THE DARK KNIGHT

ANGELS AND ASSASSINS: BOOK IV

K. ALEX WALKER

JESSICA WATKINS PRESENTS

 CONTENTS

Also by K. Alex Walker

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Giorgio’s Vow
Epilogue
The Dark Knight Playlist
About the Author
To Kerrie, John, Ava, and Jay.
 ALSO BY K. ALEX WALKER

The Game of Love

The Game of Love: Book I
The Game of Love: Book II

Angels and Assassins

The Wolf: Book I
The Protector: Book II
The Anarchist: Book III
A Fighting Chance - An Angels and Assassins Novella

More from K. Alex Walker

Fated - A Contemporary Erotic Romance
The Woman He Wanted
With A Kiss, I Die
The Things We Hide - Coming This Fall (2019)
 CHAPTER ONE

G IORGIO P OZZA DIDN ’ T DRINK MUCH , BUT THE SCANTILY DRESSED WOMAN
balancing drinks on a tray had passed by four times already to take a peek at
the vodka he still had in his glass. Each time, she would plaster one of her
long, decorated nails on what was probably a semen-covered tabletop and
repeat her request more than once for a refill, using her elbows to push her
breasts nearly out of her nurse’s costume, toward him.
But he wasn’t at a strip club in the middle of Moscow’s hidden, lecherous
underground network because he was looking for cheap ass. From the
moment he sat down, his gaze had barely wavered from his target—Mischa
Ivanovich, one of the sons of Dom Ivanovicha, the Russian House of
Ivanovich, though Mischa continuously proved himself unworthy of the
family name. While his brothers were building empires with the money
Daddy had given them, he was splurging his trust fund in strip clubs and on
women who only wanted him for his net worth.
Every woman who surrounded the twenty-something, reckless blond in
public knew they would be getting a lifetime of hell if they ever considered a
real relationship with him. What mattered was how stupid he was, how loose
he was with his money.
What those same blonde ballerinas and auburn-haired starlets didn’t see,
however, was Mischa now. The way he salivated over brown skin in a way
that had gone way past appreciation. It was common knowledge, Russian
men and their twisted obsession with black women. And it would have been
comical...had Daddy dearest, sick of his prodigal offspring, not put a multi-
million-dollar hit out on Mischa’s head.
It didn’t surprise Giorgio he could find an underground club for men who
wanted to indulge in this particular fetish on multiple levels—watching,
waiting, touching, tasting. Humans often repulsed him, shamed him to be part
of the same species. It was the same type of humans of ill repute who had
created him, trained him to be the monster he was today.
“Most men don’t sit so far away from the stage.”
She was back. That finger was, again, on the tabletop. It then went from
the tabletop to her bottom lip, and he wondered if people understood exactly
how deadly bacteria could be. She had probably just deposited a colony of
strep onto her lip, and there were strains of strep that could eat away human
flesh in seconds.
“Maybe you’re waiting for a private dance?” She turned around, bent
over, exposed a bare, pink ass. “Free of charge, dark and mysterious? I’ll
even throw in a quick suck. You look like you have a healthy, juicy Russian
cock.”
Sharp metal pressed against Giorgio’s thigh. It had been a while since
he’d killed for sport; bounty hunting and the occasional legitimate had done
well to fill that void. There was something satisfying about sticking a blade
into the bone of a man who thought it was okay to touch little boys.
Something satisfying about watching him seize until the light went out of his
eyes. And though his years at Cross of Honour School weren’t erased with
each kill, at the very least, the compulsions that had been trained into him
were controlled.
Somewhat.
“Fine.” The woman stood, anger forming a crease in her peach-pale
forehead. “You want a refill on that vodka you have been babysitting all
night?”
Giorgio took another glance around the room. There were only three
other bounty hunters there—Emile, Tag, Brisset. With the price tag on
Mischa’s head, he’d assumed there would be more, but the man traveled with
a cavalry. Knowledge of places like these also wasn’t widespread. Had he not
spent a good portion of his life in this country, in these tunnels, he might not
have been able to find it. At least, not as quickly.
Still, at the very least, Mischa should have been in hiding. Either the man
was ignorant, or overly confident in the ability of his security detail to protect
him.
The music changed from fast-paced to sultry, slow. The lights on stage
went from white to red with a few harsh pops of purple overhead. Where
before it had been numerous women on stage, shaking their asses to the
music, it was now just one. The only women who remained dancing were
those on individual tabletops, but the men had abandoned them, all but
running to the stage.
The minute she appeared onstage, Giorgio knew she was different. Only
her eyes were visible, the rest of her face covered by some kind of lacy
shawl. She was covered from her face to her stiletto-covered feet in red. Her
skin was an even bronze. Supple. Her movements were smooth, and her waist
as it gyrated was almost...graceful.
While he knew these underground strip clubs harbored all sorts of women
from around the globe, he was hard pressed to believe any of the women he’d
seen dancing, especially at this particular club, had been trained in classical
ballet.
This woman was.
She was too fluid, too alluring. He’d barely spared a glance at the stage
the entire night, waiting until Ivanovich was good and drunk before he took
pleasure in slicing the man’s bodyguards’ necks, but he could hardly look
away from this woman. Which was why he noticed she could hardly look
away from Mischa.
The sensation that simmered inside him wasn’t jealousy. The women here
were working girls, and he would never consider forming an attachment to
any of them. Or any woman in general. It was never worth it, in the end. But
there was...something. Something specifically about her. And if he wasn’t
mistaken—she slid down into a squat, legs spread in a wide V in front of
Mischa’s face—she was doing more than giving the rich playboy extra
attention.
She was studying him.
The woman took a few spins around the pole but then left the stage,
climbing down onto the platform where men’s hands reached out to try to
stick a bill in some part of her outfit. Her breasts were barely contained in her
strappy top and her behind was covered, but the fabric was even more sheer
than the scarf she wore on her face. Every curve and outline of her plump
little ass was on display.
Giorgio rose, swallowed the rest of the bitter, low-quality vodka, and
secured a pair of leather gloves on his hands. He felt eyes on him as he strode
toward where Mischa was sitting. Anyone who spotted him knew why he was
there, which meant they had two choices: they could leave and let him have
the kill since he always got his kill, or they could try to take him on and give
him multiple heads to turn in for profit.
The woman bent over in front of Mischa. Mischa pulled his bottom lip
into his mouth and closed his eyes, his palms flat against the woman’s behind
and inching downward toward her vagina. But she wouldn’t let him touch
her. Giorgio had figured out why she was there.
She spun around. Giorgio grabbed her arm. Mischa’s eyes opened, and
his lustful stupor was replaced with shock when he saw the blade just inches
from the large vein in his neck.
He looked up at Giorgio and, upon noticing him, his eyes went wide as
saucers. But the blade wasn’t coming from Giorgio. It was coming from the
pretty dancer who had been trying to seduce him.
Pissed, clear brown eyes met Giorgio’s. “The fuck are you doing?” she
asked.
Mischa, suddenly aware of his imminent death, realization weaving its
way through the maze of inebriation, screamed. Loud. If he hadn’t been
looking directly at him, Giorgio would have assumed it was one of the girls.
Bullets began spraying throughout the club. The DJ booth, though empty,
was still lit and playing music.
Giorgio released the dancer’s arm. In the same motion, he brandished a
machete he’d had strapped to his side, ignoring the commotion of tables and
chairs being knocked over and the cries of the attendants as they scrambled
for the exit.
He lifted the blade, but one of Mischa’s men ran into him at full speed,
hitting him in the abdomen. The man was large enough to knock him off his
center of gravity and send him flying backward into the commotion.
The machete fell from his hand. A punch landed in his face. Giorgio
ignored the blows and looked at where he’d left his target. Mischa was
headed for the door.
Registering the assault to his body, Giorgio turned his attention back to
the bodyguard. When the man lifted his fist to bring another blow down into
Giorgio’s cheekbone, he blocked the blow with his forearm.
He pressed his thumb against his palm, bringing forth a blade from the
seam of the glove, and sunk it into the man’s temple.
The bodyguard’s eyes rolled before he fell limp. Giorgio shoved him off
his body, retracted the blade, grabbed his machete, and continued his pursuit.
Before Mischa could push his way through the exit, the dancer appeared
again. Giorgio paused, briefly, and watched her. She was half-naked and had
death in her eyes. She attacked well but her approach was that of a novice.
There weren’t many women in this line of work and none of them, at all,
looked like her.
The scarf had fallen away. In the blur of bodies and chaos, Giorgio saw a
lovely, unmarked face. It was another indicator she was an amateur. Scars
told a bounty hunter’s story and the face was almost never spared. His most
memorable nick was one that had sliced through his right eyebrow. One that
had been with him since he was sixteen.
The dancer kicked Mischa in the lower back, sending him sprawling on
the ground. Mischa, the coward he was, searched the ground for a weapon.
His eyes landed on a pistol, but the dancer saw it before he did and stopped
his reach with a blow to the chin and nose with those red stilettos. Mischa’s
eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to the floor.
It no longer mattered to Giorgio how beautiful the dancer was. She was
messing with the thrill of his hunt.
She started toward the pistol, which was now nearer to his feet than it was
within her reach. He grabbed it and quickly disassembled it, tossing the
pieces behind him. Their eyes met for the second time.
“Jesus.” She groaned. “You again?”
He stepped around her, returning to his hunt for Mischa whose eyes were
flitting open. Good. There was no fun in killing the unconscious. He
preferred his marks to see their deaths coming, understand they were
receiving the ultimate consequence for their transgressions.
Giorgio stood over him, Mischa’s eyes blue and clear with the fear of
death.
He lifted the machete. “Libera nos a —”
“I said, he’s mine!”
The blade hit metal instead of flesh—a fucking bar stool. The pretty yet
annoying parasite had intervened.
Again.

Who is this big asshole?

Mo Jonesboro strained against the weight of the blade pressing on the
stool she’d fashioned as a shield.
Great, now I’m shielding the man I came all the way to Russia to kill.
It had taken weeks, weeks, to put this entire operation together. She’d
seen the other familiar faces from the circuit—Emile, Tag, Brisset—when
she’d arrived an hour before her set. And, from what she’d heard about them,
they would have been easy enough to outmaneuver. But then this colossal
asshole had shown up and the other three had mysteriously disappeared. As if
they’d been afraid of him.
She couldn’t afford to be. She would never last in this industry if she
allowed herself to fear large men with deep, dangerous, dark eyes. If she ran
at the first sight of silky dark hair, a hard face, and a couple hundred pounds
of lean muscle wielding a fifteen-inch blade.
The colossal mercenary pulled the blade away, letting up just enough
pressure for her to push to her feet. Before, there’d been a playful element to
his eyes. Like how people looked at a tumble of puppies or guinea pigs or
babies trying a lemon for the first time. He’d thought she was cute, little
woman who belonged in the kitchen trying to kill for cash. Now, that element
had shifted. Those shark’s eyes were out for blood. But if he thought he
would interfere with the first real chance she had at neutralizing a mark, then
she had blood to spare.
He pulled out a second blade and Mo felt like all her organs had suddenly
fallen from her body. Who the hell still fought with blades? The only reason
she’d gone after Mischa Ivanovich—and she was pretty sure Ivanovich was
Russian for “steaming asshole” given how much of one the billionaire trustee
was—with a knife was because of convenience. It had been the only weapon
she could conceal in the barely-there outfit.
The large man started forward. Mo braced herself. At the last moment, he
stepped around her and headed for Mischa, now a disoriented blob on the
floor, crawling toward the exit.
Mo rushed after him and put herself between Mischa and “Colossus,” a
name befitting for a man of his size.
“I said, this one is mine. Back off.”
He shook his head. “Nyet.”
What the hell kind of accent is that? And why the hell does it hurt?
She wasn’t given much time with her thoughts. Her intervening had
caused Colossus to turn his attention to her, and she was doing her best to
block the blows now coming her way with the bar stool. She’d had her ass
handed to her multiple times while training over the years all for it to
culminate in this moment, so she could not lose.
Colossus brought one of the long blades down. The swipe took two of the
bar stool’s four legs, slicing clean through the metal. The legs fell, a
resounding clamor on the floor. Accepting the end of her shield, Mo dropped
the bar stool and stretched her fingers. There would be no hand-to-hand
combat with this guy. Well, there probably would be but not any she could
win. Not with strength alone.
Her eyes darted to the points on his body she’d been taught to go after if
she was ever up against an opponent she needed to weaken.
Colossus whipped a blade in her direction, toward her abdomen, and she
jumped back. Even with the mess of noise buzzing about, she heard the heavy
sound of the steel slicing through air, unnervingly calm, like a meditating
monk. However, for some reason, she felt like Colossus was not actually
trying to strike her. Be it the latent, “Men don’t hit women,” bullshit she’d
learned and believed growing up or something else, she didn’t know.
He swiped again. Mo jumped back, stumbled, but caught herself before
she fell. Then, it dawned on her.
Oh...my...God.
Pozza. This had to be Pozza. She’d heard of him through the bounty
hunters’ grapevine, not like hunters could ever truly be friends. There was too
much competition, and it was always steep considering many of them made a
living off capturing or killing. Capturing and killing.
There were a few names people tossed around in hushed whispers.
Pozza’s had a, He who shall not be named, vibe. This man, as far as she
knew, was the Lord Voldemort of their clandestine underworld.
“Pozza.” Her lips trembled the name.
He didn’t speak.
By now, Mischa had either gotten away or had been claimed by someone
else. As far as she knew, Pozza never walked away from a mark without
claiming the reward on the mark’s head. And, unlike her, he hadn’t spent the
first half of his “career” trying not to kill, so she was facing the possibility of
having to pay for the time of Pozza’s she’d wasted. But she would fight to the
death, if necessary.
All of a sudden, Pozza stopped slicing. He put away the machetes and
stood watching her, his expression making her more than aware of her
skimpy attire, her virtually exposed butt, and the heels that were threatening
to break her ankles. Her breasts dared escape with each step from the bikini
top with triangular pieces of fabric covering her nipples. She’d ordered it two
sizes too small on purpose. Mischa had a predilection for dark skin, and she’d
figured using hers to get close to him before putting a blade in his neck would
have been the best course of action.
It would have worked if this big asshole with the murky accent that felt
like sandpaper on an open wound hadn’t meddled.
Why she charged toward him, she didn’t know. But she went flying,
landing a kick to his midsection that connected with a rib that felt like a steel
cage. Before she could bring the leg back, he grabbed her ankle and propelled
her backward.
Mo went stumbling and then took the heels off. Barefoot, she would have
a greater advantage. She’d attached a flat layer of silicone to the soles of her
feet, a simple invention that had rescued her too many times to count.
Hopefully, it would be enough to protect her from flesh-eating bacteria and
mold spores...or whatever it was that grew on floors in places like this.
She struck again, toward the area just beneath his sternum. He grabbed
her arm and did the same movement. It was a gentle shove but somehow, he
was able to put enough force behind it to send her farther than expected.
He charged this time, and Mo quickly glanced to her left and right for
anything that could give her leverage.
She spotted one of the club’s chairs, ran, hopped up onto it, and came
down on the other side. It created enough distance for her to sprint away from
Pozza toward the club’s back exit. She couldn’t beat him, so she would try to
get away from him. As fast as she possibly could.
Mo held her breath and raced toward the exit. Behind her, reflected in the
many mirrors along the wall, she could see Pozza following. Death
personified had set its sights on her. Another thing she’d learned about Pozza
was that he never gave up. The only way this chase would end, especially
since she’d interfered, was with the death of one of them.
She burst through the back door and into a tunneled hallway. The strip
club had been built in an abandoned, underground tunnel in Moscow.
Whereas other parts of the country had intricate, glamorous underground
structures for subways and other forms of transport, this one looked as
derelict as its history.
The area paved for a railway had been partially constructed before the rest
of the effort was abandoned. Torches and lanterns on the walls acted as
lighting, illuminating a path for patrons seeking illicit activities. Farther down
the tunnel, she guessed, were other establishments that dealt in things she did
not wish to be privy to.
The loose dirt and brick were warm beneath the silicone still attached to
her feet. It took only a moment for Mo to orient herself. Then, she headed
down the dim tunnelway to where she’d stashed a change of clothes and a
firearm. Behind her, still coming, was Pozza.
She didn’t look back. Her head start was the only thing she had against
him. Had she taken a few seconds longer to run, he would have already
caught up to her and stripped the skin from her flesh...or whatever it was he
was into. Again, she’d only heard stories, but they had all been spoken with a
certain air of fear.
Mo increased her speed, bent to scoop some dirt up into her hands, then
leapt and tossed the dirt toward one of the candles. The loose dirt effectively
smothered it, pulling some light from the tunnel.
She did the same thing with the next two, and the darkness gave her just
enough cover to slip into the alcove where her duffel bag lay in wait.
She quickly dug into one of the side pockets, grabbed her Glock, and
crouched down. Pozza’s footsteps slowed to a stop, too close for comfort. In
the harshness of the dark, they could hear each other’s breaths. She could
hear his steps. She didn’t doubt he’d seen where she’d gone, but that didn’t
mean he knew she was now packing heat.
“Bezdis.”
There was that accent again, like the barbs on the surface of a cat’s
tongue.
Mo pulled in a deep breath, stood, and stepped from the shadows, Glock
extended. Pozza’s eyes found her the minute she appeared in the thin stream
of light doing its best to provide them with a line of sight to the other.
Her chest was heaving, more so from anxiety than the run. This man was
dangerous. Even some of the most notorious hunters she’d met or heard about
were afraid of him. If she didn’t put a bullet in him, he would kill her.
Yet, there was another reason her breaths were pushing her chest high,
nearly into her chin. Another reason her nipples were pushing against those
triangles of fabric, and why it felt like sunlight had broken through the thick
layers of rock above and directed a warm ray right between her legs.
It was because she was batshit crazy.
Pozza took a step toward her.
 “Stop.” She tightened her grip on the gun. “Don’t come any closer.”
He didn’t listen. She didn’t lower the gun, but she didn’t shoot. And now,
tremors of lust were running through her at the most inopportune time—as
she watched death slowly approach until it was just an arm’s length away.
His eyes were so dark, they made the unlit space around them look gray.
His hair fell about his face, hanging in thick strands just below his chin,
gracing the tops of his shoulders. A slit in his brow was perfectly aligned
with a scar on his eyelid and the top of his cheekbone.
“Please.” Her pleas, to her ears, sounded as ferocious as a kitten’s.
“Don’t.”
He lifted his hands. She closed her eyes. Her index finger graced the
trigger. Then, she heard something tearing.
When she reopened her eyes, Pozza’s dark shirt was gone. Before her
stood a beautiful mural disguised as a hard, male body. The shirt lay in pieces
at his feet.
Gloved hands pulled the gun from her fingers. He disassembled it the
same way he’d done the pistol in the club and let it fall in pieces to the floor.
One of his hands then went to the string holding the triangles together and
whisked it away, allowing her breasts to breathe and expand, bare, between
them.
“What...is...happening right now?” Mo whispered to herself as she let
herself be lifted, let her back be pressed against the stone wall while Pozza’s
rough mouth covered her aureole.
His tongue was heat against her peaked nipple, bathing it in hot moisture.
Mo gripped the strands of his hair and pushed her head back into the bricks,
her back arching at the sensation.
This feels so good.
She’d been on this assassin kick for so long, using the last few years to
train to be the bounty hunter she’d never expected to be, that this was nothing
but bliss. Intimate touches had gone out the window. After her last
relationship, she’d assumed her interest in sex and all its pleasures had fizzled
and died. It was good to know, at least, this part of her still worked.
There was still the question of why this was happening. How he had gone
from Colossus to Pozza to man no longer playing with her nipple but blowing
against it like a precious pearl, each wisp of warm air a gentle caress. His
other hand moved to the second, sensitive nipple. The leather against her skin
was electrifying. The heat between her legs kindled, begged for satisfaction.
Begged to be filled.
His attention moved to that nipple, giving it the same slow, licking
attention he’d given the first, which was now being squeezed and plucked
between his thumb and forefinger. His legs, her thighs around his midsection,
and the wall behind her supported her, keeping her upright when she wanted
to fall into a realm of tantric unconsciousness.
He trailed a line with his tongue from her nipple, over the tops of her
breasts, and over her collarbone to her neck. He shifted a little, allowing her
to fall into his grasp, and the way he held her was too gentle for a man whom
gentle did not suit.
“Come.” He breathed the words into her neck, between licks and nips
against the tender skin. It wasn’t an order, but a request.
Mo nodded. “Yes.”
He let her back down to her feet, rummaged through the duffel, and
handed her one-third of the outfit she’d packed—a black sweater that fell
mid-thigh—to cover her exposed breasts.
She allowed him to lead her by the hand through the dark tunnels, up
ladders that took them above ground, and through the quiet streets of
Moscow until they were in a luxury hotel suite at the Ritz Carlton. It was
another surprise, considering she’d pegged him for a man who would have
taken her right there in the tunnel. And she would have let him. Another point
lost for terrible judgment.
He led her onto sheets that felt silken against her skin. Mo sat first for
him to pull the sweater over her head, and then he indicated he wanted her to
lie back. She did as she was told, reveling in the beauty of the man before her
and the fibers bathing her in luxury.
She’d read a quote once before that said beauty often hid in danger. Pozza
was that, like standing at the very edge of a crumbling cliff while overlooking
a glorious, golden sunset.
Looking at him, she was suspended in the awe of the moment. Of the way
his hair always seemed to obscure his face. Of the way he studied the panties
he pulled down over her hips and legs like he was preparing for a chemistry
exam. Of the way he stepped out of his own clothes, covered his thick and
proud erection with latex, and aimed it where she was begging.
He climbed over her, their gazes never breaking. Her legs fell apart. She
asked herself, one last time, what the hell she was doing but the question
faded as quickly as it came.
 “Mo,” she squeaked. “My name.”
“Bez,” he seemed to be correcting.
She shivered, wondered if anyone could ever get used to that voice.
The head of his cock probed her entrance. “Giorgio.”
“Huh?”
“My name, Bez.”
His hips tilted forward. He plunged in, deep and swift.
And hard.
“Gior...gio.”
Mo sucked air through her teeth and held her breath. He didn’t move, not
immediately, giving her time to acclimate to the breadth of his shaft. At least,
so she assumed. She had exactly one, one-night-stand under her belt and back
then, she’d been in retaliation mode, trying to prove to herself she could
move on after a nuclear disaster of a relationship. Afterward, she’d been too
busy getting her body and mind into shape to think about sex, so she couldn’t
figure out if he was just that thick or she was just that tight.
He pulled back, groaned. Actually groaned. She was still looking at his
face so didn’t miss the grimace of sheer pleasure that rippled from his
hairline to his chin. It sent a jolt down between her legs to know that even
though she hadn’t brought him to his knees in combat, it looked like she was
winning the battle here.
Mo reached up and cupped the sides of his face. Giorgio thrusted forward
again, and another hiss squeezed between her lips.
When he was fitted deep, she released a breath. Their eyes had remained
connected throughout the entire motion. It felt like a power struggle, whom
could dominate whom. He would win.
She wasn’t like him. She’d grown up with bedtime stories and goodnight
kisses. Even now, without thinking, her thumb was stroking his cheekbone.
Even now, with this one-night-stand with a killer, she wanted his chest on top
of her, their bodies touching, his arms around her. Her arms around him. He
hadn’t even kissed her, and she could only imagine how many times he’d
done this, derive pleasure from a woman’s body with no expectation of a
connection.
“What does Bez mean?” she asked, like they weren’t joined within the
cradle of her hips.
He pulled back, shoved deep. She was wet all around him, but the motion
was still tight, and it made her feel like she’d just spun in circles several times
with her forehead pressed against the handle of a baseball bat.
“Gio.”
Another groan, deep and grating and vibrating like the tortuous notes of
his voice, pierced the air. His hips pistoned again, this time faster, catching a
rhythm. With each stroke, coherent thought was stolen from Mo’s body.
Goosebumps covered every square inch of her skin. Electric tingles of
pleasure swirled inside her, around her, like a tongue wrapping around the
pulsing nubbin between her legs, giving her the extra touch she needed.
“Fuck…Gio.”
This time, saying his name didn’t have much of an intent behind it. Mo
simply liked what saying it did to him and how it felt between her lips, over
the ridges of her teeth, and along the soft palate at the roof of her mouth.
Thought left and action took over. She felt herself pulling gently, her
hands cupped just beneath his jaw, and he came willingly until their mouths
were inches apart.
She wanted a kiss. She wanted more from this experience than he was
giving her and if he wouldn’t give it, she would take it.
Mo tilted her head forward and thrust her tongue between his lips. It was
immediately met by the cage of his teeth.
Undeterred, she allowed her tongue to play, tracing its tip along the soft
hills of his lips and just inside where it was pink and satin. They were still
looking at each other, still testing. His eyes were unreadable and blank,
beautiful and captivating. It was like swimming in the sky in the middle of a
thunderstorm.
She was no longer that tumble of puppies.
She was no longer his opponent.
His focus was what made him an incredible fighter, an incredible
mercenary. Now, all that focus had shifted to her. Around her.
Inside her.
Mo threaded her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer. She rocked
her hips, meeting each of his thrusts. His chest had lowered, and her nipples
grazed his skin with each crash of their pelvises. Her tongue continued to
probe, searching and seeking, not caring to ask for permission.
Then, she lost both hands in the tendrils of his hair. His lips parted. Their
tongues met.
Everything changed.
Their thrusts turned into hard, desperate rocking against each other. Each
stroke pushed the tip of his cock where her body begged for pressure, for
pleasure. Next to her ear, she heard his fingers grip the sheets. Her cries
disappeared into his mouth, down his throat. He ravaged her lips with the
same sweet roughness he’d administered to her breasts.
Each harsh moan came at the tail end of a strong thrust, her back sliding
against the smooth sheets. To keep her in place beneath him, he gripped the
bottom of the headboard, steadily driving into her without pause.
Mo’s eyes fluttered closed. “Gio...”
It was like he was stroking her clit from the inside.
“Please, don’t stop.”
He drove harder, his strokes powerful, meaningful. Deep and slow. Her
fingers remained in his hair, much softer than she could have anticipated.
Loose curls fell about her wrist. The pads of her fingertips grazed his
scalp. She opened her eyes and something inside her snapped when she saw
that his had closed. That he was leaning into the sensation of her hands,
enjoying the layer of intimacy she was adding to their unexpected encounter.
She locked her ankles behind his back, slipped a hand between their
bodies, and glided a finger between the slit of her sex, over the sensitive pearl
that responded with a surge of ecstasy the minute she touched it.
She came on a thrust, felt her bathe him in her hot, wet climax.
The sensation shot up and through her, arching her back, tearing cries
from her tender vocal cords. Her grip on him was tight, as if clinging to him
for life, and he lowered until their bodies were flattened against each other.
He wrapped his arms around her and guided them beneath her back on the
bed, encasing her. Enveloping her. Holding her as ecstasy wrapped around
her like satin ribbons.
When she was fully sated, he resumed his thrusts. She felt him grow to
his thickest, felt his cock jerk as he spurted his own hot, wet climax into her,
their bodies still in the same invisible tomb of their own making.
He didn’t immediately release her, but he pulled back and looked at her,
studied her face. In his dark eyes she could see the question, as if he was
asking her why she’d touched him the way she had. Why she’d held him.
Why’d she kissed him. And, emotions raw from orgasm, she cried.
No matter how ashamed she was that he could see the tears rolling down
the sides of her face, she couldn’t stop. It was the juxtaposition of her life;
she was the tough sister, a woman who killed, and yet, tears could come as
easily as night came after day.
 Giorgio lowered again, their bodies reuniting in a contact she now craved,
and pressed his cheek against hers as if trying to catch the tears, stop them
from falling.
She’d heard a slew of different words used when referring to him—beast,
monster, savage, inhuman, deadly, psychopath. In the grand scheme of
things, he was a monster. But that didn’t stop her from crying, from holding
him tighter. It didn’t stop her from wondering what life could have possibly
been like for him not to understand why she touched him the way she did,
kissed him the way she had.
He didn’t release her, either.

Mo stayed in Giorgio’s suite two days longer than she was supposed to, and
probably two days longer than he’d expected. Her breasts and stomach were
currently pressed against cool glass patio doors as he drove into her from
behind. Her hair was tight in his fist and with each tug, she felt her climax
draw nearer. The glass felt wonderful against her nipples, still wet from
where his mouth had just been.
He leaned forward and ran his thick tongue along her neck. She creamed
down her inner thighs. In the last couple days, sleep had come few and far
between but neither seemed to mind. Mischa Ivanovich was once again a
mere speck among the billions of humans that walked the earth, a man
without value. All that mattered was Giorgio—he was the only thought in
Mo’s head, the only sound in her ears, the only smell she registered, the only
thing she felt. Her body suctioned him, sore ever since that first night, but not
sore enough to turn away.
“There it is.” She pressed against the glass. “Gio, there it is. You’re
making me come, baby.”
He tugged on her hair, exposing the spot on her neck that, whenever he
latched onto it, made her erupt all over him.
“You’re making me come, baby,” she repeated, voice weak as she
shattered from inside out. It was magnificent each time and, until then, an
experience she’d only ever had solo. He came not too long after, always like
he held out until she reached orgasm.
When they regained use of their muscles, he picked her up, walked them
both over to the bed, and tossed her on top of the mattress. She bounced once,
laughing as he climbed over her.
She wrapped her arms around him, craving the warmth of his skin. His
tongue darted to one of her nipples and she laughed again, pulling away from
the overstimulation.
“I need a minute, Gio.”
He wasn’t a man of many words, but in the past couple of days, she’d
learned to find comfort in his silence.
They lay, him on top of her, while she traced the design of one of the
tattoos on his back with a finger. Their phones suddenly lit up, which meant
only one thing—another hit had come in, another bounty to track and
exterminate, and they would have to go back to being opponents when she so
much preferred them as lovers.
Giorgio pushed off her and Mo tried not to whimper at the loss of contact.
This was why she didn’t do one-night stands or any sort of friends with
benefits type of agreement. Her heart was stubborn and bullheaded, and it
created a connection whether or not she wanted it to.
He walked naked to the suite’s bathroom and disappeared behind the
door. Mo decided not to follow. She still had a place in Russia where she
could shower, and she needed to get away from him before she embarrassed
herself with something even worse than tears—expectations. Feelings. Shit
normal men ran away from.
She quickly slipped into a pair of black leggings, the black oversized
sweater, and black Converse sneakers. The only thing she really needed to
take was her phone; her travel documents weren’t real, and she would never
again need the stripper outfit. If there were any more underground strip clubs
to infiltrate in the future, she would pass. She was done with poles and
stilettos.
Mo did a quick scan of the room. When she was sure she wasn’t leaving
anything behind, she headed for the door.
“Bez.”
She’d barely pushed the door open.
“Ka kitea e ahau.”
He knew she would understand. One look at the natural blonde hair
sprouting from her brown scalp and it wouldn’t be hard to guess she
understood the Maori language. Her mother and twin sister were Melanesian,
and their mother had taught them the language as children. She didn’t
remember as much as she used to, but it was enough to translate what Gio
had said: “I will find you.”
Without looking back, Mo continued through the door and down the
hotel’s back staircase exit.
 CHAPTER TWO

Two years later

“S HOW ME HOW YOU KILLED HIM .”

A four-hour training in a hot workout room usually wasn’t a problem for
Mo, but she had things to do. Places to be. Namely, she had a date. The first
one, in a long time, she was actually excited about. Keith Stark played wide
receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, had a smile to die for and one of the best
athletic bodies in the league, according to Sports Illustrated.
Michael Huang leaned against the wall across from her, his arms folded.
“I want to see what you did.”
“Why does it matter?” Mo wiped the sweat from her forehead on an
already saturated towel. “I did it, and I got the money.”
“Well, I can’t see you in the field. So you have to show me what you
did.”
She’d met Huang through Gage Wolfe, a man who’d been essentially a
brother to her growing up, and a former member of the Australian Special
Forces. Gage and Huang now worked for the same pseudo-military outfit, a
ghost unit whose activities were so clandestine, the six-man team—which
included her brother-in-law—couldn’t reveal anything about the missions
they were often called to. It was helpful, however, that Gage had picked up
skilled friends along the way. After Caryn, Mo’s initial trainer, passed away,
she’d had to train herself. It wasn’t until Huang stepped in that she’d felt as
though she was achieving some kind of growth again.
She brought her last mark back to the forefront her mind. In the two years
since her fiasco with the since reformed Mischa Ivanovich in Russia, she’d
collected thirteen bounties, four of them from kill orders. The last man, Eli
Wheaton, had been a wanted extremist preparing to carry out a mass attack
on a targeted religious group. He never saw her coming.
She’d shown up at the shack in the woods he’d called a home, dirtied and
meek, looking for help. Due to his flaming misogyny, he’d never once
thought she could be a threat.
Mo motioned Huang over and demonstrated how she’d all but fallen to
her knees in tears in front of Eli, even going so far as to recount the grand tale
she’d given the man about how she’d escaped from an abusive ex and ended
up in the middle of the woods. Knowing Eli was a true sociopath who would
pretend to care about her agony, she’d allowed him to think he was fooling
her.
Eli offered her food and shelter. Then, just as she’d expected, the minute
nighttime fell, he’d attempted to exert his dominance by trying to force
himself between her legs. The first thing she’d done was jam a blade right
through the tip of his penis. Also in the couple of years since Russia, she’d
developed a thing for blades.
“I don’t want to know anymore.” Huang covered his crotch, his face
blanching.
Mo laughed. “Not even the part where I took the blade and—”
“No, not even that part.” His thick, dark hair swung when he shook his
head, and it brought back memories she couldn’t seem to completely
suppress. “But I’m proud of you. Are you sleeping?”
“Nope.” Mo collected her things. “Same time Wednesday?”
“It doesn’t get better.”
She’d already known that. Even killing the scum of the earth still
sometimes messed with her morals compass, brought the marks’ faces into
her dreams. It wasn’t something she envisioned doing forever, but she
relished her role as a woman stepping in to handle situations others didn’t
want to dirty their hands with. She reveled in aiding and abetting the battered
wives of men who thought their power, status, or size gave them the right to
strike.
“Same time Wednesday?” she repeated.
Huang agreed, and she left the training room at Gage’s Malibu estate and
made her way to one of the guest suites.
She pulled out her phone as she stepped out of her sweat-drenched
clothes and tapped Keith’s name on the screen.
 “Hey you,” Keith answered. “I’m glad you called. That is, unless you’re
calling to cancel.”
She pulled her bra over her head, grinning like a teenager. “No, I just
wanted to let you know I’m running a little behind, but not by much.”
“I’m on my way to the restaurant now. What wine should I order for
you?”
“Pinot noir.”
“I’ll get a whole bottle.”
She laughed and stepped into the bathroom, the tile cool beneath her feet.
“You think we’ll end up drinking an entire bottle?”
“Did I just give away that I’m trying to impress you?”
“A little.”
“You’re worth it. You’re a very beautiful, sexy woman. I’m just glad you
gave me the time of day.”
Mo’s face warmed.
They’d met at a party in LA thrown by an old college friend of hers, a
party she’d been bored with until he’d walked into the room with his light-
brown skin, long dreadlocks, dimpled cheeks, and beautiful teeth.
“Now, you’re trying to flatter me,” she said.
He laughed. “Maybe. Is it working?”
“I think so.”
There was a pause in the conversation. Mo wondered if he was grinning
on his side as much as she was.
“I’m about to get in the shower,” she said. “But I’ll see you in a few. I’m
looking forward to it.”
Now she heard the smile. “Me too, Moana.”
“Just Mo, sir.”
“Of course, Mo.”
She hung up and stepped inside the shower enclosure, her head tilted up
to avoid looking down at her body. She didn’t think she would ever grow
accustomed to the bruises and tender spots her lifestyle often left her with.
After her date tonight, she would take a long soak in her bathtub at home. A
friend had sent her scented bath bombs made of Epsom salt after hearing her
complain about pain she’d passed off as post-workout soreness. Ending her
night with candles, relaxation, and Norah Jones sounded more than heavenly.
Keeping a mental timer, she washed, hopped out, slicked her hair into a
bun, brushed on some makeup, and slipped into a dress and heels.
 Downstairs, the house was empty, meaning Huang had already left. His
quiet, stealthy movements only further validated why he was sometimes
referred to as The Shadow.
Mo requested an Uber and made her way to the front door. Although
Keith was well-known in California, she was leaving her SUV at Gage’s and
catching a ride to the restaurant. No matter how well it went with Keith, crazy
was crazy. She would prefer, if he chose to stalk her, he showed up at Gage’s
for her to kick his ass. Gage’s house wasn’t in the middle of a community
development with neighbors walking their children to school. Here, she
would have the seclusion she needed.
She reached for the door handle, but the door was suddenly pushed open.
Mo smelled him before she saw him—spice, lemon, bergamot. Armani Code.
Then, he stepped into the entryway. As if he’d smelled her too, his eyes were
already on hers.
His name slipped and tumbled from her mouth. “Gio?”
“Bez.” He cocked his head to the side as if something suddenly dawned
on him. “Privet.”
It made sense for him to greet her with a, “Hi” in Russian. She’d sought
more information about him after he’d put it on her like she’d never had it put
on her before. And although she hadn’t known exactly what she’d been
searching for, she’d still searched.
She’d learned he understood a variety of languages, but Russian was his
preference. Occasionally, he used Albanian, but he seemed to despise
German and found English unnecessarily complicated. He also knew Latin,
although whenever the Latin he knew was spoken about in the underground,
it was always with a, “no man has lived to tell the tale,” kind of vibe. Rumor
had it he’d been a mercenary since childhood.
Giorgio didn’t give her a chance to ask him what he was doing at Gage’s
house. He pulled her by the hand toward the hallway, his grip so strong with
intent she had to concentrate in order not to stumble in her heels.
He pushed her up against the hallway wall and leaned forward, that damn
hair moving over his face in the way she liked. She reacted without thinking,
tugging at him until their lips crashed.
She felt like a movie character whose memories suddenly returned after a
head injury. Everything came flooding, a deluge to her senses. The softness
of his tongue was just as surprising now as it had been then. It made no sense
any part of him could be this soft, this gentle. And the fact that his tongue
was probing her mouth, asking her to open when the first time it hadn’t at all
wanted to play, created a tiny tremor in her chest.
His hands moved low to grip her waist. She sucked his tongue into her
mouth, begging her knees to remain firm when he groaned at the contact.
Those large hands began to move, back toward her butt, squeezing and
playing and preparing to lift and separate.
“Wait.” She pulled away and pushed at his chest. “I can’t do this.”
Her lips were deliciously swollen. Her heart was making laps on a race
track.
“I’m seeing someone. Well, I might be seeing someone. Soon.”
He started forward again but she shimmed away, off the wall and out of
reach of the length of his arms. She turned and all but sprinted to the door.
Luckily, the minute she stepped outside, her Uber arrived.
Mo hopped in the newer model Rav4, pulled a mirror from her clutch,
and fixed her hair and lip color, so frazzled and preoccupied she didn’t see
Giorgio standing in the doorway, watching the car as it drove away.

“I can’t believe you haven’t watched even one episode of Game of Thrones.”
Keith flashed Mo a smile. “You’re missing out.”
Mo swirled the wine in her glass. “So I’m told.”
“Maybe we could watch it together?”
“Netflix and Chill? Is that what it’s called?”
He laughed. “Netflix, yes. Chill, well, it depends on where the night
leads. But I’d watch the entire series again, just for you.”
The conversation was slow and stilted, as expected. This was their first
date and first dates, no matter how many conversations happened in between,
were nothing like talking over the phone. In person, she could appreciate the
beautiful face that sat before her.
He’d taken her to an exclusive Japanese restaurant along the coastline and
reserved a secluded table in the back. The lights were low, creating a
romantic glow off his skin. His navy-blue suit was custom-tailored to his
impeccable athlete’s physique. A Super Bowl ring, studded with diamonds,
gleamed on his left hand.
“So, Miss Mo,” Keith began, “tell me a little more about what you do.”
 Mo almost choked on the gulp of wine spilling down her throat. She’d
managed to push aside or avoid the conversation each time he asked, but if
she wanted anything long-term with this man, or any man, there would be no
getting around it.
Well, except for with one man in particular.
“I’m an...instructor,” she said. “I teach self-defense classes for women.”
His brow shot up. “Word? I respect that. What kind of self-defense do
you teach?”
The kind where the end goal is death.
“Um, judo, jiu jitsu, krav maga...all types.”
“That’s really important.” He took a swig of his wine. “When I was
twelve, me and my mom got mugged waiting for the subway one night. I
grew up in Queens, stayed there until I was about ten, and then we moved
down south. She used to work late nights at this southern inspired, soul food
restaurant. That was before she finished culinary school. Got her own
restaurant now. Your cause is something I can really get behind.”
Her cheeks burned. She looked away. He didn’t. He was showing respect,
complimenting, and flirting all at the same time and it was impressive.
“I’m sorry that happened to you and your mother,” she offered. “But I’m
glad things worked out well for you. Tell me a little about your professional
car—oh God.”
A crown of dark hair suddenly appeared at the restaurant entrance. By the
time Mo blinked, it was gone.
“Everything okay?” Keith asked.
She turned, facing him fully. “Um, yeah. I just thought...never mind.
What was I...oh yeah...tell me more about you. So, you grew up in New
York.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Mo took a quick glance around the restaurant and noticed a man with
dark hair taking a seat with a woman. A man who wasn’t Giorgio. She was
being jumpy for no reason.
“What was that like?”
“It wasn’t that bad.” Keith leaned back so the server could place a serving
of oysters on the table. “I didn’t have a backyard until we moved to
Savannah, so all my football skills I picked up on asphalt and cement. At
least, outside school.”
He lifted his forearms and rolled down his sleeves to show her where he’d
gotten his fair share of scars.
“Wow, that’s—”
“Excuse me, can I help you?”
Mo’s eyes closed. She didn’t have to follow Keith’s line of sight to know
who was now standing over their table. She smelled him. It was him she’d
seen come through the restaurant entrance.
Wooden legs scraped across the floor. When she finally looked, their
table had acquired a third occupant.
“Yo, my man—”
“Giorgio, what are you doing here?”
Keith’s gaze darted to her. “You know him?”
“Work friend.” She faced their new guest. “Well?”
Giorgio flagged down the server and placed what sounded like a dinner
order. In perfect Japanese. Well, she assumed it was perfect Japanese. It
wasn’t like she could tell. But with the way the server’s face flushed and her
eyes glazed over, the young woman had been dazzled. It was another odd
thing, to think a man as hard as Giorgio could dazzle women.
He dazzled you.
She shook her head and glanced at Keith whose forehead was wrinkled.
His nostrils flared slightly as he breathed. Testosterone perfumed the air.
Here we go.
“I’m trying to have dinner with my girl, if you don’t mind,” Keith
directed toward Giorgio. “I don’t know what your issue is, but you need to
take it up somewhere else.”
“This is your...what?” Giorgio asked her, but in Maori so that they were
the only two people at the table who understood.
“My date,” she said, low and in English. “And speak English. You’re
being rude.”
Giorgio reached for an oyster. Keith extended his hand. Before Mo could
stop what she knew was about to happen, Keith’s palm was flat on the
tabletop. Between his pinky and ring finger on his right hand, the tip of one
of their dinner knives had pierced the wooden tabletop. Keith looked down at
the spot, and his complexion paled when he realized how close he’d come to
losing at least one finger.
Mo pushed out her chair and stood, grabbing her clutch in the process.
“I’m so sorry, Keith. Maybe we can do this another time. I would really like
that.” Her eyes darted to Giorgio. “You, outside.”
 Giorgio pushed his chair out and started after her, but not before she
glimpsed him tossing a few bills on the tabletop. He met up with her a few
seconds later outside on the curb.
“What the hell, Giorgio?”
He stared at her, his gaze so intense she wondered if he understood she
was pissed at him. She could almost see his thoughts reflected in those
shark’s eyes of his—the way he’d claimed her body in Russia, the climaxes,
the kiss less than an hour ago at Gage’s. Or maybe those were her thoughts
being reflected back at her.
“It’s bad enough you grabbed me like that at Gage’s despite there being a
couple years between us.” She ramped up her anger to curb the way her
insides flustered. “But you just rudely interrupted my date.”
He frowned. “You did not want.”
“For you to interrupt my date?” Her tone softened. More thoughts came,
this time of that look he’d given her in bed. “No, why would I—”
“For me to ‘grab like that,’ as you say,” he clarified.
She started to say no again, but her mouth wouldn’t let her lie. “I took an
Uber here, so I’d appreciate it if you gave me a ride home. Please.”
A black sports car on the curb chirped. Giorgio headed toward it. Mo
trailed him. It was dark, but she made out the horse emblem on the back.
There was a lot of money to be made in the price of people. She spent hers on
spa days and travel getaways, with her sister when she could. But Ari was a
married woman with a small child so many times, it was just Mo in a villa on
the Amalfi Coast drinking morning cappuccinos, wishing instead of morning
dew on her finger she sported a wedding band.
Once they were situated inside the car, the engine rumbled throughout the
car, and Giorgio took off down the street. The Ferrari was a thing of beauty,
purring like a happy kitten. The leather against her back reminded her of the
soft sheets from the hotel suite in Russia, the strands of Giorgio’s hair.
“I guess you know Gage?” she asked. “Not too long ago, Gage was
recruited to be part of some kind of super-secret ghost unit. At least, from
what I understand. Is that how you know him?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “That’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Gage, he knows you kill men.”
Somehow, she knew when he was asking a question and when he was
making a statement despite both occasions sounding virtually identical.
 “And the occasional tyrannical woman.” She leaned into the seat. “Yes,
he does.”
He mumbled something in a language she didn’t understand. He was
driving fast and swerving around cars in a machine that could easily exceed
150 miles per hour. Yet, she felt absolutely no fear. There was no fear with
him. No longer any fear of him.
“What did you just say?”
“You want English.”
“I want you not to burst in on my dates and be rude to them. And yes.”
“Yes, English.”
“You’re a whole different breed of man and yet you still do the same
thing all men do. Respond to one part of the question.”
He reached toward her legs. Despite her hemming and hawing, her body
responded, a quake of energy rushing up and to the V at the juncture of her
thighs. She was immediately wet and hoped it wasn’t enough to show on the
seats. But then, he plucked a piece of lint from the bottom of her dress before
returning his hand to the gearshift.
Damn you.
Mo leaned back in the seat, arms folded. Every few minutes, she stole a
glance at him. He truly was quite gorgeous. It was a wonder what had made
him choose this life when he could have made a good living as a high-end
fashion model. But as her gaze went from the top of his head down his body,
down the ink on his neck, the dark shirt and the large, tattooed biceps, she
really couldn’t see him in a silk suit. This life suited him better. Plus, she was
assuming he’d had a say in the direction his life had gone.
She pointed. “You’re going to take this next right coming up.”
The turn came up. He drove right past it.
“Giorgio, really?”
“You live in Calabasas.” He switched back to Maori, and she could see
why he chose not to speak English often. In Maori, his pronouns and
prepositions existed.
He pointed at the dashboard and the notification on the GPS that there
was an accident up ahead. At least, had they taken her normal route home.
She didn’t know how smart it was to let him know where she lived, but she
could handle herself. Plus, he wouldn’t hurt her. She didn’t know why she
knew that or how.
Once they were on local roads, she gave him the rest of the directions
until they were in front of her place. The two-story craftsman, her pride and
joy, was one the first large purchases she’d ever made. While she did love the
sprawling luxury Gage lived in, she preferred her little neighborhood with
upper middle-class families. In the mornings, children walked in groups to
the neighborhood school. People waved when she backed out of her
driveway. It felt normal, like how she’d grown up, and she’d deviated so far
from that way of life she’d needed this home to center her.
Giorgio cut off the engine. Neither of them moved. He tilted his head
back against the seat, a normal gesture of frustration for this abnormal man.
Except, he had nothing to be frustrated about. She hadn’t barged in on his
date like a cave woman.
Mo unhooked her seatbelt and shifted in the seat, facing him. “Giorgio—”
“Stop.” He was still speaking in her mother’s native tongue. “That is not
what you call me.”
She sighed, bit down on her bottom lip, and gave her thighs a discreet
squeeze. “Gio, what happened in Russia...I know I made it seem like I’m the
kind of girl who can have a no-strings-attached kind of relationship, but I’m
not.”
Their eyes met, and she was struck with an overwhelming need to kiss
him.
His forehead wrinkled. “No...strings.”
“Like,” she searched for an explanation, “like just sex. Me, I’m not a
‘new age’ woman. I need more. I need a connection and emotion. Dates and
feelings and flowers. Things you can’t give me, but it’s not like that’s your
fault. It’s just, this won’t be my life forever. I’d like to meet a nice guy, settle
down, have some babies or something. I don’t see that being in the cards for
you, and I need that. For me.”
There was a flicker of something in his eyes, the slightest bit of softening,
maybe even vulnerability, but his irises were so dark, she could have easily
been mistaken.
“Dates,” he said, as if trying to understand.
Her chest lifted with a sigh and she reached into her clutch to pull out her
phone. “Gio, I have six missed calls from Keith, and I’m going to call him
back. I’m going to apologize to him, and I’ll go out with him again if he asks.
If he’ll have me.”
“If he will have you.” Giorgio’s gaze drifted down, back to the hem of her
dress. “For you, Bez, he should beg.”
 This time, when his fingers touched the hem of her dress, there was no
lint to remove. The heat and desire from before returned, like it had never
left, and her arousal perfumed the small space they shared. She showed him
what she wanted by spreading her legs and tilting her pelvis forward just a
bit, toward his hand. His hand continued its journey up her thigh until his
long middle finger met the outside of the sliver of underwear she’d worn.
“This what you wear.” He switched to harsh, almost angry, English. “For
him.”
He dragged her onto his lap. Mo reached for him, needing to feel even
closer, and thrust her fingers into his hair to pull him toward her. His finger
climbed up her thigh, tugged the panties to the side, and met her slit at the
same moment their lips touched.
Kissing him, touching him, being in his presence...it all overpowered her
common sense and good judgment. Her head wanted to toss back, to indulge
in the stroking between her legs, but her lips wouldn’t leave their place
against his.
She lifted slightly, and he accepted the invitation and plunged the finger
deep inside her. She sucked on his bottom lip, his top lip, his tongue. Tugged
on his hair. They were all so soft, so erotic.
Giorgio returned the kiss with as much eagerness as she kissed him,
nibbling at the corners of her mouth, her lips. With a nudge, he urged her
head back to give him access to the arch of her neck. There, he continued to
lick and nip and nibble, all the while stroking her with a controlled rhythm.
She wanted more than this, wanted his weight on top of her as he drove his
hips into hers. She wanted to lock her legs around his waist and pull him
deep. She wanted it to be him who took her to restaurants, flirted with her,
served her bottles of wine.
He inserted a second finger and with each stroke, he made sure to give
attention to her buzzing clitoris. Her climax descended like a raging bull, and
when he lowered his head and bit her nipple through the fabric of her dress,
she exploded.
Mo’s hips gyrated and she cried Giorgio’s name, the one she called him,
until her voice was hoarse and the tremors subsided. His forehead fell to the
space between her neck and shoulder as she rode out the orgasm, and she
now wanted to get as far away from this man as possible. First, holding her
while she came and now settling his forehead against her skin as she erupted
from his teasing? The gestures meant nothing to him, but she was paying
attention to them. Feeling them. Feeling things for a man like this, wanting
what he could never give her.
He pulled his fingers away, brought them up to her mouth. She sucked on
the digits, each tug of her lips stoking a blaze in the depths of his eyes. He
then tipped a finger beneath her chin to coax her in for a kiss, sharing in the
taste of her pleasure. It was the first time he’d ever initiated a kiss, and the
minute the realization hit her, a thick lump formed in her throat. Her heart
kicked in her chest.
“Gio, I can’t do this.” She pulled away. “Not with you.”
Mo darted from the car, not stopping until she was through her front door
and it was locked behind her. But she remained at the door, staring at the car
through the side window panel. She didn’t go upstairs until she saw him pull
away.
The next morning, she stared at her phone. The messages from Keith
didn’t indicate he was completely through with her. He seemed to be more
concerned about her well-being than anything else, and he wanted to know if
Giorgio truly was a coworker because he seemed “possessive.”
By the last message, he was contrite, letting her know it was okay if she
didn’t “hit him back” but for “what it’s worth, he would like to see her
again.” Had the shoe been on the other foot, she would have left Keith the
minute another woman had even thought it was acceptable to sit at their table.
But the handsome NFL player saw Giorgio as a challenge, and men were
chasers. If they felt like they couldn’t have something, that only made them
want it more.
Mo picked up her phone and dialed his number. Downstairs, the doorbell
rang. She headed to the front door with the phone at her ear, waiting to see if
Keith would pick up.
“Good morning, pretty lady,” he greeted, his voice raspy with sleep. “I
didn’t think I’d hear from you.”
“I’m sorry about last night,” she offered.
“I take it he’s really an ex or something?”
“No, not at all. Gio’s just...it was a really important issue and I was
ignoring him. It’s my fault.”
“Hulk looking dude.”
She heard sheets ruffle and imagined him turning over in bed onto his
back. She imagined the sheets pooled about his lower half, his chest bare.
And then she saw her head on top of a hard, olive chest as she played with
strands of dark hair.
Gio had to be some kind of penis God. Maybe all the women he’d had the
pleasure of bringing to climax, continuously, reacted this way to him.
“He didn’t hurt you or anything, did he?”
Mo pulled the front door open. A woman was standing in uniform with a
picnic basket in her hand.
“I have a delivery here for,” the woman read from a card, “Bez?”
“No, he didn’t hurt me,” Mo answered Keith, using the other half of her
attention to wonder what Giorgio could have possibly sent her.
She signed for the delivery, thanked the woman, and took the basket into
the kitchen.
“So do you think we could try again?” Keith asked. “Without The Hulk
this time.”
She set the basket on the kitchen island and pulled back the cloth cover.
Her stomach twisted and her chest warmed. She wanted to see Giorgio, kiss
him. Tug on those dark strands of hair.
Giorgio had sent her a basketful of dates.
“How about Tuesday?” Keith asked. “Mo? You still there?”
 CHAPTER THREE

