13. CHAPTER 13
KIARA
Fucking asshole. Just one day I’d like to come home and not instantly be irritated. Hell, after everything that happened in Barcelona, a part of me had started to wonder if perhaps things might get easier between us. Apparently I was wrong.
A laugh bubbles up my throat, and I take myself up to level three, more than ready to crash and take a few days to recoup. Despite giving myself an extra day to relax in Barcelona, I’ve never felt so exhausted, and it has everything to do with Raiden Kane.
Making my way down the corridor toward my apartment, I aim to pass Raiden’s door and keep moving, but my fist pounds the heavy wood before I know what I’m doing.
A laugh rumbles through the apartment inside, and it only manages to grate my nerves even more. Raiden approaches the door, taking his sweet time, and my frustration shifts from mildly irritated into full-blown fury.
The door swings wide in front of me, and Raiden appears in nothing but a pair of low-hanging basketball shorts, showing off every inch of that sculpted torso.
A light sheen of sweat coats his body, and his cheeks are flushed as though he just returned from a late afternoon run. And damn it, he’s got me burning up.
He leans against the door frame, that signature smirk resting on his lips. “Oh hey, neighbor. What brings you around?”
I grit my teeth, and my only response is to lift my hand and flip him the bird.
“Oooh, she’s a feisty firecracker today. What’s wrong, baby? Your spontaneous little trip didn’t manage to work those . . . pent-up frustrations out of your system? Why don’t you come on in and tell me all about it? I’m sure I can help with that.”
My hands ball into fists, and I resist the urge to ram them straight into his gut before immediately stalking off, knowing that one more second spent in this doorway is going to result in me on my back, screaming his name.
And considering I was the one who said that wasn’t going to happen, I need to follow through.
Raiden just laughs, watching me search for my keys to unlock the door. Then, as I’m rushing inside, his voice trails behind me just before I slam the door. “Awww, come on, Firecracker. Don’t be like that. I promise, I won’t bite . . . much.”
I fall back against the closed door, silently screaming, when my body stiffens.
Somebody’s been in my apartment.
My stomach sinks, unease pounding through my veins, seeing the big dragon dildo suctioned to my kitchen counter. I know I left that box out, but I know for a fact that everything was packed away before I left. Yet there it is, staring back at me from the stone counter.
My gaze slices through the apartment, quickly sweeping every inch of my home, and as I slowly stride through the living room, I find five empty plant pots sitting on my small coffee table.
My brow arches, and after determining there’s nobody inside my home, I make my way over to the row of brand-new little homes for Spikezilla, each one of them more ridiculous than the last.
The first is a cock-shaped pot that says don’t be a prick.
The next is a voluptuous ass that reads thick & thorny.
Pot number three is a simple little pot with two little hands at either side flipping me off, the words spiky little fucker scrawled across the front.
Lucky pot number four is a mini coffin that says dead inside.
While the fifth, as simple as it is, is by far my favorite.
It’s a sassy little face with a speech bubble saying What the fucculent?
Fuck, I hate how much I love them, and I hate knowing that they’ve come from the giant asshole next door, because it makes me hate him just a little bit less. And if I have to be completely honest, I’m not even sure if I hate him at all.
Damn it. Why did he have to make this complicated?
Screwing me in Barcelona is one thing, but caring for Spikezilla . . . shit. That right there is a one-way ticket to my heart. But he can’t have it. It’s not on offer, and I have no intention of ever giving it away. My life is too chaotic to share with someone, especially someone like Raiden Kane.
A stupid smile pulls across my lips, but then it hits me as I’m scanning my apartment for any other surprises.
How the fuck did he get in here? The industrial-sized deadbolt I had installed on my door is still fully intact.
That leaves very few entry points he’d be willing, or even capable, of utilizing.
There’s the ceiling space I used to get into his apartment, but there’s no way those wide shoulders would have fit, nor do I think a normal person would consider crawling through the ceiling.
Then, as I make my way into my bedroom, I find my skimpiest underwear laid out on my bed with a note reading the things I’d do to see you in this. It had to have been the fire escape.
Fuck. It’s so obvious. How did I not see that coming?
Maybe he’s got me off my game. Shit. Maybe. That’s the understatement of the year. I’m not just off my game, I’m fully immersed in his, and there’s not a thing I can do about it, apart from begging for more.
I’m royally fucked, and he knows it.
Milan was right. She always is, and one of these days, I’m going to have to learn to trust her gut instinct the way I trust mine.
