Page 85 of Huntsman
Fuck that and fuck them.
“You can take that bag and pick which bike or car you’re going to take. I’m pretty sure you know where they are.”
That beautiful gaze roams my face, and it’s damn near tactile. I force myself to remain stationary and not recoil from it.
Or lean into it.
Finally, she nods. “Okay, Malachi. Okay.”
The quiet resignation in her tone has my throat squeezing closed, the constriction an almost-primitive instinct against doing something irreversible. Like begging her to stay. Like handing her something capable of slicing into me deeper than that dagger she wielded the first night we met ever could.
By sheer force of will, I remain quiet.
And a moment later, Eshe turns and leaves the room, disappearing from my sight. And minutes after that, the silent alarm on my bedroom wall signals that she’s exited the loft.
Relief should flood through me. If nothing else, a grim satisfaction should take up residence inside my chest. But there’s nothing. And I do meannothing.
Just emptiness.
Closing my eyes, I inhale a deep breath. But instantly, I recognize that for the mistake it is when my lungs capture her distinct scent. Even when she’s not here, she’s here.
I gotta get outta here. Now. And I don’t know when I’ll return. Not for a minute. Not until the residue of her has dissipated and no longer coats this place like dust.
But first…
I sit down at my desk and fire up my computer. For the next two hours, I do a deep dive, trying to find anything I can on Poison. Which, by the time I power the laptop down and stretch, isn’t much. She’s like the fucking ghost I called her. Eshe is a force to be reckoned with, but against this phantom assassin? She might not live out the next twenty-four hours. Eshe Diallo may not be mine, but I’m not going to throw her to the wolves either.
While Poison’s focus is on killing Eshe, mine will be on taking her out.
Yeah, she covered our asses back there at the obodo. But she’s still a threat. And one that needs to go.
I stand and make my way over to the bed. Grabbing the duffel bag, I stride out of the room and jog down the steps. I don’t let my gaze sweep the first floor, because in a matter of twenty-four hours, this place has become a shrine to her, and I can’t look any one place and not be reminded of her.
Head down, I pause to set the alarm system and then exit the loft out of a different door than we entered hours earlier. The one Eshe took. It leads down another set of stairs and to an underground garage with a fleet of motorcycles and cars. Immediately upon entering, I note the Camaro ZL1 is gone. I nab the keys tothe Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and, when I reach it, pop its trunk. Just as I settle the bag inside and round the car to climb into the driver’s side, my cell vibrates in my pocket. My stomach bottoms out.It’s not Eshe, asshole. She doesn’t even have your number.Not thatthatlittle hindrance would stop her.
Shit.She shouldn’t be calling me anyway. We have nothing to talk about.
Reaching into my pocket, I remove the phone and Jamari’s number fills the screen. It isn’t disappointment that swirls and fills that hole in my gut. It fuckingisn’t.
I swipe my thumb across the screen and hold the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”
“H,” Jamari says, and the panicked, worried note in his voice makes him sound like the sixteen-year-old he is. “Check your messages.”
He doesn’t need to clarify which messages. It can mean only one thing. I go to my dark web server that Jamari created for my Huntsman communications. Thanks to him, even by dark web standards, the shit is unhackable. Anyone who tries—and a couple of people have tried—finds themselves on the receiving of a nasty-ass Trojan virus that corrupts and destroys years and years of information on their systems.
He and I are the only two people with access to it, so, in order for someone to send a message to me, they must be a return client with the code to reach out. A heavy, ugly sense of foreboding steals over me, and my movements are almost clumsy as I tap the speaker button and navigate to the server on my phone.
“You there, H?”
“Yeah,” I say. In seconds, I pull up the email account and immediately recognize the name on the most recent message.
Fuck. That ominous feeling grows, spreading like black ice across my chest.
“Look at the attachment,” Jamari instructs, voice thickening as if he’s about to cry. “Oh shit, H. I can’t… I didn’t mean to see…”
He breaks off, and I swear, my hand trembles a little as I press the clapboard icon.
The dark, grainy image fills the phone’s screen, and everything in me freezes. Sweat breaks out over my suddenly hot skin, and I lock my knees to remain upright. Inside my head, a loud howl joins the screams from the phone.
