T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear…
JHAY
To avoid having to lay it to the blonde stripper that I couldn’t really take her home with me because I already had a blonde home waiting for me, I got dressed ten minutes before closing time and loafed around in the customers’ bathroom so she’d think I quit early.
Once all the dancers had left, I exited the bathroom and ambled at my own pace through the now empty club, chin-lifting a “night-night” to the securities preparing to shut down.
Neither Chad nor his bodyguards were around, and I felt a little at ease that he’d already left, because I was still a tad shaken up from my failed attempt to poison him earlier. At this point, all I wanted to do was recklessly speed home, wrap my weary body around Sydney’s, fall asleep, and never wake up.
I was just so tired. Of life. Of everything.
In the almost empty parking lot at the side of the club, I keyed my car open and eased into the bucket seat behind the steering wheel. But when I hit ‘Start Engine’, the car wouldn’t start.
Brand new car. Niiveux. Bought six months ago. Gas tank on F. Yet the car wouldn’t start.
Gotta be kidding me.
Yanking on the lever below to pop the hood, I climbed out and rounded the car to assess what the shitting hell was going on. Obviously someone had fucked with my car. A brand new Niiveux didn’t just ‘not start’. They were faultless top-of-the-line vehicles that would take a crash or bomb explosion to devalue.
In the minute I raised the hood and peered over to examine, I sensed someone behind me. Great, some sorry ass punk was going to try raping me in the parking lot. And I, unfortunately, would have to rip his seedy balls off and feed them to him.
I so didn’t plan on killing anyone tonight—well, anyone who’s not Chad. But hey, this might take the edge off so I wouldn’t end my night feeling like a worthless shithead.
Remaining bent over the car like any other unsuspecting, air-headed, plastic-tits pole swinger, I gave the attacker time to get closer, teasing him with the smell of victory. Victory he would never taste.
When he was a calculated foot away from me, in practiced speed I slammed down the hood of the car, whirled around and slid my ass up on the hood, drew my legs back, then slammed them forward so they connected, hard, solid and forceful on the attacker’s chest.
He let out a distressed groan and stumbled back from the strong impact of my boots. But I gave him no time to recover as I swiftly launched off the hood and whirl-kicked him across the face, an “umnf” leaving him. Catching my balance, I did it again. Balance, then repeat.
The attacker stumbled back with each kick, suppressing his grunts of pain. And like a raging blind bat out of hell, I was charging too fast in the darkness to see which idiot it was. This double-assed fool was going to die tonight. For messing with the wrong fake stripper. Because the anger from my failure tonight, failure for the past six months, failure of my entire existence, was all there on the surface, fueling me. So he couldn’t have picked a worse time to fuck with me. If I’d had a weapon on me, he’d be fish-out-of-water dead already.
Beating him to death was just as good, though. The rush was greater; the adrenalin a sweet, sweet high. Squatting slightly at the knees, I grinned like a possessed maniac and charged forward, knocking the sucker flat on his back. Promptly straddling him, I reached down and grabbed his head firmly in my hands to snap his neck. Sharp, quick and to the point…but that’s when I recognized him.
Chad.
Fucking hell.
Why would he try to attack me?
Face only half-lit by the splice of light peeking around the side of the club, lip busted and bleeding, red bruises on both cheekbones, he stared up at me with a calm, stout-heartedness, saying nothing.
Even with the mess his face was at the moment, he was…heck, I had to admit, detrimentally beautiful.
My bottom lip parted ways with the upper one to let out a shaky gasp. A gasp of awe and admiration. I had the sudden urge to orgasm. Long and hard.
Snap his neck, Jhay. This is it. So easy. Do the job. Snap his goddamn neck!
This man, this spell-casting man, wasn’t even begging for his life. Nor did he display even a hint of fear. All he did was stare up at me with intense curiosity, and…was that lust?
Snap. His. Neck. Jhay! If you want your freedom, kill the asshole, now.
Time stopped, and all we did was stare at each other. No breaths. No words. No threats.
And then I did the unthinkable.
I lowered my head, and kissed him. Fucking kissed him. My target.
And sweet fuck, he was kissing me back.
What the hell was going on?
