Hitman's Bride (Bad Boy Empire) Read online

  Hitman’s Bride (Bad Boy Empire)

  Published by Olive Tree Publishing LLC

  Copyright © 2015 Vanessa Waltz

  Edited by Faith Van Horne

  Cover Credits

  Kevin McGrath

  Allan Spiers

  * * *

  [email protected]

  I killed to marry her.

  Murder is my trade, and I’m as bad they come. Hitmen never settle.

  New town, new job, and a girl to warm my bed. All part of the job, with one hitch that’s got me in knots.

  The new girl’s name is Fawn, but she’s more like a minx. Every time she makes eyes at me, I want to rip her clothes off. I’m counting down the minutes ’til I get her alone—in my bed, on the counter, anywhere I damned well please.

  She knows what I am and hates my guts, but she needs my protection.

  There’s a man after her who makes me look like a saint, and I can’t leave her to the wolves after what I’ve done.

  I killed to claim her. I’ll make her my bride to save her, even if I have to drag her to the altar.

  Whatever the cost, she’s mine.

  Hitman’s Bride includes a copy of Married to the Bad Boy! Make sure you don’t miss it! Sign up for my newsletter, here! No spam. I only send information on new releases, excerpts, and giveaways.

  License Note

  This book is available for purchase at Amazon.com. If you found this book for free or from another retailer other than Amazon, it means the author was not compensated for it.

  SILAS

  I’m killing someone in an elevator.

  First time for everything, right?

  He kneels on the floor as an invisible string cuts into the ample flesh of his neck. My black gloves hold the garroting wire tight in my fists as I yank his head back, tuning out the strangling noises he makes. This is definitely not my preferred method, but at least there’s no blood. Well, not that much anyway.

  The wire cuts through his skin and I can see it slicing his fingers as he desperately tries to suck down air, making horrible gasping sounds. Just die already.

  I catch a glimpse of my bored expression in the brushed, reflective metal of the elevator. I’m crouched behind him, his trout-like face gasping at the air. Finally he goes limp. I check my watch to make sure that a few minutes have passed—it takes a lot longer to strangle someone to death than you’d think—and then I release him. He drops like a stone to the floor, dead. Just to make sure, I press two fingers where the wire sliced into his neck and feel for a pulse. Nothing.

  Then I work quickly. The wire goes into a bag, and then I stand up, grabbing wipes from inside my jacket. Every surface I touched gets wiped down. Another reason I don’t like using wires or plastic bags or whatever is because there’s so much room for error. It’s easy, very easy, to find prints, but I’m not that worried. Even if they did find something, my client’s organization would likely pay them off. Still, I’d rather avoid that. I’m a professional.

  I take one last glance at the man’s body, scanning over the details. I stuff the bag into my jacket. The client wanted him gone as quickly as possible. I only got the request a couple hours ago, and I stalked him to his apartment building. Disabled the security camera right before he got inside. Done. Easy.

  Hearing nothing, I open the elevator doors and descend the stairs to the street. He lives—lived—in some shitty studio in the Tenderloin. Crack heads shuffle in the streets like zombies, their rags stinking of urine and shit. I walk to the huge dome of the Civic Center before hailing a cab, and I duck gratefully into the heated car. Time to get paid and get the hell out of this town.

  All in a good day’s work.

  * * *

  A small orange piece of fruit—a mandarin—touches her lips. Delicate fingers push the curved fruit into her small mouth, and I catch a glimpse of her pink tongue. Her fingers run with juices. She swallows and pops them in her mouth, sucking them one by one as her deep-blue eyes stare at me from across the table. I keep my eyes trained on her forehead, averting them from the low-cut, see-through blouse and her tits straining against the sheer fabric. I can see her black push-up bra and the swell of her flesh. A triangle of her flat stomach peeks from her shirt, just above the seam of her leather skirt.

  No doubt she left it unbuttoned just to fuck with me.

