Black Widow
Cairo, Four Years Ago
“Wake up, baby. We’re not landing for a bit, but if you want to check out the Atlas Mountains, now’s your chance.”
I keep my eyes closed, and I melt at the sound of Killian’s voice and the kisses he’s trailing over my bare shoulder. “Hmm. I’ll get up in a minute. Have I told you how much I love going on assignment in your private jet?”
He crawls on top of me and redirects his kisses down my spine. “Not since I caught you eyeing my plane’s tail fin like you wanted to hump it right before we boarded.”
“Shut up. I was just checking out the new paint detail.”
He laughs under his breath. “With your tits?”
“How is that even possible?”
“Well, you looked like you wanted to rub your tits all over it. I didn’t know whether to be turned on or pissed off.”
“Is that why you got me to rub my girls all over you instead?”
“Of course. Feel free to turn over and do it all over again,” he invites in a decidedly huskier voice.
I turn over, stare up at Killian Knight, and my heart twists viciously with the power of what his face, his smile, and his body do to me. But my heart twists for something else too. The shame that lives under my skin. The regret for things I can’t change. The certainty that my soul is damned forever.
But none of those condemning emotions stop my arms from sliding up and around his neck or prevent him from tugging the sheet from my body. His gaze drops to my chest, and I watch him swallow hard.
“Fuck, these tits.” He leans on his elbows and cups them in his large palms. Reverently, he squeezes, molds, and plumps them before he sucks one nipple into his mouth.
They’re not as big as they used to be when all I did was lunch and lounge, smile and squeeze myself into an effigy of what I thought I needed to be. The training I underwent in order to change my life has changed my body too. For the better, if Killian’s visceral reaction each time he strips me of my clothes is any indication.
My back arches off the bed as he grazes my hard nipple with his teeth, and my nails scour his naked back.
“Killian?” I moan.
“Hmm?”
“I’m going to miss the mountains.”
He raises his head a fraction, but his eyes stay glued to my breasts. “I’ll take you there one day soon. We’ll go by chopper, and I’ll show them to you up close and personal. I promise.”
His distraction is why he doesn’t see my conniving smile a moment before I buck him off me and slither out of bed.
“What the fuck?”
I giggle, hurry to the bedroom window, and slide up the window shades. I barely have time to locate the majestic mountains before he’s behind me, imprisoning me with one arm around my waist. When I wriggle, he curves his large body over mine. “Stay,” he rasps in my ear. “Enjoy your mountains.”
His tone suggests he’s about to enjoy something else of his own. A moment later, one hand recaptures my breast, and the other slides between my legs. We both groan at how wet I am.
“Are you still sore, baby?”
I bite my lip and nod. “A little.”
“Okay,” he replies a little reluctantly.
His hand starts to move away. I put mine over it. “But…I don’t want you to stop what you’re doing.”
A puff of breath warms my ear. “Are you sure?”
“Mmm-hmm…”
He buries his head in the crook of my neck and breathes deep. “Thank you. I don’t want to hurt you but I’m so glad I don’t have to stop.”
I don’t admit to him that sometimes I like it when he takes me like this—when I’m uncomfortably sore and the pain is as acute as the pleasure. It makes accepting my happiness a little easier, my guilt a little less consuming.
He sinks two fingers inside me, and the snow-capped mountains in the distance turn into a hazy mirage. My head falls back onto his shoulder, and my knees weaken. I brace one hand above the window and the other behind his head and let him have me. He finger-fucks until I come and then replaces his fingers with his cock.
My already damned Catholic heart can’t help but compare one Knight brother to the other and find the one I used to be married to severely wanting. Killian fills me up, both in mind and body, in a way Matt never did. Even holding still inside me now, the way he does each time he first penetrates me, draws fire from my toes all the way to my crown. I always thought toe-curling sex was a myth until I met Killian.
Now he slams inside me, and I rise to my toes, sublime pleasure sizzling through me. The plane catches a pocket of turbulence and dips, shoving me harder onto his cock.
My scream draws a groan from him, and then he laughs. “Shit, even my plane wants in on the action.”
