17
F uck. Fuck . What the fuck had just happened?
My chest heaved and I swiped a shaking hand over my mouth, staring down at the crumpled, lifeless body of an angel in front of me. A dark line of blood trickled down her perfect face, staining her white blonde hair and mesmerizing me. Was she dead?
Holding my breath, I pressed two fingers to her soft throat, feeling for a pulse. The relief I felt when it throbbed against my fingertips was staggering. Why? I should have killed her. Why the fuck had I only knocked her out? Why wasn’t I finishing the job now?
Swallowing heavily, I peered at the tiny communication device I’d picked up off the ground.
She was a liar. A fucking liar . She’d played me the whole fucking time… and I’d fallen for it. Hook, line and goddamn sweetest-pussy-I’d-ever-seen sinker.
Panic flashed through me, and I dropped the earpiece to the ground, stomping on it before racing back into the living room to find my phone. Whoever was on the other end of that device would be coming for her… and me.
“I need collection ASAP ,” I barked into the phone when Eli answered immediately. Where the fuck were my underpants? “How far away are you?”
“Less than a minute, boss,” he replied with a deep chuckle. “Jae sent me to pick you up after he got your picture message. Subtle.”
I grunted, tugging my boxer briefs back on and tucking my dick away. Fucking hell, it was still wet from Danny’s mouth. The fact that I’d actually finished was a new development, but the way that woman had sucked me… fuck .
I’d snapped the picture of her mouth around my dick and sent it to Jae because I’d seen the way he’d been looking at her. The desire in his eyes and the drifting hands while she danced. Yeah, I wanted him to tell Mo, but I also wanted to stake a claim.
Irrelevant now. “Hurry up,” I snapped to Eli as I strode back through to where I’d left Danny. “Turns out the little angel is a devil in disguise.”
Eli hissed a curse. “Understood.” He ended the call, and I stooped to retrieve my gun from where I’d left it on the stairs. Fuck me . I could never look at this gun the same way again. Swallowing hard, I put it away and scooped up Danny’s unconscious body.
“What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?” I muttered to myself as I carried Danny’s limp form out of the house. I should have left her there with a bullet in her head. I should have just let her walk away outside the club, but I just had to satisfy my burning curiosity. Now look where that’d left me.
The blacked-out Escalade rolled up to the curb, and Eli leapt out of the driver’s seat, with raised brows. “Dead?”
I grimaced and shook my head.
Eli looked even more shocked at that but opened the rear door for me to deposit her inside. Without a word, he slid back into the driver’s seat and waited for me to get in the passenger side before pulling back out into the street.
“Lost your toga somewhere, boss?” Eli murmured after several minutes of driving in silence.
I shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “Shut the fuck up, Eli.”
He smirked but did as he was told, driving in silence while I stared out the window and tried not to sink into a total fucking panic attack. That comms device was sophisticated, ahead of the market. Definitely not government budget. Which meant she was private sector.
I should have killed her. Fuck me. What the hell had I been thinking? She wouldn’t have been the first undercover agent I’d killed on a hunch, and I doubt she’d be the last. But something about the way she’d looked up at me with those huge sapphire blue eyes… the way her mascara had run dark rivulets down her cheeks… I’d believed her.
Maybe because she reminded me of someone else. Someone who I hadn’t hesitated to kill when push came to shove. Someone I regretted pulling the trigger on, because I’d been wrong that time.
The truth of the matter, though, was that I couldn’t let her walk away. She was undercover for someone , which meant she needed to die, if only to send the message that I wouldn’t be messed with. But I couldn’t fucking do it. I couldn’t shoot her. And I couldn’t let her go, so…
“She’s coming with us,” I announced into the silence of the car. We were arriving back at our hotel, and I knew I would face more issues when I got upstairs.
Eli pulled into the parking garage, waving his keycard at the scanner for access, then gave me a hard look. “Why?”
Anger flashed hot through me. “Because I fucking said so.”
Eli was smart enough not to question me when I gave a direct order, so he just nodded silently and went to the trunk. I glanced over at Danny, at the dark blood staining her pale skin and white hair. Even knowing she was a snake in the grass… I still wanted to fuck her. I’d never been so easily led by my dick in my life, and I didn’t appreciate her uncovering this new weakness.
With a frustrated sigh, I got out of the car and waited while Eli opened the back door.
Danny stirred slightly as Eli hefted her deadweight from the back seat, but he calmly shifted his grip and clapped a chloroform-soaked rag over her mouth and nose. Her tensed muscles turned to liquid almost instantly, and Eli tossed her over his shoulder.
I waited for him to walk ahead of me, fighting the urge to carry her myself. Her hair had escaped its elastic at some point in the abandoned house… maybe while I fucked her mouth or when I chased her through the darkness… but now it hung down in a silken sheet that nearly brushed the ground as Eli walked. For some fucking reason, I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“How long do you want her out?” Eli asked as we rode the elevator. It stopped a couple of times, but the guests waiting took one look at us and decided to wait for the next car.
The answer should have been forever . It would have been simple enough to ask Eli to deal with her. As she was now, she would be no trouble at all. He could strangle the life out of her and dispose of the body in a crematorium before our flight departed.
“The whole flight,” I replied instead. “We can’t risk her knowing where we’re going.”
Eli nodded.
A few moments later, he gave me a small frown of concern. “If she comes to the fortress—”
“I know,” I snapped. “She’s never leaving. Not alive, anyway.”
Because that was how highly we valued our privacy and our secrecy. If anyone knew where to find me or my crew on our downtime, we’d already be dead. Someone would have dropped a bomb on our private island already. If I insisted on taking Danny there… I’d have to kill her eventually.
“So be it,” I muttered aloud, determined.
The elevator opened on our floor, and I stalked along the corridor ahead of Eli in an attempt to shift my focus away from the lifeless siren draped over his shoulder. She still wore the mini-skirt and leather bra, the absurdly tall stiletto boots still on her feet. But her panties were gone, and when I glanced back at Eli, it was all I could focus on.
He misread my look and handed me the keycard to unlock our suite door. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to turn away again.
I drew a deep breath, then pulled on my business face as I shoved the door open. My whole crew was there, and I barked commands at them like we were back in the Royal Marines. They jumped to obey on instinct, too. Only Moana remained after I was done with my orders, standing there with a furious set to her jaw and her arms folded.