Introduction
Deliver a gift. A seemingly simple mission until Mathias runs into some complications. Namely a clumsy lady with an obsession for sweaters. A woman who knows how to heat his blood without even trying.
Snowmen aren’t the only ones with frozen hearts. Mathias, a career assassin, isn’t a man to give in to emotion. Feelings are messy, and a smart guy would run away. But that won’t get the job done. He needs to get closer.
Needs…her?
Blake knows she shouldn’t get involved with a client, but she’s lonely, it’s Christmas, and when he smiles a certain way, she throws caution to the wind.
After all, it’s only a holiday fling—until the guns come out.
Have you read the others in the Bad Boy Inc. series?
Chapter One
Winters the Iceman was a grumpy fucking soul, with a well-honed knife, a hidden gun, and an attitude darker than coal.
Lying flat on the rooftop, Mathias Winters lined up his sight on his target, Enrico Mazari. Mob boss. All-around asshole. Sitting down in a nice restaurant for dinner with his family. How nice for him. What about all the families he’d destroyed?
Not that Mathias really cared about the nameless and faceless strangers destroyed by this piece of shit.
He got a cool million on accepting the job. He’d get another once he iced the prick. This very public killing was to be a message. A bold warning to others who thought they could get away with worse than murder.
The dining establishment had great big windows and a prominent downtown location, which meant it was busy, especially this time of year. The end-of-year holidays always filled restaurants with people. Hopefully nobody moved when he fired, or that would be unfortunate.
Enrico Mazari stood, wine glass in hand, ready to make a toast. His wife sat to his left. His children beamed at their daddy.
They’d be traumatized for life. This would teach them that a life of crime didn’t pay. Unless you were an assassin for hire. Then it was really lucrative.
At times like these, when Mathias made the world a better place, he even felt good about what he was doing. Not enough to melt his frozen heart though. He inhaled.
Exhaled as he pulled the trigger.
The bullet sheared through the glass and hit Enrico between the eyes. The man wavered on his feet, but Mathias didn’t wait to see him fall. Not much point. Even a zombie wouldn’t rise from that shot.
Job done, he packed up his stuff: gun, tripod, and his concealing hood. Everything went into his shopping bag with a fluffy bear on top before he left the rooftop.
As Mathias skipped down the steps, he removed his dark coat and flipped it inside out to show a light gray. He slipped on a pair of glasses and placed a navy blue tuque on his head. By the time he reached the main floor, he looked like any other harried husband, doing some last-minute shopping. Just in case, the fake driver’s license in his wallet bore the name Larry Arbuckle.
Boy was that perception far from the truth.
He joined the people in the multi-story mall, most of them spilling out onto the sidewalk and road, drawn by the sirens. Emergency vehicles arrived, their flashing lights almost as garish as the lights strung along the street.
Fucking Christmas. A commercially driven joke, which was why he didn’t mind taking a job this time of year.
Assassins didn’t take holidays.
Ignoring the commotion on the street, Mathias walked two blocks to his rental, which had been paid for in cash and using his fake ID. The gloves he wore wouldn’t leave prints. His hair had been lightly sprayed so as to not shed.
A few miles away, he stopped on a dark street and packaged his gun before dropping it into a slot for prepaid package delivery. The cash transaction would leave no trail, and the present would make life a little more annoying to the prick who’d scratched Mathias’s car in a parking lot back home.
Mathias abandoned his rental at the airport, boarded his flight, and, by midnight, was asleep in his own bed. He slept soundly and without dreams because only shitty assassins had regrets.
The next morning over coffee and a perfectly cooked egg with a side of ham and avocado, he accepted his next job. By that afternoon, he was on a flight to Colorado. He had a car service drive him from the airport to a snow-covered ski town where the amount of goodwill and cheer made him itch to shoot something.
The carolers that disturbed his dinner were what shoved him over the edge. Later that night, when everyone in the hotel was asleep, he crept outside to relieve some holiday pressure. The stupid inflatable Santa with its jolly smile died, but he left the snowman next door—with his corncob pipe and his button nose—alone.
Chapter Two
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! – said NO ONE, ever!
The gust of wind caught Blake as she walked out the main door of the office building, darting up her skirt, giving her a chill despite the thick tights she wore. This time of year she didn’t shave. Winter was a time to let that hair grow long enough to braid. It wasn’t as if anyone but her cat would see her pasty legs. Which said a lot about her dating life. Lack of it, that was. In her defense, she’d not been living here long.
Her scarf, only loosely placed around her neck, lifted. As she grabbed it, her foot slipped, and then her other boot lost traction. Before she knew it, she was in danger of doing the splits. It might have gotten ugly, and truly painful, if she’d not been saved by a passing stranger.
“Whoa, there, little lady,” the man drawled as he caught her under the arms and hauled her to her feet.
A peek showed a rugged countenance to match. Holy handsome.
Way out of her league, and of course, he’d caught her at her best. “Thanks for saving me.”
“You wouldn’t want to bust that pretty face.”
Pretty? Probably something he said to all the ladies. That didn’t stop her from smiling at him. “Too late for that. As you’ve noted, I’m clumsy.” Athletics wasn’t her strong suit. Actually, even walking could be a challenge at times when her feet chose to tangle.
“Let’s blame gravity.” He winked as he steadied her then moved a step back, giving her some space. He was distinguished with his gray peacoat covering a lean body. His dark hair remained in place, combed with neat precision, defying the nipping breeze.
“Also known as my greatest enemy.” Tied with her mouth, which kept opening and saying the dumbest things.
“And here I’d have called it a friend, given it allowed me to help a lovely lady in a storm.”
“You must be a visitor if you think this is a storm,” she joked. Poorly, yet he still chuckled.
“You caught me. I’m more of southern states kind of guy.”
She nodded. “You must have come for the skiing. I hear we have some of the best around.” Not that she knew personally. Again, the whole uncoordinated thing.
“I doubt I’ll hit the slopes. I am only here for a few days on business.” Again, he flashed those pearly whites. Was he flirting with her?
She probably imagined it. “Hope you enjoy the city.”
She went to take her leave, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. “Will you allow me to walk you to your vehicle?”