Page 1 of Scarlett Thief (Criminal Underground 2)

Prologue

Scarlett

Washington, D.C.

4 years ago…

This whole job was a train wreck waiting to happen. For as long as I’d been running scams and working the illegal circuit, I’d become accustomed to a certain level of instinct. Right now, those instincts were screaming at me to get out. My eyes trailed across the hotel room to where Jaxson sat with a cigarette hanging from his lips, cleaning his gun.

I hated that thing, but even if I told him, he wouldn’t put it away. In fact, I suspected if I asked him to hide it from the kid tied up on the bed, he’d merely wave it around and laugh in my face just to make a point. That point being—he was the boss and no one, especially not a lowly thief, was going to tell him how to run his game.

Not even if she was his girlfriend—if that’s what I was anymore.

I sighed and leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest.Why the fuck am I even here?I wondered. Jaxson hadn’t needed me for this job. I also didn’t particularly like kidnapping jobs.

“Problem, Scar?” Jaxson asked without looking up.

I jerked my gaze from the ceiling down to him and then to the kid. “Shut up,” I hissed.

His hands slowed to a stop and he set the gun he’d been cleaning down on the table in front of him and looked up. “Is that how you speak to me?” he growled.

Some women might be attracted by the depth of his voice and the violence in his eyes—and perhaps, in the beginning, I had been—but lately, Jaxson had been pushing things too far. During workandsex.

“I just don’t wantsomeone,” I nodded to the tied-up teen on the bed, “to hear you.”

He smirked as if he knew something I didn’t. Hell, he probably did. He’d been taking to keeping secrets lately, and I’d just been trailing him because I wasn’t sure yet what I wanted to do. I’d only been on my own for a few years before I met him. I’d nearly botched the job he’d met me on. I’d been too green. Too unused to going without back-up—without my father. Instead of turning me in or worse, killing me, he’d invited me into his group. The other guys were exchangeable—always seemed to me. New ones would come and go, but I remained. I always remained. I wondered, too, how long that would last.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jaxson said. “He won’t be a problem for much longer.”

God, I hoped not. My eyes strayed back to the eighteen-year-old boy with a black bag over his head—loose enough for him to breathe, but not so loose he could nudge it off. His hands were bound behind him and for the first few hours he’d been lying there on the threadbare motel comforter, he’d cried and sobbed and begged us to let him go. Now, he was silent. Sleeping, I hoped. Guilt and remorse whipped through me. I hated this. Stealing was one thing—objects were one thing. People were something altogether different.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I said quietly, staring at Jaxson.

Jaxson snorted, taking the cigarette from his mouth and tossing it into the ashtray without a care. “You’ll do what I tell you to do, Scar,” he replied.

“Kidnapping isn’t us—that’s not our thing,” I shot back. “Why did we even take this damn job?”

Jaxson glared at me, his lips curling down in an irritated frown that made him appear older than he was. In the beginning of our relationship, I’d teased him about that frown. I didn’t tease him anymore. It wasn’t worth the fight—literally. It wasn’t worth the trip to the medic. Which is what it always resulted in.

I dug my fingernails into my arms, resisting the urge to get up and leave the room. I didn’t want to show weakness.

“Our thing,” he snapped, throwing my words back in my face, “is whatever the fuck I say it is, is that understood?”

Why?I thought.Why does it have to be? Why do we have to do this? Why do I have to stay? Why can’t I just leave? Why? Just … why?

I didn’t realize I’d uttered the last part aloud until Jaxson was on his feet and stalking toward me. My eyes widened and I jerked up from my seat nearly stumbling over the chair at my back until my spine slammed into the wall and Jaxson loomed over me.

“Why?” he repeated, tipping my chin up with his thumb and forefinger. My heart thundered in my chest.Can he hear it?I wondered. It felt as though it was trying to gallop out of my chest. Sweat beads popped up on the back of my neck.

Yes, some women were aroused by Jaxson’s violence—and at one point, this dominance he exuded had filled something inside of me that I thought I’d needed—but as time had gone on, I’d begun to see his need to control me as an enemy rather than a safe haven. The only thing left inside of me for Jaxson was this fear—fear that he’d one day take it too far.

“You do what I tell you to,” his face loomed closer, “because I own you, Scarlett. I have something you want and to get it, you’ll follow my commands.”

Something I want?I thought to myself. Maybe that’d been true at some point, but not anymore. A warning in my head, however, kept me from voicing that. There was a hint of something dangerous in his eyes tonight. Something unhinged. I didn’t want to push it. Not now.

“Okay, Jaxson,” I said. “Whatever you say.”

He leaned forward until his lips were close to mine. As soon as they touched me, I wanted to shudder, hating the insistent rubbing against my mouth before he moved forward and pressed in harder, kissing me with a dominating heat that left me feeling nothing but ice in my veins. I let him, though, knowing this was no time to stop him. I just squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath as I kissed him back.

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