17. CHAPTER 17
KIARA
The door hits the wall hard enough to rattle the frame as I barge into my apartment, but I don’t care. I’m far too hung up on the fact that Raiden Kane shot at me.
Who the fuck does he think he is? Sure, he might have been a good shot, a great one, in fact, but it’s the principle that counts. You don’t shoot at women you’re trying to fuck. Society tends to have a problem with that.
The fury ripples through my body, humming beneath my skin and not giving me a chance to even think straight. It’s electric and keeps me buzzed. I feel as though I’ve run a marathon and can’t seem to slow my body down.
A little healthy competition and stealing someone’s hit is one thing, but to use me as target practice?
Oh, hell no.
He thought I was pissed before, but he has no idea what it looks like when I actually am.
He’s about to learn, though. Raiden Kane hasn’t even scratched the surface of what I’m capable of when I stop holding back.
That thing I did with that blade through the cabin window and into Caldwell’s throat was a party trick I’ve been capable of doing since I was sixteen years old. He’s got no idea who he’s messing with.
My keys and phone land on the counter with a sharp crack, and I immediately begin pacing, wondering just how shit of a person I’d be if I set up a trigger bomb in his living room for when he gets home.
Arrogant, infuriating asshole.
He thinks this is a game, and sure, it might have started that way, but the moment our worlds collided and our carefully kept secrets were exposed, it became something more, something dangerous, and there’s no telling just how far this could go.
Fucking target practice! Does he have any idea who I am?
Because if he did, he would think twice before screwing with me.
The audacity. Does he assume I’m just some rookie hitman trying to make it big by stealing contracts and doing parlor tricks?
He can fuck right off. Because if he truly knew that he had just used Crimson Blade for target practice, he would be running for the fucking hills.
Frustration has ruled my life since the moment he moved in next door. He’s smug and infuriating, but what’s more, he’s calculated, and I don’t know just how far that goes. Has all that cockiness been an act? Has he known who and what I am since the beginning?
Fuck.
My hands ball into fists as I pace through my apartment, circling the kitchen island like a caged animal. My pulse is loud in my ears, but my rage is louder.
He thinks he’s seen me angry.
He hasn’t.
I make another tight turn around the counter, muttering to myself when the front door explodes inward, wood cracking against the wall as the frame splinters.
I whirl with a gasp, my eyes wide as Raiden Kane storms in, his eyes blazing with that same rage that consumes me, his jaw set with determination, and his finger already pointed toward my chest.
“YOU.”
Oh, hell no.
My hand snaps out on instinct, fingers closing around the handle of one of my kitchen knives, and I don’t think. I throw.
Steel flashes across the apartment before he even has time to blink, and I’m already moving, vaulting over the island in one clean motion, chasing the momentum.
The sound of metal striking wood cuts through the apartment as the blade buries itself in the doorframe, whipping right past his ear and landing just a fraction behind his head. He doesn’t flinch. The fucker doesn’t even look back. Just keeps coming, locked in on me like I’m one of his targets.
We collide in the middle of my living room, his red-hot fury crashing into mine.
The impact knocks the air from my lungs, but I don’t give him the satisfaction. My fists swing, every ounce of my extensive training coming into practice, but so does his. He fights like he anticipated this, but I fight like I’m begging for it.
Pivoting around him, I slam my elbow back, landing a blow directly to his ribs. Then, without hesitation, I sweep his foot out from under him and knock him off-balance. But he’s too quick and takes me with him as our momentum leaves us spiraling sideways into the couch.
He’s stronger, but I’m faster.
We hit the cushions hard, and in one fluid movement, he pins my wrists above my head, both our chests heaving as he stares down at me.
“That was mine,” he growls, referring to the hit. “I had it.”
I bark a laugh as the fury continues raging through my body. “You didn’t have anything. From where I stood, it was anybody’s hit, and you were too slow. I don’t lose, Raiden. I took my shot.”
“You interfered,” he growls, his jaw tightening as I attempt to free my wrists from his lethal hold. “I had it handled.”
“Handled or not, you didn’t strike when you had your chance.
I did.” My knee slams up between us, but he anticipates the move and blocks the hit before impact, and as our chests continue heaving against one another, the rage weaved through my soul begins to shift into something else .
