Page 14 of Cruel Pawn (Cruel Duet #1)

Priya

After his bland breakfast, he drove half an hour to ‘the office’ where he proceeded to fuck around and not really accomplish much while his team scurried about correcting any messes he made for the media company.

Then at five, he drove home, arriving at four minutes past six exactly.

Which made me frown when the surveillance around his estate showed no movement.

We had a date tonight at a charity gala, and I wanted to know how much time I had left before he came to pick me up.

I was right in the middle of something and didn’t want to be disturbed.

Plus, it’d be a little hard to explain to my new boyfriend why I was obsessively staring at photos of a car crash where two mangled bodies were visible inside.

I needed to remember why I was doing this, why I got close to Freddo, and why it was vital that I schmoozed the details of his daddy’s money from him tonight.

I already knew his fortune was split between three offshore banks, and that one was in Switzerland.

All I needed to know was whose name it was under, because the Lynches’ search had turned up nothing.

It wasn’t in Freddo’s name or his mother’s or any of his siblings.

That was all I needed—a fucking name, then the experts could do the rest, and I could finally rid the world of slimy breakfast eggs and even slimier kisses.

And the idiot thought I was going to sleep with him? I’d literally rather fuck a fish.

(Nope. Changed my mind. The vision was making me retch. And the thought of the smell— )

“Come on,” I muttered, scowling at the camera footage of Freddo’s gates. He had the whole place rigged up with CCTV which made my job a whole lot easier. He was just asking for someone to stalk him. “Where the fuck are you?”

It was ten past six now, and there was no sign of him.

By twenty past, I recognised it as a true break in his schedule and frowned.

Was he balls deep in some poor, unsatisfied woman right now?

I scanned the traffic alerts but found no reason he might be slowed down.

And he had gone to work this morning, right?

I skipped between camera feeds just to prove to myself he had left, and his car was clearly—

“Oh, that’s not good,” I muttered, staring at his sleek silver car. It was parked in his garage, as if it had been there all day. Freddo never left.

A pit opened in my stomach. If he’d done something stupid and got himself killed before I could end him and claim my money…

I didn’t know what I’d do. I couldn’t come this close and fail.

Again. I needed that name. I needed justice for my parents.

I needed it. It was what I breathed for, what I worked for, what I devoted my whole life to.

I kept flicking through the feeds, jumping from his garage to the gardens to the pool to the gym to—

“Huh.” I frowned at the feed for his living room. All it showed was static.

I hunched over my laptop, clicking buttons I didn’t even know the purpose of, trying to activate the camera from within Freddo’s systems. It took me two frustrating minutes to come to the conclusion that the camera was fucked. Or the line had been physically cut.

A trickle of unease went down my spine as I stood, already moving to my room, where a false back in the wardrobe revealed my Kevlar-reinforced jacket and trousers, and two dozen weapons.

I took whatever I could feasibly hide on my person and dressed quickly, throwing a flowing red sundress over the top of the pants, stepping into soft brown boots and completing the ensemble with the jacket.

Hopefully no one would look at me and think contract killer first, fashion second.

I needed them to think I was a fashionista then wonder about the leather.

I could get away with this in Camden, but Oxford was a harder sell.

Maybe if I had a beret…

But no way was I going to Freddo’s semi-mansion unarmed.

It wouldn’t be the first time a client had hired two killers for the same target.

There was a chance I’d catch a rival mid-murder, and that would only end in a bloody, gruesome fight.

Or I’d pick up another friend I couldn’t get rid of, like the first time a client doubled up.

Not that Silvio had been any good at killing.

The ride to Freddo’s house passed in a blur of stress.

I couldn’t erase the gory images of my parents’ bodies mangled in the wreckage of their car.

Not just because of the crash but because their killer took a serrated-edged blade to their throats, their chests, their torsos, and cut vertical lines through each of their eyes.

It was more than just making sure the job was done; whoever killed them enjoyed themselves.

They had fun while they ripped my whole world out from beneath my feet.