Despite the bone-melting bliss racing through me, I laugh. This is what he does to me. Laughter at inappropriate times. Mile-high sex with the clouds as our audience. Diving into sin and secrets with my eyes wide open.
A year ago, I wouldn’t have even dreamed I was capable of this. But I’ve found out that life takes a turn when you least anticipate it. And my life has turned several times since Killian Knight walked into it.
Widow. Lover. Spy.
All three connected to the man who is now inside me, calling me beautiful, worshipping me as he gifts me with another mind-blowing orgasm before he finds his own.
By the time we land on the private airstrip just outside Cairo three hours later, I’m rested, relaxed, and ready to take on the monsters.
The villa rises out of the sunbaked desert like a shimmering apparition. Situated southwest of Giza, the location is remote and exclusive, the type of address that attracts the rich and famous in the mood for something different. A lush oasis in the middle of a stark wilderness is always a thing of beauty. But what has been created here is several levels above that. It’s a jaw-dropping masterpiece.
Constructed entirely out of cerulean reflective glass, the single-structure property is sprawling, with several angled sides reaching up into the sky. It’s hard to miss, but it’s the rumors of its underground rooms that has put the residence named Amaris on the map of the bored, wicked, depraved, and decadent.
News that it’s been rented for six weeks by Silicon Valley billionaire Killian Knight and his new girlfriend were circulated in the right places. Whispers of the exclusive-to-the-point-of-illegal parties we intended to throw for a select few achieved the right amount of buzz to attract our prey.
But the price of first contact with the sex trafficking players was high, even for a clandestine agency with an unlimited budget. It’s the reason this operation was meticulously put together. It’s the reason nothing can go wrong. If it does, the atrocities will continue. And I can’t bear the thought of that.
Paul Galveston. Raj Phillips. Moses Black. The file on them is several inches thick, and I’ve learned it inside out and backward. I know everything there is to know about them, right down to their preferred brand of toothpaste. A necessary evil that has made my stomach turn ever since I learned the true depths of their depravity.
My relaxed state on the plane is nowhere in sight a day later as I sit through the last video-linked security briefing with my handler back in the US. It’s six hours before our first meeting with Galveston and his allies tonight. I hide my sweating palms by sliding them over my denim-clad thighs. I know I don’t succeed in playing it cool when Killian’s leg gently brushes mine under the table. It’s a whisper-soft touch but the message is loud and clear.
Pull yourself together.
I take a slow, deep breath. I can’t afford to blow this. And for this case to get its final stamp of approval, I need to ace this last meeting. I grit my teeth and raise my gaze.
Eric Biggins, my handler, looks at me with the dead eyes of an agent who’s spent far too long in the business and witnessed too many horrors.
“So, you all set?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply. Killian nods.
“The extras will arrive at zero six hundred,” Eric confirms.
I swallow the rising bile and remind myself of the need to use honey to catch bees. “They’re all over eighteen, right?” I blurt. “And they all consented?”
Eric, whose name I suspect is false, gives me a peculiar look. It’s not the first time I’ve asked this question. And, unlike my previous assignment where I followed orders without question, I’ve probed the ins and outs of this assignment to the point where I run the risk of being insubordinate. But there’s too much at stake.
“Fully verified,” he answers after a few tense seconds, and sends a narrowed-eyed, what the fuck? glance at Killian. “And, no, they won’t be doing anything they’re not already doing in their regular jobs. With the exception of one or two of them. But you don’t need to worry about that.”
I open my mouth to question this new piece of information. Killian shifts in his seat. And because I know, again, that it’s unusual for him—I’ve never known the man to fidget, ever—I decide not to push my luck, and close my mouth. He’s trying to protect me. There are those who believe he’s risking his career and safety by vouching for me for this assignment. I’m still relatively new to the game, and this operation has been a long time in its execution. If I fuck up, it won’t be just my ass on the line. I can’t do that to the team or to Killian, especially when I know why he went the extra mile for me on this occasion.
This mission is personal. Eric and a few others have been dubious about my motives from the start, but I’ve only confirmed my true intention to Killian. Well, it was more like he laid the evidence before me and I didn’t deny it.
He knows I’m doing this for Julia. My sister.
“Faith?”
