Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
MAVEN
“He’s fucking heavy,” I call out to Victor, who watches from the car as I struggle to pull this fucking body to the trunk.
Thankfully, this hit was an easy one, and luckily, I brought my shiny red heels, so I didn’t really have to worry too much.
Not only are they my killing heels, they’re also my good luck heels.
“Get your big ass out of that car and help me, Victor.”
He mumbles something as he gets out of the car and slams the door shut, but I don’t even know if it’s English.
Thankfully, it’s early in the morning, and the houses are far apart from one another, so the risk of being seen is minimal.
When Victor reaches me, he leans down, grabs the body, throws it over his shoulder, and carries it all the way to the back of his car with hardly any effort.
He pops the trunk, dumps the body in, then slams it shut and stares at me.
“Now, was that so fucking hard?” I ask.
I didn’t end up killing this target, though I was pretty fucking close.
I managed to knock him out, but the first blow didn’t quite do the job, and he turned around to try and hit me.
Thankfully, I have quick reflexes and knocked that fucker out the second time.
But then came the part where I had to move the body, and because Victor is a lazy ass and sat in the car, refusing to help me until this very moment, I had to do it all myself.
Which probably puts my timing just under an hour.
But with the drive back, it’ll be over an hour, and I’m going to blame it all on Victor when we get there.
We could’ve been done and back all within an hour if he’d helped me sooner.
“I came to drive, not assist in your fucking work,” he grouses.
“Well, we would have been late, and he could have woken up. So this probably would have gone a lot smoother if you’d just helped.”
“How much are you getting paid for this? You won’t even be the one to kill him.”
I smile and look down at my nails. “Oh, an easy two million,” I tell him, and his head swings around to me.
“Who sets the price?” I’m surprised he’s asking so many questions considering he’s usually the quiet one. Though, I think somewhere along the way, he’s started warming up to me.
“I do. And many factors go into how much I charge for a job. Everything has to be considered before the hit, because I need to know what I’m going up against. The more difficult the hit, the higher the price.”
“What’s the most you’ve ever been paid for a hit?”
I think about that for a few seconds before I remember the senator I took out. “Ten million.”
He slams on the brakes, and the body rolls around in the trunk before I hear what sounds like the guy punching against the trunk’s lid, which means he’s awake.
“Do you plan to take care of that? He needs to be knocked back out since you just woke him up,” I say.
Victor makes no move to get out of the car, so I reach down and grab the steering wheel lock.
Who the fuck has a steering wheel lock in their car these days?
I get out and pop the trunk. Immediately, the guy tries to jump out at me, but I block his swing and punch him straight in the temple, and he drops like a bag of shit.
He’s hard to get back in the trunk correctly so I can close it, but when I finally get him situated, I shut the lid, walk back to the passenger side, and get in.
“You get paid a lot of fucking money.”
“I didn’t at first. It took quite a while for me to earn my reputation and get paid the amount of money I do,” I say proudly. Because I’m proud of how far I’ve gotten. No one knows the work I had to put in to get where I am, and no one can take that away from me.
Victor asks me a few more questions on the drive back to the forest, and I answer every single one. Other than that, we hardly speak, and our friend in the trunk wakes back up again, but this time we don’t bother pulling over because we know he can’t get out.
When we come to the end of the long dirt road, we find the Forsaken members standing there, but there’s no sign of Rolland’s body.
Boston strides over and opens the passenger door for me, then glances at the back of the car when he hears a thumping sound.
“Went well?” he asks.
“Splendid! Would have gone faster if Victor had helped,” I say, getting out.
“I did help,” Victor argues.
“After watching me struggle to pull the body for a good twenty minutes,” I shoot back.
“It was entertaining,” he says.
I walk around to the back of the car, and Boston stands next to me as I press the button to unlock the trunk. The guy doesn’t try to jump out and hit me this time.
I don’t generally ask about the purpose of a hit.
But sometimes the file I’m given contains all the information Carrie has on why a client orders a hit.
