Page 46 of Mercenary

Rescued her? Like I’m a goddamn hero? No, assholes like me don’t do chivalry. We don’t save lives, we take them. It was my goddamn pit-bull instincts keeping me coming back to sniff around Madelyn’s trailer, like some randy beast in heat . . . “Fuck.”

“You call it fuck.” She smiles at me, but when I don’t smile back, she says emphatically, “Fuck? Are you telling me you fucked me? Funny but all I remember is a birthday kiss.” A blush spreads across her face and she looks away.

Is she flirting with me? Does she have any idea of the power in that word coming from her sweet lips?

It takes all of my willpower not to punch the dashboard. Or park, tug her out of the pickup, bend her over the flatbed bumper and screw her six ways to Sunday. Take what I want without dwelling to deeply on the whys. Because whatever this is . . . it’s going nowhere. Just a matter of time before the other shoe drops. For all I know, Hayden might issue a hit on Madelyn. A victim of circumstance. A pawn in this screwed-up game we’re playing. Where everyone understands the rules, the consequences of their actions—and in Kylie’s case—betrayal. Hayden’s rules no matter if our target is a fellow TORC member. Everyone knows the score, except . . . Madelyn.

The only fuck Madelyn is going to get is me fucking her over when I catch her sister.

“Kylie always did say the Shelby police are good at one thing . . . sucking. The Pricks at the compound outside of town and the mobsters who’ve ruined our quaint town can do whatever they please. Kill my father without consequences. Drive good folk out of town. Cause an undercurrent of fear within families who’ve stayed. That Homeland Security needed to investigate the goings-on in Shelby. Is this who you’re working for? Is Kylie somehow involved with Homeland Security?”

Fuck. Too damn close. How would she react if I told her TORC is the evil stepbrother to Homeland Security? That her sister is a hired mercenary? A spy. A killer just like me?

“No more questions.”

She sits up and faces me with eyes flashing. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

God, she’s beautiful. Far too naive to understand the clusterfuck of a situation she’s in. Damn it but I feel the urge to prepare her, in some way, for what’s to come. “What’s worse, a lie or a broken promise?”

“Both.”

“Pick one,” I insist, now curious what she’ll say.

“You go first.”

“Easy. I’ll take a lie any day.”

She stares at me, a frown marring her forehead as she tries to read through the lack of expression on my face. Like she’s deciphering braille or some shit chiseled into marble. Good luck with that, baby.

“You’d rather be lied to than have a promise be broken?”

“Yeah,” I say simply.

“Sounds like someone’s left you hanging. A parent?”

Parents—plural. Pairs of parents. Repeatedly. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy foster child.

“I’m sorry whoever it was hurt you.”

I don’t respond. No goddamn way am I discussing my fucked-up childhood with a woman far too perceptive for her own good.

“Kylie always keeps her promises. It’s a matter of pride.”

But fuck, can Kylie lie, I think.

“So how do I know, in what little you’ve said, you’ve been telling me the truth?”

“You don’t,” I answer gruffly.

“And if you aren’t lying to me,” she continues on as if I haven’t answered her question, “you could be headed toward breaking a promise to me.”

I feel my lips curl upward. “I haven’t promised you anything. What promise?”

“The unspoken kind.” She reaches over and places her hand on my thigh.