There’s exactly one man I trust—outside of my brother. I haven’t seen him since he saved my life after the attack, but I know without a doubt he’ll be able to help me.
However, he’s not a man you can approach and just ask a favor.
You have to force his hand.
15
My knee bounces, intermittently colliding with the underside of Boyd’s oak desk.
The air in his office is suffocating, though part of me thinks that has more to do with why I’m here than anything else.
It could also be the fact that, for the first time, I’m in public without a shred of makeup on, the scars on my face painfully visible. It’s supposed to add a layer of vulnerability, but all it really makes me want to do is hide inside myself.
On the computer monitor, I watch Boyd and Fiona exit Ivers International; they get into his car and head to lunch downtown, leaving me alone in the building.
It’s a Saturday, so the only one working is my brother, giving me the perfect opportunity to continue my plan unimpeded.
Weeks have passed, silence from the sender of the envelope making me nervous. I’m still not sure what’s going on, exactly—only that I need to act before the other shoe drops.
Wiping my palms on my jeans, I let the denim material absorb my perspiration.
Minutes later, a tall, slender figure approaches the front doors; I hit the code on Boyd’s computer, disabling the alarm system and unlocking the building, and the man enters quickly.
Dressed in a trench coat with the collar pulled up around his neck, and a black hat too warm for spring, he crosses the downstairs lobby to the elevators, slipping inside like a shadow.
My stomach tightens, nerves bundling together like that might keep them safe.
Tremors rack through me as I wait, somehow feeling like prey, even though the man in question has no idea what he’s about to walk in on.
At least, that’s the hope. Somehow, I’ve managed to evade his identification over the last few weeks, my anonymity paramount to dragging him from whatever depths of hell a man like him lives in.
Alarm bells ring in my ears as the door handle turns, and for a second, I consider diving beneath the desk and hiding. Throwing away all my hard work because of my anxiety.
I shouldn’t be fucking with a man nicknamed Doctor Death. Definitely shouldn’t be interfering with his recent marriage, especially since rumor has it that he’s willing to kill for his wife.
If rumors are true, he already has.
And that’s not even scratching the surface of the supposed blood on his hands.
Regardless, I force myself to stay relaxed, kicking my feet up on the desk just as the door swings open. If he doesn’t smite me on the spot, I’m hopeful he’ll be receptive to what I have in mind.
“I don’t appreciate having to wait—”
Dark eyes pierce mine from across the room, and his entire stature freezes as soon as he’s crossed the threshold.
“Riley?”
Dr. Kal Anderson looks like Hades himself, if Hades were well over six feet tall and unbelievably attractive. His is a beauty so sharp and focused, it almost hurts to look at him without the benefit of a lens barrier.
He has on an all-black suit beneath his coat, and he reaches up, tugging off his hat to smooth a hand over his inky locks. So much sleek, effortless elegance in such a dangerous man, and he knows it too. Uses it to rule the underworld from the sidelines, content to collect souls while enjoying marital bliss.
As he slowly pushes the door shut, his gaze once again finds mine—irises so dark, it feels like staring straight into an abyss.
I almost swallow my tongue as he continues standing, confusion flashing across his face for the briefest moment.
Latching on to the flicker of an advantage, I feign nonchalance, grinning as he walks closer.
“You sure know how to make a girl wait.” My hand moves toward the armchair in front of the desk, cringing internally at my bumbled attempt at being casual.
Kal glances around, as if expecting someone else to step out of the shadows, and sinks into the chair.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his deep voice stiff and unamused. “Where’s your brother?”
“Boyd’s having an extended lunch with his girlfriend. I was the one who asked you to meet.”
His eyebrows arch. “What?”
“You wanted to know who your blackmailer was,” I say, struggling to keep my hand steady as I sit straighter, pushing a flash drive across the surface of the desk.
He blinks down at the piece of plastic, then looks up at me. “You?”
It wasn’t an easy feat, that’s for sure; blackmail rarely is. Blackmailing a hit man who doubles as a Mafia doctor? Almost impossible.
For the last few weeks, I’ve thrown myself into scouring every piece of security footage that backs up to the Ivers International encrypted servers, searching for something to trap him with.
What better way to grab a man by the balls than to exploit the act of him emptying them?
I never watched the clips, of course. At least, not in full. Just enough that I knew what they led to—sex, go figure—so I could crop, download, and send them to his house.
A house on some tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts that I’d never even heard of until this all started.
I force a smile.
“Kind of crazy how much I’ve picked up in such a short time, but I guess that’s the perk of being around hackers and IT people all the time now. Amazing what you can find out about a person, just by doing a little digging. Even one as private as you, Doctor.”
My voice sounds a hell of a lot more confident than I feel, my resolve shaking beneath the weight of his stare.
He narrows his eyes and something in my chest cramps. “Is that so?”
Nodding, I reach into my purse and pull out another flash drive—this one, the inspiration behind my idea.
See, in order to secure his marriage months ago, Kal blackmailed a Mafia don into a deal of sorts. I’m not sure of the exact details, only that he feigned trouble for his employer in Boston and painted himself as some sort of savior in order to secure his wife’s hand in marriage.
All of this learned within minutes of hacking the don’s home security network, which is much less advanced than Kal’s.
So, I’d taken a page out of his book and did the same thing, forging danger and leading him on a wild-goose chase to track down his blackmailer.
Excessive? Maybe, but there was no way Kal would help me out of the kindness of his heart.
Kindness doesn’t exist in cold, darkened spaces.
I can see him mulling over this revelation; he squints, like he’s trying to process, and delight swims through my veins at the thought that I’ve pulled it off.
That I duped a man known for his cunning, methodical nature, even if the only reason is that he was too distracted by his new wife to pay me much attention.
I’ll take any wins I can get.
Finally, Kal looks up, pocketing the flash drive, and he leans back in his chair, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee. Propping his elbow on that knee, he strokes his stubbly jaw, watching me with an unreadable expression.
“Why?”
It’s all he says, a single syllable uttered so simply, that it takes me by surprise.
I wasn’t really expecting to have to explain myself, although I suppose it makes sense. Leave it to the doctor to want to learn the symptoms of the disease that’s been plaguing him.