Releasing my hold on his face, I slid my fingers into his hair and plunged my tongue deep into his mouth, the coppery sting of his blood dancing on my tongue. And oh my freaking God this felt good. So good. Crazy good. Why did it feel so good? I hated men. Hated them. Yet here I was. Kissing one. A man.
Not just a man, but my very target. And loving every goddamn minute of it.
Sinking my canine into the fresh bust on his lip, I tore the split wider until more blood began leaking into my mouth, spicing, seasoning, flavoring our kiss. Chad let out a pained sound as I licked up his blood like a thirsty vampire, but he didn’t stop, and instead gripped my head and encouraged me deeper.
This was a crude, bloody kiss. Messy and unclean. Sinful and savage.
Just as the thought to rip his clothes off and fuck him right there in the parking lot started to cross my mind, two strong arms grabbed me from behind and hauled me off him.
“You stupid bitch,” a man’s voice growled in my ear.
Locking one big, muscular arm around my neck, he held me in place so he could withdraw his gun. And as he pressed it to the side of my head, ready to blow my marrow to bits, I heard Chad’s shout: “Ronnie, no!!”
With as much room as Ronnie’s hook around my neck gave, I looked over to see Chad jolting up to his feet, his eyes wide and panicky. Fearing.
For me.
A couple minutes ago when I’d been about to snap his neck, he’d never uttered a single plea. He never panicked. He never feared.
But now that a gun was at my head…the frightened expression on his face was mystifying, to say the least.
“Boss, you serious?” the big guy rumbled in an incredulous voice. “She’s gonna fucking ki—”
“Let her go,” Chad told him. “And leave us.”
When the man didn’t budge, Chad said more forcefully, “That’s an order, Ronnie.”
With a grunt, Ronnie roughly released me, shoving me so hard I lost balance and crashed right on my ass. Then he stomped away like a pouty Goliath, leaving us in the dark, grumbling his disapproval of his boss’s choice.
Chad strode over, looked down at me and held out his hand. For a long while, I just stared at his hand, confused as hell, before taking it and getting to my feet.
“You okay?” he asked me, once I was righted.
A scoff left me as I dusted the dirt off my ass. “I just kicked the shit out of you. I’m more than okay. How’s your jaw doing? Dislocated? You might wanna go inside and get some ice for—”
Fast as light, he grabbed me and drove me back against the side of my car, glaring down at me, his forearm fixed immovably under my neck, rendering me immobile. “Why did you kiss me?”
“Why do I get the feeling you like it dirty and bloody?” I squeezed out.
Chad jerked his forearm up, pressing it harder under my neck, making me gasp. “Why did you kiss me?”
“Why is your cock so fucking hard right now? Does getting your ass kicked by a girl turn you on that badly?”
“Blood…”
“Yes, boss?” I answered in a saccharine voice.
“Answer.my.fucking.question. Else I’m gonna give Ronnie the green light to put that bullet in your head.” As he said this, his forearm pressed deeper and deeper into my neck, cutting off my air.
How could I answer a question I didn’t know the answer to? Hell if I knew why I kissed the bastard. And fuck if I knew why it felt so damn freeing.
As hard as it was for me to breathe right now, the feel of him pressed up against me, his erection digging into my stomach, was so unbelievably good.
“Fucking with my car and sneaking up on me in the dark, wasn’t this your motive? To cop a kiss, a touch, a feel? To get one stolen moment with me in the dark?”
As the pressing force of his arm eased from my neck, he took too long to deny it for it to not be the truth.
Holy shit. He wanted me. I wanted to kill him, and he wanted me. What would he do right now if he knew who I was and why I was there?
The too-late-to-be-true denial came. “I didn’t mess with your car.”
“You’re a liar,” I whispered.
Releasing me completely, he took a step back, but wouldn’t look at me. Because he was lying. “I didn’t.”
“You’re. A liar.”
Resealing the foot-apart distance between us, I fisted his lapels and pressed my body up against his. Because I’d felt and loved the feel of his hard, towering body against mine, and craved more. “Finish what you started, boss. Pretend I didn’t just kick your ass. Pretend I’m stranded in the dark with a car that won’t start. Do what you planned on doing. Take that kiss, that touch. Steal that moment with me. Here. Now.”
