We’re standing in our own little blissful bubble, caught in each other’s gazes, his still searching…still questioning.
But I don’t have to question.
I already know.
“Excuse me, you’re going to have to move that car,” an intruding valet voice shatters the carnal haze that has since settled in, but I’m not ready to let it dissipate quite yet.
“Yeah, in a min—” Gio starts to say, but I swallow his next words when I grab his head by the back of his neck and crush my lips against his.
A rush of heat blasts through my insides, just as it did last night, when he moves his hands to the sides of my face and plunges his devious tongue into my greedy mouth. He drinks me in like we’re in the middle of the desert and I’m a tall glass of ice cold water.
Funny.
We are in the middle of the desert.
And we both clearly have an insatiable thirst…for one another.
I run my hands down his back, the tight, muscled one that once again ripples beneath my palms as his explore the sides of my torso until the annoying-as-fuck valet pipes in with his own commentary.
“Good thing we’re at a hotel so you can get a room,” he snaps. “Now, move it!”
Gio breaks away from me, his eyes heavy with pent-up desire, and I am so tempted to forget about my interview so I can take him inside and ride him like the fucking stallion he is.
“Hey, you never told me your name,” I say breathlessly, sweeping a few stray hairs out of my eyes.
His lips curl upward. “It’s Dante,” he murmurs.
I grin back. “Like the inferno.”
“You’d better fucking believe it,” he growls with a wink, backing away as the valet impatiently taps his wingtips on the cobblestone driveway, waiting for us to say goodbye.
Goodbye…
Dante.
He opens his door and flashes one last wicked grin at me before climbing inside. “Your own hellfire blazes pretty damn hot, too, Anya.”
A shiver…ironically…rushes through me at his words and I stand here with my bags at my feet, staring at the Ferrari as it peels out of the driveway and disappears onto the Strip.
Holy crap, I’m in Hades.
And that’s a gross understatement.
Chapter Eight
Dante
I pull my Ferrari into the self-parking lot of a restaurant down the block from the nightclub, Fire and Ice. It’s off the beaten path, so there isn’t a whole lot of foot traffic around the place. It’s also overgrown with weeds, and there’s a chain link fence around the dilapidated building.
All good for me.
I get out of the car, the hot air damn near smothering me as I walk in the direction of the club. I’ve been down here before, so I know exactly how to navigate the area as a ghost.
It’s pretty deserted on this side of the Strip. None of the big money is down here. It’s all at the other end.
Also good for me.
Nobody gives a shit about the places around here. They only exist for derelicts and criminals.
Hell, the cops barely come down here.
I skirt around some unwieldy bushes and take a quick look around before hopping the fence. I don’t love doing hits during the day, but this is the only way to stop the scumbag from snatching any more innocent young girls.
He’s expecting to auction them off tonight, and the only way to prevent the sales from taking place is to pop a cap in his brain.
Five-million dollars.
That’s what I was paid to terminate him.
Hell, I’d do it for nothing to rid the world of this piece of shit.
The money was already wired to my account by the requestor who goes by an alias.
We all do.
The requestor knows I’m not on the job right now, so he upped my price to sweeten the deal for me.
But I only had to see the name of the target and I was all in.
Miguel Rivas is an infamous sex trafficker who operates between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He imports kidnapped women on vacation in Mexico and harbors them in LA until the auctions are scheduled here in Vegas. He’s got a lot of guys on his payroll, but they’d scatter like cockroaches if the big fish suddenly gets his head cut off.
And that’s exactly what I plan to do to him.
I pull open the back door slowly so it doesn’t make a sound. I step inside, taking in the darkness and the damp, dank air. This club is a front, and the auctions are all held in the lower level, leaving the main floor pretty much empty, save for a few tables and chairs.
I wrinkle my nose. Smells like fucking sewage.
From what I know, Miguel is only in town for a few days to handle the sales. He’ll be on his way back to LA as soon as the cash from the sales hits his offshore accounts.
Or, so he thinks.
I pull out my gun from the waistband of my pants and hold it in my outstretched hand.
Tingles shoot out to the tips of my fingers, and I swear I get a cock jolt from the thought of pulling the trigger.
It really has been way too long…
I creep down a narrow hallway toward a sliver of light.
I can hear a thick Spanish accent coming from one of the rooms. I strain my ears to identify the number of voices, but there’s only one distinct one I detect. He must be on the phone.
Making his deals.
Ruining lives.
Fucknut.
But, I’m here.
Now, you die.
I slide along the wall, moving stealthily toward my target when a shadow flickers in front of my eyes.
If I’d have blinked, I’d have missed it.
So I stop and wait until it moves again.
This time I don’t lose a second before I fire off a few shots and hear a body drop to the floor like a bag of cement.
The silencer on my gun keeps Miguel blissfully ignorant for the time being, but I can’t waste any more time. Who knows how many more minions he’s got roaming the place?
That was rhetorical.
I don’t really plan to hang around and do a body count.
The sound of Miguel’s sinister laughter makes my skin crawl, and for the briefest second, my mind trips back to that night…
The one that confirmed my career choice.
The one that convinced me to dispose of bottom-dwelling pieces of trash like Miguel.
The one that never ceases to bring out the darkness I keep buried down deep.
My jaw twitches, and I wait for silence before I kick out my leg to bust open the door.
When it comes, I crash through the rotting wood frame
I wait until realization seeps into his fat face. He’s clearly living large in his new digs out in California.
“You know who I am?” I hiss at him as I step inside the door. The place reeks of cheap cologne, cigarettes, and weed.
“No.” His eyes widen when he sees my gun. “There is no money here.”
“I don’t want money,” I say. “I’ve already been paid.”
“What do you want?” he demands. “And how did you get—?”
I nod my head toward the door. “You need to invest in better security. I took out one of your guys in the dark, for fuck’s sake. I may as well have been blindfolded and I still got him.”
He narrows his eyes. “You won’t get away with this. My men—”
“I will fuck your men up,” I growl, stalking toward him. Right now, I am completely violating the job requirements. You never speak to the target. You just blow their skulls open.
Period.
But rage floods my insides, and I remember the screaming and the cries for help.
And I just can’t help myself.
I shove him backward so that he falls into his chair, and get close enough to his face that I can smell his stank breath. My gut twists but it only eggs me on. “You’re a disgusting bastard who deserves to be skinned alive for all of the travesties you’ve committed against innocent young women.” My lips curl into a sneer. “But I don’t have time for that. I only have time to shoot you in the fucking head. My loss is your gain, fuckhead.” I point my gun at his forehead and his eyes widen in fear. “It’ll be fast.”