“Y OU OKAY , BIG MAN ?” A DRIK S OKOLOV WORKED ON REMOVING THE WRAPS

from Giorgio’s hands. “It took you two whole rounds to knock Paulie out.
You got a cold or something?”
When his hands were completely unwrapped, Giorgio stretched his
fingers. In the ring across the room, a group of men whisked smelling salts
beneath Paulie Valdez’s nose. He did feel a little slower than usual, a little
more distracted. He could still feel his Bez’s silken walls on his fingers, how
warm she was, how her body contracted around him when she came.
“Oh, I forgot.” Adrik hit himself in the forehead. “You don’t like English.
It’s a hell of a language, if you ask me.” He switched to Russian. “What’s
up?”
Giorgio shook his head. “I am good, Adrik.”
“You seem like there’s something on your mind.”
Giorgio maneuvered around the gym and found a seat on an empty
weight bench. He took in the gray walls, bright red heavy bags, and mix of
other MMA-related equipment. Paulie had been dragged to his feet to one
corner of the ring while a second pair of men entered through the ropes,
prepared to spar. Giorgio tilted his head, studied them. One looked across at
him and quickly glanced away.
Adrik started to bend to remove the wraps from his feet, but Giorgio
stopped him with a crushing grip on his shoulder. Adrik nodded and backed
off, choosing to stand instead a few feet from the bench.
When Giorgio couldn’t kill, he found mixed martial arts the next best
alternative. It was what he’d been born for, destruction. What had been
drilled into him during every fight, every match ever meted out at Cross of
Honour. Vater would come close, his voice grating in Giorgio’s young ears:
“You were born for one purpose. To kill.”
Even when Giorgio didn’t want to hear the words, they were there—in his
sleep, in the shower, on a group mission, alone. So, as long as he kept his
hands busy, his mind did not wander. He did not hear. When his hands went
still, so did heartbeats. Pulses. Breathing. The only time his mind quieted
without it was when he was with her.
He’d first noticed it that night in Russia. It was the way time had no
longer slowed, the way the impulse to plunge the machete through Mischa’s
heart fizzled and died, drawing his attention from the man groveling on the
floor to the dancer who’d challenged him. From the moment he’d laid eyes
on his Bez, he knew she would be trouble. However, it was the kind of
trouble he enjoyed. The kind of trouble who came with her eyes open, who
sought his mouth like she yearned nothing else, and who wrapped around his
cock like she had been created for it.
“You have heard?” Adrik asked.
Giorgio removed one wrap, spared Adrik a glance. “Heard what, Adrik?”
“About the reward for you.”
“There is always a reward to kill me.” He pulled off the second wrap.
“This one is for you alive.”
A thick brow lifted. “Who?”
“No one seems to know.”
“How much? The usual?”
Adrik shook his head. “No, my friend. Much more.”
Giorgio gave a bit more of his attention to the two men now squaring off
in the ring. He had never seen them before, but Adrik’s gym was always
getting new members. There were also often large gaps between his visits.
Giorgio set the wraps next to him on the bench. “I will find out.”
“Oh, I know you will, Giorgio.” Adrik’s chubby, balding head bobbed.
“But, I am worried.”
“Worry about someone who needs it.”
He left the bench and headed for the showers, Bez in his head again. He
was still curious about what had possessed a woman like her to become an
assassin. She didn’t carry herself like a woman pleased by death.
It was obvious she’d spent countless hours building up her skills and
physique for the demands of the job, but a woman like her was supposed to
be living well somewhere, granted whatever she pleased and protected by
guards, a military. Plus, she wanted things that usually weren’t granted to
people like them, like him. Things she was certain he couldn’t give her. But it
wasn’t like the football player with the soft chin and small hands with slow
reflexes could give them to her, either.
He stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the gym shower. Ice cold
water pelted his chest, but his body was used to it. Hot and warm water had
been luxuries at Cross of Honour. Vater had claimed the world was no place
for luxury. Even at times of peace, it was necessary to prepare for war. Under
his tutelage, him and the rest of the boys were to become invincible, the kind
of men whose names reverberated fear. And they would be trained to
maximize their genes, carry on their “perfect” genetics through a litter of
progeny.
Like fucking rabbits.
Giorgio’s ears perked up at the sound of shoes entering the bathroom.
From the walker’s gait, he could tell it was Paulie, finally up from his KO.
And because Paulie entered the room, he started thinking about the reason it
had taken him two rounds to knock the man out. Again.
Despite the cold water, his cock hardened. No amount of stroking the
night before had been enough to stop him from wanting her. He wanted to
taste her, to wrap his hands around her waist while he impaled her from
below. If she was afraid of him, she didn’t show it, and that made him want
her more.
He ended his shower, stepped out, and walked across the gym for a towel.
He was still listening, always listening, and heard as Paulie’s footsteps left
the shower area. Three more sets entered afterward, one as though it was
being dragged. Then, he heard Adrik’s fearful voice.
“H-he’s not here. He left after the fight with Paulie.”
Giorgio reached to where his jeans lay and unclipped a single throwing
knife from his belt.
“He is here.” The second voice belonged to another man, one with a
German accent. “You will take us to him.”
Giorgio pulled on his pants and decided to cut the scenario short.
He stepped around the lockers and into the men’s line of sight. As he’d
anticipated, it was the same two from the ring. One of them was holding
Adrik up by the collar. Both were large with thick trunks, red hair, and
battered knuckles. They were probably new to the circuit, thought going after
him would be an easy payday. The new ones were always impetuous, always
foolish, and never lasted long.
The one holding Adrik turned to the other and said something in German.
“No secrets,” Giorgio responded in their tongue. “And, you talk to me.”
The third man reached toward his waist, but the blade was already out of
Giorgio’s hands and through the man’s neck before he had a chance to
brandish his weapon. Adrik took the moment of distraction to elbow the man
holding him in the midsection. In the few seconds the man took to react to the
blow, Giorgio approached him, removed the blade from his partner’s neck,
and used it to slice him from ear to ear.
As they both lay writhing, dying on the floor, he knelt over them. “Et ne
nos inducas in tentationem. Sed libera nos a malo.”
Whether or not their souls went to heaven meant nothing to him. The
prayer was not for them.
“And lead us not into temptation,” Adrik echoed, recited. “But deliver us
from evil. Amen, brother.”
“Do you know who they are?”
“I have never seen them before at the gym.”
Giorgio went back to where his clothes sat and wiped his blade on the
towel. Adrik followed.
“They speak German,” Giorgio said. “And they asked for me.”
“I think they might be headhunters,” Adrik offered.
Giorgio pulled his shirt over his head. “Stupid.”
“Agreed.”
There was only one person on earth who could ever get the jump on him.
Before her, no one had existed, but looking into her eyes made him feel like
there was a knife to his throat, a gun to his head. She could end him, if she
wanted to.
And he would let her.
“I will find out about the bounty.” He collected his things and headed for
the door.
“And if I hear anything, I’ll let you know,” Adrik called. “See you next
week?”
“Maybe,” Giorgio tossed back. “If you find me a true contender.”
Adrik tossed his head back and laughed.
Keith looked around the restaurant.
“What’s wrong?” Mo asked.
“Just checking to make sure your boyfriend doesn’t show up.”
Mo opened her mouth to say Giorgio wasn’t her boyfriend, but then
closed it. “He’s busy. I think we’re good.”
“That was a big ass dude. He teach with you?”
Now she was the one looking around, wondering where the server was.
“Yeah, he teaches some classes.”
“That’s what I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He leaned forward on the
table, toward her. “Mo, you’re a beautiful woman. Like, from head to toe.
Plus you’ve got that exotic thing going on with that skin and that hair. Why
the hell are you fighting?”
The server passed by, quickly refilled their wine glasses, and left with a
slight dip of his head.
“I’m teaching,” she clarified. “And there are a lot of dangerous people
out there. Many of them just happen to be men. Women need to know how to
protect themselves.”
“I don’t disagree with you. But, you have to admit, there’s been a
dissolution of the black family.”
The wine was a combination of sweet and bitter on her tongue. “What do
you mean?”
“Like, we’ve got too many single women raising our sons and daughters.”
“I agree with that, but I’m assuming you’re going to relate this to women
protecting themselves.”
He leaned back, smiled. She’d seen his high school football pictures.
He’d used his money wisely on his teeth. Before, he’d had gaps larger than
the chain links in the metal fence that wrapped around her grandparents’
house in Victoria. Now, his smile soaked panties. Probably boxers too. Too
bad it wasn’t currently doing anything for her. But she wasn’t interested in
concentrating too heavily on why that was.
“Because men aren’t in the household,” he said. “If more men were in the
household, women wouldn’t have to take ‘self-defense’ classes.”
She ignored his air quotes, licked her lips, and took another, longer, sip of
wine. “Well, while I do understand where you’re coming from, many women
get hurt by the men in their lives, in their households. Matter of fact, most
women are attacked by men they know. And men can’t be around us twenty-
four-seven. If I’m walking to the grocery store and a man tries to attack me,
do I ask him to hold on while I get my husband on the phone?”
He shook his head and twirled the stem of his wine glass. “That’s a
strawman theory.”
Mo downed the rest of her goblet and waved for more. “And why is
that?”
“Women don’t get attacked that often, especially not on the streets. I
mean, I watch the news every night. Where and when are these attacks
happening?”
“Jesus.” She rubbed her forehead.
“What?”
“Rape culture is alive and well in this society, Keith.”
He lifted his brows and looked away, his expression letting her know he
didn’t agree. “There is no ‘rape culture,’” he offered, with the damn air
quotes again. If he lifted his fingers in the air one more time, she would break
them.
“Are you guys ready to order?”
Mo pulled her eyes away from Keith and allowed them to land on the
young man who had approached, standing with his thighs bumping the edge
of the table. It took her a minute to register his white shirt, black tie, and
black slacks. The notepad in his hand.
“Can we have a few more minutes, please?” she asked, smiling. “It won’t
be long. I promise.”
The young man blushed, lowered his head, and walked to another table.
“Back to your comment.” Mo turned her attention back to Keith. “What
do you call a society that wants to give a rapist rights over a child conceived
during rape? Let’s dial it back to the underlying principles that drive rape
culture such as those which suggest a woman’s body and her decisions are
not her own. Not too long ago, wives needed their husband’s permission to
get a credit card. And do you know how many women have to get their
husband’s approval to get their tubes tied?”
He shrugged. “That makes sense. What if he wants more kids?”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“It’s a proven fact women are more emotional than men, and she might
not be in the right frame of mind when making that decision. Plus, a woman’s
role—”
“Let me stop you right there.” She held up a hand. “Don’t even continue
that sentence. First of all, google what the word fact means before you start
throwing it around, embarrassing yourself. And I work in an industry where
there are about 0.005 percent women and still do pretty damn good there.”
“But that’s not real.”
He lifted his hands. Mo zoned in on his fingers, but he then returned them
to the tabletop. Maybe Giorgio should have chopped the damn things off.
“Doing all those moves in your little classes is cute, but women have less
lean muscle than men do. That’s science. A little cute thing like you, if I
really wanted to hurt you, couldn’t stop me.”
The glass in Mo’s hand shattered. Her fingers had squeezed the slim stem
so hard, it broke in two, sending the goblet spinning across the tabletop. Dark
wine spilled onto the white linen tablecloth, and she watched the liquid run,
like watered down blood, over the edge. Seconds later, a few of the restaurant
staff hurried over, apologizing as if they’d been the one to break the glass,
cause the mess.
“See there?” Keith pointed to her hand. “Emotional. Shit...look what you
did.”
“You have no idea what I can do, Keith.” Her voice was low, her gaze
fixed on him. “I could kill you.”
It had taken years for her to know she’d had a dark side. Years of getting
beaten up in a relationship she was too ashamed to leave until she’d been
pushed to the brink, years of men grabbing her on the street, frat boys trying
to use their drunkenness as an excuse for their lascivious behavior. And it had
erupted in the worst way. Caryn had seen the murky depths of her soul even
before she had. Caryn had known, before she did, what she was capable of.
She’d gone into Caryn’s studio looking for self-defense but had left with so
much more. All it had taken was one moment on a hike in California, one
time relaying the story to Caryn, and she’d started down the warpath.
“Yeah, sure.” He smiled, winked at her. “That’s cute.”
“Let me try.”
His smile fell. “Try what?”
“To kill you.”
“You...you can’t be serious.”
Her pulse was pounding hard in her ears. Her heart hammered in her
chest. One of her hands had a death grip on the edge of the wooden dining
chair. Everything in the room slowed and the bustle of the cleaning staff grew
muffled, like voices talking through a closed door. But then, seconds later,
her bearings returned. The laughter and chatter returned to normal cadence.
She found the energy to force a tight smile.
“Of course, I’m kidding.”
“Keep that in mind, though,” he went on, completely oblivious to how
close to dying he would come if he didn’t drop the subject. “Me and you, if
we work out, you could quit your day job.”
She stood and planted her hands flat on the tabletop, ready to strike. At
the same moment, she heard loud buzzing coming from her purse. Without
offering a word of dismissal, she headed for the restroom, rummaging
through the purse’s compartments in search of her phone. The buzz hadn’t
come from her personal cell. It had come from the other one linked to activity
on the circuit.
Mo slipped into a stall, locked the door, and checked the newest major
alert. The number of zeroes she saw caused her breath to catch in her throat.
It was one of the largest bounties to ever come down the pipe, if not the
largest. There was currently no one this lucrative on the circuit, not that she
knew of. However, when she tapped to read the notification’s contents, she
swallowed the words. Someone had put out a hit on Giorgio Pozza.
It wouldn’t be his first, but the rest were generally ignored. What was
offered was usually nowhere near enough for any hitman or assassin to risk
their lives facing Giorgio. But this? Someone with a massive amount of cash
was placing all their chips on the table, hoping to roll a lucky enough number
to finally take the big man down. With money like this, people would
definitely be taking this seriously. Hell, groups of people would be taking it
seriously. The alert specifically said he was to be retrieved alive, but she
wouldn’t put it past them to try to take him out just for the bragging rights.
She dropped the phone back into her purse, washed her hands, and
returned to the table. As she sat, she saw the server walking toward them.
“I’m ready to order n—”
“I already took care of it,” Keith cut in. “Another thing a man like me can
do for you. Hold things down when you’re otherwise preoccupied.”
In reality, an attempt on Giorgio Pozza’s life wasn’t going to happen in
the next few seconds or even few days. She had time to sit there and finish
this second date with Keith, pray it improved after their orders arrived. But
when she weighed whether she wanted to be with Giorgio or sit across from
Keith, the choice was easy.
“I have to go.” She stood.
Keith’s forehead wrinkled. “You’re running out on me again?”
 “Yes.” She turned to leave, but he called out to her.
“Mo, you only have one more strike before I move on. I’m not going to
continuously be disrespected like this. I’m Keith Stark. I deserve better, and I
can find better. So, come on. Act right.”
She spun around. “You’re right.”
His chest expanded and released with an exhale. “Okay, then.”
“You do deserve something, and it’s something I would love to give
you.”
He licked his lips. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Me hitting precisely the correct location on your temple to blow a blood
vessel.”
His tongue stopped mid-lick. Realization moved over his still handsome,
though not as handsome as it had been before, face.
“It’s that big motherfucker, isn’t it? He’s not really a work friend. You’ve
been distracted all night. You’re leaving me to go fuck him.”
Mo clenched her fists, unclenched them. “When will you learn that a
woman is capable of making a decision that has nothing to do with a man?”
Though, in this case, you’re partially right.
“This,” she made a circular motion with both arms, “was never going to
work. And I wish you the best, I really do. I just hope, for your sake, when
you do find a woman, someone like me doesn’t break into your house. Tell
me all about,” she lifted her fingers, “‘lean muscle’ when I collapse your
windpipe with the heel of my palm against your hyoid bone.”
This time, when she turned, she didn’t allow him calling her name to pull
her back.
She hurried out to the valet attendant and handed over her slip. As she
waited for her SUV to be brought around, she dialed Giorgio. Several weeks
after their time in Russia, she’d discovered his number in her phone under the
name Gio, and it had taken mountains of will power not to call him and be
the booty call she never knew she could be.
“Privet,” he greeted.
“That means ‘hi,’” she said, a smile spreading across her cheeks.
“Good. Now you speak Russian.”
“Hardly. Where are you? I need to talk to you.”
“We are talking, yes?”
“Gio...” She spotted her SUV’s silver body approaching. “Meet me at my
house. I need to talk to you in person. I’m on my way home now.”
 “Bez, you are with him?”
She groaned. “I was, yes. We were supposed to be having dinner.”
“The mudak, he did not feed you.”
“You must be psychic to know he’s an asshole without me telling you.”
That word, she’d learned from movies. “But no, I left the restaurant before I
got a chance to eat.”
Through his silence, she felt his venom.
“He hurt you.”
“No, not at—”
“Lying will not save his life, Bez.”
“He didn’t hurt me, Gio.” She thanked the attendant and slipped into the
driver’s seat through the door the young man held open. “He couldn’t. A man
like that, I could gut him in five seconds.”
“Then, we need to train.”
Her phone switched to hands-free. “Train for what?”
“To gut him in two seconds, Bez.”
She laughed and wondered if he knew how funny he could be. She
enjoyed that, although it wasn’t evident from his tone, he engaged in a little
banter with her. With virtually everyone else, even his teammates, he was
deadly silent. He only spoke when there was a need. Plus, there was the
added fact that he didn’t enjoy the nuances of the English language. With her,
he spoke anyway. He tried anyway. And, in his own way, he’d brightened her
day.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said.
“I know why you are coming.”
“Is it a problem?”
“No.”
“Okay, good.”
“And what if I say yes.”
“You’ll learn very quickly, Gio, that I’m not big on taking orders or
directions.”

Mo pushed through her garage door, stepped into the kitchen, and was
immediately embraced by smells from her favorite restaurant, a family-
owned Italian place not too far from her house.
When she rounded the corner into her dining room, she saw why. It was
food from her favorite restaurant, but the salad, breadsticks, and pasta had
been removed from their recycled cartons and assembled on dinnerware. The
bread had been placed in a basket with cloth draped beneath. Dark wine filled
glasses next to the plates. The bottle stood on the table, label facing out as if
to make sure she recognized she would be enjoying one of her favorite wines
with the meal.
Giorgio appeared walking down the stairs, and her heart took a tumble.
He was wearing a plain white T-shirt with grey sweatpants. On anyone else,
the T-shirt would have been maybe a half-size too big. But Giorgio was a
large man and she knew, personally, in more ways than one. It was why it
was so difficult for her to stick to her decree to stay away from him whenever
they were close.
And then there was that hair. It seemed to always hang around his face,
obscuring it, giving a bit of mystery to his dangerous aura. Whenever she saw
it like that, she remembered fisting it. She remembered him over her, on top
of her, inside her.
“You are not hungry.” He gestured to the spread.
“Oh.” Mo looked around, tossed her purse on a mini table in the corner.
“I am. I was just distracted.”
He strode up to her and took her chin between his fingers. He spun her
head from left to right, examining her face. His index finger lifted, traced the
planes and curves, the touch light along her skin.
“I’m offended you think I’d let him get the jump on me.”
Mo fought the urge to rise on the tips of her toes and extend her mouth, to
ask for a kiss. It seemed like the thing to do. It seemed, somehow,
appropriate. But just because it seemed that way didn’t mean it actually was.
Given the short amount of time they’d actually spent together, him being at
her house and her not having a problem with it should have been odd.
“I’m okay.” She pulled her shirt down slightly to reveal there were no
marks on her chest. “But I’m here to talk to you.”
“About hit.” He guided her to the table with his hand against the small of
her back, pulled out her chair, and waited until she sat before he took his seat.
“I’m worried, Gio.”
He gave her a look that, on someone else, would have passed for a smirk.
“You and Adrik. Do not be worried about me, Bez.”
 “Don’t be smug,” she teased. “And I can’t help it.”
“Why.”
“I...don’t know. Is it weird that I am?” She reached for a breadstick, tore
it in half. “I mean, we haven’t seen each other in a couple years.”
“Okay.”
“And you’re more than capable of handling yourself.”
“Correct.”
She took a bite of the bread, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be so modest.”
“I will try. For you, only.”
There was that urge again, that overwhelming desire to kiss him. All he
was doing was eating penne pasta and she wanted to kiss the hell out of him.
And it wasn’t entirely sexual. She simply wanted to feel his lips against hers,
and then against her neck, her cheek. In short, she wanted him to be
something he would never be—playful and affectionate.
“I am losing you, Bez,” he said, a bit of amusement in his tone.
“That name you call me. Bez. What does it mean?”
“I will tell you another time.”
“Does it mean something bad?”
He frowned. “I would not call you something bad.”
Her heart took another tumble, making a loud splash in the pits of her
stomach. No wonder she got caught up so easily. All Giorgio had done was
sex her until she was hoarse and already she was envisioning him as hers.
If there was one thing she’d learned over the years about Giorgio Pozza,
it was that no one laid claim to him. There was no knowledge of his parents
or any family, any friends. With the exception of the six-man ghost unit, he
worked alone. And if anyone thought they could use his comrades to get to
him, those men could be just as deadly as he was.
“Why not?” She knew the answer wouldn’t be exactly what she wanted to
hear.
He studied her face. “Everybody, when they look at me, they see beast.”
“But you’re not,” she quickly corrected. “I mean, you can be a monster
and yeah, you’re a killer. But it doesn’t define you, not to me. Back in
Russia, when you held me...”
She stopped before she said too much.
“You see different,” he continued. “So, I will not call you something bad,
as you say. Never, Bez.”
She smiled, polished off her breadstick, and spun spaghetti around her
fork. “About this hit. Do you know who’s behind it?”
“No. Two men, they come to my gym today. To kill me.”
Mo’s eyes bulged and she nearly choked on a string of spaghetti that had
already started its descent down her throat. “What?”
“I kill them. Is okay.”
“I wasn’t worried.” Jesus, I was worried. About freakin’ Giorgio Pozza.
“But I didn’t get the alert until not too long ago. How were they already
there?”
He shrugged.
“Did you recognize their faces?”
“No.”
“It’s enough money for outside people to start coming in,” she said,
partially to herself. “Maybe even newbies. It makes sense that newbies, who
don’t know who you are, would try to come at you like that.”
She watched him as he ate and her mind wandered again, this time to his
upbringing. It was possible she was one of the few women on earth who
would think of him as beautiful. But he was, with his hard, angular face, his
dark hair and eyes like black pearls. His arms were thick and muscular and
journeyed up into strong, broad shoulders. His chest had given her a couple
comfortable nights of sleep in Moscow. There was no alarm system in the
world, no matter how advanced, that would ever make her feel safer than
those nights she’d laid in his arms.
And he’d held her. She hadn’t expected him to, and it had taken a little bit
of coaxing, but what she’d discovered was his decision not to hold her hadn’t
been because of some kind of intimacy caveat. It had almost seemed as if he
hadn’t known he could. So when she’d slipped into his arms and settled
herself against him, he’d held her close and never hesitated again to pull her
into him while they slept.
“I want to help you find them,” she spoke up. “I’m assuming you’re
going to try to find out who requested the hit.”
He nodded. “Da. Yes.”
“I know where we can start looking. There’s a bar not far from here
where a lot of headhunters hang out. Somebody there might know something.
If not, it might still be fun to smash some skulls.”
That amusement appeared in his eyes, showing nowhere else on his face.
His personal version of a smile. “Okay.”
“Just like that?” she asked. “You have no problems with me, a woman,
wanting to help you on a quest we both know you’re capable of handling
alone?”
The amusement disappeared. “The mudak, he say what.”
She wanted to tell him, but Keith was famous enough that if he came up
missing, there were a lot of people who would notice. “Nothing. We just had
a conversation about whether or not I could take him.”
“Take him.”
“Like...in a fight. If I could beat him up.”
“Bez, you can kill him.”
She beamed. “I know that.”
“I can kill him.”
Her smile fell. “Yes, that’s true—”
“I will kill him.”
“No, Gio. Don’t.”
He held her gaze. “You are sure.”
“He lives, Gio. I’m not seeing him again, but he lives.”
He tilted his head in agreement. She wasn’t all the way convinced, but it
was the most she would get out of him.
“You are woman. You are killer. No, how you say, problem with two.”
“Meaning, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t be a successful
ass contract killer.”
“Da.”
They spent the next few minutes in silence, Mo stealing glances at
Giorgio every so often because she couldn’t help herself. She also got the
sense that, when she wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at her.
“‘Not see him again,’” Giorgio said. “This means...”
“No more dates.”
“Good.”
“No more dates with him,” she clarified with a laugh. “By the way, thank
you for those. The dates. This dinner and the dates.”
“I have more.”
She decided to stop quelling her urge and reached forward to tuck his hair
behind his ear to see his profile. It sent an electric jolt between her legs, like a
flint stoking a fire.
“More dates?” she asked.
“Yes.”
As if suddenly realizing something, he stood and disappeared in the
direction of the kitchen. When he reappeared, he was carrying two mugs and
two pillar candles from the dozen or so she kept in a drawer in her kitchen.
Her random candle collection was something her sister always made fun of
her about when she visited.
He set the candles in the mugs, lit them, and then went to turn off the
lights in the dining room. When he took his seat again, Mo crossed her legs to
stop the pulsing. He was magnificent by candlelight.
“The dates, did you get them from the Farmer’s Market nearby here?” she
asked.
His gaze caught hers and held it, almost as if he was trying to convey a
silent message. “No.”
“But you have more.”
“Da.”
Then she took in the candles, the dinner, the look on his face. At first, he
hadn’t quite understood what she’d meant by dates. However, he’d gotten her
favorite food and wine which meant either he was very good at reading
people, or he’d gotten a helping hand from one of his group mates. Namely,
Julien, her sister’s husband.
This was a date.
Her smile rivaled the light from the candles. “Okay. I look forward to
each and every one of them and the time I get to spend with you.”
 CHAPTER FOUR

M O DIDN ’ T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE WHO KILLED FOR A LIVING LIKED TO

congregate in dark places. Nearly every time she’d followed a mark, she’d
ended up in a dark alley or low-lit bar or nightclub. Of course, there was
obscurity in darkness, but this was supposed to be a lively hangout spot. This
was where hitmen went to get information on people not yet on the circuit or
to place wagers about who could get to who first. Every soul in the room was
involved in illicit activity, so why the hell did it still have to be so dark?
There were only men inside, shooting pool, drinking, and playing cards in
the corner. The air was thick with cigar smoke and stale beer. She’d always
been of the mind that had this been a room full of female contract killers, they
would have found a way to instill a little bit of class into their otherwise
morbid lifestyles. Maybe a comfy cushion to rest weary feet from stomping
out bounties all day. A salon to fix nails chipped from breaking noses,
fracturing cheekbones, or when the kickback on a Mossberg was a little
wilder than anticipated.
As if they all smelled her at the same time, they looked up. She
recognized a few faces. Not many, but a few. Each pair of eyes sized her up,
some as if they were wondering if she was lost, others looking at her like she
was a challenge, and the majority looking at her like she’d walked naked into
the room with a sign that said, “Please fuck me to save my life.”
When Giorgio emerged from the darkness behind her, all chatter stopped.
Playing cards no longer slapped against rickety tabletops. The uneven shuffle
of feet about the room disappeared.
“Good evening,” Mo greeted with an exaggerated bow. “I’m looking for a
man they call Taste.”
 No one moved. They barely blinked. All attention had been pulled away
from her and siphoned toward Giorgio, who looked unbothered. There were
millions of dollars on his head and yet, there he was, standing in a room full
of men looking to collect on that payday like he was standing at a bus station.
“Hello?” Mo waved her hands. “What, you guys shocked or something?”
“Ain’t you Pozza?” A man who reminded her of Willie Nelson spoke up.
“You got a lot of dollars on your head, boy.”
Giorgio didn’t address him, didn’t even so much turn his head. So, Mo
spoke for him. “Don’t call him boy. Are you Taste?”
“Lil’ lady, I don’t know how you found this place, but this is definitely
not the beauty parlor.”
A flash of anger went from the middle of her stomach upward, covering
her face like a blanket had been tossed atop. “Does it look like I’m looking
for a fucking beauty parlor? Now, I hate to drop clichés on all you geniuses,
but either I’m going to find Taste the easy way, or the hard way.”
Another man, larger and rounder than the first, stood. She recognized him
as Harley. He was anything but a threat. Considering the men she did
recognize usually went after lower level marks, she was certain the rest were
in the same camp.
“And just what is the hard way?” A sleazy grin painted his oily face. “It
involve you being on your knees with them coolers wrapped around my coc
—”
She’d known it was coming. Part of her had wished for it. Mo smiled as
the man gripped his neck, realizing something had pierced it—a small,
pointed blade. Giorgio carried several with him, some in the shapes of hooks
and stars and others that looked like ice picks.
The man fell to the ground.
She held up her hands. “So?”
Behind her, there was the sound of wood crashing. One man, obviously
drunk by the flush of his face and the broken chair in his arms, had rushed at
Giorgio. He’d swiped the chair against Giorgio’s back and the entire thing
had crumbled. Giorgio, on the other hand, looked as though he’d reacted to a
mosquito nipping at his skin.
“Aww hell.” Mo shrugged off the brown, leather jacket she was wearing
over a plain T-shirt and jeans. “Why do men always want to do this the hard
way?”
The entire room seemed to rush toward them at once. She felt her usual
moment of thrill, a mix of fear and excitement and adrenaline that made her
remember both that she could die and that she was going to get the chance to
spill blood. There were times it bothered her that she grew excited at
distributing pain, but it was usually short-lived. Every man in the room
deserved what was coming to him.
The rushing room of men swerved around her to get to Giorgio. Mo
sucked air through her teeth, turned, and grabbed one. His bloodshot brown
eyes sparkled in surprise, almost as if he hadn’t seen her standing there.
He went to shove her in the chest. Mo grabbed his arm at the wrist,
twisted and bent—one of the first moves Caryn had taught her—until the
wrist broke. The man’s eyes rounded. The dark brown faded to light. He
looked at her with hate in his expression, but the pain in his wrist won out
over everything else.
“Yes, asshole,” Mo said. “I’m here too.”
As more men swarmed Giorgio, she ran up to them and jumped onto the
back of a man who reminded her of a tree trunk. She wrapped her elbow
around his equally thick neck, and he reached back to pry at her like a
parasite he needed to remove before it consumed any more of his blood. The
more he reached, the tighter Mo drew her elbow.
The man charged backward toward a wall, and Mo hit the paneling, hard.
Pain reverberated through her body. The man continued to lift and thrust
against the wall, each hit like an electric shock to her system. He was large
and the wall was solid. A few more hits and it would be enough to jar her
hold loose.
Something whizzed next to her ear. She looked to her left where Giorgio
had tossed a small knife, a push dagger. Mo let up only enough to grab it, pull
it from the wall. When the man lifted again, she brought the dagger around
and pushed it through the center of his back, slightly off to the right, toward a
lung.
His movements ceased, and he stumbled forward. She released him and
dropped to her feet on the floor. He turned to face her, as if attempting to
confirm a sprite like her had been able to bring down a giant. Then his eyes
rolled back in his head and he collapsed into a heap on the floor.
Mo returned her attention to Giorgio. A thick, hoarse cry ricocheted in the
air as Giorgio drew his blade from a man’s neck. The man collapsed in front
of him. Yet, the assaults didn’t stop. It was the first time, she realized, she
had ever seen him fight. At least, fighting and her not interfering. And, in that
moment, she thought about how people saw him. She thought about the beast,
the monster, and wondered if there would ever be a point-in-time killing
would no longer be an option for him.
Mo warded off her thoughts, grabbed the push dagger that had still been
lodged in the big man, and strode toward the commotion. It had been more
than stupid, ignorant, of her not to bring a weapon. She’d allowed herself to
be lulled by the presence of Giorgio, to forget who she was and what she did
all because she had a man with her. It was as if Keith was right, as if her ex
had been justified in the terror he’d put her through, a terror she’d suffered in
silence, not even telling her twin sister out of fear of embarrassment. She’d
always been the tougher twin and strong women, tough women, did not allow
men to beat their asses, hold them hostage for days, or bring them seconds
away from death.
The noise in the room dulled, again, to that familiar muffle like she was
living in an apartment and the couple upstairs was arguing. She gripped the
dagger in one hand and lay her other hand flat on the first piece of warm skin
she found. Then she pushed, steel into tender skin, and barely heard when a
man called out in pain. She barely noticed when she reached up, grabbed
another one around the neck, and kneed him in the stomach. And when a
third bent to her level, gasping for the air she’d robbed him of, she didn’t
smell the thick, iron smell of blood though it wafted around her.
The next thing she registered was that voice, the one that should have
been harsh and painful but had somehow turned soothing.
Let me take it for you, Gio.
That name had also turned soothing, the one she still didn’t understand,
but knew it meant no harm.
Let me be the monster.
“Bez.”
Mo blinked, looked around. A little over a dozen bodies lay at their feet,
some groaning, some writhing, and some completely still.
“Fuck.” She rubbed her forehead. “Did we kill Taste?”
He thumbed something from her cheek. “You are okay.”
She looked around again. Not all of them were dead but she was sure
those who weren’t probably wished for death. “Yeah.”
Giorgio nodded behind her. A man cowered behind the bar, his eyes a
stark, pale blue and his hair, probably naturally light brown, was dark and
stuck to his forehead by a thick layer of sweat.
 She walked over to the bar, smiled. “Good evening...Taste?”
“Who the fuck are you?” The man held his position. “Pozza’s usually
alone.”
“Did you know he was coming here tonight?”
“Hell no. If I did, I wouldn’t be here.” He swallowed. “But we all got the
notification. The number on his head would set us up nice, even if it was
split. That’s what some of the men in here were doing, forming an alliance to
take the big man in.” He jutted his chin in Giorgio’s direction.
“Where’d the alert come from?”
“Hell if I know.”
She stepped forward. His pupils shrunk down to the size of a pinhole.
“Taste, for as long as I’ve been working the circuit, your name has come
up more as an informant than as an actual killer. You, apparently, know
what’s what and this is where you spend a lot of your time.”
“Not with this,” he argued. “That’s a quarter-billion on Pozza’s head.
God knows he’s worth that much.”
His gaze darted behind her to Giorgio, and Mo swore she heard a
whimper weave its way out of his nostrils.
“If I wanted to find out, where would I start?”
That question, he seemed to be more apt to answer.
His quivering slowed a bit and his eyes rolled around in his head,
searching for the answer. “Vegas. There’s a guy there, calls himself
Casanova. He might know.”
Mo wiped the push dagger blade on her pants. “Might?”
“Should!” Taste held his hands out in front of him. “Should. This kind of
money, he would know who’s asking. He put out some of his own hit
requests that were fairly big amounts. Me, I don’t work with these kinds of
sums.”
Mo took her time letting the information saturate, her stare trained on
Taste.
She reached down into a compartment that had been stitched into her
boots and brandished what looked like a lipstick tube. She darted forward and
grabbed the back of Taste’s neck at the same time she pushed the tube against
it. When he yelped out in pain, she drew back.
“It won’t kill you,” she informed him. “It’s a little capsule. A tracker.”
It was something she’d taken from Gage’s stash.
“If we get to Vegas and I find out you fed us bullshit, I’m coming back to
find you.”
Taste’s face blanched. She spun around and Giorgio was watching her
with a look on his face. It was the same look from the Russian tunnels, right
before he’d forced her up against the brick wall. It was a morbid thing, the
lust trembling inside her, crawling and searching for a way out to get to him.
To have sex after something like this, to even want to have sex after
something like this, she wondered if there were any parts of her left that
resembled the girl she’d been prior to all this.
“Oh,” she called over her shoulder, “if you try to get it removed, the
capsule explodes. Enough cyanide to kill a horse will make its way through
your bloodstream. It’s a walking death. You won’t make it three days, and no
amount of medical intervention will help. So you better pray you haven’t
fucked us over.”
She passed Giorgio and made her way toward the exit. He followed,
quiet. They’d barely made it to a secluded alleyway not too far from the bar
before she found herself against another wall, Giorgio’s hips thrusting
forward, his cock buried deep inside her.
“Oh God.” Mo leaned forward, her forehead on his shoulder. “Oh...God.
You feel so good, Gio.”
One part of her brain had screamed condom. The other part, much larger
and stronger and horny, had stomped it out. Afterwards, she would see about
getting on birth control. At this rate, she would be pregnant in just a few
weeks. Days, maybe. A female assassin was one thing but a pregnant one?
Out of the question.
Giorgio urged her head back and latched his lips onto her neck. The
motion found a bundle of nerves there and, mixed with the way his body
rocked against hers, applying pressure over the knob between her legs that
was currently acting like a climax on switch, she started to crash.
The orgasm exploded through her, creaming from her body onto
Giorgio’s shaft. He groaned when he felt it, the grips along his cock, and
continued pumping into her until his climax rocked him, bathing her walls
with his semen.
Birth control. Tomorrow.
A grumble moved in his chest. On anyone else, it would have been a
laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Mo asked anyway. For her, it was his laugh. Her
laugh. She was starting to grow possessive, but she would never show him
that. And she sure as hell would never tell him that. But a little voice in her
head had already started convincing her Giorgio Pozza was hers.
He leaned back, their gazes locking. “You are my voice, Bez.”
She supposed she did talk a lot. And compared to the silent warrior, she
felt even more talkative than usual. It was a good balance, one she hoped
would continue, even for a little bit. She liked working with him, even
without the sex, although it was a massive perk.
“And you, Gio,” she held his face in her hands, kissed the spot right
beneath his hairline, “are my dark knight.”

They took his Ferrari back to her place where they made love twice more—
once while they were still in the car, Mo sliding up and down Giorgio’s shaft
in the driver’s seat, her nipple in his mouth, and another time upstairs in her
bed. Had she not tapped out, there would have been a third and possibly
fourth time. No matter how many times he came, that look in his eyes
wouldn’t go away. She prayed for sleepiness to hit him soon. She needed a
break, and she needed to call her sister.
“Gio?” She looked up at him from where her head was perched on his
bare chest. “Can you teach me some words in Russian?”
Hopefully, the exercise would distract him into sleep.
“Da.”
“That’s ‘yes’ right?”
“Yes.”
It would have been a perfect moment for him to smile, but Giorgio Pozza
did not smile.
“And mudak, I know, is asshole.”
“No,” he corrected. “Is translate for—”
“Don’t you dare say Keith.”
Amusement twinkled in his dark eyes. She burst out laughing.
“O-kei is okay,” he continued. “Easy.”
She practiced it a few times. “Yeah, pretty easy. What about some more
curse words?”
He glanced down at her. “Nyet, Bez. You are good girl.”
Her cheeks burned when she picked up on his sarcasm. “Yes, yes I am.”
 “I do not understand.”
“Da,” she corrected.
“Good.”
“What about,” she nibbled on her bottom lip but stopped when his eyes
zoned in on the motion and darkened, “fuck off?”
“Otvali.”
“Otvali.” She held up a middle finger. “Otvali!”
“You like that one.”
“Da.”
His gaze was still on her lips even though she’d stopped biting them. The
sheets around them tugged, pulled by the force of his growing erection.
Maybe an impromptu Russian tutoring session was a bad idea.
“How many languages do you know?” she diverted.
“Many. I learn at Cross of Honour.”
“That’s the name of the boys home where you grew up?”
He nodded. “Da. You know this, how.”
“Research.” She wrapped a lock of hair around her pinky. “Why so many
languages?”
He thought for a moment. “Is, how you say, training.”
“Which language was your first?”
The sheets tugged a little more. “Albanian.”
“Is that where you’re from? Or your family origin, maybe?”
“I do not have family.”
Everyone had to have come from somewhere, but reading between the
lines, she understood he likely had no idea where or who he’d come from.
Cross of Honour didn’t exactly sound like a luxury establishment if they were
cramming a multitude of languages down a bunch of orphan’s throats. There
was also the issue of the name.
“What’s another one?” She didn’t want to continue down what seemed
like it would be an uncomfortable path for him. She liked things like this,
comfortable, familiar, them in bed with her lying on top of him.
“Maybe...bitch?”
He searched her face. “No.”
“Aww.” She faked a pout. “Why not?”
“What is another?”
The sheets tugged again, and she glanced down to find him at full
attention. “You like this, don’t you?”
 “Your mouth saying Russian words...I like very much.”
“Only when my mouth is saying Russian words it’s nice?” Her sex
quivered and pleaded for at least a week’s break, but she flirted right back
with him.
One more. I can go one more.
He pushed up in the bed. “You are sore, yes?”
Da.
“Nyet.”
He maneuvered until he was down between her legs. He pushed at her
thighs, forcing them wide. Mo watched him the entire time, stomach rising
and falling in anticipation, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Ari wouldn’t
hear from her tonight. She would have to call her sister in the morning.
Giorgio ran his tongue along the juncture of her folds. Mo tried not to
tremble, to avoid giving this moment too much, but she failed.
He made a few more passes before his tongue parted her, sliding over her
clitoris like he was caressing the bulb of a lily. She lapsed into a trance, a
space where she existed solely to experience pleasure and the pressure of his
tongue as it flicked where she was most sensitive.
Her moans rolled like purrs, and her hips rocked in time to each lick, each
flit, each suck. His mouth covered her entire sex and when thoughts of time
tried to enter her head, when guilt about how long it might take her to come
tried to push through, she pushed right back. Never once had this dangerous
man, whose tongue was as soft as velvet, been selfish with her. In fact, in his
own little way, he was opening up to her. It was equally as possible the
excellent sex was clouding her judgment, but she didn’t care.
He inserted a thick finger into her body, and she closed around it,
squeezed. There was that groan again, the one that told her he was deriving as
much pleasure from giving as she was receiving. It was intoxicating knowing
that somebody like him, so hard and menacing, could treat her body with
such delicateness. Taste and lap at her like a morsel.
He moved all attention to the tip of the bud. Mo grabbed her breasts,
squeezed her nipples, and imagined her fingers were his mouth. Cries and
gasps surged from her throat as his tongue flicked faster, as he tasted her
everywhere. His finger stroked, he licked and sucked, and then she was
cresting.
“Gio.” Her hips rolled. “Baby, I’m there. Oh God, don’t stop.
I’m...right...there.”
 She exploded. Her hips thrust but he used an arm, kept her in place, his
mouth still attached to her. His tongue slowed, helping her come down from
the place where she wanted to soar forever as long as he was the one to take
her there.
You’re falling, Mo. It’s time to pull back.
He rose and moved up her body. Their lips connected and she licked her
taste from him before plunging her tongue into his mouth. He returned the
kiss, hands on either side of her body. But then he rolled so she was on top of
him, their mouths still fused. His hands were no longer along her sides but at
her face, one cupping her jaw and the other slipping into her hair. It was
almost...sweet.
Pull back, Mo.
Except, she couldn’t. He’d never held her like this before, never showed
this much intimacy, this much affection. It didn’t surprise her when she felt
her eyes burn, felt a trickle on her cheeks. He didn’t embarrass her by asking
why she was crying. Again. All he did was stroke the tears away with his
thumb and continue to hold her, kiss her until she lifted her body and came
down, right on his cock.
His teeth captured her bottom lip. “Bez...ya tebya khochu.”
“What’s that one?” She breathed the words into his mouth.
“I want you.” He thrust his hips up. “I want you. Fuck, I want you.”
He continued to thrust until all Mo saw was the back of her eyelids.
Yeah, Ari is definitely going to have to wait until tomorrow.
She sure as hell would start sleeping now.