His cock twitched against my stomach, but he did nothing. Just watched my lips. Confusion. I could see it. He wanted me so bad he didn’t know what to do with me. And I was so unnaturally feeling him right now, I wished he would flipping do something. Fling me on the car bonnet and fuck me rabidly under the moonlight.
But he did nothing. Nothing at all. Except stare down at me with those conflicted dark eyes.
With an irritated growl, I let go of his lapels and chucked him. He moved back only a foot. Still saying nothing.
“Listen,” I snapped, with unexplainable anger, “if you’re not gonna follow through on your half-assed plan, then please fix whatever the fuck you messed with on my car so I can get the hell out of here.”
A minute of silence. Then he moved past me and opened my car door, pulled on the lever, and popped the hood. Rounding to the front, he took something shiny and metal from his pants pocket and reattached it to wherever he’d removed it from, then closed down the hood.
Moving to the side, he wordlessly watched me climb into the car, slamming the door harder than I needed to, and peel out of the parking lot.
And I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand what the fuck just happened.
I got home to a quiet, empty house.
No Sydney. All her stuff was gone. Clean.
Espying an envelope on the nightstand, I snatched it up and found a note inside:
Babe,
I know it’s cowardly of me to break up with you in a letter.
I’m sorry. But I’ve been seeing someone else.
He no longer wants to share me, not even with a woman, so he gave me an ultimatum. And I chose him. I’m so sorr—
I stopped reading and crushed the paper in my hand, aimed, and did a Kobe Bryant. The light-weighted crumple of paper landed in the wastebasket across the room.
Now what was I going to do for sex and companionship? Find a new girlfriend and start all over again with the trust thing? Hell. San Francisco was getting more and more annoying as the days dragged by.
I needed a girl pronto, because I needed sex. Sex was my drug. It was my high. It kept me leveled, focused. I needed it in mornings before and after my cup of coffee, and I needed it at night before and after my shower for bed. I needed sex. I just needed it.
And now this dumb blonde bailed on me.
I hated this place. It was sun-smoldering hot, quiet, and kill-me-now boring.
Now if I had done what I was supposed to do and snapped Chad’s goddamn neck when I had the chance, I could be boarding a jet right now to freedom.
But no, I’d screwed up. Letting lust, or whatever that feeling was, take over me. And instead of killing the damn man, I kissed him.
Kissed him.
Holy shitstick, what was happening to me? Have I been settled in this place for so long that I’ve completely forgotten how to do my job? It all could’ve ended tonight. Job complete. And I blew it.
Because for the first time in twelve years, I desired a man. Chadrick Niiveux. The rakehell who murdered my parents. A smooth killer. Affiliate of the Devil. A red-horned demon.
And I. Desired. Him.
A man.
I was so screwed.
The low dinning of my cellphone brought me back to the now. Caller ID: Unknown. Except I knew exactly who was calling.
The Voice.
The voice that had a face I’d never seen. The voice that owned me, that had been ruling me since the night of my family’s death. The voice that sent shivers down my spine. The voice that made my heart tremble.
Taking a deep, calming breath, I answered, “Allo?”
The conversation progressed in Russian…
“Any closer?”
Any closer? Any closer? I was fucking straddling him! My tongue was in his mouth. His nail-hard erection was pressed against my stomach. That’s how close I’d gotten.
“No, sir. The target doesn’t have a shadow, nor footprints, nor habits. Which makes him an almost impossible fish to catch. Are you sure I’m the right person for this assignment? It’s been six months, sir. Maybe…maybe I’m not experienced enough for a fish as big as him.”
Trying to buy your way out of this, Jhay?
“A dozen men have tried. A dozen men have died,” The Voice said in a lazy drag. “Of them all, you have gotten the farthest. Get the job done.”
When I remained quiet on my end, he said, “This is not for me, Byrd. This is for you. This is you avenging your family. This assignment is not for my benefit at all. It is for yours.”
A load of shit that was. But still my head nodded over and over, even though he couldn’t see me. Because I needed that reminder. I needed to remember what killing Chad meant for me.