I’m not one to judge what someone else needs and wants, so most of the time I don’t bother reading it.
But on the ride over to collect this guy, I skimmed over the reason.
It was his wife who hired me. It seems he is quite abusive, not only to her, but also to their children.
He also has a lot of money, so he can afford lawyers to take the kids from her.
His eyes are somehow a mixture of wild and wary as he takes in his surroundings. I don’t blame him. Usually, I just kill the target. But because I’m a good wife, I wanted to make my husband and his friends happy so they might like me.
I turn and look at Boston, who doesn’t take his eyes off the guy in the trunk. “I think I love you,” I tell him, my heart pounding in my chest. His hand finds mine, and he squeezes it, but he doesn’t say it back. It stings a little, but I try to keep that to myself.
A few members wander closer, this time with their masks on. I notice even Victor has put one on. It appears Boston and I are the only two without masks.
This time Victor reaches in and happily removes the guy, who tries everything in his power to get out of his grasp. Victor is a big fucking man, and I don’t think the guy is going to be able to overpower him.
Boston’s hand slips from mine, and he puts his mask on before he joins the others. I stand watching them, completely transfixed. They’ve spread out in a semicircle around the guy, leaving the direction of the forest as his only escape.
They start chanting something, and it takes me a moment to understand exactly what they’re saying.
“In the shadows we hunt. In the night we kill.”
I lean against Victor’s car as one of them squats down and tells the man to start running. They wait as the guy takes off into the forest. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do as I watch each of them follow until I’m left in the darkness by myself.
I keep going over the words I said to Boston. I’ve never told a man that I love him, and yet it slipped out so easily with him.
And he didn’t even say it back.
Does he not like me? Surely, he does. What is there not to like? Sure, I’m a little bit messy. Sure, I like strawberry milkshakes more than the next person. But maybe he finds those things endearing.
I start kicking rocks as the forest grows quieter and quieter. Then, I climb into the back of Victor’s car, not shutting the door, so at least the air can circulate. I lie back and close my eyes, then I pull out my phone and call Carrie. Thankfully, she answers on the first ring.
“I take it you’re still alive,” she says.
“Yes, thankfully. But no more work for them,” I tell her.
“Noted.”
“I told him I love him,” I blurt.
“You what?” she asks, baffled. “You don’t…” She pauses. “You love him?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I do.”
“You do know he’s a detective, right?” I laugh because she’s well aware that even though he’s a detective, he’s also part of the Forsaken Society. Which means he isn’t as clean as he appears to be.
“I’m well aware.”
“Hang up the phone,” someone booms from outside the car.
“I have to go,” I whisper to Carrie.
Putting the phone down, I look up to see Boston standing there with his mask on. I know it’s him, not just because of what he’s wearing, but because of his voice.
I go to move, but his words stop me. “Stay there. Take off your jeans.” He reaches down, and my pulse quickens as he slips my red heels from my feet. He carefully puts them on the ground, making my breath catch. He’s well aware that they’re my favorite pair, and he’s treating them as such.
I shimmy my jeans down to my hips, but he gets impatient and yanks them all the way off, then leans into the car and spreads my legs as far as they’ll go. He shoves the mirrored mask to the top of his head, then his mouth is on my clit before I can utter a word, and I gasp at the contact.
He flicks his tongue, and I can’t help the moan that slips from my lips. He’s so fucking gifted with his mouth. He slips a finger inside me, followed by a second, pumping them in and out of me as his mouth continues working my clit.
“Come, baby. Now.” He curls his fingers, and that, paired with the magic he’s weaving with his mouth, has me doing as he commands.
My body shakes as he backs away and stands.
And when I look up at him, he puts his fingers in his mouth and licks them clean before he slips his mask back over his face.
“Of course I fucking love you too. I’m pretty sure I have from your first milkshake,” he says, then walks off, leaving me there.
I pull my jeans on as I watch him walk back into the forest.
He loves me.
I’m glad my husband loves me. I would hate to have to kill him because he broke my heart.