Page 7 of A Past Too Broken (Bloodstained Love #1)

W aking up with my head pounding, mouth dry, and arms secured to a chair after being drugged by some fucking twink isn’t my idea of a good time.

The room I’m being held in is dim, which my head is thankful for. Ignoring the pain, I turn my head and scan my surroundings, hoping for some indication of where I am—or who grabbed me.

Locking eyes with the person in the corner of the space, I try to pretend I’m not affected, even as my breath catches and my heart begins to pound. Zay watches me silently as he brings a cigarette to his lips.

I wrinkle my nose as I watch him. “Those things will kill you,” I rasp through my dry throat.

He takes another drag of his cigarette and smirks as he blows smoke out. “I’ll take my chances.”

Clearing my throat, I try to get my thoughts in order. “Having kids do your dirty work now? Clever.”

Zay lets out a short bark of laughter. “I’ll have to tell Molly you called him a kid. I’m sure he’ll love that.” He extinguishes his cigarette on the cement wall behind him before pocketing the butt. Making his way over, he stands directly in front of me. His golden brown eyes meet mine, and every instinct in me is screaming to look away, but I can’t. Aside from the fact that looking away would show weakness, I find myself sucked into his gaze, hypnotized by the intense look in them.

“What do you want?” I ask, ignoring the tingly feelings his proximity creates in me.

“Oh, so many things, but for now, you can tell me whether it’s a coincidence that you keep showing up on the same jobs or if you’ve been stalking me.”

I smirk, though it feels false. “You’d like it if my answer was the latter, wouldn’t you? Want me to say you’re important enough to waste my time on?”

The pain of his fist to my face is expected, though my already aching head protests being hit. Pain is easier to absorb and deal with than talking, especially since I can’t—won’t—give Zay the answers he wants.

“You knew I was there both times,” he says. “What I want to know is if that was deliberate or not.”

I give him a bloody smile before spitting at him. He doesn’t react. He just waits for an answer, face impassive.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” I concede, hoping to move this along. “Though you should up your situational awareness. I saw you, yet you didn’t know I was there. I know I’m good, but for someone of your reputation, you should be better.”

He frowns, and his golden eyes seem to glow with frustration. “You should know better than to take someone else’s kill.” He pulls out a knife and taps it against my already aching face. “You don’t want to gain a reputation as a kill stealer, Min,” he says quietly. “In this business, our reputations are everything, and having a negative one… Well, I’d hate to see you end up dead.”

“Good thing I’m not easy to kill, then,” I reply.

He taps his knife against my cheek. “You sure about that?”

“Kill me then.”

“I should,” he mutters. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

Glaring at him, I bite out, “You had me fucking kidnapped, and I’m tied to a fucking chair. If you don’t kill me, you’re wasting both our time. I’m too tired and my head hurts too fucking much to play these games with you.”

He smirks, his eyes lighting up. “Oh? Not into games, are you? Does taunting me not count as a game?”

Wiggling in the ropes tying me to the chair, I try to determine how loose they are.

Zay watches me struggle for a moment before pulling the knife away from my face. “I won’t kill you if you tell me why you stole those marks.”

My heart races and I fight against my restraints again. “You don’t need to know that. So either kill me or let me go. I promise I’ll make your death easy and quick.”

Zay studies me, questions burning in his eyes, but his expression doesn’t tell me one way or the other which way he’ll go. “It’s almost kind of pathetic to do it like this,” he muses. “After all the work you did to not get caught. I didn’t even know who you were until Cash narrowed it down for me. That you’re almost as good as Molly is at staying under the radar makes me wonder why you’re not more established.”

I give him a feral grin. “I’d rather jump into a volcano than have any associates , or whatever you call each other.”

He tilts his head. “It’s not for money. My sources say you never contacted the contract holders for the money.”

This whole conversation is giving me a headache on top of the already existing one, and I’m not stupid enough to admit that that never occurred to me. I wouldn’t even know how to go about something like that. I can navigate the dark web enough to pick up jobs when I need the cash, but I’m not entrenched enough to figure out how to steal more than the kill from someone.

It’s not about the money, not for me. But I can’t tell Zay that. I refuse to give him leverage over me.

“If your plan is to bore me to death, you’ll be happy to know you’re succeeding.”

“Are you so quick to die, Min?”

“Anything is better than sitting here listening to your nonsense.”

“Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll give you what you want.”

Eyeing him, I consider my words, unwilling to give up so easily, but wanting to end whatever this is. “I kill those who need to die. You can’t tell me you’re ignorant about the crimes your marks commit.”

He studies me, his gaze unnerving, but I refuse to squirm under his scrutiny. “I know the guy the other night was a known and convicted child molester. Even after his prison time and all the warnings he got, he was still doing the same old shit.

“It’s why I was there. The client was willing to pay a pretty penny to end his life.” He leans in, gaze steadily on mine as he says in a low voice, “I don’t do this for fun, Min. I’m not interested in justice, or avenging the victims like so many of the clients who hire me are. It’s a job, one I happen to be very, very good at. That you’re so willing to put yourself at risk to get rid of the scum on earth is admirable, if foolish. I’m not like you, though.” He leans in even more, his lips a hair’s breadth away from my own. “Fuck with my job again, and you’ll never get the chance to regret it.”

I let out a gasp as he brushes his mouth ever so softly over mine, my aching, touch-starved body desperately begging for more.

Zay smiles, his teeth catching on my bottom lip, and then pain explodes through my head, making me dizzy and stealing the sight of his golden eyes as he pulls back.

* * *

I wake with a splitting skull on the floor of the room Zay’s been holding me in. I don’t know how much time has passed, but as I slowly glance around the room, I discover I’m alone.

Sitting up, I swallow back the nausea as movement makes my brain throb. When I’m sure I can stand without throwing up, I do so, almost falling over but managing to keep myself upright.

The room is thankfully still dim, and I take my time looking around. There’s not much here: the chair I was restrained to sits in the middle of the room, there’s a table against the wall behind the chair, along with a cot. Besides a cupboard with a few blankets and a bare bones first aid kit, there’s nothing else.

It’s clearly someplace to lie low for a few hours before moving to a safehouse, and now even that purpose has probably been blacklisted. There’s no way Zay or any of his associates would risk coming here now that I’m aware of it.

On the table, there’s a bottle of water and a sachet of pills, plus a note. It takes a moment for my eyes to focus enough on Zay’s messy scrawl to understand the words.

Better luck next time, Min… Until then, consider this your one free pass - Z

Crumpling the note, I stare at the pills and the water, trying to decide if I trust him not to tamper with them or not. The stabbing pain in my head decides for me. Fuck it, dying has to be better than trying to think through this pain.

Throwing back the pills, I take a long, much-needed drink of water and lay down on the cot. The world spins as I try to get comfortable, but I close my eyes and clutch Zay’s crumpled note in my hand as I wait for either the headache to lessen, or for death to take me.