Nightshade

  Rage flashed across his face. He looked like he would have killed whoever was in front of him—no matter the person—but stopped himself just before Beck snapped, “Jess.”

  When I pushed against his wrists, he slowly withdrew the knives, but only just enough for me to move out from between him and the wall.

  I glanced at the knife that had been pressed to my throat and ran my finger along it. Sucking in a breath through my teeth, I made a face. “Yikes, you might want to sharpen these.”

  He looked stunned for all of two seconds before his eyes narrowed again.

  “Hey, just trying to help out the amateur.”

  “Jesus fuck, Jess,” Beck said as he rubbed his hands over his face.

  I danced away from the men, and in a singsong voice called out, “Good night, boys.” Then I tipped my head and dropped my voice so it wouldn’t carry to them. “Pleasure officially meeting you, Nightshade.”

  It wasn’t until I was on the next street that I allowed myself to release the breaths I’d been holding in. The relief was so great when the air rushed from my lungs that it sounded like a pained moan.

  I pulled in quick, ragged breaths as I forced myself to calm and finally skimmed through the wallet I had picked as I’d danced away from that dangerously beautiful man.

  I didn’t glance at the name or address on the ID, and I didn’t reach for the credit cards or cash. I didn’t want his money, and I’d known who he was and where he lived since I first started trying to figure out Beck’s game.

  A defeated huff burst from my chest when I didn’t find what I was looking for. Curling my fingers tightly around the wallet, I started home, unable to keep the memory of Kieran’s stunned face from my mind or the grin from my lips.

  Beck’s hands were fisted in his hair as he paced in a tight circle, murmuring to himself as the girl disappeared into the night.

  “Who was that?” I demanded once she was out of earshot.

  He looked up at me, his stare expectant. “Jessica.”

  “Heard you the first time. Who is she and why’s she trying to give product back?”

  “What do you mean ‘who is she,’ man?” His hands slid from his head to fall limply at his sides and a lame huff punched from his chest.

  I lifted a brow.

  Beck flung out an arm, gesturing off toward the direction she’d left. “She’s the girl I waited for. She’s the girl I’ve attempted to hide from the shit life we run, just how you tried to hide Lil.”

  My teeth gnashed and hands twitched toward one of my blades at her name, but I calmed myself with a stuttered breath.

  “But as you probably heard, she made it clear a long fucking time ago she wanted nothing to do with me. And now the last thing I want is anything to do with her.”

  “And the product?”

  Another huff. “Jess thinks I’m the reason her mom is going to kill herself one day.” He drummed his fingers anxiously on his jeans then murmured to himself, “She’d already be dead if it weren’t for me.”

  “Mixing your lives isn’t something you want to do, Beck. What happens when her mom steals from you? When Jessica steals from you?”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he asked. “We want nothing to do with each other. You’d know this if you’d paid attention to anything in the last few years.” A rough laugh burst from his chest. “Shit, you probably would’ve caught her and tried to kill her long before tonight if you didn’t have such a one-track mind.”

  My lip curled, but his words stopped me before a retort could leave my tongue. “Catch her where?”

  Beck’s eyes hardened in a way I’d learned well throughout our lives. It was the look he wore when he knew something he didn’t want to tell me, but couldn’t keep from me.

  He’d slanted that glare at me a lot when it had come to Lily.

  But he was too loyal to me to keep her secrets.

  His loyalty was probably another thing that had pushed her from us.

  With a weighted breath, he said, “You can sneak up on any person in the world without them ever knowing you’re there, Kieran. But you couldn’t sneak up on Jess. I didn’t tell her you were coming. I was just trying to get her to leave.”

  My fingers moved restlessly as I fought the urge to grab a knife—to be comforted by its familiar weight.

  Because Beck was wrong.

  There was one other person I hadn’t been able to sneak up on. Not for years.

  Lily had learned to feel the way the energy in the room shifted when I was in it.

  “Shit,” Beck continued. “I’d bet my life that Jess could hear you before you ever slid up on her, just like I’d bet my life that she’d be the one person to get the slip on you. Because she’s been doing it for years.”

  My brows rose.

  “She’s been slipping in and out of Holloway for about a decade. Sometimes I see her, sometimes I don’t. The only times I do are if she wants me to. No one sees her unless she wants them to. She’s even made it into meetings.”

  Shock and doubt pulsed through me, stunning me for a few seconds as I tried to make what Beck was saying true in my mind. “Not possible.”

  Beck barked out a frustrated laugh and gave a quick jerk of a nod. “Should be impossible. But there have been more than a few times that I’d go back to my room directly following a meeting, and she’d be waiting in there to talk to me about what she heard in the meeting.” He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “She’d be seen if she listened at the doors or windows. The best I’ve come up with is the vents.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now? She could’ve recorded and leaked meetings. She could’ve stolen . . .” I turned my head to look in the direction she’d gone and hissed a curse.

  “That’s not her way. Jessica doesn’t steal or take things to law enforcement. She uses knowledge against you.”

