Chapter 2
Chapter Two
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M adisyn
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I don’t know how this is happening, but the longer I sleep in this bed, the more comfortable it becomes. It must be the lambs’ wool handmade breathable mattress and the fine linens with more threads in them than I made dollars in my entire life.
But I can’t luxuriate my time away. This isn’t a holiday. I still have to pull off the biggest, most dangerous operation of my young life, no matter how confident I feel in my abilities.
I force myself out of bed and trudge to the kitchen for coffee, instant coffee because I don’t want to leave any fresh evidence of being there. Mentally, I go over my plan, introducing additional sets of problems and how I’ll deal with them if they arise. This sharpens my wits, but I can’t shake the layer of agitation that clings to me.
I’m usually very in control. Circumstance, not choice, taught me how to be a thief by the age of thirteen, and I’m damn good at it, executing projects seasoned men in their prime failed to do. But this one...
Had the task involved different men, I would take it in my stride. But I’m a little on edge, to say the least, based solely on who they are and their reputations and... what the thought of them does to me, a little voice squeaks in the background of my mind.
I go over my plan again. It’s still foolproof. I can get away with this if I maintain my composure. But the instant the faces of the three billionaires flash in my mind, a knot forms in my stomach and twists hard. I get all hot and flustered, and I struggle to get my breathing under control again.
After washing out my cup and putting it back in its place, I do a sweep of the kitchen and living room areas to make sure I've left no signs of being there. I’m supposed to enter and leave their cabin like a ghost.
Satisfied, I go back to the bedroom to do a thorough cleanup there. While the wind howls incessantly outside, I make the bed, shake out the cover, then the sheets, and put them all back together again. I’m about to rearrange the pillows exactly as they were when my skin prickles.
I strain to hear. Was that the faint sound of a helicopter or just the wind? I listen intently. When minutes go by, I brush it off as my imagination, which is not a good thing. I can’t start imagining shit—my mission will go straight to hell.
I hear the door opening.
Voices.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It’s them.
They’re freaking early. Three hours early.
Tristan Dane. Ren Knight. Kaiser Martin.
The men whose faces are etched into my nightmares, waking me soaked in perspiration, my skin on fire. In my nightmares, they’re touching me, their lips traveling all over my body, their cocks thick against me, inside me. I then have to wrench myself awake because what am I doing?
I’m their enemy. They’re not fodder for my erotic dreams.
Now they’re here. Too early. Fuck.
My heart slams against my chest with the force of a wrecking ball while my entire body freezes up. My base instinct takes over, and I stupidly scan the room, landing on the window. One glance out, and I swear it started snowing six inches more in the time I used to blink. A storm? There weren’t any warnings about storms in the area.
Am I really considering escaping out the window? But then what? The cold is bound to kill me now, and wild animals will feast on my corpse. Apprehension burns through my brain cells, leaving me pale and undecided.
Think. Think. Think.
The first thing I tell myself to do is breathe, but the panic clawing at my insides makes it nearly impossible. I’ve never experienced such paralysis before in any situation. But then again, I’ve never come face to face with the men who own and rule my thoughts since the moment I discovered they existed.
I imagined this moment a hundred times over, and this is not it. Caught in plain sight, wearing track bottoms, a hoodie, and socks? No. I should have been clad in my padded black leather suit with a gas mask over my face.
I planned to release the sleeping gas as soon as they entered their cabin, tie them up, and wait for them to awake before I injected them with the truth serum.
They wouldn’t know who I was at all. The mask comes with a voice modulator, thanks to Amanda again. The padded suit will make it hard to tell if I’m female or not. This job is my last tie to my previous life. I served my time. It’s time to start over. In Costa Rica, with a new identity. I’ll live anonymously until my last breath.
Having a career—although I have no clue what I wanted to be—falling in love, getting married, and having babies, those are things not on my bingo card. Not possible, given the family I was born into.
Okay, first things first. As stealthily as I can, I close the bedroom door. There aren’t any locks, so it’s not like I can keep them out forever. Still, I refuse not to carry out every inch of my mission. This is a setback, nothing more.
I gather up my belongings, stuffing them into my bag, when a burst of squeals and cries reaches me. Children.
Children?
I panic for another moment. Did I get the wrong cabin? No. I don’t allow for errors simply because I don’t make them. This is the right cabin. It belongs to them. Then who are the people I hear entering like they own the place or at least like they belong here?
With my bag and boots in hand, I head toward a cabinet, which I already scoped out as a potential hiding place since it’s completely empty. And I’m still contemplating my crap luck when the door swings open.
For some weird reason, I turn, and now I’m looking into the face of what must be a five-year-old boy with brilliant blue eyes and a mop of black curls.
We both stare at each other in shock. I hold my finger over my lips, hoping to silence him, but my plea falls on deaf ears.
“Mom,” he shouts over his shoulder. “There’s a strange girl in Uncle Tristan’s bedroom.”
Well, damn.