndicate, a mafia local to this big city, da Silva is their official tattoo artist. I haven’t fucked with the gangs in Springfield before, but once I leave my hummingbird behind, these hotshots will at least know I’m flitting around.

I look forward to it.

The front door is shut, a neon closed sign crackling in the window. Over my head, the lights are out. I hung out in my rental car earlier tonight, waiting for the blondie he’s shacking up with to leave before da Silva locked the door behind her. Now I’m banking on him being asleep in his bed alone.

Genevieve Libellula. The woman that Kelly claimed da Silva assaulted has been spending nearly every night in the apartment that da Silva keeps over his shop, and another reason why my gut feeling is iffy on this one. If he really held her down and fucked her in front of Kelly, would she really keep crawling back to him? Unless this is some kind of Stockholm syndrome thing…

I know all about that. Lindy kept returning to Jason no matter how many times he hurt her because she loved him even as she cradled her busted arm and put a pound of make-up on to hide the bruises. She would’ve loved him to her own death if I hadn’t shot him first, and if another woman needs help getting away from her abuser, I’m more than willing to help.

Just in case, I take the corner, dipping around to the back of the studio. Rear doors fill the back, as well as trash cans and wider delivery areas for the shops. There’s also a handful of fire escapes attached to places with more than one floor. I already know which one belongs to da Silva. I jog toward it, then take the stairs two at a time to reach the top.

The window is closed, the shade only halfway drawn. It’s dark in there, and while I can’t see if da Silva has any guests over, odds are that the artist is sleeping, blissfully unaware what’s about to happen to him.

I smile and grab a tube of industrial glue from my supplies.

I don’t waste time fiddling with it. After unscrewing the cap, I slather as much of the glue in the tube as I can into the gap where the window pane touches the sill. I push down at the top, counting to twenty until I’m sure it’s good and stuck, and re-cap the glue.

Can’t give him any easy way out if he wakes up before the fire does his job.

Bouncing back down the stairs, the metal creaking under my weight, I touch down on the pavement before the sound carries too far.

I scoot around to the front. Still no one on the street, and I stroll back to Sinners and Saints. Grabbing my lock-pick set from my bag, I get to work breaking into the studio. I’ve practiced on the same style lock in my hotel room. My record was forty-two seconds. With the real thing, I’m popping it open in less than thirty.

I’m prepared for an alarm to sound, though I don’t expect it to. Why rely on the cops when a Sinner can handle a break-in on their own? That’s what cockiness gets you, and as I slip inside the eerily quiet studio, I grin when I realize I was right.

I give myself one minute to get in and out. By the time the door is closing behind me, I already have the gloves on and the canister of gasoline open. Humming a song under my breath, I move around the studio, sprinkling the accelerant all over so that the fire catches and catches quickly. Pushing past the door that divides the studio from the stairs, I sprinkle some near the bottom one, but don’t bother going up where da Silva lives. For one, I want him to realize he’s trapped in there before the flames get him. For another, I’ve already wasted thirty of my seconds.

Tossing the canister in the studio, I yank off my gloves so that I don’t have any of the gasoline on me. They get discarded, too, more kindling for the fire. With my hands free, I grab the fireproof box I bought for just the occasion, plus the matchbook I palmed from Il Sogno, a restaurant frequented by the Dragonflies on the East End of the city. If it survives the flames, it wouldn’t hurt to cast a little suspicion on Damien Libellula, the leader of the Sinners’s rival gang—and Genevieve’s older brother.

Still humming, bopping my head to a song only I can hear—no headphones required—I strike a match and drop it into the first pool of gasoline I find. With ten seconds to go, I drop the fireproof box containing my hummingbird just inside the doorway and slip back out into the night.

I’m not going to stick around. Usually, I do. I won’t get paid if I don’t complete the job, but how exactly can da Silva survive that ? And that’s assuming he even wakes up before the smoke gets him.

But I’m pretty sure I saw Kelly lurking across the street as I slipped back out. Hey. If the client wants a front-row seat to my work now that I’m done, I’m not going to stop him. He saw enough to know that I was here. I’ll get paid.

And if I don’t? I’ll cut the rest of his cock off and feed it to him for even trying to think of stiffing me—and if he knows enough of my reputation to track me down and hire me, he’ll know that , too.

So I leave. As the dark interior becomes orange from the glow of the blooming flames, I adjust the headphones, brush a stray curl out of my face, and head back the way I came.

As I go, I smile a little wider, singing along to the song that’s been bouncing around in my head since I struck the match.

“‘Come on baby, light my fire’...”