“And you’ll keep your promise? You’ll free me if I succeed?”
“You have my word,” The Voice assured me.
“Okay,” I replied with renewed purpose. “I’ll get it done.”
Ending the call, I tossed my phone on the nightstand, then got out my bug detector from the closet and swept the entire apartment for planted cameras or listening devices. I did this every time I left my apartment and came back. Let’s just say I didn’t trust Sydney all that much. Or anyone for that matter. Anything at all could go down when I wasn’t around.
Fifteen minutes later, I detected nothing and decided the place was still clean, so I took a long, hot shower to clear all the dirt and grime from my body, and all of Chad’s tasty blood from my tongue.
After showering, stark naked I climbed into bed, masturbated, came hard, then slid under the covers, feeling a little cold without Sydney there.
Sleeping alone was no hobby of mine. Being alone, period, intimidated me. Loneliness tormented me. It haunted me. Gave me chills and anxieties. It blended all my emotions into one confusing vortex and drove me mad.
Loneliness was the monster I feared.
Slapping my palms together, I clapped the lights off and dragged the covers over my head.
And then I felt him.
His eyes. I could feel them on me.
Weird, because I was pretty sure no one had followed me from Empty Cage. I’d done a heat-run for twenty minutes before taking the direct path home. Plus I just scanned my apartment for bugs. So how could he be watching me?
Paranoia was definitely getting the better of me. This was the kind of shit that happened whenever I was alone.
Yet…I couldn’t shake the feeling that those dark eyes were on me.
I could feel him.
And it scared the living shit out of me.
Twelve years ago…
Somewhere in Russia.
It was the throbbing head pain that woke the girl. No way could she remain unconscious with an ache so alive.
With a whispery flutter, her eyes opened. But even opened, she saw nothing. Nothing but darkness.
Now fully conscious, the pain grew more intense. The girl raised her hand to the area on her head where the pain was more pronounced. Something dried and flaky was there, and stuck on her skin all the way down to the side of her face.
Confused as to where she was and what had happened to her, with unseeing eyes, she looked around the room, her head making sharp jerky movements like a bird.
Then she saw a silver lining. No, it wasn’t a silver lining, it was just a slim slip of light piercing through the darkness. She bet it was escaping from under a door. As tightly sealed and dark as the place was, the slim line of light had stolen itself in under the door.
Maybe it was a silver lining after all.
The slip of light told her that even when her present was nothing but darkness, and she couldn’t find her way, couldn’t see the day, somewhere in all that consuming darkness, there’s always a sliver of light waiting for her to find it and follow it to freedom.
Light was light. It could not be overpowered by darkness. It could not be shut out.
Darkness is created. Light just is.
Always there.
She just had to look hard enough to find it.
On that thought, the girl shakily, like a rickety old man of nothing but skin and bones, got up to her feet and walked as strong as she could towards the light. That light led to a door. And beyond that door, possibly to freedom.
Her fists, she pounded them on the heavy steel, her little hands aching in protest, hardly any sound being made from skin to steel. Voice hoarse, she cried for help instead. Help. She needed help.
At the rumbling of male voices on the other side, she stopped pounding, stopped hollering, and waited in a heap of tears and heavy breaths.
There was a thud. The heavy sound of a lock sliding out of place. Then the door pushed open and light streamed in like a billion tiny lasers. Pricking at her eyeballs.
Her eyes burned like fire, blinding, and her head hurt even worse. With that light, came even more pain, and the memories of what happened the night before came surfing in on the rays of light.
Death.
Death was what happened. Her mother. Her father. Her brother. They were all dead.
A strangled cry burst from her throat at the new, additional pain. This pain hurt the most. This pain was visceral. Not physical. Coming from the inside out. Slicing her open and sucking the life from her veins.
A big, tall, bulky figure appeared in the doorway, blocking out the light. She thought of him as The Light Stealer.
The figure raised its hand, something long and black was in it. And that something came down with a force and landed on the side of her head, and a burst of colors exploded before her eyes like it was New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
The last thing she thought before she slipped into unconsciousness again was that she much preferred the darkness.
The darkness hurt a lot less than the light.
The light was truth, the darkness was lies.
She preferred the lies.