Page 7 of Hero & Villain (Super Serum Billionaires #1)

“It’s so romantic! Your first kiss is responsible for sabotaging your engagement. Do you think he’s getting revenge for you leaving him on the roof, or do you think he just wants you available so you can date?”

“He wasn’t my first kiss,” I muttered as I went through the rest of the papers. The trail was thin, but it was there. Dirk Dagger and James Prescott had too many ties for it to be a coincidence, and the photos clinched it.

I shook my head because I needed to think. “Why would a blue blood become a show horse, as much of a prostitute as I am? There’s nothing respectable about MMRW.”

She squeezed me so tight that it would probably leave a bruise.

“You aren’t a prostitute; you’re a supervillain who uses seduction as part of your arsenal.

Seduction is perfectly respectable as far as villainy’s concerned.

And now that you’re over this fiancé thing, you can focus on what’s important: revenge! ”

I grabbed her in a tight hug and couldn’t breathe through the tears that clogged my throat. “Thanks.” I held her even tighter until she squeaked, and I let her go, once more completely under control. “Did you figure out why Prescott’s made my business his?”

She shook her head as she picked out a printed picture she’d sent me on my phone of the funeral I hadn’t been able to make, Nitro’s funeral.

It was a selfie of her, Dirk Dagger, and a few other team members.

Toni had aqua hair streaked with purple and some little bolts and nuts tied in it as a nod to Nitro’s usual style.

He looked rough. That was his last season running a team.

He’d disappeared from the limelight for a few years, apparently building up Geotech, the company that screwed me over, and being drunk.

The next picture showed Dirk laughing with someone, him in all black, her in Barbie hot-pink. Girlfriend? He looked happy with her. Maybe I could destroy her while I was in the neighborhood.

“His sister died right before Nitro,” Toni said, touching the picture.

Sister? Why did I feel relieved and guilty? I snarled back at her. “So I should be gentle with him because he’s hot and has a tragic backstory? If he didn’t want to play with tigers, he should have stayed out of the lion’s den.”

I froze while she stared at me, both of us paralyzed by the awfulness of that mixed metaphor.

Finally, she burst out laughing and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m saying, use his wounds and weaknesses against him. Obviously. You don’t owe him anything just because he’s your first kiss.”

I made a face at her. “He wasn’t my first kiss.”

“CPR from your cousin doesn’t count. You spent hours trapped in that elevator with him before you got to the roof and made out with him for real.”

“Fifteen minutes in the elevator. It only felt like hours.”

She gave me a smug smile. “So…you know the target in a way I can’t download no matter how much research I do on either of his identities. What’s his weakness?”

I chewed on my bottom lip, then stopped abruptly when I had a tactile memory of his lips against mine. No. I wasn’t remembering that. Not any of it. I’d worked through my fear and moved on. Except that didn’t seem to be true, not if the way my heart was tingling was any indication.

I scooped up the papers and the cuffs and headed for the basement.

“You can run, but you can’t hide,” she sing-songed after me.

I gave her a look over my shoulder. “Yeah? What do you wanna bet?”

She grinned at me. “That’s right. You can’t run from your past, but you can hide from it.”

I rolled my eyes and took the papers down to the experiments room, where I’d come up with devices for various diabolical purposes. Like that can opener, which doubled as nail clippers. Very diabolical.

I sat down on the bottom step and started laying the papers down on the steps in what looked like a mess but was how my brain thought.

Patterns. Motives. Character. Who was Dirk Dagger Prescott, and what weaknesses could I use to scoop out his intestines and leave him for dead?

Metaphorically. Probably. I hadn’t stabbed anyone in years.

Unless you counted that guy in the bar, but I used my shoe. Shoe stabbings didn’t count.

It had been so long ago, I shouldn’t have been able to remember, but the second I opened the door to the past a crack, it all came rushing back.

Me sniveling in the elevator, clinging to the bar for dear life, and him wrapping his arms around me like he could block the fear with his sheer muscles. The thing is, he literally could make everything bad disappear in his hug.

I could still smell him- he had smelled like cherries and chocolate so strong I could almost taste him; cherry schnapps and dark Belgian.

