| |
Tobias
––––––––
TOBIAS WANTED TO SIMULTANEOUSLY shake her and kiss her. He hadn’t expected her to attempt to deceive him this well because she was so convincing with her lies he almost believed her. Drakki dragons weren’t known for their friendly or gentle manner. That meant most of his detainees spewed secrets like vomit. That she protected hers shouldn’t surprise him since he suspected she was the renowned assassin, whispered by many, but never seen by any.
Until now.
“Take her picture, Dom.” He called her bluff.
Her gaze darted to Dom, her first mistake because it verified she knew Dom’s identity.
“Why?” a crack in her voice corroborated her apprehension.
With her poker stare absent, Tobias knew he was on the right path.
Tobias remained silent, focused on her. In his mind’s eye he could see Dom plucking his cell casually from his pocket and strolling toward her. What interested him most were the fractures showing in her stoic mask. The smallest hints, the corners about her eyes creasing, and the darting glances, verifying her trepidation.
Before Dom could snap a picture, she kicked the cell out of his hand. The phone hit the wall before cracking against the floor, the screen shattered and useless. Unaffected, Dom held his hand out toward them. “Someone hand me a phone.”
Distracted, Asherah moved quicker than Tobias could react and placed a punt-kick into Dom’s crotch, incapacitating one of Tobias’s deadliest dragons. Breath bursting from his lungs, Dom clutched his dick and dropped to his knees.
“Keg. Josiah,” Tobias said their names, and they knew what to do without further instructions.
A scuffle ensued between Asherah, Keg and Josiah, but once Josiah pinned her against the wall, Josiah gloated with, “Not so tough now are you?”
Remaining well out of reach of her legs, Keg snapped several shots of her face with his cell phone. “What now, boss?”
“Upload the photos with the hashtag Asherah Stone. Set it to post to the dark paranormal web if she doesn’t start answering my questions.” There’d be a lot of people gunning for her if those pictures went live. “Release her, Josiah.”
Josiah bolted before she could pay him back for helping to photo-rape her. Tobias might feel guilty if he wasn’t certain of her identity... or the fact she had tried to kill him.
“You bastard.” She paced a small path.
Godsdamn she was hot in a feral way. Tobias bet she was just as wild and untamable in the bedroom too. “Why? Because if those pictures post you’ll be the mark instead of you putting an innocent in the crosshairs of your scope?”
“You are not innocent, Tobias Drakki.” She kicked a piece of the shattered chair across the enclosure before glaring at each one of them. “None of you are.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s start over.” Their gazes crashed together. “Which one of us was targeted.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Delete the photos first.”
Tobias crossed his arms and shook his head.
“I don’t trust you to delete them afterward,” she said, the glare of her yellow-green eyes promising death as soon as she gained freedom.
“Then we’re at a stalemate because I don’t trust you to talk if they’re deleted.” He looked over at Keg. “How many did you take?”
Keg used his thumb to scroll through the pictures. “Fifteen.”
Asherah snarled in a language he wasn’t fluent in.
“I’ll have him delete one picture every time you answer a question,” Tobias bargained with her.
“Fine,” she said between gritted teeth. “But I want to watch him delete each one.”
“Fair enough. What’s your name?”
She scoffed at him. “Wasted question when you already know.”
Suspicion and knowing were two very different things.
He elevated his eyebrows, waiting for her to confirm her identity. “You really want to waste five minutes on games?”
“Asherah Stone.”
Silence lingered as they held one another’s gazes for a long moment. That they’d managed to catch the legendary assassin should count as a minor miracle. She’d been terrorizing and scaring paranormal citizens for two hundred years.
Satisfied she admitted her identity teased a smile from him. “Let her watch you delete one of the pictures, Keg.”
Keg clearly had no desire to get close to her. His cousin remained where he stood and angled the screen in her direction. “Can you see?”
She nodded, and Keg deleted the first picture.
“Were you hired to kill me?” Tobias asked.
“Yes.”
