But now am found…
JHAY
“Unnh, please, Blood. We can be quick. Just ten minutes in the back room.”
Dragging my watchful eyes away from the club entrance, I turned them to the blonde stripper straddled across my lap, rubbing her cunt against my thigh.
I couldn’t even remember what this one’s name was. Only that I’d fucked her some time ago when I just started working at the club because I had a special thing for blondes. But she’d been under my ass since then. Annoying didn’t even begin to describe it. Especially at this moment when I was in no damn mood, because my target clearly wasn’t showing up tonight, and I never wanted to come to the club to begin with.
Placing my hands on her hips, I guided her off me and onto her feet. “You need to go hustle.”
“But I want—”
“No, not now,” I said, barely tolerable.
“Later, then?” she begged, pouting. She really was cute. But as fake and plastic as a blow-up doll.
“Yeah, later,” I lied.
“And I can come home with you?” She ran her acrylic fingernails across her pelvis, above the edge of her thong. “Please?”
Not unless Sydney’s up for a dirty threesome. Which would be unlikely. “Sure.”
She leaned down to kiss me, but I turned my head. As if she thought I was just playing hard, she giggled and kissed my neck instead, before heading back to work the floor.
The strippers in Empty Cage were so easily distracted and ungrounded, it was amazing how these shallowheads made cash. There were about two strippers in the club who had sad stories about hungry kids and college fees. Those two had reasoning abilities, were focused, and worked hard. But the others had no valid excuse for doing this job, except to be able to afford the latest material shit the world spat out.
Should they know how much freedom costs, and what it meant for some people, they wouldn’t be so wasteful with theirs.
Leaning back in the booth I’d been planted in all night, my eyes shifted in the direction of the club entrance once more. It was two hours before closing time, and still Chad, the boss, was a no-show.
Since his last visit two Wednesdays ago, he hadn’t showed up again, and it was starting to throw me off. This was the longest it had ever taken me to assassinate a target. Each passing month was a dawning realization that Chadrick Niiveux was a hard man to kill. And, hell, I just might be the one who ends up dead in this chase. Just like the others who’d tried before me.
The man didn’t have footprints or patterns. Like he was a fucking ghost or something.
But I wasn’t afraid of death. If fact, death was a miracle I looked forward to. Death was my anticipated Heaven. Because I wasn’t really alive. I was a walking shadow. An empty black vessel used to do the dirty deeds of the Devil.
As I reached forward to get my drink from the table, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck shoot up. Just as they had that night while I was dancing onstage. Chilling me, alerting me. And by that alone, I’d known, indubitably, that he’d been watching me.
Now the feeling was the same. That inexplicably chilling feeling.
He was here.
My eyes swung over to the club entrance, then to the stairway up to his office. No sign of him or his burly bodyguards. Everything was just like a normal night when he wasn’t here.
Except he was here. I could feel him. Moving through the crowd. Watching me.
Inhaling a deep breath, I released it slowly, because I didn’t know what had gotten into me.
I wasn’t the person who got chills, or frightened, or worried—well, at least not since I started carrying out assignments. With each successful mission, I grew stronger, more confident. But there I was, frightened and worried that he might have remembered me. Knew who I was and why I was there.
If it were so, I was screwed.
Taking up my drink, I sat back into the booth and sipped, regaining my composure. Of course, I could just be paranoid. This long ass chase was definitely throwing me off. I’ve been settled in one place for far too long trying to snipe one fucking target. And now I was a victim to paranoia and fucking scare chills.
I mean, there was no way Chad would remember me.
Twelve years ago he was eighteen, and I was ten, and that was the last time we saw each other. I looked absolutely nothing like I did when I was ten. Plus, I’d be surprised if that evil bastard remembered the Byrd family. Not a chance.
In addition, Jhay Byrd should look twenty-two, and I was sure I didn’t. Sure, I looked much older.
The way I walked, talked, acted, was all learned in training. When undercover, I was expected to be the best of the best in whatever my cover was.
If there had been any doubt in my mind that Chad wouldn’t not recognize me when he saw me, I wouldn’t have been so brave to go after him without disguising myself.
But feeling his stare on me now, the unexplained uneasiness, was kind of jarring.
Raising the drink to my lips once more, I sipped, but tasted none of the gasoline-like bitterness that flowed down my throat, because my senses were honed in elsewhere.