I curled my fingers to keep them from shaking. I’d been so terrified- not an altogether illogical reaction if you think about it, but then again I made a point not to.

This wasn’t about my weaknesses. It was about Dirk Dagger’s.

My hands were shaking no matter how tight I made my fists, and my heart was constricting my breathing again. I shook my head and exhaled a steady breath.

So when I was eighteen, I’d gone to Las Vegas to do all the things: watch my crush racing live, and overcome my fear.

I shook my head and refocused on the papers.

Maybe I was too close to the target to analyze properly.

No! I might not be able to hack properly or save Mr. Maples, but I’d die before I let a pathetic old crush turn me into a loser.

I was not losing my freedom and position in my grandfather’s company to Philippe.

No. I squeezed my eyes closed and then looked again, forcing my emotions back into lockdown.

Dirk Dagger had an arm over Toni’s shoulder in the selfie, but it was protective, how I’d put my arm if I thought she was threatened. He’d taken Nitro’s death hard. He was fearless as far as his own life was concerned, but when it came to being responsible for other people…that was his weakness.

And the elevator. Why would he save a sniveling idiot from her own fear, replacing terror with the memory of the hottest guy in Vegas kissing her?

He had a soft spot for helpless females.

He played the game because he liked to be strong, to win, to face the volcano and spit in it.

But he needed a dose of hero worship, which meant that he had to play hero.

“I know that look. You’ve got him.”

I jumped, only then noticing Toni sprawled on the step above my paper mess.

I shrugged and straightened the papers I’d bumped.

“Not long after my big birthday trip, Dagger quit running the team. Apparently, when Nitro blew herself up, he took it personally. I should have realized he was an irrational rich boy when he thought that he was responsible for her death. Everyone knows that she was a ticking time bomb, a lot like you but fueled by nitromethane instead of acrylics. Your way is much less flammable. I approve.”

She shrugged. “You keep me busy so I’m not too bored. I’m only self-destructive when I’m bored. About Dagger…” She leaned forward, blue eyes intent.

We had almost the same color of eyes. I studied her and then the picture of Toni with Dirk.

In the photo, she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

I should have gone with her, but I couldn’t go back to Las Vegas and face my humiliation.

My grandfather would also kill anyone I dated who wasn’t approved.

Legitimately dead. Body in the bay. He didn’t want me to end up like my mother, getting knocked up and falling for someone disreputable like a musician or a fighter.

I grabbed the other photo, the one where the bored rich boy blended so well.

He was ridiculously handsome, but he looked boring, not dangerous, nothing like the knight who had rescued me on top of the tower.

I wouldn’t have picked him out in a crowd.

He knew how to disappear as well as I did.

Why, though? Why would he choose to spend his time taking punches for the entertainment of the masses when he could be making serious money?

And why had he targeted my fiancé? Former fiancé.

I’d never seen him at any of the events I attended with Clint, even though there was obvious proof that he’d been there.

How had I not noticed him? What else had I missed?

I’d recognize that mouth anywhere, in spite of the new small scar on the edge of his upper lip.

The mouth was the same- soft and supple, strong but silk.

I shook my head. I didn’t focus on men’s mouths.

That would be weird. I had a reputation to maintain: ice queen, not creeper.

His mouth was nothing. He was nothing more than a disinterested playboy, exactly like Clint the first time I’d met him.

Of the two, Clint was probably more handsome. Maybe. I wasn’t thinking about Clint.

How would I seduce Dirk Dagger, who lived in the land of vice for a price? Is that what I was thinking? Seriously? I was too close to this project to be certain I wouldn’t be compromised. But I wasn’t about to let anyone else take him down.

Toni sniffed. “Come on, Vil. What’s the plan? How are you going to destroy him? What do I get to do?”

My mind raced as I went through his files, both personal and professional.

I didn’t answer her for a long time while I examined each piece of his soul and dissected it.

He hadn’t publicly dated since the funeral.

Even before that, he had no type. He went out with blondes, brunettes, different ethnicities, as long as they were beautiful and didn’t mind not getting a second date.