The next morning, Mo said a small prayer when she woke up and Giorgio
was still asleep.
She slipped out of bed and hurried to the bathroom to wash up. When she
was finished, her robe strewn around her, she crossed back through the
bedroom. Giorgio had gone from sleeping on his side to stretched out on his
stomach, exposing the solid ridges of his back. His hair was splayed about
her silk pillows. The sheets covered nothing but the space between the middle
of his back and the middle of his thighs.
Not that she needed reminding what he was built like.
 Every stroke put his ab muscles on display. The way he held her against
walls told her everything she needed to know about his thighs. And, based on
the history of men she’d been attracted to, it came as no surprise she would
be standing there in awe over a man who wore tattoos like a garment.
She started toward him on the bed but stopped short when her soreness
tingled. Recalling the activities from the night before, she changed direction
and headed downstairs to make breakfast and an appointment with her ob-
gyn.
On her way, she grabbed her cellphone and called her sister.
“Hello beautiful,” her twin, Ari, greeted. “I’m glad to hear from you.”
“You only call me beautiful because we have the same face,” Mo teased,
bare feet padding to the kitchen. “How is everything? I miss you.”
“I miss you too. And everything’s fine. Me and Julien are in the car now
headed to Thandie’s school.”
Mo opened the refrigerator and stared into it, wondered on what she’d
subsisted the last several days. All the produce she’d picked up the week
before sat unused and likely close to spoiling.
“School? Thandie’s in school?” Had she been so busy she’d forgotten her
only niece’s first day of kindergarten?
“No, it’s a requirement for new students. The parents have to go to a
conference, get vetted. That sort of thing.”
“Oh.” She pulled out a carton of eggs and balanced a carafe of orange
juice in the crook of her elbow. “I forgot you guys roll like that. All that
money.”
“Haha,” Julien deadpanned.
“You’re supposed to tell me when you have me on speaker,” Mo accused.
“It’s not speaker,” Ari clarified. “It’s Bluetooth. And I did say I was with
my honey. Doesn’t matter if you bad talk Julien and he hears it anyway.
You’re usually right.”
Mo giggled and placed the items on the countertop. She pictured her
sister’s face, knowing how proud Ari was to be a mother. They’d always
lived together and had spent nearly every waking moment with each other
since birth. But when they moved to the US, she’d decided to live and work
on the West Coast and Ari went instead to the DC area. They saw each other
when they could, but it would never be like it used to.
“How’s Giorgio?” Ari asked.
Mo stopped in the middle of grabbing a skillet. “What do you think you
know?”
“No comment.”
“Arihi Hunter...”
“Nothing.” Ari paused. “Well, just that he asked me and Julien about your
favorite foods.”
About that, she was curious. “How did he ask, by the way?”
Ari spoke as if someone had shown her a video of a puppy doing
something adorable and lowered her voice to mimic Giorgio’s deep bass.
“Literally, ‘Bez, she eat what?’”
“But then we didn’t know what Bez meant,” Julien jumped in. “So then
he said, ‘Bez. Little Ari, how you say, mirror.’ As in, Ari’s twin. You. What
does Bez mean anyhow?”
First the dates and now this. Mo didn’t know if she had already fallen
further than she was aware or if the things Giorgio was doing were actually
cute.
There were so many names for the kind of killer he was, yet no one had
stopped to find out what kind of person he was. And he was a sweetheart. She
pictured the Grim Reaper in an Armani suit, bow tie, and with flowers in his
hands, their petals drooping.
“He won’t tell me,” she replied, honest.
She didn’t mind her family and friends knowing Giorgio existed as part
of her life, but she didn’t want them to know exactly how involved their
relationship was. She had no reason for that, possibly because she had no idea
herself how involved their relationship was, but it was easier this way. If she
started talking about Giorgio, her sister would know her feelings. It was
always like that, them being able to tell when the other was happy or
heartbroken. And she didn’t want Ari or anyone else to know how stupid she
was to even begin to think of Giorgio as anything but an ass-kicking
comrade.
Giorgio Pozza belonged to no one. Even Taste had said Pozza always
traveled alone. She was a temporary companion, and the thought put a bad
taste in her mouth. Plus a little crack in her heart.
Mo set the skillet on the gas cooktop. “Oh! He and I are going to Vegas.”
“I did hear something about that,” Ari offered. “He collects cars, right?
Luxury cars, sports cars?”
Mo silently thanked her sister for volunteering the subject for her lie.
“Yeah. There’s a show out there.”
 “And why are you going, again?”
“I’m interested in stuff like that.”
Ari laughed. “Yeah, right. Wherever Giorgio goes, Mo follows.”
And vice versa...
“Don’t forget we have Jenae’s baby shower in a few months while you’re
jet-setting around the nation,” Ari reminded. “We promised her we’d be
there.”
Mo quickly searched for a pen and jotted down the note. Her cousin,
Jenae, had been her and Ari’s closest cousin growing up. Jenae was her Dad’s
sister, her Aunt Colleen’s, first daughter. Jenae and her husband had been
trying for a baby for a while so to miss the shower would crush her.
“I won’t forget.”
She turned on the burner under the skillet and whipped up some
scrambled eggs while Ari continued to fill her in on everything else that had
been going on. In the middle of making breakfast, Giorgio descended the
stairs, another pair of sweatpants sitting low on his waist. His chest was bare.
He looked as bright-eyed as a man like him could, and it made her preen a
little. She’d given him a good night’s sleep.
He went to refrigerator, grabbed some wheat toast, a tomato she hoped
was still ripe, and a green avocado from the haul she’d collected from the tree
that grew in her backyard.
His body brushed hers as he walked to the toaster, another thing she
found more intimate than she probably should have. Him in her kitchen
didn’t feel imposing or out of place, and he didn’t move around like he felt
awkward being in her space.
With the slot pulled down on the toaster, he turned to her and motioned to
the skillet, indicating he could finish while she was on the phone.
Mo nodded, stepped back, and walked over to the front window.
“Where’s Jenae registered?” She peered through the blinds. An older model
gray Pontiac coupe was sitting across the street, between the Akachis’ and the
Patels’ driveways. A coupe she had never seen in the neighborhood.
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out for you,” Ari said. “We’re at the school
now. I love you, sis. I’ll text you after me and Julien get out of this meeting.”
“I love you too, Ari.”
They hung up. Mo continued to study the car, but the windows were
tinted so she couldn’t make out who was inside.
Giorgio’s presence suddenly engulfed her, warm and welcoming. To her,
at least.
“I’ve never seen that car.” She indicated with her chin. “I think they’re
watching the house.”
The doorbell rang. She pulled up the doorbell camera app on her phone. It
was Mrs. Akachi.
“Good morning, Mo,” the woman greeted when Mo opened the door.
“Good morning, Olu.” Mo smiled down at the plump baby in her arms.
“And good morning to you too, Lyla. Is everything okay?”
She’d taken care of Lyla when Olu first left the hospital after giving birth
but then had to go back due to postpartum complications. It had taken several
months for Olu to get back to where she needed to be, health-wise, and Mo
had remained there for her every step of the way. A friendship she treasured
and appreciated had blossomed, and though nobody could take Ari’s place,
Olu was situated in a special niche in her life.
“No, I don’t think so,” Olu said. “That car has been here since last night.”
Mo glanced over Olu’s shoulder. “I just saw it this morning. I don’t
recognize it.”
“Ade checked it out on his walk, and he thinks the person inside is
watching your house.”
Mo sucked in a deep breath, felt Giorgio’s presence grow closer. “How
did they get inside the main entrance gate?”
The woman made a sound with her cheek and teeth, her pretty mocha
face showing confusion and disgust. “I don’t know. I’m going to talk to the
HOA about it. Do you want me to call the police?”
“No.” Giorgio appeared in the doorway. “I will handle.”
Olu’s gaze left Mo and shot up to him. Her expression changed to what
Mo was sure was every woman’s reaction when they saw Giorgio. They had
no idea how they could be attracted to him and afraid of him at the same
time.
“Hi Olu, this is Gio.” Mo gestured. “He’s, uh, my...boyfriend?”
If the woman knew she was lying, she didn’t show it.
“Oh!” Olu smiled, her eyes bright. “How wonderful! We didn’t know.
Me and Ade were going to tell you about my cousin flying in from Nigeria
next month. He’ll be working with NASA.”
It was the third family member Olu had tried setting her up with.
“Impressive.”
“But, I’m happy for you.” She studied Giorgio again and her cheeks
darkened. “Let me know how it goes. I’ll still call the police if this person
gives you any problems.”
“I think it’s a creep I went out with a while back,” Mo lied. “Can’t take
no for an answer.”
Olu made the noise again, a noise Mo liked that she always made when
she was frustrated or disgusted by something. It reminded her of someone
trying to suck food from their teeth, but more elegant.
She said something in Yoruba and then reached forward for a hug. “Be
careful.”
“I will.” Mo squeezed, tickled Lyla’s belly.
They said their goodbyes and Mo remained standing at the door until Olu
was safe behind hers.
“Taste,” Giorgio said.
“That’s what I think too.” She closed the door. “Let’s give him a little
while longer to think we don’t know he’s watching us. I don’t want our
breakfast getting cold.”
They walked over to where Giorgio had set the eggs on plates, arranged
with the slices of wheat toast and avocado. In his eggs, he’d scrambled the
tomato and green onions.
“Is that how you like your eggs?” She poured them both mugs of coffee
and glasses of orange juice. “I’ll try to remember that.”
They sat and he looked across at her, that glitter of amusement in his eyes
that stood in place of a smile.
“What?” she asked.
“Dorogoi.”
“And what does that mean?”
He ticked his head to the side. “Boyfriend.”
“Oh, shut it.” She looked down at her plate and stuffed her mouth full of
eggs to hide a smile.

Giorgio stepped through the French doors that led to Bez’s backyard. It
wasn’t the largest backyard in the neighborhood, but the corner lot gave her
plenty of additional square footage. It was definitely larger than the concrete
square that had served as a recreation area at Cross of Honour.
 Here, if he’d fallen as a kid, he would have landed on plush grass. The
worst that would have happened was scratching his knee on a twig he didn’t
see or stepping in dog shit. At Cross of Honour, the boys that fell, they were
the ones who were taken to Vater.
He would hear whispers about those boys who fell, who’d disappeared.
The undesirables. As a child, in his child’s mind, he’d convinced himself
they’d been sent to families who wanted them. Who had specifically
requested them. As he grew older and the world became clearer, became
more grim, he saw the long bones that jutted up from the woods behind the
school. He remembered looking down at one, a femur, as he stood on one leg
on a tree stump covered from head to toe in snow, for hours. His back had
stung from the open wounds Vater’s whip had left, lashes he’d “deserved”
because, no matter how much Vater commanded, he would not kill.
Godmother Irina, the woman who made sure all the boys had food and
clothes and studied, cried when she saw the wounds he’d packed with ice to
avoid infection as he trekked back to the school when night fell. She
shouldn’t have cried, not for him. From birth, he’d been destined to be a
monster, like Vater had said.
Das Biest.
But Godmother Irina would still cry for him. She would still clean his
wounds with phenol when they had it, salt and soap and aloe when they
didn’t, and sing to him when Vater was asleep to help ease the sting. He
never knew what she saw in him to treat him the way she had, the way no one
else did. And now, his Bez...
He placed his hands at the top of the wooden fence that cased in her
backyard and hoisted himself up and over it. He landed on the other side on a
sidewalk, and then walked around the neighborhood the opposite direction
from where the gray Pontiac was facing.
Bez told him she wanted to talk to Taste, wanted him alive. It was the
only reason he was going to let the man live. Taste had likely followed them
from the bar and was probably waiting for him to leave so he could corner
Bez alone. It wasn’t that he thought she couldn’t handle him; he just didn’t
like the idea of anybody thinking they could put a hand on her and walk away
with a life.
His Bez was like the maple candy Godmother Irina used to sneak him and
the boys after dinner whenever Vater was away—sweet, something to
treasure. She was a yellow daisy in the middle of a dying field and worth
more to him than all the salt in the ocean, so those who even thought about
hurting her? He would make them beg for death before he was finished.
Giorgio’s fingers twitched as he approached the back of the car. He’d had
to leave his blades behind, knowing if he’d taken them, he would have never
been able to keep his promise.
He peered in the passenger window. Taste was inside, asleep with his
mouth wide open, his seat reclined. It would have been easy to take
something small, like a Mora knife, and stick it straight up and through the
man’s soft palate.
The twitching of his fingers slowed.
Giorgio tried the door, found it unlocked. He stepped inside, situated
himself in the passenger seat. Taste snorted, stretched and blinked. He looked
around the interior of the car. When their eyes met, all color drained from his
face.
“Oh sh—”
With one hit just below his eye, the man was out.
Giorgio hauled him from the car and toward Bez’s house, not caring if
anyone saw the limp body with its legs dragging on the asphalt being held up
by its collar.
She saw him coming, opened the door, and stepped aside. A chair had
been set up in the middle of the living room, and he propped Taste on the seat
while she tied his limbs to the chair’s arms and legs.
“Think we have time to take a shower and get dressed before he wakes
up?” she asked.
In the light filtering through the big front window, her eyes reminded him
of a Russian sunset. He’d seen it on a few occasions, when he left his room to
go up to the school roof when it was cold. He’d had just a thin sheet for
warmth but never regretted it. Watching the sun had made him wonder about
the other side of the country, the world outside the school gates. Up until
now, life for him had always been best in solitude. Now, he didn’t want to
leave her side.
“We.”
Her lips spread into a smile. “I’ve already showered. I was just using ‘we’
as a general term. I meant you take a shower, and I’ll brush my teeth and get
dressed.”
His cock was rock hard. She glanced at it, squeezed, pulled her hand
away.
 “Let’s make this a quick trip.” She licked her lips and headed for the
stairs. “I want to get back so I can stuff my mouth with him as soon as
possible.”
He watched her walk all the way up the stairs and disappear into the
bedroom. Then, when there was a safe enough distance between them, he
followed.
 CHAPTER FIVE

M O SQUATTED IN FRONT OF T ASTE , LOOKING UP INTO HIS FACE AS HE

moaned, head moving from side to side. There was a bump on his face from
where Giorgio had shoved his fist, and it was already turning an odd sort of
black and purple.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she greeted.
He froze. His head lifted. The fear in his eyes darted between her and
Giorgio as if he didn’t know which was the bigger threat.
“Fuck.” Taste hung his head.
“Pretty much.” Mo rose. “Why were you watching my house, Taste?”
“It’s not what you think.”
Giorgio kicked the chair. It fell backward, smashing the back of Taste’s
head on the hardwood floor. Taste screamed and squeezed his lids shut.
When they reopened, his eyes were glazed and unfocused.
“Gio.” Mo tipped the chair back up. “I’m sorry about that, Taste. Are you
okay?”
The man began to nod. Mid head-bob, she swiped her hand across his
face, open palm. “As you can see, I’m the only thing standing between you
and death. So this is how it’s going to go. I ask a question, you answer it. No
excuses, no bullshit.”
She wanted to add a capisce, a little Godfather fingers. It felt right. But
she didn’t.
“Why were you watching my house?”
Taste licked his lips. His eyes rolled around, still dazed from the fall.
“Casanova.”
“Vegas,” Giorgio said, in that way he asked questions without intonation.
 “Yeah. I, uh, called him after you guys left. Told him you might be
coming. He’s heard of you, Pozza.” He nodded toward Giorgio. “But her,
nobody’s heard of her.”
Mo smiled. “Good.”
“What are you, like his wife or something? It would make sense for
Pozza to have a crazy ass wi—”
Giorgio kicked the chair again, sending it crashing again. Taste turned his
head to the side at the last minute, smacking his cheekbone against the wood.
He cried out on impact, tears streaming down his cheeks when Mo righted
the chair.
“We need the information first, Gio. You’re about to knock the sense
right out of him.”
There was no emotion, no reaction on Giorgio’s part.
“What did you tell Casanova?” she asked.
Taste sucked in a deep breath, almost as if he was considering
withholding information, but then he looked up into Giorgio’s stare.
“I told him y’all was coming. To be on the lookout, maybe go into hiding.
He wouldn’t do that, though. Said he’s not scared of Pozza, but he’s
bullshitting. Everybody’s scared of that damn beast.”
Mo swiped an elbow across his jaw. “He’s not a beast. You guys are just
pussies.”
Giorgio made one of his not-quite-a-laugh noises.
“Where do we find Casanova?”
“He’s staying at the Bellagio. There’s some kind of big art auction
happening there. Lots of rich guys. Exclusive guest list.”
“Digital?”
“Yeah.”
She would ask Julien to get them on it. He could get her and Giorgio on
the list, easy. “You got a picture of this Casanova?”
“No.” Taste shook his head. “But you can look him up. His real name’s
Jakob Meier.”
Mo turned to Giorgio. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. She
felt it, a small shift in the atmosphere. Like the sticky heat before a bad storm.
That name meant something to him.
“Meier.” She tapped her chin, faced Taste again. “That’s German, isn’t
it?”
“Hell if I know.”
 Mo rolled her eyes. “You’re useless.”
Giorgio stepped forward, toward Taste.
“Not in the house, babe.” She touched the small of his back. “Please.”
He eyed her and, for an instant, she could have sworn she saw his
expression soften. But it was her imagination. Giorgio Pozza did not soften.
He pocketed the knife.
She grinned. “Spa...sibo?”
His eyes glittered, letting her know she’d correctly remembered how to
say thank you, another thing she’d learned from movies.
“We’ll have to take my car,” she announced, heading to the garage. “He
can’t fit in the 458.”
This groan was different, obvious.
“Um, excuse me, but I drive a brand-new Infiniti SUV. Just because it
doesn’t have horsepower of over five-hundred doesn’t mean it’s not special.”
He followed her out to the SUV, dragging Taste by his ties along the
floor, and tossed him in the back.
“I promise, if you let me live, I won’t say anything,” Taste pleaded. “I
won’t tell where you live, nothing.”
Mo rolled her eyes, shut the back door, and hopped behind the wheel. The
fact that Giorgio hadn’t tried to drive, tried to take charge, made her insides
quake. Heat bubbled beneath the surface of her skin.
“You ready?” she asked, pulling on her seatbelt.
He looked at her. There was something about the way he looked at her. It
made her want to crawl inside him and curl into his warmth.
He didn’t speak, but his eyes gave her all the confirmation she needed.

Four hours later, they were walking in the middle of the desert. Giorgio had
cut away the ties from Taste’s limbs at his Bez’s request. Taste kept looking
back as he walked in front of him, asking if “this” was where he was
supposed to stop, but Giorgio didn’t respond. He continued to walk and like
two opposing ends of a magnet, each step forward pushed Taste ahead as
well.
“Stop.”
Taste’s feet stopped moving. Giorgio glanced back, made sure he could
make out Bez standing at the edge of the road, next to the car.
Taste spun around, hands up. “Pozza, I swear. I won’t say anything. Not
about you, not about your girl.”
“I do not care about me,” Giorgio said. “Tell the world about me.”
Taste exhaled, nodded. “Then I promise I won’t say anything about her.”
Giorgio’s brows narrowed, the heat raw on his shoulders as it bore
through his shirt. He wanted to kill the man. He trembled with a need to end
the mudak’s life. But, once again, Bez had asked him to keep a promise. Why
he was doing things for her, things that went against what he truly wanted to
do, he wasn’t certain.
“You will stay.” He turned around, started off.
“Seriously?” Taste called. “You’re going to let me live?”
Giorgio paused, mid-step. Electricity buzzed from his neck down to his
suddenly still fingertips. His chest went hollow, pleading and begging to be
filled with the satisfaction of watching Taste’s life roll from his eyes. Taste, a
man who’d threatened Bez, who she wanted to leave alive in the middle of
the desert for a reason he didn’t understand.
Maybe she wanted to change him, stop him from doing the only thing he
knew how to do. Maybe she needed that in order to accept him. He was in her
bed, in her life. He could sense she wanted more in the way she looked at
him, the way her cheeks flushed, the way every time she kissed him, it meant
something different. The way she touched him like a man she enjoyed rather
than one she feared.
He was not equipped to give a woman anything but the hard, the fast. But
with her, from that very first time, he let her stay. She had looked at him like
he was more than anyone had ever given him credit for being. That alone had
made him want to try to give her at least something. If not the feelings he
didn’t have then his presence. His protection. Everything he owned. He
would feed her and fuck her to sleep every night, if that was what she wanted.
Anything she wanted.
Giorgio turned around, walked back toward Taste.
But it would never be enough, not for her. To be enough, he would have
to change.
He brandished a mora knife.
And he couldn’t change who he was. What he was.
“No, Gio!” Bez was crouched, her arms in the air and her body shielding
Taste. “Leave him. Please.”
 He raked his gaze over the man cowering and partially on his knees, tears
stuck to his cheeks having evaporated before they could hit the sand.
Giorgio pulled back, let his arm fall to his side. He tore his gaze from
Taste, set it on Bez. She was looking up at him, but he couldn’t read her to
find out why she stopped him, why she wanted him to change, to be different.
And he didn’t feel like asking.
He turned and headed to the car. Not long after, she caught up with him
and slipped behind the wheel. As they drove the rest of the way into Vegas,
he didn’t look at her. He didn’t want to see what she was trying not to see
when she looked at him.

The heat wrapped around Mo’s mouth and nose like a scarf. It wasn’t humid
and thick like it was on the East Coast, but that didn’t make it any less
oppressive. It was amazing that, at nighttime, this place could run a chill deep
enough that she would need to layer with a jacket and something beneath it to
stay warm.
They’d gotten a room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, right across from the
Bellagio. Julien had been able to get them digitally added to the guest list at
the art auction which was being held in the Bellagio Grand Ballroom. They
would be going as a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Friedrich, a German name to help
give them a shoe in with Casanova. As far as they knew, he only knew of
Giorgio Pozza and not what Giorgio looked like. Also, since Giorgio was
fluent in German, it wasn’t like a language barrier would be a hindrance to
their covers.
Stretches of heat slapped her in the face as they walked the Vegas Strip,
yet the heat seemed to be doing nothing to affect Giorgio. The idea was to
find something to wear to the event, which would be easier for her than
Giorgio, and a place where she could do something with her hair—easier for
Giorgio than her. Finding a salon that did black hair in Vegas wouldn’t
exactly be simple, but if all else failed, she would make do with a high-
powered hair dryer and a flat iron.
The rest of the ride from the desert, Giorgio had remained much more
quiet than usual. Even when he wasn’t speaking, she was generally privy to
his place next to her. She was still able to enjoy the silence between them, the
easy comfort. Now, where there had before been comfort, tension rose and
bubbled, threatening to spill. It had something to do with what had happened
with Taste. She just couldn’t figure out exactly how it factored in with his
new mood.
Stopping him from killing Taste hadn’t been about saving the man’s life.
It wasn’t as if she had a moral leg to stand on in her role as Mo J., female
assassin. But she’d felt the shift in Giorgio, all the way across the desert,
when he and Taste stopped. She’d sprinted full speed in their direction
without thinking, only knowing she had to prevent him from killing. It was
more about him than Taste, but that part wasn’t clear. Her feelings for him
hadn’t changed, hadn’t so much as lessened, but watching him kill...it did
something.
Beside her, Giorgio stopped walking. He was facing the Wynn Las
Vegas. She’d been to Vegas a few times, so she knew what was inside—the
Wynn Esplanade, a bunch of high-end boutique shops such as Chanel and
Balmain and other places whose names her wallet choked on if it tried to
pronounce. She made a good living doing what she did. Good enough for her,
at least. But it wasn’t nearly enough for her to justify making regular stops
into Hermès and Alexander McQueen.
“Gio, I don’t think—”
The look on his face shut her up.
They went in, and Mo was immediately blinded by the luxury of it all.
Even her pupils weren’t used to this kind of money. This place had Gage
written all over it. Ari and Julien. Gage, Julien, Huang, and the rest of their
team’s compensation via the neutralization of top-secret terrorist threats fell
within this realm. Even if she hadn’t known Giorgio was part of that same
team, she would still know he did fairly well if his six-figure car was any
indication. And it, apparently, wasn’t the only one in his collection.
She would agree to going in only to find something for him to wear and
then run out, as fast as she could, before her bank card punched her in the
face.
He trailed her. Inside and outside the bedroom, behind her was his
favorite position. Where the floors weren’t covered in lavish area rugs, it was
as smooth as marble. She wondered if it was marble. Glass storefronts
sparkled. Chandeliers lined the ceiling. Even the mannequins looked more
high-end.
Giorgio pointed to a store. “There.”
 Mo studied the dresses on display. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Bez,” he murmured something that sounded like Russian frustration,
“go.”
“Gio, the few hits I have under my belt afford me a comfortable lifestyle,
not a celebrity one.”
He fixed his hand to the small of her back and pushed her inside. The
minute they walked in, a prim and pretty salesgirl was in her face. Not a hair
was out of place on the girl’s highlighted, blonde head, a feat only the best
Oakland stylist could pull off with hair like hers.
“Welcome to Celine,” she greeted, her coral lipstick sparkling. “What can
I interest you in?”
Mo glanced back at Giorgio but knew right away he would be of no
help...because he was already walking away.
“One second.” She held up a finger to the salesgirl and hurried after
Giorgio, spinning him around with a grip on his bicep. “Where are you
going?”
He frowned. “Bez, I cannot buy here.”
“No shit.” She lowered her voice. “Neither can I.”
“Is for women.”
“There are men’s clothes here too.”
He stared at her. She rolled her eyes, nodded. “Fine, not for someone of
your size. But,” she searched for the nearest dress, “look. These prices are
ridiculous.”
The expression on his face told her that her bringing it up was the first
time he seemed to think about it.
Of course.
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and handed it to
her.
She pushed the sharp tip of a blade sticking out back down into its hiding
spot. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Buy whatever you want.”
Her heart stopped beating for a few seconds. “What?”
“Is okay, Bez.”
“And what about you?”
He took the wallet, slipped a card from it, handed the wallet back to her.
She eyed the remaining cards. “Which one should I use?”
“Any.”
 He started off, and she grabbed him again. “Gio, are you mad at me about
something?”
“Mad.” His brows came together. “Angry, you mean. Mad is like, crazy.”
“Yes, angry,” she corrected.
“Da.” He pointed behind her. “Girl is waiting. Go. I will find you.”
This time, when he pulled away, she didn’t try to grab him. She didn’t
have the desire. He was angry with her.
It wasn’t the first time anyone, especially a man, had ever been angry
with her but it was the first time it felt like hell. Even her father’s occasional
disappointment never wracked her this hard.
She returned to where the salesgirl was waiting.
“He went to find something in his size?” The salesgirl stared at the spot
Giorgio had just left. “Because we don’t have anything ready-to-wear for a
man that huge.”
Mo sucked in a deep breath, tabled her hurt. “Um, my husband and I had
to make a last-minute trip out here to Vegas for an art auction. I’m afraid,
because it was so last minute, I have nothing to wear.”
The salesgirl studied her face. “You okay, honey?”
“Me? Yeah. We’re just...it’s marital stuff. I messed up a little. Not being
the most supportive, uh, wife right now.”
Before she could stop her, the salesgirl pulled her in for a hug. Mo
remained awkwardly squished against the other woman’s chest, her hands
down at her sides, one clutching Giorgio’s wallet.
“We’ll fix it,” the salesgirl said, stepping back. “Now, are you talking
about the auction at the Bellagio?”
Mo nodded. “Yes, that’s the one.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
The salesgirl, whose name she learned was Tatiana, brushed through the
store at a pace Mo could hardly keep up with. Her soft, flowery perfume
wafted behind her as she snatched up different pieces, stopping only when
she had to tap her coral nails in thought.
When she was sure they’d accumulated enough outfits, she shoved Mo
into a dressing room and stood waiting outside. Several other customers had
entered the store during their session, but she let the other sales staff handle
them, giving Mo all her attention.
The very first outfit they tried was a pink silk shirt and navy-blue wool
pants that would have been nice had she not been interested in shocking
Giorgio into submission, if that were possible. She wanted him breathless, if
that was a thing that could happen to him.
Tatiana eyed the outfit, shook her head. Mo went back into the dressing
room.
She tried on three dresses—one that reminded her of something her
grandmother would wear, and another gold one that screamed the opposite of
covert. The last one she tried, the minute it slipped up her hips, she knew it
was the one. The appeal wasn’t in the color; it was the cut. It was an elegant
black, lined in silk, with a mock neck. The sleeves touched her just below the
elbow. The hem was slightly asymmetrical, showing off legs she’d worked
damn hard for. When she emerged from the dressing room, several other
customers turned and looked.
“So, you’re getting this one, right?” Tatiana asked. “There’s no way your
husband can stay upset with you after this.”
Mo looked at herself in the mirror, spun. “Shoes?”
Tatiana pulled a pair of strappy heels from behind her back, the straps
studded with crystals. “I got you, girl.”
Mo completed the look with the shoes, took a few twirls in the mirror,
agreed on both, and met Tatiana at the register. When Tatiana finished
ringing everything up and told her the price, it took all Mo’s strength to
control her bladder.
“Come again?”
“After taxes, forty-five eighty-nine,” Tatiana repeated. “The dress was on
sale for thirty-three hundred and the shoes, considering the Swarovski
crystals on the straps, I can’t believe only went for nine-hundred-forty.”
Mo tried not to let her hands tremble as she reached into Giorgio’s wallet.
“That’s it? I, ahem, was, uh, expecting way more.”
“I know, right?” Tatiana squealed.
Mo skimmed the cards. She had no idea which one she could use and
wondered if Giorgio even knew what he was getting himself into. She’d
never spent anywhere near that sum on clothing, her dresses usually averaged
somewhere in the two-hundred dollar range. She wasn’t even sure she’d
spend that much on a wedding dress.
A thick finger appeared, slid a black card from a slot, and handed it over.
Tatiana smiled above Mo’s head and then winked conspiratorially at her.
“I didn’t know which one—”
“Any.” Giorgio took the wallet and placed it in his back pocket. “The
dress, it make you happy?”
Her throat was dry as she watched Tatiana swipe the card, and he made
the noise Mo took as his version of a laugh.
“Govorish po-russki?” Giorgio asked Tatiana, gaze still trained on Mo.
Tatiana’s eyes lit up. “Da. How did you know?”
They then exchanged a few sentences in Russian, and by the way
Tatiana’s brows lifted and wiggled, Mo knew they were talking about her.
When they were finished, Giorgio took the bags and followed her out of
the store, Tatiana sending them off with an enthusiastic wave. When they
were a few steps from the store, Mo fell into step next to him.
“What did you ask her?”
He spared her a glance. “If she speak Russian.”
“And?”
“If my wife look beautiful in her dress.”
All she could do was smile sheepishly and lower her eyes.
Mo found a salon not too far outside the strip that took walk-ins and
suggested she and Giorgio split up and meet back at the hotel. He refused.
She warned him that black hair salons could be time intensive and they would
likely cut close on time, but all he did was sit in one of the spare seats in the
studio.
He waited patiently while she got a blow-out, silk press, and trim.
Because she was feeling adventurous—and wanted to impress him—she had
the stylist cut a quick set of bangs that would hang naturally when her hair
reverted to its curly state. It didn’t take as long as anticipated, but it had been
well worth the effort when the stylist spun her around in the chair and
Giorgio caught sight of her.
That wicked, familiar glimmer in his eyes was like lighting across a dark
sky. On their way back to the hotel, she’d had to explain to him, ad nauseam,
why sex would be a bad idea if he wanted her to look even halfway decent at
the auction. He’d eventually agreed, intrigued that she would let him “sweat
out” the hairstyle later.
Mo slipped her foot into the Swarovski-encrusted heels. She ran her
hands over the dress, looked at the full outfit in the mirror, and then turned to
the side to catch of glimpse of her butt. Satisfied, she grabbed a clutch they’d
picked up before they left the Esplanade and stepped out of the bedroom
suite.
Giorgio was seated on the sofa, his head tilted back, his face toward the
ceiling, and his eyes closed. He wasn’t sleeping, likely just tired from the
hours they’d spent at the salon. She wanted to know what on his mind, and it
would keep her up later that night trying to figure it out. At least, if he didn’t
keep her up first.
“Gio?”
His eyes opened. He yawned, rose, turned...and then froze.
“Yay?” She made a full turn. “Or nay? Do I look the part of a wealthy
German entrepreneur’s wife?”
He certainly looked the part. He’d gone for a dark suit with a dark silk
shirt underneath which he must have had tailored in the store because it sat
perfectly on his broad shoulders. For the occasion, he’d pulled his long hair
back into a low, loose bun, and it was the most she’d ever seen of his face.
He was, without a doubt, beautiful. Handsome, sexy, attractive...none of
those cut it. Scars and all, this man was a masterpiece.
He wordlessly strode forward and ran his hands over the fabric, cupping
and caressing each curve of her body. His hand glided over her ass, squeezed,
and settled at her waist.
He exhaled. “Da.”
“You like?”
He spun her around. “Very much.”
She stepped around him, knowing if she didn’t put space between them
they would never make it to the auction. He held onto her hand and pulled
her back. She sighed to push down the lust rising like lava and tilted her face
up. He brushed his lips across hers and then touched a kiss to her forehead,
right below her hairline.
“Not kiss,” he said. “But...spasibo. I appreciate.”
He reached toward the sofa and returned with a black, square box. When
he opened it, Mo gasped. They were playing a part. She knew that. She could
understand, comprehend that. But that didn’t stop the ring from being perfect,
a white-gold band studded with diamonds that came together in the form of a
bow.
She held out her hand and then pulled it back, not wanting him to feel
awkward having to slip it onto her finger. But he removed the ring from the
box, reached for the hand, and slid it onto her fourth finger anyhow. He was
wearing a band in the same white gold with a shiny, black piece wrapped
around the center.
Mo sucked in a deep breath and stared at the ring until he called her
name.
“Oh, right.” She cleared her throat. “How were we supposed to be
husband and wife without rings? Good call.”
He stared at her. “You like.”
Why did she feel like she was going to cry? It was a role, for goodness
sakes, yet she was standing there like she’d just been proposed to. Giorgio
Pozza did not propose, and just because she was his current partner-in-crime
didn’t mean they were anything more than friends with benefits. Good ass
benefits.
“I do.” Her voice was thin, strained. “Very nice.”
“Chanel.”
She’d seen him go into the Chanel jewelry store while she’d shopped for
the clutch, but she would have never guessed it was for this.
“Thank you, Gio.”
“Bez, ya lyublyu tebya.” He slipped their fingers together. “You are
welcome.”
Mo took his hand, one half of her brain focused on remembering how to
walk while the other remained fixated on her newest piece of jewelry.
“She was right, the girl,” he said, as they headed for the hotel room door.
“My wife, she looks beautiful in her dress.”
 CHAPTER SIX

T HEY BREEZED THROUGH THE GUEST LINE , AND THE MINUTE THEY ENTERED
the large ballroom where the auction was being held, champagne flutes were
shoved in their faces. Giorgio refused, but between the time they left the
grand entrance and made it to the center of the room, Mo had already downed
two glasses.
“IDing him should be relatively easy.” She set her empty glass on a
passing tray. “Just look for the man who’s yelling he’s got the biggest penis
in the room.”
Giorgio’s large hand met the small of her back, moved her to stand in
front of him. “He will find,” he ran his hand over the curve of her behind, “in
this.”
“I’m fine with being bait.” His hand remained, caressed, squeezed. “But I
can’t be this close to you if I’m to play that role.”
“Men, they want what another has. What I have. Look.”
She looked around the room and spotted heads turning away from her and
Giorgio’s direction. Some of the faces were flushed. Some of them were men
older than her father. All were attached by the elbow to a woman draped in
luxury.
“Come.” He took her by the hand and walked them across the space over
to one of the pieces on display.
Mo would be the first to admit she didn’t quite get this kind of art. Or any
art for that matter. And possibly, that meant she was unrefined, but she would
never find the time to care, in this life or the next.
“Rothko,” she read out loud. “Not...bad. But I don’t get it. I swear,
Thandie drew something similar to this when she was three. We should have
submitted it.” She spotted the station where the bids for the piece were
written. “Giorgio. The bid for this painting’s currently at twenty-million
dollars. Do you think this is the one Casanova’s here for?”
“No.” He jutted his chin across the space. “Is not German."
The man she instantly knew was Casanova was engaged in rapport with a
group of wealthy-looking patrons who also seemed interested in the painting
near them. He was an odd combination of rich and out of place with his
checkered suit and yet, relatively handsome face. His hair was a light, Nordic
blond and his eyes, a striking sky blue. Every so often, his gaze roamed the
room. And it wasn’t until she followed it, when it settled on her and he gave
her a wolfish smile, did Mo realize it was she who dominated his attention.
She tugged at the hem of her dress. “Guess it’s time to play bait.”
Giorgio took her arm, spun her around. He cupped her cheek and jaw
with one hand, bent, and pressed their lips together. Mo splayed her fingers
against his chest in order to steady herself while his powerful tongue trailed
the corners of her mouth, the surface of her lips, before plunging inside.
In the beginning, the purpose of the kiss had been to stoke a little more of
Casanova’s ego. A man who kissed his wife, especially like this, felt that in
her, he had something too special to lose. But that changed when Giorgio
pulled her close, crushed their bodies together. When he devoured her mouth
and pressed his other hand firmly against her ass. It felt like days had passed
when they finally released and she looked up, noting the stars about her fake
husband’s head.
“Bait is okay. Touch? Fuck no.”
She went from hot to quivering and back again. “Got it. He doesn’t touch
me.”
"Bez."
"I got it, Gio. I got this."
He released her, and it was almost reluctant with the way he allowed their
fingers to come apart one by one.
Mo pulled a mirror from the clutch, did a quick touch-up on her hair and
lips—because that kind of kiss was bound to ruin even the most smudge-
proof lipstick—and tossed smiles dripping with molasses to the other auction
attendees as she approached the painting. She felt Casanova’s eyes on every
inch of her as she walked over.
When she was a couple of feet away, she stopped and made a show of
studying the piece. It had been done by a female artist who went by the name
of Agnes Von Balingen in the early twentieth century, so there was the
German connection. According to the note beneath it, the painting was called,
The Crying Mother, and had been captured during Germany’s period of
expressionism. It reminded her of squinting and looking at a woman with her
hands over her face through a fisheye lens. Colors sparked and splashed over
the canvas in browns, reds, and blues with streaks of yellow.
“Die weinende Frau.” A deep, German-accented voice alerted Mo to a
presence just behind her. “It means, ‘The Crying Woman’ really, but this
title, it is okay too.”
“All of this,” she motioned around the room, “is so overwhelming. I feel
woefully out of place.”
Woefully? Really, Mo? Dial it down.
He stepped around her so they were face to face. “I did not catch your
name.”
“That’s because I didn’t give it.” She held out a hand. “Mona Friedrich.
You can call me Mo.”
He bowed and kissed the back of her hand, his lips lingering longer than
the amount of life he had left if Giorgio had caught the gesture. Then, his
eyes shimmered with a smile as he righted himself.
“Friedrich. German?”
“Oh no.” She faked a blush, touched her chest. “My husband.”
“Husband?” Casanova glanced around the room. “What kind of man
leaves a woman like you to roam on her own? Especially when she has
captured the fancy of the one, Jakob Meier.”
Mo giggled, turned her head, and tried not to gag. “You’re putting me
on.”
His eyes darkened. She’d met enough men like him to know he’d twisted
the “putting me on” in his head into putting her onto something else.
“Prima!” He encouraged her to turn in a circle. “Beautiful.”
Mo redirected their attention to the painting. “If I may, because you are
such a connoisseur of these things, ask your opinion on this piece? My
husband only comes here for art he can put in one of our homes that no one
else has. He doesn’t care about the meaning or history.” She pouted. “And, I
suppose that’s okay.”
“For another woman. Not for you.” He guided her with a hand
surprisingly a respectful distance away from her butt closer to the Balingen
painting.
 “My country has not always been the way it is now,” Casanova
explained. “The reason it is called, 'The Crying Mother,' is that she is a
depiction of Germany right after the Treaty of Versailles. My country was
stripped of its honor, its power, its status. My grandmother, she wept for
Germany. I did too, when I became a young man and fully understood.”
Mo felt an argumentative streak threatening to burst. “I think I can
understand,” she said, relaxing her jaw to prevent her teeth from clenching.
“Of course, you can.” He motioned to her. “Look at what your country
has done to those with your likeness. America, the superpower, is a cesspool
of racism.”
It probably wasn’t the best time to tell him she’d spent most of her life in
Australia. Not when he was on such a self-important rant.
“You came here specifically for this painting?” she asked.
“Oh yes, mein Schmetterling. My butterfly. It is the only painting of
Agnes Von Balingen to have survived. You see, Agnes was a staunch
supporter of nationalism. Some would even argue that she is a pioneer of the
movement. So, because of that, her work was destroyed in 1947. All, it
was thought.”
He finally released her and glided toward the painting. It was how he
moved, gliding, his long legs stretching in a tempered movement. Like he
walked to the rhythm of Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday.
“Look at the colors.” He opened his arms wide. “The way her hair thins,
the bones in her limbs. Hidden inside her is a little bit of my country. It is my
duty to bring this piece home, regardless of what the Chancellor believes.”
Mo walked over to him. “So, you agree with her stance? On nationalism,
I mean.”
“That is tricky, mein Schmetterling. I believe in my country. I love my
country.”
“Well, you can imagine why her work was destroyed.” She moved to the
other side of the painting. “The Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of
their status because of what happened in the First World War. And it is a rise
of nationalism, as well as a repudiation of the requirements set forth by the
treaty that led to one of the largest atrocities the world has ever seen in the
Holocaust. A purposeful rejection which directly led to World War Two.”
She expected anger. All she got was a slight tint to his face, as if he was
blushing.
“It is still history and history cannot be changed,” Casanova argued.
“Where are you from, Mona Friedrich?”
“Australia, by birth. My husband and I have homes there, in the US,
Germany, France, and we are looking for something off the Amalfi Coast.”
He took her forearms. Mo felt that sensation again, that humid heat of a
storm threatening a downpour on the coastline, and she looked up...directly
into Giorgio’s menacing gaze. She sent him a look to let him know she was
okay and not to advance. Not when they were this close.
“You have lied to me, Mona,” Casanova said, grinning. “You made me
believe you know nothing about art when you know enough about history to
argue art. The women here,” he flicked his hand in an arbitrary direction, “the
most they know is how much German cock they can fit in their cheeks. And
me, I am not upset with this knowledge as it benefits me. But a man
needs...more.” He licked his lips. “He needs more than just his cock sucked,
mein Schmetterling. He needs pleasure of the mind. I do not want a woman
who will, when I get home, take my coat and rub my feet. I want one who
will say, ‘Dummkopf! That was a stupid business decision, and this is why.’”
Mo pretended to look away, shy. “My husband is in this room, Mr.
Meier.”
Matter of fact, he’s behind you, and I’m pretty sure he’s planning to kill
you.
He stilled and released her arms. “You remember my name.”
“You are not the only one who has seen something they like.”
The crotch of his dark pants shifted.
“I’m sorry.” She lowered her eyes, touched her forehead. “That was very
forward of me.”
Casanova idled up to her, placed his lips near her ear. “Not at all.”
“My husband isn’t...cultured,” she whispered back. “Not like you.
And...never mind.”
“Tell me, Schmetterling.”
“He leaves me unsatisfied. He stimulates nothing, not my brain, not my
body. I shouldn’t be telling you this.” She pushed against his chest to start
walking away, but he drew her back.
“In Germany, we eat pussy,” he growled, his voice low. “Die muschi.”
She gasped. “Please...”
“And your husband, he does not?”
“He can barely stand to see me naked.”
That drew shock from Casanova. He stepped back, and his gaze swept her
body as if he could see right through the dark dress.
“I will not ask for much, but if you give me one night, I will give you
pleasure you have only dreamed of. I will swim in your pussy, if that is what
you want, for you are too beautiful for the world not to be graced with the
expression on your face when you come.”
Mo could see how women who didn’t know this man any better could get
caught up in him.
“When?” Her eyes darted around the room for effect.
“Tonight.” He snapped his fingers and a large man approached them and
handed him a room key. “Let the show finish for about an hour.”
She took the key, slipped it into her dress. “And what should I tell my
husband?”
“That he is about to be a single man.”
She lowered her eyes again. “I have never done this before. He was my
first. My only.”
God had to know she was acting. He wouldn’t strike her down for the lie
despite it being larger than the Grand Canyon.
“The casino,” he suggested. “I can have something set up for him there.”
“Okay. And...should I come naked or dressed?”
Casanova’s eyes went wild. He visibly adjusted himself in his pants.
“Clothed, mein Schmetterling. I will take them off. It will be my pleasure.”
She lowered her head. “Danke.”
“You are most welcome.”
Seconds after they split apart, Giorgio came over and replaced that hand
at her lower back, possessive. He directed her to a corner of the room, far
enough away that they could keep their eyes on Casanova without being
obvious. His jaw pulsed and the fingers on his left hand moved so fast, they
blurred.
“Everything okay, hubby?” She wrapped her arm around his and leaned
into his side, milking the role for all it was worth. “I know he touched me, but
it was necessary to get close.”
“And the mudak, he say what.”
“To meet him up in his room tonight while you’re busy in the casino.”
Giorgio’s gaze met hers, all fire and blood and death. “His room.”
“What did you expect to happen when we used me as bait?”
He returned his gaze to their mark.
“Are you upset he touched me?” Her lips quivered with a smile.
 Giorgio didn’t answer.
“Know what surprises me though?” Giorgio’s tension eased, slightly, and
he wrapped his arm around her. “That this works so well. I think that’s why
men have tried to keep women down for centuries. They know how weak
they are, especially when it comes to a woman.”
Absently, he stroked her side. “I will kill him.”
“You can’t.”
He looked down at her. “You do not like when I kill.”
“I really can’t be one to judge. It’s not like I have a squeaky-clean
reputation to protect.”
“You stop Taste and now, this piece of shit. Why.”
She stepped around his body, looked straight up into his face. “So that is
why you were mad.”
“Angry, Bez. Mad is—”
“Crazy, I know.” She twirled circles next to her ear. “Giorgio, I like you
just the way you are. I didn’t stop you because I want you to change.”
He stared at her, dark eyes searching. Then, he brushed a finger through
her bangs and looked over her head, behind her. “Is time. He will be
waiting.” He bent and touched a kiss to her lips that made her gasp out loud.
It was like a hummingbird’s wings, a gentle caress over her mouth, relaying
some message she didn’t understand. “Be safe.”
“I will.”
She started off. He grabbed her.
“Bez. I mean this.”
Her chest went hollow. She nodded, sent him a smile. “I will, Gio. And
remember what I said. I like you just the way you are.”
And then some.
He released her, and she headed like she was going upstairs to one of the
rooms. Giorgio deflected to the casino with a feeling in the pit of his stomach
he did not like.

