I am very protective of what’s mine, and Holly is my number one priority. Everything else can go to hell for all I care.

  Chapter Three

  Kian

  The rounded rims of the healing balm are heavy in my hand. The content inside is pricy and rare to have. Only a couple of people know how to make this formula, and it takes days for it to come together to create the best and quickest cream for wounds.

  I happen to know a man who does this for a giving, and he is bringing in more money than the CEOs of many international corporations.

  This formula is made from unstable chemicals that are reactive in dangerous ways when it’s not properly mixed. I have more than enough money to pay for a lifetime supply of the cream. My jobs give me ample opportunities to make money.

  People with means and endless funding call for my help to take out whoever is on their mind. I don’t ask questions and finish the assassination on time.

  I only accept bitcoins through an untraceable account with the client putting half a million as a down payment and the other half a million once I send proof of assignment completion.

  Those millions have been sitting in my offshore accounts for years, unused and stacking higher as the days go by with new jobs from less than honorable clients.

  I’m not a man with white morals, and grey is laughable. I do things that people are appalled by, and I would have been sentenced to death more times than I can count on my hands.

  I have had blood spilled on my hands, wounds forming permanency on my body and a crooked continuum of good and bad.

  It is why the idea of Holly is not good.

  She shouldn’t ever be in the vicinity of me; she’s too pure for a wicked soul like mine, too young for an old killer to obsess over, and too naïve for a wanted man to risk exposure.

  Holly makes me weak, and for the first time in my life, I want to be weak if it means that I can have her.

  For a day, an hour, even a minute of her time would settle the crushing fear in me that another man would whisk her away when I’m not looking.

  Isaac Verille.

  That name is bitter on my tongue; I despise him for being able to show himself in public, hate him for what he represents, and I loathe how easily Holly got into the car with him as if she had known him for years.

  She’s too gullible, and I know a man with crude intentions when I see it. Verille is one, and I am on the same boat as him; neither of us wants to scare away Holly.

  I’m a killer, and he is a nefarious lawyer.

  Our reputations lean on the side of darkness rather than the heroic type that deserves her, but to hell with that, Holly deserves what’s left of the humanity in me.

  I would do anything for her the moment I laid eyes on her; the innocence and the impulse struck a chord in me. I knew that she was too special for a world of full of pain.

  Seeing her through the scope of my rifle on the last job was not what I intended to see when she walked past the four bodyguards that protected the diplomat that I was hired to assassinate.

  One look and I was in her spells, and I had to find out what she was capable of and to see if she was a threat. She was anything but dangerous. She was just a smiling girl going on about her life and ignorant to the violence around her.

  I decided then that I would protect that glow of innocence.

  I had more work cut out for me than I anticipated. Isaac Verille had the same train of thoughts as I did when he showed up at the apartment where I had set up camp. After his private investigator received the message with my fists, it was time for the big boss to come and see what had caused a ripple in his plans.

  There was a mutual understanding, and that was to never disturb Holly’s life, but we knew that we were not meant to sit back and let life take its course. We are men of action, and it was only a matter of time; one of us would make a move and life had thrown us an opportunity at the coffee shop.

  I would be a fool to ignore it.

  I also wouldn’t be a man if I had let Holly be harmed and not do anything about it.

  “Oh! You’re the guy from before!” Her happily shocked voice rings with laughter when she opens the door.

  She didn’t even look through the peephole or ask who was at the door.

  This needs to change.

  I don’t approve of her trusting nature. She could be opening the door to her killer, and I am a killer in a sense. If I wasn’t so smitten with this girl, I would have broken in and taken advantage of her.

  I thrust the jar of cream into her hands. She fumbles to catch it with wide, brown eyes darting left and right until the rounded glass container settles to her chest.

  “What’s this?” she asks, gazing up at me with her head tilted back.

  She’s tiny, and it doesn’t help that I’m much larger than the average men.

  “For your bones,” I said, voice rough and deep.

  I don’t use my voice a lot., I live a life of solitude, and it serves me no purpose to talk to myself when I’m preparing to assassinate an unfortunate person.

  Many assassins use tactics such as imaginative exercises to pass the time when they are at the end of the scope. Remaining in one position for a prolonged period of time is a difficult thing to do and it takes much practice to be able to perfect it.

  Some keep their minds blank and focus on the target, but most assassins imagine any scenario in their mind and let it play out to the fullest fantasy.

  I’m one of those who keep my head blank when I’m focusing; the distractions are what makes mistakes easier to present themselves.

  “Thank you, sir,” she grins.

  Only she would be happy to see me. Anyone else would be running the other way with their tail tucked between their legs.

  “Make sure to put on a substantial amount three times a day for five minutes; keep using it until it is empty. I don’t want to see any of it left.”

  She tries to keep up at my clipped words. The sky is still bright as it was only in the afternoon when she returned home from her classes. Holly has two lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and three on Mondays and Wednesdays.

