This time when I enter the parking garage on foot, I can see one of my guards there watching the entrance. “What happened?” he asks, rushing up to me to see what I’m carrying.
“Better question is where the hell have you been for the last twenty minutes? How are you supposed to guard the garage when you’re not even here?”
“I just got on shift,” he answers nervously. All of my men know I don’t tolerate fuckups. “Lou was the last one on duty down here.”
“Find Lou and tell him I said he’s fired.”
“But I—”
“Do it or you’re both fired.”
Quickly, he scurries off like a roach under a lifted stone, not bothering to ask me about the unconscious woman in my arms again.
I stand there, taking a moment to let the full stupidity of my actions sink in. Then I head to the parking garage elevator, trying to balance her on my hip while I fish out my keycard and unlock the call button. When the door opens, I step inside. Little did I know that I’d be ending my day today by carrying a beautiful, unconscious, failed assassin back to my apartment with me.
3
CAMILLE
I wake up not having the first clue where I am, which is an undeniably bad sign. There’s a throbbing on the side of my head, and confusion gives way to panic as I remember my last conscious thought, Gabriel and his hand striking me. I look around, trying not to make myself dizzy as I slowly get to my feet. Thankfully, the headache seems to almost immediately subside when I take a few sips of the water that was left by the bed. Stupid. I should know better than to drink anything offered to me here, when I’m almost certainly inside the apartment of the very same man I was sent to kill. I’ve made several stupid decisions in the past 24 hours.
I open the door of the room I’m in, slowly to keep it from making a creaking sound, and step out into the empty hallway. As far as I can tell, it’s the middle of the night. That means I’ve only been asleep for a few hours. I have no idea where Gabriel is, assuming that this is his fancy-shmancy penthouse overlooking the city, but I need to get out of here before he gets back. He definitely recognized me, even said my name. But he and I don’t know each other well, and from all the complaining Leo frequently divulges over his big brother, I’m not so sure their brotherly relationship will give Gabriel enough pause to keep from killing me if he gets the chance to again. It’s not really safe for me out on the streets right now either, but it’s safer than in here.
I slink to the front door, hoping naively that maybe I’ll luck out and there won’t be any guards on the other side of the door, sticking my eye up against the peephole. In the parking garage, it was easy to get in, and honestly I was surprised by Gabriel’s lack of detail. For such a prominentcapo, his security seems lacking. But I’m not as lucky this time. I can see two soldiers standing watch on the other side of the peephole, one of whom has the side of his face so close to the door that it startles me and makes me jump back.
“Please tell me you see two men out there,” a voice says quietly from behind me. “I’m too tired to deal with firing any more half-assed guards tonight.” I turn to look and see Gabriel sitting in a dark corner of the living room, holding a highball glass filled with amber liquid. I place my hand on the door behind me as I try to calculate whether it would be riskier to try and run past the two guards or face Gabriel inside the apartment. “I wouldn’t recommend going on there,” he says as he stands up. “Even if you make it past those two buffoons, you won’t stand a chance in the city unprotected. Not after what you’ve just done…or rather, failed to do.”
I don’t say anything as he takes a step out of the shadows, coming closer to me. He’s every bit as handsome as I remembered him to be. I didn’t really let his jade green eyes and muscular physique sink in earlier, since I was hopped up on adrenaline. The way his messy black hair falls into his face makes him seem rough around the edges in a sexy way that catches my breath.
“You’re in deep shit now,” he says with a furrowed brow. “You failed your assignment, and whomever hired you isn’t going to take that lightly. If they hired you to kill me, then I can assure you they’re a big-time player and they’re serious. Which leads me to believe that you were likely set up to begin with, because no one in their right mind would’ve hired an unaffiliated, inexperienced woman to try and kill someone like me.” I’m both confused and suddenly intrigued in his theory, enough to take my hand off the door and hear him out. “Someone’s looking for a good reason to have you killed,” he says. “Although I’m not sure what that reason could be yet.”
I’m not sure whether to believe him or not. Who would want to have me killed? I’m nobody important in the realm of the criminal underworld. I’m not part of any crime family, not involved in any big dealings—well, aside from this one that went south. Sure, I run various criminal errands as a paid hand, but I’ve never done anything that has pissed off any of theborgateto the level that they would go through the trouble to come up with a legit reason to try and have me killed.
“If someone wanted me dead, they could’ve just come and shoot me themselves,” I say. “Why would anyone go through this much trouble?”
“That’s the part I don’t know,” Gabriel frowns. For some reason, this little mystery seems to be bothering him, and I wonder why. It’s not as if he should care about me at all, and he surely has plenty enough security and power behind him to keep from having a second assassination attempt leveraged on him. “But for some reason, it appears that someone wants more than to just take you out. It looks like they’re trying to make your death appear to be justified for failing a job. Someone doesn’t want you to die a martyr.”
“Trust me,” I scoff. “No one thinks I’m a martyr. If anything, I’m more of an outcast or a familial black sheep.”
“Perhaps. But someone’s definitely trying to ruin your already shaky reputation before getting you out of the picture. Do you have any idea who it could be?”
“No,” I answer, still not sure why the man I just tried to murder would want to help me sleuth this. Best friend’s brother or not, Gabriel still has every reason to try and kill me himself for what I just did. “Why did you knock me out and bring me back here instead of just killing me?” I ask. I instantly regret it, because there’s still a good chance that he intends to kill me after talking with me and finding out everything he can learn.
But I watch his reaction as his face contorts in the shadows, as if he’s wrestling with himself before giving me an answer. “I don’t know,” he says to my surprise. “But you should probably stay here with me until I can get ahold of my brother to come and escort you home.”
“I don’t need a chaperone to walk home,” I protest.
“I disagree. Not that Leo is that great of a bodyguard, if I’m being honest,” he smirks. “But going alone is sheer suicide for you at this point. You’ll be a dead woman before you reach the next block.”
“I’ve already been out on the street once since I ran from you, and no one got to me.”
“That’s because I got to you first,” he argues. “You can put on your tough girl act as much as you want, but you’re not stupid, Camille. You know that at the very least, there’s a target on your back for taking whatever cash you accepted and failing to make the kill.”
“I can take care of myself,” I grumble as I turn and open the door. Instantly, the two soldiers draw their guns and block my path. I turn around to glare at Gabriel, but he motions for the guards to let me pass. I don’t know if he’s trying to prove a point or just doesn’t want to be bothered with me anymore, but at least I’m not being held against my will. I walk smugly past the two obedient guard dogs of his, although I have nothing to be smug about since I know that Gabriel’s right. I just want to get home, take a hot bath, and reevaluate what the hell I’m going to do now. Maybe I can go back to the mailbox, stick the money back in, and leave a note to recuse myself from the job. Oh, who am I kidding? That’s simply not the way that any of this works.
As soon as I step out onto the street, I become hyper-aware of my surroundings and quicken my pace. I just need to get back to my apartment and regroup. I can bolt myself inside, barricade the door, and knock down the rickety fire escape to remain secure until I have a chance to figure out what to do. I can reach out to Leo, who consistently has good advice when it comes to risk management, and find a way out of this mess. I just need to get off the street as quickly as possible.
But it’s only a matter of seconds before I see two men start to follow me from the corner of my eyes. One steps out of a side alley and flanks me from a short distance, and the other falls in line behind me with footsteps that sound increasingly loud, indicating that he’s closing the space between us. I look up ahead, trying to gauge how far there is for me to go before I can get to my apartment, and whether it’s likely that I’ll make it there. It’s not.