Mo stepped off the elevator, knees suddenly wobbly. Of course, Casanova

was staying in one of the penthouse suites. A man like him spared no
expense, especially if the auction was any indication. By the time it ended,
he’d dropped forty-million dollars on the ugly Balingen painting.
His line of thinking made her head hurt. Along the way, over several
decades, the meaning of nationalism had evolved, and she didn’t feel inclined
to believe his definition was a watered-down version of what the term meant
today. How he could purchase the painting knowing what it stood for told her
everything she needed to know about the man.
Two large men, one she recognized from earlier, stood in front of the
door to the penthouse suite. When they spotted her, the familiar one opened
the door and held it until she was close enough to catch the handle.
“Go,” he urged. “He is waiting.”
She nodded and stepped into what smelled like an explosion of cologne.
Her head instantly began to pound. It was like someone had dumped an entire
bottle on the area rug, taking care to drizzle the remaining contents along the
back of the sofa. She tried to stifle a cough and failed, and she had to move to
the corner of the room in hopes the scent died soon.
“Too much?” Casanova appeared, shirtless and wearing only his slacks
from earlier, fine sprigs of blond hair on his chest. “I have turned you off.”
“It’s,” she coughed, “okay. Our noses naturally acclimate to smells so I’ll
get used to it in a minute.”
He smiled. “So intelligent. Come.”
When she didn’t move, he bumped himself on the forehead. “Oh, right.
Um...let me open a window, turn down the air. See if we can get some of this
to move out.”
He flitted about the room and she watched him, closely, ensuring not to
miss even a sway of his hand. They were alone. She had to be more careful
than when they’d been in the middle of a room filled with spectators.
When he was done, he faced her again, hands on his hips. “Better?”
“Yes,” she lied, walking over to him. “Hi.”
He grinned. “Hi. I am happy you came. Your husband, he suspects
nothing?”
“I don’t think so. He’s at the casino.”
“You are so very lovely.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “This is
your real hair?”
“Yes.”
“Oceania. Your heritage is from New Guinea.”
“Close enough.”
His hands slipped lower, onto her shoulders, the look in his eyes wild.
She stared into them, noticed the size of his pupils. He was high. As hell.
“I am almost afraid to touch you.” He pulled his hands away. “You are so
lovely.”
Mo responded, but she wasn’t sure what she said. She was too busy
secretly surveying the room, trying to figure out what he’d taken, injected,
snorted, or all of the above.
“What would you like me to do first, mein Schmetterling?” He wrapped a
strand of hair around his finger. “You want me to eat your pussy?”
Her stomach turned. Cold sweat sprinkled the back of her neck. It was the
same as always, her nervous system going into overdrive before a
confrontation. Giorgio had given her fifteen minutes before he came as
backup. She had seven minutes left.
“Yes.” He drew her into him, sniffed her hair. “That is what you want.
And then, you want me to fuck you on this sofa. Tell me that is what you
want, mein Schmetterling.”
What I want you to do is take two steps back, mein asshole.
“I...I don’t know where to start.” She feigned more innocence. “I’m afraid
I’ve never been seduced like this.”
A thick hand, knuckles covered with curls of fine hair, went to his chest.
“I swear, I will have your husband killed. It is a travesty, what he has done to
you.”
And there was her in.
“Killed?” She gasped. “You couldn’t do such a thing...could you?”
He drew back, put several steps between them. “Mein schmetterling, do
you know who you are talking to? I am Jakob Meier, but they call me
something else too. They call me Casanova, like the famous author and lover,
Giacomo Casanova.” He pulled his pants down, stepped out of them. A
prominent bulge greeted her from his boxer briefs. “With a snap of my
fingers, I can have him killed.”
She lowered her voice and hated herself for how well she pulled off this
innocent act. It had likely come from years of watching her sister wiggle her
way out of punishments using the same tactic on their parents.
“I have never met a man with so much...so much, power. How could you
even do that?” She set her clutch down, spun, and encouraged him to unzip
her dress. “Tell me.”
He obeyed, running his tongue along his lower lip. “I know men in high
places.”
 She stepped away from him and pulled off a sleeve. “Like...a hitman?”
His gaze took in the swell of the one breast that now peeked, his
expression a hungry wolf approached with raw meat. “Dozens.”
The phone in her clutch buzzed. They both glanced at it.
“Your husband?” he asked.
“Probably.” She reached toward the purse, stopped. “Should I get it?”
“No.” He motioned toward her. “Continue. I know I promised to undress
you but this...this is much better. Your skin is like Swiss chocolate.”
Her other sleeve came down. She lowered the dress to her middle,
exposing a silky black strapless bra set against the deep notes of her
complexion. “So, you would probably know who put a hit out on Giorgio
Pozza?”
It took a minute for the sentence to sink in. When it did, he frowned and
pulled his gaze away from her breasts, remembering she had eyes. “What?”
“Pozza. There’s a quarter billion on his head. Who requested it?”
“Who are you?”
“Answer the fucking question, Casanova.”
His gaze flickered to the door. “Stefan! Milo!”
“Who are you calling, Jakob?” She pulled the dress back up—before
Giorgio came storming in and killed them both—and walked toward him. “I
thought we had a good rapport going?”
“Look, I don’t know the answer to your question.” He raised his voice so
the men outside would hear. When Giorgio came walking into the room with
dots of red on his skin, he realized no help was coming.
“Why is your husband here?” Casanova asked. Then, his eyes went so
wide, his eyelids disappeared. “P-pozza.”
“You’re talking to me.” Mo snapped her fingers to get his attention. “A
quarter billion isn’t a small sum. And I heard through the grapevine that you
know something about it. If you don’t, then I have no use for you and my
honey here...well, you know what he’s about.”
Casanova nodded, mouth quivering. “I know about Pozza.”
“So then, help me.”
“It...it was an international hit. Only thing I know is that it came out of
Russia.”
Giorgio started toward him. Casanova backed up against one of the large
windows, hands stretched out in front of him.
“There are cameras in here, you know!”
 Mo rolled her eyes. “Really, Jakob? Do you really think, at this point,
they’re still working?”
The look on his face told her he knew but had run out of viable threats to
toss at them.
“Melnik!” he screamed, dropping to his knees and putting his forearms in
a cross when Giorgio raised a machete over his head. “I heard it came
through the name Melnik.”
Giorgio pulled the machete back. “You are sure.”
“Yes. At first, I thought it was the place in Greece, small town. Less than
five-hundred people. But then, I heard it was a name.”
Giorgio took a step back. Mo noticed the recognition on his face. He
knew the name.
“Anything else?” Mo asked.
“No.” Casanova shook his head. “I swear. I swear.”
Giorgio glanced back at her. She shook her head, a slight movement. He
raised the machete, lowered it. Mo turned away. When she looked again,
Casanova was a quivering heap on the floor. An alive, quivering heap on the
floor.
Giorgio grunted and headed for the door.
“Gio—”
“Bez.” His voice was tense, like he’d taken one of the blades to her skin.
“You accept or you leave.”
He stormed down the penthouse’s long hallway. Mo hurried after him.
She finally understood why she hadn’t wanted him to kill Taste. She wanted
to take the role of monster for him, shoulder some of his burden.
She didn’t care how many nights of sleep she lost or if her soul went to
hell. He meant something to her, something very important, and there was
something about how automatic the process was. How quickly his mood
switched, almost as if he’d been walking through life hypnotized when all of
a sudden, his code word was whispered in his ear and he became the Pozza
whose name reverberated fear even in a room full of killers. His upbringing,
whoever had raised him, still controlled him.
They stepped onto the elevator. He didn’t look down at her. She sidled up
to him anyway, wrapped her arms around his midsection, lay her head against
his side. Midway through their descent, he reciprocated with gentle rubs on
her upper arm.
“You have heard of Lebensborn.”
Mo swallowed her vanilla milkshake, brows lifted. Six hours. It had taken
six hours, four and a half driving back from Vegas and one and a half getting
settled at her place, for him to make a sound. She’d been watching him,
noting the warring of his emotions. How he seemed to be struggling between
wanting to reveal something about himself and wanting to remain saying
nothing at all.
“Um...it sounds familiar.” She looked up at him from where she was
sitting, cross-legged, on the floor. “Wasn’t it that experiment in Nazi
Germany where they were trying to breed like the perfect race of child or
something?”
His gaze landed on hers. “You know much about history.”
“It was my favorite subject in school.” She pulled on the straw again,
swallowed. “Mostly the wars. I like when there’s a shift in power. When one
side gets too arrogant and there’s a major turn of events that knocks them on
their asses. What about Lebensborn, though?”
“I think, this is how I was born.”
One eyebrow lifted. “Gio, I’m pretty sure those experiments stopped at
the end of the war.”
“Only official.”
She unfolded her legs, pushed up from the floor, and moved next to him
on the sofa. “Are you saying there were still similar things being carried
out?”
“Cross of Honour,” he explained. “It was, how you say, made by Vater.”
Mo tossed the word around in her head. “Vater means ‘father’ in German,
right? Like Darth Vader?”
His eyes glittered. “Yes. Like Darth Vader. Vater, he was the owner of
Cross of Honour, my school and my home. He was in the middle of age when
I knew him. He is…dead…now.”
“And he was alive during the Second World War, I’m guessing?”
“Yes, but young. He was like...apprentice for German doctor. Like
Mengele. Todesengel. Angel of Death.”
Next to slavery, the Nazi medical experiments were some of the most
inhumane events she had ever learned about as a child. It was terrifying how
easy it was for regular, everyday citizens to be conditioned into thinking that,
because of a person’s race or religion, it was acceptable for them to be
considered less than human to the point where depravity outweighed
humanity.
Mo drew another, longer, pull from the straw to cool her anger. “So, what
I’m hearing you say is, he worked under these assholes and like that asshole
Mengele, he somehow didn’t die or get killed during or after the war.”
“No.” Giorgio’s thick hair, no longer in its tie, shook. “He escape to
Russia. To the...places humans cannot live.”
Mo tapped her thigh, searched for the word. “Uninhabitable.”
“Da.”
“So he managed to survive in one of the areas of Russia where human life
should have likely perished. Sounds about right. Evil is warm.”
“There, he started school.”
She leaned back against the sofa arm and let her sock-covered feet rest in
his lap. She’d had enough of heels for a good few months. Wearing heels
certainly wasn’t like it had been in her early twenties.
“The school, it was named after Cross of Honour of the German Mother.
That’s the iron cross, right? What the Nazis wore.”
He tipped his head, confirming.
“If it was like Lebensborn, how did he get his hands on the women? You
know, to have the babies?”
“Ya ne znayu. I do not know. Maybe…abduct.”
“Or lied to,” she offered. “They could have been destitute women
promised easy money. I doubt they were prostitutes. Seems like a prostitute
would be too unclean for the Reich.” She rolled her eyes.
Silence fell. Absently, he captured one of her feet and massaged the sole
with one hand. At that point, it was more comforting for him than for her. If
he’d been born part of an experiment, she understood what he meant by not
having family. And there was no way he would know or ever figure out who
his mother was. The Nuremburg Codes had set the standard for ethics
surrounding human experimentation across multiple nations, so everything
this ‘Vater’ had done was likely done several levels below hidden.
“The school,” she realized, setting her cup on the floor. “He developed
the school solely for the boys that were born to these women, didn’t he?”
“Da.” Giorgio’s chest expanded, compressed. “For breeding. And for
making soldier. I am what they call, Das Biest.”
She repeated the term. “I’m guessing that means ‘the beast’ or ‘the
monster’ or something similar?”
He nodded. “I was different from other boys.”
Another the piece of the puzzle started to come together. “Melnik, is he
one of these Lebensborn-like babies too?”
“I like that you figure out things.” His gaze roamed her face. “Without
much information.”
The warmth inside her transformed from rage into a sort of happiness.
“And Melnik has that kind of change?” She rubbed her thumb against her
index and middle finger. “What does he do for a living? It’s not like you can
crowdfund hit money. Wait, can you?”
“Last I know, he was fisherman in Greece.”
“That’s a shitload of fish.” She could have sworn she saw the beginning
of a smile on Giorgio’s face. “So what now? We go to Greece?”
He lifted her foot, kissed it. “Not now.”
“You have a mission with the guys.”
“Da.”
“When do you leave?”
“Seven days.”
Her heart felt near exploding. “Oh. Do you know how long you’ll be?’
“No.” He drew her to him, onto his lap. “You will miss me, Bez?”
She tucked his hair behind his ears. “Yes. Very much.”
“You will be good?”
“While you’re gone? I can’t make any promises.”
His gaze searched her face again. “No killing.”
“Gio, I’ve been working by myself.”
“No, Bez.” He touched her chest, his. “Partners now, you and me.”
Mo laughed, tossed her head back. “I guess, yeah, we are.”
“You will wait, then.”
She kissed his cheek. “Yes, Gio. I will wait. For work and for you.”
Many people would only get to see the dark, dangerous side of this man,
but she hoped to be the only person special enough to get this. She got this—
absent foot rubs, forehead kisses, and a ring she was still wearing on her
finger. She got nights on his chest, evenings in his arms. She never wanted
anyone but her to know this side of him.
“It’s time for bed.” She leaned forward, briefly touched their lips. “If
that’s okay with you.”
He cradled the back of her head and brought their lips together. His
tongue was hard and harsh, bursting through the seam of her lips before she
opened for him, devouring her mouth from the inside out. He used his other
hand to hold her tight to him, her arms bent against his chest.
When he let up, she had no breath left.
“Um.” She cleared her throat. “Well.”
Gio rose, holding her. “Come, mein Schmetterling.”
She burst out laughing, hit his chest, and then reached forward for quick,
hard peck. “Keep playing around like that and you’re getting no booty
tonight.”
He walked them to the stairs. “You are threatening me, Bez.”
“Better believe it.” She kissed him again. “You will miss me, Gio?”
He looked almost surprised as he studied her, taking the stairs one at a
time up to the second level. “I miss you, when I sleep.”
Mo pressed her forehead against his collarbone. She was falling for a
monster.
That night, as she pressed her fingertips into his abdomen, her thighs on
either side of his midsection and her head tossed back as he pummeled into
her from below, she made it her mission to help him forget and ignore
everything they’d talked about, every pain and problem...even if for just one
night.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

T HEY WERE COORDINATING WITH A TEAM ALREADY ON THE GROUND . T HE

mission had been to locate a new terrorist, militia cell trying that had recently
appeared via international reconnaissance. A Boko Haram dupe. The men
had stolen seventy-five boys and thirteen girls so far and had them locked in
their encampment.
The local military, upon Giorgio and his teammates, Julien and Huang’s
arrivals, had given them the logistics—the girls had all been taken from the
same village. The youngest was seven and the oldest was fifteen. Their
primary responsibility in the sect was to be young wives for the older soldiers
in the camp.
The boys had been captured from neighboring villages. The youngest boy
was four years old and the oldest, seventeen. Reconditioning had already
begun where they would be trained to no longer wish for their parents,
siblings, or grandparents. Any family. They would be desensitized to
bloodshed, and their minds would be corrupted with whatever dangerous
doctrine the group decided to pump into their malleable brains.
Giorgio’s hands trembled with a need to get in, destroy, and get out. The
tent under which the local military had set up operations, the bustle of men in
uniform, it was all an intermittent blur. He needed to get back to California,
get home. Something was going to happen, and thinking of his Bez hurt and
bleeding kept him awake nights even when time to sleep was precious. Dead
men could not seek revenge, and because she had objected to him killing both
Casanova and Taste, he knew whatever retaliation they sought would be
substantial.
He didn’t care how skilled Bez was, he wanted to be there. Needed to be
there. She wouldn’t be able to stop him from killing, no matter how much she
begged, if anyone hurt her.
“We don’t have our sniper, but your guys are pretty top notch,” his
comrade, Julien, was saying to the military commander. “What kind of
firepower are we talking?”
“Assault rifles,” the tall chief said, his brown face shining with sweat. He
swiped a rag across his skin, but more sweat came. The temperature had
passed the hundred degree mark before noon.
They’d assumed they would have remained in the Gaza strip, but their
work there had led them to this particular uprising in Sierra Leone. The
primary objective was to rescue the abducted children and reunite them with
their families. “Decontamination” sites had also been set up in the villages to
help any children whose mindsets had already been substantially warped.
That had been Huang’s idea as he’d spent some time as a child being
recruited for military work.
Giorgio tried to focus while the rest of the plan was being laid out, but the
thick vein in his neck bulged. His throat scratched and inside his chest felt
like it housed a contortionist wearing a suit made of glass. During times like
these, Godmother Irina would find him in the wooded area behind the school,
chopping wood to let out his frustration. When he was done, he would sit
cross-legged on the quaggy terrain, hands trembling. But as long as he kept
them moving, he remained in control.
“Little Pozza, it is happening again?”
“Yes, Godmother.”
“Okay, I will sit with you.”
“No, Godmother.”
“You will not hurt me.”
“Vater said—”
“No matter what Vater said. I will sit with you. You have heard of
Tsarevich Ivan, yes?”
“No, Godmother.”
“Ah, then you are in for a treat. He is a strong warrior like you, Little
Pozza. The story of Tsarevich, it is a skazka. Now, tell me what it means so I
can see if you have been practicing your Russian.
“Like…fable?”
“Good. Now, once upon a time in a faraway land...”
And she’d made it a routine to, whenever he disappeared into the woods,
find him and sit with him and tell him Russian fables, folklore, and fairy
tales. Tales he could recite word for word, except no one had ever wanted to
get close enough to him to listen.
“Pozza,” Julien was looking at him, “we know you don’t like guns, but
will you at least take one? Just in case. We don’t have a good grasp on the
numbers, and they were notoriously firepower heavy for all the abductions.”
Giorgio scanned the map laid out on the table in front of them. “What is
X?”
The chief’s voice fell solemn. “It is a village they burned.”
“How much.” Giorgio looked up at him.
“There were no survivors.” One of the chief’s men brought over pictures.
“The man primarily responsible is this one.”
Giorgio examined the photos. “Children.”
“And women and babies,” the chief explained, voice thick.
“Okay.” Giorgio nodded, looked to Julien. Julien tried to hand him a rifle,
but he refused. He would be putting a blade through the skull of the man in
the photo riding on the back of that truck, flamethrower still ablaze. He
would stand over him while he died so he knew, as he traveled to hell, who it
was that killed him.
“Everyone have their orders?” the chief called around the room.
The men grunted in response and broke off into groups. Giorgio stood
watching them, his thoughts on his Bez, on Godmother Irina, and his hands
by his side, fingers twitching.
The two-story structure that house the children was hot with a heavy
cloud of musk and the remnants of tobacco. There’d been two guards at the
stairs outside that led to the second story, but the military snipers had made
quick work of taking them out. It had been difficult to wait for the all clear, to
follow the instructions set out by the team. Giorgio could sense it, the thick
layer of despondency. Of oppression. Of young children kept against their
will to be weaponized and sent into combat. Children who died long before
they ever stepped foot in the middle of open fire.
He’d been born, as the story went, on the last night at the secret hospital
where all the births had taken place. The very second he took his first breath,
the entire hospital lost power.
As he grew, he rarely cried. Where men’s minds crumbled from extreme
adversity, his seemed almost impervious to it. Vater had called him a gift.
The perfect combination of genes from the mother he would never know. The
only indication he had she’d ever existed, other than his birth, was the
surname he’d been given: Pozza. All the boys were given the surnames of the
small towns from which their mothers had been stolen, torn, and tricked. But,
no matter what Vater had said, he was not a gift.
He would not let any of these children be subjected to the same harsh
maltreatment. He would not let them be robbed of their innocence. Being
what he was, who he was...it was not preferable. Not even over death.
Two military men had been sent with him for firepower coverage. They
breached the front door. The men’s rifles went up in the air, but the entryway
was empty, and they found themselves standing in a square entrance about
the size of an average bathroom. There were doors on each side and half
walls next to each door, the walls connected to the ceiling by wooden posts.
Through the posts, they saw men lying on cots, all of them asleep, many of
them with hands dangling alongside the cot inches away from an empty
bottle of liquor.
The men went left. Giorgio took the right.
As he walked through the sleeping bodies, his fingers twitched faster. The
first part of the mission was retrieval. No matter how defenseless the snoring
guerrilla fighters were and how evil their intentions, the children were the
first priority. So he shoved his visions to the back of his mind, along with the
need to feel metal vibrating against bone and the need to shed blood, and
continued on his path forward.
A quick body heat scan of the structure had revealed he was looking for
the largest room on the second floor. However, they didn’t find a way to
enter the room from the stairs outside, which meant there was either a hidden
staircase or a lift inside the house.
He left the front room of sleeping assholes and made his way down a
hallway filled with doors. Recon, and Julien’s voice in his ear, told him all
the rooms were empty.
There was a skinny door near the end of the hallway that did not point to
a room. In fact, it appeared to point to nothing at all. Giorgio yanked it open
and immediately wrapped his elbow around the neck of the man standing
guard.
Thick stubble scratched his skin as the man tugged at his forearm. There
was the loud clatter of something on the bare, concrete floor. Giorgio’s other
hand had one of the man’s twisted behind his back so he wouldn’t be able to
operate the assault rifle hanging from his neck. Next to their feet on the floor
was a smartphone with the image of a naked woman on the screen.
Giorgio squeezed until the man’s scratches became feeble attempts. Until
the man no longer struggled, wheezed, and fell to the floor, his body still.
He moved the man’s body to the side with his boot and made his way up
the narrow stairs the novice had been protecting.
Julien’s voice in his ear grew increasingly muffled with each step he took.
Julien was yelling something, warning him what he would find in the room,
but Giorgio already knew. He knew the minute he heard the whimpers,
smelled the cheap cologne.
He pushed the door in and saw a man who looked to be in his late fifties
with a look in his eyes that would never be appropriate for a girl who looked
to be no older than twelve.
Julien’s voice disappeared. Every fabric in the room turned grey. All
scents and sounds disappeared. His fingers stopped moving.
Giorgio’s hand went to his waist. He brandished a blade, slid across the
room, and lodged it first into the man’s tongue before jamming a second
knife into his throat. He’d heard himself yell for the little girl to leave, several
times, before the blade had found its gruesome home, but her voice was
strong though fearful as she yelled back at him that she would stay.
He felt her small presence next to him and a change in weight indicating a
weapon had been removed from his belt. The girl’s cry tore through the room
as she surged a combat knife into the man’s chest, right through his heart.
Giorgio withdrew his hands and looked down into a head of dark, tight
curls, for the first time noticing the white linen dress with the dirt on the
collar and the hem. Her legs were bent, her shins pressed against the floor.
Her hands covered her face and she cried, screamed in a language he could
have understood had it not been distorted by angry rage.
The man stumbled backward and fell, lifeless, against a far wall. Giorgio
knelt next to the girl. Krio, she was speaking Krio.
“I protect,” he said, in his English because it was broken and imperfect.
He wanted her to know he was broken and imperfect and a different kind of
monster who was still capable of protecting, of understanding who was
innocent.
Her head lifted from her hands. Tears stained her dirty cheeks. Her brown
eyes were round and large. A purple bruise looked to be in the early stages of
forming beneath her left eye.
Without words, she threw her arms around him. In English and in Krio,
she thanked him endlessly, squeezing him tight around the neck. Up close, he
realized she was much younger than they’d previously thought. No older than
nine.
“I have her,” he said into the air so the men listening in could carry out
the rest of their plan.
He stood and tried to pry the girl away from him so she could walk out on
her own, proudly, but she held him tighter.
So he carried her, using a gentle hand against the back of her head to keep
her face in the crook of his shoulder so she wouldn’t see the carnage.
Keeping her nose pressed against his skin so she wouldn’t smell the blood,
the bodily fluids, the excrement. But even when they were safely inside the
tent where she began to see more and more of her brothers, sisters, friends,
and neighbors being brought to safety, she didn’t let him go.
“Please, do not leave.” She looked up at him, training those brown eyes
on him. He could see his Bez in her, as if this little girl could be her own
daughter. “Please, stay with me.”
He was sitting on a metal chair next to the bare mattress on the floor that
was to be her temporary bed. She was on his lap, an IV line in her arm, and
her grip on him like a child who couldn’t yet walk.
“Rest,” he said. “I stay.”
She looked from him to the mattress and back. “Do you promise?”
He told her that he did.
She peeled herself away from him with reluctance, crawled onto the
mattress, took a minute to consider whether or not she would go through with
her decision, and then burrowed beneath the thin covers. Giorgio left the
chair and sat on the ground next to the mattress.
“You have heard of Tsarevich Ivan?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Russian fairy tale.”
He paused. She stared at him. Then, she nodded.
“Once upon time, in far away land, live mighty tsar,” he began. “Pride of
his kingdom was beautiful orchard, but every night, feathers of gold and eyes
of crystal swoop down,” he made the motion with his hand, “and steal tsar
golden apples...”
The first morning Mo woke up without Giorgio next to her, she’d felt sick.
The same night they’d returned from Vegas, Gage had needed them, so
they’d flown out on a redeye to North Carolina to help with a serial killer
who’d been stalking Gage’s girlfriend, Tayler. Right after, Giorgio and two
of his other group mates—Huang and Julien, her brother-in-law—were called
to the Gaza Strip.
Mo returned to California.
The first week, she pranced around like a squirrel who’d lost its nuts. And
she’d felt like one, going crazy without something to do. She’d had long
stretches of no bounties to collect or marks to hunt before, but those stretches
had been planned. Right now, she and Giorgio were essentially in the middle
of an active mission and yet, he was clear across the globe.
The second week, she domesticated a little. There were still four loaves of
bread left in the freezer from the half-dozen she’d baked from scratch. Olu
had stopped by to ask her if she wanted to donate anything for a church bake
sale, so she’d spent the night perfecting Key Lime cupcakes and double
chocolate brownies.
The third week, she binged all her favorite shows.
There wasn’t a night that went by where Giorgio didn’t check in. He
monitored the doorbell camera, the indoor cameras, and the inconspicuous
ones installed around the exterior of the house despite her objections that she
could handle it, whatever it was.
When he was finished checking on her, making sure she hadn’t left to try
to find Melnik on her own, he would let her talk. He taught her more Russian.
When there was a video feed, sometimes they would sit in companionable
silence and look at her in that way—the way she loved and that made her all
but crave having him in her arms. And she would look at him, staring, hoping
he saw in her eyes and understood what she didn’t even understand quite yet,
herself.
Now, one month later, she felt herself finally settling into a groove. She
would be flying out to Australia for her cousin’s baby shower the following
day and had a hell of a long flight to look forward to. But, at least, it was
something to look forward to.
She rattled through her closet for a third option to wear to the shower in
the event she didn’t like the way she looked in the first two. She’d buy
something for the baby once she was back on her home soil, already
expecting Jenae to be registered at primarily expensive, posh stores. If it had
been her baby shower, she would have been perfectly fine setting up
registries at Target and buybuyBaby and throwing the entire thing in her
backyard. Jenae and her husband had rented out a grand event venue at a
luxury hotel and hired caterers, event planners, and a private chef.
Mo shook her head, shook away thoughts of babies, husbands, and baby
showers. Given the current proclivities of her and a one, Mr. Giorgio Pozza,
the last thing she needed was to jinx herself into getting knocked up. Birth
control still came with a failure rate and with the way her luck was going, the
pill would probably fail her twice. Plus, she didn’t want to have to decide
what to do thereafter. While she wasn’t some scared sixteen-year-old who
would have to hide her pregnancy from her parents—in truth, just her mother
wielding a tree branch—the life she lived wasn’t conducive to a little one.
She tossed two flowery dresses on top of the rest of the clothes, she’d
stuffed inside the suitcase and added a pair of boots and a denim jacket. It
was autumn back home and her body was no longer acclimated to any
semblance of the Australian seasons having been spoiled by the California
sunshine.
The doorbell rang. Mo pulled up the camera app on her phone and found
a young man in uniform standing outside. He was holding something in his
hand that, from the looks of it, captivated him.
She made her way downstairs and the young man was so caught up in the
delivery, it took him a moment to notice her leaned against the doorjamb in
the open doorway.
“Oh, crap.” He took a half step backward, extended a glass container that
gave her serious Beauty and the Beast vibes. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s a special
delivery from you for a Mr. Giorgio Pozza.”
Mo cocked her head and lifted a brow. “Come again?”
The young man shook his head, squeezed the bridge of his nose. “It’s a
special delivery for you from a Mr. Giorgio Pozza. Do you know what this
is?”
“No,” she said, “but I’m assuming you’re going to tell me.”
“I just don’t know how Mr. Pozza was able to get this for you.”
His already round eyes grew larger. Mo thought about inviting him in. He
seemed innocent enough, and she could easily take him if he wasn’t.
However, when she really thought about it, she wasn’t in the mood for
fighting. To add to that, Casanova had definitely blabbed about her and
Giorgio’s visit by now and a man like him wouldn’t go to the proper
authorities to rectify the situation. A man with that much money and
opportunity retaliated by using the same means he’d nearly offered to help
her get rid of her “husband.” She would need to reserve her energy for
whatever he decided to send her and Giorgio’s way.
“Tell me what it is,” she requested.
The morning sunlight cascaded off the young man’s hazel irises. “It’s a
lady slipper,” he said, then waited as if something was supposed to sink in.
“A yellow and purple lady slipper.”
Mo peered into the container. “Doesn’t look like shoes to me.”
He laughed, blushed. “My parents run a plant nursery so me and my
brothers grew up knowing about a whole bunch of different types of plants.
These flowers are rare, Miss Bez.”
Mo smiled at the name. “How rare?”
“Like, their location is supposed to be a secret and they’re supposed to be
under police protection. You see,” he looked down into the container and she
looked with him, “yellow lady slippers aren’t rare. But this, with the two
colors, I don’t think anyone has ever seen one in person. I’ve only seen
pictures on Google. They’re European flowers. Either Mr. Pozza has some
great connections, deep pockets, or both.”
Deep pockets, but you don’t want to know what he does for a living.
Suddenly, her words came back to her: “I need a connection and
emotion. Dates and feelings and flowers.”
Mo took the container, held it like a newborn. Giorgio was charming her,
and it was more perfect than she could have ever hoped.
“Well, thank you, uh...”
“Timothy,” the young man offered. “And you’re welcome.”
“Does this rare lady slipper come with any care instructions?”
He handed over a piece of paper. “They’re a kind of orchid, but they need
a little more babying than your typical, run of the mill orchid.”
Mo took the paper. “Thank you, again.”
“No problem.”
With a slight wave, he walked back to the curb where his delivery van
was parked. Mo glanced down at the paper and read the words printed
beneath the logo, words that seemed almost as if they’d been copied and
pasted onto the sheet as an afterthought: L’histoire de ma vie.
She knew enough of secondary school French to know it meant, The
Story of My Life. She just couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before.
 She set the flower inside, stared at it for a moment, and then went out for
a quick run through the neighborhood, a smile fixed on her face.
A little over an hour later, she was showered, dressed, and satisfied from
a filling but bland breakfast shake filled with protein and nutrients. Based on
her experience with the same shake, she would be hungry in less than four
hours. If she and Olu hadn’t returned from the Farmer’s Market by then, she
would be consuming an inordinate amount of fries from In-N-Out.
“Knock knock!” Olu pushed open the front door and poked her head
inside. “Hey, Mo. Lyla and I are ready when you are.”
Mo took another long look at the flower. She’d never seen anything like
it, not even close. It was both beautiful and strange, slightly frightening, and
she wondered if that was why Giorgio had chosen it. Its purple petals
reminded her of spider’s legs, the appendages camouflaged as something
enticing to lure an unsuspecting victim into its presence. The flower’s yellow
bulb rounded out the shape of the spider’s belly. The naive bug or honeybee
would land on the delicate fronds expecting easy access to sweet nectar. But
then the spider would reveal itself, grab its victim, and drain it of all life.
However, in her case, there was a twist. While everyone remained at a
distance, no matter how lovely the arachnid, because they expected the spider
to suck the honeybee dry, all it had simply needed was to be embraced
instead of feared. A kiss instead of a bite. For its hair to be gently tucked
behind its ears before it went to sleep each night.
Come back soon, Gio.
“Spiders get a bad rap,” Mo said aloud. Then, she blew a kiss toward one
of the indoor cameras and followed Olu across the street to her garage.
On the drive, Olu chatted mostly about her husband, Ade, and their
children. Although Mo would never allow herself to say it out loud, barely
allowed herself to think it, she was envious.
Lyla was seven months old and Olu had an older son, Coby, who was in
the first grade. Apparently, Olu wanted three more children, but her husband
wanted her to return to work because being a surgeon had always been a
dream of hers, and it pained him to see how sad she often became because
she’d had to put her dream on hold.
However, Olu’s aunts, mother, and grandmother constantly warned her
never to let anyone but family help her take care of her children because of an
unfortunate, fatal babysitting incident that happened in their town. Mo helped
Olu reach the conclusion that if she wasn’t pregnant by the time Lyla was a
year old, she would go back to work and call on one of her numerous family
members for help. In the silence that followed, Mo thought about her future.
Once they arrived at the Farmer’s Market, Olu branched off into talking
about her career as a surgeon, and Mo heard in every syllable how much she
missed it. But Olu was faced with the same decision Mo, and many other
women, were always slapped in the face with—kids or career. And while
there were many women making it work because making things work was
what women did, it was a little different in her case. She couldn’t see herself,
infant strapped to her back in one of those little carriers, Glock in her hand as
they walked through some of the seediest neighborhoods in existence. All the
child services agencies around the world would band together just to take her
out.
But she did enjoy spending time with Olu and Lyla and pushing Lyla’s
stroller.
She found herself staring at Lyla when she fell asleep, making sure the
canopy on the stroller was pulled forward enough so the sun didn’t damage to
her skin. Melanin was only a partial UV protectant and little Lyla, at her age
and with her beautiful mocha skin that matched her mother’s, needed more
protection than most.
“Are you hungry?”
Mo looked up into Olu’s kind, brown eyes. They were tired but soft. This
was a woman who’d kept a smile on her face despite numerous appointments
that had cut into her first few months as a mother.
Her jet black, flat-ironed hair whipped around her face as a partial breeze
blew through.
“Always,” Mo said. “You want to get some lunch?”
“They have a café here.” Olu pointed across the market. “Sandwiches,
soups, things like that.”
They walked in the direction of the café, their bags tucked in Lyla’s
stroller. Olu ordered a turkey sandwich on whole grain bread with Swiss
cheese. Mo went for a meatball sub on a white hoagie with a thick slab of
mozzarella and extra herbs and spices. When she asked for a dash of cayenne,
the woman making the sub looked at her like they were long lost sisters.
“I forgot to tell you that the police came by your house,” Olu said as they
found a shaded place to sit. “And they towed your stalker’s car. You said it
was an ex, right?”
Mo bit into her sub, tried not to moan, and washed it down with a sip of
iced green tea. “Um, yeah. When was this?”
“A few weeks ago. When you went to go see your sister.”
She’d told Olu her trip to North Carolina had really been to DC to see
Ari. In the event anyone was tracking her movements.
“Did you talk to them?”
“They came to my door.” Olu took a sip of water. “Asked me if I’d seen
you. Wait, they said you called them. You didn’t?”
“Maybe I did and forgot.” She knew she hadn’t.
“Did your ex know you were dating that new guy?” Olu asked. “What’s
his name, Gio? I don’t think he would have been outside your house if he did.
That guy is scary. Hot but scary.”
That was the general consensus.
“No offense.”
Mo smiled, shook her head. “None taken. Gio is hot and scary. But he’s
also my little honey.”
Olu gave her a look, a questioning lift of her brow that seemed to ask if a
man like Giorgio could really be anyone’s “little honey.” Mo was already
smiling, ready to respond when Lyla started crying in the stroller, indicating
that not only had she woken up, she was hungry.
Olu wrapped up the second half of her sandwich and moved around to the
front of the stroller to lift Lyla into her arms. “Do you mind waiting a minute
while I find somewhere cool to feed her?” she asked, lifting Lyla onto her
hip. “I think they have fancy breastfeeding stations here with like TVs and
smutty romance novels or something.”
Mo laughed. “Not at all. Take your time.”
A few minutes after Olu left, she pulled out her phone, ready to call
Giorgio, and noticed the array of notifications and missed calls. Her stomach
leapt and thrashed like it was spelling Giorgio’s name in her abdomen when
she saw they were all from him.
Another call started to come through.
“Hel—"
“Seven.”
There was a tenseness to his voice, more so than usual, and a tone that
indicated either anger or frustration. Yet, her body thrilled at the sound before
it registered his words.
“Seven what?”
“Camera.”
 She pulled up the doorbell camera. Her hands went cold down to the
fingertips. It had been disabled but, right before, a large man’s frame had
been captured.
She switched to the exterior house cameras. The unique thing about the
exterior cameras was that she had two sets—a dummy set she’d found on
Amazon on highly visible display around the perimeter, and actual cameras
that were a little more expensive, tactical, and camouflaged among the eaves
and soffit.
The actual cameras were still up, and there were more men than just the
one who’d disabled the doorbell camera.
They approached her house, dressed in uniform that indicated they
worked for some sort of landscaping company she’d never hired. Three of
them skirted the perimeter, dismantling the fake cameras. Assuming the end
of their task, they never looked to see if there could be any more, any that
might have been hidden.
Giorgio’s count was right; she saw seven. But the men were giving her a
worker bee vibe. There was a Queen lying in wait, somewhere, and it was a
guarantee the Queen would be more dangerous than the sentinels.
“I’m having lunch with Olu,” she told him, looking up to see her friend
returning. “But I’m headed back now.”
“Bez, do not—”
“I can take them, Gio. I’ve got this. Please, just trust me.”
“I trust you.”
“Then let me handle this.”
“Stay with your friend.”
“Gio, I miss you.”
He growled. “Fuck, Bez. Listen for one—”
She blew him a kiss, ended the call, and smiled up at Olu. “Everything
okay?”
Olu crouched to strap Lyla back into the stroller. “Yeah, but she’s getting
cranky. Do you mind if we head back?”
Mo shook her head and hid a shiver that rippled through her body. “No,
not at all.”
She rose, gathered their wrapped-up sandwiches and half-empty drink
cups, and followed Olu to the parking lot. In her purse, her phone vibrated
wildly.
She did her best to ignore it, to push away thoughts of how pissed Giorgio
was and would be when he came home, and concentrated on Olu strapping
Lyla in as if committing the practice to memory.
Mo climbed into the passenger seat and placed the drinks in the
cupholders in the middle console. Olu started the SUV, her focus split
between her back window and the rear camera.
“Random question,” Mo said. “You know some French right?”
Olu waited until an elderly couple holding hands was no longer in view of
the camera before she slowly backed out of the space. “I’m actually fluent in
it.”
“Perfect. So, the phrase, ‘L’histoire de ma vie,’ means The Story of My
Life, right?”
“Technically. That’s the literal translation.” She peered both ways before
driving toward the main road. “It’s also the name of a pretty famous book
from the 1850s.”
Another sensation trilled, covered Mo from head to toe. “Whose book?”
Olu glanced across at her and grinned. “The one and only, Giacomo
Casanova.”
 CHAPTER EIGHT

M O WAS ABLE TO PUT SPACE BETWEEN HER AND O LU ONLY BY PROMISING TO

stop by before she flew out for the baby shower. Under no circumstances
would she let Olu or Lyla get hurt, and the men she could still see on one of
her hidden cameras looked like they were there to put down some serious
hurt. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought the
Jabberwockies had stopped by to put on a performance. Each man’s face was
covered by a milk-white mask.
“I’m crazy,” she half-said, half-sang to herself as she crept up to the front
of the house and lifted a brown box where most people probably held their
garden hoses.
Caryn had been one of the deadliest female assassins to have ever lived,
and Huang had been a child soldier, trained to kill a little after he’d learned to
walk. They’d both trained her, told her she was highly skilled. Her
experiences so far supported it. But as she pulled a double barrel from the
box and slipped into the alcove where her front door sat, she got that feeling
she always did. That “this could be my last day on earth” feeling.
She slipped through the small crack in the front that had been left—
probably a tactic to try to trick her to step inside first before calling the
authorities, make sure nothing was missing—and realized the fear of death, at
this point, still wasn’t enough to stop her.
Mo stood in the entryway. Three of the men were milling about the front
room, their backs turned. They weren’t looking for anything; they seemed to
be attempting to preoccupy themselves until she returned. Even if there
hadn’t been a sheer too damn many of them, she would have known they
weren’t coming there to steal anything.
 She cocked the gun, held it up, and fired a round into the man farthest
away from her. He went down and the other two pivoted, reaching for guns at
the same time. Mo let another round off and it struck the second man though
she didn’t know where. Then she hid behind the wall near the entryway.
Bullets lodged in the drywall. Her sweat tickled as it ran down the front
strip of her nose. Additional footsteps entering the room sounded like a herd
of goats running over the hardwood.
“Any of you up for conversation?” She appeared from behind the wall, let
off a round, hid again. “Big guy one? Two?”
More shots were fired. Shoes pounded. There were at least five uninjured,
six if she went with her gut. She’d never taken on this many by herself. At
least, not this many who weren’t one step up from laymen. These men were
professionals. Though not necessarily very skilled professionals, she would
have to use a little extra thought and effort in order to subdue them.
“Guess not.”
She only had three shots left, but there was a pistol on her hip and a
handgun at her ankle. She was also carrying a combat knife and a boot knife.
Still, she would need something else.
Mo briefly appeared and emptied the shotgun before tossing the entire
weapon and lifting the pistol from under her shirt. It had been awkward
giving Olu a hug without revealing the metal she’d had strapped to her side.
She continued to fire in the men’s direction, still three but she knew there
were more trying to corner her somewhere, until she rounded the corner and
slipped into the laundry room.
Once inside, she locked the laundry room door and barricaded the other
side that led to the garage just as what sounded like a large frame banged
against it. Unfortunately for him, the laundry room had been designed as an
earthquake shelter that could stand up against a mini atomic bomb, if
necessary.
She climbed onto the dryer, up toward the electrical panel, and yanked it
open. She then turned off all the breakers, stealing any additional light not
being filtered through a curtain or blinds.
She pulled a short lever that had been installed inside the panel, jumped
down from the dryer, and reached into the back of the linen closet for one of
the four gas masks she kept there. She kept four in the event an emergency
happened when her sister, brother-in-law, and niece were visiting.
Then, she opened the app on her phone and watched through the hidden
cameras.
The men had long since stopped shooting and had congregated, no doubt
coming up with a way to tease her out of her laundry room. From the view in
her garage, all the tires on her SUV had been slit, preventing her from getting
out that way. Three men were still in the front room. A fourth closed the
garage door—sucker—and returned to his post on the other side of the
laundry room door. The fifth one was on the other side of the laundry room
door that led to the inside, gaze focused on the biometric scanner and where a
handle should have been. Given the insane amount of security for a laundry
room, by now, they’d also guessed it wasn’t just a laundry room.
What they couldn’t guess was that, in about thirty more seconds, the
entire house would be filled with noxious fumes. The only issue with that
was, at the end of it all, she would have to find a way to dispose of seven
large men. Well, she had a way, but it was still more work than she wanted to
deal with.
Eight large men. Her gut man finally surfaced.
He was sitting in the backyard in one of her lawn chairs. Under different
circumstances, she would have simply laughed at him, maybe even called the
authorities so he could be put under psychiatric watch.
This man wasn’t like the rest. The mask on his face was a burlap sack
with errant stitching and haphazard cut outs for the eyes, nose, and mouth. He
reminded her of a Batman villain.
As creepy and odd as it was, that wasn’t what frightened her. It was the
fact that he was looking directly at her, at the camera. A camera he should not
have been able to detect never mind see.
As he looked at her, hands covered by black leather gloves peeled the
petals off the yellow and purple lady slipper until it was bare, and then
crushed the stem beneath his boot.
Mo was jostled away from their eye-contact at the first thud of a man
hitting the floor. Not long after, more thuds followed. When she checked
again, scarecrow mask had moved to the sliding doors and was peering in. It
almost looked like there was a smile on his face despite her not being able to
see it. Still, she pictured it—skin like leather, tanned from years spent in the
grueling sun, a hard nose permanently bent from years of being broken and
haphazardly fixed, and eyes like someone had cut an emerald with a blunt
serrated knife.
He wouldn’t step inside. Not now. But she would step out. Taking on one
man would be a hell of a lot easier than messing with an entire army.
She climbed back onto the dryer, raised the handle she’d lowered, and
hopped back down to the floor. Pistol in hand, she waited until her phone
indicated all gas had been cleared before she pulled the mask from her face
and left the laundry room.
When she stepped into the foyer, she released a breath, expecting to have
to immediately dodge a blow from the creepy intruder. But he wasn’t there,
right in front of her. Instead, he was standing in the middle of the living
room, a beacon in the pile of bodies that had amassed on the floor, staring at
her and giving her that feeling he was smiling at her.
“Mo?” The front door pushed open. “You forgot your sandwich in the c
—”
“Olu, out!” She leapt toward the door, shutting it closed in Olu’s face and
barricading it in the process.
“Mo?”
Her fear for Olu felt as palpable as a physical wound. “Leave!”
She turned around and found Scarecrow Mask had started walking
forward, slowly, toward her. She also realized her fear wasn’t what she’d felt.
Scarecrow Mask had attacked, silently, and she’d been struck by a blade he’d
tossed that had lodged itself into the wall behind her. Through her.
“Fuck.” Mo looked down, wiggled, cried out in pain. “Fuck, fuck, fuck
—”
She ducked just as he swung a machete toward her head. The movement
caused the knife to pull, split a little more of her skin.
Remembering the gun in her hand, she lifted it and aimed but he grabbed
her wrist and forced her arm above her head. She heard Olu’s scream through
the door when bullets pierced the ceiling. Olu would definitely call the police
and make the situation much more complicated. But she could use the
police’s help right now, no matter what the situation looked like.
The man struck out. Mo dodged as best as she could in her situation. All
she needed was some distance. She wouldn’t be able to pull herself through
the knife because of the handle, but if she got some time, she could at least
pull it from the wall and release herself from entrapment.
The sound of breaking glass from the back of the house captured their
attention. The man turned around, and Mo grabbed the knife handle and
pulled with everything she had.
“Mo?”
 Her body went numb.
Olu?
“Mo, don’t worry. I’m here.”
“Olu, you have to leave!” Mo felt like her insides were being ripped out.
“Olu, go!”
The man started off in Olu’s direction. Mo pulled harder, felt the knife
budge from the wall, but everything was halted when she heard Olu’s scream.
She pulled the knife the rest of the way, ignoring the stinging and the
shock that rippled through her. She ran to the back of the house, fire and acid
radiating through her body. Blood soaked her shirt. She lost her footing twice
on the way to her friend.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the look on Olu’s face.
Scarecrow Mask was only a few feet in front of her. Behind Olu, was
Giorgio.
Olu spotted her and started forward, but Scarecrow Mask reached forward
in an attempt to stop her. Giorgio grabbed the man’s arm with his left hand
and brought his right fist to the man’s face, the connection so hard Mo felt
like the house had shaken.
It wasn’t until Olu fell to her knees that Mo realized she’d fallen to the
floor. It was the wrong thing to think about, but she was already searching
her mind for a way to explain the men fighting in her living room. The lumps
of masked bodies on the floor. The handle jutting from her body like it
belonged there.
“Did you call the police?” she asked Olu, out of breath.
“I was going to, but then I saw Gio.” Olu’s gaze was trained on the blade.
“I started telling him to call for help, but he went around back so I followed.”
“You have babies to think about.” Mo groaned. “What were you
thinking?”
“You’re my friend, Mo. I wasn’t going to just leave you.”
The man went stumbling backward into the stair banister, righting himself
almost immediately. Giorgio charged toward him and their arms locked. He
pulled the man’s arm and tugged his sleeve up as if searching for something,
but Scarecrow Mask jerked from the hold and attacked Giorgio head on. A
power struggle ensued, and Mo realized it was the first time she had ever
seen Giorgio fight without some kind of knife.
Their movements were very similar, and they both fought like they had
nothing to lose, which she knew Giorgio believed. But she had something to
lose in him.
A blade suddenly appeared from Scarecrow Mask’s glove. He struck out
toward Giorgio’s abdomen, pierced his skin. Giorgio released his hold and
stepped backward. The man, his movements swift, reached into his pocket
and brandished something else—a grenade.
“To the laundry room.” Mo pulled Olu up with her. “Let’s go. Gio!”
He shot her a look that let her know he wasn’t coming.
No matter how much she wanted to call out to Giorgio, to run and pull
him with her, he would push her in the face if need be to get her to save
herself before saving him. Plus, she had Olu to think about. Ade and Coby
and Lyla. The frame of the house had been renovated to withstand enough of
the blast to protect the neighbors, but not the people inside.
So as she and Olu stumbled to the safety of the laundry room, her heart
trailed her in pieces in each streak of blood.
Once they were inside, she instructed Olu on how to lock the door. Olu
then began rummaging through the cupboards. “Do you have any alcohol in
here?” she asked. “Even the drinking kind.”
Mo eased down to the floor, breathing heavy, her back against the
washing machine. “I-I don’t know. I think so. I can’t remember.”
Olu began tossing things from the linen closet. “It’s okay. Just rest.”
“Olu, who’s with Lyla?”
“My aunt.”
Mo struggled through a laugh. “You always have family in town.”
“I’m Nigerian.” Olu shot her a smile full of sorrow. “Hush and rest. The
knife looks like it went clean through the skin. That’s ridiculously lucky.”
“I don’t think he was trying to kill me.” Mo remembered her phone,
pulled it out, and opened the camera app. “He could have easily done it while
I was stuck to the wall.”
They both yelped at hard knuckles on the door. Mo spotted Giorgio
through the camera. The living room was empty save for the bodies on the
hardwood. There’d been no loud explosion and there was no debris scattered
everywhere.
“It’s Gio,” she said. “You can open it.”
When the door opened, with the way he looked at her, Mo half expected
Giorgio to finish the job Scarecrow Mask had started on her.
“What happened with the grenade?” she asked.
His brows narrowed. “Dummy.”
 “It was a dummy grenade or are you calling me a dummy?”
He didn’t respond.
“Mr. Gio.” Olu faced him. The scowl slightly faded. “I have things at my
house that can help her. And,” she looked at his seeping midsection, “you
too.”
She tried to help Mo up but he grunted, stepped around her, and easily
lifted Mo into his arms.
It was dark outside as they crossed the street and walked the few houses
down to Olu’s house. Mo had expected for them to sneak in, maybe slip in
via the garage, but Olu went barging through the front door before holding it
open, waving them in. Her husband was in the front room reading a book,
and her aunt was in the chair across from him, her focus on the television.
“Eh eh!” The older woman stood, muted the television, and faced them.
“What is going on here?”
“They need help, Auntie,” Olu explained. “These are my friends. This is
Mo, the neighbor I told you about.”
“The one who helped with Lyla?”
Olu nodded.
“Young man, take her to the back.”
Giorgio followed Olu to a back bedroom where Olu motioned for him to
place Mo on the bed. Mo protested, but Giorgio set her down anyway.
“Your sheets, Olu,” Mo said.
Olu’s aunt came into the room. “I have your things, Olu. You help Mo. I
will help this one.”
Mo groaned and swallowed another protest. “Thank you, ma’am.”
The older woman made a sound with her tongue and teeth, the same
elegant sound Olu often made. “Call me Auntie.”
Auntie had Giorgio go to the bathroom where the light was better while
Olu placed towels beneath Mo’s wound and examined it further.
“Like I said, clean through.” Olu swooshed the air. “But it’s going to hurt
when I take this knife out. Like...a lot.”
“It’s okay,” Mo said. “It is what it—ah!”
Olu’s grip on the knife was tight. She pulled, not letting up until the blade
was fully extracted. Mo heard Auntie fussing with Giorgio in the bathroom,
telling him she was fine and that he needed to stand still for her to finish.
Olu set the blade aside and pulled items from the bag on the nightstand
next to Mo’s head.
 “That...wasn’t so bad.”
Olu smiled. “So, while I’m closing you up, care to explain what all that
was back there?”
“Would you believe me if I said I was a female assassin and those men
were there to ambush me in an attempt at retaliation?”
Olu’s brown eyes clashed with hers. “Oddly, yes. Is that the truth?”
“Somewhat. I’m not entirely sure what the men wanted.”
“You do know you still have a pile back at your house.”
“I know.” She sucked air through her teeth when Olu applied the
antiseptic. “I’ll deal with it later.”
“That big one, he was different.”
He was different and yet, familiar. The way he moved, the way he
handled his weapons, they all reminded her of Giorgio.
Giorgio had said he and Melnik had been “bred” at the same school. It
would make sense for them to fight in a very similar manner. But Casanova
had left his calling card via the florist so she would know he was watching
her. How would he have ended up working with Melnik? That was, unless
he’d lied to them and the real reason he’d known about the hit was because
he had something to do with it.
“Yeah, he was a bit more skilled,” Mo answered. She cried out again
when Olu retrieved the surgical needle needed to start her suture.
“I haven’t even touched you.” Olu’s eyes sparkled with amusement in a
way that reminded Mo of Giorgio. “And I’ve numbed you. You should
feel...less.”
“Less?”
“It’s a deep wound. I can’t promise you won’t feel a thing.”
Mo clenched her teeth and braced for impact. When the first pass of the
needle went through and she realized she could handle it, she relaxed.
Auntie emerged from the bathroom with Giorgio following her, his shirt
off and gauze covering where the short blade had punctured. She was
speaking in rapid Yoruba.
“Auntie,” Olu glanced her way, “he doesn’t understand you.”
Giorgio said something in response. From the look on Olu’s face, Mo
guessed he’d let her know, in Yoruba, he did understand.
Olu tilted her head Giorgio’s way. “Is he an assassin too?”
“Gio?” Mo shook her head. “He’s…something different altogether.”
“Like the man in the mask.”
 Mo nodded. “I’m thinking there’s a connection there too.”
When she was finished with the suture, Olu applied gauze. Mo sat up in
the bed despite Olu’s objections and orders for her to rest. The women
packed up their things and left the room, leaving Giorgio and Mo alone.
“You’re mad at me for nothing,” she started. “It’s not like I could stop
them from breaking into my house. Plus, if it wasn’t for that big ass weird
dude, I would have been fine.”
He stepped across the room, examined her gauze, touched it. “How bad?”
“Flesh wound. How’d the big dude get away?”
“Is dummy.”
“The grenade wasn’t real.” Mo clicked her tongue, understanding.
“Makes sense. I didn’t see him as the type to off himself. He was losing so he
used it as his, ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.” She reached toward his gauze.
“How bad is yours?”
“Nothing.”
“Please don’t be upset with me, Gio.”
“Bez...” His chest fell with a sigh. “I can die. You cannot.”
“Bullshit. You can’t die either.”
He tilted his head to the side. “No?”
“No. I need you. We’re partners, remember?” She patted the space next to
her and he eased down onto the bed. “Why did you come back?”
He stared at her until she answered her own question.
“Ah. The cameras. I’m guessing you were already in California when you
called me this afternoon. No wonder the call came from your number and not
a SAT phone. Was your mission even finished?”
He examined her face. “Yes. And no.”
Mo leaned against his arm. “Tell me the ‘yes’ first.”
“Little girls and boys, they are safe.”
“And the no?”
“Julien will need me. You will come.”
“I can’t.” She kissed the side of his arm. “I have my cousin’s baby
shower to go to—”
“Bez,” he growled. “You are hurt.”
“And if I don’t show up, Ari will know something’s up.”
“I come with you.”
“It’s a baby shower, Gio. Go with Julien. We’ll meet up after.”
Knuckles rapped on the doorjamb. Olu was leaned against the frame,
arms folded, looking at them with an unreadable expression on her face.
“Olu, why are you helping us?” Mo asked. “I was expecting this to be
weirder for you.”
She tittered a laugh. “Mo, you’re a weird neighbor. But I like you. My
family likes you. Auntie asks after you every time she calls. I have family
who wouldn’t have done what you did for me when I had Lyla. Plus, us
women in male-dominated professions need to stick together.”
Mo smiled.
“I volunteered many places back home in Africa,” Olu added. “Even
here, when I used to work in Oakland, I would see much more terrible
wounds than yours. I only have to ask you this. Do you hurt women and
children?”
“We don’t,” Mo answered. “Well, unless the woman’s trying to kill me
first.”
“And you...kill people.”
“I have.”
“If you were to try to attach a moral compass—”
“Then none of them were ‘innocent.’”
The answer seemed to release a weight from her shoulders. In an instant,
she looked three inches taller.
“Gio.” She asked him something in Yoruba.
“Bẹẹni.” He nodded.
“How do you know Yoruba?”
“Gio’s a polyglot,” Mo said. “He knows a bunch of different languages
conversationally and is fluent in many of them. Except English. He sucks at
English.”
Olu laughed. When Mo looked up at Giorgio, he was already looking
down at her with one of his “smiles.” She would pretend to complain about it,
claim she would have had everything under control had he not shown up. But
she was happy as hell he’d appeared when he did. Not only because she’d
needed the help, but because she’d missed the hell out of him.
“I asked him if you all wanted to stay for dinner,” Olu explained. “And
you can spend the night here, in this room. I just have to change the sheets,
but Auntie can launder out any kind of stain there is. Tomorrow, once you
have had a moment to wrap your minds around the day, you can regroup.”
Mo was already shaking her head. “Olu, the offer is much appreciated,
but it’s too dangerous and you have a family. We don’t want to put your lives
in jeopardy.”
She jutted her chin in Giorgio’s direction. “With him here, I think we’ll
be fine for the night. Come eat. You can tell us the story over dinner. I’ll just
tell Coby it’s from a movie and, if Ade asks, you cut yourself cooking.”
She turned to walk away but Mo called out to her, left the bed, and
hobbled over to wrap her up in a hug. She would have never expected
someone who wasn’t her twin sister to treat her this way. Olu had always
been kind, but this transcended kindness.
“Thank you, Olu. You’re a wonderful friend.”
Olu stepped back, wiped her eyes. “So are you, Mo.”
 CHAPTER NINE

