I stand to get up. I don’t need a hitman anyway. I can kill the man myself. And I can find a way to ensure that no one ties me to the crime.
Langston catches my wrist, though, before I’m even fully out of my chair. I’d forgotten how quick his reflexes are.
“When?” he asks, not letting me have any control. Just one of the many reasons why we will never work.
I inhale a deep breath, taking my time. I may not be able to deny him, but I can prolong my answer. It’s a mistake, though, because all I smell is his husky scent. It fills my nostrils, and it’s going to linger there all day. Every time I take a breath in, I’ll breathe in him—a burning reminder of a man I wish I could get rid of forever.
“Saturday night.” I don’t give him any more specific details. I don’t have to tell him what time or where. I know he’ll find me. He always finds me.
He nods.
I think he’s finally going to release me, but his hand is still wrapped around my wrist.
“We still need to discuss payment,” he says.
“$100K. I told you how much in the ad.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want your money.”
“That’s the only way I’ll pay you.”
His jaw tightens, and I chance a glance at his eyes. He doesn’t have to tell me with words how I will pay him back. I know. I know what he wants from me. The same thing most men want from me.
But it’s the one thing I’ll never give him.
4
Langston
Liesel ran from the only family she’s ever known. She did it years ago to start a new life. To get a fresh start. To stay away from what she deemed evil and brought up too many painful memories for her.
I understood at the time why she ran.
I know why she’s disappointed in me.
I know why she’s been gone all this time.
She’s been running from her past. But it seems her past has caught up with her.
For a while, she lived in the middle of nowhere. She was hidden. Safe.
But that isn’t the life for Liesel. She likes to be near people; she likes to matter. So she moved back to the city and started up her life again as a lawyer. She bought a high-rise condo. She became the powerful woman she once was. She thought she could hide in plain sight, but there is no hiding from our world.
I know—I’ve tried. Once you are in this world, you are in. There is no quitting. You can try to outrun it, but eventually, the darkness from your history catches up to you.
Liesel wants to hunt and kill a man.
She’s always been a hunter, but never a killer. That was always where she drew the line. It’s just another reason she hates me.
I don’t only kill for self-protection; I kill because I enjoy it.
She left the coffee shop without telling me who or why. But I have time.
Saturday, she said. Today is Tuesday. I have four days until I see her again. Four days to figure out the truth she’s hiding. The lies she spoke.
We never tell each other the truth. We can’t.
It started as games when we were children. But then I stole half of a secret that I had no right to. She has half of the truth; I have the other half. Both of us will lie forever to keep our secrets.
My heart pounds in the cage that is my ribs as I think about seeing her again in person instead of watching her from the shadows or on a shitty security camera.
She’s the same—exquisite beauty, full of all the confidence in the world. But that’s her outward appearance. On the inside, she’s a broken bird hiding beneath giant wings. She hasn’t ever dealt with her past so she can never really live her future. She’s living a half-life, one where she doesn’t fully exist.
You could say the same thing about me.
For now, though, I have a new obsession. One I will enjoy immensely. I get to watch, study, and learn everything I can about Liesel.
She knows that’s what I’m doing. It’s why she didn’t tell me all the details about where or even exactly when to meet her. She knows I can figure it out. And I haven’t had such a thrill surge through me in months.
The next four days, I become mesmerized by her. I have an excuse to watch her more closely than I ever have before. She may think she was out of my life, but I’ve been keeping tabs on her. It’s the most patient I’ve ever been, waiting for the moment she returned to my life. This wasn’t the way I expected her to return, but I welcome it all the same.
I tapped into the security feed in her condo and spent most of my nights watching her. Unfortunately, there are only cameras in the main living portion, so the most I get to see of her is when she walks through the living room and then out the door in the morning. She doesn’t even make a cup of coffee in her kitchen when she wakes up. She sticks to her bedroom. I don’t know if it’s her usual routine or if she knows I’m watching and is purposefully making it harder for me to see her.
But once outside her condo, she can’t hide.
I follow her in her cab.
I watch her strut like a true New York woman in her high heels and tight dresses as she enters her office building every day with her name scrawled across the nameplate leading to the top floor of a sky-rise. She’s the queen of her own domain.
The security in her office building has cameras everywhere. Watching her give orders in the boardroom to her team, give advice in a controlling yet flirtatious way to her clients, and then answer calls like a boss has me growing hard. Especially when she crosses her legs when she’s alone in her office and lets her dress inch higher up her thigh until it’s no longer professional. She holds a pen to her lips and sucks on the end, her long lashes fluttering up to the corner of her office every once in a while where the security camera sits.
My little huntress, drawing me in as she acts like a seductive minx, putting on a show just for me. And what a show it is. I could spend the rest of my life watching her.
But then I remember the truth. I remember who she is. What she’s done.
You think you want to kill, my huntress? You have no idea how. You have no idea what killing will do to you. And what need do you have to kill when you can seduce and draw a man in with one flick of your tongue across your bottom lip, one bat of your eyelashes, one raspy word from your voice? Men spend their entire lives looking for a woman like you.
I’ve had you this entire time.
Men are stupid; they don’t realize the thing they are drawn to is all a lie.
Liesel gets up from her desk and grabs her purse.
I frown as I look at the time. Four-thirty, way too early for her to be done with work for the day. Liesel is a workaholic. She usually isn’t done for the day until seven or eight. And then even after work is over, she usually meets a client for dinner. And I suspect she still goes over files in her bedroom at night. She’s never done working.
Where are you going, huntress?
It’s Friday, my last day to figure out where to meet her and who she wants to kill. I haven’t spent much time on the man she wants to hunt and kill. I’ve been much too focused on watching her.
Anyway, I could find the man in twenty minutes or less after I put some effort in, which I will tonight. For now, I need to know where she is going. I need to know everything about her.
Her cab stops in front of another shiny, high-rise building. My guess is that she’s meeting another client at their office instead of her own.