  Her routine is predictable and it’s what predators look for; she has a pattern, and it makes me feel the need to be on high alert for her. How she can survive in this world for years before is beyond me, but what matters now is that she doesn’t have to worry about the darkness that prowls in the shadows.

  I may be in the shadow for her protection, but I am not someone who brings intentional harm to her. I would never do that, I may be a criminal, but Holly is that one soft spot that gets treated with care.

  I understand those in my line of work who have weaknesses. It’s also a strength that keeps them going through tough times. Some of them even made it out of life-threatening injuries with sheer willpower and the thoughts of someone waiting for them to return home to.

  Assassins are human; they talk, and words get spread around the underground network.

  “So, three times a day… uh, what?” Holly’s voice brings me back.

  I sigh through my nose and narrow my eyes at the nervous tick at her pink lips, “Listen carefully.”

  She nods dutifully and keeps her big eyes widened in alert while she listens, but the more I’m exposed to the outside means my chances of facing the police would increase.

  Neighbors are nosy and annoying at best.

  They have nothing better to do than to randomly call the police when they’re the one with the biggest voice on privacy issues and unreasonable searches.

  “Do you want to come in?” she asks before I could voice my thoughts.

  “Do you always invite strangers in?” I ask back with a hiss.

  I know she doesn’t because I have been living under her apartment for a while now and she doesn’t have visitors. She has no boyfriend and no family to knock on her door. I’m glad that there is not a man in her life that I have to kill.

  “You’re not a stranger!” she pouts, opening the door wider for me to step in. “You helped me this morning with Mr. Isaac. I didn’t even have the time to thank you yet.”

  Mr. Isaac, that name shouldn’t come out of her mouth.

  I want my name to be etched on her tongue when she’s writhing under me, moaning and mewling so prettily that she begs for my cum.

  “Do you want anything to drink?” she scrunches her nose, “I only have water. I probably shouldn’t have offered options.”

  She laughs at herself, scratching the back of her neck with her hand. “Water?”

  “No,” I say, taking my boots off out of respect for her home.

  She looks down at the cream and raises an eyebrow to skeptically look at the rounded glass. It doesn’t have labels or ingredients on it. It’s just a clear container with white cream inside, it looks more than questionable, but the confusion leaves her face far too quickly.

  “How’d you know where I live?” she tilts her head, those long, brown locks sliding down her shoulders.

  My fingers itch to run them through her hair, “I live below you.”

  She pauses, her nails stop scratching on the glass jar. “You’re my… landlady?”

  “Landlord,” I correct her with a glare.

  Her shoulder jumps in shock, “I’m pretty sure when I signed my lease, it was a seventy-year-old woman that watched me with a stink-eye.”

  “She went into a nursing home,” I explain briefly, and Holly once again becomes a naïve girl.

  She doesn’t ask for any other explanation; she should be asking for my identification and proof of residence at the house; the most important thing is to have me verified to see if I’m telling the truth.

  “Huh,” she shrugs, “What should I call you? I can’t just call you landlord; that sounds disrespectful. I mean, nothing’s wrong with that, you might like it because you earned the title. I’m not judging, some people like being called professor or sir, so I don’t mind calling you landlord. Oh hey, Duke of—”

  “Kian,” I say, stopping her babbling.

  She catches her breath with a wheeze; her flushed cheeks redden more as she laughs. Holly shifts her weight to the other foot while she nods faintly, the stain on her cheek runs down to her neck and I stop myself from hooking a finger to the collar of her shirt and look down to see how far it goes.

  “Kian,” she mumbles my name, testing it out with her voice and she beams.

  “I like it!”

  It’s not my real name, and it’s been years since I have abandoned that identity. I no longer require it in my life and Kian is the new me that I have made for myself.

  Kian has no ties to anything, and it’s an identity that people can find to offer me a job. The reputation is built around the name and having multiple identities that need to be burnt is an unnecessary burden.

  No one can tie my crimes to the name, and the name can’t be connected to my face. I am cut off of my sins, and it works in my favor with the increasing demands of my service.

  After the previous job, I haven’t taken another one.

  I don’t think I want another one. My only priority is Holly and the murky future of my life. I can’t keep watching her forever, not when Isaac Verille is making his move and infiltrating in her life like a parasite.

  I should have gotten rid of him the moment I found out the private investigator was hired by him, but that would bring a lot more trouble than I need at the moment.

  “Sit down,” I command her, and her ass plops down on the couch.

  Her body listens just as I expected. I kneel while taking the cream in my hand.

  “Wow, déjà vu,” her words have no context. I’m left in the dark about her thoughts.

  “Lift your shirt and pull down your pants,” I say, twisting the cap open.

  Her stammering is squeaky and humiliation trembles through her fingers, “What? No, I can do it myself—”

  “Now,” I growl, commanding and it leaves her no room to argue.

  I know what my voice can do to people; it’s the innate fear of submission to an alpha male when I demand what I want.