Behind me.
He was right behind me.
A big, warm palm rested gently on my shoulder. The touch spoke words I couldn’t decipher. The touch delivered a message I failed to receive.
Breathe, Jhay. He doesn’t recognize you. You’re just paranoid.
Slapping a slutty stripper smile on my face, I tipped my head back, exposing my throat, and glanced up into the pools of blackness staring down at me.
He was sporting a nice, amicable smile, and his dark eyes were alive and dancing. No glint of suspicion or wariness as you would expect from someone who knew an assassin was in his building. No hint of the cruel, unapologetically heartless man who eliminated my family twelve years ago.
In fact, he appeared normal. Like just another hotshot in San Francisco. Except I knew better. Could he just turn himself on and off at any given moment?
“You’re Derek, aren’t you? The one who’s been sending Tori for my number all night?” Smile still intact, I shook my head, pretending he was some random customer getting on top of my nerves. “Sorry, but like I told Tori to tell you, I don’t date customers.”
Chad’s smile didn’t falter as he gave a slight shake of his head. “No. Not Derek.” Removing his hand from my shoulder, he gestured to the booth. “May I sit?”
I swallowed. “Sure.”
Okay. So here I was, right in the presence of the man I’d been chasing for months. I’d been figuratively praying for this opportunity. But instead of being on top of my game, instead of reaching for my nearest weapon, I was…flustered?
Although I should have been prepared for a moment like this, an opening this wide, I wasn’t. Although I’d been watching the club entrance all night, I wasn’t fucking prepared. If I could strangle my damn self right now, I would.
I was too close to my goal to be losing my shit right now. I should always be prepared.
Always.
“So, Not Derek,” I said in a whorish drag when he was seated across from me, “what’s your real name?”
At this, he chuckled. And weird enough, I still liked that sound. It brought back good memories of when we were younger.
“Chad.”
Fucking hell, even his voice was still smooth and soothing, like warm milk pouring into a hot cup of French press coffee. Or something.
I leaned forward and fixed my elbows on the table in a provocative manner that pushed my breasts together, seductively beckoning. Moving my right hand closer to his, I walked my fingers up the back of his big hand and dragged the tip of my index finger in teasing circles against his skin. “Chad. That’s a really hot name.”
Slowly, his dark gaze lowered to my forefinger on his skin. Wordlessly, he just watched, an odd expression on his face.
Keeping my cover, I turned his hand over, palm up, and teased into his lifeline. “Anything I can do for you, Chad? How about a private lap dance? I promise to make it worth your while.”
Eyes moving from my finger and up to my face, he said, “I’m the boss. I don’t mess around with my workers.”
Keeping up the act, I quickly snatched my hand away from his. “Ohmygod, I’m so very, very sorry. I had no idea.”
A single nod. “It’s okay. You’re new.”
Reaching for my drink, I took a sip. “So, what are you doing here with me, then?”
Clasping his hands, he answered, “To ask you that same question. What are you doing here?”
My heart ricocheted in my chest. What did he mean by that? Did he know? Oh shit.
For six years, I trained myself to blot out fear. Rid myself of the emotion. Trained myself to fear nothing or no one. But this feeling right here, this galloping of my heart, this twisting in my stomach, felt very much like fear.
Right then, I accepted it. I had to let myself accept the truth: I, Jhay Byrd, was terribly afraid of Chadrick Niiveux.
That was the reason six months had gone by and he still wasn’t dead. Because I’d been playing it too safe. I was being a milksop.
A waitress came just then and set a drink down before him. “Your screwdriver, sir.”
When she left, Chad took up the drink, sipped it, and then looked over at me with expectancy in his stare.
I sipped my own drink, cool and unperturbed, just as he was. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me.”
Lips pulled up into a lopsided smile this time, he just stared at me for several long, agonizing minutes. I had no idea what that smile meant.
It had been years since I’d been this uncertain, this fucking petrified. Why the hell was I even afraid? Death would be a good thing for me right now. If he found out who I was and why I was here, I should be happy, because it meant I would be dead. Freed from bondage.
Quietly setting his drink down on the table, he said, “I’m told that the customers are complaining that the best girl in the club isn’t working the floor. You don’t do lap dances, you don’t do private shows, and you’re not friendly to customers. But you are with the girls, though. So what are you doing here? Are you a stripper or a customer?”
