Chapter 3
chapter
three
CALDER
A month before the graveyard.
There was something about the woman who ate lunch three tables away.
Maybe it was the million different micro expressions that flitted across her face as she spoke.
So even though I was tables away, it felt like I knew exactly what she was feeling.
Or maybe it was how she laughed with her friends while trying to eat avocado toast the size of her head and kept laughing as egg yolk ran down her palm.
She was bright.
My life was steeped in darkness, so her light was…intoxicating.
I took a drink of my coffee, eyes dropping to her mouth as she wiped a bit of yolk from the corner, smiling. Her lips were plump, bee-stung, and heart-shaped. Almost like they were permanently set in a pout.
Kissable.
She wiped the egg off her hand and rolled her eyes at something her friends said, taking a drink of tea.
An insane thought overcame me.
Ask her out.
“Void?”
A woman with long blonde hair and light-brown lashes stood in front of my table. She wore jeans and a large hoodie, the left sleeve frayed like she’d tugged on it repeatedly.
Shit. Focus.
This was why I was here.
“Tish?” I asked, standing to my feet a little too quickly. Feeling frazzled—fucking frazzled—by a woman and her avocado toast.
Tish nodded, and I flung my goddamn hand out in an attempt to invite her to sit. Instead, my hand collided with my coffee. It propelled backward, splattering right in my lap.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” she asked.
I smiled through gritted teeth, trying to convey calm and not at all let on that the fires of hell were currently burning my cock right off.
So this was not how this usually went.
What was supposed to happen was she’d sit down, I’d make some stupid joke to make her feel comfortable, she’d give me what I needed, and I’d leave.
“I’m great,” I said, gesturing again to the seat.
She slid into it.
“Did you find the place all right?” I asked.
It was a good thing I didn’t date, because my cock has melted.
My thoughts drifted to the avocado woman. Would she be into a Ken doll dick?
That was all I had to offer now.
Tish didn’t respond, gaze shifting nervously around the restaurant.
“I hope you’re okay with avocado toast,” I continued. “It’s on me. So no need to take out a second mortgage.”
Would it be weird if I poured her ice water straight into my lap?
She smiled half-heartedly at my bad joke, but the wrinkles in her face relaxed, and her shoulders slumped.
I’d been told I had a soothing voice, that my presence made people feel safe. They said it as if it were a sign of my moral character and not something I’d honed and crafted.
Fear made people unpredictable, and I didn’t do unpredictable. Everything from the brand of oranges I bought, to the number of people who knew where I lived, to the way I dated, was controlled.
Even this restaurant choice—busy enough that no one would remember my face or who I’d been with—was carefully crafted.
“Good,” I said. “Did you bring what I asked?”
She nodded, pulling out a grocery bag—another carefully orchestrated choice. A manila envelope all but said, Look at us, we’re doing something shady.
“His name is Terry,” she said, shoving the bag across the table. “Terry Parsons.”
My mind now occupied with something other than my scalding cock, I glanced inside the bag to make sure everything was there.
“My friend recommended you,” she continued, picking at her left sleeve. “She didn’t say how much—”
“You don’t pay,” I said, glancing back up.
Her brows caved. “But—”
“You gave me everything I need,” I continued. “Do you have somewhere safe to stay?”
“I was staying with my sister, but he found me.” She picked at her lip. “I’m going to stay with her best friend’s cousin. He shouldn’t know the connection.”
I nodded and stood. “You should be able to move back into your home by the end of the week.”
Her shoulders slumped deeper with an exhale, before she quickly scrambled to her feet to follow me.
“Please stay and get something to eat,” I said. “The tab is paid for. You’d be doing me a favor.”
She paused, stuck halfway between sitting and rising. I needed her to stay long enough that we weren’t seen exiting together.
I shot her a smile. “I wasn’t kidding about the toast.”
She sat back down.
Good.
Time to go inspect my dick for third-degree burns—
“You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” she asked.
I paused before answering. “No.”
