If it’s possible my body stills even more. Except for my bloody heart. It thumps loudly in my chest. This is what I’ve been waiting for, for seventeen years—this chance.
“Kill, and you will no longer take orders from anyone. Kill, and your debt will be paid. Kill, and you’ll owe me nothing. Kill, and you’ll be free.”
Free.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Freedom.
My father is offering me what I’ve sought all these years.
But I doubt doing this will indeed set me free. If anything it will bring me deeper into the darkness with him. And he knows that.
It doesn’t matter. This is what my whole life has been leading me toward—this final kill.
Who am I kidding? This won’t be my final kill, but maybe it will be the last one I do for my father.
I growl. My father doesn’t tell the truth often, at least not to his men. He doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone, but he’s never lied to me. So I have no reason to believe he is lying now. If I do this, then I’ll be free. At least of him, but never this club. Never this life.
I nod, agreeing to his terms, cementing my place in hell.
He pulls out a pen from his pocket and takes the napkin on the table where his drink sat. He scribbles on it, then hands it to me.
I unfold the napkin and stare at the name before downing the rest of my scotch.
Kai Miller, you’re a dead man.
4
Kai
I feel him before I see him.
I shouldn’t know how he feels when he’s around me. I’ve only met him once. I’ve barely had time to study the curves of his face. Barely had time to notice the richness of his voice. The small wave of his hair. The light scruff on his face. The way he walks, tall and strong. I shouldn’t have noticed any of it, but I did. And now I could sense Enzo out of a crowd of a million. I would zero in on him immediately.
I sense him approaching easily; he sucks all the oxygen out of any room he is in, casting a dark shadow as he moves like a predator. Even though I’m standing on the front deck of a large yacht and there is air all around me, I can’t breathe.
Enzo’s steps are quiet, I shouldn’t be able to hear his feet hitting the dock, but I do. He moves silently, a skill I’m sure he uses to his advantage to do whatever nefarious things he spends his days doing.
I try to ignore him and continue mopping the wooden floor of the yacht, but it’s hard for me to pretend I don’t notice him.
His feet still on the pier next to the yacht and my arms slow their movement as I stare down at his dark black boots.
Boots? Why the hell is he wearing boots?
It’s summertime in Miami. Most people here wear flip-flops, boat shoes, or go barefoot. The only people who wear boots around here are those that work. Those that clean or catch fish for money to bring back to their families. People like my father or me. Not the kind that was handed daddy’s money. Enzo doesn’t understand anything about hard work. He’s a spoiled rich kid.
I can’t help but curl an eyebrow up as my eyes travel further up his body. Gone is the dark pants and buttoned-down shirt, replaced with jeans and a tight black shirt. He looks like he could disappear into the night, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon.
Enzo folds his arms across his chest, and he looks at me sternly. A look I’ve seen plenty of times from my father when he’s about to give me a whooping. The look is meant to intimidate me into doing whatever he wants, but it takes a lot more than a look to cause me to worry.
I suck in a breath and then get back to work. I’ve almost finished cleaning the yacht. It wasn’t as disgusting as the one I did last week. That one had puke, piss, and blood all over it. I’m hoping the second one I’m supposed to clean is as easy as this one.
“Thief,” Enzo says.
Shit.
But of course Enzo noticed I stole his watch. He realized immediately that I took his wallet, even though that was the plan all along. To get him to catch me stealing his wallet, so it would be easier to steal his watch. I just didn’t think he would care enough about his watch to track me down.
There is no point denying what I did. I can’t pretend he lost his watch or he was the victim of a desperate pick-pocketer. We both know what I did.