Page 20 of Claimed By the Villain

Seconds later, everything goes black.

Lucifer

At first, when I see her unconscious, I think I did this to her. And I want to break something for being so rough. But thenI realize—that would’ve been impossible. I know I didn’t use force on her neck.

She’s limp in my arms, and then—I hear it.

A soft snore.

Jackie passed out.

She came so hard, the alcohol took her down.

I carry her to the bed and tuck her in gently. I take off my shoes, pull my phone from my pocket, and lower myself into a small armchair that barely fits me.

Then I watch her.

And even when the sun starts to rise, I haven’t left.

Jackie thinks she loves me. But she’s wrong.

She’s wild. Distrustful. She sees me as her safe place, just like I see her as home. Maybe in another life, there could’ve been something between us, a relationship built on friendship and physical attraction. And that, we’d have in abundance.

I nearly fucked her against a wall. Martin’s little sister. The girl I used to see as just that—not anymore. We crossed a line. There’s no going back. If I get close again, like I did at the club last night—I’ll end up taking her.

And then she’ll be ruined. She’ll belong to me forever.

And even though she deserves better than a life by my side, in the end, she’ll hate me when she learns the truth.

I need to stay the way I’ve always been—distant. Even if it means breaking her heart now.

I get up to leave, but as I pass through the kitchen, I spot a notebook lying open. I don’t mean to invade her privacy when I pick it up, but after reading the first line, I can’t stop.

And now that I know her secret fantasies, I want to make every single one of them come true.

Chapter 10

Days Later

Somewhere in Bolivia

The idleness of inevitable waiting is the part I hate most about contracts. I’m always on the move because free time leaves room for thoughts I don’t want to have.

I walk over to the window of the cheap hotel and look out at the small town in the Bolivian countryside. It’s already past midnight, and the streets look sleepy. Occasionally, the stillness of the dark is broken by a passerby or the sound of a beat-up car dragging itself down the road.

I’m bored, and at the same time, trying to fill my head with anything that isn’t her, Jackie, because I know that if I let the thoughts of what happened in her apartment a few nights ago sneak in, they’ll spread through every empty space inside me, and I’ve got plenty of emptiness waiting to be filled.

There are still four hours until I carry out my mission, a basically bureaucratic job with zero emotion involved:eliminate a low-level Bolivian drug dealer who’s been messing with the big cartels’ business.

This contract isn’t personal. It’s just about the money. I couldn’t care less about the death of drug dealers. Honestly, I even hope the guy who hired me to take out his competitor ends up meeting his own end at the hands of someone like me.

I don’t have a God complex, deciding who lives or dies. I’m the cleaner, the guy who helps make the world a little less fucked up. To me, drug dealers and pedophiles fall into nearly the same category on the evolutionary scale, they don’t deserve to share the air with the rest of the population.

This will be the last job of the semester. I’m at a point in my life where I can afford to take just four jobs a year, and maybe soon, I’ll stop altogether.

I don’t kill for pleasure. Death is my business, the same way fashion is for a designer.

Today’s mission will be clean and fast. No traces. In less than twelve hours, I’ll be gone from this godforsaken place.