I left, weaving through the restaurant, searching for golden doe eyes and a brilliant smile. She didn’t look my way, engrossed in something her friend was saying.
For the best.
I had three rules: no names, no faces, one night only.
Those rules existed for a reason. I didn’t date for a reason. I definitely didn’t date women like her, whose joy radiated like white gold sunlight. I would break someone like her—
“Calder Throe.”
The moment I stepped outside the restaurant, my name was said—as a statement, not a question. I turned to find a man leaning against a winter-dead cherry blossom tree.
He was tall, maybe an inch or two taller than me.
Golden-blond hair, tan skin, green eyes, and tattoos snaking up his neck, with a few under his eyes.
I recognized the undercurrent of power, the kind where you don’t need to hide that you’re a criminal, because you either own everyone who cares or have the power to kill them.
Just like I recognized the tattoo on his hand.
The same I’d been forced to get almost ten years ago.
He glanced down at my pants. “Did you piss yourself?”
I fucking wish. At least then I’d still have a cock.
I slid my phone into the breast pocket of my suit. “Can I help you?”
“You probably know me by the name Butcher.”
I pushed my cheek out with my tongue. I did know that name. “What’s the Mafia’s favorite hitman doing in Utah?”
He smiled, white and sharp and vicious. “Who do you think got you assigned to Utah?”
The assignment had arrived like all my others: an encrypted message with an address, date, and time. It wasn’t in my pay grade to ask anything about my assignments, but I knew enough to know they didn’t come from men like Butcher.
I folded my arms, waiting for him to explain, not giving him the satisfaction of asking why.
“I have an offer for you,” he said.
I arched a brow. “An offer.”
“I know your story,” he added, lifting a sharp gaze back to mine. “I know you didn’t choose this life. I know what happened with your brother. You help me get rid of the big guy, I help you get revenge.”
Killing the man who’d forced me into this life was obviously something I’d thought about. But this wasn’t a movie—he wasn’t a singular evil. He was one head of a Hydra. If I killed him, then hundreds more, and probably worse, men would scramble to take his place.
I laughed. “You can’t get revenge.”
No one fucking could. This was my life, and it would be my life until I either died or was killed.
He picked an imperceptible piece of lint off his sleeve. “I can when I’m at the top.”
I paused. If anyone knew I’d even discussed this, it wouldn’t be just my death, but the death of anyone I cared about.
I eyed Butcher.
“The head of the Rocky Mountain division is doing some…interesting things,” he continued. “Things that could turn into an opportunity for the right person.”
I didn’t know much about Butcher, but what I did know didn’t make me eager to install him on the Mafia Hydra. Also, I wouldn’t put it past the big guy to send this asshole here as a test.
“Sorry you came all this way,” I said, and reached for my car door.
Butcher stared at me a moment longer, then turned and disappeared across the street, between the buildings.
“I’m not doing this.”
A voice stopped me in my tracks. The woman from the restaurant pushed the door open, holding it for her friends.
“We’re just trying to help,” one of them, a taller man, spoke.
“Suggesting I update my profile to say ‘Tickle me like Elmo’ is not helping.” She laughed, kicking off the door as the last person came out.
Her voice.
Fuck.
I hadn’t heard her talk. It was somehow both husky and soft and lilting and strong.
I stared as she walked past—no, mesmerized was more like it—watching her like something out of a movie. The world slowed down, the snowflakes suspended in the air.
There was only her.
She didn’t notice me staring like a fucking psychopath as she walked by. Maybe distracted, or maybe she just wasn’t used to looking for threats.
And I was a threat.
That filled me with an odd, razor-sharp feeling of protection.
The world sped up, the snowflakes fell, and the woman continued down the street, still laughing. A laugh like fucking spring in winter.
I dragged a hand across my mouth, watching as she disappeared behind a corner.
There was no universe where I could be with someone like her. She was probably a good person, with a normal job and normal life.
And I, Calder Throe, cleaned the Mafia’s money.