Though while she was right that I’m going to get myself in trouble with Raiden, I’m not sure she was right about everything else.
She was overly suspicious of him, and I didn’t like that.
I looked into him when he first appeared, and there was nothing out of place.
But could she have potentially been right about that too?
Hmm.
Unease begins eating at me, and I find myself back in my living room, crashing onto my couch with my laptop, doing the deepest dive of Raiden Kane I’ve ever done.
I start with any of his social media accounts and come up blank, and after driving myself insane with it, I finally come to the conclusion that he’s one of those people who don’t like to leave a digital footprint.
Apart from on Tinder, of course. He’s all over that one.
Moving on to his professional life, I search IV Global again before looking over every piece of information they offer about their business, and apart from some bullshit about being in the tech industry, it’s not really very clear what their main focus is.
Do they sell tech products, or is it something a little more online?
Nothing is clear, and as I move on to Raiden’s employee profile, glancing over the words Senior International Sales Rep, I can’t help but wonder what his purpose being in Barcelona was in the first place.
I know he said he had meetings with the men who attended Javier’s party, but what was he trying to sell them?
His explanations all make sense until you start digging a little deeper.
My gaze rests on the photo of Raiden, and the more I look at it, the more something seems off. It’s too polished, and there’s something different around the overall shape of his face. It could have easily been a Photoshop incident. Or it could be something different.
His eyes are angled, set a little further apart than what they really are, and the gold specs within them are completely gone.
The man in this photo is Raiden, but at the same time, it’s not.
If I put this picture through a facial recognition program, my bet would be that there are enough differences to not make a real match.
Interesting.
The second the thought enters my mind, I start researching him like one of my targets, but unlike any of my targets, there’s not a scrap of information I can find on him.
Birth certificate. School history. Childhood.
It’s as though he doesn’t actually exist, and there’s only one other person I’ve come across who doesn’t exist on paper . . . and that’s me.
My heart starts to race. Maybe Milan was right to be suspicious.
But why? Why wouldn’t he exist? Even people in witness protection aren’t as hard to uncover as the man next door. But it makes no sense. Why go to that effort to conceal who he really is? Unless he’s just like me.
Maybe he wasn’t in Barcelona to meet with Javier Rodríguez to sign a contract after all. Maybe he was the contract. That job was posted for a while before I finally accepted it. Another agency could have intercepted it in that time, and if that’s true . . .
Fuck. I really am in trouble.
I dive deeper into his company, needing to confirm that Raiden truly isn’t who he says he is. It takes hours of recon, but I can finally say with confidence that, while it exists on paper with a legal trading name, IV Global doesn’t really exist.
No real employees. No products or services. No steady stream of income.
So what the fuck is IV Global, and why the hell do I think it has everything to do with Raiden Kane?
As my search continues, I hear the sound of the shower coming on from next door, and my head snaps up from my laptop, realizing this could be my one shot to truly figure out who the hell he is.
Because let’s be honest, the idea that he’s just like me doesn’t sit well.
Besides, what are the chances that another assassin moved directly into the apartment beside mine and became the bane of my existence? That shit just doesn’t happen.
There has to be another explanation for who he is, and I intend to figure it out.
The ceiling space is not an option with the hatch access into his apartment being in the bathroom, so I take a page out of his book and step out onto my fire escape before making my way over to Raiden’s bedroom window and peering in.
It’s just as bland as I remember, with his unmade bed and lack of styling.
I roll my eyes. Why do men have to be like this?
It’s completely acceptable if they were to put just a little bit of effort into their home, but apparently Raiden is content with living out of his moving boxes.
I suppose he’ll eventually use everything and find spots for them, but knowing this disaster is only one wall away is going to drive me crazy.
Taking hold of the window frame, I slowly inch it open just enough for my body to slip through before silently stepping into his bedroom and closing the window behind me.
I hear him in the shower and, confident that he’ll probably be in there for a while playing with his dick like most guys do, I start to look around.
Only before I get a chance to even peek in his bedside drawer, the water cuts off, and I listen as he steps out of the shower, grabbing his towel from the rack.
“What the actual fuck?” I breathe, panic tearing at my chest.
I don’t even feel this panicked when a job goes wrong. Hell, I don’t get panicked at all, but at the slight chance that Raiden Kane is about to catch me in his bedroom, I’m a fucking mess.
I’m frantically searching for a fast escape when I hear him turn off the bathroom light and start walking this way. I do the only thing I can possibly do and dive headfirst into one of the many oversized moving boxes, scrambling to close it before I’m caught red-handed.