Page 2 of Of Desire And Deception

I whistled a classical tune and watched the man’s form shake with fear. He froze when I stopped, no doubt listening for my footsteps. Hunting gave me a high, and I rode that rush as I leaped over the desk and stabbed the man in the shoulder, giving him something to worry about as he screamed and grabbed the wound, falling out into the open. I slammed his face against the floor, sighing in disappointment when that first hit knocked him out cold.

Reaching into my pocket, I withdrew the pre-filled syringe and felt the side of the man’s neck, stabbing the needle in and depressing the plunger. He’d sleep like a baby for a couple of hours. Once he was subdued, I recapped the syringe and slid it into my pocket, unwilling to leave that evidence even though I wore black leather gloves.

The woman still lay trembling on the ground, so I approached slowly. “I won’t hurt you.”

She lifted a brow and curled in on herself to let me know she didn’t believe a word I had said. Smart girl. Her jeans and t-shirt were torn and stained with dirt, like she’d put up a good fight.

“Sorry, but this is going to hurt.” I reached down and pulled on the tape covering her mouth. “Did they… harm you?”

“No,” she rasped, her mouth no doubt dry. “Can’t you see they treated me like a queen?”

I was taken aback by her fire. With that kind of grit, she’d be fine. “Physically. Sexually.”

“They didn’t rape me,” she answered. “Roughed me up a little. Can you untie me?”

She tipped her head toward the duct tape around her wrists and ankles. I contemplated her request. “Are you going to fight me if I free you?”

“Do I look stupid?” she retorted with a huff. “You just killed all those men.”

“Four,” I corrected her. “The guy behind the desk is just taking a little nap until I can play with him.”

She shuddered. “I won’t fight you.”

My bloody knife made quick work of the tape, and the woman groaned as she stood and stretched her limbs. “I can give you a place to go if you need help.”

“Maybe you can just drop me at my friend’s house?”

“Sure.” I motioned toward the man behind the desk. “I’m going to pull the van around. Think you can help me load him in?”

“I’ll help you do anything if you promise me you’ll make his death painful.”

My lips tipped upward at her bloodthirsty words. For a moment, I wanted to know her story. “How do you know I’m going to kill him?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I doubt you killed all his men to take that one out for brunch.”

“True.” I pointed my knife at her. “Wait here. It might not be safe out there.”

The woman nodded, and I jogged out of the building and two blocks over to where I’d parked my blacked-out van, hopping in and getting back to the warehouse as quickly as possible. The night was still as we wrestled my guest into the back of the vehicle.

My unexpected assistant brushed her hands on her jeans like she was trying to get the man off her skin. “What about the guys inside?”

“They’re a message,” I explained, holding the front passenger door open for her. It was a politeness ingrained in me by my late mother. Thinking about her had my hand gripping the handle hard enough that my knuckles turned white. The memory of the bombing that led to her death, and the devastation that followed, always put me in a mood. Tonight, I would take it out on the man in the back of my van.

I climbed into the driver’s side and buckled my seatbelt, then returned to the main road. “Where to?”

The woman rattled off an address, and we drove in silence. The streetlights revealed her face more clearly. Angular features, messy brown hair, eyes that had seen too much. She couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, and when I pulled into her neighborhood, her fearless attitude made more sense. She’d grown up somewhere that bred toughness. A place you wouldn’t survive unless you learned to fight and use your wits at a young age.

“Thanks,” she tossed out as she flung open the door, jumped to the ground, and then turned back to me. “You promise it will hurt?”

“I promise,” I said solemnly. Her face split into a vengeful smile, then she slammed the door and ran off into the apartment building without glancing back.

I shook my head and took my guest to one of the warehouses I used for interrogations, dragging him onto the tarp-covered floor and cuffing him, then using a winch to lift him until his toes barely touched the ground. Then I waited.

I’d just finished my second bottle of water when the man awoke. I loved the moment they realized they were no longer free. The widened eyes, quickened breaths, the pulse beating at their throat as panic set in.

This man did not disappoint. His frantic gaze finally settled on me, where I sat on a metal folding chair in front of him.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked, like we were sitting across from each other at a café, enjoying a cup of coffee.

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