Shit. I spaced out for a second. I refocus to find both Killian and Eric staring at me. I nod briskly. “Got it. Thanks, Eric.”
He looks a little skeptical, but he returns my nod and leans forward to disconnect the feed. I feel Killian’s stare but I keep my eyes trained on the dark monitor.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
He doesn’t speak for a long time, and my skin tightens in mild panic.
“Look at me.”
Double shit. Those three words never bode well for me. It normally precedes a chewing out or a super-intense fucking guaranteed to leave me a babbling wreck.
While I would much prefer the latter right now, I’m about to get the former. I grit my teeth and face him. The considerate lover who worships me is nowhere in sight as he stares, tight-jawed, at me. “What the fuck were you thinking, asking questions like that?”
“I wanted to be sure.”
“No, what you were doing was handing Biggins the excuse he needs to throw you off this assignment. If you have questions, then ask me. Let me give you the assurances you need. Don’t you trust me?”
My hesitation sends him rushing to his feet. The chair he was sitting in powers back and hits the wall of the secret room we’re using as a communications base in the villa. “Shit, Faith, you’re scaring the shit out of me. You barely slept last night, and you’ve been jumpy all day. Maybe I should think about pulling out of this op.”
I surge to my feet too. “No! You can’t.”
Cobalt-blue eyes glare at me. “Like hell I can’t. I’m your superior. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
I take a breath to calm myself. “You know I haven’t been on board with using such young escorts at the party. But we’ve put months into it. We’d be stupid to pull the plug now.”
“We’ve been over security a hundred times. They’ll be protected. But if you can’t trust me enough to get your head in the game, then there’s no point. I’d rather we be stupid than dead. Maybe we need a few more weeks, just to get your head straight.”
“No. Absolutely not. Weeks means more children, Killian. Sold to dirty assholes to ruin or worse. If I can’t sleep now, you think I’ll be able to function then?”
“Do you think I can sleep at night worrying that going in before you’re ready can get you hurt? You think I’ll be able to live with myself if something happened to you?”
“Nothing will happen. I promise. I just got a little off, that’s all. I’m okay now.”
He paces back and forth in the room. Rubs his hand over his stubble. “No. I can’t risk you, Faith—”
“Please, Killian. I can do this.” I keep my voice low and even. Getting hysterical now will lose me even more valuable ground.
He stares at me for an age. I force myself to remain still, knowing in my bones that, as much I want to employ other means to bring him around, trying to use sex to convince him will be the absolute wrong move.
He finally exhales. “We’re going to spend the rest of the afternoon going over every single detail again. Get one fucking detail wrong, and we’re getting back on the plane and going home. Got it?”
I nod.
His eyes narrow for another minute. Then he holds out his hand. When I reach him, he yanks me close and rakes his fingers through my hair. “I should take a belt to your tight little ass for worrying me like this,” he mutters against my lips. “But you also happen to be the most intelligent woman I know. I need your A-game tonight, Faith. Please.”
“You’ll have it. I promise.” I kiss the corner of his mouth in gratitude. He sighs and returns the kiss. It’s whisper-soft at first. Then it isn’t, because soft and cuddly isn’t us when it comes to sex. Teeth nip, tongues duel. Fingers dig in and claim.
And then because he deserves a reward for sticking by me and because I’m utterly weak when it comes to him, I strip right there in our little communications room. And he bends me over his desk and shows me who’s boss.
By the time our guests of honor arrive, my mask is in place. Arkansas born and bred means Southern hospitality was fully ingrained by the time I turned three. I learned to smile through killer migraines and foxtrot with giant blisters on my feet.
At my sweet sixteen party, I spent a solid hour laughing and gossiping with Heather Jane Fitzgerald, all the while knowing she’d fucked the boy she knew I had a huge crush on before coming to my party. Sweet revenge came by way of spiking her drink with two doses of Nana’s extra-strong lithium tablets, thus ensuring she suffered three days of the trots. The get-well card I sent her was sealed with a kiss imprinted by my favorite pink lipstick.
