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“Come on.” Viper took her hand and tugged her along. She kept looking back at the two dead bodies, shocked and speechless. He ushered them through two different doors, but she wasn’t paying attention.
“Who were they?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
He pressed her against a wall as he cracked open another door. She tried to focus and get her wits back. They were about to enter the front foyer of the house. She could hear voices, and imagined there would be a lot of security at the entrance. The sun had faded, and there was little light in the corridor. According to Viper her stepfather’s hired men had killed the media crew, destroying her entire plan. Instead of laying claim to her fortune, she was a rat in a maze where everyone wanted her dead.
A man with an automatic weapon was waiting on the other side of the door. He aimed at Viper, and Pepper screamed. She watched in horror as several other men rushed over, shouting and brandishing firearms. What have I done?
Viper used a Glock with unbelievable accuracy, aiming and shooting, taking them down one by one. More footsteps echoed in the house. He dropped his gun, shrugged off his jacket, and reached into a holster for another weapon.
She crouched down low, watching Viper move about like a one-man killing machine—shooting, punching, and flipping men like a choreographed dance.
He was slightly out of breath when he finally checked on her. “You’re doing great, baby. Time to go.” Viper helped her up to her feet, but was blindsided by a huge man dressed in black. They crashed into the opposite wall, drywall raining down from the impact. Both men were powerhouses, bare knuckle boxing back and forth with no holding back. Viper was in his fitted t-shirt, strapped with weapons. His muscles were straining, and she prayed he was capable of coming out on top. If anything happened to him, she was as good as dead.
“Fuck,” Viper cursed, taking a shot with a gun but missing when the brute knocked his arm to the side. The bullet whizzed near Pepper’s head making her squeal.
“Submit, fucker!” The other man used the same moves, making it impossible for one to overpower the other. This hired gun had a shaved head with dark stubble and tattoos on his neck. She wasn’t sure which man looked scarier.
More gunshots fired, and then they were both on the floor, wrestling. Viper got the other man into a head lock, his massive biceps bulging as he applied intense pressure. Within minutes, the man’s body went limp, and the house seemed eerily quiet again. Only the sound of Viper’s heavy breathing broke the hush.
“Is he dead?” she asked, crawling over to Viper. He had blood coming from his lip and a blackening eye. She wanted to kiss every inch of his face, so relieved he was okay.
Viper shook his head, pushing up into a sitting position. He leaned against the wall. “He’s just out cold. I couldn’t kill him.”
“Why not?” Of all the other hitmen, this guy seemed like the stiffest competition. She didn’t want him to wake up and kill her man.
“His name’s Bain. He’s a ghost from my past.”
Chapter Nine
Back at another motel, Viper paced the length of the room right near the front door. The lights were turned off, and as much as he wanted to join Pepper in the shower, he stayed to guard. Now was not the time to be enjoying a nice fuck before bed. He needed to get shit dealt with. It was like thinking about Bain had brought him out of thin fucking air.
“What’s the news?” he asked the moment Boss answered the call.
“That the attack on the media has been considered an accident. One of the hitmen dressed as a reporter opened fire, and killed them all. None of them were rolling their cameras, but the security footage on the outside of the building confirms it. As far as law enforcement is concerned, one crazy man whom they can’t identify did it. Fucking assholes.”
Boss didn’t sound impressed, and what concerned Viper was what he sensed was coming next.
“Viper, either Sutherland goes down, or she does. It’s one or the other. You can’t keep her alive forever.”
“I know.” He glanced toward the shower.
“Can you do it? Can you kill her? It would end all of this. We have the ten million advance. Kill her, get it over with, and return to your life.”
Any mercenary would see the instant they were pushed into a corner. There were too many risks. They had taken out reporters now, and it was only getting worse. “Bain was there.”
“What?”
Bain was not only someone from his past, he was also someone that Boss had tried to bring into the fold.
“Yeah, he was there. I couldn’t kill him. Look, I know I should just take care of everything, and we’d be up financially, but I can’t do it. I can’t … kill her. I don’t want to.” He rubbed at his eyes, feeling the strain of everything. She had admitted that she loved him. It had been during the throes of sex, but those words had meant something to him.
It was stupid, but no one in his entire life had ever told him that they loved him. No one. He’d always been a thing to train for them to get to be a killing machine, and he couldn’t kill her, not even if he wanted to.
“I didn’t think you’d kill her.” Boss sighed on the other end. “She is not going to last much longer, Viper. The kills on her head, I looked into her family’s fortune, and it’s fucking huge. We’re talking an empire forged hundreds of years ago that has only gotten stronger. It has survived so fucking much, and continues to. They employ hundreds of thousands, and they actually have a good work ethic. She’s far from a pampered princess.”
“You want her to live?” he asked.
