“Then lead the way.”
“Not until you promise –”
“Promise what, exactly?” Titus smirked, enjoying her frustration. She wore her emotions on her face, every nose twitch, lip curl, and brow furrow giving away every thought. “Promise to not kill you, like you tried me?”
A fierce stare. “If you kill me, you'll never find out who wants you dead.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“I still have a few days before my Guild sends someone else, If I go missing –”
“They’ll send someone sooner. I get it.” Her lips snapped open, but he didn’t give her a chance to respond. “I won’t kill you when these cuffs are removed.”
“I sense abutcoming.”
Titus glowered down at her, her attitude grating on his last nerve. “Mess with me again, and you’ll see.”
She licked across her bottom lip, and Titus couldn’t help but watch the movement. “I won’t kill you either.”
A chuckle, his hand reaching behind her back, untucking her skirt. “Like I trust a word from your pretty little mouth. You’re an assassin.” He pulled out his own pistol, the fucking glitter that his cousin glued as a prank glinting in the light. “And a thief.”
“Contractor,” she corrected, her smile full of poison. “You need me, remember?”
Titus checked the magazine, counting a bullet missing. “Let’s go.” He tugged her towards the door, not bothering to turn as he pulled her into the daylight, the earlier rain leaving the pavement wet. Her car had been easy to track, the fake plates the same as when she’d stuffed him in the fucking boot. Shaking his head at the size of the car, he shot her a glare, but she only smirked in response, as if reading his thoughts. He would never have believed he could have fit into that tiny bloody thing, but the aches in his muscles were testament that she’d somehow managed.
“Payback’s a bitch,” he muttered, reaching for the car door handle when he paused, tingles of warning cascading down his spine.
“What are you –”
He tugged at the chain, forcing them both to the ground the instant bullets began raining down. He threw his body over hers, aiming his pistol towards the trajectory of the rounds and let off one warning shot. The car whined, tyres popping one after another. The stench of petrol floated on the wind seconds before flames licked at his skin.
“Fuck!” He dropped his head, metal and debris hitting his back as the car exploded just inches from them. He grunted, ignoring the sharp shards slicing into his flesh. Thirty seconds, that was how long it took from the first bullet to hit, to the car exploding. And in those thirty seconds Ti knew exactly where the shooter stood, his mind able to calculate the trajectory to within a micron. So without looking, he lifted the gun, and pressed the trigger.
A shout, his shot hitting true.
Flames continued to crackle, and it wouldn’t be long before the police would be there to ask questions they couldn’t answer.
Rae pushed against his shoulders, moving from beneath him to stare at her car. “I think someone else’s already on your assignment.”
Titus climbed to his feet, gaze scanning the surrounding area to find them alone. He spotted a puddle of blood, but no body. “Yeah,” he said, pulling out a chunk of metal from his shoulder. “No shit.”
Chapter8
Rae
She’d panicked. She was always the first to admit when she’d fucked up. Okay, she never admitted when she fucked up, but when the option was either sure death, or to be attached to her target like a dog, she’d fucking bark.
She didn’t have a contingency plan, because in what world did someone survive a direct shot to the heart? And then said survivor huntingherdown. No one could have planned for that, which meant no one could judge her for it, either. If she died before her contract was complete, her brother would suffer the forfeit. If she failed, she would be killed as per the rules of the guild.
Rae checked the grazes along both her arms, the pavement having scraped across her skin when she’d landed heavily. Titus’s SUV was much larger than her car, forcing her right arm to drape over the centre console as he shifted gears, pulling her hand away from the gravel she tried to remove her arm. The cuff was a direct result of the panic, but it also likely saved her life. She’d been nervous on her first job, especially considering she had to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. There had been no training, you just got shoved into the deep end and hoped that you floated.
There had been guilt at first, but not for long, not after everything she’d witnessed. She’d never found out, but Rae was sure it was the wife who’d ordered the hit. When going through the house she’d found polaroids, as well as a diary of exactly every degrading thing he’d done to her in vivid detail. Rae could only bring herself to look at one picture, the image taken from above, the woman who she assumed was the wife sprawled on the floor as if just pushed, cord wrapped tightly around her neck. Her arm had been lifted up as if to grab the camera, the other covering her bare breasts, bruises patterned across her stomach and thighs. Her cheeks and chest had been flushed a pink, tears glistening down her face to mix with the blood on her upper lip.
The guilt at what she had to do vanished instantly and never returned. Rae had enjoyed killing her target, drugging his tea and then tying him up with the same cords that had hurt his wife. It was where she’d found the cuffs too, in his little box of pain displayed proudly in his walk-in wardrobe. The toys there were designed to hurt, so she’d taken pleasure in tightening the cuffs on his wrists until his fingers had turned white from lack of blood, and then used those same toys on him.
He’d begged, for hours as she’d played with him, he’d begged, and then when she pretended she would let him go, she’d stabbed him through the eye. Wrecking the house had been fun too, except she was careful to not break anything that looked expensive. It was the same with stealing, she’d taken her target’s wallet, his collection of watches as well as his phone, and laptop. But she couldn’t bring herself to take anything that may have been the wife’s. She’d even posted everything back a few weeks after his funeral, everything she’d stolen except the cuffs.
Rae had learnt a lot about herself that night. Firstly, she was messed up. Whether it was a nature versus nurture thing, she wasn’t sure. But she shouldn’t have enjoyed killing that man as much as she did. To hurt a person who’d harmed someone weaker than them had been invigorating. Intoxicating.