Of course, these days the stakes are much higher. But still I smile and offer champagne to child rapists and allow myself to be hugged by Moses Black, the man who was filmed throwing the body of a boy overboard his yacht because one of his guests got too rough and accidentally strangled him during sex. I’ve thrown up twice since the party started two hours ago, each time after coming into physical contact with one of the men.
Despite my assurances to Killian, I’m finding it hard to keep it together when I want nothing more than to slide out the stiletto knife strapped to my thigh and drive it between Paul Galveston’s ribs. Or grab the Glock strapped under the canapé table and shoot Moses Black in the face.
“Darling, come and join us for the fireworks.”
My smile is flawless as I end my conversation with an aging rock star with an affinity for underage girls and join Killian and Raj Phillips. Killian is wearing a pristine white collarless linen tunic and black pants. The hair he’s let grow a little wild and long brushes his shoulders, and with his bright eyes and designer stubble, he’s easily the most breathtaking man at the party.
I take his hand, and we walk past the huge, sparkling pool to the edge of the landscaped garden that costs thousands of dollars a month to maintain. The pyrotechnicians are ready to begin. Our guests are all waiting with bated breaths for the display that set the agency back another twenty thousand.
“I’m looking forward to the display,” Raj says as he tosses back a mouthful of Angostura rum. “But I hope what comes afterward lives up to expectation. Just thinking about it has me harder than a priest next to a choirboy.”
My vision goes black for a single second as he laughs darkly at his own sick joke. For a moment I wonder whether he knows. About Julia. About everything that happened nine years ago. The records were sealed because of her age. But I’ve recently discovered that if you have the right connections and you look hard enough, you can find just about anything. Jesus, is he toying with me? Do they know why we’ve invited them here? Does—?
Killian links his fingers with mine, pulls me to stand in front of him, and winds both arms around my waist. A second later, his mouth brushes my cheek. With my hair caught up and my dark orange cocktail dress designed to leave my shoulders bare, he has access to my neck and shoulders too. He takes his time to trail a few kisses there before he looks over at Raj. “Well, we’ve thrown a few of these parties, and we’ve never had a guest leave us unhappy before, have we, sweetheart?” he says.
I pull myself together, take a sustaining breath, and turn my head, carefully avoiding Raj’s gaze, and look into Killian’s eyes. “No, honey. Never. I hate to brag, but we have a very difficult time choosing who to invite these days. It’ll break my heart if anyone here tonight isn’t fully satisfied with what we have planned downstairs.” I clench my gut and transfer my gaze to Raj. “We have everyone’s taste covered. I assure you.”
Raj’s smile widens, and he all but rubs his hands in glee. “Fantastic.”
I smile some more and dutifully gasp as the first set of fireworks rips through the sky. Since every one of the twenty-five guests invited knows what’s coming next, the closer the display gets to its denouement, the higher the depraved sexual energy builds in the crowd. Once it’s over and the applause dies down, all eyes turn to Killian.
He waits for a full minute, keeping them on tenterhooks while he kisses me. Then his gaze flicks over the crowd. “Sorry, folks, I don’t like to miss a chance to thank my lovely woman for everything she does for me,” he drawls.
Laughter is tinged with dark, fevered anticipation.
“Okay, we’ve kept you waiting long enough. Shall we head to the sin bin?” he asks.
Without waiting for a response, he takes my hand and walks me around the pool and back inside the villa. Our guests trail behind us, the three men who are the reason for all of this first in the group.
We reach the far end of the wide living room. Killian pulls down a glass panel in the wall and enters a code. A secret floor about the size of a door clicks and lowers three feet away. Subdued lighting illuminates the stairs leading down into the sublevel, which holds the same square footage as the floor above.
Again, Killian leads the way, his fingers linked with mine to help me down the stairs. When we reach the middle of the room, I take a beat to ground myself before I turn to smile at our guests.
“Holy shit,” Moses mutters under his breath as he turns a full circle.
Every imaginable sex gadget and accessory, and some that are in prototype stages, is displayed in the room illuminated by strategically placed gold lights. The objective was to blow the minds of men who already think they know everything there is to know about sex.
“This is like Eyes Wide Shut meets Space Odyssey meets Game of Thrones. The sexy bits, not all that blood and gore shit,” Raj expands as his gaze lights on a spank bench a few feet away and the scantily clad young woman sitting cross-legged on it. “Fuck me, I can spend a full week down here, no problem at all.”
