Page 1 of Reclaim (Deadly Hearts 3)

ChapterOne

Ruby

“So what is the plan here?” I ask Vinnie, after about an hour’s drive in the pouring rain and dark, to get to this underground bunker type place. I mean, what the fuck? But so unbelievably awesome, I want one.

“Well, that is entirely up to you,” Vinnie replies.

“No,” I say, shaking my head, the single bare bulb, hurting my eyes after the darkness. “You need to give me more than that. I don’t know the game here. I don’t know the board, or the players.”

“All you need to know is that the king is called Adam and the queen you’re going in to rescue is Tiff,” he says.

“That is not a lot to go on.” I’m getting pissed off here. He is sending me into the lion’s den with nothing to arm myself with.

He sighs. “Adam holes up at the Ace’s High strip club down a back alley near the docks. You will know him as soon as you see him. Tiff is blonde, slender, pretty…”

“Like a vast majority of the strippers I know,” I tut.

“She’s not a stripper,” he hisses.

“Didn’t say she was. I’m saying that it will be difficult to narrow it down in that environment, for fuck’s sake. A picture, maybe?”

He grumbles but pulls his phone out and flicks through. He eventually brings up a picture of a woman exactly like he described. “Got it?” he growls, putting it away.

“Yeah, but I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Take the king off the board,” he says with finality.

The penny drops. “I see. You want me to kill him for you.”

He shrugs.

Plausible deniability.

Fuckhead. “Hmm.” I ponder this briefly. I have two options. Kill this Adam character, or not. If I do, I may end up with repercussions back at home, and if I don’t Vinnie will take back what he did, and I’ll go to jail.

Fun fucking times.

“Out of curiosity, who did you lay the blame on?” I ask casually, leaning up against a small metal table and folding my arms.

Vinnie narrows his dark eyes. “Does it matter?”

I shrug. “Just curious, like I said.”

“It was apillock who had it coming,” he growls. “Ask no more about it.”

“Okay, fine. You got me out of hot water, so I’ll do this to the best of my ability. Also, I’m not partial to assholes taking women against their will.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I came for you,” he says.

I nod slowly.

“Make whatever plans you intend, and I’ll drop you in the morning. You will be on your own. No back up, and I don’t think I need to tell you that you need to focus. No phone calls to your team back home. You work your way into Adam’s organization without outside help. Are we clear?”

Well, I had kind of figured this would be a dark operation. Still sucks to be told, though. But it’s incentive to move my ass and find this Tiff pronto so I can get back to my men and my life.

“Yeah, we’re clear,” I murmur. I glare at one of the huge brutes who held us at gunpoint earlier when he makes a ‘gimme’ gesture with his hand. Sighing, I pull my phone out of my bra where I’d stashed it for our own op.

He leers at me and takes a step forward, his eyes going straight to my tits. I react quicker than The Flash. I whip my brand-new Pangolin out of the thigh holster on my right and hold it up to his throat, pressing the cold steel into him. “Touch me, or even look at me like that again, and I will slit your throat, reach in with my bare hand, grab your tongue and yank it out of the opening before I shoot you in the balls. Got it?”

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