M O OPENED HER EYES , SAW THAT SHE WAS STILL IN HER RIDE FROM THE
airport, and closed them again. She fell right back into her dream of Giorgio
and leaving him when they’d split at her connecting flight.
His grip had been tight enough to leave impressions on her skin. It was
the first time she’d ever seen an expression that looked like pleading on his
face, but her mind had been made up. He would be in DC with his comrades
for a bit and she would be in Cairns. In less than a week, they would be
together again, and all would be right with the world.
It was what she wished she’d said. But her lips had remained sealed until
he’d tugged her into him. She’d slipped her fingers into his hair, lifting on her
toes to take his lips and make silent promises as their mouths moved, tongues
tangled. It wasn’t until her feet hit the floor that she realized he’d lifted her.
He’d then made slow work of releasing her while looking over her head,
letting her know Ari was on her way over to them.
From there, she and Ari had headed on to Australia while he’d remained
in DC. In the driver’s seat, Ari was talking with her sleepy husband over the
Bluetooth connection. Thandie was with Julien’s mother, spending a few
weeks during the summer before she went off to spend time with their parents
for a couple weeks.
Mo’s lids lifted again. She stretched her arms above her head and
yawned, hiding a wince at the flash of pain that seared through her. Olu had
patched her up well and offered pain meds, which she had refused. She and
Giorgio’s risk levels were currently too high for her to take anything that
would knock her off her game.
The spot where she’d taken the blade was tender and sore, but it had
already started to heal when Olu checked last. Olu had let her know she
would keep an eye on the house, although Mo didn’t know what would
become of it now. She was known now, if not as Mo, as Giorgio’s handler.
“You’ve been awfully tired,” Ari said, her accent heavier than it had been
in the years since they’d moved to the US. It was whatever happened the
minute they stepped onto home soil. The autumn air smelled of rich, moist
earth. They were right at the edge of the season, and the days were temperate
and dangled perfectly between cool and warm. Beach weather. Weather for
anything, really, as long as it was outdoors.
“Work.” Mo turned to face her sister and reclined the seat. “It’s been busy
lately.”
Ari wore her hair curly ninety-percent of the time. Mo wore her hair
straight about the same. It was virtually the only physical difference they
possessed. Their tresses were exactly the same shade of kinky blonde. They
had the same rich, coppery brown hue to their skin. She’d packed on more
muscle than Ari who had always been slender, and Ari’s breasts had
remained permanently larger after having Thandie.
They were still best friends. But this was the longest she’d ever lied to her
sister, and the biggest lie she had ever told.
“Self-defense will knock your energy out,” Ari commented. “We have
almost a week here, so I intend for you to teach me everything there is to
know about jiu jitsu before I leave.”
Mo smiled. “I will send you whatever you don’t learn telepathically.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Ari glanced over at her and frowned. “You
don’t look well.”
“Thanks for the compliment.” Mo playfully rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t
rude at all.”
“I didn’t mean it that way!”
“Uh huh.”
Ari giggled. “You just, you look more than tired. Has Giorgio been
keeping you up with his masterful penis?”
“Oh God.” Mo flipped over, faced the window again. “I already told you.
I’ve never seen it.”
I’m lying. I love it. Everywhere.
“Whatever. You two are having sex. I can sense it.” Ari sniffed the air. “I
can smell it on you.”
“What are you getting Jenae?” Mo pushed aside thoughts of the smells of
sex with Giorgio and wishing he was there to hold her until her side stopped
throbbing. “I checked the registry and only the really expensive stuff’s left.”
“Everything on there was expensive.”
“Are you trying to tell me that a four-hundred dollar receiving blanket is
the norm? She’s lucky we love her snooty ass.”
Ari glanced in the rearview mirror, switched lanes. “I can’t believe
somebody got the two-thousand-dollar stroller. Because that was on there.”
“I have a feeling we’re going to show up and Bey and Jay-Z are going to
be there.”
Ari laughed and turned into the shopping plaza. “Right? Mariah Carey’s
going to do the opening announcements.”
Mo placed her finger at her ear and cracked a high note.
Ari laughed harder, swung the car into a spot. “She’s a first-time parent,
so you’re going to get her a baby bottle warmer. A lot of first-time parents
don’t realize how helpful those things can be, especially for middle of the
night feedings.”
“What if she’s breastfeeding?”
They stepped out of the car. “You store breastmilk in the refrigerator so
the closest you can get it to body temperature, like when it’s fresh, the
happier baby you’ll have. Don’t worry. You’ll learn one day.”
Ari sent Mo a look that caused her to push her sister in the side. They
both laughed and Mo grabbed onto Ari’s arm as they entered a store that was
filled, head to toe, with all things baby.
“What are you getting her?” Mo released Ari to look at a gift basket set
with a sign that suggested it was on sale, but whose price clearly wasn’t. It
made her wonder if she was just a miser when it came to money. She had a
good nest egg, a good amount saved. Maybe it would do her some good to
spend a little bit of it and invest in herself. Giorgio was one of the simplest
men she knew but he still indulged in luxury automobiles and fancy knives.
“I got her an Instant Pot,” Ari said.
Mo headed over to where her sister was browsing. “How is that baby
related?”
“It’s indirect. It’s something that will take the stress out of meal planning
most nights, especially since they’ll be dead on their feet most days. They’re
not prepared, not as much as they think they are.”
Ari sifted through the different models of baby bottle warmers. Mo
studied her sister. Keeping a secret from Ari was hard, but it was even more
difficult when they were staring each other in the face. On opposite sides of
the coast, she could tamp down her guilt or shove it to the side in favor of
different topics of conversation. Even some trips down memory lane. But
there was something disgusting about being there with her sister, having fun
with her sister, and knowing she was leading an entire life Ari didn’t know
anything about.
“Ari—”
She was cut off by Ari pulling her to the side and spinning her around.
Mo followed where Ari was focused and felt the blood drain from her face.
Tamra Banner was a few aisles down, her heavily pregnant stomach
protruding from the throw she wore across her shoulders. Her long, familiar
brown arm stroked the mound. She was sifting through different sets of baby
washcloths on display, a wrinkle in her brow as she decided on a color and
pattern.
“I have to get out of here.” Mo looked around for the most low-key way
to exit.
“And why’s that?” Ari’s expression was defiant, but she was still
whispering. “It was self-defense.”
“I killed her brother.”
“He beat you, Mo. He was high. It wasn’t the same Antonio we all knew.
Yes, it was unfortunate, but you can’t blame yourself for that.”
Can’t I?
Ari’s brow lifted. “Did you say something?”
“No, but I need to go.”
“No need. Australia’s a big enough continent that we can both fit.”
In the middle of their bickering, Tamra had approached them. Her words
were light, but her tone dripped like sarcasm dipped in honey.
“I mean, yeah, you killed my brother.” Tamra angled the corners of her
mouth down, cocked her head to the side. “But that shouldn’t stop me from
hating you.”
Mo shook her head. “I’m not having this conversation.”
“The justice system in America is highly flawed,” Tamra went on.
“Tamra, what do you want from me?” Mo demanded. “What do you
expect to happen here? I already apologized to your family. Your parents
accepted it and told me it was okay, that they didn’t blame me. So what do
you want?”
Tamra stepped to them, barely leaving enough space to fit her last
trimester stomach. “To tell you everything I didn’t get to tell you because my
brother’s spirit never got its day in court.”
Mo angled both hands toward her chest. “Go ahead.”
“Know what?” Tamra shook her head. “You’re not even worth it.”
There was enough of Antonio’s face in Tamra for Mo’s memories to
come back in pieces. For her to remember her youth and her young adulthood
when she was stupid and naïve. When she allowed Antonio to berate her and
for his words to transgress into actions. And for her to be so concerned with
keeping up a certain image in her family, she’d let him do it all.
There was enough of Antonio’s face in his sister for her to use sheer, raw
will not to wrap her hand around the long throat Tamra shared with her
brother.
Tamra lifted a finger. “But, I will say this—”
“No, you won’t,” Ari inserted. “Actually, we’re not leaving. We’re going
to get what we came here to get. My sister is a good person, a good human
being. She would never hurt anybody much less intentionally kill them.”
Inside, Mo cringed.
Tamra scanned Mo’s body. “I hope you’re not here shopping for yourself.
If you are, I pray God takes your child the way you took my brother.”
If Ari had hesitated to wrap an arm around Mo’s waist by a couple more
seconds, Mo wasn’t sure what she would have done. She didn’t strike the
innocent and definitely not pregnant women. But, right now, all she could see
was Antonio. All she heard was Antonio. And she heard her own thoughts,
her own insecurities tumbling from this woman’s mouth telling her that a
family was something she would never have. Something she didn’t deserve.
“Tamra, your brother was a drug addict,” she said with emphasis. “He
was abusive and yes, I’m partially to blame because I let him treat me that
way. But that afternoon on that hike, you weren’t there. It was just me and
him and his rage. And the look in his eyes...” She saw them, brown and lit
with flames of anger and murderous intent... “He was going to kill me. I
defended myself. He hit his head on a rock and cracked his skull. Plus, you
forget he wasn’t the only one that had to leave the site in an ambulance.”
Tamra reared back, her lips curled. “I don’t care what you s—”
“He came to you.” Mo pointed, nearly jabbing her finger in the other
woman’s chest. “When he first started using, he came to you, your other
brother, and your parents and you guys did nothing for him. So he kept using.
He was sick and you guys turned your backs on him. I was the one in the
trenches with him. I was the one who tried to get him to go to rehab. I was his
punching bag when he was happy, sad, upset...it didn’t fucking matter. I
never wanted to hurt him. You don’t put that much time and effort into
someone with the goal of hurting them. So don’t step to me all righteous
now. I wasn’t the one who failed him. I did everything I could for him. You,
you were his family and he was shit to you guys until it was too late for you
to change that. So take your fucking guilt out on someone else.”
Tears glistened in Tamra’s eyes. A lone tear snuck from the corners,
rolled down her cheek, and she violently swiped it away.
Mo stepped around her, grabbed the baby bottle warmer, and left her
standing there as she and Ari went to pay for their purchase.
When they got back to the car, she handed the package over to Ari to
wrap while she leaned over the hood of their rental, chest heaving as she
waited for her adrenaline rush to abate.
“I’m fine, Ari,” she reassured each time her sister asked. “Let’s go. We
have to be at the hotel soon.”
When Ari was finished with the gift, they remained standing outside the
car. They saw Tamra leave the store, get into a minivan, and drive off, her
tires pealing against the asphalt.
Mo took a quick peek at her watch and saw that they had enough time for
what she’d planned to do anyhow, just not this soon. “I want to drive,” she
told Ari. “There’s somewhere I’d like to take you.”
Ari eyed her, and then nodded.
The studio where Caryn first started teaching self-defense had been
turned into a martial arts studio for children. It had been updated. Where
before there’d been only two windows cased in the front, the entire front of
the building was now lined with them. There was a logo of a cartoon fox
wearing a gi with a black belt tied around its waist. Inside, children in white
sat cross-legged on a mat, their heads tilted up and their attention on their
sensei.
She would travel between this location and the one Caryn had in
California, training there with a group of other women to defend against
street attacks while she trained here, alone with Caryn to defend against burly
men seeking murder.
“What are we doing here?” Ari asked. They remained sitting in the car in
the smaller plaza’s front parking lot. “You think Thandie needs karate
classes?”
 “Ari, I have to tell you something.” Mo turned to her. “And it’s
important.”
“Okay.”
“I was trained in this building.”
Ari looked at the building and then back at her sister. “I knew you were in
self-defense with that one woman...Caryn?”
“Yes, Caryn.” Mo released a breath. “I started because of Antonio.”
“Mo...me, Mum, and Dad already talked about it. We figured out, after
everything was out in the open, that there was more abuse than you let on in
your relationship with Antonio. But, with you being you, we knew you kept it
a secret because you were ashamed to tell us.”
That surprised Mo and helped to ease some of the panic.
“We wouldn’t have thought of you any differently, but you did what you
thought was necessary.”
“That’s not everything,” Mo said. “Caryn, well she started off teaching
me self-defense, but then it progressed into something else.”
Ari’s left brow went up. “Is that why you’re not having sex with Giorgio?
You’re a lesbian? Mo, that’s fine too—”
“No, that’s not it. Caryn trained me to be a bounty hunter.”
It was a short sentence, and it felt heavy against her chest, the words like
a steel bar being drilled into the cavity.
“A...bounty hunter? Like, you work with a bondsman to retrieve people
who skip bail?”
“Not that kind.” Mo shook her head. “At first, I used to go on
assignments alone. But a few years ago, I ran into Giorgio while on a
mission. When he’s not with the guys, he’s doing the same kind of work. We
work together now.”
“So you knew him before you met him through Gage?”
“Yes.”
Ari paused and licked her lips, nodding as all the information saturated.
“If Giorgio is in the same line of work...what does this ‘bounty hunting’
entail? You said it’s not collecting people who skip out on bail.”
“No.”
“Is it more than that? Dangerous fugitives?”
“If there’s a hit out on them, sometimes.”
This time, Ari did react the way Mo was afraid of, her eyes widening as
she pressed her back into the passenger side door.
 “A hit? Mo, are you trying to tell me that you’re, I don’t know, some kind
of contract killer?”
“In some aspects of the word.”
“Which aspects?”
She cleared her throat. “All of them.”
“The fuck, Mo?”
“Ari, I—”
“You’re out there, by yourself, killing people for sport?”
“Not sport! Money.”
“Like that’s better.”
In that moment, Mo could see how it wasn’t.
Ari folded her arms. “Who are you killing?”
“There’s a, I guess you could say, black market. Notifications from
various sources come in about someone who’s a threat in some way or
another. I choose the marks I want to pursue. Sometimes, I even intercept a
mark going after an otherwise innocent person. I’ve also handled people
responsible for organizing entire sex trafficking systems. I’ve taken down a
man protected by his power who was beating his wife to within an inch of her
life every night. Then there was a man—”
“Kids?”
“Come on, Ari.”
Ari leaned her head back against the window, her face tilted to the ceiling
of the car. “Mo, when I met up with you at the airport, I noticed you were
walking kind of funny. I initially thought it was Giorgio-related.”
“Why is everybody so hung up on me and Giorgio?”
“Because you two freakin’ love each other, come on.” Ari exhaled. Mo
ignored the comment. “Are you hurt?”
Mo nodded. “Yes.”
“How did you get hurt?”
“A break-in at my place in Cali.” That was the extent of what she would
tell her sister. The news she’d already revealed was more than enough to last
them a few more years. “I got stabbed.”
“Stabbed?”
“Flesh wound, Ari. Me and Giorgio, we handled it.”
Ari tilted her head forward, stared at Mo. “How long have you been
bounty hunting and I didn’t know? Wait, never mind because it’s how you
met Giorgio so it has to be some years now.”
 “Ari—”
“Don’t.” Ari waved a hand. “You are my sister. My twin. And you’re
telling me that, years ago, you could have gone up against the wrong, I don’t
know, bounty, and I might not have even gotten a phone call to say you’d
died. By the way, why are you telling me this now? Why not just keep it a
secret like you’ve been doing?”
Mo swallowed, rolled her eyes upward. “I don’t know, running into
Tamra? It...it brought it all back. Plus, you know I don’t like lying to you.”
More silence fell. Mo set her gaze back on her sister, and they stared at
each other until the tension in the car nearly popped the roof off.
“We need to go.” Ari sighed and faced forward. “We promised we’d help
Jenae set up.”
Mo grabbed her sister’s hand. “Please don’t hate me.”
“I’ll never hate you. But, right now, I’m hurt and things between us are
going to be rocky for a little while. Mo, you know what you mean to me.
When you hurt, I hurt. So to know that you kept that from me, that something
could have happened to you and I would have just lost you...like I said,
rocky.”
Mo cleared her throat to push away a lump of tears thicker than a
redwood, released her sister’s hand, and backed out of the parking spot to
head to the venue.
They arrived on time at the hotel and headed straight to the event space.
Most of the set-up had been done by the hotel staff but Mo went around and
made sure the bows on the back of the chairs were tight and straight, and she
helped hang the string light curtain behind the table where Jenae would be
sitting.
Her cousin might have been obsessed with money and keeping up with
the Joneses, but she greeted them with genuine, down-to-earth warmth. In the
few moments before everything started, the three of them sat and talked about
the current events in their lives. When Mo lied to Jenae about the state of her
career as a self-defense trainer, Ari had lowered her eyes.
Ari didn’t know what to feel just yet about what Mo had revealed, and it
was obvious. She’d never once considered how her death would affect those
who loved her. She couldn’t believe she’d never considered it. It wasn’t like
there was a death notification system in her and Giorgio’s line of work. She
could have literally gotten her head chopped off and her body dumped in the
Mediterranean Sea, and Ari would have never known. Their parents, their
family and friends...no one.
They kept up appearances, doing an award-winning job of it as games
were played and gifts opened. When the event was finished, they helped
Jenae fit all the gifts into the Mercedes SUV her husband, Lance, drove up in.
Afterwards, Mo tried to talk to Ari, tried to explain and apologize to get back
on her sister’s good side, but Ari wouldn’t hear it. She’d lasted thirty seconds
of listening before breaking down into tears and heading for the car.
The ride back to their hotel was pin-drop quiet. Ari asked the front desk if
they could switch their arrangement to individual rooms.
When Mo failed three more times to get Ari to talk to her, she checked
out early and took a flight to DC.
She met up with Giorgio in the middle of him helping with a favor for an
FBI agent comrade. In the midst of everything, she’d kept it together, even
after getting a slight graze from a bullet on her arm during an impromptu
shootout.
When that mini-mission finished, she and Giorgio decided to forego
going back to her house in Calabasas, or going to Gage’s house in Malibu—
where he’d been staying, which was why they’d run into each other in the
first place—and found a modern farmhouse to rent on the Santa Monica
coast. It was there, while standing in the middle of a gorgeous meadow filled
with yellow and pink and purple daisies, beneath the glow of a perfect
morning sun, that Mo all but collapsed into depression.
Giorgio had been inside making them breakfast when he saw her go
down. She had no idea if he’d made it to her that quickly or she’d passed out
for a few seconds and lost time, but he was there when her eyes focused,
looking down into her face, calling her his name for her.
She’d cried and babbled about Ari and how much she wanted her sister to
forgive her, and he lay in the flowers with her, offered the comfort of his
chest.
One week turned into two, then three, and then four. It turned into her
currently staring at her investment portfolio and her liquid assets, wondering
if it was a bad idea to make the owner an offer for the farmhouse. The owner
had made some decent money off her and Giorgio in the last few weeks, and
the unique charm and acreage of the house was a rarity in that area of
California. If not, maybe there was some land nearby for purchase and they
could build one just like it. It would be them because she wouldn’t push
Giorgio away, and he didn’t look to be going anywhere any time soon.
 Mo closed her laptop and propped her legs up. She stared out into the
meadow from the farmhouse’s quaint backyard deck. The sun was low and
peeked from behind two thin trees at the end of the property line. No clouds
could be seen anywhere in the sky.
“You have heard from Ari,” Giorgio said from behind her, stepping
through the back patio doors.
“No.” Mo shook her head. “She hasn’t called back.”
He appeared in front of her, took the seat across from her, and pulled her
feet into his lap. “You are okay?”
“Better.” She smiled at him. “Thank you for being here.”
“I am where you are. Always.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You said that weird.”
“I said it correct.”
“I know.” Her smiled widened. “We have to get back to ‘work’ soon. The
guy at my house, the one with the mask. You knew who he was, didn’t you?”
“First,” he absently rubbed her arch, a blissful movement, “you.”
She’d been avoiding the subject of what had actually happened in
Australia, and Giorgio didn’t push. The man had the patience of a monk, and
it was like he’d known she would eventually tell him.
He’d given her nights filling her so deep that, in those moments, the ache
went away. Each stroke of his hips, each pulse had been like medicine, the
nips on her neck and the gruff sounds in her ear like deliverance. But, in the
morning, nothing. He would make them breakfast and then they would break
apart, him doing whatever he did during the day—training, sharpening his
knives, working on a car, reading—while she wallowed in depression and
Hallmark movies. Sometimes, he joined her and complained with brow dips
and head tilts about the plots. She’d make them lunch, tease him into another
lovemaking session, and then rinse-repeat.
They spent the evenings together just like this one, on the porch. She’d
never known a “monster” could be so normal, and she hoped wherever Vater
was buried, someone was tap-fucking-dancing on the evil bastard’s grave.
“I told Ari about what we do,” she confessed. “And she got pretty mad.”
“Mad?”
“Angry. Upset. You know what I mean.”
His dark eyes twinkled. “She is angry. Why.”
“I don’t know, exactly. I don’t know if it’s because I confessed I kill
people for a living, or if it’s because something could have happened to me
and she would have never known.”
“Not now.” He dipped into her arch. “Not with me.”
She grinned, rolled her eyes. “Okay, Gio.”
His attention fell to the way his hands maneuvered over her foot. She
knew, however, he was still listening.
“I killed my ex-boyfriend,” she blurted.
He didn’t look up. “Good.”
“Good?”
“U tebya yest' drugiye parni? Ubey ikh tozhe.”
“What?”
“Why you kill?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He wasn’t looking at her, but she could tell
those black jewels that acted as his irises were lighting up like fireworks. But
she would pull it out of him later, through a certain part of his body. What it
sounded liked he’d said was that if there were any more men, she should kill
them too, but she was probably wrong. Their Russian lessons were still on an
elementary level.
“Self-defense,” she answered. “He was high and tried to, um, violate me
on a hike.”
Giorgio looked up. “Violate.”
“I fought back, so he tried to strangle me.”
“Violate.”
“Ouch, Gio.”
He glanced down as if suddenly realizing he had her foot locked in a
death grip. She’d already started losing circulation to her toes.
“Bez, explain.”
“Violate. You know what I mean.”
“Is, how you say, rape?”
She swallowed, tilted her head forward with a slight nod.
“His name.”
“Antonio.”
“His family.”
“Gio.” She pulled her feet away and set them on the floor, leaned
forward, and took his hands in hers. “We’re not going to kill his family.”
“We are not. I am.”
It was odd and twisted, but she smiled. It wasn’t the way she wanted the
situation to be handled or how she would allow him to handle it, but it didn’t
stop it from feeling nice. He would kill for her. That had to count for
something. Maybe not love, but something. As close as it could get with him.
He also periodically intoned his questions with her now. That definitely
meant something. Giorgio Pozza, he changed for no one and yet, he bent a
little for her.
“Bez, is okay.” He tugged her onto his lap. “It matters only to me you are
okay.”
“You’re not turned off by that?”
He gave her a look.
“Right. You’ve watched me kill men.”
“This why you kill? Because of this fucker who tried to violate?”
The evening sun against his irises turned them into dark, mysterious
jewels. It was something only the sun had the power to do, considering he
looked like he wanted to destroy, and his fingers drummed against her waist.
“I didn’t start out killing,” Mo explained. “It was too heavy for me. But
then I realized some men, they just don’t deserve to live. Mischa was my first
attempt.”
“Is evident.”
She laughed. “Shut up. Oh wait, teeho.”
“Tik-ho.” He watched her lips, nodded when she had it right. “Bez, you
are good fighter. I know, always, this would happen. You made me not kill
you.”
“That’s because you wanted other things.” She straddled his waist. “Why
did you get into bounty hunting?”
His fingers stopped drumming and held her firm, sinking into her hips.
“To stop, how you say, urge. I train for this, to kill. But, I do not like
always.”
“I know.”
“You know this? How.”
“I can tell.” Mo drew closer. “But what about the assignments with Gage
and the rest of the guys? Is that not enough?”
“Not before.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Now, yes. Is enough. Before, no.”
“What changed?”
He kissed her chin. “You. You are lecheniye. Cure.”
Mo dove in for his bottom lip before Giorgio had a chance to register
what was happening. She crushed his body against hers, sucking on his lip
until she was granted entry into his mouth. She took his tongue hostage,
helped herself to the sweetness that leached from every corner of his mouth,
and didn’t draw back for air until her lips were tender.
She licked her lips. “So, yeah. Back to business. The man from my house.
You know him, don’t you?”
Giorgio’s chest pushed against hers. His hands cupped her bottom.
“Melnik. My brother.”
Her mouth fell open. “So that was Melnik? Wait, Melnik’s your brother?
Like, from another mother or your brother, brother?”
“From Cross of Honour.”
“You were all brothers?”
“Da. In some way.”
“And there were all boys, no women, right?”
“No. Women were for...tame?”
“Like, domestication?” she asked. “Housework and babies and all that?”
“Da. Yes. Godmother Irina was only woman.”
He’d told her a little bit about Godmother Irina and how she’d taught him
Russian, told him Russian fairy tales. She’d been the caretaker for all the
boys, but from the stories, Mo could tell she’d given him special attention.
Godmother Irina didn’t seem to believe he was born solely for destruction.
She hugged him whenever the mudak, Vater, wasn’t looking. She sang to him
while she treated his wounds. From the way he spoke about her, Mo could
tell she’d died while he was still quite young, but he never revealed the how
or why.
“You’ve talked about her before.”
“She was angel.”
Mo smiled, kissed his forehead. “I love hearing you talk about her. I’m
glad you had her. Whether or not you realize it, she’s the closest thing you
had to a mother. So, no matter how much Vater thought you were some kind
of ‘killing machine,’ she saw the good in you. She saw in you, way back
when, what I see in you today. What I caught a glimpse of that very first
night we made love in Moscow.”
Beneath her, she felt him harden.
“I do not understand why Melnik, he hurt you.”
“I kinda did attack first.” She rubbed her nose against his cheek. “And
Casanova obviously lied about how much he knew about Melnik’s
involvement. They are definitely working together. I’m thinking he sent his
calling card through the nice delivery guy because they were trying to figure
out if we were home.” She kissed his forehead again. “Thank you for the
flower, by the way. It was beautiful. I’m sorry he destroyed it.”
“Lady slipper.” Giorgio explained. “Is like you.”
Mo tucked his hair behind an ear. “How’s that?”
“Beautiful.”
A jolt sparked, causing her to throb between her legs and heat to spread.
Heat Giorgio would eventually feel, if he didn’t already.
“Bez,” he was looking at her, directly into her eyes, her soul, “you are,
how you say, luxury.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Hmm. I don’t know what you mean with
that one. Give me another word, see if I can pick it up.”
“Comfort.” He squeezed her ass. “Soft.”
When she kissed him this time, it was at the corner of his mouth. He
turned his head and tried to push into a full kiss, but she backed away.
Beneath her, a diamond erection had formed, and she wanted to slide onto it
but had more questions.
“If you grew up with a ‘vater’ in a ‘German’ school, why do you speak
mainly Russian? Is it because of Godmother Irina?”
His focus went back to her lips. “I speak Russian because is not German.”
“Gio, what happened to her?”
He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip, didn’t respond.
Everything that Germany had stood for, from his perspective, had caused
him pain. It only made sense for him to want to distance himself from it. It
was a lovely country with a dark past, but the same could be said about the
United States. Australia’s relationship with its aboriginal population wasn’t
exactly stellar either. She’d often believed Hitler had derived some of his
twisted mechanisms from the sordid legacy of slavery.
“How did you learn so many languages?” she asked him, changing both
the subject between them and the images flickering through her head. She
wanted those images to be Giorgio, and only Giorgio.
He licked his bottom lip. “To be good soldier, you have to know many
language. Godmother Irina, she teach me Russian. When I speak Russian, I
am close to her.”
“Did she die?”
His chest expanded, relaxed. “Is not important, Bez.”
 “I told you about my ex.”
Their eyes met. “Da. She is dead.”
“How, Gio? Did Vater kill her?”
His face shadowed. “He see her sing to me.”
“Was she not supposed to?”
“I am different, Bez. She sing for me, care for me, cry for me. It was
forbidden.”
Mo shook her head. “She loved you and there’s nothing wrong with
loving you. That’s why she did those things. Loving you, for her, was
probably the easiest thing in the world.”
He trailed a finger along her jawline. “This what you think.”
“This what I know.”
“I kill Vater, Bez.”
“Good. If his ass was still alive, I’d find him and kill him for you.”
He cupped her face. She dove in, again, for his lips. Inside the cage of his
heart, the place where even he saw himself as a beast, there was a little boy.
And Mo was grateful he’d had his Godmother Irina. If it hadn’t been for that
woman, she was sure she would have never been able to tap into the part of
Giorgio where he was learning to cradle her jaw when they kissed. The part
where he gave her foot rubs and held her against his chest when they lay
together.
He broke the kiss, and a whiny moan escaped her throat.
“I think I got it. Luxury. Were you trying to say ‘home’?”
He thought for a second, nodded. “Yes, Bez. For me, you are home.”
“Gio, I—”
Both their alerts rang loud, the phones on the table next to them Mo had
forgotten about, chiming. Giorgio reached for his, looked at it, and then
turned it to her.
Mo skimmed the profile. It wasn’t Melnik, but a redhead with a hard face
and even harder body named Ryder Dims. She’d never heard of him, but
apparently he was selling US government secrets and US Special Forces was
not an option. It was requested he be dealt with and removed from the grid as
if he’d never existed. Standard stuff.
“Yeah, let’s get him,” she said. “Looks like he was last seen hiding out on
the island of Antigua. When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow.” He rose, still holding her. She wrapped her legs around
him. “Tonight, I fuck you.”
“Es tut mir Leid, mein Herr.”
He raised the whip, released it again into the young boy’s back. He could
feel the fury burning in his eyes, almost see his green irises transform into
drops of thick, black oil.
“English!”
“I am sorry, my Lord,” the boy corrected.
The whip sailed through the air, a seemingly innocuous sound punctuated
by a sheer cry of pain. Tears drained from the boy’s exceptional, pale blue
eyes. His blond hair was darkened by sweat and plastered to his pale
forehead. Through the window, the boy’s brothers watched. Each face would
be examined for fear, for sympathy, for empathy. Punishment would then be
doled out. Emotion was a crutch, a handicap. It was what had caused his
failure all those years ago and nearly cost him his life to das Biest.
“Go!” he screamed and dropped the whip.
The boy nodded and went scurrying from the room.
 CHAPTER TEN

M O BOUNCED IN HER SEAT AS THEY DROVE THROUGH THE ISLAND OF

Antigua. The roads were bumpy and the air as fresh as clean laundry. There’d
been a sighting of Dims on the East End, living in a one-bedroom wooden
cottage a few steps from the beach. So far, there’d been fourteen claims on
his head—traitors often drew in the most money, notwithstanding the amount
currently hovering about Giorgio’s head.
She looked to her right where he sat in the driver’s seat, the sun beaming
through the window and adding a shimmer to his dark, dark tresses. For a
man with a target on his back, he looked unbothered. Because she knew him,
she knew he was unbothered. When this particular mission was over, she
would get more information from him about what he knew about the
circumstances surrounding his birth. She’d already figured out why Vater had
made the boys refer to him in a paternal way. They were all likely half-
brothers. The evil asshat had used his own sperm to create them, thinking he
was some sort of gift from God.
So if Giorgio had been born different from all the rest, tougher than all
the rest, he hadn’t gotten it from his “father’s” DNA.
“This area’s called Willikies.” She zoomed in on the map on her phone.
“He’s supposed to be not too far from here, close to something called Devil’s
Bridge. Which, of course, is just great.”
It was a shame Dims had escaped to this particular island. It seemed
blasphemous for him to have the right to inhabit anything so beautiful. It
reminded her of a colorful makeup palette with its multicolored homes,
tropical fruit growing in backyards, and endless green landscape. There was a
dog on every corner, sometimes basking in the morning warmth and other
times being shooed away from someone’s doorstep only for the homeowner
to toss them scraps anyhow. Each parish had its own smell, from a dewy mist
that reminded her of rain to one that reminded her of heavy spices cooking in
cast iron. There were many aspects here that reminded her of traveling to
New Guinea and Tonga to visit family growing up.
Thinking about growing up brought her thoughts back to Ari and the calls
her sister had refused to return or pick up. It was the reaction she’d feared but
hadn’t expected. Ari had always been understanding to the point she was
often mistaken for innocent. But they shared DNA. She’d known, before Ari
did, that there were parts of her sister that had craved, yearned, and desired.
However, they didn’t seem to share the parts where forgiveness reigned over
all else when it came to settling matters between them.
“Look.” Giorgio pointed and Mo matched up the cottage several yards in
front of them with the one in the photo—quaint, isolated, and painted bright
pink with a cobbled walk-up.
“Yep, that’s it.”
She put the phone away, reached under her seat for her Glock, and tucked
the piece in her waistband at her lower back. She had a bowie knife strapped
to her body, a boot knife in her combat boots, and a push dagger. She figured
this was some version of what happened when couples got so close they
started dressing alike.
They left the car and made their way to the right of the walk. Dims had
worked for the CIA first in tech and then as a field operative, so the place was
guaranteed to be covered in cameras.
Mo ducked down behind a collection of stout, dwarf palm trees and
pulled Giorgio down with her. He looked at her like she was crazy.
“What?” She avoided eye contact. “You’re not very good at hiding.”
“I do not hide.”
“We need a game plan.”
“Kill him. Go home.”
She laughed. It wasn’t the right time or even what seemed like a sane
reaction, but she laughed. “That simple, huh?”
“Bez,” he rose, “come.”
He started off and she could do nothing but follow.
While Giorgio charged ahead toward the cottage, she surveyed their
surroundings. It was too quiet. Though they were at the edge of the island,
and there wasn’t another home as far as her eye could see, the quiet was still
unsettling. It felt like walking into an ambush, but there was no way she was
going to stop Giorgio a second time. Plus, he had a few years on her by way
of experience and she had to try to remember that, no matter how much her
brain begged her to take control.
Something whizzed in the air. Giorgio took a step back. To her left,
something shiny and metallic embedded itself into the bark of a mango tree.
Mo spotted the outline of a face in one of the two windows along the side of
the house.
Giorgio motioned for her to go around the other side of the house. Mo
obliged him and carefully made her way up the back stoop. The back door
was wide open, smoke billowing from inside the cottage.
Another object came flying, this one in her direction, through the open
door. It hit the ground with a clank and bounced off the sharp edge of a blue
stone jutting up from the reddish-brown soil. Mo dove, putting as much
distance between her and the object as she could seconds before a loud
explosion rocked the ground, kicking dirt several feet high in the air.
“A bomb?” She lay on her back, looking up at the sky. “There were no
notes about him making bombs.”
Which meant, the whole structure could be a bomb.
She caught her second wind, hopped up, and kept low, creeping closer
until the side of her body edged the pink, wooden slats of the exterior. Inside,
something crashed, and she figured Giorgio had gotten inside. Dims had
likely spotted them both, so why he chose to focus on her and not the big man
with the crazed look in his eyes made tons of sense.
Mo pulled the Glock from her waistband. Dims was throwing bombs; this
was not a knife fight.
The back entrance led her directly into a kitchen. A few cabinets lined the
wall to her right while dorm-sized appliances hugged the wall to her left.
White tile with aged grout covered the floor. A wooden stool was knocked
over in the middle of her path.
She continued until the kitchen opened up into the rest of the cottage—a
single room studio with a bed, chair, small table beneath a tube television on
a shelf, and a wardrobe. Here, the floor transitioned into wide planks of
wood. A circular fan above the bed sprayed air in a back-and-forth motion
about the hot room. The front door was open. Giorgio was looking at her
from the bottom of the empty front porch.
Where the hell is Dims?
 Mo flipped around, gun aimed, when she heard one of the fallen wooden
stools scrape across the floor. He wasn’t wearing the creepy mask this time,
but she knew, the minute she saw those green eyes, who he was. And, he was
smiling at her. The problem was, it wasn’t the same smile from before. This
one seemed almost kind.
Where the hell are all these psychopaths coming from?
She pulled back on the trigger. Melnik had already moved, covering the
short distance between them, his shoulder lowered. Mo barely had time to
brace for impact before he drove his shoulder into her sternum, sending her
backward over the bed. She caught herself before she rolled off the edge and
hit the wardrobe.
She hopped up and charged again. Melnik struck out and she managed to
counter his blow with one of her own. But he was big. And strong. His arms
looked like they were filled with nothing but thick, corded muscle. No soft
tissue, no veins, no arteries, no nerves. Just muscle.
She dropped to the floor onto her knees to release the power struggle and
shot a fist out toward his crotch. The shot landed and he groaned, bent
slightly, his head lowering enough for her to wrap an arm around his neck
and jump onto his back.
Her elbow squeezed his throat. He recovered from the shot, hopped in the
air and, with her still attached to him, landed straight onto his back.
Mo lifted her head so only her back thudded on impact. The breath
whooshed from her lungs and she gasped, sought air. The common
denominator was Giorgio. Ever since he came around, she lost her ability to
fight. Then again, the dudes she’d been fighting lately weren’t exactly
average human size.
Mo rolled onto her stomach, her fingers clawing at the wooden planks as
a full breath continued to elude her. The room shook and nausea coiled in her
belly. She looked behind her to find Giorgio and Melnik going at it like two
giants. But the movements were too much, and she crept to a small trash bin
in the kitchen and threw up until the vein in her forehead stood out.
“Bez!”
“I’m fine!”
Mo counted to three and then looked up. Through the open back door, she
saw Dims coming down the hill holding a dead iguana by its tail, and with
absolutely no idea what was going down in his hideout.
She sucked in a deep breath and pushed onto her feet.
 He looked up, saw her, and froze.