  I finally reached for one of the smaller blades on my belt, quickly flipping it in the air again and again as I tried to figure out how to tell Beck what I knew.

  “For Mickey?”

  Beck’s eyes widened with horror. “Mickey? Hell no. She pulled a knife on me when she found out about the trafficking ring because I was still working for him.”

  I tilted my head in a nod. With a hard breath through my nose, I caught the knife and gripped it in my hand. “Mickey’s back, Beck. And it’s not good.” I rubbed my fisted hand over my jaw, forcing myself to just say it.

  To not feel.

  But this was Beck.

  And this was Conor.

  “I think Mickey knows it was us . . . or, at least, me.”

  “Jesus fuck.”

  “He’s sure someone in Holloway betrayed him and is positive it wasn’t Bailey and Finn. Said there’s no way the Borellos could’ve known all they did without help from our end. That’s why he stayed away these last weeks since he got out. He said he had everyone watched during that time.”

  Beck visibly stilled. “Tell me it was you watching us,” he pleaded.

  My expression was answer enough, because Beck hissed a curse and dragged his hands through his hair again.

  “Tommy?” I murmured, waiting until I had his attention to continue. “He didn’t skip out. He never had the chance. Mickey had him killed because he thought Tommy was going to.”

  “The fuck? Tommy worshipped him more than any of the others.”

  “He’s losing it,” I said in agreement. “He’s unpredictable right now. I’m worried about his next move if this is what he’s already done.”

  “You said you think he knows,” Beck said, the unspoken question lingering in the air.

  I forced myself to hold his stare. “He has to know. He’s only back now because he’s untouchable.”

  “Fuck no, he’s not,” Beck bit out. “Slit his goddamn throat and let’s finish this, or I’ll see you in hell . . . yeah?” When I didn’t respond, unease crept over Beck’s face. “Are we not seeing each other in hell?”

  “Beck . . . he’s got
a safeguard. If he dies, there’re orders for someone to be taken out immediately. And I’m not the silencer, so I can’t stop it.”

  Beck’s gaze darted over my stance, lingering on my shaking fists for a few seconds before moving back to my face. “Who?”

  I clenched my jaw for a few seconds then breathed out, “Conor.”

  My lips froze with a teasing grin in place when a familiar black SUV drove slowly down my street the next evening.

  Don’t stop.

  Don’t stop.

  I wasn’t sure I took a breath or blinked during the time it took for the SUV to disappear around the corner a couple blocks down.

  But just when my heart started to beat normally and my body loosened up again, the vehicle had returned and was crawling down the street toward me.

  No.

  My chest tightened like someone was trying to steal my air as I stared at the offending car now waiting ten feet away.

  As though if I stared long enough, it would disappear.

  As though if I wished hard enough . . . this might all go away.

  Weak. So, so weak.

  Head up.

  Shoulders back.

  Lips twisted.

  Eyes laughing.

  I forced myself from my place, walking slowly but purposefully toward the door that both beckoned and warned.

  I didn’t wait to be invited in—I never did with him. Once the locks gave, I grabbed the handle and opened the rear passenger door to get in, and prayed my shaking was unnoticeable.

  “Miss me?” I asked the driver in a teasing voice.

  He didn’t respond.

  He never had.

  The man simply held a phone behind him to where I sat in the backseat, waiting for me to take it from his large, tattooed hands.

  “What?” I asked into the phone. “Still can’t be seen with little ol’ me?”

  “I think I am.”

  Four simple words, and it suddenly felt hard to breathe again.

  Chills skated down my spine, but I refused to look around to see where he might be.

  I lifted a brow. “Then why am I talking into a phone and staring at your ton-of-fun errand boy?”

  “Missing you,” he clarified. “I think I’m missing you.”

  My stomach rolled when he laughed. The sound low and mocking and full of every evil thing this world possessed.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” I said, my words full of tease. “After all . . . you always send your errand boy instead of coming yourself.”

  His laughter abruptly stopped. “Don’t push me, Jessica.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t if you would stop stalking me.” My tone was light and flirtatious, but my eyes were narrowed into slits on the driver. “It’s hard to miss this car driving up and down my street every night. I know you’re having me followed everywhere I go. Last I checked, stalking was illegal.”

  “Last I checked, you belong to me,” he said on a growl.

  My grip on the phone tightened. “I belong to no man.”

  “This is your last warning.”

  “Again with the warning?” I asked with a dull sigh. “I think the last twelve were my last warnings. Or was it twenty?” I leaned in toward the driver and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Was it twenty?”

  “Jessica.”

  My chest hitched from the venom in his voice. My breaths became shallow.

  He waited, probably enjoying the fear he could feel through the phone. And I hated him even more for it.

  “Don’t let me catch you on the streets again.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat and forced a smile on my lips. “Funny,” I said with a soft laugh. “You aren’t the one who ever catches me.”

  I hung up before he could say another word and dropped the phone on the center console. Unable to muster a taunt for the driver, I slid out of the car and kept walking until I was off my street and headed home.

