Page 2 of Cruel Master

I wanted it, alright. I wanted it so fucking bad that I was sleepless with the desire. More than sex. More than pain. I wanted power—control. All of it I’d never had before.

The man moved away from the car as the backdoor was closed.

One. He glided away from his man and towards the steps leading to the mansion's entrance.

Two. He didn’t look around, likely secure in his knowledge that he’d made it. That he was safe.

Three. He was wrong.

I pulled the trigger, and the rifle jerked, a pop going off next to my ear—much quieter than it would’ve been without the silencer, sounding more like athudthan thepowit should have been.

Several yards in the distance, the man’s head jerked down and for a moment, his body suspended in the air. It was as if he was still alive for the briefest of seconds and he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. Then, ultimately, the target’s body crumpled to the ground. His knees hit first then his chest, and finally, the crack of his skull as it bounced off the step.

I did it,I realized. I pulled the trigger. I killed my first target.

Heat spread through my limbs and my hand slapped over my mouth as a bubble of laughter echoed out. Holy fucking shit. I actually did it.

I roll away from the Remington 700, and this time, I don’t close my eyes.

That man had been alive when he’d arrived, and now he was dead. Not even inches from his supposed safe house. I’d done that. I’d taken his life from him and, in essence, mine was about to be renewed.

Pulling away from my face, I hold my hands out in front of me and stare at them. These hands took a life. They held someone else in their grip and decided that man’s fate. A rush of euphoria swept through me. I’d never felt this kind of power before.

Finally, I was the one in control.

I closed my eyes and laughed, muffling the sound as I turned my face into the snow. The iciness of it faded in light of my new circumstances. Never again would I fear the world. Never again would I want or crave what someone else had.

If I wanted it—I could take it. All the power was right there … and a bullet and a gun were my weapon and payment.

1

ANGEL

Sydney, Australia

21 years later…

Ieyed the chocolate martini that a big-chested blonde held against her boobs as she fake-giggled at something the balding man at her side said. I loved chocolate, but instead, I held in my own hand a Negroni Sbagliato topped with a bit of Prosecco. It was a pretty reddish color, and bubbles danced within the clear glass, spreading around the orange peel that had been expertly added as a garnish.

Why was I drinking this and not the chocolate martini? Easy, because I saw some stupid video on the internet and it made it sound so cool and mature. That was the air I was going for, too. Cool and mature. Nothing like the fresh twenty-one-year-old I actually was. My ID said I was twenty-five. Not that I really needed it here. In the last few years, I’d learned that practically every other country on Earth could give a shit less about the drinking age so long as you weren’t completely smashed and causing a scene.

Still, it felt like I’d really come full circle now, three years after my wedding, sitting in some random fancy bar with my first ‘legal’ drink. Sure, it’d been legal in all the other countries, but sometimes, I still liked to pretend I was back in America. It was home, after all, and even if it wasn’t my father’s homeland—it was my mother’s. Australia didn’t have the same drinking laws as the United States, but still—at least to me—today was supposed to be special.

My stomach rumbled with hunger, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to eat today. Not when I was very much expecting to get drunk off my ass and wobble my way back to the apartment I had rented in the heart of Sydney, so close to Barangaroo that I woke up with a view of the bay every morning. It was an impossibly expensive apartment, but I had to keep up appearances. My clients wouldn’t trust someone who lived in the gutter. I was supposed to make them disappear, after all, in style.

Criminals—even criminals on the run—could rarely ever let go of the millions they’d gained. Not that all of my clients were criminals, but many of them were. Some, however, were just unfortunate enough to need my help.

A sigh escaped me as I noticed a trio of young women, one with a sash across her chest downing shots in the corner near the band playing the cover of some famous Australian singer that I’d heard on the radio here. Though the sash read Bride-To-Be, the glimmer of glitter and jewels that decorated it made me think of other things—specifically what I was supposed to be celebrating. My fingers grazed my neck where the choker Gaven had given me—or rather his collar of ownership—had once rested. I felt strangely naked there now.

It had been the first thing to go when I’d run away. Not necessarily because I’d hated it, but because selling off the diamonds inside had been a necessity. It had funded my new start and given me an actual chance. I’d known I had to be smarter the second time I’d escaped. Gaven had proven himself to be resourceful and domineering. My nail scraped the skin of my throat. Still … it hadn’t been easy to let go of.

As I stared at the bride and her posse celebrating her bachelorette party—or hen party as they called it here in Australia—I felt a twinge of remorse and envy. I withdrew my hand from my neck and sipped my drink while watching their little group.

I’d always imagined commemorating my twenty-first birthday would happen with girlfriends. All of us dressed in much the same way I am now—slutty cocktail attire—as we laughed and giggled our way from club to club, drowning ourselves in the bliss of youth and shots of vodka or tequila. In some scenarios of what I imagined today would be, I would’ve been home, sitting in my father's study as we shared my very first legal drink together.

Grimacing at that last image in my head, I tipped the glass back and sucked down a mouthful of alcohol. It was sweeter than I anticipated, a little tart and sharp, but not bad at all. All around me in the darkened, shadowy lounge bar, conversations poured into my ears.

Three incredibly long years, I’d been away from home, and this was as close as I’d dared to get. A fifteen-hour flight to the nearest mainland of the United States. My computer skills had certainly come in handy that fateful night—my fucking wedding night.

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