Giorgio fisted the handle of a combat knife, entered the cottage, and jammed
it into Melnik’s shoulder. Bez was on the floor, but she was moving. He
didn’t understand what he felt, like an explosion rocking his frame, when he
saw her move. He didn’t understand anything when it came to her. He wanted
to protect her, with his life if it came to it. But he also enjoyed the way she
lay on his chest, how gentle she could be with him when there was no need to
be gentle, and even the way she slipped his hair behind his ear.
When he saw her move, it was like life being breathed back into a dead
body.
Melnik spun around. Their eyes met.
“Giorgio—”
Giorgio cut him off with a kick to the chest. Melnik stumbled backward
out the front door and down the short steps leading up to the cottage, but he
kept his footing. When he looked up, he looked almost betrayed. Giorgio
didn’t blame him. He and Melnik hadn’t seen each other since the fire. There
was no way the man could have known that so much as laying a hand on his
Bez would begin the sequence to the end of his life.
Giorgio took his time making his way down the steps, never taking his
eyes off Melnik. When his boots sank into the grass, he was transported back
to the underground room at Cross of Honour that Vater had referred to as the
training room. Godmother Irina had said it was where death went to play. It
was also where Vater took the women who had come before her, also
assuming they would be working for an orphanage, who had disobeyed his
wishes even slightly.
Vater had told the boys that, in order to prove themselves worthy of his
patronage, they had to challenge Giorgio. Over the course of several months,
each of them took a turn in combat. All lost. But it wasn’t until Melnik that
Vater changed the rules. It was no longer a fight to prove one’s worthiness.
He’d transformed it into a fight for one’s life. In order to survive, Melnik had
to best Auserwählte—the chosen one.
He’d been dubbed as chosen because the night Giorgio was born, after all
the power went out, rain had started falling in thick, heavy sheets. The
Politisya, the Russian police, had stormed the hospital the very same night,
those thick sheets of rain pelting their uniforms. However, Godmother Irina
had gotten word they were coming and took the last of the babies, three of
them, and rushed to the emergency bunker that had been set up for that
precise event. Also part of the emergency protocol was one of Vater’s older
boys who’d remained behind to terminate the mothers, and then himself. That
part, Godmother Irina had not known about and had still, years later, cried
and prayed about.
The bunker had led to hidden tunnels that ran beneath Moscow, and with
two babies strapped to her back and one on her stomach, Godmother Irina
had trekked back to Cross of Honour while the Politsiya effectively shut
down the experiment.
Of the three babies, one didn’t cry. One thrived even on small rations of
acorn milk and ground oats. One, as he grew older, was more silent than the
rest. He didn’t have to have compassion beaten from him because he rarely
tried to hug. The minute he started walking, he never asked to be lifted. And
he was the one Vater treasured, Das Biest, because he had the inherent
makings of a soldier. He was “genetic perfection.”
Godmother Irina had seen something else in the boy. To her, Giorgio was
simply more perceptive than the rest. He saw what repercussions were
handed out for hugs, for cuddling, so he’d simply refrained from requesting
them. It was why, at night when Vater went to sleep, she’d crept into his
room, removed him from his crib, and held him close. She’d told him stories,
sang him songs, rocked him and kissed his forehead. She was gentle with the
child who had been forbidden from receiving any and all forms of maternal
warmth.
Vater had loved watching Giorgio fight, watching his skills develop twice
as fast as his brothers. He’d called the fight with Melnik the Übergangsritus,
rite of passage, and had said it was time for Giorgio to experience the
satisfaction of his first kill.
It had taken years for Giorgio to stop wondering what would have
happened had he obeyed Vater’s orders. If he’d perched over a slayed rather
than spared Melnik as Vater screamed in his ear to, “Ende! Ende! Ende!,”
Godmother Irina would have still been alive. And he would have never had
the memory of Vater slashing her throat because he’d blamed her for
Giorgio’s reluctance to kill. It was why a week later, as fire tore through the
school, Giorgio had returned the favor.
 Giorgio removed a dagger. Melnik’s smile fell when he spotted it,
recognized the familiar black handle and the gold etching. Vater had given it
to him because he’d wanted it to be his special dagger Giorgio would use to
record his first kill. The irony of it being gifted to him by the only person he
had used it on had been the most satisfying.
Through the open door, he saw Bez stand and head in the opposite
direction. It was all he needed to clear his head, the space in his chest—to see
her stand.
With a roar, Melnik came at him. Giorgio blocked his blows, stepping
back to take the power of each punch. It reminded him of fighting in the ring,
of landing shots to solid midsections. His hands itched with the need for
physical combat, to release the dagger and shoot an elbow into Melnik’s
cheekbone. But he needed the sensation of the steel, the feeling of the grip of
the handle as it sank into the flesh of the man who’d made his Bez bleed.
Melnik pushed against him, creating a gap between their bodies.
“Giorgio, what the fuck are you doing?” His flawless German was like spit to
Giorgio’s face. “Why are you doing this?”
Giorgio’s hand stilled.
“Brother—”
There was no blur, no slowing of time. It was all absent—the steps
forward, the lifting of the blade, the force behind it as it made its way into
Melnik’s chest between the caging of his ribs—and Giorgio didn’t come to
until he was looking at Melnik on the ground, feet on either side of his
shoulders.
Melnik’s irises descended into a fading green, his eyes wide as he
clutched his chest. Giorgio stared at him, wondering why he hadn’t fought
back the way they had all been trained to. All his movements had been
defensive. Even when he’d charged, his focus had been on the blade and not
the man.
“Why, brother?”
“Brother.” It felt like bristles in his throat, but Giorgio responded in the
German Melnik and his brother preferred. “You put a price on my head and
call me brother.”
“What price?” Red appeared at the corner of Melnik’s mouth. “You will
not leave me here to die without telling me why you killed me.”
“You did not fight.”
“Why fight you, Giorgio?” Melnik coughed, a rattling sound in his chest.
“You are the reason I am alive.”
For the first time in his life, Giorgio’s heart slammed in his chest.
“Vater told you to kill me,” Melnik coughed again, “and you did not. You
gave me life. Why would I fight you?”
Giorgio bent and tugged on Melnik’s sleeve, revealing the numbers along
the man’s triceps. They had all been branded, a “way to identify them” as
Vater had said. As if they had been cattle. The first chance he’d gotten, he’d
covered his with tattoos.
These numbers were different. “You were not in California.”
Melnik shook his head, his face pale. “California? Fuck, no. I do not like
America.”
“You came here. Why?”
“Malachi. I came for the bounty, to collect it for him.”
“Why.”
“Mein spiegel.”
For the first time in his life, another first, the smell of blood made
Giorgio’s stomach turn. Now that his anger no longer blinded him, he could
see there was no glint of recklessness, of immaturity in the eyes of the man in
front of him. He could see now that he was wrong, that it was someone else
who’d attacked Bez in California. The same person who’d attacked him over
twenty years ago and branded him with the scar over his right eye.
“Gio?” Bez ran toward them, breathing hard and clutching her side. Dims
was nowhere to be found. She dropped to her knees next to Melnik. “I didn’t
want you to do this, not anymore.”
“Dims,” he demanded, voice hard.
“He got away. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Melnik grabbed Giorgio’s wrist, smiled up at him. “It is okay, Giorgio. I
forgive you. To me, you are a saint. We are not what he has tried to make us.
You are not. Please, remember that.”
Giorgio tugged his hand away and turned to walk off. He didn’t want to
be there when it happened. He didn’t want to be there at all, not when he’d
taken a life that had only existed up until this point because he’d refused to
end it in childhood. Not when Bez had come right out and said it, that she
could not accept him as he was.
“Gio!”
He was different. He’d been born different. So what was happening inside
him, the sensations, they weren’t feelings. Monsters did not feel.
 “You were born to kill, to die, my son. Expect nothing more, nothing
less.”
“Gio!”
He could not give her what she wanted, be who she needed. No matter
how much he wanted to. If he’d had the choice, he would have picked
anything, anything at all but this life, as long as there was the promise of
being who she needed him to be.
Bez grabbed his arm, tried to spin him around. He pulled away. She tried
again and he faced her, pushed her in the chest until she fell to the ground.
She hopped up. He pushed her back down. Tears filled her eyes as she got
back to her feet, pulled a knife from her boot, held it up. He brandished his
combat knife, but both he and Bez knew he’d sooner turn the knife on
himself.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
Again, another sensation moved through him. This time, it didn’t
dissipate. It remained, stuck inside his body like he was sinking into a
quagmire. It whispered, not yet strong enough to tell him what he felt about
this woman with her blade and her heart.
She moved forward with the knife. He blocked her blow for blow and had
no idea why they were fighting. What she was fighting for. Plus, she was
moving sloppily. Bez was more skilled than this, but she wasn’t relying on
training. Not when tears drained from the corners of her eyes, blurred her
vision.
They broke apart, chests heaving.
“Stop,” he warned.
She charged again. He went to defend her attack but his blade met her
skin, sliced her arm open.
Giorgio went completely still. His flesh ripped and tore within his body.
Bez reached forward, knocked the blade from his hand before he had a
chance to bring it across his throat. It was the only punishment he saw fit for
what he had done to her. For hurting her. He’d convinced himself that he was
in control enough not to be able to hurt her, after all these years, but it was
evident Vater still had control. Vater would always have control. He would
never be Giorgio Pozza. Only Das Biest.
Her knife fell to the grass.
“Go.” He wanted to look away from those eyes, so brown and sad, but he
couldn’t. He never could. “Go, Bez.”
 “You and me.” She punched him in the chest. “We’re partners. We’re in
this together. You should have waited for me. I would have taken this for
you, Gio. Everything in your eyes, the fear and the guilt and the anger? I
would have taken it for you! I don’t give a fuck if my soul goes to hell. It’s
all worth it if I’m doing it for you.”
He stared at her. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Bez, no.”
She hit him again. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Fucking yes!”
“I do not fear,” he growled. “I do not feel. I was born to kill, to die.”
But lately, that had been wrong. She made him fear, made him feel.
Made him want.
“That’s not true, Gio. There’s more to you than that. So much more. I see
it and I’m going to make you see it too.”
She reached toward his face, toward where he knew she would try to tuck
his hair, so he moved away.
“Otvali, Bez.”
He’d expected her to go still, for fury to replace the hurt on her lovely
face. The words felt worse than receiving any of the scars which decorated
his body. He didn’t understand what she’d done, how she’d made him feel.
How she’d made him want. Why even thinking about her not being next to
him in the morning, never seeing her face again or her smile, hearing her
voice or sliding into her body brought so much goddamn pain.
“No.” She shook her head. “I will not ‘fuck off.’”
She would forever be his weakness.
He swept her up, carried her to the Land Rover, and drove them back to
the house where he removed their clothes and washed her arm in the shower.
The wound wasn’t deep, but knowing he had put it there felt like he’d come
close to taking her life.
She cradled her side when she walked, either from Melnik or her fight
with Dims, so he carried her. For the rest of night, he carried her.
He didn’t let her kiss the space beneath his hairline, didn’t let her tuck his
hair. But when she came to him that night when he’d tried to sleep in a
different room, he couldn’t resist her climbing in next to him. He couldn’t
resist the points of her nipples against his tongue, the taste of her mouth, her
sex, the heft of her breasts, or the slick heat between her legs that he slipped
into, over and over, until daylight broke the horizon.
 As she lay in his arms, splayed across his chest, he watched her. He took
in the marvelous lines of her face, the curls at her temples that had puffed
from the sweat of their long night. He dragged his gaze over her graceful
arms, the rich reddish-brown like treasure in the sunlight. She’d wrapped
them around him, almost as if protecting him from an unknown danger.
He told himself he didn’t feel, not for her.
He didn’t fear, not losing her.
He reminded himself of what he was, who he was, and that she wanted
him to be something he could never be.
But then, he pulled her closer.

Kreed Melnik was dead. Malachi Kavala didn’t need any confirmation of it.
They’d been the only twins borne from Vater so he could feel it, deep within
himself, that his brother was dead.
Across from him, shivering in the corner, was Kreed’s wife and four
children. It never made any sense to him, a man who had been trained to kill
relegating himself to life as a husband, father, and fisherman. They were the
only survivors of the fire, him and his brother and Pozza. It was ironic the fire
had managed not to kill the main person he had set it for.
Malachi strapped a silencer nozzle to a pistol.
He and Kreed never knew their mother and, based on Vater’s mechanism
of giving each boy the surname of a town in their mother’s respective home
country, all he knew was that she was either from Greece or Bulgaria. Pozza
had been the only Italian. Vater had called him a “true ally.”
They were all brothers, something he’d learned from pressing his ear
against Vater’s door at night whenever he berated Godmother Irina for
“coddling the jungen” too much. But Kreed was his spiegel, his mirror, and
his relationship with his twin brother had been different.
Getting Kreed to do his bidding was as easy now as it was then. He’d told
Kreed about his cancer, saying he needed the money from the bounty to live
when nothing else but a radical treatment would save him. At this point, there
truly was nothing that could save him.
Back then, he’d been a boy too small to even be a blip on Vater’s radar,
so Kreed had made it his duty to take care of him. Had he not been born a
twin, something Vater had seen as almost magical, he knew he would have
been killed. Imperfection and handicaps were not allowed, and he’d been
born with one side smaller than the other. He was deaf in one ear, almost
blind in the eye on the same side. Pozza had started speaking before the age
of one when he’d been mute up until age four. There were days he’d believed
Vater, had he the chance, would have opened him up and studied him like a
rat on a lab table.
Now, there were tumors throughout his body. He’d built a life of strength,
of stealth, of servitude, and fate had mercilessly cut right through it.
He could have killed Pozza in California. He’d gone to California with
the plan to. Although the reward on the beast’s head was for him alive, he’d
been prepared to go against it. After all, he was a man on limited time with
no need for money. There was no greater sentence than the one fate had
already brought down on him.
But he’d overheard plans being made by some rich German seeking
revenge. He’d linked up with the German’s “goons” in order to afford him
easier access to the property where it was reported Giorgio had been holed
up, but his health had intervened, and he’d had to use a weak man’s diversion
to get away.
Malachi had then set plan B in motion to bring the beast out of its cage.
He’d set the trap of sending his weak, compassionate brother to where he’d
known Giorgio would be, knowing the beast would deliver a fatal blow…just
like he’d been born and bred to do, still controlled to do. The next step would
be bringing it home.
When it was all said and done, he would toss Giorgio’s dead body into a
pit and set it on fire, ending him the way he should have been ended the very
first time. Giorgio would pay for what he did to Vater, a man who treasured
him more than he treasured the rest, boys who would have sold their souls to
the devil for even half of the reverence he’d held for Auserwählte.
“Please.” Kreed’s wife used her body to block the children. “Whatever
you want, take it.”
“Your husband is dead.”
Eyes like the crystalline blue waters off the coast of Greece widened.
“Dead?”
“I am his brother, but that is obvious.”
“H-he spoke of you.”
Malachi wasn’t surprised. His brother had shunned Vater’s ways, but
look at where all his compassion had gotten him.
“You will join him.” He lifted the pistol.
“Please. Please.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “Whatever you
want, I will do it. Do not hurt the children.”
Every night, before they went to sleep, his Godmother Irina would pray
for them, pray with them, in hopes that no matter what Vater made them into,
their souls would go to heaven. It had been a long while since he’d said the
prayer—he’d relinquished all lingering attachment to her long ago—and
barely remembered any part of it. But he would say it today, not for himself
but for his brother and his wife and his children who could not be spared.
The right side of Malachi’s mouth hitched up. “Libera nos a malo.”
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

I T DIDN ’ T MATTER HOW MANY TIMES M O WIPED SWEAT FROM HER EYES , MORE
simply dripped into them. Her last fight with an opponent who had close to
the level of mastery Giorgio possessed let her know she still had a shit ton of
training left to go. Admittedly, she would have been able to take Dims down
had it not been for Giorgio. When his blade went into Melnik, all thought
went out of her, and Dims had immediately become a non-issue.
“You want break?” Giorgio adjusted the wrap around his hand.
They’d returned to the farmhouse and were practicing in a space on the
expanse of property that had once been a detached garage and workshop.
They’d refashioned it into a large workout area.
Yes. Everything hurts and I’m dying.
“I’m fine.” She sucked in a breath.
He stood behind the heavy bag, holding it in place. They were both
barefoot, him shirtless and wearing loose black sweatpants. She was wearing
a sweat-soaked white tank top and black leggings.
“You will get stronger.”
“I’m plenty strong, Gio.”
“Stronger.”
She struck the bag twice with her fists. “Melnik and, what’s his face,
Malachi aren’t going to be my typical opponent.”
He’d explained to her who’d really been at her house in California—
another one of the boys he’d grown up with named Malachi Kavala.
Apparently, Malachi was Melnik’s twin, the only set of twins of Vater’s, and
the one responsible for the scar over Giorgio’s eye.
“Dims?” he asked.
 She hit the bag with two more strikes of her fist, one elbow. “Dims, I let
get away.”
“Why.”
Elbow—elbow–backhand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Talk.”
Backhand–elbow–spin–kick. “I said, don’t worry about it, Gio.”
She already knew what would happen. He would try to “scold” her by
telling her the target would always be most important. That she should never
let him be a distraction for her when he was her main distraction. No amount
of practice could train her out of thinking of his well-being, first, above
anyone else’s. At least, until they had their first child...which she
wanted...with him. No matter how stupid and far-fetched the idea.
“Break.”
She stepped away from the bag, coughed into her elbow.
“Good.” He steadied the bag, eyes on her. “Thirty seconds.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Crab.”
Mo’s brows shot up. “Fuck you, Gio.”
His eyes glittered. She bit her lip to stop a smile from breaking through. It
had been a couple months since Antigua, Dims, and Melnik. A couple
months since she’d pulled a knife on Giorgio. She still didn’t know why she
did it but watching him leave had sent her into a panic. The fact that she’d
panicked over a man leaving made her sick.
Had it been anyone else, that moment would have been a clear indicator
to leave the relationship. She’d depended too much on Antonio and lost
herself, and she’d vowed to never let it happen again. She prayed that wasn’t
what was happening with Giorgio.
He grabbed the bag. “Again.”
“Nah.” Mo waved a hand at the red leather cylinder. “I’m done with the
bag. I want to fight you.”
He stared at her...and then mumbled something in Russian.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“Bez, you make it alone. How.”
“Are you asking me why I’m not dead yet?”
“Your skills, they are, how you say, der’mo.”
 She knew that word. He’d taught her that word. “Did you just call my
skills ‘shit’?”
He went still. “You remember that word.”
“Yes, I remember. Fight me, you smug Russian behemoth.”
He was trying to rile her up, get her in the mood to fight, and it was
working.
Before he had a chance to respond, her knee was already flying toward
his midsection. He used his wrists to block the knee and grabbed her leg. He
swept her other leg, which was still planted. She went down, but he stopped
her fall just inches from the floor.
He released her, and she stabilized herself on her feet.
“Vreditel.”
“I don’t know what you said,” she charged toward him again, “but I don’t
like it.”
She kicked toward his chest. He crossed his arms to block the kick.
“Pest,” he translated.
“Fuck you.” She kicked again, spun, kicked at his chest. He continued to
block them.
On the last kick, Giorgio grabbed her leg and spun her onto the floor. Mo
landed on both hands in a plank, glanced back, and extended her bare foot
into his face. It connected.
He stumbled back, hand at his jaw.
“Oh god.” She pushed up to stand. “Did I hit your face? I’m so sorry,
baby.”
“Is okay, Bez.”
“But your face is important. It’s my favorite part of you.”
“Just my face.” He tossed his head back, tossed his hair out of his eyes,
wet her panties. “Nothing else.”
Mo tapped her chin. “I can’t think of anything else at the moment.”
He motioned for her to come.
Men like him would always have the advantage of size. In Giorgio’s case,
it was both strength and skill he’d been honing his entire life. She wasn’t
expecting to beat him, not at this point in her training, but she likely wouldn’t
meet anyone else like him so this was the best practice she could get. But,
since he was stronger up top, she would have to use her legs more.
She fired two rapid kicks that he blocked. She ducked back when he
struck at her, and then she spun around and tried another kick that he blocked
with his forearm.
Mo went in with her hands this time, pointed instead of in fists, toward
his midsection. Giorgio avoided her strikes, grabbed one of her hands, spun
her around, and secured her neck in the crook of his elbow.
“Legs,” he instructed.
She kicked a leg up, toward his head. He released her. They broke apart,
and a bit of pride swelled in her chest when she noticed he was winded.
“Bez, you are fast.”
“So are you.”
“Shorten reach.” He motioned in the space between them. “Fight close,
strike quick.”
She nodded, stepped into him again.
He spun and kicked toward her head, to force space between them she
knew, and she ducked the kick and swept at his feet. He went down, onto
both palms, and pushed right back up. It was sexy as hell, but she reminded
herself to focus.
“Closer.”
With another nod, she let him come at her this time. When she kicked, he
grabbed her leg, spun her around, threw her to the floor. Mo quickly gathered
her bearings and extended a foot toward his midsection when he advanced
again, forcing him to jump back. She went directly into a low squat then up
back into her stance, went at him again.
“Good, Bez.”
She punched toward his face.
“Space.”
When he went to block the last punch, she grabbed his arm, spun into
him, and released an elbow into his midsection. Remaining close to him, she
lifted a knee into his solar plexus, jolting the bundle of nerves there. When he
bent, she pulled herself onto his shoulders, ready to wrap her legs around his
neck. But Giorgio straightened, grabbed her waist, and pulled her so she fell
into his grasp.
“This part won’t happen when I’m fighting someone else,” Mo barely got
out before his mouth was on hers.
He tore her top, ripped it straight down the middle as he moved them
backward and forced her against a wall. The top fell into pieces on the floor,
and he snapped her bra off with a flick of his wrist.
His mouth covered a breast and she pressed her head back into the wall,
gripped the silken strands of his hair.
“I need you,” she said, or at least assumed she said. There was barely any
air in her lungs.
He lowered her from the wall onto the floor, and Mo made quick work of
kicking off her leggings so he could pull off her panties. He slipped them
down and slid his fingers inside her as he lowered the waistband on his pants,
springing his cock free.
He crawled over her. Mo sighed as he filled her, thick, stretching her, his
body poised over hers and that hair hanging in his face. Given the fervor of
the moments leading up to this, she was surprised at how slow he moved,
taking his time.
She pulled him down so his body was on top of hers, and he drove his
hips into her in a slow rhythm, tracing her jaw and neck with his tongue
before it found her mouth, plunged inside. This, with him, was brand new for
her. This, in general, was brand new for her. He was making love to her,
filling her up and pulling out, all so wonderfully slow, with her legs hooked
at the base of his back.
He pulled away from the kiss and nibbled on her neck. It was so good, so
perfect, she couldn’t stop the tears from dribbling down her temples.
“Gio, please. I need you.”
He knew she needed his mouth, his tongue. She needed to come with him
inside her, feel her body contract around him.
His thumb moved between her legs. The combination of the way he
kissed her, the way he played with her, and the way he moved inside her
brought her to an incredible climax.
It roamed her entire body, small electric jolts of pleasure that grew larger
and larger until everything erupted, sending white hot satisfaction to every
single nerve ending.
“Bez.” He groaned. “Do not cry.”
More tears fell. He didn’t want her to cry, not for him. If he left, he didn’t
want her to cry. If he died, he didn’t want her to cry.
But she was in love and she’d made the fall, a terrifying nosedive
headfirst into love, with him. It was beautiful and scary, and she could do
nothing else but experience every single emotion currently taking hold.
“I can’t help it, Gio,” she said. “I love you. So much.”
He thrust hard, groaned, and released into her. She held him and pushed
her words so far to the back of her mind, she prayed she forgot, in the next
couple seconds, she’d let them slip out.
She didn’t regret them. She would never regret them. But saying them too
soon in a regular relationship could be damaging. What she and Giorgio
shared was nowhere within the realm of regular. Or normal.
Their stomachs touched with each inhale. Mo was thankful she couldn’t
see his face as his forehead was tucked in the space above her collarbone. But
then, he looked up. And when he did, she didn’t see the confusion or anger
she’d been expecting.
She saw a smile.
Fucking gorgeous.
An alarm screeched. Gio exhaled, let his head fall back to her neck,
touched a kiss there, and then stepped away from her as if it was the most
difficult thing on earth. He grabbed his phone and put it on speaker.
“Big man, it’s Gage. We have an emergency in Syria. We fly out in about
an hour. Your ticket’s been sent.”
Mo sat up on her shins. “We have to move now if we plan to make it to
the airport in an hour.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
Gio ended the call and stared at her, almost as if he didn’t want to leave.
“Okay,” he said, finally.
They went inside, made love against the wall in the entryway, another
sweet and slow and tender round, and then made it to the airport with only a
few minutes to spare.
Mo rose on her toes and Giorgio leaned down. She placed a kiss on his
cheek and brushed her lips over his. He hooked an arm around her waist,
pulled her up against his body, and deepened the kiss, helping himself to the
treasures of her mouth. Mo locked her arms around his neck and tried not to
whimper when the kiss broke too soon.
He pressed his forehead against hers. “You will miss me, Bez?”
“Yes.” She nodded, swallowed. “I miss you when I sleep.”
He gave her one last kiss, long and deep, and Mo watched him until she
couldn’t see him anymore.
She turned, hurried back to the car, and punched the steering wheel until
she was claimed by the ache of his departure.
 CHAPTER TWELVE

T HERE HAD BEEN NO SIGN OF M ALACHI , AND IT WORRIED M O THAT

Casanova had also fallen off the grid. It had also been a little over a month
since Giorgio last checked in, three months since he left with the rest of his
team. Christmas was around the corner, temperatures dipped to the high
thirties at night at the farmhouse, and she had no dark knight to wrap herself
around to stay warm. The fireplace in the bedroom paled in comparison to the
hardness of Giorgio’s body. His scent.
Gage hadn’t checked in with Tayler, his pregnant fiancée, either. None of
the team had. Tayler was throwing a Christmas party in the next few days and
it looked like the presents for the guys would be remaining underneath the
Christmas tree for an extended time. Gio’s gift—a beautiful dagger she’d had
built for him whose blade was made of sharp, ten-inch stone and its handle
made from sixteenth-century wood—had been delayed, again, and was now
expected to arrive the day before Christmas. And Ari still wasn’t talking to
her.
Mo prayed she wasn’t at home when the gift arrived because lately, she’d
been on a war path for no other reason, at least that she could think of, than
that she missed her big guy.
“Pick up the damn phone,” Mo gritted, swerving around cars while
listening to Ari’s phone go to voicemail for the third time in the last half
hour. Undeterred, she pressed the button to hang up and then called right
back.
She and Gio had, apparently, officially moved in together, and it was
something she had no problem with. The owner of the farmhouse had
accepted an offer. However, about a week ago, his cars started being
delivered to the farmhouse...and they were still being delivered. Some of
them she’d seen before, primarily whenever she went to LA or Hollywood or
Miami Beach, but there were others she’d never before laid eyes on. Some
looked like they were older than her parents but immaculately restored.
Others were obviously brand, spanking new. She’d known he had a
collection, but she hadn’t been expecting this.
She gave herself permission to take his 718 GTS—the man had four
Porsches—to meet up with Olu for dinner at her place.
She swerved around cars like a mad woman, angry, frustrated, and some
combination of hungry and tired. She’d had to double up on her daily
exercise just to avoid weight gain from all the stress eating she’d been doing
since Giorgio left.
She pushed on the horn, maneuvered around a semi.
“Mo?”
Her heart squeezed in her chest when she heard her sister’s voice on the
line. “Ari? Oh, thank God. Ari—”
“Before you say anything,” Ari quickly jumped in, “I’m really sorry
about us not talking these last few months.”
“You’re sorry?” Mo hit the brake hard and cut off a Denali and Camry to
make it to her off ramp. “I’m sorry, Ari. I dropped a heavy bomb on you.”
Giorgio being gone and not checking in shouldn’t have had her driving
like a bat out of hell. She half-expected looking in the rearview mirror would
show smoke billowing and a pile up behind her as a result of her road rage.
She also had to be careful. No matter how close they’d gotten, Giorgio would
take her head off if she smashed one of his precious babies.
“It was partly that.” Ari sighed. “But you know Julien and I’ve been
thinking about having another baby, and it’s not going well. I thought I was
pregnant, even felt pregnant, but then I had my period. Then, right after—”
“They had to leave,” Mo finished. “You don’t have to explain, not to
me.”
“You were the first person I should have called, but you scared the crap
out of me. I’m still having dreams about you getting shot and killed and in
them, no matter how hard I try, I can’t get to you.”
Mo swallowed a lump in her throat. They were still as terrible at
communication as they’d been when they were thirteen and had a crush on
the same boy. Before this latest stint, that had been the longest they’d ever
gone not speaking to each other—three weeks—and their parents had
admitted they’d waited to intervene because it was the quietest three weeks
the house had seen since their birth.
“I’m scared for you,” Ari went on.
“I know.”
“Don’t you get scared?”
“Sometimes.” Like now, because she didn’t have a clue whether or not
Giorgio was okay. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The likelihood
of him being okay was greater than the likelihood of a drought in California,
but she still worried. She didn’t sleep. Foods she used to enjoy now smelled
too saucy or tasted too spicy. Others gave her nausea. It was like he’d left a
piece of him with her when he left.
“Why’d you start?”
Mo banked a sharp right, slowed a little now that she had her sister on the
phone giving her balance. “Caryn, my instructor. She saw how well I did in
self-defense and figured I had an aptitude for the lifestyle.”
“She thought you could kill people off the bat like that?”
“It wasn’t about the killing, not at first. She wanted to train me and so, I
let her. When she brought up the bounty hunting, I told her she was crazy and
that I wasn’t interested.”
Ari’s silence meant she’d pieced the information together. “And then
Antonio happened.”
“Yeah. After Antonio, I felt...empowered.”
“Do you feel guilty?”
“In the beginning, I did.” Mo turned into her old neighborhood and was
hit with a wave of nostalgia. “In the beginning, I only took requests that
didn’t require any sort of ‘termination,’ if you will. The first kill order I
followed through with, I remember going up to the mark’s house feeling like
I wanted to pee on myself.”
Ari chuckled.
“But then I walked in on him beating his wife. Her face was bloody, her
arm broken. We generally get information on the target beforehand, and
she’d gone to police, the government, tried everything she could to get out of
the relationship. She even tried running off in the middle of the night, but he
was a rich, entitled piece of shit. No lie, I would’ve tagged his ass for free.”
She swung into Olu’s driveway.
“It came naturally after that. Seeing people disadvantaged rubbed me the
wrong way. And I know there’s no justification for taking a human life, no
matter how shitty of a human being the person is. But if I had to choose
someone to off, it would definitely be these assholes.”
She shut off the engine, switched from the Bluetooth to her cell phone,
and pressed her head back into the seat, hoping Olu already had food
prepared. Her blood sugar was falling, and a headache was spawning,
stretching from the back of her neck to the dead center of her forehead. It was
shameful how poor of a job she was doing at taking care of herself because of
a sudden emotional dependence on a man. Giorgio was probably having the
time of his life chopping heads, doing whatever it was he wanted to. Doing
everything but lamenting over her as she was doing him.
“And Giorgio, he does the same?” Ari continued to question.
Mo sighed and rested a hand on her stomach. “Gio’s...I don’t know. He’s
had a rough life so he may be less discriminating about his targets.”
“Julien told me the guys only know snippets about his life, but what they
do know, it explains why he is the way he is.”
If they knew snippets, she knew an entire chapter. And that felt like an
honor. “Well, if it makes you feel better, we’re apparently partners now.” Mo
wrinkled her nose. “Just like you to want a man to be around to protect me.”
She could see Ari rolling her eyes having known her sister so well.
“Not just any man,” Ari said. “I’ll sleep a little better at night knowing
Giorgio is out there with you.”
“Speaking of men...have you heard from the guys by any chance?”
“The last I heard from Julien was about two weeks ago, and even then it
was splotchy. Communication has been knocked out. He warned me they
might have to go completely off the grid, and they’re hoping to get some
military intervention over there soon.”
“Did he sound like they could handle it?”
Ari laughed, but the sound was as empty as Mo felt. “He always sounds
like that. He could be holding the phone with the one limb he has left, and he
would say, ‘Baby, everything’s great over here. Kiss Thandie for me.’”
Mo wondered if Giorgio would do the same. “Well, I’m at Olu’s sitting in
her driveway. I probably should go in before she thinks I’ve fallen asleep out
here.”
“Tired?”
On cue, she yawned. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”
Or eating. And I’ve been crying about everything. I don’t know when or
how I became this woman.
 “I can have Mum send you some tea,” Ari offered. “Did I forget to
mention we’re back home?”
“We who? You and Thandie are with Mum and Dad?” Mo’s eyes burned
and she cursed to herself at the emotional display that was suddenly her
reality. When Giorgio got back, she was going spend an entire week on his
dick to get whatever this was out of her system. “You’re so lucky.”
“Are you going to be at Tayler’s for Christmas?” Ari asked.
“Yeah. I’m driving over Christmas Eve.”
“Why so late?”
“I still have some stuff to do here,” Mo informed. “We bought a
farmhouse.”
“You what? Wait, who’s we?”
“And Giorgio and I are kind of living together, so I have to be there to
sign for all his cars.” Mo opened the driver’s side door. “Well, I have to go
now.”
“Mo! Mo, don’t you dare—”
“We’ll talk later, sissy.”
“Mo, you can’t just say something like that and—”
“Love you.”
She ended the call and held the phone to her chest, a wide smile on her
face. Now, all that was left was for her to find and exterminate Dims,
Casanova, and Malachi, and for Giorgio to come home, and all would be
right with the world. But being back on good terms with her sister? It was the
best possible start.
She started toward the front door and it swung open. Olu appeared in the
entryway with Lyla on her hip, waving. Mo jogged a little and ran right into
them both, wrapping Olu in a hug and lifting Lyla into her arms. When Lyla
looked up at her and gave her a two-toothed smile, her eyes started watering,
and she ushered Olu into the house and directly back to the dining room
where, thankfully, food was already waiting.

Giorgio’s team consisted of six men, their newest being the former FBI
Special Agent he’d gone to help in DC. The other five were currently
standing off to the side, the former Special Agent’s mouth gaping, as Giorgio
put down the last insurgent in a group that had started as twenty, but he’d
whittled down to zero.
He spun his neck in a circle to stretch the muscles, wiped his blade on his
pants, and faced the rest of his team. They had already been gone too long,
and he had no idea how his Bez was doing. There was no way for him to see
her, hear her voice. He could barely close his eyes at night without
envisioning her face. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her and what
she’d said to him, wondering if maybe it was a mistake. If she would ever say
it again. Then some mudak thought he was going to toss a little girl across the
dirt like a ragdoll? He was on the fucking edge. Everyone would die until he
got back home.
Gage stepped to him. “Uh, letting off some steam there, mate?”
“How much,” Giorgio’s voice grated.
“We don’t know how much longer.” Gage ran thick, dirtied fingers
through his dark blond hair. “I have a pregnant fiancée at home getting ready
for our first Christmas together. A Christmas I might miss. I can’t...I can’t do
this shit right now.”
One of their other teammates, Dez, had a wife whose pregnancy wasn’t
going too well. None of them had been able to get in contact with anyone
back home. It was wearing at them, tearing them down into thin, vacuous
versions of themselves. But he had no problems killing for them, when they
tired.
Although his Bez wasn’t expecting a child, that didn’t make him want to
see her any less. At one point, he’d needed this life. He’d needed the
distraction, the ability to kill for a cause to avoid killing for sport. But this life
also meant not being able to go and come on his own terms, not being able to
walk away and get on a flight and back inside his Bez. This life, he wanted to
burn.
“We go.”
Gage ticked his head to the side. “You know the deal. If we leave, they
die.”
It was a threat that had started with their families but, because he’d had
none, it had never applied to him. Now...
His fingers stilled at his side.
Bez was back home trying to track down Malachi and Dims. This, he
knew. She was stubborn. He liked that about her...sometimes. She was
strong, fast, smart, but sometimes, he wished she would keep her ass in one
place until he was there to fight with her.
He turned, looked toward plumes of black smoke in the distance.
“Let’s keep moving,” Gage said, dejected. “Just...keep moving.”
The roar of jets sounded overhead.
“Extraction.” Julien was waving, pointing ahead, running toward the
smoke now turning from black to green. “Time to go home.”

Mo looked up, the metal prongs of a fork in her mouth. Olu was staring at
her, a slight smile on her face. Lyla was asleep in Olu’s arms and Coby had
tapped out a few minutes ago, but his cartoon movie was still playing on the
flat screened TV. She and Olu lowered the volume to chat while Mo scarfed
down her third piece of chocolate cake.
She pulled the fork through her lips. “Don’t judge me. I’m a stress eater.”
“No judgment.” Olu’s smile deepened, showing off a cute crater of a
dimple in her cheek. “I know it’s hard right now. Ade was in the Peace
Corps, and there were a few times I couldn’t get in contact with him when he
was clear across the world.”
“That’s different.” Mo swiped her index finger over the plate to wipe up
the remaining frosting and popped the finger in her mouth. “Ade’s your
husband.”
Olu laughed. “Mo, that is not different. Love is love.”
“You can tell?”
“Dear God, yes. You are going crazy.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with me.” She set the savagely cleaned
plate on a nearby coffee table. “I’m all over the place. I’ve never been this
way over a guy before. I just...and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this—”
“Please do.” Olu eased closer. “I talk to children all day. Please...do.”
Mo smiled, bent her head. “I want to wake up and he’s there and I can
turn to him. See him. Smell him. I miss him and the physical feeling of
holding him.” Her gaze fell to Lyla. “I just want him home.”
When she registered Olu’s silence, she looked up into her friend’s face.
“Is there any way you can have a family in that way of life?” Olu asked.
“Realistically. The way you look at Lyla sometimes...is that what you want?”
“I’ve asked myself that question multiple times.” Mo eased flat onto her
back, rested her hands on her stomach. “And yes, I want a family. I try to
convince myself that I can have both, this life and the husband and the
babies...but, it’s not realistic.”
Her brain attempted to compile what a baby between her and Giorgio
would look like.
She tried to remind herself that just because she’d told him she loved him,
and he hadn’t run away, didn’t mean he would consider something as serious
as commitment. She wasn’t even sure Giorgio was capable of it. He also
hadn’t said he loved her back and that, she was pretty sure he wasn’t capable
of.
But he smiled, Mo. Giorgio never smiles.
She’d been so lost in her thoughts that Olu had helped Coby to his room,
put Lyla to bed, grabbed a box of tissues, and had come back to sit on the
floor. When Mo spotted the box, she took notice of the moisture that had
pooled beneath her head from her tear ducts.
She groaned and grabbed a tissue. “I’ve cried more times in the last
couple months than I have in my entire life, and trust me, I can be a crier.”
Olu eased down onto the floor, onto her back, next to Mo. “Maybe talk to
Gio about the family thing.”
“It’s too risky.”
“Why is that?”
“Because what if that’s not what he wants? Olu, and I’m going to regret
saying this the minute it leaves my mouth, but I’d rather have him in my life
without ever bringing up that subject than have him walk away because I
did.”
A cramp hit her lower stomach and she stiffened to ride it out.
“Your period?” Olu asked.
“Probably. I don’t usually cramp, though, but it’s not like I’ve been active
these past few months.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Nah.” She waved a hand. “It’s probably not going to show up for a
couple of days, and then recess back into hormonal darkness for another three
to six months.”
Olu’s head turned. “Three to six months? What kind of bionic woman are
you?”
Mo giggled. “If I keep this up, it’ll start coming—”
Her phone going off startled them both, and an excited trill ran up Mo’s
spine. She’d asked her techie genius brother-in-law, not too long ago, to
program Giorgio’s “hitman phone” so he’d be able to track specific bounties.
She hadn’t bothered to tell him Giorgio really didn’t care about specific
marks and that she was the one who’d needed the program.
Mo rolled over and crawled to the phone. According to this latest alert,
Dims had been spotted in Toronto, which meant if she could get a flight out
tonight, she could take him down and be back in town with enough time to
snag Giorgio’s gift and drive to Tayler’s for the Christmas party.
He’d gotten away in Antigua, but not before getting a few good licks
from her. Getting his ass handed to him by a girl had probably rubbed him
the wrong way. From what she’d read, the man was the epitome of toxic
masculinity. He’d be waiting for her to show up. Maybe he’d even heard
Giorgio was out of town and figured she would come on her own. It wasn’t
going to end the way he hoped, however.
“Is it Gio?” Olu asked, pushing up to sit.
“It’s, uh, my sister.” She searched Olu’s face to see if her friend sensed
the lie. “We’ve been arguing and haven’t spoken in some weeks. Do you
mind if we call it a night?”
Olu shook her head, yawning as she stretched her arms above her head.
“Girl, I’m just happy an adult stopped by.”
Mo collected her things, gave Olu a tight hug, and hopped in the Porsche,
headed toward the airport. She had everything she needed to travel; she
always kept fake documents on her wherever she went. Once she was in
Toronto, she’d pick up toiletries and a few changes of clothes. There was also
a cache there where she could pick up a few weapons. Blades, of course.
The familiar adrenaline filled her. She pulled back on the stick, switching
gears. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Dims’ balls had finally
grown large enough to pull him out of hiding.
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

D IMS HAD CHOSEN TO HOLE UP IN AN OBSCURE , OFF - THE - GRID POOL HALL ,
sticking to the affinity the majority of the marks seemed to have for dark,
underground places. If it wasn’t drug or woman related, it was either poker or
pool related. One time, there’d been all four.
The plus side was, there were two other women besides her in the room,
which smelled like a wool sweater someone had worn in the summertime,
two weeks past dirty. Mo wanted to pour fabric softener all over the place,
light some Glade candles. The men in there would lose their shit and she
would enjoy watching the entire thing.
She went up to the bar and slipped onto a stool. The bartender
approached, wiping a dirty glass with a dirty rag.
“Beer,” she said immediately. “Corona.”
He nodded, bent below the bar, popped the top on a long-necked amber
bottle, and started to stick a lime inside.
“No lime.”
He stared at her, and then slid the bottle her way. Seconds later, the same
fingers that had touched the lime dug a trench in his armpit as he took another
patron’s order.
Given that she really wasn’t a beer drinker but didn’t trust anything that
didn’t come previously unopened in this place, she nursed the bottle and
looked around.
It was another thing she didn’t like about the pool halls, bars, and strip
clubs she always seemed to end up in. They were always so dark, it was
virtually impossible to see anything other than the back of her hand. This
location had attempted to instill some kind of ambiance with its red paper
lanterns and dimly lit blue spotlights hanging over every table. Curls of gray
smoke rose and dissipated. Chatter waxed and waned. In the back righthand
corner, leaned over a table, playing pool alone and looking to be doing a
shitty job of it, was who she was looking for.
Mo set the untouched beer on the bar top, hopped down from the stool,
and made her way across the room, managing to flash somewhat cordial
smiles at the drunk, thick-bearded men who called out to her.
She leaned against the edge of the table on her elbows, her hands clasped
in front of her. Dims missed his last shot, hitting the eight ball instead, and
cursed before their eyes met.
“Hi.” She wiggled her fingers, sent him a little wave. “I missed you.”
His right brow went up. “That right?”
“Yeah. Why’d you never, I don’t know, look me up after Antigua?”
Recognition sunk in. He straightened his posture and held the pool stick
out to the side, leaned into it slightly. “You’re funny.”
“You’ve got a little under a half-mil on your head, Dims.”
“Your point?”
She pretended to pout. “I want a new purse.”
“Look, you need to get out of here before I ram this pool stick somewhere
you don’t want it.”
“Is that a euphemism or is your dick really that useless?”
He stared at her, unblinking. Then, with a groan, he turned around. When
he flipped around again, a purple number four ball was sailing at her head.
Mo raised her hand and caught it, impressing the hell out of herself, and
then tossed it behind her back. It was pure luck, but he didn’t have to know
that.
Dims pulled a gun from under his shirt in the same instant she ducked
behind the table. Shots ricocheted off the thick wood as he tugged on the
trigger. Chaos erupted in the room as people screamed and fled the bullets,
and Mo used the commotion to maneuver around, remaining outside Dims’
line of sight.
She waited for the click of an empty clip. When it came, she popped up
and tossed three balls in a row in his direction. Dodging the balls slowed his
attempt to reload, so she rushed in his direction, used the table for leverage to
propel herself over it, and forced both her boot-covered feet into his
midsection.
He went stumbling backward.
 She righted herself, looked for the gun she hoped he’d dropped. When
she found it, she disassembled it.
Dims got back onto his feet, grabbing a nearby pool stick in the process.
He struck out twice with the stick and she managed to dodge one of the shots.
The second one, she took to her side.
He immediately came around with another, harder blow, striking her just
beneath the bellybutton. Mo braced for contact, trying her best to roll into the
impact. When he turned to strike again, she jumped back out of his reach.
“Fight close.” Giorgio’s voice came through loud in her thoughts. “Strike
quick.”
Dims twirled the pool stick like a baton. Mo slipped a knife from her
boot.
“You’re like a fucking spider monkey or something,” Dims said.
“Monkey?” She cocked her head to the side. “Of course.”
He came at her again, struck out. Mo ducked and dodged the stick, but
when she righted herself again, she was still too far away.
“Bitch, you came looking for me and now you’re running?”
She rolled her eyes. “Why are men’s insults always the same? I mean,
damn. Be original.”
He lashed out again. This time, she allowed another blow, again right
beneath her bellybutton, so she could grab the pool stick. She then pulled on
it, catching him off guard, forcing him to lose his footing and stumble
forward. When he was close enough, she stuck the knife quickly into his
forearm, pulled it away. The blade was so sharp, it took him a few seconds to
register the pain.
“You mousey bitch!”
Mo smiled. “I like that one, actually. Mousey.”
She couldn’t tell if his face was flushed or if it looked red because he was
standing beneath one of the lanterns. Either way, he looked stunned that
she’d been able to get a dig in on him at all.
A cramp began to reverberate through her lower abdomen, but she
ignored it. Now was not the time to give in to pain. But that last blow had
been a massive hit, and she prayed no internal damage had been done.
Dims charged again. She ducked out of his grasp, stepped around his
body, and stuck the knife into the space just beneath his scapula. He cried
out, stumbled forward. When he turned to face her, he was holding his
injured forearm downward, blood dripping onto the floor. Mo realized that
her, Dims, and the bartender were the only people who remained.
Dims came again. Mo tried to maneuver her way around him, but he
grabbed her in a bear hug, lifted her into the air, and tossed her clear across
the room. She landed hard on her shoulder and a hot, searing pain erupted
and traveled down her arm.
He didn’t give her time to recover.
She unstrapped a switch blade from the middle band of her bra, flicked it
open, and went straight for Dims’ ankle as he ran at her, stopping his pursuit.
When he cried out, she went behind the knee. If her calculations were
correct, that was at least four arteries so far—radial, subclavian, popliteal,
posterior tibial. When Giorgio had taught her each move, she’d been
legitimately afraid of him for a few hours. At least, until he’d had her pressed
up against the tiled wall in the shower later that night. The man was a master
in the art of killing, and she knew she was trying to take that away from him,
but he had more of a purpose than simply to kill. To her, he was everything,
and she was prepared to shoulder any burdens that came their way.
Dims fell to his knees on the floor. Mo reached behind her, beneath her
shirt, prepared to bring out the big one—a Japanese machete—if need be. But
his eyes drooped, he called out some other sex-based insult, and then fell to
the floor.
After a few seconds of non-movement, she snapped his photo and sent it
to the powers that be. In under an hour, the money would be transferred to—
Son of a bitch.
She and Giorgio had started sharing an account, one specifically for
receiving bounties. Now, he would know. That was if he didn’t know
already. He hadn’t asked her to sit still this time while he was gone.
“Hey.”
Mo looked toward the voice.
“Thirsty?” the bartender asked, still with the same dirty ass cloth. He
fetched another beer, sans lime, and set it on the bar top. “On the house.”
Mo joined him at the bar. “Uh...thanks.”
“Dims was a hard takedown.” He glanced at her. “You’re the fourth that’s
come through here. You’re a bad ass. Are you sin—”
“My boyfriend is Giorgio Pozza.”
She’d taken a shot in the dark, and the shot swished right through the
basket, nothing but net. The bartender’s expression went from interest to
recognition to fear.
 “Makes sense.” His voice shuddered a bit. “Let me get you a case to go.”

Giorgio pulled up in front of the farmhouse. He hadn’t had the chance yet to
put cameras in and the ones installed by the previous owner only covered one
corner of the house—a corner where almost no one ever needed to pass by.
Still, whenever they had been able to get a connection overseas, he looked to
see if Bez walked by. It was unusual, what he felt when he saw her, thought
of her. It reminded him of hunger, a gnawing ache that required to be fulfilled
in order to sustain life. An ache that made him want to consume her.
He parked in the long, wraparound driveway and made his way up to the
house, taking a quick glance at the cars parked outside that had been
delivered so far. In addition to more cameras, they would need more garages.
An airport hangar, maybe. He had access to an airfield not too far from the
house.
“Bez?” He stepped through the front door and was immediately greeted
by her smell, but not her presence. Another foreign feeling, panic, set in.
Giorgio made his way through the house, checking every room, nook, and
cranny. She hadn’t met him at the airport like Tayler had done for Gage. That
had meant a car ride that felt twice as long with the desire to lick her from
head to toe burning a hole in his head. Had he been able to reach her on the
phone before they took off for the flight back home, he knew she would have
been there. His disappointment had mostly come from not being able to fuck
her in the car, having to wait until he got home.
A thought occurred to him, and he went to the bedroom and pulled out the
drawer in the nightstand. Empty. He then went to the closet and checked the
small box he’d left there. Also empty. Of course. She’d taken his phone. It
didn’t surprise him she’d gone out, likely after Casanova, but it didn’t
appease him, either.
He went to the office they’d begun setting up, unopened cans of paint in
the corner, opened the laptop, and logged into cameras at her old place in
Calabasas. Maybe she’d been by to see Olu. If she wasn’t at the house, he
would call Olu next.
But there she was, in the garage. She’d taken his GTS. The driver’s side
door was open and she was on the garage floor next to it, curled into a ball.
There was no sound, but he could feel every bit of pain she was in by looking
at the grimace on her face.
Giorgio slammed the laptop closed and tossed it against the wall, chest
tight with the desire for violence. His hands, at his sides, were uncomfortably
steady. He went to his pack, pulled out more weapons than he would ever
need in a lifetime, and went back out into the night.

