I’d stopped outside, though, to make sure that Kyle was the one to reach for his drink and take a sip, not some random stranger who mistook his drink for theirs or something like that.
I was about to walk away when I saw him take a big drink, big enough to be sure there was no way he was making it through the night.
But then there he was.
Like a dark savior, throwing a fit, making sure the domestic abusing, rapist asshole got some help.
Saving his life.
I didn’t want to think someone who foiled my plan and compounded a family’s pain as attractive.
The problem was, there was just no denying it.
He was tall and a lithe sort of fit with inky black hair that teased his shoulders. He had a square sort of face with deep-set dark eyes, a stern brow, full lips, a straight nose that tipped up a bit with a small bullring piercing, high cheekbones, and piercings in either cheek.
I couldn’t place his ethnicity. He could be Indigenous or Asian, maybe even mixed with South American or Hawaiian.
I had no idea.
What I did know, though, was that he was probably the best looking man I’d ever seen in Shady Valley. Which was saying something because, despite most of them being criminals, most of them were stupidly attractive.
It wasn’t just his perfectly commingled DNA, though, that gave me pause, that made me stop and stare for a long moment.
There was something dark and haunted in his eyes, something that called to me, called to the part of me that understood that look all-too-well.
But attractive or not, he fucked up my plans for the night. And he needed to be taught a lesson.
It was a baby dose.
I mean, I kept all my blades dipped in a diluted belladonna mix. That way, if someone attacked me, even if they got away with it, they wouldn’t go free, because they’d be easy to track down to the local hospital.
Paranoid?
Maybe.
But I’d learned in my past how vulnerable a woman could be in a world full of wolves.
And my job also made me a possible target.
I would always rather err on the side of caution.
So, yeah, it was a tiny prick to his skin and a minuscule amount of belladonna getting into his bloodstream.
He hadn’t even been brought to the hospital, just to the local doctor.
But hopefully, he would take it as a warning. To mind his own damn business. I didn’t get involved with his biker club and whatever shady business they were involved in.
The knock at my door ripped me out of my swirling thoughts, making my pulse pound in my temple and throat, some part of me paranoid that Kyle had figured me out. Or the hot biker guy.
Most likely, though, it was Everleigh, wondering why Kyle was still alive.
She’d paid me, after all.
And I had that money earmarked for a mix of supplies I would have to get at the local market, and kiln time at the pottery studio the next town over. I had orders that needed to go out soon, or people were going to start getting antsy. I’d been dragging my feet because my savings was getting low again. And the idea of dropping money—even if I knew I would make money from doing so—made me anxious.
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed one of my blades just in case as I made my way toward my front door, suddenly cursing myself for not having a peephole.
Pulling it open, I didn’t find Kyle.
Or the biker.
Or even Everleigh.
Oh, no.
It was Nyx.
In all of her dark-haired, tattooed, sex-goddess gorgeousness.
“What the fuck, Morgaine?” she hissed, shouldering her way into my little house.
I didn’t have any friends.
That said, Nyx was as close as I got to having one.
And by that, I meant she knew where I lived and she knew what I did—both for a living and as a side gig.
She knew this mostly because I’d needed to use The Bog more than once in the past.
Not to, you know, kill anyone, just to fuck with them.
Those didn’t pay as much, but they were more frequent. Cheating husbands or boyfriends, deadbeat dads, with wives or baby mothers who needed an outlet for their anger and bitterness. That kind of thing.
The actual killing jobs were extremely rare.
In fact, the night before was the first time I’d ever attempted a hit in public. Usually, there were ways to avoid that. Especially because public often meant, these days, cameras.
“It shouldn’t have gone down like that,” I told her, following her into my small house where she stopped in the kitchen, one hand slapped down on my kitchen counter.
“Yeah, no shit,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, I had to fucking wipe the cameras, Morg. That was really risky for me, but you didn’t exactly give me a choice.”