Vaughn

“The guards are sticking to their schedule like clockwork. No deviations so far.” Gaige’s voice came through the wireless comms unit in my ear. He’d busted ass to get into town so he could have my back while I took Bellamy down.

Not only was it one of our rules, but it allowed me to leave Whit and Devon—the third member of the team Brecken sent—on Carissa’s parents. I’d kept them under surveillance to ensure I was aware of their every move. Although I’d disabled her phone as soon as I’d discovered they’d blocked my number, I wasn’t willing to risk them discovering where she was and trying to take her from me. Or worse, giving Bellamy her location. But he wasn’t going to be a problem much longer.

Bellamy’s security was good, I’d give him that. The walls surrounding his estate were ten feet tall and closely monitored by guards. At night, attack dogs roamed the property. A direct approach from any direction would be swiftly detected. But there was one major oversight—they hadn’t planned for a sniper attack. Or, at least, not from a distance at which I could take a shot.

I’d found the perfect firing position fifteen hundred meters from the property. It was a tough distance to shoot from, but my MK21 Precision Sniper Rifle chambered for .338 Lapua Magnum rounds was more than up for the task. My longest recorded kill with it was a full hundred yards farther out than I was from where I expected Bellamy to be within the next hour.

A hilltop on a nearby secluded property offered me an elevated vantage point that gave me a broad view of my surroundings. It also provided me with the opportunity to eliminate Bellamy from the farthest distance possible, which improved the odds of me getting the shot off without being discovered.

Waiting for him to step out onto the balcony off his bedroom to smoke his cigar, just like he did every night, was harder than it should have been. I’d been trained to be patient, to stalk my target for days on end if need be. But it was damn difficult to keep my mind on the task at hand when I kept thinking about how Carissa had reacted when I’d told her what I planned to do to Bellamy tonight.

She’d flinched away from me, as though I’d punched her in the stomach. I’d seen the tears filling her eyes before she’d shifted away from me. Her whispered plea to stay safe was more than I expected, but the way she’d sat there—curled into a tight ball, looking devastated—was what stuck with me. If I’d have been able to keep the truth of myself from her forever, I would have done it, just so I never had to hurt her the way I had. But when Bellamy turned up dead, she would have figured it out anyway. So I had no choice but to let her know the kind of man I really was, and run the risk that she’d decide she couldn’t live with it.

“Eyes on the prize,” Gaige breathed out. “The guards are moving into position for Bellamy’s exit.”

Shoving all thoughts of Carissa and the future out of my mind, I ran through the details of the shot in my head. Distance, trajectory, power and direction of the wind—I went through it all. Step-by-step as I adjusted my breathing rhythm and waited for my heartbeat to slow. I was in my shooting stance, lying prone on the hill, with my finger hovering over the trigger when the French doors leading from Bellamy’s bedroom to the balcony opened. I waited for the flash of his lighter, the center of my scope aligned right between his eyes. When his hand started to pull away, the tip of his cigar burning, I held my breath and gently placed the pad of my finger on the trigger. Then I pulled the trigger back with equal force until the shot broke, careful not to move my perfect scope picture.

Exhaling my breath, I stayed on target for a few seconds before placing the safety back on again. Using the spotting scope, I assessed the accuracy of my hit and found Bellamy on the floor of his balcony with a quickly widening pool of blood under his head.

“Target is down. Time to get out of here.”

After Gaige’s confirmation, I removed the magazine from my rifle and opened the bolt to verify it was empty. Then I packed it up and headed out, stopping to survey my surroundings to make sure I wasn’t leaving any traces of myself behind. Once I knew I was in the clear, I headed down the hill and to the car Gaige had waiting for me.

“Nice shot,” he congratulated me as I slid into the passenger seat after placing my rifle case in the trunk. “It looks like our work here is done since the trafficking ring is dead, right along with Bellamy. You ready to pack up the house and head out of town tonight?”

A quick exit was our usual modus operandi, but the teasing tone in Gaige’s voice let me know he was fucking with me.

“Head to the Hastings’ estate.”

“Hastings, eh?” he chuckled. “As in Carissa Hastings? The girl you paid a quarter of a million dollars to take out on a date?”

“Shit!” I muttered. “You guys are worse than a bunch of gossiping school girls.”