. . something different entirely. Something I didn’t expect. Hurt. “You lined me up in your scope.”
His smirk falters, but he’s not ready to back down. “You invited me to take my shot, Firecracker,” he challenges. “Who am I to deny a beautiful woman?”
Yep. There’s the anger again.
“You used me as target practice,” I cut in, trying to force space between us, but he doesn’t relent and continues holding me down against the couch. “You adjusted for wind off my shoulder.”
Those gold-speckled eyes flash, and I start to recognize just how dangerous this man truly is, because it’s the same wild recklessness that I see reflected in my own eyes every damn day. Raiden and I, we’re one and the same. “You stepped into my line.”
I clench my jaw, glaring at him and refusing to respond.
He knows exactly why I stepped into his line.
Had I not, he would have taken his shot, and I would have lost. And I do not lose.
Period. But judging by Raiden’s reaction, he isn’t accustomed to losing either, which is going to be more than a problem.
He leans in, his lips barely a breath from mine, and suddenly, my heart is racing for a whole new reason. “You don’t get to take contracts out from under me,” he says, his voice low and menacing, the clear warning thick in his tone.
I smile, the smugness of the win consuming me, even more knowing just how annoyed he is by it. “You don’t get to measure a bullet drop off my spine.”
His grip tightens just slightly, and something shifts in his stare, but I don’t know what it is or what it means. “You think I would’ve hit you?”
I hold his stare. His shot was perfect. One of the best I have ever seen. If he wanted to hit me, he would have landed a direct shot between my eyes, but that’s beside the point. “You think I’m stupid enough to wait around and find out?”
A breath passes between us, the silence growing heavy when his tone rumbles through my apartment. “You compromised the op.”
I scoff. “You’ve compromised me just by being here.”
Raiden sighs, watching me through that calculated stare, when some kind of realization dawns in his dark eyes. He almost seems surprised by whatever he thinks he’s figured out. “Well, shit, Firecracker. You actually think you’re better than me.”
Another barking laugh comes tearing from the back of my throat as he releases his hold on my wrists.
Is he for real? “I don’t think,” I tell him.
“I know. Two for two, Raiden. I am better than you. The only shot you’ve been able to get off is at me.
And for the record, I wasn’t that impressed.
I could have made that shot ten times over. ”
He just smiles, and something warns me that I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this man is capable of. “Arrogance will get you killed, Firecracker.”
Holding his stare, I challenge his loyalties, not that he owes me any. “By you?”
His brows rise in surprise, and he pulls back just a fraction as that same tension I felt in the elevator in Barcelona begins burning between us.
He doesn’t respond, and I watch him for a second before shoving him off me and scrambling out from under him. His silence tells me exactly what I need to know.
I get to my feet and position myself across from him, the coffee table between us as I watch him get up from the couch. “You’d kill me?”
He stands opposite me, stoic and serious, an emptiness spreading through his stare. “Yes. If I had to.”
I narrow my stare, my hands trembling at my sides as I gently shake my head, calling him out. “You’re lying,” I whisper, my heart racing as I step toward him.
He can’t be lying. He can’t feel something here. I can’t allow it. That’s not how this works. Him and I—it’s only going to get us both killed.
He inches back, knowing this moment defines it all, and his chest heaves once again, slower now. Controlled. “I’m not lying, Kiara,” he says evenly. Too evenly.
My trembling worsens, and I take another step, having absolutely no idea what I’m trying to achieve. All I know is that I have to keep pushing this. I have to know. “You couldn’t,” I challenge, my tone a breathy whisper that hangs heavily between us. “Not me.”
His jaw tightens, and I start to realize this is one of his tells, a tell he thinks I don’t notice. “I could and I would,” he insists, darkness and deceit swarming in his stare. “Don’t romanticize this.”
Romanticize. The word hits me like a slap, and I close the distance between us, forcing him to either turn and run, leaving this behind, or hold his ground to see it through.
He holds, and I should have known better.
His stare consumes me, heated and feral as he tries to grasp onto just a semblance of control, and when his gaze drops to my mouth for only a second, I finally understand it.
This is more to him now. I’m not just the girl who fakes orgasms through the wall.
I’m not the feisty woman who bangs on his door and gets in his face.
It’s something neither of us knows how to navigate.