Mo stumbled through her old house, the rooms both familiar and unfamiliar,
barely able to stand. She didn’t know how she’d lasted the entire flight back
from Toronto when she could barely breathe. The pain in her abdomen had
gotten worse on the plane, and she was now sure she’d injured something
inside her body. Anatomy and physiology had never been her forte, so she
wasn’t exactly sure what she’d damaged, but that area was vital territory.
Before going to Toronto, there’d been no doubt in her mind going after
Dims would be worth the outcome. Now, she could barely remember why
she left Olu’s house in the first place.
She dragged her body up the stairs to the master bathroom and turned on
the faucet to fill the tub. As the water filled, another sharp pain hit her and
she cried out, gripped the edge of the vanity to ride it out.
When the bathtub was filled, she turned off the faucet and undressed in
front of the mirror. Bruises covered places where her skin had once been
bronze. Black, red, purple and blue littered her body like decoration. It felt
like something inside her was dying.
Just below her bellybutton, where Ryder had struck her with the pool
stick, several times, the skin had turned an entirely different color. Another
wave of pain, sharper than the last, forced her to hunch over one of the sinks
in the dual vanity. Going to the ER would be problematic. There was no way
they would believe she wasn’t a battered woman once she removed her
clothes. Tayler was a physician, but there was no guarantee word wouldn’t
get back to at least Gage if she called her and asked for her help. If word got
to Gage, it would get to Giorgio. And she sure as hell didn’t want Giorgio to
know things were this bad.
A third shot of pain radiated through her body. She gritted her teeth and
bowed her head, breathing through the ache that felt like she was being
ripped apart from the inside. When it ended, her head popped up.
She screamed, leapt backward, and foolishly tried to cover the bruises
with her arms. “It’s not what you think—”
“Do not lie.” Deadly lines of rage contoured his face. “Which one.”
“Dims. He’s dead. I...I got him.”
“You killed him.”
“Yes.”
The answer did nothing to appease his fury.
Thick, rough fingers gently touched the large bruise on her stomach. And
then, Mo was hit with the sharpest stab of them all. Between her legs, she felt
a rush of moisture.
“What the hell?” She looked down, touched where it was wet. When she
pulled back her fingers and saw the red stain on them, she nearly collapsed.
It can’t be.
“Gio?” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes.
He grabbed her, lifted her into his arms, and headed downstairs. There
was something off about the pace of his breathing. It was a pace she’d never
heard coming from him, a quickening, and there was a hint of fear to the way
he moved and the way he avoided eye contact with her. Or maybe it was her
own panic she was sensing, projecting, along with a sense of terror much
worse than anything she had ever experienced.
Mo tried to hold everything in as Giorgio lay her on the backseat of some
sort of vehicle. Maybe the Porsche. Nothing mattered at this point.
It all now made sense. She hadn’t been stress eating. The food cravings,
food aversions, the headaches and exhaustion. How could she have been so
fucking stupid? Just because she’d been on birth control? The amount of sex
she and Giorgio had been having, there was no way the birth control would
have been victorious, and that was if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with
finding Melnik she’d remembered to take the damn pills properly.
“Oh God.” Tears that could fill the Nile drained from her eyes. “What did
I do?”
“Bez.” His voice was the gentlest she’d ever heard it. She felt his arms
wrap around her, tight. “I will not leave you.”
The driver’s side door opened. Olu slipped in and looked at her through
the rearview mirror. “Don’t worry, Mo,” she said. Her voice was soothing,
but it had no effect. “We’ve got you.”
Giorgio pulled Mo close. She tried to argue about the blood, the pain, but
he was so still, she remained quiet.
His lips were in her hair. He kissed, whispered, consoled in streams of
Russian, kissed.
Mo felt the car backing out of the garage and gritted her teeth, closed her
eyes to ride through another fiery squeeze of pain. Giorgio’s arms around her
flexed and relaxed in tune with the motion.
This would destroy the easiness, the beauty of their relationship, Mo
knew. He would go back to how it was before, when they’d first met, before
he learned how to hold her, touch her. How to trust her.
She’d seen what Gio’s wrath could do, and she prayed losing a baby she
didn’t even know she was carrying didn’t subject her to it.
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

G IORGIO HAD NEVER BEFORE FELT THIS CALM . H E WAS USED TO MOVEMENT ,
to anarchy and disorder. He was used to anger and terror. But now, there was
nothing. It was like death, almost.
He was looking down at Gage’s fiancée, at her face, but couldn’t
understand a word she was saying. It made him wonder if this was the
madness Vater had feared, the one that turned an old man’s mind into mush,
transformed leaders into children.
“Giorgio?”
He looked to his right where Tayler’s hand was, stroking his arm. But he
couldn’t feel it. Nowhere, did comfort exist.
“Love, I’ll handle this. Can you go talk to the nurses, explain the
bruises?”
“Yeah. I’ll let them know she’s a self-defense teacher, MMA fighter,
whatever.”
“Thank you, Tay.”
Tayler was walking away. Olu stood from her chair and joined her. Gage
had appeared standing in front of him, or maybe he’d missed his comrade
walking up. The way they all moved, it was like they were wading through
water. Like he was drowning.
“What happened?” Gage asked.
Giorgio understood what the doctors said but...a child? With him? It
didn’t make sense. He understood it as far as biologiya, the biology, but Bez
had wanted to make sure it didn’t happen. They went to see her doctor
together because she wanted to make sure at no point would she ever fall
pregnant with a child that could be his. When she woke up and realized what
he’d done, would she hate him?
“Big guy?” Gage patted his shoulder. “Mo’s going to be okay.”
“You have heard.”
“Tay knows the attending physician. Mo’s doing great, better than
expected.”
“Her heart, when we get here, it stop.”
As did his.
“Because of the blood loss. But Mo’s a fighter.”
“I have blood. They can take. All, if they need.”
Gage smiled, but the expression wasn’t all the way there. “Tay said Mo
had a, uh, miscarriage, but we didn’t even know you two...I mean, I had a
hunch.” He sighed. “What happened?”
To stop the spinning, Giorgio sat. It was the closest bench to the doors
they had taken Bez through. He’d wanted to go with the doctors and nurses,
but they wouldn’t let him. And he knew if he killed any of them, Bez might
not live, so he’d stayed behind. It was hard for him, staying behind, not
knowing what they were doing to her. The muscles in his arms, it was like
pushing a boulder up a vertical hill.
She’d done something to him, something he had assumed was a waste, a
weakness. In a way, no matter how much he’d despised Vater, he had
allowed the old man’s dream to come to fruition—he had become the perfect
soldier, devoid of feeling. He killed when he had to, sometimes when he
didn’t. He’d treated compassion, affection, and emotion like a plague. But
then Bez had come along, and he no longer remembered why he’d run from
feeling when being with her, smelling her, listening to her, looking at her,
making love to her—it all felt so much better than feeling nothing at all.
But he’d made the mistake he’d told himself never to make. He had
promised himself, when he was still young, he would never father any
children.
“Ya ne znayu,” he said.
“So this happened right when we got back?” Gage asked.
“Before.”
“How long have you two been…together?”
“While.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Bez, she is my home.”
This time, when Gage smiled, it seemed complete. “I completely
understand, mate.”
Giorgio saw Vater’s face, felt Vater’s spittle on his cheek as the older
man screamed in his ear. He felt the grip on his shoulder. He saw Malachi
cowering on the floor, tears in Malachi’s wide-set green eyes and his body
curled into a ball. After Vater had told him to kill Melnik, Malachi had
intervened, pulled out a blade he’d had hidden in his clothes, and sliced him
right above the eye. The pain had sent him into a blind fury. It was the very
first time he’d felt like what Vater said he was. The first time he had seen the
purpose of his rage.
Vater’s eyes had gone as hollow as his cheeks, the devil in his grin. He
had tried to force him to release his anger on Malachi but, like with Melnik,
he’d refused. He could not kill Melnik or Malachi or any of the boys at Cross
of Honour because he had already made a decision. Vater would be his first
kill.
The night he sliced Vater’s throat, like Vater had done Godmother Irina,
with the old man looking up at him as he died with betrayal a permanent
mask on his face, he’d sealed his fate as that monster, that beast. And his seed
had grown inside his Bez.
Had it been any other man—although the thought ignited his need to
destroy—this would not have happened. Fate had determined long ago, as
he’d done himself, that his seed was not welcome on this earth. Whatever
demons had crept into his DNA as an embryo, a fetus...the lineage would stop
with him. No child deserved a life where a man like him was its father.
Tayler was coming back, Giorgio noticed, hurrying with her hand on her
belly. “The doctor’s coming out in a second,” she announced. “Mo’s been
passionately asking for Giorgio.”
Giorgio was on his feet by the time the woman in the blue scrubs came
walking through the double doors. He searched her face for answers before
she spoke but found none.
“Are you Gio?” She stopped in front of him, craned her neck to look up at
him. “Come with me. She, uh, is requesting you.”
He followed, remaining behind the woman only until he heard his Bez’s
voice coming from the room where they’d been keeping her from him. “I
swear to God, get Gio in here right now or I’m going to jam this tongue
depressor right through your fucking eye socket.”
He moved to the doorway, saw her being held around the shoulders and
midsection by two nurses. Her bronze complexion had faded some. Dark
circles outlined the eyes he could never look away from and was not
interested in ever looking away from. She was fighting, but he could tell,
even from where he stood, she was weak.
When she spotted him, she stopped jostling with the nurses.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He crossed the room but was stopped short when a man in brown scrubs
stepped into his path. They were the same height and the man had a strong
build. Giorgio wondered, briefly, how the man would feel about dying that
night. He had been gracious, with everyone, up until this point. It wasn’t their
fault they didn’t know what would happen to them if they thought they were
going to stop him from getting to her.
“I already told you people I’m a goddamn fighter!” Bez screamed from
behind the man. “Giorgio would never hurt me.”
He’d believed the same, but after tonight, he was only certain he would
never hurt her purposefully.
Giorgio’s gaze flashed to her then back to the man. Inside, he was still
that eerie calm. He still had weapons on his person and had no qualms about
sticking a hunting knife in the man’s chest, a puukko knife in his ear, a fist in
his face. He had wire strapped to his belt holding throwing knives. He could
remove them, wrap the wire around the man’s neck. It would pierce his skin
—
“Gio...”
His left hand had moved to grip the wire at his belt.
“Come here.” Bez extended her arms. “Baby, I missed you so much.”
Giorgio stretched the muscles in his hand, stepped around the man, and
walked right up to the edge of the bed. She flung her arms around him. He
held her tight to him. She was home. No matter what his mind wanted, the
rest of him wanted only her.
“Are you okay?” Her cheek was pressed against his chest, her words
filled with sadness.
“I do not understand.”
“Why I’m asking about you?” She leaned back slightly and looked up at
him. “Because you’re all I think about.”
For him, it was the same.
“Can we have some privacy?” she asked the room, staring into his face. It
was with reluctance, but the hospital staff left them alone together.
He’d expected her to release him and lie down, but she continued to hold
him. He continued to hold her. He felt how much strength she’d lost so he
gave her as much of his as he could.
“No baby.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No baby.”
“It was mine.”
She pinched his arm. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Not...that.” He placed his finger beneath her chin, tipped her face up.
“What happen?”
“I...” Her shoulders lifted, the movement slow and unsteady. “I didn’t
know I was pregnant. I was about nine, ten weeks along. I don’t know how I
didn’t know.”
“Bez—”
“And then I went out there looking for Dims. Fought him. I let him hit me
in the stomach with a pool stick.”
Every muscle in Giorgio’s body contracted. “He hit you.”
“I took the hits to get closer to him because I fight better that way.”
“I teach you this.”
“Yes. I mean, before the fight I felt some cramping, but I thought it was
just my period. It comes when it wants to and doesn’t stay around long. I
guess I figured since my periods are irregular, I could get away with taking
birth control like an irresponsible idiot.”
“No.” He tightened his hold. “Is not your fault.”
She slumped against him. He released her and helped her lie back on the
bed.
“Bez, did you want baby?”
“The baby or a baby?”
He covered the space beneath her bellybutton with a hand. “My baby.”
“Did I want a baby? Yes.” She swallowed, cleared her throat. “Did I want
a baby with you? Hell yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I love y—”
“Stop.”
Her brow wrinkled, a combination of confusion and fatigue and he
wondered how he could have ever thought a flower, that yellow and purple
lady slipper, depicted beauty.
“Gio, I love you.”
“Bez, I make you hurt.”
 “You make me happy.”
He wanted to pull away, step away, but didn’t. Couldn’t. For the first time
in his life, the beast seemed to be losing its fight against Giorgio Pozza.
“Everything, I kill. Even when I do not try.”
“Gio, what are you saying?” She rose onto her knees, held both his hands
in both of hers, and slipped her fingers between his. “How can you blame
yourself? For any of this? I was the one out there kicking ass and getting my
ass kicked with our baby inside me, but I’ll eventually have to accept
that...it...started happening before that. That this was just,” she swallowed,
“nature.”
She looked down, trying to hide her tears. He swiped his thumb, stole the
tears from her cheeks. It was agony, for him, when she cried. Ever since that
very first night.
“Is poison, Bez,” he said. “My seed.”
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. “Oh god, no. You can’t think...Gio, I
wanted this with you. I want this with you.”
The sensation of losing control was foreign to him, so as it swarmed him,
he had no idea what to do with it. He wanted to pick her up and carry her
away, had wanted to ever since Russia. It was the way she didn’t fear him,
and what he saw in her eyes when she looked at him. He was tormented by so
much want, and it all pointed to her and her marvelous face and her graceful
arms and the way she touched him places human hands could not reach.
To kill and to die.
“I love you more than anything in this world,” she went on.
Expect nothing more, nothing less.
“You’d have to kill me to get me to stop, but I’ll probably still love you
even after I’m dead.”
He leaned forward, pressed his forehead against hers. “My Bez.”
“I didn’t expect to feel this way about you or for any of this to happen,
but it doesn’t matter. What matters is if I stop feeling it, nothing will ever be
right again. Gio, I wouldn't trade you for the world.”
He kissed just beneath her hairline, at the corners of her eyes, her lips.
“What happened tonight, it hurts.” She licked her lips where he kissed
and closed her eyes. “It hurts so much.” He kissed the top of her head, all but
cradled her in his arms. “But I’m not the first woman it has happened to, and
I won’t be the last. Ari lost a baby before Thandie, and I was there for her.
Now, I have not only her but Olu and our entire family with Gage and Tayler
and Julien and everyone else. This was a wakeup call, yes, and I have some
hard thinking to do, but not about you. I still want a family with you
someday.”
“Bez, I cannot give.”
Das Biest was not used to losing, had never lost.
Giorgio pulled away from Mo and headed for the door. He’d had years of
practicing solitude. He’d had years of being the only person he hurt, caring
only about his next target. It would not be easy for him but, at least, she
would no longer hurt.
He opened the door, but then he stopped at the line that separated the
room from the hallway. The sound of emergencies and overhead speakers,
squeaky wheels, shuffling feet, and angry patients was amplified in front of
him.
“Gio, don’t make me beg you to stay because I will.”
It felt like there was a blade in his chest, sinking its sharp point into his
heart. But it was just his foot reaching forward over the threshold onto the
smooth floor of the hospital corridor. Even if one of his group mates had
come up to him and put a bullet in the back of his head, it would not feel like
this. Compared to this, it would be a sting.
“Gio, you can’t leave, not now.”
There were too many tears. He had to go back, stop them.
“Not after this.” Her voice lost its force. “Don’t leave me.”
Giorgio shut the door, made it to her in three steps, and lifted her off the
bed into his arms. She gifted kisses all over his face, and he held her like
releasing her would cause her to disappear. No matter how much his mind
was telling him to go, he trusted her more than what he believed. She would
not love somebody, more than anything in the world, who hurt her. She saw
something in him no one else, including him, could see. Had ever seen.
“Bez, you do not see monster when you look at me.”
She cradled his jaw. “No.”
“Tell me, what you see.”
A smile spread across her face. “I see a beautiful man. My partner. The
love of my life.”
He turned his head, kissed her palm. “Tell me, what you want.”
“You.” She didn’t hesitate. “I want to go home, take a break. Love on
you. Love on each other. Work through this together like I know we can. But,
after that, I want to beat the fuck out of Malachi. I want to erase him from the
face of the earth so no one exists who ever thought you were that fucking
name.”
“And.”
“And...I want you to kill him.”
He felt the feral flicker in his eyes. “You can accept?”
“I was wrong to try to stop you from killing because I thought it would
reinforce the lie that you’re a monster. Your Bez is here now and she’s strong
as shit. I’m in your life and I will make sure my presence, my love for you,
and the way I treat you is more than enough to show you you’re worth what I
see in you and so much more.”
Giorgio stared at her. “Spasibo, angel.”
“I’m no angel.” She grinned. “I’m a goddamn assassin.”
Their lips came together, a flutter that didn’t need any heat, any passion.
“Ya lyublyu tebya.”
She leaned into his chest, yawned. “You’re welcome too.”
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“M Y L ORD , YOUR SOUP .”

Malachi leaned up in bed, the sweat from his forehead running down the
planes of his face with the movement. He stretched forward, placed his lips
along the edge of the small wooden bowl being offered, and sipped. His body
ached, every muscle and joint, but he knew had he not been made from
perfection, he would not have survived cancer this long. His doctors had said
so themselves. He was proud to know he’d managed to overcome the
handicaps that had plagued him as a child to achieve his destiny.
He patted the young boy’s head of perfect, golden curls of silk. “Danke,
Oskar.”
“You have a visitor,” the boy said, his voice small as he left the room.
Malachi coughed into his sleeve and rolled out of bed onto his feet. He
walked to a porcelain sink in the corner of the room, splashed cool water on
his face, and tried to avoid his reflection as he raked a towel over his olive,
classically Mediterranean skin. But he always failed, always looked to see
how much he had changed from the last time he’d dared a glance at himself.
He always looked to see when the man he felt like on the inside would finally
present himself to the world.
“Mr. Kavala.”
Malachi grimaced. He’d never heard the German language spoken so
weakly before, and from a man who had been born and bred there. A man
who claimed to love his country. He’d seen him only once when he’d
traveled to America with the purpose of killing Giorgio. They never spoke,
but it was obvious why he was there.
He swung around, took in Jakob Meier’s face and garish attire as he
leaned against a wall. The man had enough money and resources to have
easily found him, but not enough sense to hire a sighted tailor. Then again, it
wasn’t as though he’d made himself hard to locate. People usually never
came looking. The average man tended to value his life.
“Yakov Meier,” Malachi greeted. “I heard you met Giorgio Pozza and
walked away with your life. Luck or divine intervention?”
Jakob frowned. “It was a woman.”
Malachi’s brow lifted. He remembered a woman from the house in
California, the fighter. “A woman saved you from Giorgio? It was God,
then.”
“She stopped him when he went to cut my head off.”
It was aberrant behavior on the part of the beast, traveling with a woman.
Obeying a woman. Women were weaknesses and were to be used only to
satisfy the pleasures of the flesh, as vessels for offspring. Rarely were they
suitable enough for partnership. It was never worth it, in the end.
To hear that Giorgio had allowed a woman to manipulate him enough to
subdue the urges he’d been born with was...disappointing.
“What is her name, this woman?” he asked.
“She said her name was Mona Friedrich, but that was obviously false.”
“I have seen her.” Malachi’s voice was a low, thick grumble. It took most
of his energy each day to hide his illness from the world, including those
closest to him. “That woman was obviously not German.”
“She said she was his wife.”
Malachi laughed. “You don’t know Giorgio Pozza like I do, Yakov. He is
mein bruder, my blood. The beast does not take wives. He is incapable.”
Of all the boys who had attended Cross of Honour, Giorgio was the one
who’d been most feared. It was partially why Malachi hated him. The other
part of him hated him because, in Vater’s eyes, Giorgio could do no wrong.
Even after a betrayal of epic proportions, the old man had still wanted his
“son” back although it was he who had remained at Vater’s side. So, the final
major act of his life would be his very first betrayal against Vater. The minute
Giorgio stepped foot in the country, he was going to kill him.
“You are here, why?” Malachi folded his arms over his chest.
“To make you an offer.” Jakob pushed off the wall and straightened the
wrinkles in his patterned suit. “I know now that it was not Melnik behind the
reward, but you, Mr. Kavala. But I do not believe a living bounty is suitable
for Giorgio Pozza. I am here to match your offer. You will alter your request
to a kill order. And I do not want a picture of his dead body. I want his head.”
Malachi stared at the man who didn’t seem to understand that none of this
was about money. It had never been about money. It had been about seeking
out the beast, controlling the beast, and then bringing it back home to roost
for a revenge long-awaited. The fool was also grossly mistaken about who
had placed the bounty on Giorgio’s head. He would have been content with
chasing the beast, snapping its neck. He would have never requested Giorgio
to be brought to him, never mind alive.
Another man walked in through the half-open door. Malachi turned up his
nose at the specimen, its appearance lanky and dirty. Its hair was stringy, and
its clothes torn. The man looked as if he’d been picked up at the side of a
long stretch of an abandoned road.
Here at the school, although the boys were given little to nothing, they
had been taught to uphold the image of the motherland. This man was clearly
American. In America, there was no such standard.
“Taste,” Jakob called. “Show him.”
The man started forward, but Malachi shot him a look that told him to
remain in place. “Your name is Taste?” he asked.
“Nickname,” the man answered.
“And your birth name.”
“Clarence Bittermann.”
Malachi took two steps back. “What is your religious background?”
Taste lifted a shoulder. “I ain’t never practiced no religion.”
When Malachi fell silent and the two other men realized he didn’t have
anything more to say, Taste presented a laptop and opened the lid.
“Proof of funds,” Jakob said. “I would like this handled sooner rather
than later.”
Malachi looked between the men. A smile spread across his face like
porridge being dripped from a spoon. He rapped on the wall, two sharp
knocks with his knuckles, and waited. Seconds later, another one of the boys
appeared, his back turned as he entered the room, his curls of dark hair like
onyx in the sunshine. Emil Kavala was another indication the handicaps he
had been born with were never meant to follow him throughout life.
Emil’s mother had been a comely but poor woman with strong features,
eyes like sapphire, and hair so raven, at times it glimmered with purples and
blues. Together, their genes had united to create the next elite soldier, perhaps
even the next ruler of the free world, in Emil.
 Removing his son was a task he had carried out on his own, in secret.
Admittedly, it was not easy. Before Malachi had known he was sick, that
cancer had corrupted his mind, there were moments he’d become mesmerized
by the light in the boy’s mother’s eyes, the enchanting way she spoke
flawless German. He would sometimes see her eyes when he slept or looked
up at the sky. There had even been times when he would penetrate her slow,
linger in the cavern between her thighs. But he’d overcome the unnatural
urge to remain by her side, and the night he finally took his infant son, he
never looked back.
Still, because of the illness, she often came to him in his dreams.
Emil backed into the room, hands large for their age gripping the handles
of a wheelchair. When Emil spun the wheelchair around to face them,
Malachi’s chest swelled with pride. He would never tire being in the same
room as this man. Looking into his face. His Vater.
Jakob motioned at Vater. “This is Otto Wagner, Malachi. One of the
richest men in Germany. In the world.”
“Otto is my father, Yakov,” Malachi announced.
Jakob made a derisive noise, a sort of snort. “That illness is going to your
head. Look at what you live in.” He motioned around the plain room,
indicated its wooden walls as if its appearance somehow demonstrated its
worth. “This man has enough money to buy even me several times over.
Also, Otto Wagner has no living children. It was rumored that he had sons,
but they were killed in a fire.”
Malachi cocked his head to the side. “My...illness?”
He felt Vater’s curious gaze but didn’t meet the old man’s eyes.
Jakob smirked. “You are not the only one who knows things. For
instance, I know you are a man on borrowed time. A crazy man who believes
—”
The movement was so quick, Taste was on the floor before Jakob
registered the man’s blood on his face.
Malachi drew back, returned to his space next to Vater’s wheelchair, and
wiped the edge of his blade on his pants. It had been so long, too long. He’d
been so preoccupied with preparing to wipe Giorgio from the face of the
earth, he’d deprived himself the luxury of exerting the power that made him
who he was. The power that had been passed down to him from Vater.
Jakob’s confidence dissolved. Wide eyes and a gaping mouth were
directed at the limp body on the floor.
 “You are ready to listen?” Malachi asked. “Good. Now, a very long time
ago, our beloved country was on the cusp of a revolution. We were on the
path to a healthy society, a perfect species. World domination. But things did
not go as planned. Vater, though he was a young man when everything began
to crumble, understood the need to continue that divine plan. That need flows
through his veins.” Malachi extended his forearms. “Through mine.”
He hit the wall again. Three boys entered this time and he instructed them
to remove Taste’s body from the room. Without a grimace or blink, they
complied.
“The current state of affairs in our country has changed. There has been
too much focus to do away with the old ways. And this is why Vater decided
to take matters into his own hands, so long ago. Why I was created. Why,
together, we are going to realize the vision once thought long dead.”
“All seven boys here, they belong to Otto?” Jakob asked.
“Six,” Malachi said, proud. “Emil is my son.”
“And Otto, he is your father, as well?”
“Have I not said as much?”
“So why is Pozza so important?”
Malachi opened his mouth to respond, but Vater held up a hand. Malachi
nodded and closed his eyes to brace himself for the sound of Vater’s voice.
His voice box had been nearly shredded by Giorgio’s blade. Had it not been
for the fire, he would not have survived.
Malachi had nailed all the doors at Cross of Honour shut, with the
exception of his and Melnik’s—and Vater’s—when he set the fire. It had
been set to burn Giorgio’s room first, taking the beast to hell with it, but
Giorgio had left his room without Malachi’s knowledge. By the time Malachi
found him, saw what he’d done, he’d had no time to chase Giorgio. He’d
focused solely on saving Vater’s life.
But even then, even on the cusp of death, Vater had still called for
Giorgio. Even after he pulled Vater from the crumbling school, treated his
wound to the best of his ability, and carried him on his back while refusing
help from his brother to the nearest medic, he had still called for Giorgio
when, had there been no blaze, the beast would have remained behind to
ensure his prey had perished.
“Giorgio is my son,” Vater croaked. “And you will bring him to me.
Alive. No amount of money you could offer would be enough for me to end
his life. Giorgio is priceless.”
 Malachi turned his head away. He respected Vater to no end, would die
for him, but his reverence for Giorgio was sometimes enough to want to send
the old man to his grave like fate had initially intended.
“And if I do not?” Jakob had the nerve to ask.
“Look around.” Malachi motioned around the room. “There is no woman
here. No one to stop me when I kill you.”
Though no question had been asked, Jakob’s head bobbed.
“Bring me my son,” Vater demanded. “Or Malachi will bring me your
heart.”
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

M O SMILED AND ENGAGED IN CHITCHAT WITH THE FLOWER DELIVERY WOMAN

as she signed for the latest drop-off. It had been several months since she lost
the baby and every week since, Giorgio had fresh flowers delivered. One
week, he’d brought home dates.
They went to the beach or cuddled in the backyard and counted stars.
Whatever she needed, he got it for her. Whatever she wanted, it was hers.
The first few weeks had been bumpy, especially since they’d still
attended Gage and Tayler’s Christmas party which had been filled with gifts
for their new son, Grey, who was born shortly after. Giorgio’s other
teammate, Dez, had also had a daughter named Monroe. A family emergency
had then taken them to DC for a short stint, but since coming back to
California, they’d worked on making the farmhouse into a home.
The silver lining in the days following Dims and the hospital and
everything else had been giving Giorgio his Christmas gift. The first one he’d
ever received.
He’d gone silent—or, at least, more silent than he usually was—and
marveled over the blade. Later that night, as they’d lain in bed and she’d
burst into another random bout of tears, he’d held her. While he held her, he
whispered Russian in her ears, and Mo found she hadn’t needed to know
what he was saying for it to be soothing. She’d actually preferred the Russian
words, almost as if he was telling her a story.
The next morning, he’d presented her with his Christmas gift for her—a
trip to Australia to see her parents. A trip he’d known, without her telling
him, she’d needed.
Her mother had held her, reassured her, babied her. She’d learned she and
Ari were supposed to be older sisters, but their sibling had only lived two
days past his birth. It was something her parents never spoke about and
hadn’t wanted her and Ari to know, so sharing the moment with them had
meant everything to Mo. It wasn’t until the trip that she realized she could get
even closer to her mother than she already was.
Her parents loved Giorgio, their reaction to him the usual mix of awe and
fear. Her mother had gawked over him—his features, his height, his lashes,
his eyes, his silence. After one afternoon helping her father work on an old
Falcon they all had been sure would never run again, tinkering and driving
around for parts until they got the engine to roar, Giorgio had cemented a
place in her father’s heart.
They would probably never ask him to carve a roast or section a chicken,
ever again—"He’s scarily efficient with a blade,” her mother had said—but
he was welcome back anytime.
It was a simple, thoughtful, much needed gift. The perfect gift.
Mo waved goodbye to the courier and closed the door with her foot as she
carried the flowers inside. Giorgio was upstairs in the office, painting. It was
an amazing thing to see, her dark knight shirtless and wearing dark jeans, the
thick ropes of muscles in his arms contracting with something other than
wielding blades. He handled knives much better than he worked with a paint
roller, but after four rooms, he’d become a certified pro.
This time, he’d ordered a bouquet. He would alternate between bouquets,
single flowers, rare flowers. Once, he’d sent enough roses, of varying colors,
to fill the farmhouse entryway and part of the family room. She’d assumed
she was safe crying in the bathroom, but he must have overheard her because
the flowers had arrived shortly after the miniature breakdown. After the grief
of the loss had started to heal, her hormones had still taken a while to settle.
He didn’t have to be vocal about his concern because he showed her
compassion and affection in his own way. And he’d waited, waited, and then
waited some more, never pressuring her into sex until she felt ready. When
they did try and she realized she wasn’t, he hadn’t even so much as groaned.
Mo placed the white magnolias in a clay vase and found them a spot in
the kitchen where they would get the most light.
She went back upstairs to the office. Had anyone told her she would
essentially be nesting with the same man who’d scared the shit out of her,
while they’d been chasing the same bounty in a secret, underground Russian
strip club...
 Mo laughed to herself, shook her head.
No one would have been able to come up with that story.
“What are you listening to?” She entered the room, walked over to his
phone, and looked at the album on the screen. A deep voice belted from a
portable Bluetooth speaker. “Tennessee Whiskey?”
She’d learned new things about him—he loved Italian food, which was
something they had in common, and he’d traveled to the country after
learning his mother had most likely been born there. He liked old school rap,
country music, and sad classical music, which was somehow fitting. His side
of the walk-in darkened the entire closet because nearly everything he
possessed was either black or the darkest gray she had ever seen in her life. In
truth, she would probably have an anxiety attack if she ever saw him in an
orange shirt.
The things she already knew and loved stayed the same—the thick,
smooth strands of his hair were still like silk on her fingertips. His lips were
still soft and could send her into fits of passion or calm her when things
inside twisted into cumbersome knots. He was sweet in his own way and, as
far as she was concerned, loved her in his own way. She didn’t need the
words, not as much as she’d first assumed. He’d remained by her side
through everything they had already experienced together.
Mo let the chorus run before she picked up on it, grabbed the paint brush
from the pan where she’d left it, and sang along. Giorgio lowered the paint
roller from the wall and stared, an expression she was familiar with but
couldn’t decipher on his face.
She shimmied up to him. He released the roller handle, allowed it to stand
against the wall, and crossed his arms, gaze still on her. Mo continued to
swing, swaying with the beat, and when the final note dropped, she dragged it
out and took a bow.
When she looked up, those dark eyes were shimmering at her, more
stunning than all the stars that freckled the sky out there in the countryside.
“You liked that?” She was suddenly out of breath, but it had nothing to do
with her dancing or singing.
He motioned to her. Mo dropped the paint brush, went to him. He pulled
her against him and their lips crashed together. She would have been more
than fine with him taking her there, in the middle of the paint fumes on the
drop cloth on the floor, but he picked her up and walked them to the master
bedroom.
 Giorgio set her on the bed on her knees and she pawed at the jeans. When
they were both undressed, he approached her, but she placed her palm on his
chest to stop him.
“I want to look at you.” Her eyes filled for a reason she didn’t know and
her head was too clouded to think about. “Every moment now, I want to
remember.”
They’d managed to avoid talking about their plans for Malachi. Since
officially moving in together and essentially falling off the grid, the last
several months had been more than peaceful.
After that last fight with Dims, something had changed in her. It was as if
the pool stick had struck a sense of mortality into her. The loss of the baby
had also brought a lot of things into perspective. She loved to fight, loved to
make men bleed, but if taking time off or retiring altogether to be a mother
was what she needed to do, she would do it. Giorgio, on the other hand,
couldn’t. The hunt, the chase, the kill...they were all in his blood.
She worried about him, for him. It made no sense since he was more than
capable of taking care of himself. He’d lived at least three decades on his
own with virtually no one, with the exception of his Godmother Irina,
concerned about whether or not he lived or died. It hadn’t even been a
concern of his. Yet there she was, head over heels in love with this breadth of
a man, this sweetheart of a killer.
“You are okay, Bez?”
Mo nodded and walked on her knees to the very edge of the bed. He
automatically stepped closer so their bodies touched. She hugged him,
wrapped him tight into her, and he reciprocated with the same intensity,
planting a kiss on her neck.
When she released, she let her hands fall to his thick, heavy erection. His
mouth on her neck went from a kiss to his tongue swirling against her skin,
sucking. Mo tilted her head to give him easier access while she moved her
hands back and forth over his shaft. His warm tongue became a quick nip, the
sensation sweet pain and torrid pleasure, and he licked the skin to soothe
where he’d bitten.
“You want this dick in my mouth?” she asked.
He groaned.
Mo pulled away from him and sat on the bed, in front of him, her hands
still moving. She had never, in her life, seen Giorgio this way before. Those
dark, malevolent eyes burst with desire. His lids lowered. If she took him in
her mouth now, she wouldn’t get to see his expression, so she pushed him
back a few inches from the bed and crouched in front of him. As she looked
up at him, she swallowed as much of him as she could.
He pulled in a quick hiss of air, closed his eyes, tilted his head back and
said something in his favorite language. Mo tightened her lips and moved
over his erection a few more times before drawing her head back, letting him
slowly slip from the tight pressure of her mouth. She took two hard tugs on
his head, and more Russian words fell out.
“You like, da?”
His lids lifted. “On bed.”
She shook her head, trailed her tongue along the angry vein in his shaft,
her hand massaging his sac before she inhaled his dick again.
“Bez.” Her sex quivered at hearing him, out of breath, almost pleading.
“On bed.”
She ignored him, made a sloppy mess she knew his silent, dangerous,
freaky ass would love.
When she glanced at him again, his eyes were on hers, watching her
every movement but oddly blank. He was stopping himself from coming.
Mo sighed and let him fall from her mouth again. She licked her lips,
climbed onto the bed, and lay on her back. Giorgio wrapped a hand around
his length, stroking as he walked toward her. While she understood the look
in his eyes was pure lust, it didn’t prevent her from being scared for a fleeting
moment. He looked like he was about to fuck her unconscious.
He shook his head. She turned over onto all fours. He brushed kisses
along her back, sucking and licking her skin as he made his way down. When
he reached her bottom, he bit, kissed, and moved to her center. He slipped a
finger inside her, priming her although she was already dripping wet, and
mumbled something else in a different language in that thick voice of his.
She felt his mouth, his tongue on her clitoris, his fingers. Then, he slid
in...slowly...so slowly. She whimpered, tried to wiggle, but he held her in
place and thrust as deep as her body would allow him to go.
“Tell me you need,” he demanded, the strain of pleasure in his voice.
“Gio, I can’t—”
“Bez.”
“Ty nuzhen mnye.”
He pulled out. “Tell me you want.”
“Ya tebya khochu.”
 “You want, what?”
“Trakhni menya.”
She’d learned “fuck me” in the only context she could have possibly
learned it in.
He groaned and pushed his hips forward, stretching her with each pump
of his hips. Creaming her with each contraction of his thighs.
“Yes...” Mo gripped what she could of the sheets. “Just like that...yes.”
If she didn’t know Giorgio, she would have assumed he was pissed at her.
He grabbed her hips. His deep voice vibrated across her skin in words and
languages she couldn’t understand but all had that same breathlessness. Her
ass bounced off his pelvis with each thrust. She tried to lift but he pressed a
hand against her back, gently shoving her downward until her face was on the
mattress. One of his hands left her hips and went between her legs to play. He
timed each stroke of his finger with the stroke of his cock.
“Baby...” She pressed her forehead into the mattress. “Right there.” Her
nerves fired, came alive. “Baby, you’re so good at making me come.”
“Ty krasivaya.”
You are beautiful.
“Ty asobyennaya.”
You are special.
“Moye serdste.”
The last phrase, he’d taught it to her in a completely different context, but
it still rang true here, now.
My heart.
He was telling her she was beautiful, special, and that she had his heart.
Giorgio Pozza, who did not feel, did not love, was telling her in the best way
he knew how what he felt for her.
Her orgasm started from the top of her head and made its way down,
warm pleasure enclosing her, cloaking her. She lifted, arched her back, and
cried out to ride the head on collision. Giorgio held her still, his mouth on her
neck, while she pulsed all around him. When the trembling stopped, when
she was able to see colors again, he slipped his middle and ring finger into
her mouth for her to suck.
He groaned, moaned, and bit, thrusting as she milked him. Until he
released inside her.
Mo slumped, her forehead pressed into the mattress for a few heartbeats
before she slid onto her stomach. Giorgio was already pulling her before she
had a chance to gravitate toward him, and she claimed her space on top of
him, her head on his chest.
“I love you.” She kissed his chest. “In case you didn’t know.”
He remained quiet, staring at the ceiling, her head falling and rising with
the movement of his chest.
“Bez.”
Mo looked up, rested her chin on clasped hands. “Yes?”
“I have question.”
“Okay.”
“You want...what?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I’m not following you.”
On any other man, this would be reluctance. Nervousness, even. But
Giorgio Pozza did not get nervous.
“With me. You want what?”
She pushed up to sit. “Like, in life?”
He paused, thinking. “Da.”
“I...” One shoulder lifted, but she wasn’t unsure. She knew how to answer
the question and had known for a while, but saying it out loud, out of her
mouth and with him looking at her, was a different story. “Um, I want to be
with you.”
He stared at her, waited for the more he sensed was there.
“Gio, I get that our relationship isn’t conventional. You were raised to be,
I don’t know, a super soldier of some sort. In a different world, yes, I would
want to do the whole marriage thing but I’m fine without it just the same. I’m
fine with a commitment between you and me, this house,” she motioned
around them, “kids. I told you before I would love to be the mother of your
children. That hasn’t changed.”
His gaze roamed her face, searching as if his irises could translate her
thoughts. “Marriage.”
“Not like a whole wedding or anything.” She chewed on the inside of her
cheek. “I’d be fine with me, you, a Justice of the Peace. A private exchange
of rings. Me getting to carry your last name...never mind.” She threw her face
into her hands. “Ignore me. I got carried away.”
She felt his hands on her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face.
“Why.”
“Why I want to marry you?”
“Da.”
 Both shoulders went up. “I don’t really know how to answer that
question. I don’t really know why people get married. I mean, Ari and Julien
got married because they love each other and wanted to start a family, but I
already love you. And personally, I wouldn’t need to be your wife to have
children with you. I just, I don’t know, want to. Marrying you would make
me...happy.”
“And now, you are not happy.”
She laughed, shook her head. “I am. That’s why I can’t explain it. But,
like I said, it’s not necessary. It’s not your thing and that’s okay. I don’t have
to be your wife.”
“But you want.”
“God, Gio.” She moved to nibbling on the inside of her top lip.
“Bez, tell me. Everything.”
Mo cleared her throat, licked her lips. “Yes. I’d...like to...be your wife. I
feel like, well, I know it would be a special role. Probably one of the most
special roles in the world. Being a wife means different things to different
people but to me, it would mean that I belong to you. I’ve never wanted to
belong to a man before but I’m willing to do that, to submit a little, tamp
down bit of my stubborn pigheadedness, for you.”
Her heart was beating like a racehorse on speed. If she were being honest
with herself, sitting there telling him she wanted to do something he probably
wasn’t interested in made her feel two levels past vulnerable. This was the
woman she’d always told herself never to become, but it wasn’t like she
could have ever seen Giorgio coming. Men like him changed things. Changed
worlds. Changed lives.
“The ring,” he said. “You like?”
“Which ring?”
“Chanel.”
“Oh. Yeah, it was really beautiful.”
“Wear it.”
Mo cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“The ring. Wear it. For me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To be my wife.”
She placed her hands on his abdomen to steady herself because it felt like
something was trying to push her over. “Uh...what?”
“Be my wife.”
 “What?”
He smiled and she felt silly, wonderful, crazy, and enamored each time he
blessed her with the precious gift.
“Bez,” he coaxed her forward, cradled her jaw with one large hand, “be
my wife.”
“I, uh, I don’t...what are you...what’s happening right now?”
He reached behind his head, beneath the pillow, and fumbled around. Mo
watched him, everything a blur because she was trembling and vibrating
faster than the speed of sound. When he pulled out the ring from Vegas, the
beautiful diamond bow set on the platinum band, she made a noise she’d
never made before—a sort of shrill squeak-cry that probably only orcas could
understand.
“These things, I want,” he said. “With you.”
“These...things?” she echoed, gaze fixed on the ring.
“All things.”
“All...things?”
“Bez.” He brought her face to his, her eyes to his. “Every...thing. I want.
With you.”
He released her jaw and took her left hand. Like he’d done in Vegas, he
lifted it and Mo watched, speechless, as he placed the ring on her fourth
finger.
“So—”
“Yes!” She leapt forward, wrapped her arms around his neck. “Yes, Gio.
Oh my God...yes.”
“We will get Justice of Peace,” he said near her ear.
Mo nodded, swallowed. “Okay.”
“You are happy?”
“Mhm.”
He held her where he could see her face, and Mo knew her eyes were
running like a water faucet. She knew her face was a mess of moisture. She
knew she should have been ashamed to be this happy but no matter what she
knew, none of it mattered.
“Thank you, Gio,” she managed before the excitement stole her words,
her ability to speak.
“Do not cry.” He pulled her into him. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T HERE WERE A FEW THINGS M O WAS PRETTY SURE WERE HAPPENING . O NE ,

she was about to go on a double date with Giorgio, Olu, and her husband,
Ade. Two, she was engaged. To Giorgio Pozza. She spun around so Tayler
could fasten her dress with no idea what to do with that information. She
hadn’t even told Ari yet because she literally had no clue what to do with the
information.
“So, you and Giorgio are going on...a date?”
Mo glanced over her shoulder at Tayler. “Good, so you’re confused too.”
“Not at the fact that he would date you. Hell, I would date you if I swung
that way. I just, for some reason, can’t picture Giorgio—”
“Around normal people?”
Tayler nodded. “Something like that.”
“Oh, it’ll be awkward.” Mo turned to look at herself in the mirror. “That’s
for damn sure.”
The dinner had been in their plans for weeks. Each time the date got
close, Mo would cancel with some excuse about work or the farmhouse or
the sale of her old home in Calabasas. In truth, she was terrified. The only
people outside of her she’d seen Giorgio interact with were his group mates,
his group mates’ wives, and the people he killed. He wasn’t a
conversationalist and would never be. She could accept that about him.
Others, she wasn’t sure. His entire demeanor screamed, “Grim Reaper,” and
while that was some sort of perverse turn on for her, it made most others
leave the area and beef up on home security.
“At least Olu’s met him, right?” Tayler asked, fiddling with Mo’s hair.
“Yeah, they’ve met.”
 “That’s a plus.”
When Tayler was finished raking her fingers through the curls, placing
pins where they needed to go, she stood next to Mo, facing the mirror. Mo’s
attention dropped to the pooch only Tayler could see which had forced her to
wear oversized tops for months after her pregnancy. Now, she wore a top that
showed her lovely brown skin and high-waisted shorts. Mo didn’t know what
had changed, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Gage had something to do with
it.
“How’d you get Giorgio to go?” Tayler asked.
“Oh, he volunteered.” Even now, there was still surprise in her voice. “I
told him Olu invited me out to dinner with her and Ade, and he asked me if
Ade was her husband. I said yes, and he said he was coming.”
Tayler burst out laughing. “Sounds like Gage.”
“They have hella similarities.”
Her initial idea had been to replicate the dress she’d worn in Vegas
because Giorgio had loved it so much, but she’d gone out instead, allowed
herself a miniature splurge if it meant looking good for him. She’d chosen
something long, light, off-the-shoulder and with a high slit. Elegant for an
evening out but practical for if she needed to whoop ass.
“Oh, one more thing.” Tayler reached for Mo’s hand. “What’s this?”
“Huh?” Mo snatched her hand back. She’d forgotten to take off the ring.
“What’s what?”
“Mo, are you and Giorgio engaged?”
“I, uh, have to go.”
Tayler ran to the doorway and planted herself in the opening, spreading
out her short arms and legs to try to block any chance of Mo’s escape.
“Tay,” Mo whined, a smile on her face. “Don’t make me late.”
“Come on, you have to give me this. This isn’t some shit you hear every
day. How did he propose? Please tell me he proposed.”
Mo ran down the events from the flowers and the painting to the making
love and their conversation in bed.
Tayler covered her mouth to suppress a squeal. “He planned it?”
“What?”
“Mo, he had the ring under the pillow!”
Mo’s neck reared back. She wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t even thought
about that. The last place she’d placed the ring was in her jewelry box, and
she hadn’t worn it since they left Vegas...much. He had to have gone into the
jewelry box, hid it under the pillow, coaxed her into the bedroom—the
easiest part, probably—and then bring up the conversation.
“He planned it. Oh shit, he planned it.” She grabbed Tayler’s hands.
“Tay, he planned it! Oh wait, you can’t tell anyone yet, though.”
Tayler’s gray eyes went hollow.
“Fine, tell Gage. But tell him to keep it between you two. I want Ari to
think she’s the first one I told.”
“Promise.” Tayler held her fingers, crossed, against her chest. “Be right
back.”
She darted from the room, calling for Gage. Mo rolled her eyes with a
smile and headed downstairs.
Giorgio was waiting in an almost identical position as he’d been that
night in Vegas, with his head tilted back, eyes closed. She called out to him,
letting him know she was ready, and he stretched, yawned, turned…and
paused.
Mo smiled at him. “What are you thinking about, how long I take?”
He came over to her, ran his hand over the soft blue fabric, over her butt.
“Nyet.”
“Then what?”
“I try to...see...you.”
Mo lifted onto her toes and he bent, brushed his mouth over hers. As he
backed away, she grabbed him behind the head, pulled his lips back to hers.
He grabbed the swell of her behind with one hand and wrapped her up with
the other. His moans were gruff, hungry. When they parted, her head spun
from the lack of oxygen.
“Trying to see me? I don’t get that one.”
He stared at her while he tossed explanations around in his head. Mo
willed herself not to cancel the entire thing. He’d pulled his hair back again
and was wearing a leather jacket, dark jeans, and one of his dark gray shirts.
“Before you come,” he tried to explain.
“My face when I orgasm?”
“No, but that, I like. Very much.”
Realization set in. “Are you saying you’re trying to imagine what I’ll look
like before I walk out?”
“Da. Is correct.”
“Why?”
“I think of you. Always, Bez.”
 She was on the cusp of calling Olu to cancel when a text from Olu came
through letting her know she and Ade were on their way to the restaurant.
Mo took Giorgio’s hand and they walked out to the garage where his
Audi RS 7—she was beginning to learn the name of all his toys—was parked
next to Gage’s collection of motorcycles.
It took them several minutes to back out of the garage. While the garage
door lifted, Mo made sure to finish every last drop of her fiancé before he put
himself back in his jeans. She reapplied her lipstick, pulled an extra pair of
panties from the glove compartment, and pulled her dress back down.