  As soon as I finished putting my mom in bed that night, I scanned her room for any needles she may have stashed then slowly slipped my knife out from its spot on my hip as I stepped out of her room, shutting the door behind me.

  My eyes darted to the living room curtains, faintly moving from the night breeze. Forcing my gaze elsewhere, I opened the knife soundlessly as I walked to my room and flipped on the light as if it were a normal night.

  But it wasn’t.

  I’d known it wasn’t from the second I’d stepped into the trailer.

  My mom had been lying on the couch, passed out with an empty bag near her. A spoon and needle on the floor next to her. The band still loosely around her arm.

  That hadn’t alarmed me. I’d walked in on my mom in that exact state since before I could remember.

  It was the moving curtains.

  Momma would’ve lost her mind if she’d known the window was open, which is why it always stayed firmly shut unless I was airing out the trailer. And since her other addict friends would’ve just gone through the door, I had a hunch on who it might be . . . considering our run-in the night before and what he would know was missing.

  I’d only taken three steps into my room before I felt him. My body tensed with awareness but my stomach curled in anticipation.

  And I hated him for that.

  Hated the feeling.

  I sighed and let my knife slip down so the handle was in the tips of my fingers.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Nightshade.”

  As soon as I heard him shift, I whirled around, throwing the knife in that direction blindly.

  My eyes landed on his a second before my knife embedded itself in the wall a few inches from his head. He never flinched.

  His arms were folded over his chest, a blade peeking out beneath one.

  I lifted a brow. “Getting slow, Nightshade.”

  “Kieran.”

  I shrugged. “Nightshade.” I walked to him and forced my outward appearance to remain normal though everything inside had just shifted into madness.

  I hated him for that too.

  Keeping my eyes locked on his, I grabbed the handle of my knife and yanked it out of the wall. “You didn’t even flinch.”

  “Your aim is off.”

  “Considering I didn’t aim, I would say that was a damn good throw.” I grinned widely and ran the tip of the blade over one of his arms before folding it and tossing it on my bed. “So, are you going to tell me why I have the pleasure of finding you in my bedroom, or am I going to have to guess?”

  “You know why I’m here.” Those cold eyes narrowed on the curl of my lip before darting up to meet mine, a question hidden behind the ever-present hatred. “No laughing tonight?”

  “Depends on whether I start finding you amusing. Right now, I only want to hate you.” I felt myself swaying toward him. Felt myself wanting to know what his chest and arms felt like beneath my fingertips.

  And I had no idea why.

  I shouldn’t feel that way. He was the enemy. A man who was disgusted by me. One I needed to hate. Yet, it was there. A slow burning in my veins that made me feel unbalanced and unhinged and weak. So weak. Because for the first time in my life, I wanted a man’s touch. A man’s lips against my own.

  And that man was an assassin.

  I took a step closer.

  Idiot.

  “If you planned on hurting my mom, you missed your chance. So you can leave now, because I won’t let you near her.”

  A grin touched his face. It was challenging and taunting, menacing and threatening. And it made me tremble in a way that nearly brought me to my knees.

  My fingers ached to reach out and touch those full, perfectly slanted lips.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  “If I wanted to kill your mom, she’d be dead.”

  He pushed away from the wall as his arms unfolded, and I watched while he put the knife in his boot in a movement as fluid as breathing.

  “You know why I’m here,” he repeated in a low, demanding tone.

/>   “Do I?” I tried to make my tone challenging, but it came out as nothing more than a breath.

  The truth was, he could be here for a dozen reasons. And I had no intention of showing him my cards by assuming which one of those reasons had forced him to track me down after all these years.

  He only lifted a blond brow in response.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here so I can help you leave that much faster?” I edged closer, silently cursing myself for the way my breath hitched when my body brushed against his. “As much as I’d love to make some money tonight, I somehow doubt an assassin is here to help fill my wallet.”

  Kieran’s eyes narrowed, and he flinched at my words, the movement so slight it would’ve been unnoticeable if I hadn’t been pressed against him.

  “Tell me how you know what I am.”

  “Probably the same way you knew where I lived.” I lifted a shoulder. “Followed. Watched. Listened.”

  “Asked Beck,” he ground out.

  “Not a chance in . . .” My face fell when I realized Kieran was answering me rather than assuming what my next response would be. “That bastard.”

  The betrayal cut through me fast, leaving a stinging sensation I couldn’t understand. All he’d ever done was betray me. I shouldn’t have been surprised he’d lead an assassin right to us.

  “Find your way back out the window,” I sneered as I turned, storming across my tiny room and stripping out of my shirt.

  I threw it into the hamper harder than necessary, and I knew even as the material left my fingers that I looked like a child throwing a tantrum. But I couldn’t find it in me to care. My frustration and hatred for the men who tried to control my life made me angry.

  I stepped out of my heels and toed them toward the closet then shimmied out of my jeans and balled them up to throw them with the same force. Yanking open a drawer, I grabbed the oversized shirt sitting on top of the pile of clothes and started shrugging into it but paused when I felt the threatening presence behind me.