  Ignore her.

  But the sound of her lips and tongue fill my ears as though there’s a speaker right next to me, blaring live audio of a blow job. Just one look at her shimmering lips and my dick strains against my slacks. Fuck, what I’d give to have that mouth wrapped around my cock right now. The ornately decorated dining hall echoes with her noise, and I have to look at her because I can’t take it anymore.

  The girl smiles, her eyes alive with mischief. Once she’s done licking and sucking every drop from her fingers, she takes the little napkin from her lap and meticulously wipes herself, all while giving me the most brazen fuck me stare I’ve ever seen on a girl. She wants me so badly that she’s not even being subtle about it. Hell, she’s even touching herself now. She trails her neck, sweeping up and playing with her long earrings. I watch her hands as though they’re mine. I can almost feel her soft skin beneath my touch, burning with lust. She loops a finger around a strand of her dirty-blonde hair. It’s long enough to touch her shoulders—perfect for grabbing as I force that girl to her knees. I’d make her open wide for my cock and I’d fuck her throat before I’d flip that leather skirt over her bare ass and take her over the table.

  My cock twitches in my slacks.

  Ignore her, you fucking idiot.

  It’s rare that a girl this hot hits on me so openly, and it’s even rarer that I don’t act on it. Unfortunately her daddy’s in the room. He also happens to be my client.

  They warned me about him. He’s a touchy bastard with the tendency to overreact to men flirting with his daughter. Apparently he decided that he doesn’t want any man’s cock to touch his daughter’s precious pussy. If that dough-faced fuck caught a whiff of my attraction to her, I’d be dead.

  And yet she does not stop teasing me.

  Blood drains from my head as a sweet smile spreads over her pretty face. And then she slowly winks.

  A man’s throat clears, and I ball my hands into fists so that my nails dig into my palms. I look away, my eyes traveling over the dark mahogany table laid with a spread of Chinese food, and they finally rest on a man’s face, wearing a permanently fixed scowl.

  “Did you hear what I said, or were you too busy staring at my daughter?”

  Shit.

  Ryan strikes me as one of those guys who has never been happy his whole goddamn life, and so he makes everyone else’s life miserable. He has never cracked a smile in the two weeks I’ve been here working for him. I normally never stay so long in one place, but the Black Dragons Syndicate pays really well. Too well. Unfortunately that means dealing with this prick every day, and the daughter who makes it quite clear that she wants me, who has done everything to attract my attention other than grabbing my cock. The second part amused me for a while, but now this is getting dangerous. I’m practically getting hard-ons in the dining room. My reputation as a professional, world-class hitman is crashing around my ears.

  What I wouldn’t give for a few minutes alone with this girl to teach her a lesson about teasing men.

  I look back at him calmly, wondering how the fuck to navigate through this minefield. One wrong word…

  “I wasn’t aware—”

  He points the steak knife at me, his face reddening with rage. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

  A ripple of anger runs through me. What am I, some kid?

  “Daddy, be n
ice.”

  “I don’t have to be nice,” he snaps at his daughter. His beady eyes suddenly widen as if he’s just become aware of her presence. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  It’s safe to look at her again. My throat tightens as she fingers her shirt and glances down her body briefly.

  “What’s wrong with this?”

  Absolutely nothing.

  “You look like a syndicate slut.”

  The briefest show of anger crosses her pretty features as slut passes his lips. I’m sure that asshole calls her that all the time.

  “Well, I think I look nice.” Her head swivels around, and a pair of blue eyes stab at me. “Silas, what do you think?”

  Now even he’s waiting for my response.

  Fuck, do not drag me into this.

  “She looks beautiful.”

  She glows with pleasure, her cheeks burning brightly as she meets my gaze under those long lashes. I’ve practically got her wrapped around my finger.

  To tell you the truth, beautiful is not among the words I’d want to use. I wish I could say them out loud: hot, fuckable, gorgeous, sexy, racy, seductive—yeah, that’s a pretty solid list to choose from.