Olu reached over and rubbed the back of her husband’s head. She leaned
forward and blew in his ear. Ade laughed and, when they came to a red light,
leaned over and captured Olu’s lips in a kiss. Her lips were full and sweet,
her tongue playful. A quiet moan echoed throughout the car as he reached
under the hem of her shirt, toward her bra. When he reached her breast,
squeezed the mound, she screamed. It wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d been
looking for.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
But she wasn’t looking at him. Her entire body was trembling as she
focused on something behind his head. She lifted a finger, pointed. Ade
turned to find a man standing near the driver’s side window, a crowbar in his
hand. First, he peered in. Then, he lifted the crowbar and smashed it against
the window.
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

M O EYED THE LATEST PATRONS WALKING THROUGH THE DOOR — A COUPLE ,

both blond, both tall. They were definitely not Olu and Ade who, as of five
minutes ago, were thirty minutes late. And Olu was never late for anything.
The fact that they hadn’t yet shown up unsettled her, and it wasn’t because
she thought they’d caught a nail in a tire somewhere.
Across from her, Giorgio’s head was down. He’d relieved his hair of the
tie so it hung forward, blocking her view of his face. His fingers drummed on
the tabletop. Neither of them had touched their waters or the fresh garlic
bread that had been placed on the table.
“Gio?”
His head popped up. “We go.”
“Yeah.”
He tossed a few bills on the table and they made their way outside. The
valet had the car pulled up within a minute of them handing off the ticket,
and Mo strapped in as Giorgio pulled off and sped down the road.
“So, if they were coming from Calabasas, they would likely take what
road?” she half-asked Gio, half-asked herself.
Giorgio banked a hard right down a side street that took them off the
main road. He pulled up the GPS on the console that showed an accident not
too far from where they were located causing a back-up and forcing cars to
reroute.
Mo held her breath as he weaved through cars and took more side streets
until they came to the collection of flashing lights at a stoplight. The car had
barely come to a stop, Giorgio pulling into a nearby distribution center’s
parking lot, before she was hopping out.
 Mo’s heels sunk into the median before they clicked on the sidewalk,
Giorgio in her shadow. “Can you see what’s going on?” she asked him. Her
sight was obstructed by emergency vehicles and the slowdown of rubber-
neckers.
“Lexus,” he said. “GS. Two-thousand sixteen. Silver.”
“That’s Ade’s car.” Mo lifted her skirt and hurried ahead until a man in
uniform screamed at her to get back.
“Ma’am, you can’t go any further.” His voice was harsh but his face
solemn.
“I need to know if those are my friends. They didn’t show up to dinner
tonight and they drive a similar car and—”
“Ma’am, please.” He reached to grasp her arm to stop her, but Giorgio
grabbed his wrist before his fingertips grazed her skin. The man’s solemn
expression turned to pain. His knees buckled.
Mo spun around. “Gio, he’s a cop.”
“Fuck if I care.”
“Let him go.”
He released his hold. The officer tottered back to his feet, grabbed his
wrist. His brows narrowed and he looked like he was about to reach for his
waist, but then his gaze connected with Giorgio’s. Sheer terror ran through
the officer’s pale gray eyes. Both hands went up in front of him. Mo felt
Giorgio’s arm shift, as if putting something away.
The officer sighed. “Can you describe your friends?”
Mo gave him a quick description of Olu and Ade.
“A couple was attacked here about twenty, thirty minutes ago,” the
officer informed. “They match your friends’ descriptions.”
Mo’s face went ice cold. “Are they okay?”
“Critical. They were rushed to West Hills.”
“Thank you.” Mo spun around and headed back to the car, but she was
stopped short when she saw a truck with familiar words painted on its side in
the distribution center’s parking lot.
Gio came up behind her. “You see something.”
“L’histoire de ma vie,” she read. “That’s the name of Giacomo
Casanova’s novel. I’m guessing that truck wasn’t placed there accidentally.”
She looked around but spotted nothing else. Giorgio’s hand brushed her
arm, alerting her to one of the entrances to the warehouse building. There was
a single red rose taped to the front of the glass door.
 “He’s calling us out,” she realized. “Why attack our friends, then? Why
not just pick up a damn phone and say, ‘Hey, come to xyz address so you can
kick my ass?’”
“I handle, Bez.”
“Hell no.” She looked up at Giorgio. “We don’t know how many assholes
he’s got up in there. He wants us to literally walk into the crossfire. I’ve
never seen a man get so angry over not getting a chance to go down on me.”
“What?”
She bit her lip. “Umm, what I meant was—”
“No. Repeat.”
“Okay, so—”
“Is simple.” Giorgio shrugged off his jacket, let it fall to the asphalt. “Do
not fucking touch you.”
He started ahead, mumbling in what sounded like several different
languages. Mo grabbed him by the back of the shirt, stopping him only
because he wanted to. If Giorgio didn’t want to stop, he would have simply
dragged her along.
“Wait,” she pleaded.
He faced her in the darkness, eyes like the aftermath of a wildfire, and
watched her while she unstrapped a pistol and silencer nozzle from midthigh.
She then kicked off her shoes, the silicone layer already in place on the soles
of her feet, and reached toward Giorgio’s belt. He wore the damn machete no
matter where he went and no one ever thought to ask him about it. She was
sure people wondered what hung in the leather satchel on his belt, but they
were in California. Most people probably assumed it was a fashion piece.
Given that the machete could retract, it didn’t look like that was what he was
wearing. If they knew how many more blades he had attached to his person,
at all times except when he deep inside her, they would forget about the
machete.
She unhooked the satchel and slipped its attached strap over her head,
carrying it like a crossbody bag. Then, she released the safety on the gun.
“You are not—”
“Giorgio, you didn’t just stand here and watch me do all that just to try to
tell me I’m not following your giant ass up in that warehouse.”
Mo waited for a response. None came.
“That’s what I thought.” She nodded toward the building. “Let’s go.”
They sidled up to one of the warehouse’s exterior walls where a loading
dock was located. Mo listened to see if she could catch any semblance of
sound, but the walls were too thick. The building was easily over ten-
thousand square feet; Casanova could be anywhere. Men with guns and
knives and bombs could literally be lurking at every corner.
She’d wanted to do this on her terms, on her time, but she didn’t know
why she’d expected life to actually work for her instead of for itself.
“How many,” she heard Giorgio say from behind her. Then she
remembered Ari’s little tinkering computer genius of a husband.
She waited until Giorgio finished the conversation he was having with the
piece in his ear to speak. “Julien?” she asked.
“Da.”
“I’m guessing he somehow tapped into, I don’t know, NASA or some
kind of military satellite to pull up heat signatures or something like that? I
saw that in a movie once.”
Even in the dark, she saw the crack of a smile on his face.
“Seventeen,” Giorgio said, pulling out his phone. She made a mental note
of the dots roaming about the structure on the image he presented.
When she nodded, Giorgio put his phone away and she jerked her head
toward the rolling door. “We go in through here? Can you lift it for me,
babe?” She turned around. “Giorgio?”
He was at the end of the wall looking at something on the ground. She
was already moving toward him by the time he motioned her over and she
saw what he was looking at—a man, obviously a security guard, dead on the
ground.
“If I had to guess, I’d say there are no alarms to stop us,” she realized.
“Casanova pretty much wanted to gift-wrap this moment. Those probably
don’t work either,” she pointed to a security camera attached to the building,
“so asking Julien to erase the footage later would be pointless.”
“The door,” Giorgio said.
Mo nodded, headed back in the direction of the bay door. Giorgio lifted it
just high enough for them to roll under, and then let it back down. Inside the
warehouse, all the lights were on. Large construction equipment trucks and
forklifts were parked in straight lines. Now inside, she could see the
warehouse was divvied up into different sections, so where they were wasn’t
nearly as big as the entire structure had looked from the outside.
She branched off to the left and she was surprised Giorgio, without any
hard looks or Russian curse words, went right. If memory served her
correctly, she was coming up on a corner where one of those little red
markers had been spotted.
She edged up to the corner and could hear the light knick of boots on the
concrete floor.
Mo rounded the corner and came face to face with a man who had a few
inches on her wearing a black suit, shirt, and tie. By the time he reached for
his piece, Mo had already pulled back on her trigger, landing a clean shot that
left him a motionless fixture against the wall.
After a few more corners, she’d neutralized six men and had come upon a
long, open hallway. Walking up from the other side of the hallway was
Giorgio, bodies in his wake, his eyes like night and a blade in each hand.
“How many?” she mouthed.
“All,” he said, not bothering to so much as whisper.
“Yes, but I need to know how much is—”
He was already off down another section of the warehouse. Mo spotted a
shadow approaching them from the right and called out to Giorgio. His
movements were rapid, efficient—ducking the round of shots the second man
released, closing the gap between their bodies, and then jamming the blade
into the man’s neck.
Another man appeared from a small side hall facing Giorgio, not at all
noticing her. She used a step-up from one of the construction machines close
to them and led with her knees in the man’s back. He stumbled forward,
losing grip on his weapon, and Mo forced the heel of her foot into his head,
knocking him clean out. She released two slugs into him for good measure.
When she looked up, Giorgio was making his way through the rest of
Casanova’s ensemble, and she wondered if she truly wanted to have a child
someday with this man.
Yes, you know you do. He might be a monster but he’s your monster.
She ran toward him to join him but was stopped short when several
thousand volts of electricity ran through her system.
The pistol fell from her hand and she hit the floor, jamming her shoulder
on the way down. The majority of the shock was coming from her lower
back, but she couldn’t see what had been placed there. It felt like a taser on
steroids.
She then felt herself being dragged, still in that spot on her lower back,
across the floor. The pain was intense, making its way through every nerve in
her system. If she let up even a little on fighting it, it would consume her.
Knock her into unconsciousness.
When the pain finally stopped, her chest heaved. Sweat cooled her
forehead. She was on her back and looking up directly at Casanova’s crotch.
He was helping her up to stand before she understood what was happening.
They were on one end of the room. Giorgio was on the other. Some kind
of charged fence separated them, and each time Giorgio struck it, his blade
was electrified. But he didn’t stop striking it, no matter how many volts shot
through his body. No matter how much he jerked, twisted. Groaned. Was
shoved to his knees.
“Stop it,” she called to him. “I’m fine.”
“You heard her,” Casanova added. “She’s fine. She’s safe here, with me.”
Giorgio reached up to strike again but Mo screamed, in Russian, for him
to stop. He wasn’t thinking clearly, if at all. It was just her and Casanova,
from what she could see. The rest of his men were in heaps behind Giorgio.
A man like Casanova most likely couldn’t fight; his palms were smooth
and pampered from what she felt where he held her. The man’s plan had
probably been to separate them, maybe even abduct her for God knows what
reason. But his ignorance was about to get his ass handed to him.
“Gio.” Mo calmed her voice and hoped it calmed him. “Don’t worry. I’ll
let you do the honors.”
Giorgio’s shoulders fell. He stopped swiping. Their eyes connected across
the distance. His mouth tugged back in what, to him, was probably supposed
to be a smile but reminded her of when hyenas converged on fallen prey.
Mo jammed an elbow backward into Casanova’s abdomen, goose bumps
prickling her skin when she heard the resounding oof he made as the wind
was knocked out of him. He dropped something small and black, probably
what he was using to send the volts through her body, and she jammed her
elbow again, into his nose this time.
Casanova grabbed his suddenly bloody face and stumbled backward. His
gaze darted around, but Mo was between him and the device, so there was no
way in hell he was getting to it.
He struck out in a lame attempt to defend himself, and she grabbed his
arm with one hand and jammed a fist into his neck with the other.
She remained close to him—another fist to the throat, a knee to the
stomach, an elbow to the top of the head and then, as he bent, she put only
enough distance between them to land a roundhouse kick to his face.
Casanova went down, slumped in a corner as Mo stood over him. A
bruise had started over his left eye. He mumbled something in German that
pulled a deep, feral sound from Giorgio. She kicked Casanova under his chin,
sending his head back against the block wall.
She spun around to look for the device but then noticed Giorgio taking
another blade against the fence. She was about to call out again for him to
stop, but then the blade went right through. He kept slashing until a hole big
enough for him to step through was made.
“Aww baby, you brought my gift!”
He walked past her, death in his gaze. Casanova’s eyes opened, and his
hands shot out in front of him. “Wait! I can tell you where Malachi is.”
Giorgio stopped.
Mo walked up next his side. “I’m assuming you want something in
exchange for that information.”
“But of course.” Casanova grinned. “I’m a businessman, and I’m
assuming you would like to, I don’t know, get revenge on your brother and
father.”
Giorgio went so still, Mo felt it.
“Oh?” Casanova prodded. “Did I dredge something up?”
“Hurry up and talk before I let him kill you,” Mo said.
“I found Malachi.”
“How?”
“I have my ways.” Another grin spread across Casanova’s face. “We
work in the same industry, mein Schmetterling.”
A knife went flying into Casanova’s shoulder and another along the side
of his head, slicing off the tip of his ear. Casanova’s face lit up crimson as he
spat German curse words at them, eyes watering, his attention split between
each injury. Mo placed her body, only slightly, between Giorgio and
Casanova, making sure she didn’t lose sight of Giorgio from her periphery.
He didn’t seem to grasp the concept of an interrogation.
“You’ve been pissing him off since Vegas,” she said. “I’d get the
information out as quickly as possible.”
“Malachi and his father placed the bounty on Giorgio.” The sentence
tumbled from his mouth in one breath. “I wanted to know who had that kind
of money to take down the monster, so I sought him out.”
Mo kicked him across the cheekbone and clasped her hands over her
mouth. “Oh crap, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I just don’t like when
people call him a monster.”
 Giorgio moved her behind him.
“Pozza, you and your lady here left a bad impression on me,” Casanova
went on, talking for his life, “so I met with Malachi and offered him money
on top of the two-fifty mil to have you killed. Unfortunately, all that did was
piss him off and make him kill Taste.”
Giorgio glanced back at her.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. We should have killed Taste, blah, blah, blah.
Well, he’s dead now.”
He returned his attention to Casanova. “Vater.”
“There was a man with him. Old, in a wheelchair, had a thick scar across
his neck. He called him his father but the man was Otto Wagner, one of the
richest men in Germany. With all the money the Wagner dynasty has, I don’t
understand why Malachi lives in those unclean surroundings. Has those boys
living that way.”
“Boys,” Giorgio growled.
“Sons, he said.” Casanova lifted a shoulder. “Seven of them. Well, six
belonged to the old man and one is Malachi’s.”
After all these years, whatever Vater had done to Giorgio was still
happening.
“He is in Moscow,” Casanova said. “In the forest just outside the city in a
shack not fit for animal life much less humans.”
“I don’t believe you,” Mo contested.
“I am telling you the God’s honest truth.” Casanova raised his hands in
surrender. “I have nothing more I could possibly say.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
This time when Giorgio flexed, she didn’t attempt to stop him. She didn’t
even think of stopping him as he used her gift on Casanova, the blade cutting
through the man’s flesh as effortlessly as metal.
When Giorgio drew back, he remained standing in place, staring at
Casanova aka Jakob Meier. Mo took a minute before she spoke, allowing
whatever was running through his mind to take several laps.
“I kill him,” Giorgio said.
Mo glanced at Casanova. “Well, that kind of blow will do that.”
“Not this.” He jutted his chin. “Vater. I kill Vater, but he is alive.”
“He wants you to come, doesn’t he?” she asked.
His gaze finally settled on her. “I am his son.”
“Technically.”
 “Sozdaniye. His, how you say, making.”
“Creation?”
“Da.”
“Biologically only. I’m not going to stand here and give him credit for all
the good work I’ve done with you.”
His expression softened. “We see your friend.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I hope it’s good news. It’s because of me Olu and
her family are even part of this.”
“Us,” Giorgio corrected. “Then, we go home.”
“And prepare for Russia?”
His eyes moved back and forth as he took in the planes of her face.
“Yes.”

Mo didn’t bother calling a clean-up crew. Casanova had his hands in so many
different illegal ventures, the police department would probably be grateful
he was off the radar. The only thing they’d made sure to do was erase any
indication they’d been there.
They stopped first at the hospital where Mo was greeted by Auntie and
other members of Olu’s family who were in town. They let her know that
both Ade and Olu were going to make it, but Ade’s injuries were more severe
because he’d been protecting his wife. Mo offered to stay but Auntie gave her
a kiss on the top of the head, said a prayer, and told her to head home,
promising to be in touch.
It was past midnight by the time they entered the dark farmhouse. Mo
made a note to ask Giorgio if they could get a dog. It would have been nice to
be greeted by something happy and yipping when they walked in.
They went upstairs and got in the shower together. Mo kept her gaze on
Giorgio’s face so she didn’t see the streams of red pouring from their bodies
down the drain. When they were done, he pulled on a pair of sleep pants and
she wore the top half of the set, since he never wore them anyhow, and they
climbed into bed.
Mo wound her way to her spot on his chest, made a circle on his left pec
with her index finger. “How is Vater still alive, you think?”
He stroked her hair. “I slit his throat. I watch him die. But there was fire,
so I leave before I see his last breath.”
“Based on what I’ve heard about this guy so far, do you think Malachi
saved him?”
“I do. He is Vater, how you say, suka.”
“What’s that one mean?”
“The word I will not teach.”
Mo pushed up on his chest. “Bitch?”
“Da.”
“Vater favored you, didn’t he?”
Giorgio didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to.
“He favored you because you’re the epitome of what he wants, and
Malachi somehow isn’t. But he’s a twin. I figured he would love the hell out
of Melnik and Malachi.”
“Malachi was different. Small. Shy. Skinny. He did not learn quick.”
“Developmentally delayed in some way,” Mo surmised. “Do you really
think, once we get to Russia, he’s going to allow Vater to welcome you back
with open arms?”
“He will try to kill me. I will kill him, and Vater. I make sure this time.”
“I won’t stop you.”
He reached down, hooked his hands beneath her underarms, and pulled
her up until their faces were only inches apart. Mo smiled and brushed a kiss
across his lips. He slipped his fingers into her nape.
“With Casanova, you fight good,” he said.
Mo tossed hair over her shoulder. “I do what I can.”
“Bez, you are perfect.”
She blushed. “Not in the least.”
“For me.”
“You’re kinda perfect for me too.”
He pulled gently on her head, pulling her forward until their lips
connected. His tongue probed her mouth, hungry, and she opened for him,
tangling her fingers in his hair.
“Once we’re done with Vater and Malachi and whoever, we can move on
with our lives,” she said against his lips, breathing hard. “Move on with us.”
“Us,” he echoed.
“Yes. Me and you.”
“I stay with you. Always.”
“Even when I become a pain in the ass?”
 He kissed her again, and she whimpered when he pulled away. “You are
always pain, Bez. Is what it means, Bez. Bezdis. Trouble. In Albanian.”
“Holy shit.” She slapped his chest. “You have been calling me ‘trouble’
this entire time?”
“You never ask.”
“I did ask. You told me you’d tell me later. I thought it was something
cute like baby, or sexy, or even bae, hell.”
“Is also nag.”
“Nag!”
“And tease.”
Mo opened her mouth to protest, closed it. “That one I’m kind of okay
with.”
He drew her lips to his again, wrapped an arm around her midsection and
maneuvered until he was on top of her. She hadn’t tossed on any panties
beneath the shirt so all it took was a slight rise of her hips and then he
plunged inside her. Mo bit down on his lip, hissing at the pleasure.
She moaned, whimpered as he made love to her, thrust so deep he tapped
into parts of her she knew no other man would. And when she climaxed, he
paused, enveloped her, experienced the sensation with her before he chased
his own orgasm.
Spent, Mo fell into the mattress and he rolled again, situating her back on
his chest, while she fell asleep thinking about their plans for the next day.

Giorgio crouched next to the bed. Outside, the world was still dark, quiet. He
could watch her sleep forever, watch her chest rise and fall with life and
listen to the little snores she swore she didn’t make. But he had a job to
finish, and he would not take her with him.
He reached into the bedside table, pulled out the ring he’d worn in Vegas,
slipped it onto her palm, and closed her hand. He then leaned forward and
kissed her temple.
“It does not mean ‘you are welcome.’ Remember me, Bez, if I do not
come back.”
He grabbed his gear and left the master suite.
 CHAPTER NINETEEN

W HEN M O WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING , HER BODY REGISTERED THE

emptiness before her mind did. She stretched and yawned and, with a smile
on her face, turned to Giorgio whose presence had become like a staple in her
life. But the other side of the bed was empty. His pillow was empty, the
impression where his head had rested still indented in the pillowcase fabric.
There were no dark, silken curls splayed about. There was no spicy scent of
man, no thick shoulders and muscled back for her to massage awake as she
crawled on top of him.
She sat up in bed and felt a pinch beneath her thigh. When she lifted it,
her stomach began flopping around like a fish yanked from the ocean. It was
Giorgio’s ring, the one he’d worn in Vegas. As far as she could remember, it
had been put away. She loved it so much she’d asked him if it could be his
actual ring once things were official, so there was no reason it would be on
the bed with her. As if it was standing in place of him in his absence.
Mo kicked off the sheets, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and
searched the floor until she found the shirt she’d worn, briefly, the night
before. She slipped it on, haphazardly fastened the buttons, and padded to the
bathroom doorway to listen for movement.
There was no sound from the other side.
To be sure, she opened the door to find the lights off and no remnants of
humidity as if someone had recently taken a shower.
Her stomach continued to flop as she left the master suite and roamed
through the house, calling Giorgio’s name even though, while upstairs, her
gut had told her he wasn’t there. He wasn’t at home, and he hadn’t left to get
them breakfast—he always left a note, his handwriting as chaotic as his
voice.
After clearing the house, she went to the driveway. Every car was there.
She then went to the building off the house that was still mid-construction
where he was storing the rest of his collection. All the cars looked to be there
but sometimes, for her, all the makes and models ran together.
She hurried back to the main house, headed straight for the office, and
rummaged through piles of paper until she found the checklist she’d had to
follow while he was overseas and the cars were being delivered. Mo then
realized that she must have truly been crazy about Giorgio because she then
went back to the cars and checked, each one, to see if any were missing. And
one was—the Lexus LS.
All his cars had been outfitted with a system to track and locate them
should any of them get stolen or “end up in bottom of river,” as Giorgio had
put it, so she called the number and tapped her nails on the garage wall as she
waited for the automated system to pick up. When it did, she rattled off the
verification sequence.
“I’d like a quick location check on this vehicle, please,” she said, reading
the car’s full specs from the inventory list.
It seemed to take forever for a response to come over on the line, but the
system let her know the car was parked at a nearby private hangar, and there
was an order in place for it to be picked up and returned to the farmhouse that
afternoon.
Mo ended the call and went back inside the house. She went back to the
office with the intent of returning the paper, but instead, everything went
flying. She hit the walls with both fists, slammed the door as she made her
way back to the hallway.
“You left me, Gio?” she yelled, obviously to herself because he’d walked
away from her. She could still smell him in the hallway, hear the once hair-
raising and now reassuring notes of his voice, feel his arms around her.
How could she not know he’d left?
And what was worse, she had no idea how to find him. It was obvious
where he went, for Malachi and Vater. But he’d left her behind when he
knew how much of an asset she could be. How much of an asset she was. The
man was essentially walking directly into the gaping maw of death and didn’t
even think to take her with him.
“Like I could just go on if you never came back!” she screamed at the
ceiling. “Like it wouldn’t matter to me if you never came back.”
 At some point she didn’t realize, her rage had transformed into grief.
Anguish. It crushed her so hard that she sat at the top of the stairs, stared
down at the front door, and imagined him walking through it.
She never asked for this. The last time she’d fallen in love, it had
completely turned her world inside-out, upside-down. She’d vowed never to
get so wrapped up in another man that she would lose herself in him, allow
him to take advantage of her. She’d become a fighter, a killer, all to ensure
should push ever come to shove, she’d be more than prepared to push. But
damn...she didn’t see Giorgio coming.
She couldn’t even begin to fathom how she’d managed to fall in love with
that man she’d first met, swinging a machete at her head, straddling the line
between human and monster. How she’d spent so much time with him,
around him, that she learned he could be sweet and funny and that he cared
about her so much, sometimes it felt like he cared more about her than she
did for herself.
Still...he didn’t let her be there for him. Just because Giorgio Pozza did
not need protecting didn’t mean she didn’t want to try. Before, it was
assumed that Giorgio Pozza could not be loved, and she’d burned that notion
to a crisp.
Mo leaned back, lying on the hardwood. Tears drained down the sides of
her face. Normally, she would hate that she was crying over a man, but this
man was different. He’d changed everything. Without him, nothing would be
the same. She needed to get her man and bring him back home.
In the distance, she heard her phone ringing and she had half a mind to let
it go to voicemail. But then she thought better of it, hopped up, and hurried
after it. Maybe it was Giorgio calling to tell her where he was, how to get
there.
“Hello?” she answered, not caring how frantic she sounded.
“What’s wrong?” Ari greeted. “Something’s wrong. We shared a womb
and spent nearly every waking moment of our lives together until I met
Julien. So don’t lie to me.”
At this point, most, if not all their friends and family knew about her and
Giorgio. Just not the engagement yet with the exception of Tayler and more
than likely, Gage. She’d assumed it would have brought a ton of questions,
but the fact that she could now openly talk about him only brought ease.
“Gio left me,” Mo revealed.
Ari’s side went silent.
 “Ari?”
“I don’t understand. Giorgio left you? Giorgio left you? Is that even
possible?”
“Not as in, our relationship,” Mo clarified. “At least, I don’t think. I...I
don’t know, Ari. I woke up this morning and found his wedding ring in bed
with me instead of him.”
More silence.
“Wedding ring?”
“Fake wedding ring,” She clarified, again. “One we used in Vegas
to...look, I’ll explain all that later. Long story short, he grew up in some sort
of sadistic boys’ home with an old piece of shit who ‘sired’ all the boys there
as some sort of experiment. Think Lebensborn. This old piece of shit raised,
and I use that term loosely, Giorgio to think he was born solely to kill and
die. So, Giorgio killed him, and the boys’ home caught fire. Thing is, old
piece of shit didn’t die, and he’s been tracking Giorgio, most likely trying to
get him to come back to him.”
“And Giorgio went?” Ari asked.
“To kill him. Him and his brother.”
“Giorgio has a brother?”
It was in that moment Mo realized just how much she hadn’t told her
sister. “Technically. He’s one of the old piece of shit’s offspring too. His
name is Malachi. Giorgio’s gone to kill him too.”
“So he’ll be back then.”
“I think killing the old asshole and Malachi won’t be as easy for Giorgio
as he thinks. Despite his general hatred for them, I think there might be still
some kind of hold there. He could let down his guard, get hurt. I should be
there to back him up.”
She heard shuffling.
“And he left last night?”
“Yeah.”
After the shuffling came mumbling and a sleepy voice. Mo glanced at the
phone and realized just how early it was. Ari was probably up because her
sister never slept when she was pregnant, and she was a little over twenty
weeks along with her second child. Julien, on the other hand, slept whenever
he could because Ari would insist he try to stay up with her insomniac ass.
“Mo?”
“Uh...hi, Julien.”
 “If Giorgio still has any of his comm links on him, I might be able to
triangulate his position.” He yawned. “If that’ll help.”
Mo darted to the bedroom and pulled a duffel bag from the closet. “That
would be a huge help. Actually…you know those death capsules you guys
use?”
“Death capsules? What are you…oh yeah. Wait, how do you know ab—”
“Are you able to find one that’s been recently activated?” Taste was dead
but hopefully Malachi had left his body nearby.
“How recent?”
“Relatively recent.”
“You and Giorgio are really out here doing damage.” Julien yawned
again. “Yeah. Gimme a sec.”
Ari came back on the line. “Julien’s going to find him for you.”
“I love you, Ari.”
“Love you too. I’m scared for you, but I know you’ve got this.”
“I’ll be okay. Oh, by the way, I’m engaged.”
Ari sounded like she nearly swallowed the phone. “What?”
“Yeah, Gio proposed.”
“Like,” her voice lowered, “on one knee?”
Mo gave her the quick rundown of how everything happened, just like
she’d done with Tayler.
Ari sniffed. “Oh my gosh, Mo. He planned it.”
“It’s so cute, right?”
“I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“Me either. I really want my baby back.”
“Oh wait, Julien’s ready.”
Julien returned to the line. “Now, I can only triangulate his position with
our communication links, but it’s showing he’s in Moscow. There’s also a
capsule nearby so I’m assuming that’s the one you’re looking for.”
Mo stopped packing. “He’ll probably be near the woods.”
“There’s underground bunkers all over Russia. Stalin built them up,
thinking they’d be like a bomb shelter or something, and expanded them
when Hitler went underground so they’re more extensive than public
knowledge of them. I actually know of one in Moscow that runs underneath
the woods.”
Mo recalled the tunnels from the underground strip club, how Giorgio
had navigated them so effortlessly. She remembered the path she hadn’t
wanted to take because of what she’d assumed had lain farther down. Had
they really been that close to his past? Had he known?
“I think I know where to start.”
“You’re looking for the Khimki forest but because of the density of the
area, I can’t get any satellite imagery. Still, keep in touch with me I should be
able to point you right in his direction the nearer you get.”
Mo nodded. “That would be amazing.”
“Be careful, Mo.”
“I will.”
“If you need help—”
“I know, Julien.” She smiled, in love with the support of her family. “I do
need a ride, though. Can’t take everything I have on a commercial flight.”
He laughed. “I have a contact nearby who has a Gulfstream I can
commission.”
“Is it Beyoncé?”
“It’s classified.”
She unzipped the duffel bag, tossed Giorgio’s Christmas gift inside, and
closed it again. When she saw him, she would get on him about leaving it
behind.
“It’s okay, your secret is safe with me.” She chuckled, feeling relieved
and confident. “Thank you.”

Giorgio’s boots sank into soft earth. Tall trees with thick foliage surrounded
him. For someone else, it would be solace. For him, it stoked memories of
standing on one leg on a stump, a leather whip cutting into his back, and
being left outside from dusk until dawn until either Godmother Irina arrived
or he made his way back.
As he walked, he thought about Bez. He knew when she’d woken up and
found that he’d left, she’d been pissed. There was probably no farmhouse
left, just studs from where she’d torn the entire thing apart. And he knew she
probably saw him leaving her behind as questioning what she meant to him.
But this was his task, his mission. It had been his mission ever since he was a
child. He’d refused to kill Malachi, failed to kill Vater, and now he was here.
It was a second chance to finish what he should have finished so that this part
of his life would be over. There was no moving on with Bez if this part of his
life wasn’t over.
The shack appeared in the distance, a partially rundown structure in the
middle of the overhang of the trees. If he hadn’t been looking for it, he would
have never found it.
It was larger than the one he’d grown up in. From where he stood, he
counted eight windows. The roof didn’t have any holes and the walls were
made out of actual wooden pieces rather than logs that didn’t look as though
they’d been through any sort of processing equipment. There was no
outhouse to be seen so he guessed indoor plumbing existed, and there was no
huge water tank for rainwater collection. It was surprising, considering Vater
had seen modern amenities as “spoiling” and they would never amount to the
rearing of the perfect child.
Vater’s ideology had been that a child would never appreciate the simple
without suffering. It was likely why Giorgio had found himself indulging—in
cars, luxury accommodations whenever he was out on a private job, the
farmhouse he knew they had overspent on but it was where he wanted to be
with his Bez.
A figure emerged on the porch, stood at the top of the stairs. Giorgio
stopped a few yards from the bottom, gaze fixed on Malachi. Before, there’d
been the sound of wildlife, birds and frogs, and the rustle of trees. The sky,
what little of it could be seen this deep into the woods, had been a beautiful
blue. The air had smelled of moss and wood. Now, Giorgio registered
nothing but the target in front of him.
“Where is he?” he asked in German, no matter how much the language
singed his tongue.
Malachi cocked his head to the side, responded in German. “Is that how
you greet me after all these years, brother?”
“Funny.”
“We have the same father.”
“We have the same creator,” Giorgio corrected.
And then he saw him coming through the doorway. A young boy who
had to be the “one” son of Malachi’s Casanova had referred to was behind
Vater, pushing the wheelchair. He stopped it right next to Malachi who
barked an order for the boy to go back inside.
“Oh...” Vater held his hands up in front of him. “It is you, Giorgio.”
“And who should it be?” Giorgio asked. “I thought I killed you.”
 Vater shook his head. “You would never do such a thing to me, my boy.”
Next to him, Malachi frowned and turned away.
Vater suddenly pushed up in the wheelchair. Malachi moved to help him,
but he swatted the helping hand away.
Using the stair railing as balance, he moved slowly down the steps toward
Giorgio and stopped, only inches, in front of him. He studied Giorgio’s face
and Giorgio tried not to notice the dark hair and dark eyes he’d inherited. He
was the devil’s son, no matter how much he didn’t want to be.
Before he knew it, he’d bent so Vater could reach his face, the man
who’d once stood tall and proud now a shriveled human. But there was still
something in his eyes, a fierce power that beckoned to be respected, no
matter the reduction in his capabilities due to age.
“Giorgio.” He cupped Giorgio’s jaw. “I have always thought you to be a
magnificent specimen, but I would have never expected this. You are
perfection, mein sohn. Dark eyes as clear as night, strong Mediterranean
features. You will be perfect.”
Giorgio cringed, pulled back. “Perfect for what?”
“To carry on the legacy.”
Malachi drew in a ragged breath. “Vater?”
“Hush.” Vater swiped the air behind him.
“But you said—”
“Malachi, you will never be good enough,” Vater scolded. “How can you
stand there and look at your brother, look at what God has created, what I
have created, and not see your lack of worth? You were born a cripple, a
mistake. The blood of the Israelites runs through your veins and, had it not
been for the raid, you would have been killed. Had it not been for my
beautiful boy’s refusal, you would have never lived to see your eighteenth
birthday.”
Malachi swallowed, clenched his fists at his sides. “So why let me live all
this time? Why keep me by your side?”
Vater turned to look at him. “Is it not obvious? To give your brother the
chance to finish what he started.”
Giorgio backed away. “I am not your marionette, you old piece of shit.”
Vater chuckled. “Such anger. I love it. You might have run away from
me, but you never stopped doing my bidding. You never stopped being the
monster you were born to be. Do you think it was by chance you became a
contract killer? Do you think the lives you have taken were your own choice?
I,” Vater hit his chest, silver brows narrowed, “have predetermined your
destiny from birth. I made you kill Melnik and now you will do the same
with—”
His mouth remained open, a gaping letter O. His gaze fell from Giorgio
down to his chest where the tip of a blade protruded. Malachi was behind
him, his handle on the blade he’d plunged into Vater’s heart from behind.
“Verräter!” Vater coughed, tried to wrap his hands around the blade, but
pulled them back when the metal cut clean through the skin on his palm.
“Traitor!”
“I have done everything for you, Vater,” Malachi said, through tears. “I
have respected you, worshipped you. What did I do to deserve this? Giorgio
has betrayed you time and time again and yet, you still call him your son.”
Vater ignored Malachi’s words, set his gaze on Giorgio. “You will kill
him.” He coughed again, fell to his knees. “You will kill him, mein sohn. You
will do what you have always done...what father wants.”
Malachi pulled his hand back, retrieved the blade. Vater fell as a bowed
lump on the ground. Giorgio looked down at him, the first time in his life his
fingers still but with no urge to kill. No urge to destroy. He had never been a
man of free will. He had never escaped Vater’s rule. The only thing he’d ever
done for himself was feel...for Bez. Fall...for Bez. For Mo.
He looked up, locked eyes with Malachi.
“What will it be, Giorgio?” Malachi asked. “Kill or be killed?”
Giorgio felt something in his left hand, found that he’d grabbed a knife. It
wasn’t the blade he’d wanted to use to kill Vater, but it would have done the
job had Malachi not stepped in.
Malachi charged at him and he stepped back, blocked the blows that
Malachi threw his way. As expected, the runt’s skills had improved over the
years. There were no longer any traces of the circumstances of his birth.
Malachi found an opening, swiped the blade across his arm. Giorgio
stepped back. The wound felt like acid being poured on his skin.
“You are slow,” Giorgio noted.
Malachi charged at him again. This time, he was able to create an opening
and crashed the butt of the knife against Malachi’s temple, sending him
stumbling backward and shaking his head.
“You are pathetic,” Malachi seethed.
“And yet, I am not the one who kisses Vater’s ass so much, I still have his
shit on my lips.”
 Giorgio anticipated Malachi coming again, blocked all the blows he
threw. Malachi fought like a man who had nothing to lose, using all his
energy on this one fight to the point that he was already starting to show a
loss of strength, speed, and stamina.
Sweat collected on his forehead, his chest. Giorgio now noticed the lines
in his face, the way it drooped. The dark circles beneath his eyes and the way
the skin hung from his body as if his muscles themselves were liquefying.
Malachi cried out and stumbled backward. A thick hand went to the back
of his thigh. He spun around and Giorgio couldn’t help but smile.
“You are late, Bez.”
“Late my ass.” She glared at him. “You couldn’t leave me in the middle
of the day like a normal person?”
“I left you many clues.”
“Clues? No, you just left.” Her gaze fell. “Ahh, shit. Did I miss Vater’s
death?”
Malachi groaned and pulled the blade from his thigh. “You are the
woman,” he said, maneuvering so he could keep an eye on them both. “I can
see why you changed, brother. Vater, however, would have been
disappointed. The negroid—”
Mo was on him before he had a chance to finish, her kicks fast in his
direction. Malachi blocked each kick with his forearms crossed, his focus
intermittently darting Giorgio’s way, preparing for if he decided to join in.
Giorgio wouldn’t insult Mo by interrupting her fight, but he kept his attention
on Malachi. All the man could do was block. If he struck—
She suddenly went stumbling backward, holding her face as she slid
across the ground on her knees. Malachi was smiling and licked his lips as
she pulled a bloody hand away from his face.
Mo stood to attack again.
“Bez,” Giorgio called. “You had fun, yes?”
She nodded at him. “Da.”
“Good.”
Malachi looked between them as if deciding. He then started forward, a
mad dash toward Mo. Giorgio also ran toward her, stopping in front of her as
Malachi extended a blade in her direction.
The blade went through Giorgio’s midsection, and the thickness of his
body stopped it inches before it could get to Mo.
“Gio—”
 “I am okay, Bez.”
Giorgio crashed a fist into Malachi’s nose, sending him stumbling
backward. He continued his assault, his elbow to the man’s face, a hard
forehead to his already bent nose. He crashed his knuckles into Malachi’s
throat and the sound of the man losing air was satisfying to his ears.
Malachi continued to stumble, but Giorgio wouldn’t let any space get
between them.
He stepped forward, flipped a throwing knife from his belt, and brought it
across Malachi’s cheekbone. He swiped again, gave Malachi a scar that
matched his own. He then grabbed him and crashed his elbow against the top
of Malachi’s head, over and over, until his brother was on his knees before
him.
“You will do as father says?” Malachi grinned and looked up at Giorgio,
his face covered in blood and mucous.
Giorgio opened his palm behind him. Mo slapped the knife into it. He ran
his fingers over the detailing, the pointed edge, and remembered the look in
her eyes when she’d presented it to him. It was the first time in his life he’d
ever received a gift, with the exception of when they’d first met.
He brought the knife around and swiped it once, the blade so sharp it took
Malachi a few moments to realized he’d taken the blow to the chest, not the
neck like Vater had taught.
“Forgive us our debts,” he recited, in English. “As we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” He
squatted, leaning close to Malachi. “I am not ‘mein sohn.’ I am not ‘das
Biest.’ I am Giorgio Pozza, and I do, as I say. See you in hell, motherfucker.”
Malachi’s eyes widened and he fell to the ground, his body collapsing in
a semi-circle, completing the arch Vater had made.
Giorgio stood watching them until Mo made a noise. He glanced back at
her and followed what had captured her gaze. Standing on the porch were
seven boys, including the one he knew to belong to Malachi.
One of them stepped forward, his hair like strands of gold. “It is over?”
he asked, in Albanian.
“Yes,” Giorgio responded in the same tongue.
“We have no home,” a second one spoke up, in Russian.
“And no mother,” said a third, in French.
“Who knows English?” Giorgio asked.
All raised their hands.
 “We will speak English.” He motioned. “This is Bezdis.”
The boy who’d spoken Albanian snickered.
“Mo,” he corrected when she shot him a look. “We will help you.”
“We will,” Mo reassured. “First, let’s get your things.”
“We do not have much,” another boy said as they all walked inside, Mo
following.
Giorgio grabbed her before she crossed into the house, spun her around,
and brought his mouth down to hers. She slipped her fingers into his hair and
returned the kiss with both anger and fear.
She stepped back. “So you expected me to follow you?”
“Da. You do not do as I say. As anyone say.”
“Why’d you leave your ring, then?”
“How you say, insurance?”
She pulled him back down for another kiss.
“And for if you did not follow me,” he added. “And I did not return.”
Her eyes searched his. “I don’t like admitting it, but it freaks me out to
think of you...not returning.”
“You have destroyed our house, yes?”
“Almost.” She smiled up at him and he pulled her closer. “There’s still
enough there to live in.”
“Studs.”
Her smile grew. “No, there’s still walls and stuff.”
“We take boys to Moscow, find orphanage. Is okay with you?”
“It’s more than okay.”
Giorgio leaned forward, pressed their foreheads together. “Ya lyublyu
tebya.”
“What am I welcome for?”
“Bez, is not what this means.”
“What does it mean then?”
“Is, how you say...I love you.”
Mo stepped back, pushed away. “What? Gio, you said that to me first
when we were in Vegas. At the hotel.”
“Da.”
“Okay, maybe you’re not understanding.” She pinched her forehead.
“You said that to me, a long time ago, when we were in Vegas.”
“I know this, Bez.”
Her eyes filled. “Shit, don’t make me cry happy tears.”
 “I know this is how I will feel, one day, from first time we meet. When I
see you at hotel and give you ring is first time. Now, I feel it always.”
She stood still, watching him, tears like glass running down her
marvelous cheeks. Giorgio waited as long as he could for her to move
forward, to say something, but then decided the wait was long enough. He
tugged her back to him, back to her mouth and her tongue, the way she felt as
he held her against him.
“Thank you, Bez.”
She laughed. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”

Giorgio handled Vater and Malachi while Mo contacted Julien to have

Russian officials sent to the cabin. She didn’t know what Giorgio did, and she
didn’t care. Although she hadn’t known them personally, it felt like a weight
off her shoulders to get rid of the two men who’d had a vise grip on Giorgio’s
life since they met. She could feel new beginnings with him, her dark knight.
After all, he’d told her he loved her. One small step for mankind and one
giant leap for Giorgio.
The boys were taken to a social shelter in Moscow and placed under
guardianship. There were records in the house about their births, so a few
social service workers took the information to start trying to find their
mothers. Mo didn’t tell them the women had probably been killed. She
couldn’t. What she did hope was that, at least, extended families could be
found.
They were between the ages of three and seven, all well-spoken and well-
mannered. There was one, a four-year-old, who reminded her of Giorgio with
the way he didn’t essentially withdraw from affection but didn’t seek it
either. He was quiet and contemplative and, for his age, the rest of the boys
already seemed to revere him in a kind of way. She hoped his upbringing,
however, was markedly different.
They stayed in the same hotel from the first night they’d met. Once again,
Mo had found herself with Giorgio behind her, her breasts pressed against the
cold glass of the patio doors as he moved inside her. She’d found herself bent
over chairs, desks, her wrists bound to the headboard with Giorgio’s head
buried between her legs. And by the time they wrapped up all their business
in Russia—it had taken a couple of weeks—she’d all but crawled into the
farmhouse, spent from fighting and lovemaking.
Now, even after a week home, she still woke up with a start, expecting to
find Giorgio’s spot next to her empty. So this morning when she did, she
hopped out of bed, wrapped the sheets around her, and went looking for him.
She found him downstairs with the rest of his group mates, all six of them
sitting in a tense silence. Mo hid behind the wall, eavesdropped.
“How do we go about doing it, then?” She recognized Dez’s voice. “If
it’s possible.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Julien offered.
“When?” That was her baby.
“Soon,” Gage said.
They mumbled some kind of uniform consent, and the rest of the men left
until it was just Giorgio downstairs.
“I know you are there.”
Mo stepped around the corner. “Dobroye utro, lyubov’ moya.”
“Good morning, my love,” Giorgio translated, responded. “Now, why are
you peeking?”
“I was looking for you.” She made her way down the stairs. “What was
that about?”
“What was what?”
“That little pow wow with the guys.”
He pulled her into him. “Decisions.”
“What kind of decisions?”
“I will not tell you. You know this.”
He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him. “If I’m going to be
your wife, you have to tell me everything.”
Giorgio shrugged, walked toward the stairs. “Then you will not be my
wife.”
“Like hell.”
He laughed. It still sounded awkward, coming from him. But awkward in
a good way. A new way. Like he was trying it out, wondering when he could
remove the training wheels. It was like, up until now, he’d never been happy
and now that he was, he wanted to live in every moment of it.
“You are sore?” He walked them down the hallway toward the bedroom.
“A little,” Mo said.
“My mouth can fix.”
 “You’re trying to change the subject.”
Suddenly, she was airborne. She landed with a soft thud on the mattress.
The sheets fell away and he stepped forward, cupped each knee, spread her
legs.
“No, Bez.” He lowered. “I have change subject.”
Mo arched her back at the first swipe of his tongue, bit down on her
bottom lip, and gripped the sheets.
 CHAPTER TWENTY

W HEN G IORGIO TOLD M O HIS VOWS IN R USSIAN , SHE BLUSHED BECAUSE HE ’ D

given them to her, before the ceremony, in English but wanted what he said
to her to remain private. He was new at this—feelings, emotions, and now,
being a husband—but he was going to try. It would all be worth it for her.
The wedding ended up including more than just them and the Justice of
the Peace. The whole team and their wives and children came. Mo’s parents
flew in. Ari and Gage, as Maid of Honor and Best Man, planned the entire
thing. Ari found a small event barn not far from the farmhouse for them to
have the ceremony and reception, and Gage strong-armed the owners into
letting them use it on short notice.
When Mo had come walking down the aisle to him, her elbows hooked
with her father, Giorgio had forgotten how to talk. How to breathe. Just like
the time in their hotel suite in Vegas. She was beautiful and kind and a killer
—perfect for him.
He had never imagined himself there, with anyone, much less someone as
special as she was. She’d let him know it might be awkward in the beginning,
them both in new roles as husband and wife and adjusting to her decision to
move away from the circuit to start her own self-defense school in Calabasas.
And him adjusting to not killing…as much.
But he could do awkward. He could do uncomfortable. What he couldn’t
do was live without her. Not when someone loved him. When she loved him.
They fed each other with small bites of cake and knotted their arms to
drink from glasses of champagne. They danced to the song he’d heard at the
airport that had made him dream of her, Tennessee Whiskey. She looked up at
him the entire time they danced with a smile on her face he would remember
for as long as he lived. And, at the end of the night, they danced to it again,
alone under the lights in the middle of the barn, rocking against each other
and barely moving for fear of breaking the seam their bodies had created.
“Ty razbudil vo mne davno zabytoye.”
“And what does that mean?” Her head rested on his chest, and her feet
were bare against the seat in front of them.
Her white dress flowed about her ankles. His tie was gone, the top button
on his shirt undone. Outside, they flew over a sparkling LAX as they left
California for a month-long honeymoon in Italy.
“You wake something forget inside me,” Giorgio translated. “This is
true.”
“You woke something forgotten inside me too.” She kissed the palm of
his hand. “What’s another?”
“You like me telling you romantic things?”
“I love it.”
He kissed the side of her head. “Ty moy ray, ty moyo nebo. You are
heaven, you are paradise.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Da. That one is, how you say, like corn?”
“Very corny.” She laughed. “But I like it. What’s another?”
“I tell you something different, Bez?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Is fairy tale. Russian fairy tale. I hope, one day, I tell our children.”
She sunk further into him. “I can’t wait.”
“This is tale of Baba Yaga. Once upon—”
“Oh, hell no.”
“V chem problema?”
“The problem is, I know about Baba Yaga from John Wick, and you are
not telling our kids about no damn Baba Yaga.”
Giorgio hid a smile. “Is fairy tale, Bez.”
“Fairy tale that will give our child nightmares. Look, I know our kids will
be strong as hell because you’ll be their father, but that doesn’t mean...”
He allowed his smile to release as he listened to her rant about what fairy
tales he could and could not tell their future children, which he would
disobey anyhow. Baba Yaga was a good story, with lessons. And he would
teach Little Snow Girl and Ruslan and Ludmila. All the ones Godmother Irina
had taught him.
 She faced him. “Why are you smiling?”
Giorgio searched her face. “Because tonight, my wife look beautiful in
her dress.”
With a sparkle in her lovely eyes, she threw her arms around his neck. He
pulled her close and kissed her deep, the lights in the cabin lowering as they
flew into their new life together.

Thank you for reading.

I love you all.
xoxo,
Alex
 GIORGIO’S VOW

There is no darkness in the place in my heart

where you lie

You see in me the things to which

the world is blind

I will kill for you, I will die for you

To protect you, I will bleed

Now I understand dates and feelings and flowers

Love and children, us and ours
Forever, you and me
And until eternity,
you will be the only Bez
I need
 EPILOGUE

"Good morning, Little Pozza. You have slept well, yes?"

THE DARK KNIGHT PLAYLIST

Gangsta - Kehlani
Pop That P*ssy - Pastor Troy
Body Party - Ciara
Sanctified - Kanye + Rick Ross
Poison - Beyonce
VSOP - K. Michelle
Fuckwithme - Jay Z
Bitch Better Have My Money - Rihanna
Hail Mary - Tupac
Helicopters - Jidenna
Diggin on You - TLC
I Love Me Some Him - Toni Braxton
Tennessee Whiskey - Chris Stapleton
What An Experience - Janelle Monae
Faithfully - Journey
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I’m a creative creature from the Caribbean.

I like animals, Star Wars, quirk, and any kind of media that deals
with people finding love in an otherwise impossible time. Join my
mailing list by texting IRROMANCE to 22828!

For Angels and Assassins updates, blog posts, and TMI ramblings
about my monotonous life, go here.