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Wait, I wasn’t supposed to think of him like that.
“Creed,” I spoke his name. “What are you—”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said, stopping only when he stood directly before me, his hands sweeping up into my hair and pulling my head back, forcing me to gaze into those dark irises of his.
Something in me twisted, but not in a bad way. It was like the deepest parts of me had yearned to hear him say that. For whatever reason, it felt as though I hadn’t seen him in ages. I opened my mouth to say that I’d missed him—because I had, more than anything—but then he did something else.
He kissed me.
He bent his head down and brought his lips to mine, stealing away whatever breath was left in my lungs and all the words I might’ve said. He kissed me like he’d gone his whole life waiting for this exact moment. Everything led up to this.
My eyes were open, at first, and I was so shocked at the kiss, but then… then something changed. Then I kissed him back, and the whole world faded away around us. I leaned into him, put my all into the kiss. My heartbeat kickstarted, beating faster and faster until…
Well, until I woke up in a sweaty daze, staring up at the dark ceiling.
Needless to say, I yelled at myself a lot in my head after that, and I never fell back asleep. I just couldn’t turn my mind off. Everything in me seemed to scream for Creed, and no matter how much I wrestled with myself over it, regardless of how I tried to convince myself otherwise, the feeling only grew stronger.
God. I had the feeling what happened last Friday night was only the beginning.
Chapter Twelve – Creed
I purposefully took my time on the job because I didn’t want to rush home. Taylor was fine; I would’ve been alerted if something had happened. It was unusual for me; typically I accepted a job, left straightaway for it, and completed it with remarkably fast efficiency. I was good at what I did, and I liked to think I inherited some of my skill from my mom.
But even skill couldn’t save you all the time. Sometimes your targets fought back. Sometimes they managed to deal a fatal blow to you in the midst of completion. Of course, that really all depended on the job and how the client wanted it done. Some didn’t care, so a bullet from a silent gun would suffice. Others wanted their targets to suffer, and as such chose close-up, hand-to-hand ends.
If you wanted safe employment, you didn’t work for the Guild; that went without saying.
I took my time in following my target, learning their daily mannerisms, where they got coffee each morning before work, where they went to lunch, how many minutes after five they worked each day. Hint: between two and three. My target was pretty timely when it came to clocking out for the day.
Damn near a week passed, mostly because I let it. Because, once I was finished and the body was disposed of, I’d have to go back. Go back and face what I’d done. I could only ignore my actions for so long; sooner or later I’d have to face them, and I feared there was no going back now.
And it was all because I couldn’t stop myself that night, because I couldn’t stand back and let Taylor throw herself at some random guy. I’d seen enough of them on the couch to know exactly what she’d wanted, and the thought of her hooking up with some random asshole filled me with righteous anger.
I’d decided that night I wouldn’t let her, and I made the decision for her. She hadn’t liked it, and if I knew Taylor, I’d say she probably still stewed over it—another reason why we each needed our space. We were alike in that way.
Thursday night I made my move on the target. I broke into their house after checking to make sure they didn’t have any cameras set up on the doorbell and near the garage. Home security didn’t make it impossible to break in without being seen… it just made it harder. Harder was not impossible, though.
The target lived in a bigger than average house, but he lived alone. I’d bet anything if he had a family, he would’ve had better home security. As it was, he worked a decent job and made enough to pay his bills… and apparently piss someone else off in the process, someone with a lot of money.
And if there was one thing about money, it was this: it could make everything disappear. It could do anything. Every single person in this world could be bought, you just had to find the right amount.
It was why the Guild existed; our clients were usually the wealthy sort, the kind who took personal affront to snubs. They were the type of people who never wanted to dirty their hands themselves, so we got dirty for them.
We stole for them. We lied for them. We killed for them and we cleaned up the messes. We were contract killers, mercenaries, men and women who devoted their lives to the Guild and everything it stood for.
One good thing about working for the Guild was the early retirement. One bad thing was, sometimes that retirement wasn’t planned, and it came with your death. Such as it had been for my mom.
I tried not thinking about it, because when I did, I got angry. To the outside world, it had been nothing more than an accident—a car crash that had left her dead. To the Guild and to me, on the other hand…
Let’s just say when you were about to complete a contract, you made sure to sweep the premises. Sometimes mistakes were made, sometimes there were other people around you didn’t notice, and when they made themselves known to you, you slipped up, and your target managed to gain ground. Sometimes they managed to take your weapon from you and beat you with it, over and over again until you were a bloody pulp.
I hadn’t seen her, afterward. The Lioness wouldn’t let me. She had a closed-casket funeral.
But, enough of the past. Back to the present, where I waited for my target in his bedroom. Black leather gloves sat on my hands, their length just enough to fit snugly over my wrists. I stood near the window, my back against the wall just beside it. I wore all black, blending into the shadows of the bedroom, and I held onto a small pistol, a custom silencer screwed onto the front end of the barrel.
Guns were my preferred method, but sometimes I had to get up close and personal with them. I gave them only what they deserved.
I didn’t take every single job I could, you see. I was very particular about those that I accepted; I didn’t kill just to kill. That was what differentiated me from my mom. My mom could separate herself from the job, but I couldn’t. I was a weapon in the form of a man, and because of that, I only took the jobs that I deemed worthy.
