Page 1 of Assassin's Heart
Chapter One
Remi —
Brown sugar and butter melted on my tongue, bringing a groan to my lips as I waited in the gloomy garage. Abby’s oatmeal molasses cookies. The vague memories of my mother baking when Levi, Eli, and I were children didn’t include the flavors of finished cookies, but if the memories were heaven, oatmeal molasses cookies would have to be in there somewhere.
I took another bite.
I’d popped the last bit into my mouth when I caught sight of her. Fulton County Memorial needed actual fucking lighting in here to keep their employees safe, but even in the dim light I knew it was Leah coming out of the elevator onto the third floor of the parking garage. My Leah. Everything inside me stood up and took notice, like a live wire buzzing through my veins. Lighting up every nook and cranny of my body. That’s what she did to me every. Damn. Time.
Shifting to ease the suddenly tight stretch of denim across my dick, I picked up another cookie. Leah walked toward an old Toyota Camry with a booster seat in the back. A reliable car for a woman who didn’t make much despite her long hours and compassion. Compassionate people rarely earned what they deserved; it was the bastards like me that got ahead in this world. I waited for her to pull toward the down ramp, just out of sight, then shoved the rest of the cookie in my mouth, cranked my nondescript SUV, and followed.
Atlanta traffic was a bitch any time of day, but trying to get out of town in the evening... She’d have no chance to lose me, even if she knew I was behind her. Gridlock had us inching our way south, and from the way she rode her brakes, I knew she was as impatient as I to escape. For far different reasons, but still. Her reason had blonde hair identical to hers, shades of yellow, caramel, and brown mingling together to provide a rich depth that made my fingers itch to touch it. Brown eyes just like hers too.
The child was six, I knew that. I knew her name and everything important about her, just like I did her mother. Not that either of them would ever know.
This far back, I couldn’t catch a glimpse of those brown eyes in the rearview mirror. I wished I could. Every time I fucking saw her, I ached to stare into those eyes. They’d mesmerized me from the first moment I looked into them, drugged and disoriented from the coma, but Leah’s dark eyes had stared down at me, grounded me, settled the fear in my gut.
There was nothing to settle the fear now, because that fear was reality—I’d never look into those eyes again. I would ache for her until I died, but I wouldn’t give in. Leah and her child deserved a lot more in this life than a man with blood on his hands.
My cell rang as we exited the freeway at Union City. Leah’s car headed west while I debated answering. I knew who was calling, and I knew he wouldn’t be happy with me. He never was lately. Not that I gave a rat’s ass, but I had no desire to waste time arguing.
I finally pressed the button on the console and answered. “Yeah?”
“Did the intel on our target pan out?”
Nohi, how are ya?or evenhow’s it hanging, bro?Levi was all business except on the rare occasions that his girlfriend, Abby, could trick him out of it. He’d raised me since I was ten, so I was used to it.
“It panned out,” I told him. Butch Clarkson was definitely an abusive asshole. I didn’t know who’d put a hit out on him, but he deserved everything he’d had coming his way. His wife was currently in a long-term care facility from a “fall down the stairs” that hadn’t been an accident after all.
“Fine. Eli will start tracking his movements so we can—”
“Don’t bother.”
The silence that followed my words was heavy. Tense. Angry. And didn’t faze me in the slightest.
“Why shouldn’t I bother, Remi?”
“Because I took care of it.” Clarkson would never throw another woman down the stairs. His associates wouldn’t care, but I did.
Curses filtered through the speakers of the SUV. I barely paid attention, more interested in the little red Camry slowing ahead to turn into a neighborhood that was showing its age. The houses were a long commute from her work, smaller, with a bit more yard than new construction, but solid. Leah chose wisely, on a lot of things.
“I don’t trust promises from men like you.”
“Why the fuck would you do a job without full intel and without backup?” Levi growled, pulling me back from memories I should’ve buried a long time ago. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
The thought didn’t bother me as much as it should have—a warning sign in my business. I brushed it off with a mental shrug. “I saw an opportunity and I took it. I knew all I needed to know.”
“What I know is you have a fucking death wish. You’re taking too many chances, Remi. You know better than that.I taught you better than that.”
You taught me a lot of things, big brother.Unfortunately lessons couldn’t make you feel when all you wanted was to stop feeling.
I slowed, taking the same turn Leah had taken, far enough behind that she wouldn’t notice. When she left the main road that bisected the neighborhood, I turned off my headlights and followed.
“This has got to stop, Remi.”
Levi’s words jerked me out of the fantasy of belonging in this little neighborhood with a woman and a little girl who deserved far better than me. He was right, too; he had no idea how right.
“You’re risking too much and you know it. I can’t lose you, brother. Either you rein it in or—”
