Page 34 of Rivals & Revenge

Tossing the lid on the bed, he poured its contents on the bed in front of me, dropping the box near the foot of the bed.

“Hated.” he sneered, turning and storming out of the room.

My fingers trembled as I lifted a perfectly preserved rose from the pile and took in the small label wrapped around the small stem. A date from nearly six years ago, written in small, neat handwriting. Another rose, another date, this one a mere eight months ago.

Tears sprang to my eyes, the words I spoke only minutes ago turning to ash in my mouth as I carefully replaced the roses in the box. Twenty-six white roses. One for every time I beat him to a mark.

Each one meant to be a taunt, yet he treated them like love letters, preserving and dating them.

The urge to go to him rose in my chest and I fought my legs to stay on the bed. Nothing good could come from that conversation. I’d thrown his roses in the trash—exactly where I felt like I belonged tonight.

Chapter 20

AHREN

Eight years ago…

Easy money, I laughed to myself, scrolling through the details of the latest order.

80k

One guy.

No family.

Single story dwelling.

No apparent political connections.

“Should be in and out.” I murmured.

“It’s gonna bean early night, boys. Stay off the furniture.” I tossed over my shoulder on my way out the door, Apollo only raising a single brow in acknowledgement.

Exactly thirty-four minutes later, I drove past the address given, only noting a dark blue VW Jetta in the driveway. I scoffed internally. What kind of man drives a Jetta?

I looped around the block and parked a few houses down. Normally, I would have parked farther away and done some digging into the mark, at the very least, a bit of surveillance.

But this guy was a nobody. That meant easy money. Nobody to guard him; nobody to miss him.

Every footstep seemed to echo down the deserted street. The leather boots that were normally my silent ally, tonight screamed ‘look at me’—that should have been my first sign—the first omen.

The grass hissed against my shoes as I stepped off the pavement, only marginally quieter than the asphalt.

Dodging the bicycles and discarded baseball bats of this suburban hellscape, I made my way through the neighbor’s backyard.

Standing on the horizontal beam, I peeked over the wooden fence. In hindsight, it might have been prudent to kneel and stick my head through one of the broken panels.

The world seemed to slow and speed up at the same time as the mark flipped the kitchen light on. I remembered his shiny bald head, a birthmark staining his temple, just above his glasses, from the picture on the order.

My arm moved on instinct, slotting the barrel of the gun into the groove between the fence slats. A quick tilt of my head to check the shot was good, and I pulled the trigger—just as two men walked around the corner oppositeme.

“Gun!” the first one yelled. Tall and fit with sandy blonde hair, the typical boy next door—a boy scout, maybe.

Light flooded the yard, catching on the necklace he wore. No, not necklace—badge.

“Fucking U.S. Marshalls.” I growled, hitting the dirt as the first bullets flew.

Quickly gaining my feet, I tore through the perfectly manicured landscape, desperate to put some distance between me and the pursuing agents. Heat bloomed in my shoulder as the bullet ripped through, but thankfully, the adrenaline rush kept me moving. My legs burned as I pushed myself to run, not toward my car and the relative safety it might provide, but away from it.

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