“I had to get my information somewhere, especially when you were being so damn closemouthed about the girl,” he defended himself.

“Carissa isn’t just some girl. She’s mine.”

“Well then, I guess we’d better go set her parents straight so they don’t fuck with your Carissa again.”

Just that easily, Gaige was all in and ready to take my back as I broke some more laws. Then again, what was a little breaking and entering and some intimidation when we’d just assassinated Bellamy?

The drive to the Hastings’ estate only took five minutes, but our covert entry took ten times as long—even with Whit and Devon there to lay the groundwork for us. I didn’t want there to be any record of us being off my property, which meant we couldn’t go through the front gate. We also couldn’t be picked up on any of the security cameras, so Whit put them on a loop before we arrived.

“You’re good to go,” Whit said after he, Gaige and I had made it over the wall surrounding the property. He pointed towards a set of windows at the back corner of the house opposite of us. “Her parents are in the master bedroom. Both guards are currently at the front gate, and Devon is keeping an eye on them.”

“You sure you want to go in alone?” Gaige asked.

“Yeah, what I’ve got to say to her parents is between me and them.”

“Okay,” he agreed begrudgingly. “Whit and I will be just outside, in case you need us.”

I tucked my ear piece into my pocket. “I’ll holler if something comes up, but I’m pretty damn sure Carissa’s parents are no match for me.”

“Especially not when they’ve pissed you the fuck off,” he muttered as I headed for the house.

My anger burned icy cold as I approached the sleeping couple on the mattress in the master bedroom. I was beyond pissed the fuck off, I was enraged at the thought that these two were given the gift of Carissa and had almost destroyed her. I knew I didn’t deserve to have her in my life, but I would do whatever it took to protect her. These were her parents, they should have been willing to do the same. Instead, they’d accepted money from a human trafficker and tried forcing her into a relationship with him.

“Wake up,” I growled, aiming my M9 Beretta pistol at Winston Hastings’ head. “You miserable piece of shit.”

“What in the hell?” he groaned, rolling over to look up at me. “Who’re you?”

I ignored his question and jerked my head towards his wife. “Get her up, too. I need both of you awake for this conversation.”

He reached over and shook her shoulder.

“Oh my God!” Victoria Hastings shrieked as she sat up and stared at me with her jaw wide open in shock.

“Alexander Bellamy is dead.” They both gasped. “In the coming days, information is going to come to light about his involvement in a human trafficking ring.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Winston blustered.

“No, what’s ridiculous is that you accepted three separate lump sum payments from the man over the last year and a half, totaling a million dollars. And yet, there’s no paper trail showing a legitimate business reason for those transactions. Which means the police are most likely going to come knocking at your door if they dig deep enough to uncover your financial connection to him.”

“Are you implying that my husband is involved in criminal activities?” Victoria squawked.

“No, I’m saying he tried to sell his daughter into a marriage to a human trafficker.”

“Winston?” She turned to look at her husband, and horror dawned on her face. “No, you couldn’t have.”

“It wasn’t selling her,” he tried defending himself. “Alexander offered me a reverse dowry of sorts, at a time when I was having a bit of a cash flow issue. You approved of his interest in Carissa, so I didn’t see any harm in accepting his money.”

“Our daughter isn’t chattel, Winston.”

“Like you did any better, forcing her at Bellamy at every turn,” I growled, shifting their attention back to me. “So here’s what’s going to happen now. Whatever Carissa wants, she gets. If she wants to go to Europe and spend the next two years with her friends, you’ll pay for her living expenses. If she wants to go to college, you’ll make sure her tuition is paid in full. In fact, you’re going to take that last payment Bellamy sent you and put it into an account for Carissa so she has control over her own future.”

“You can’t tell us what to do with our daughter,” Winston grumbled. “Or my money.”

“Oh, yes, I can.” I waved my gun between them. “She has no idea what you’ve done, and I intend to keep it that way. But if you ever do anything to make her unhappy again, I’ll destroy her image of the both of you. And once she knows the truth and doesn’t want to see you again, I’ll kill you.”

“Shut up, Winston, and do what the man is telling you to do. I’m not willing to die because you don’t want to give our daughter a little money to tide her over until her trust is released.”

“Fine,” he huffed.

It was done. Carissa’s safety was secured. All that remained was finding out if she wanted to stay with me or if I’d be forced to let her go.