Paul heads for the nearest group of girls reclining in suggestive poses around the room. There are twenty women and five men in total hired for the event.
As predicted, all three men go for the youngest looking in the group. I’m still nauseated that this part of the op involved dressing them up to look and act like they were underage. It doesn’t matter that they’re carefully chosen escorts flown in from across Europe. Or that they are being paid handsomely for a night’s work. I can barely bring myself to look at any of them.
But I have a part to play. I wait until all the guests are situated and busy with their chosen partners. The waiters, who are also part of the team, specifically here to ensure booze flows and the escorts are protected, ease my anxiety a little.
Enough for me to approach Paul and Raj. “Gentlemen, if you’d like to come with me. We have a further surprise for you. You can bring your new friends with you,” I say with a perfect smile.
Paul tugs a girl after him, as does Raj. “Hey, Mo,” he calls out to Moses, who’s sprawled out on a lounger, about to unzip his pants, “keep it wrapped for another minute, would you? We’ve been invited to the inner inner sanctum.”
Moses jumps up, hooks his fingers into the collars of two young men who were about to service him, and drags them after him. One of them stumbles, and my breath snags on a spike of anger.
“Easy, baby,” Killian warns in my ear.
I’m shaking by the time we walk through the steel door at the back end of the underground room. This room is even more special. Red silk shibari ropes specially sourced from Asia hang from the ceiling. Gem-encrusted sex toys are laid out on black velvet cloth, and others hang on the walls.
“Fuck, yeah,” Paul growls, eyes glinting with degenerate sexual heat.
“One week. Easy,” Raj insists.
Moses instructs his boys to grab a bottle of Cristal each. “Come with me. I’ll teach you a neat trick I learned in Tunisia last year.” He barks out in laughter and heads for a double lounger.
Every bone in my body wants to crush these men into a messy, useless pulp. The latest intel that came through before the party started was that they met with suspected black market brokers to arrange another shipment of innocent children today. But despite the white-hot rage filling my veins, I have to remain calm.
Twenty girls per month ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen. Never older. Because apparently, sleazy old men can’t get it up for legal girls. They’re the reason I aced the three test-run assignments needed to prove myself, and two I undertook as a fully trained operative. I did everything in my power to be considered for this mission. And no matter how I feel, I can’t blow it.
My baby sister wasn’t bought or sold, but she was still targeted by a man she trusted. A man who was more than three times her age and who should have protected her but instead molested her for four long, silent years. I watched her turn from a bubbly twelve-year-old into a pale, secretive, haunted shadow of herself. I watched my parents turn to the very man responsible for Julia’s deterioration for help. And all through his systematic abuse of my sister, Father Michaels of the Holy Catholic Church of Northern Arkansas continued to preach goodness and mercy and forgiveness.
He stood over her coffin, prayed for her soul, and mourned the life she’d ended by her own hand as being over way too soon. And even after we found Julia’s suicide note naming him as her abuser and he was caught with another child, he strenuously denied any wrongdoing. I spent the months during his trial for molesting a dozen other children filled with uncontrollable rage. And heaven help me, I even considered cold-blooded murder for the first time in my life.
My fight to ensure he stayed in jail for the rest of his natural life was what led me to Matthew Knight, an ambitious assistant district attorney looking to make a name for himself.
I mentally flinch away from thoughts of Matt and return to my unwanted reality. I hear a rip of clothing from Raj’s lounger and a gagging noise from Moses’s, and my fingers tighten within Killian’s hand.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Killian says. With a kiss on my temple, he steers me toward the door. We don’t need to stay because the room is bugged. Each bottle of alcohol has been doctored with a modified strain of sodium pentothal, designed to relax their guard. We’re still playing the long game but it doesn’t hurt to lay a few more traps.
“Aren’t you going to join in?” Paul asks, his eyes narrowing on Killian and then on me.
