Page 20 of Vicious Hearts

That part wasn’t supposed to happen.Thatwasn’t in the plan.

Turning, I let my eyes drift over the collage of pictures, newspaper clippings, and notes tacked up on the wall. Photos of people, all labeled with their names—Ares Drakos, Castle James, Neve Kildare…

My pulse skips when my eyes land on the pictures in the middle of the group. The photos of the lethally attractive man with the sharp jaw and the venomous green eyes.

The beast who took my virginity…

…about ninety seconds before I put a knife in his heart.

I shudder, hugging myself and wincing again at the pain I feel everywhere. My neck, from his hands and teeth. My breasts, which are spotted with the early dark spots of bruises and more teeth marks. My hips and ass, sporting welts from the riding crop.

Between my legs.

It all hurts. And yet…it’s not necessarily a bad hurt.

Thank you, fucked up kinks.

I chew on my lip, my hands tracing down my bruised body. Yeah,thatwasn’t supposed to happen. Yes, the plan tonight involved seducing Cillian and getting him alone. It’s why I spent the last month watching the patrons of Club Venom come and go, narrowing it down to a handful of potentials, then shadowing each of them in turn to find an opening.

I got lucky with Jenny.

Blonde, but the wig fixed that, roughly my size and complexion, and a relative newcomer to Club Venom—thanks to the older guy she was seeing from a sugar daddy website who bought her a membership. Jenny was a little careless with her wallet one night while stumbling into a cab outside the club. Jenny also recently took a new job in San Francisco, and won’t really be using her Club Venom membership much.

That was the plan. Get through security using Jenny Miller’s membership ID, find and seduce Cillian Kildare, get him alone, and kill him.

Not as payback for his involvement in my father’s incarceration and then death.

But to free the one person on earth I care about, or who cares about me.

My twin brother, Finn.

Finn’s the reason I came to New York City a year ago. He’s the reason I’ve spent any free moment I have between my odd jobs combing the seedier parts of the city, asking around shelters, halfway houses, and methadone clinics.

A dull but firm knock at my apartment door sends a ripple of something cold and fierce down my spine. I tense, grabbing my robe off the hook on the bathroom door and pulling it on hastily before I glance at the door.

I know there won’t be anyone there when I open it.

There never is.

Swallowing, I walk quietly across the floor. I glance through the peephole anyway. But of course, there’s nobody. I slowly creak the door open a crack, and my gaze drops to the floor of the landing.

At the little black box.

With a shiver I feel in my very soul, I pick it up, slip back inside, and triple lock the door again. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I open the box and stare at the black throwaway flip-phone inside. I wait for it to ring. Keep waiting. Seconds and then minutes tick by before I finally set it down.

My eyes slide back to the wall of photos and notes.

Alltargets, all picked byhim.

He goes by the name Apostle. We’ve never met in person. Only via heavily encrypted emails and burner phones, where he sounds as if he’s talking through a voice scrambler.

He claims he worked for my father. He says he’s still “carrying out his holy mission”. Two months ago, when he first reached out, he told me he had my brother.

Then he threatened to kill Finn unless I used the training and brutality that our father beat into us when we were children to hunt down and eliminate a list of targets—all associated with my father’s capture and incarceration fifteen years ago, and his death a few months ago.

I didn’t kill Cillian Kildare tonight because I harbor any grudge against him. I don’t even know what his involvement with my father’s death was, nor do I care.

I killed him because I will doanythingfor Finn.

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