Inwardly I released a huge, and I mean huge, sigh of relief. “A stripper.”
“If you’re a stripper, be a stripper. If you’re a customer, be a customer. You can’t be both in here.”
Fuck you, asshole. I’m not a stripper or a customer. I’m your fucking death angel.
Licking my lips teasingly, I flicked the silver ring around my middle finger one, two, three times. Just enough to partially unscrew the little opening beneath it. And as I did before, I seductively moved my hand across the table and walked my fingers up the back of his hand, inching closer to his drink. “I think whoever made that report about me is full of shit.”
Eyebrows raised, he watched my face, which was exactly where I needed his eyes to be. “Are they?”
I slid one finger up the side of his glass, scooping up the droplets of water. “You be the judge, boss.” My finger was on the rim of his glass now, circling it. “Just now, when you came to this booth, was my attitude anything at all like they reported? Was I not…accommodating? Were you not the one to enlighten me of who you are?”
Wetting my lips again to distract him, I flicked the ring around my finger one last time and inconspicuously angled my hand so the poison stored inside the ring seeped out into his drink.
Completely distracted and unaware, his eyes dropped to my freshly licked lips, lingered for a minute, then drifted back up to my face. But the warmth and amicableness were completely obliterated from them now.
Now they were…something. Something unreadable. Something lethal.
“You’re right,” he said in that irritably smooth fucking voice of his. “They’re full of shit.”
Reading his expression was damn near impossible, so I smiled and slowly, sexily, retreated my hand from his glass, and went back to tracing the back of his hand. “I want you to ‘mess around’ with me. What would it take for you to make me an exception?”
“Why would I do that?” he questioned, watching me closely. “What’s so special about you, Blood?”
With my free hand, I reached up and pinched one of my nipples under the silky material of my costume top. “Because I’m so fucking good, I make men scream, not growl.”
Head tipped to the side, he asked, “And what do these men scream for, Blood?”
Keeping my eyes locked with his, I sultrily whispered the honest truth: “Their lives.”
At this, he smiled and picked up his drink. “Tempting…I’ll think about it.”
With bated breath, I watched as he brought the glass to his mouth. Holy fuck. It couldn’t possibly be this easy.
“No rush. I’m patient,” I responded, trying to look at his eyes and not at the drink in his hand.
The glass moved closer and closer to his mouth, his eyes watching me over the rim…then suddenly he jerked as if something startled him, and as he reached inside his pocket for whatever it was that made him jump, the highball glass tilted inward and spilled all over him.
“Ah shit,” he grumbled.
His hand came out of his pocket with a vibrating cellphone, and he slammed it down on the table along with the now empty glass.
With his hands held out from his body, he glanced down at his soaked frontal, then across the table at me. He was wearing a slight, toothless smile, almost like a smirk, but at the same time, his jaw was set hard, and his eyes were so dark and frightening now, I had to look away.
There went my easy fucking kill.
The same waitress from earlier materialized with a hand towel and began dabbing it on Chad’s wet clothes to help. But he shooed her away, telling her he was alright.
When it was just him, me, silence, and his stare left at the table, I cleared my throat. “You should go change into some dry clothes. I could help you if you’d like…”
Silence. Dark stare.
Okay, I had no idea what happened to him in the last few minutes, because he was a different person now. What’s with the stare? Did he know I poisoned his drink?
No. Impossible. He couldn’t just know that. I hadn’t been obvious with it. I’d done the Kill-Ring trick more times than I could count and it worked unerringly. There’s no possible way he could’ve known.
So, what’s with the death stares?
It was beginning to unnerve me how unnerved he made me.
I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of him. I wasn’t supposed to have any kind of reaction to him. I was supposed to be a steel post. Do the job and get out. Why was I letting him and his scare-stare get to me?
I was trained better than this.
Picking up my purse, I eased out of the booth and stood up. I needed some time to get myself in check. To get my priorities in line. To slaughter my fucking fears. “I should go.”
“Yes, you should,” he agreed. “It’s wise.”
Sucking in a breath, I walked away from the booth, from him, repeating the mantra: I am not afraid of Chadrick Niiveux. I am not afraid of Chadrick Niiveux. I am not afraid of Chadrick Niiveux.