  Shit—I’ve been looking at her for too long again.

  Her father grinds his teeth as though I just called his daughter a cow. “Fawn, go back to your room and change right now.”

  The name doesn’t suit her at all.

  Her lip curls as Ryan’s voice cracks like a whip. For a moment I think she’s about to explode, and I wince at the contempt dripping from her voice.

  “I stopped taking your fashion advice when I was twelve.”

  “If you were a man, I’d knock your teeth out.”

  “Instead, you get to slap me around.”

  I press my lips together firmly, impressed by the waves of heat radiating from her face.

  She stands up, and one of the guards pulls her chair out for her as she gives her father a withering look. “Don’t worry, I’ll go.”

  Fawn’s heated gaze lingers on my lips as another smile tugs at her mouth. I dig my nails into my palm and wish I didn’t cut them so short.

  Ryan slams his silverware on the table. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  The sounds of her heels rap on the marble floor like gunshots. A breeze of juniper floats across my nose. No doubt she sprinkled the perfume at the base of her neck. I breathe it in, letting it burn my nose and lips.

  “I’m going!”

  She casts a heated glare in his general direction before she opens the door and slams it shut. The walls vibrate in the wake of her explosive exit, and I wipe my palms on my slacks, letting out a deep breath.

  He stands from the table, ripping the napkin tucked into his neck. That sour look is back on his face, but this time his tiny eyes are narrowed with malice. He walks closer to me, until I can smell the reek of cow’s blood on his breath and the stink of wine. The steak knife wavers near my gut, and behind me I hear both guards move slightly, blocking my exit.

  “What the hell did you mean by that?”

  Is he fucking kidding me?

  “It was just a compliment, Mr. Haines.”

  It was such a bad idea to stay here so long.

  He looks slightly mollified, but still suspicious. “Your eyes were all over her.”

  “Mr. Haines, any man with a pulse would look at her.”

  Especially when she’s flashing her tits at me every other day.

  Ryan’s lips stretch, revealing a row of small, squarish teeth that he gnashes together.

  “I will cut off your balls and shove them down your throat if I catch you talking to my daughter. She’s my little girl, and you’re just some street thug.”

  A street thug with hundreds of high-profile clients. A street thug who could take the knife pointed at me right now and filet his body before getting rid of the guards behind me.

  I want to kill this prick. My insides seethe and my skin heats as I imagine his blood pooling over the beautiful marble, but I can’t do it. Silas is my mask. He’s polite, thorough, and professional. Always professional.

  He would never fuck your daughter.

  But the man behind the mask might.

  * * *

  I’ve got to get the stink of this place off my body.

  I descend the elevator, and then the syndicate guards prod me with metal detectors as I leave, and return my weapons to me.

  My feet hit the streets as I pound the sidewalk, easing into Powell Street’s busy foot traffic. Steam from the subway rises from the vents, and the foul stench makes my stomach turn. I look back and see the tall, faceless building of San Francisco’s biggest crime syndicate, the black and gold dragon emblazoned on the entry windows. It’s right smack in downtown, among all of the counterfeit designer shops, and the department stores, flooded with tourists. Mingled with the slightly salty air from the sea is the smell of piss, the telltale yellow streams running from the walls of the buildings. People walk their dogs and let them shit all over the sidewalk. It’s disgusting.

  I hate this city. I can’t wait to leave.

  It used to be beautiful. Back when I was a kid, I would walk along the piers where it was cold. The wind would numb my face, but it was almost a magical sight to watch the waves crashing on the rocky shores of Alcatraz. It was home.

  But a hitman’s life is constantly moving. I never stay in the same place more than a few days. Two weeks? I must be out of my fucking mind. It’s only a matter of time before that nut job decides he wants me dead because I looked twice at his daughter.

