Page 1 of Reckless

Chapter One

STELLA

Gemini

Your daily horoscope: Stay indoors and forget the past. Trouble awaits should you venture out. Take today to veg out and get some much-needed relaxation. Your brain and body will thank you later.

I should have stayed the fuck home, but no. I just had to go poking around in the lion’s den. Rain pelted my face as I ran, breath tight and sweat mixing with the precipitation. Even with my hood pulled down tight to cover my identity, it wasn’t enough to keep out the downpour. My feet slapped hard against the wet pavement resulting in a steady staccato beat that matched the hammering of my heart.

The man that chased me was too close behind. His equally labored breaths sounded like they were only a few short feet away. If I slowed, I knew he would kill me without hesitation. My chest squeezed but I had to keep going. I hadn’t come this far to give up now.

Ice cold wind whipped off my hood and my loose brunette hair tangled with the air, smacking me across my face as my foot caught in a pothole, twisting my ankle with a stabbing pain that curled up my calf. Goddammit. That would slow me down.

It was so dark I could hardly see past what little the streetlights could illuminate with their flickering lights cutting through the thick, rolling fog.

Limping, I turned a corner and then gasped in terror at the ominous brick wall that lay at the end of the alley. I was trapped. Shit.

A moment later, the man’s long shadow covered the ground in front of me, reaching into the depths of the dead-end alley, eating up any hope I had of escape. There wasn’t anywhere for me to go. His menacing, raspy chuckle echoed off the high brick walls that caged me in as my heart raged inside my chest.

“Come on, sweetheart. There’s nowhere for you to go,” he said, lighting and taking a long drag of his cigarette like he had all the time in the world. Even in the dim light, I could tell by that grating edge to his voice and menacing shadow exactly who had been chasing me. Kenneth fucking Carlisle. The lackey and head hitman of the Underwood Crime Family that ran this godforsaken town.

The flash drive full of files I’d stolen felt like a brick in my pants pocket weighing me down and reminding me of why I had to escape. I’d die before I let that bastard have it back. I worked far too hard to get it. I couldn’t give it up. Not when it could lead me to my twin sister, Andromeda, who’d been missing for well over a month, and whose last known whereabouts were directly related to that rotten fucking Underwood family.

I’d see them all dead at the edge of my knife if they’d hurt her.

Inhaling, the air smelt heavily of trash, and decay, and my own demise if I didn’t find a way out of here.

Think, Stella, you’re better than this.

Too bad I’d dropped my gun somewhere on Nebula Drive when I was hanging out the window of my getaway car, shooting at my target. Shame, I liked that gun too. My only weapon left was the knife strapped to my thigh. It would have to do. Good thing I had a better aim with a knife than I was with a gun.

The car I’d stolen had crashed into a telephone pole several blocks back from here, leaving me no choice but to escape on foot. Someone had blown a tire in it with a well-placed bullet, and I was fucking pissed about it. Especially since I cracked my head on the steering wheel and could taste blood in my mouth from where I’d accidentally bitten down on my tongue upon impact.

Ankle throbbing and pulse hammering, I reached for my weapon, knowing that I moved fast enough, I could maybe jam it up into his fleshy neck before he had a chance to shoot me down. I flipped the knife in my hand as I contemplated the best course of action, when a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. Its thunder shook the ground and stole Kenneth’s focus long enough for me to make my move.

Bingo.

Just as he turned his head to look back at me, I was there, knife in hand, pressed tightly against his pulsating jugular.

“I wouldn’t want to be doing that if I were you,” he said, swallowing hard against the sharp tip. He thought his position in life made him safe from me. He was wrong.

“I wouldn’t go presuming to tell me what I want to be doing,” I spit back, pushing the knife into his flesh— just a small slice but enough to make my point. Blood welled from the cut, and I watched in sick satisfaction as a small bead of crimson rolled down onto his white collar, staining it.

He smelled of cigarettes and stale alcohol. And a fresh bruise coated his cheek, probably from some stupid skirmish at the casino where the Underwood family reigned. His busted-up hands were raised as if he were surrendering, but I was no fool. Kenneth was a skilled killer. A lap dog hired to carry out orders. No matter how brutal or illegal those orders might be.

He’d seen my face and recognition sparked in his cold, soon-to-be dead, eyes.

“You won’t find her, you know,” he said with a cruel tilt to his tiny mouth.

Anger flared deep in my gut, and I sunk the knife in a fraction farther.

I knew killing him would be a reckless decision. One that could have me hunted even more than I already would be if they ever found out I was the one that stole from them. But he’d seen my face, and that just wouldn’t do.

“Where is she?” I asked, the tip of my blade fully pressed in now. He had seconds left to his name.

He sputtered blood out of his mouth and laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world to him, only angering me further. Specks of warm scarlet splattered across my face as he fought to breathe.

“Taken out by a little girl. Who would have thought,” he said, sounding garbled and half underwater before his legs went slack. I watched as his entire weight dropped with a sickening thud at my feet. Pulling my hood back up to hide my identity, I looked down at the wretched man that had caused the misery of so many. What a pathetic, yet unsurprising end to his reign of terror.