Page 27 of Cruel Ice

The bastard should have suffered.He should have bled. He should have begged. He should have cried like a fucking baby.

And then died choking on his own blood.

But that hadn’t happened. Despite all of the careful planning, Declan Flynn had escaped. And why the hell had he escaped?

Some wannabe PI rescued his ass. She was in the wrong place, and she made the worst decision of her life.A mistake that she would soon come to regret.

As she bled. As she begged. As she cried like a fucking baby.

And then died choking on her own blood. She’d get the ending that had been meant for Declan. When she was dead, he’d dump her body—what was left of it—for Declan to find.

But before the PI could be taken out, there were other loose ends that had to be addressed. Snipped before those ends came back to jeopardize too much. Not like the plan hadn’t always been to eliminate the hired help. Not like witnesses should ever be left alive.

The door in front of him opened. Two burly men rushed inside. Too muscled. Too dumb. Too willing to do dirty work without asking questions if the money was right.

“You never said we’d be grabbing Declan Flynn! Not fucking him! Shit, man! Like I told you on the phone, you’d better be paying for us to escape to Mexico or else I’ll be telling Declan?—”

He fired the weapon in his hand. The bullet went straight through fool number one’s forehead. His buddy gaped. A gaping that lasted a bit too long before he swung back for that open door and tried to flee.

So the second bullet that was fired hit him in the back of his head. Went through the back and tore out the front. And the bleeding bastard slammed into the floor about two seconds later.

Two down. One more hired hand to go.

Then I’ll be coming after the PI, Declan.The woman who’d stayed beside Declan Flynn all night. The woman who the press claimed was his fiancée. A lie, of course. Declan wouldn’t allow anyone to get that close to him. He wouldn’t put a ring on anyone’s finger.

Declan Flynn couldn’t marry. Because he couldn’t love. He wasn’t capable of it. He was too much like his father.

He can’t love. But he can obsess. He can covet.

Just like I do.

He stared at the bodies. Kicked the slightly bigger guy with the hole in his forehead just because it looked like the fellowmightstill be breathing. He couldn’t take the chance that Hugo survived. The bouncer knew too much.

The kick to Hugo’s gut resulted in a grunt. Definitely still breathing.

This time, when he raised his gun, he aimed straight for the heart. A quick, fast burst came from his silenced weapon as the bullet fired.

Another kick. No more grunting. No more being alive.

Time to find the next person on his kill list. A bartender who couldn’t be trusted to keep his fool mouth shut.

Chapter Seven

“We’re being followed.”Marley peered through the limo’s rear window.

“Yes.”

She swiveled around to face him. “And you’re not worried?”

“Considering they are my men? Nope. Not at all worried.”

Marley slid closer to him. Closer in the new clothes that had magically appeared for her in his hotel suite. A black sweater that she was pretty sure had to be made of cashmere, black pants that felt like some kind of soft heaven against her skin, and the most awesome, kick-ass black boots she’d seen in her entire life.

And let’s not think about the underwear.Or, rather, the scraps that counted as underwear. Who had picked out those particular items?

She cleared her throat. “You didn’t mention that you had men following us.”

“I didn’t? Oh, well, I have men following us. The last time I ditched my protection crew, I wound up drugged and tied to a chair in a shitty basement, so I figured I’d let the guys do the job I was paying them for.”

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