Chapter 1
KAT
PLAYLIST: TINY ROOF BLUES – THE ROUX
Manhattan
The fingertip of my middle finger trails smoothly over the rim of my whiskey glass as my eyes wander from the sexy bare ankles up to the eyes of the woman who leans against the bar next to me to order.
Her body is exceptional—full ass and breasts, squeezed into a tight costume that shows off every inch of her sexy hourglass figure.
Usually, I don’t socialize with businesspeople in costumes and suits; today is an exception that allows no distraction.
Still, I bite my lip, imagining what I’d do with her—just thinking about grasping her and having her sit on my face until I’d be close to suffocating…mhhhm.
The thought alone tugs a corner of my mouth into a devilish smirk.
On any other day, I would make a move on her. But today, I have other plans. Plans I can’t let anything distract me from.
I pull my eyes off the woman, turn, and lean back with my elbows on the bar, letting my gaze drift casually over the crowd.
Downtown Manhattan. A bar stuffed with suits and costumes celebrating their wins of the day.
Fucking minions, I scoff in my mind.
I have no regard for any of them. Neither the players nor the game makers. My disdain for the wealthy and those who wish to be burns in my chest like an everlasting fire.
A male voice cuts through my thoughts.
“May I buy you a drink?”
I give him a derogatory glance. A suit. Late twenties. Slick hair, too much gel. Another Wall Street Business Brad.
“No,” I say coldly and avert my eyes. “You’re in my way.”
I have zero interest in men, especially not slick idiots who need to ask for permission for anything, as if I am their mommy.
He leaves, and I focus back on my target.
A group of men stands in a circle near the 30-foot glass window front overlooking the city, with the Empire State Building lit in blue, red, and white in the background.
Three of them laugh so loudly their voices cut through the jazz music. Gin tonics are loosening their tongues as they try to prove who the bigger fish is.
Pathetic bastards.
Two of them, however, aren’t drinking, but are locked in some quiet conversation, glancing around to check if anyone notices.
One of them is Karl Ostrich, CEO of one of the biggest private equity firms. World-class asshole and not my concern tonight, because I have only one target tonight.
Jared Sutton. Forty-five. Billionaire. Dark, wavy brown hair. Whispering something into Ostrich’s ear. CFO of Zeus, a tech corp building AI-based intelligence software. But none of that brought me here. His extracurricular activities did.
His eyes meet mine for a split second as he scans the room. I tilt my head slightly and let a smirk slip onto my face. He can’t look away.
Yes. Look at me, bastard.
What begins as a careful sweep of the room on his end shifts into something different.
His eyes darken, a predatory smile of arrogance tugs at his mouth.
With my 5’9 without the high heels, a size 4, long hair, full breasts, and a jawline some would kill for, I know exactly what reaction my looks draw from men of his caliber, and I have zero shame in using any of it to my advantage.
Sutton silences Ostrich and walks toward me.
Each step deliberate, presenting the man who knows who he is and what he can buy.
Because what Jared Sutton does in silence is selling secrets.
Governmental, technological, and financial.
A ruthless predator who has blackmailed his way to wealth over corpses and broken souls.
“You look quite lonely over here,” Sutton says as he slides onto the barstool next to mine. His hand glides over my crossed legs, up my thigh with the fake tattoos. My black leather dress is very short, and he pushes it higher, until his fingers hover half an inch from my thong.
I push myself off the bar, shift towards him, and open my legs. His finger brushes my lips down there through the fabric. I somehow thought any of it would make me feel something, meeting him again. Being close to him. But after all those years, I am someone different, detached from what once was.
I’m not a girl anymore. I am a cold-blooded killer with no attachment to the past except for this one thing: The hunger for revenge. It is what kept me going and made me become a weapon.
His eyes darken immediately, and a deep hum of a man who believes himself to have landed a catch rumbles through his chest. A predator recognizing his prey—exactly the reaction I intend to provoke in him, because I need him to purr like a kitten for me.
“Am I?” I say with a luscious voice, letting my right leg slide along his calf. I suck in my bright red bottom lip. I know of his weakness for red lips and women who play with fire, which is why I am here.
His hand slides around my waist and pulls me close. His cologne is oak-y, rich, and powerful—something that makes me wanna vomit. His lips trail up my neck to my ear.
“I like women who know what they want,” he whispers. “And you look like you want to be fucked.”
Yes, believe exactly what you’re supposed to believe, I tell him in my mind. I just breathe a soft mhhmm into his ear.
I grab him by the leather belt, pull him even closer. The effect is instant. Lust pours from his eyes.
I get up. With my heels, I nearly match his height. Without another word, I walk away. Slowly. Deliberately. Smirking.
“Wait,” he calls after me. “Where are you going?”
I turn.
“Make an effort,” I say, a malicious grin on my face.
When I reach the elevator, a hand slides over my back to my ass.
“You’re coming with me,” he says and pushes me inside the elevator.
The door isn’t even closed before he’s pressing me into the wall, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth, one hand on my throat, the other grabbing my breast. I manhandle him and grab him by the throat, and pull my knee in his balls.
“That has to be earned,” I say. He smirks.
Pathetic bastard.
Ten minutes later, we pull into his garage. We take the elevator to his penthouse.
The second we reach the penthouse, he pushes me into a glass wall.
“Suck me,” he says.
“No,” I say as I remove myself underneath him.
“What do you think you are here for?” he asks me, and I laugh.
“You really must work on your auditory comprehension,” I say, and take out a pen from my purse and write a number on the white wall. “My account number. If you want my attention, make yourself memorable while I refresh myself in the bathroom.”
He looks at me with lust pouring from his eyes. He is intrigued. Enchanted by the way I don’t play by his rules. Those powerful men are all the same.