Once another photo was deleted, he inquired, “Was Hitchcock a target too?”
“No, just you,” she confirmed what he theorized.
Third photo gone, Tobias continued his Q&A. “Who hired you?”
“I don’t know.”
Tobias clucked his tongue in fabricated judgment. “That’s not how this game is played, Asherah.”
“Ashe.” She started to pace once again, and he doubted she realized she’d invited him to call her by her nickname. “I know the screen name—King of Kings 1331, all one word. The identity associated with the screen name is buried beneath too many layers of protection.”
“Male or female?”
“No idea.”
Tobias indicated Keg should delete another. “Why does the person want me dead?”
She frowned. “Why would I know that?”
“He hired you to kill me.” Shouldn’t she know why her employer wanted him dead before she took the job?
She rolled her eyes. “I work for money, baby dragon. Money talks and I do the wet work, so they don’t have to get their hands dirty.”
“What type of monster can live with themselves after killing innocent people.” Josiah scowled at her.
“I repeat, none of you are innocent.” She pointed at Keg. “Served time in prison for theft and homicide.”
“I was fifteen, stupid, and running with the wrong crowd,” Keg defended himself.
If Tobias hadn’t approached his cousin in prison and taken command of his future, he’d probably be dead by now or serving a life sentence in prison. But he’d have been damned before he’d allow a Drakki to lessen their reputation. He would’ve snapped Keg’s neck himself before he let his cousin sully their good name.
“Doesn’t mean your sins are forgiven, sweet cheeks.” Asherah gave him an expression that said, ‘suck it up and accept the blame, buttercup.’ “Ole Dom over there, has a lot of shady rumors surrounding his name. It’d take me all day to list them, but the biggest is pedophilia.”
“Everyone knows I fucked that girl. Big deal.” Dom shrugged a shoulder. “I was eighteen, she was fifteen, she lied and said she was older. She showed me a godsdamn driver’s license with a fake birthday. And she fucking consented.”
“I’m not the one you should attempt to convince.” Asherah sent him an insincere wince. “I don’t make the laws on statutory rape, Dom, so tell your story to someone who gives a damn. Josiah...” She sent him a sinister smile. “Do you really want me to reveal your secrets. Can you afford for the others to know them?” Tobias’s cousin paled, and Tobias wondered what information she had on his cousin. “And the wonder twins... a little bit of everything is linked to them. From money laundering, forgery, racketeering, and that’s just a few of the rumors. The real kicker is the suspicion they murdered their parents.”
“Fucking lies.” Tobias loved his parents and could’ve never hurt them, but he’d heard the gossip, and had done his best to conceal that speculation from Hitchcock... until now.
“How could anyone think that.” Hitchcock shook his head and swiped his hand through his hair. “You’re making that bullshit up.”
“I’m not.” Asherah sent Hitchcock a sinister smile. “From what I can tell, most who’ve heard any of the rumors believe all of them.”
Tobias palmed the back of his neck. “For the record, we didn’t kill our parents.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
He looked at his brother to see how Hitchcock reacted to the news. His twin’s cheeks were red, and his eyes glowed with dragon fire. A belch of smoke bloomed from his nostrils. A pissed off Hitchcock was deadly. He was a fun-loving, easy-going guy any other time, but he became homicidal when ticked off.
Tobias walked to his brother and grabbed his shoulder. “Hitchcock, it doesn’t matter what she thinks. What anyone thinks. Those who matter know we wouldn’t hurt Mom and Dad.”
Hitchcock met his gaze and for a long moment they said nothing but just stared at one another. Finally, his brother nodded and the glow in his eyes receded.
His sibling cleared his throat. “Even if we harmed our parents how do you have the balls to judge us for it?”
She pointed at herself. “No judgment here. I’m simply pointing out that none of you are innocent. I have a hard rule against assassinating children or innocents. I research all my victims, and only afterward do I accept the hit.”
“How much did this person pay you to kill me?” The value of his life mattered. It shouldn’t, but it did.