Killian’s smile is pure arrogance bred from the fact that, in financial stakes alone, he’s several classes above these men and doesn’t mind showing it. “We just met today. Like a fine red wine, we prefer our associations to…breathe for a while, attain the right bouquet. Should we find that our tastes match, then we can take this to the next level. But don’t let me stop you from enjoying yourselves.”
Although Paul smiles at Killian, something moves behind his eyes that dances icy fingers down my spine. But Raj doesn’t need a second prompt. He reaches for the blond girl in pigtails and dressed like an English schoolgirl, right down to the snow-white tights. I turn away in disgust, and thankfully Killian is there, a solid wall buffering me from the men responsible for my roiling emotions. He must sense Paul’s suspicion because he changes his mind at the last moment and doesn’t take me out of the room.
Instead he leads me to the farthest lounger and pushes me onto it. But then he positions himself so his body blocks the men from my view. His eyes convey nothing but sex and desire as he lowers his head and kisses me.
I know he’s kissing me to take my mind, and eyes, off what’s happening on the other side of the room. Even now, he’s protecting me, while dealing with his own jealousy by staking his claim on me.
I don’t mind. Kissing him takes away the nausea that hasn’t abated since we walked down the stairs into this sleazy pit of immorality.
We wait until they’re fully immersed in their orgy of booze and sex before we leave. We enter the main room and mingle for another two hours. And then, as per the invitation, Killian, in effortless arrogant-billionaire mode, ends the party and throws everyone out.
No one dares to grumble. Raj looks a touch disappointed, but he attempts to shrug on his clothes as he weaves his way drunkenly toward us. “We want to reciprocate your hospitality. Next week. We’ll send a driver for you.”
Killian looks over at me with an ambivalent look on his face. “Our schedule is pretty full…”
“Trust me, you’ll like the kind of party we throw too. Maybe even more.”
Killian smiles. “Oh yeah?”
Paul smirks and waves his hand around the room. “I like this, but I guarantee we can top a few things.”
“It’s not a competition,” I say with a very bright, very false smile.
His eyes slide to mine. “Everything is a competition, sweet thing.”
Killian’s hand tightens warningly on my hip. “Now that is a throwdown I simply cannot refuse.”
Paul laughs and slaps him on the back. “Good, good. So you’ll come?”
Killian looks down at me. “What do you think, sweetheart?”
“Yeah, what do you think, sweetheart?” Paul’s smirk widens as he raises his eyebrows at me.
I place my chin on Killian’s shoulder and give a saucy smile. “I think they talk a big game, so I’m up for seeing what they’ve got,” I reply.
“Great. It’s a date. And this time you will join in. With everything.”
I’m wrapped in chilled fury by the time their convoy of SUVs leaves the villa in a trail of dust. I can barely see my way through ensuring the escorts are fine and relatively unharmed. I leave Killian to supervise their departure, and I can’t get into the shower fast enough. He joins me ten minutes later, and we wash away the vile stench of sleaze with sex and soap.
Then we head to the communications room to trawl through the footage. The memory of what was done to Julia sears me each time I look at Paul Galveston and his partners and the sick acts they’re performing on-screen. Each time Moses’s finger tightens around one man’s collar and he laughs with sick glee, I want to throw up again. Then I want to hunt him down, rip his face off, and stomp on it.
“Baby, I can do this on my own,” Killian says after an hour of watching the footage.
I shake my head. “No. We do this together.”
He examines my face for a moment, then nods, and I pray I won’t have to watch for much longer. My prayers are answered when Moses grabs one young man by the collar and cups his jaw. He turns his face one way and then the other, carefully examining his features. “How old are you? Really?”
The escort, primed to answer one way only, replies, “I can be whatever age you want me to be.”
A very drunk Moses shoves him away. Raj looks over. “What’s up, man? Something wrong with the merchandise?” he laughs.
Moses rests back on the lounger. “Something’s off. He feels a little…overused.”
My breath catches, but Killian doesn’t look as anxious as I feel. Paul slaps his girl’s ass and orders her to ride him faster. Then he looks over at Moses. “Rest easy, pal. When the shipment arrives in twenty days’ time, you can take your pick of fresh meat.”
Moses groans with filthy anticipation. Raj responds with a slurred shout.
Killian looks over at me and smiles.
We have a date to pass on to the team.