And soon I would do the same to them. I just needed to kill Freddo first.

My car skidded to a halt outside the gates to his flashy home, propping my laptop open on the seat beside me and flipping through the tabs I had open until I found the commands to open the gates.

I wasn’t a tech prodigy like Silvio’s flavour of the week, but I knew enough to get my job done, so it only took me a minute to get the gates open, then I was speeding through, veering into an arc outside his front door.

I jumped out and left the door open, left the engine running as I slammed into my target’s front door. Cold trickled through me when I found it unlocked, but that wasn’t unusual. You hardly needed to lock your front door when you had a crazy security system and your own gates.

Inside, it was eerily still, but again, that was normal.

Huge house, with only one guy who lived here and a housekeeper and cook who dropped by twice a week.

Of course it felt big and empty. I wanted to call out Freddo’s name, but I knew better than to give away my location.

Instead, I palmed a dagger’s handle and crept through the foyer, scanning the gleaming white space, the black accents, the grand staircase that led up to bedrooms on the second floor.

But it was deeper into the ground floor that I went, towards the room where the cameras had been killed.

I paused a few steps from the living room, putting my back to the wall and listening for any signs of life—not just from Freddo, but from anyone else the Lynch family might have sent to kill him.

My dagger fit in my palm, the feeling of a weapon in my grasp like a homecoming.

I enjoyed the acting, the charade, the con, but this was where I really excelled—the killing itself.

The rush of adrenaline, the slow thump of my heart, the shiver of excitement across my skin.

There was no sound, not even a sigh or shuffle, so I crept forward on silent feet, peering into the living room.

Shit. A sigh escaped before I could stop it. There was no one in the living room. No one alive, at least.

In the middle of the white rug, Freddo slumped where he’d been tied to a silver chair from the dining room.

He was utterly naked, covered in so many cuts and hacking slashes it made my parents’ murders look tame.

And someone had cut his dick off, I noticed with surprise.

Bright, crimson splashes turned the ivory sofas into an abstract art piece far more successful than anything I’d painted.

The hard wood floors beyond the rug were bloodied too, and it even arched in vibrant splatters on the walls.

Droplets had reached the elaborate glass light that hung from the ceiling, and streaked the flatscreen TV that really had no reason to be that big.

It was an impressive mess. I might have even admired it if this didn’t lose me sixty thousand fucking pounds. This was supposed to be the last job before my revenge crusade. It was supposed to buy me vengeance.

I drew another knife as I turned slowly, my ears pricked for any noise, but the killer would be long gone. Freddo’s body had been there long enough to stain the rug in a wide pool, and no killer worth their salt hung around to get caught. Still, I felt better with two weapons instead of one.

Especially when I faced the glossy bar along the far wall and saw blood-smeared words on the wall behind it, stark crimson against pure white. My temperature dropped, a chill making me shudder.

SHE’S MINE.

That meant this was the work of a scorned husband or the boyfriend of one of Freddo’s many flings.

I knew his womanising ways would catch up to him, but I’d hoped it would result in a broken nose, not a fucking murder.

His death was mine. And this complicated things.

A contract killer would have left the scene immediately, but a passion-driven murderer might—

Air rushed my back, the warning too late for me to react. A cloth pressed to my face, forcing sweet, drugging air into my nose, my mouth. I cut off my air, but I’d already taken an instinctive breath, and my lungs screamed at me for more.

I slashed both knives behind me, the first carving through open space but the second biting into flesh, blood spurting over my hand.

“I missed you, too, my opera,” said the voice that haunted my dreams, a sensual brush of whiskey and velvet.

I gasped hard, my whole body breaking out in goosebumps. I thought I’d been about to be murdered, but this was much, much worse. And the gasp pulled more drugged air into my lungs, the tell-tale sweetness of chloroform on my tongue.

“But don’t worry, I’m here now.”

I struggled, but I was already wilting, my strength fleeing, and all I succeeded in doing was dropping my knives.

“I’m here now,” Arden repeated with aching softness as consciousness was forcibly ripped from me.