2. HUNTER #2
She just grins and takes the cigarette from between my fingers and lifts it to her lips. After taking my last drag, she tosses the butt on the ground before stomping it out and lifting her chin once again, her bright green gaze colliding with mine.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy ruining you,” she murmurs before glancing at her phone. “Duty calls.”
And with that, she’s gone, slipping into the darkness, and fuck, I want to follow her.
I want to claim her before she gets the chance to get away, but there will be time for that.
I have all night, and for now, I know exactly where she’ll be.
But come tomorrow, I’ll figure out who she is.
Where she lives. Her work schedule. Financial situation.
What makes her scream. What I need to become to make sure I’m all she’ll ever need.
And only then will I discover exactly what it’ll take to ruin her.
Lyra has barely disappeared into the shadows when a new text comes through on my phone, and I jump on it like an addict searching for a fix, desperate to get this over and done so I can get back here and work this woman out of my system.
I’m already breaking free of the side alley as I check the message, relieved when I find a new pinned location for my target, and a confirmation to go ahead with the hit.
It’s showtime.
My adrenaline spikes, and I waste no time reaching the Challenger and kicking over the engine. Determined not to lose this fucker again, I floor it and shoot up the road.
Following the live location on my map, I find that over the past ten minutes, my target has unknowingly wandered closer toward his untimely death, not further away, and I keep on him, tracking his every step.
From his slow pace, he’s either caught in traffic, which is unlikely at this time of night, or he’s on foot, probably bar-hopping like most of the guys around here after they get sick of waiting in the long line at Black Velvet.
I drive for fifteen minutes before pulling up in a quieter part of the city and taking the gun from my center console. Then just as I look up, my target cuts across the road in front of my parked car, and I twist my silencer onto the end of my gun, watching him like a hawk.
He stumbles into the center of the road, clearly having drunk too much, and calls out to his friends who linger on the sidewalk behind him.
“Gonna take a piss.”
He doesn’t wait for anybody to respond, just keeps shuffling across the road before ducking into an alley. Still visible from the road, he braces one arm against the brick wall and pulls his dick free to relieve himself.
Disappointment floods me. This is going to be easy and boring, and it’s definitely not worth the adrenaline that’s been pulsing through my veins.
But with this many people still wandering the streets, I can’t afford a big showdown.
It needs to be quick and clean. Out of sight, out of mind.
A simple shot through the eyes, and before his body has even hit the ground, I’ll be long gone.
Letting out a breath, I push out of my car, and as I’m crossing the road toward him, something gets his attention at the other end of the dark alley.
He tucks himself back into his pants and wanders further while I shake my head. He’s making it too fucking easy. People like this irritate me. Put up a fight. Make me work for it. And for fuck’s sake, have enough self-respect to have just a few survival instincts.
Not this guy. He’s not interested in trying to save his own life.
By now, most people would feel the hair on the back of their neck start to rise. They’d feel uneasy enough to at least look around. They’d watch their backs and study the shadows. This moron looks like he’s about to get his dick wet.
He keeps walking right to the end of the alley and takes a left behind the building, and I follow, barely five steps behind. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he sings.
My brow arches, wondering who the fuck he’s trying to find, and as I roll my eyes, and turn the corner, I can’t help but feel that this guy might just be a little like me.
Playing sick games in the middle of the night was always a favorite pastime of mine, but I’d like to think that I’ve matured since then.
Sure, I might have had sociopathic traits for a minute, but I focused those fun little quirks into building a career, and now I get to stalk assholes like this through dark alleys for cold, hard cash. What’s not to love about that?
Cutting left into the alley behind the building, my fingers brush the grip of my gun just as a muted crack splits the darkness.
I freeze just as my target jerks violently with a brand-new black hole right in the center of his forehead. Blood, bone, and brain paint the brick wall behind him, and in the flash of a second, he crumbles to the ground. No scream. No struggle. Just dead weight hitting the concrete.
What the actual fuck?
I fold my body back into the shadows as my gaze snaps upward, scanning rooftops, fire escapes, and every possible vantage point, but there’s nothing. No movement. No footsteps. No second shot.
Whoever pulled that trigger is already gone, and after triple-checking, I lower my weapon and approach the discarded body, watching the blood pool beneath the target. My gaze narrows, and despite being impressed by the accuracy of the hit, I’m fucking pissed.
This was my contract. My kill. And not only that, I walked away from the possibility of sinking into Lyra for this, and that shit doesn’t sit well with me. I’ll have somebody’s head for this.
A cold breeze slips through the alley, carrying the faint scent of something soft and sweet.
Vanilla maybe. It’s the kind of scent that doesn’t belong anywhere near blood, gunpowder, and back alleys, and I can’t help but wonder if the scent belongs to the woman this asshole followed down here.
And for the first time in a very long time, I feel something dangerously close to curiosity.
If there was a woman down here, then perhaps she got a glance at the shooter, but the chances of ever finding her are slim to none.
The second the target’s brains painted the wall, she would have taken off at the speed of light.
Any normal person would have. But to be sure, I walk up and down the alley, checking every shadow for any hint of who this woman might have been.
After the faint hint of vanilla is long gone, I give up. It’s a lost cause. Whoever was here is gone now, right along with my contract, and chasing ghosts down a dark alley isn’t going to change that.
Letting out a low breath, I turn toward the street and head back to my Challenger. Tonight’s contract might’ve slipped through my fingers, but I’m not done, and I won’t be ending the night empty-handed.
No, the next thing I take tonight is a mouthy little blond with sharp green eyes and absolutely no idea what she’s getting herself into. Or hell, maybe I’m the one who has no idea what I’m getting myself into. Either way, I can’t wait to find out.