Page 4 of The Killer's Payment

Unfortunately for her, that part isn’t ready to forget exactly who she is.

I remind myself that I have no time to fuck around and close the distance between us, grabbing her wrist. For all she’s trying to pretend like she isn’t—she’s tiny. I could snap her arm like a twig, and the way we’re staring at each other says we both know it.

“You’re here because your father fucked me over. Big time. The only thing you have to do is follow my rules and do everything I say, like a good little girl, and I’ll have you home safe with Daddy before you know it.”

“And what if I don’t?”

I screw my face up. “Don’t what?”

“Follow your rules. Do everything you say. What if I don’t do all thatlike a good little girl?”

Is she for real? “Why the hell wouldn’t you?”

She shrugs with one arm because I’ve still got a tight hold of the other one. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t, silly. I only asked what would happen. Call me curious. Intrigued. Whatever.”

I drop her arm like it’s burning me. Or, more accurately, like I was about to do something I’d later regret. I take a breath while I look down at her. Study that little face and try to figure out what game she’s attempting to play. Because I have no doubt now:this is a game.

What I can’t figure out is what exactly she thinks she’s going to achieve by playing it.

Her eyes practically sparkle as we size each other up.

Then I smile. I smile because I fully intended to lock her in the guest bedroom with pizza and princess movies until her father pulled his shit together and paid up.

But mostly I smile because the way she’s looking at me—like we’re some sort ofequals—tells me that, though she might still end up locked in a bedroom, she won’t have movies for entertainment.

She’ll have me.

“You want to know what happens to little girls who don’t follow my rules?”

Her long hair falls around her shoulders as she nods without breaking our stare.

I flick my eyebrows. “Put your cheek down on that counter right there, lift up your dress, and I’ll show you.”

Two

Sutton

Oh shit.Shittedy shit shit shit.

I catch myself just before he has the chance to see thatoh shitgut reaction as a physical expression.

One mistake, one wrong step, one moment of weakness, and this whole plan could blow up in my face. Or maybecrumble beneath my feetis more accurate, considering the plan wasn’t exactly solid to begin with. I only had about thirty minutes during the car ride over to come up with it. As soon as my two assailants mentioned the name James, it was obvious who they were talking about.

James Hunter.

I knew it had to be him because I’ve heard my father mention him many times—usually after a few too many whiskeys and always preceded by the word “fucking” or followed by the word “prick.”

But, despite the name being synonymous with our best crystal glasses, I’ve laid eyes on James Hunter precisely once, four years ago, at one of my father’s garden parties. That was long before whatever happened between him and my father occurred, but not so long that I’ve forgotten a single moment of it.

It was the type of sighting where you know for sure that you’re not even on his radar, despite him, in that moment, being the center of your world.

I studied him for hours. Bullshitting myself that it was some kind of psychological science project that would serve me well in the future. Fifteen or not, I knew how to recognize raw danger when it walked into the room. The confidence in the movements. The authority in the tone. The way everyone was automatically aware of his presence seconds before spotting him. I could have chosen anyone—the backyard was so full of powerful men that night, you could practically smell the testosterone on the breeze. But it was him I watched. Curious. Nervous.

Then, fascinated.

And finally awakened to the knowledge that a man as heartbreakingly handsome as he is powerful might be the most dangerous type of man in existence.

Truthfully, that terrified me.Heterrified me. But the thing that terrified me most was realizing those revelations wouldn’t have stopped me from leaving with him in a heartbeat if he’d somehow noticed me.

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