“This job will require a bit of recon. I want to be sure we’re getting the right man. He’s used body doubles in the past. Can you handle that?” asked Boss.
In all the years Shadow had worked for Killer of Kings, he’d fucked up one time, giving Boss some bad intel. It wasn’t like him, and sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen again. Boss would probably hold that mistake over his head for years.
“Yeah, I can handle that.”
“Good. Then I’ll text you the details,” said Boss before hanging up.
As much as he would love to direct his anger at Boss, he couldn’t. Shadow had been a foster care runaway since before he could remember. He’d been a skinny, broken teen living on the streets, fighting to survive, when his guardian angel found him at seventeen. The older man had taken him in, showed him the first kindness he’d ever known, and taught him how to fight. He owed Mr. Karpenko everything.
After his tours of duty, his mentor had introduced him to Boss, and the world of Killer of Kings was opened up to him. Everyone working for Boss had to be fearless, ready to go to hell and back for a contract. Shadow wasn’t afraid to live and die by the sword. His fear of death ran deeper, starting with his earliest blurred memories of his mother dying slowly from lung cancer. Mr. Karpenko had been one of Boss’s many informants, and he respected the owner of Killer of Kings—that fact spoke volumes.
Shadow pushed his thoughts away and got out of his car. Just before he hit the panel inside the garage to close the door, he saw a shadow watching him. He immediately reached behind him, getting a good grip on his gun, keeping his hand at the ready.
“Who’s there?”
“Sorry, it’s your neighbor. I wanted to apologize for earlier.”
He adjusted his stance, leaving the gun in his waistband. “For what?”
“You were right. I was following you. It was stupid, I know, but my curiosity got the better of me,” she said.
Shadow narrowed his eyes, staring at Riley Church under the glow of the streetlights outside. She didn’t know who she was fucking with. He’d lost count of his contracted kills. “Curiosity killed the cat, no?”
He refused to turn on the lights in the garage. Darkness had always been a friend in his line of work, and he didn’t want to face her right now. Or ever.
“That was a really bad part of the city,” she said, ignoring his comment.
“And?”
“Why were you there?”
This time he chuckled; he couldn’t help himself. This chick wasn’t his girlfriend or wife. Their only connection was the proximity of their houses. She either had balls of steel or a death wish. “You just apologized for following me, and now you’re giving me an interrogation? Good luck with that, sweetheart.”
“Right. Not my business,” she said. “Thank you for saving me from those jerks.”
Shadow needed to put an end to this before it got out of hand. He didn’t need a friend, a woman, or a private eye invading his life. The only way to ensure she kept her distance was to put a little fear in her, because obviously the scare at the gym wasn’t enough to set her straight.
He slapped his palm on the wall panel near her head, making her yelp. The double garage door began to lower. “Those gangbangers weren’t your real problem,” he said, slow and steady. “You should be worried about being alone with me.”
Chapter Two
“You should be worried about being alone with me.”
Riley nibbled her lip as she thought about her neighbor’s last words before the garage door closed between them. That was a threat, wasn’t it? What other way could it be taken? Sitting along at home, she’d locked all of the windows, doors, and was sitting at her dining room table, with the garlicy pasta she’d just cooked. His words went through her head, over and over again.
That place had been scary. It was a gym, but those men were going to hurt her. She’d seen the glint in their eyes, and she’d never been so terrified. Over the course of her life, she’d gotten into some difficult situations—men wanting a little more than she could give. It was all part of the course of living on the streets.
Sometimes she’d get caught and thrown back into the foster system. No one gave a shit about her, but she was street smart. Riley knew how to take care of herself. When a little randy daddy thought he could try it out on her, she’d held a knife to his dick, ready to take it off.
What she found most ironic about her times on the streets, was the fact the street people were the nicest people she’d been around. Maybe it was because she was a kid, or that she was in the same boat as them so to speak.
It was the other kind of people she had to watch out for—the predators, the ones that trolled the streets looking for easy targets. Riley had seen evil firsthand. She’d looked it in the eye, and stared death straight on.
When she’d been sixteen, a pimp had tried to get her to work for him. First, he’d tried to be nice, offering her food, drinks, and stuff like that, but she wasn’t a vulnerable teen fresh on the street. She’d recognized the routine, and had been warned about it by a couple of the whores she knew. They’d told her not to accept anything unless it was at one of the shelters. She had to treat everyone as if they were the enemy, always expecting the worst. It was a depressing way to live.
Riley pulled herself out of her memories as she really didn’t like delving into her past. She’d reinvented herself, working hard to get where she was with no help from anyone. She finished her pasta, washed her dish, and then made her way to her room. Her bedroom was in the back of the house, overlooking the garden, and she paused as she saw her mystery neighbor outside.
There was something very different about him. He didn’t match the house, the street, the suburb. This neighborhood was all about falsehood. They would speak nicely to your face, and stab you in the back. Riley couldn’t stand fake people.