Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
But he didn’t have a chance to figure out why. His brain was already falling down a black hole that had opened up in his head. He scrambled and clawed in his mind, but it was too late.
Chapter 7
Alexei stood in front of the unconscious man tied to a chair in the middle of his living room. He was exhausted and still covered in sweat from his run through Paris and hauling Soren’s—Nick’s—heavy ass up to his apartment. Luckily, he had a guy on call to help with awkward jobs such as hiding bodies, moving bodies, and occasionally setting fires to dispose of bodies. He was nicely paid and was smart enough to not ask questions. Alexei was pretty sure he’d received some side-eye for this particular call, though.
At the moment, he was feeling like someone should have smacked him on the back of the head. Not only did he fail to kill his target, but he’d brought him to his own apartment. It was insane. He knew better than this, but all of it was throwing him off his game. Never in a million years did he expect to one day hold the contract for a hit on a man he’d slept with. Of course, he’d never expected to sleep with a cat burglar. Who did that?
Oh, and then there was the fact that he’d knocked off two assassins to save the target for himself. Because that was totally what he’d done. There was no way he’d saved Soren’s—ahh…Nick’s life and not planned to complete the contract himself. He was not protecting Nick. He was going to kill him.
Growling to himself, Alexei jerked off the stupid hat he was wearing to help hide his face and threw it across the room, where it bounced off the wall before sliding under the sofa. He grabbed his phone and immediately called Marilyn. He did not give a shit what time it was on the East Coast.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded in a rough voice. It sounded as if he’d woken her from a nice deep sleep, but he didn’t care.
“What’s wrong? You said that the contract wasn’t going wide for several hours. Hours, Marilyn. My target was intercepted by a pair of assholes who thought they could steal a contract from me.”
“I’m assuming you showed them the error of their ways,” she replied. There was a rustling of fabric, and he couldn’t decide if she was climbing out of bed or getting comfortable for his incensed rant.
“Of course! Fucking bastards! This contract was offered to me first. It’s mine!”
“But you also knew that it was going wide.”
“Sure, but not for hours. We last talked barely more than an hour ago. What the fuck happened?”
“He changed his mind.” She made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, which did not help to calm his temper.
“Changed his mind? He can’t fucking change his mind.”
“Alexei—”
“Don’t fucking Alexei me! I had time. For those bastards to already be in place to intercept the target, the contract had to be wide well before we spoke.”
“Then maybe you should consider that the assassins you encountered weren’t there because of your contract, but for another reason.”
That thought stopped him in his tracks, instantly chilling his temper and causing his stomach to knot. The guy who wanted Nick dead wasn’t the only one. Someone else wanted Nick dead. That meant that he potentially had a hell of a lot more competition for Nick’s head and the hard drive. This complicated this job greatly if he couldn’t get his hands on the hard drive fast and get rid of Nick.
“I can hear that I have your attention now,” Marilyn said in her oh-so-smug voice that made Alexei want to beat his head against the wall. But he couldn’t argue with her. She was right. She’d brought up an angle he hadn’t thought about.
“Excellent,” she continued, “have you taken care of the target yet?”
“No. I’m still in the middle of things,” he mumbled, glancing over his shoulder at Nick. The man was still slumped in the chair, his arms tied behind his back and ankles tied to the chair legs. His breathing remained slow and steady, but Alexei was starting to think that he needed to locate a gag or at least some thick tape to place over his mouth. This could get loud soon.
“I suggest you hurry this along and get to the end of things. While you’re doing that, I will dig around to make sure your contract isn’t wide and see if there’s any chatter out there about this cat burglar.”
“It would be greatly appreciated.”
Marilyn snorted derisively and ended the call. With a heavy sigh, Alexei shoved the phone into his pocket and flopped down on the couch. What the hell was he supposed to do? Yes, other than kill Nick. Not that killing Nick was a problem.