“Six million,” she said without blinking. “Delete another, Keg.”
Keg looked at Tobias for confirmation, and Tobias nodded. “So that’s what my life is worth.”
“I asked for five to begin with. They refused, because they didn’t want to pay more than two mil, so I declined the job. I don’t get out of bed for less than five.”
“Aren’t you proud?” Josiah quipped.
“Yes. I’m worth it.” She winked at Josiah before returning her focus to Tobias. “Three other assassins failed. My employer called me last week, offered my original five asking price, but my price had gone up to six by then. An extra mil for irritating me.”
“I guess he got desperate when the others failed.” A twitch pulsed in Dom’s jaw.
Josiah added, “Means your brakes didn’t fail by accident in the mountains.”
“What type of moron cuts brake lines when he can fly?” She shook her head. “Amateurs.”
Hitchcock said, “The chick that tried to poison you was part of the hit.”
“Guess you weren’t trying to hide the body either,” Asherah quipped.
“What body?” No idea what she was talking about, Tobias made a face at her.
“The girl that tried to poison you.” She looked between them all. “She washed up dead last week. The person who hired me believes one of you killed her.”
“She’s dead?” Hitchcock ran a hand through his hair. “Godsdamn.”
“Interesting that you weren’t involved. I thought it was a not-so-subtle way of scaring off any further hits.” Asherah shrugged.
Tobias shook his head. “No. We didn’t kill her. I sent her back to whoever hired her to give him a message.”
“Ah...” Her lack of care should’ve bothered him, but she was in the business of death, so it was really no wonder she didn’t care. “All that info has to be worth at least six pictures.”
“Delete three, Keg.” Tobias would compromise with her.
The moment those pictures vanished, she flicked her focus back to Tobias, waiting. Something shined in her eyes, he liked to think it respect that he’d managed to best her. Or that could be her ‘I’m going to gut you’ expression for all he knew.
“I’d give you a computer for you to show me your correspondence with the person—”
“Don’t have them.” She shook her head. “They delete three seconds after they’re opened.”
“Okay. Guess that’s a good thing since I wouldn’t trust you with a computer anyway.” If she had any skills with a computer she could send out a distress code without him knowing. Even with his geek, Cyber, monitoring her strokes, a single term could serve as a distress code to another person.
“Delete the last of the pictures and I’ll tell you how to find who hired me.”
Elevating his eyebrows, he made no effort to hide his surprise by her offer. “I’ll delete all but one. If I discover you’re telling me the truth, I’ll delete that one permanently.”
“Not good enough.” The frustration in her voice was evident. “The next time that phone backs up, it goes into the cloud. Even if the picture is never posted, his account could get hacked. I can’t take the chance that it’s accessible anywhere on the web.”
“It’s your only offer.” Playing hardball was his only option because he had to acquire all the details he could to stop whoever hired her.
“Next time, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes, Tobias Drakki.”
Instead of hearing a death threat, Tobias recognized what she didn’t say: something kept her from pulling the trigger the first time. Heat threaded through him and for the first time since setting eyes on her, an idea of a future with her blossomed in his mind. It was stupid, they were the unlikeliest couple, but... they also fit one another. She was the ash to his fire and as deadly as he was.
And there’s this weird connection I’m experiencing toward her.
It’d be poetic if she was his mate.
With an air of menace, Dom stepped forward at her threat, even Josiah perked up, coming out of his stupor. Tobias threw his arm out, smacking Dom in the chest and halting him from going at her.
Does she realize she’s on a one-way ticket to my bed? “Tell me how I can find the person who hired me.”
“He wants you dead before your party Friday night.” Asherah picked at her fingernails as if they discussed the details of a history lesson. “If I don’t give him or her what he wants, they’ll come out of hiding Friday to attempt the job themselves. Shim sounded desperate.”
“Shim?” Tobias elevated an eyebrow.
“Since I don’t know if it’s a guy or woman. She-him. Shim.”
That had to be the most ludicrous thing he’d ever heard, but it still left him chuckling.