  She tentatively lifts her shirt, revealing her quivering stomach and pulling down her jeans just enough to let me see the edge of her lacy white panties.

  My cock stirs to life in my black pants. She’s too focused on looking at the wall behind me to see the desire coiling and thickening on my shaft. I’m constantly hard for her, and she has no idea what she does to me just by being oblivious of two men watching her every move.

  That’s not what I should be thinking right now. The bruise has taken over in various daring shades of black, purple, brown, and green.

  I get straight to work and scoop a big dollop of the cool cream on my fingers. The first slather on her skin makes her hiss and whine in pain; I'm as gentle as I can be, but I have never been someone who is tender to anyone. It’s a foreign concept that I’m still trying to grasp.

  “Ow, be gentle,” she whines, lightly slapping my shoulder.

  “Do you want it to heal faster or not?” I frown up at her.

  She wrinkles her nose and looks down at the cream that’s being absorbed into her skin. The absorption rate is too quick for a cream this thick, and I’m still amazed at how well this works despite having used it numerous times on my wounds.

  Knife and bullet wounds mean nothing when I put a generous amount on.

  “You don’t have to press so hard. You’re going to break my already bruised hipbone if you keep it up,” Holly sniff with teary eyes.

  I ignore her. I wouldn’t be causing her pain if I had a choice. The cream needs to be absorbed into her skin for it be active its healing properties. She’s going to suffer through my rough ministration for better results.

  The heat of my fingers and from her skin makes it quicker as it’s no longer pasty white on the ugly bruise.

  “I should have asked before you put that on me, but what’s in it?”

  I take my fingers away after rubbing them on the curve of her hip; I tighten the cap to make sure all the creamy content is tightly sealed.

  “You wouldn’t understand it,” I remarked offhandedly.

  She huffs, lifting her jeans and pulling her shirt down. “I might understand it. I have taken honors chemistry in high school.”

  “I do recall you talking to yourself about the complexity of Ionic Compounds Formation.”

  Holly clears her throat at the deadpanned tone in my voice as I stay on my knees, “Salt in my wounds, Kian. For the record, Chemistry is a general requirement for graduation, and it’s the only class that fits in my schedule.”

  “You don’t need to make excuses,” I scoff as I move to stand up.

  She follows me as I tower over her, “Not excuses, they are legitimate reasons— wait, how do you know I’m taking Chemistry?”

  I drop the jar of cream on her coffee table. For someone who likes iced coffee, her apartment doesn’t have one whiff of caffeine around. She even said she only has water, but it would be more practical and budget-friendly to buy instant coffee and make it herself at home.

  “You talk to yourself, and you’re loud.”

  She gasps, offended with a hand slapping to her chest. “I’m not loud! I’m just expressive, and it helps me memorize the information better.”

  “Oh no. Am I keeping you up at night?” A flash of horror swiftly dances across her pretty face, “Am I being that unwanted third wheel to your dates? Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry—”

  I grasp her chin with my big hand. It nearly swallows her whole neck as I feel her jumpy pulse. Making sure she’s giving me her undivided attention, I speak in a very clear tone that punctuates every word.

  She doesn’t need misunderstandings.

  “There is no one, and I’m not seeing anyone.”

  Her lips round in shape, “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. Stop putting shit in your head,” I rub her jawline with my thumb, caressing the soft skin as she gulps.

  “I just thought that you’re really attractive; it only makes sense that you bring dates home every night.”

  She winces with a blush, “That sounded better in my head, sorry.”

  I rub a thumb down her neck to feel her swallow. The effect I have on her is monumental as she’s a nervous wreck. It’s a pleasing discovery, and I want to find out just how far she’s willing to let me do something to her.

  I will save that for another day.

  There is something I need to take care of by nightfall.

  “Come lock the door and put a chair against the door handle,” I wave a hand for her to follow me as I turn my back.

  She can’t hurt me in a more vulnerable spot on my body, and I’m right when I don’t feel an ounce of deviance on her.

  Holly does question about the chair with her delightful curiosity.

  “It’s for your own safety,” I explain the best I can without giving away too much information, “Crime in this area has gone up, and you would be safer since you’re on the second floor, but it’s better if you put a chair at the door.”

  “But I’m always fine without it—”

  I spin around, snapping my hand around her neck and dragging her towards me. Her soft body presses to mine, rubbing and tempting me to crush her to my older, muscled body from years of being on the job for hire.

  “Not when there are others out there who can do this to you,” I sneer down at her, glaring into her brown doe-eyes.

  Fear is not apparent, but there is something swimming in her eyes that I can’t put a name to.

  “You’re doing it,” she whispers, “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “Never.”

  I made myself a promise that I will never hurt her. I have given the duty of protection as my new goal in life when I saw her.

  She doesn’t know it yet, but she needs me to be there for her.

  “Lock the door and put a chair against it, understand?” I repeat with more force around her throat.

  She whimpers with a nod.

 

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