“Second on the right,” he says.
I walk down a corridor, slowly, to take in the situation. There are cameras everywhere.
Well, that’ll be a challenge.
I enter the bathroom, check for cameras with a tool from my purse, then sit on the toilet with the lid closed and take out my phone to map the signals in the penthouse. There is a lot of transmitting happening. Too bad I couldn’t take my laptop with me.
A $250,000 wire transfer comes in.
I scoff. The sum is predictably low.
Gods. Men are so pathetic.
I want nothing more than to murder him right now. The kill I waited and trained for all these years.
But I can’t. Not today. Because I need access to his system first.
I get out of the bathroom, and he’s waiting in front of the door. Leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. I expected as much.
“Now,” he says, “Suck me.”
“You know,” I say as my hand brushes over his chest. “I’d really like a little kicker before.” I tilt my head and look him knowingly in the eyes. “I suck so much better with the kick.”
He removes a hand from his pocket and throws something on the floor in the bathroom behind me. It’s a little pouch of white powder.
“Go fetch,” he says with a malicious smirk.
Oh, how I’d like to murder him right now.
I sink to my knees and crawl to it.
Come on, follow me.
And he does. He stands so close, holding out a black Amex and a rolled-up Benjamin. I take it, get up in a luscious way with my hand gliding over his leg, before I open the plastic bag and prepare several lines on the marble vanity top.
While I do, he presses himself and his hard cock into me. I hate men. I hate penises. And most of all, I hate penises near me.
“Here,” I say, turn and hand him the rolled Benjamin.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I never do drugs. And I won’t this time.
I position my body so he can’t see what I am doing, and I sniff, then wipe the powder into one of the other lines. I get up, pretending to feel the kick.
He is still touching me. Eww, but exactly where I need it. I hand him the Benjamin, and he now takes it. He takes all three lines. Fucking idiot.
I turn the ring on my finger, slip the cap off so the small needle points inside.
And when he comes up after the last line, I grasp his neck.
The needle digs into the skin, but he’s too high to recognize anything.
His body becomes limp. I catch him, so the sound of his falling body raises no suspicion.
The moment he is on the floor, I get to work. I don’t have much time; he won’t be out long.
I take the test kit from my purse and swab his mouth, pluck a hair, and scrape off some skin cells from his scalp, and store everything in vials. Evidence. Insurance. Tools.
Then I grab his phone, unlock it with a face scan, plug in the exploiter I brought, and emulate the system onto it. When it’s done, I put everything back to where it was.
I look at him lying there. It could be over right now. But it would be too easy. No. I am going to skin him alive, bathe him in acid, and chop off his penis. Killing him here would not suffice.
I take a lipstick from my purse and write on the mirror.
Room 601, The Herald, tomorrow 8 p.m.
His hands twitch.
I am walking out of the room, swiping over my lips with my thumb for the cameras, walking to the elevator, and stepping inside without looking back.
Men like him always need the chase. And they always pay for it.
I’m in my hotel fifteen minutes later.
I open my laptop and access the emulated phone. It was, aside from the DNA, the only thing why I did what I did tonight.
I comb through his phone for the rest of the night, saving the most important stuff to build my case and get more information on his blackmail and secrets.
“There you are,” I say when I find it.
A video. Hidden deep in his secret file vault.
What a pain in the ass he had been to crack. I usually attack and crack from a distance, but in Jared Sutton’s case, it was impossible without the physical access.
Screams echo through the quiet hotel room as I watch the video. Screams that don’t touch me. Several powerful men are raping a girl.
One of the men is Robert Grand-Hives, now Prime Minister of the UK. Another is a tech CEO I have already on my list for raping another minor. The third, I don’t know who he is. I have never seen his face, but I will inevitably find him.
Apparently, Sutton has filmed the video while jerking himself off.
“What a disgusting piece of shit you are,” I whisper as anger surges through my chest. “You’ll pay for all of it.”
The video goes on for over two hours. Each man fucks her multiple times until she passes out from choking. None of them cares; even worse, they seem to get off it even more.
There are more videos.
Videos of the same girl.
More men.
And I will kill them all.
Because I am the girl.
I add more names to my list.
Thorough as I am, I scan through the rest of his phone. I find an email thread about the prototype spyware tool Zeus built to infiltrate systems and collect data. I know immediately I need to get my hands on it before I kill him. It’ll come in very handy.
I open a folder full of names, high-profile ones. It is only then that I realize how much deeper Sutton’s organization runs. Initially, this had been about revenge. Revenge for what he and all the other men have done, but what I find here is so much more.
So much more.
He has material on all the big names, incriminating materials. Photos. Videos. Messages. Many of them include sexual actions with girls. Like me. All meticulously stored.
“Huh,” I say when the name Lilian Anne Knightley catches my eye. The CEO of Zeus. I’ve run a background check on her before, but what Sutton has on her seems to be buried deep. He’s organized. Precise. Thorough. A ruthless broker of secrets to use for blackmail.
Almost a shame he has to die. He could’ve been so damn useful to get to all the other people, but I need him dead. After all this time, it finally needs to happen.
I copy everything he has on Knightley.
I rarely go after women, but if any of this proves true, she goes straight to the top of my list.
“Lilian Anne Knightley,” I murmur, looking at her photo. “Who would’ve guessed? I am going to watch you. Watch every move of yours.” And I am very good at watching.
I glance at my watch; it’s almost 4 a.m.
Time to rest before I finish the plan tomorrow.
I always sleep best the nights before I kill, maybe because the thought of justice brings me peace. Or maybe, because I know one asshole of a man less walks this earth.
Whatever it is, I don’t care. I don’t care about much anyway. The only thing that matters is revenge, and I will get it.