Page 41 of Huntsman
It’s the number of bodies packed into this warehouse. Who the fuck actually enjoys being around this many people? That’sgotto be a sign of a psychopath.
Though my gotdamn skin feels like it’s about to crawl away from my body, the plus side is it’s easier for me disappear in this crowd. Even with my height and size. But my job is being a shadow, to move unseen and unheard. Before, I believed it was something my mentor, Derrick Trudell, had taught me. I don’t belong to Creed, but Derrick does—or he did. You didn’t get chances to make errors with that organization. You failed, you died. It’s how they maintained a reputation for excellence and a roster of only the best assassins.
But I’ve never learned to play well with others.
I had an opportunity. After Derrick found me on the streets of New Haven, by rights, he could’ve killed me. After all, I’d mistakenly witnessed him take out a federal judge with a predilection for young boys. Instead, he took a thirteen-year-old me under his wing, fed me, taught me how to hone and diversify the skills I’dacquired way too early. How to make money at it. At sixteen, I was as good as him. At eighteen, I surpassed him and was invited to join Creed but declined.
And at twenty-six, I lost the only person I’d been able to call friend since losing my family.
All these years, I thought he’d given me this talent for murder, this gift of violence.
Now? Now, thanks to fucking Eshe Diallo, I can’t dig it out of my mind that maybe I was born with some twisted, perverse genetic code for it.
Since Eshe’s revelation about my father—about my family, their death, and Abena’s hand in it—a couple of days ago, I haven’t had a chance to deal with it.
Nah. I’ve refused to deal with it.
For thirty-three years, I’ve held one belief. One sacred belief about my life. My family has been on this glistening, clean, incorruptible pedestal that can’t be stained by who I am. Mordechai Bowden, construction worker, and Sharon, kindergarten teacher. Normal, loving parents who, through no fault of their own, created a monster.
But if what Eshe said is true, I’m not just a monster but the spawn of one.
Rage boils in my gut, rushing for my chest and head, and clenching my jaw, I deliberately shove the emotion behind a steel door and lock it. I’m good at that. Compartmentalizing or just burying shit so deep, it ceases to exist.
It’s what I did to Malachi Bowden.
Until Eshe called him forward.
Another reason to despise her.
Eshe saunters through a closed door just under the glassed-in “box” that holds a luxury suite. It’s as if just the thought of her name invoked her like fucking Candyman, except my hate’s so great, I didn’t even need to call her name five times, just once. My gaze skates over Penn Dawson and Tyeesha Vega standing on either side of her before it latches back on Eshe. Homes in onthe perfect thrust of her breasts, barely covered in a cropped, black long-sleeved sweater that shows off a stomach with enough rounded flesh for a person to sink their teeth into and bite. The tight black leather that embraces the wide flare of hips created for a man to hold as he beats that wet pussy up from the back, watching the hypnotic rippling of her ass and the creaming on his dick. On the same leather wrapping around thick thighs and strong calves. She’s this gorgeous, threatening Amazon who doesn’t need those knee-high laced boots to appear powerful. She exudes strength, might. They seep from her pores like an animal’s pheromones, and even from this distance and over the teeming crowd, I can scent her.
Cedarwood.
Earthen musk.
Violence. Like the electric sizzle in the air just after lightning strikes.
Sex.
I hate that I can identify it.
Hate her for embedding it in my nose, my head, my skin so that erasing it—erasing her—is next to impossible.
A flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye snags my attention, and I lift my hands to my hood, tugging on it and hiding more of my face. Grim gratitude sparks in my chest, reminding me why I’m in this pit in the first place.
This.A familiar song hums inside me. As I glide forward, slipping through the patrons whose focus is fixed on the ring, the whispered melody steadily grows until its sweet aria fills my head, my veins.
The tall, muscled figure clothed in a hoodie similar to mine, a puffy coat, and jeans doesn’t notice me as I slide up behind him. His first mistake? Staring too long in Eshe’s direction. Too obvious. Second mistake? Using a flashy-ass Desert Eagle. The fuck?
Third mistake?
Coming for her.
I didn’t think it would take long for Abena put out anothercontract on her niece. But damn. The bitch moved fast. This amateur will surely be the first of several gunning for her.
Eshe is mine to kill, and no one’s going to watch the life leak from those hazel eyes but me.
In one motion, I throw an arm around his shoulders, and with my other hand, I snatch my deadlock dagger from the sheath at my waist and shove the blade between his third and fourth ribs, tearing through his lung and puncturing the heart. I twist the dagger, ripping through vessels and tissue, destroying the organ beyond repair. To anyone looking, we probably appear like one friend helping his drunk-off-his-ass boy stay on his feet.
