Page 3 of Skin Deep

The bar’s front door swung open, and I stiffened at the sight of my younger brother walking out of the place, practically falling all over our mark. Every protective instinct in me flared to life, and it took all the effort I had not to immediately throw open my door and go waste that motherfucker then and there.

Alvin, our mark, was a short, middle-aged man with glasses a size too big for his face and a mustache he apparently thought made up for the fact that he was balding. He looked disturbingly like every middle schooler’s creepy gym teacher—the one that lingered a little too long in the locker room to watch you change. Fuck, he even looked like a slimeball.

Xander played his part well, wearing a big smile, his lip gloss shimmering in the neon lights, the glitter sparkling on his bare midriff. There was a part of me that envied how confidently he wore crop tops and short shorts, just not in this situation. Watching him walk out with Alvin, all I wanted to do was go scoop up my brother, wrap him in ten layers of bubble wrap, and pry Alvin’s eyes out of his fucking skull.

“Easy, killer,” Xander said. “Let him come to us.”

“I know the fucking plan,” I growled.Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Xander stumbled like he was drunk, but he wasn’t. At least, I hoped he wasn’t. He usually wasn’t stupid enough to drink anything on the job, even if he was good at making it look like he had.

They made it about five yards before there was movement from that truck behind us. My eyes swung to the mirror as I watched a man climb out of the driver’s side. He washuge, easily six and a half feet tall and a wall of pure muscle with flawless dark skin. The man fished around in the bed of his truck before coming up with a baseball bat.

“Shit, we might have trouble,” I mumbled, pointing him out to Xavier.

“Fuck,” he replied and threw open his door.

We scrambled to get our equipment ready. Xavier yanked open the center console, drawing out the portable blowtorch he’d made, and I flung open my work briefcase, grabbing one of the ready-made syringes of remimazolam, a super-fast acting muscle relaxant. Normally, it was used to relax nervous patients before outpatient procedures, but in larger doses, it could knock a man flat in under a minute if administered correctly.

This would blow our cover for sure, but we didn’t have a choice, not if we wanted to maintain control over the situation. Alvin was exactly the type to have made plenty of enemies to compete with us, and we had to get to him first.

As soon as Xander saw us coming his smile morphed into an irritated scowl. He flung himself at Alvin, making it look like another drunken stumble, but it was enough to throw Alvin off. He tripped and went down to the pavement, laughing like an idiot. We were seconds from reaching him to extract our target.

But that was a few seconds too many. The guy from the truck got there first. He grabbed Xander by the collar and flung him away from Alvin.

I cursed and broke into a run, reaching him just in time to grab the bat before he could bring it down on Alvin’s head.

Xander brought his designer boot down on Alvin’s head. “Prick!” He spat on him before kicking him once again for good measure.

The man spun around, yanking the bat out of my hand, but before he could swing at me, I jammed the syringe into his shoulder and pushed down the plunger. His eyes went wide, and his hand swung up to slap the hole in his arm when I pulled the syringe out. The look in his eyes morphed back and forth between rage and terror as he stood there.

For a second, I was worried I’d miscalculated the dosage. The guy was big, over six and a half feet tall and muscular, and built like a fucking tank. I didn’t have a second dose, so if he didn’t go down, we were fucked.

I took a half a step back, reaching for the knife hidden in my sleeve.

Then the guy’s eyes rolled back and he fell.

“Shit!” I jumped forward to catch his slumped body, or I tried to. He was big enough that I could barely hold him up. I grunted, shifting my hold on his obnoxiously thick arms. “A little help here?”

Xander snorted and folded his arms, eying Xavier. “Don’t look at me. I played bait.”

“Dick,” Xavier grumbled and came to help me drag the big guy out of the line of sight. Xander leaned forward, clutching his knees while he tried to catch his breath. “Who the fuck is he?”

“I don’t know,” I panted.

“Shit.” Xander looked at me. “Are we supposed to kill him?”

I winced. I’d never had a job go this wrong before. People had walked in on me while I was working, and I’d taken care of them, but they were always people that deserved it—bodyguards, henchmen, enabling spouses. I knew nothing about the man passed out at our feet, which meant it was technically against the rules to kill him. We didn’t kill people without thoroughly vetting them through Annie, Yuri, Tatty, and Nikita first.

What the fuck was the procedure for this? Why didn’t I know it?

I closed my eyes, trying to calm the rising panic in my chest. My brothers were relying on me to keep control over the situation. If it even started to look like I was losing it, they might spiral. I had to keep it together, for them.

I blew out a slow breath. “Xander, get Alvin in the van. We stick to the plan.”

“What about him?” Xavier asked, gesturing with his blowtorch to the big Black man. “We can’t leave him here. He’s seen our faces.”

I held out my hand. “Give me your zip ties.”

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