  Fuck, I haven’t gotten laid since I came to this place for work.

  My skin burns just thinking about her. Once, while her father and I were talking, she lifted her bare foot and stroked my inner thigh under the table. It took every ounce of concentration to ignore her and focus on her dickhead of a father. I learned that she does this to nearly every outsider who visits the syndicate. In the end it doesn’t matter. I’ll find some way to fuck her before I leave just to spite that piece of shit.

  I climb the steps of Pier 39 to my extremely shabby hotel room. There’s a window facing the Bay, and the overpowering salty smell clings to the furniture. I close the screened window, which cuts the noise of the tourists and the barking sea lions, and then I pause.

  The air feels different—shared.

  I’m not alone.

  They try to keep quiet on the wooden floorboards, but it’s really hard. The pier is decades old and in desperate need of renovations, and the wood creaks easily. Two heavy sets of feet. I can picture the height and weight of the men, and then a third one approaches my door. He’s less cautious, his footsteps almost obnoxiously loud. My heart thumps against my chest, blood flooding to my hands as I drop them, slipping the pistol from my waist. I should have known this was going to happen. Silas has hundreds of clients and even more enemies. Why the fuck did I stay here for so long?

  But I’m not worried. I could take them out now as they pause behind the door. I aim the gun where I’m sure to hit his chest.

  A hard series of knocks hammers the door and I almost squeeze off a shot in surprise.

  “Silas? We’re from the syndicate. We just want to talk.”

  I don’t recognize the muffled voice. “The syndicate has my number.”

  “This is—ah—too sensitive for a phone call.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m not interested.”

  The tone darkens. “You’re going to hear me out. Open the door.”

  The problem with working for a bunch of hotheaded syndicate members is that they’re entitled assholes. Do this. Do that. I’m not a fucking servant.

  “It’s open,” I say, aiming my gun at the door.

  It creaks loudly as a man with blond hair and soft, fine-boned features walks into the room with his bare hands held up. I recognize him. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. He’s still here?

  How?

  I lower my gun as two syndicate men enter, standing
on either side of the hotel room door.

  A small body lay facedown on the beach as freezing waves crashed over her shoulders.

  A cold sweat breaks over my body as I stare into his smiling face, nausea rising like a line in my mouth.

  He looks different. Older. His cheeks hollowed out. We used to call him Achilles. A torrent of memories flood into my head—images flash by: a blond boy with a slight limp, his hand outstretched toward mine, a snub-nosed girl ripping off a piece of sourdough.

  He’s dressed in the black suit that all syndicate men wear, along with the blood-red tie and shirt. So he moved on from cracking heads in San Francisco’s seedy streets and joined one of the biggest criminal organizations on the West Coast.

  I hoped he’d be dead by now.

  “Roach,” he says, looking straight at me.

  The name stirs a hornet’s nest and I clench my teeth.

  “I don’t go by that name anymore.”

  He smiles. “I’ve heard. Jesus, it’s really you.”

  Shock registers in his voice. I don’t think he ever expected the runt of the crew to grow into the man he is today.

  I can’t say that I’m happy to see him.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Achilles?”

  He shuts the door and approaches me. Disgust unfurls in my stomach, but my mind races, searching for why. I can’t remember.

  “I’m Viper now.”

  It suits you.

  “When I heard Silas was in the city, I had to meet you for old time’s sake.”

  “I had no idea you joined the syndicate.”

  Viper or Achilles or whoever the fuck he is no longer has the limp. I watch his left leg, but he puts his weight on it easily. It was deformed—stunted. He couldn’t really run. Then again, Achilles never really needed to run from anything.

  “Yeah. It beats beating up other street crews.” His eyes twinkle. “It’s a good gig.”

  “Well, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  I can’t believe he’s still here, hanging around our old haunts as if nothing happened. Potent rage boils in my guts as I stare into his arrogant eyes. I could fucking kill him, but he’s a goddamned member.