2
Jess
A Masked Avenger
Unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to stop shaking, I pace my office and pretend I’m not on the verge of a mental breakdown.
I was almost raped.
I was almost killed.
And my hero is none other than Kane Bishop; the very man I went to Infernos in search of.
I know his name. I’ve seen it a million times on the files littering my desk over the last six months. I’ve stared, I’ve studied, I’ve run searches, but it wasn’t until our eyes met in a dark alleyway that he becamerealto me.
I just wanted to see his face in real life. Not a grainy image. Not a license on a computer. Not a report filled with opinion, fear, and assumption.
I wanted to hear the cadence in his voice. I wanted to see him in the flesh, to get a first-hand account of the dangerous man that is Kane Bishop; hired hitman, hired muscle, illegal fighter, drug runner, gun seller.
Dark and dangerous…savior.
Everything I’ve read about him says cold-blooded killer.
Dangerous. Stay away.
But I went, anyway.
I did my hair, put on a dress I’d never in a million years let my brother see me in, donned heels that I bought a year ago with absolutely nowhere to wear them, and I purposely went in search of a dangerous man.
“Jess?” I jump half a foot off the ground when Juliette Turner, my boss and sort-of sister-in-law, crashes through my office door. I’ve been somewhat…tensesince my run in with the Inferno crew late last night.
Lips twitching, Jules rubs a perfectly manicured hand over her barely-there pregnant belly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. You doing something illegal?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
I should know, seeing as I’m a few short months away from sitting the bar exam. “No. I’m working on the Hayes stuff. He’s got me jittery.”Not even a lie.
Her bright eyes narrow with suspicion. “Slimy bastard. Did you lock him up yet?”
I let out a nervous laugh and hope she doesn’t use her pregnancy nose to sniff the guilt in my sweat. “No. I’ve just been staring at the reports for an hour.” I definitely don’t tell her I was there last night. I don’t tell her I had a one-on-one run in with Hayes’ right-hand man. I don’t tell her of my grand plan to blend in with the other girls, to get inside and see that world with my own eyes.
Not onlydidn’tI blend in; I didn’t even get inside the damn club.
“I’ve got nothing to report. Just a papercut from flicking his pages too fast.”
Snickering, she stops beside my desk with a grunt like she’s nine months pregnant, rather than three. Good luck to her when sheisnine months pregnant with our local chief of police’s baby.
Something tells me my sort-of-brother, one of the many extra brothers I grew up with, wouldn’t dare create a tiny baby.
“Just a papercut?” She watches me move across my office. “What’s with the limp? Did you mess up skating?”
“Ha.” I work to lessen my limp. I’ve got a twisted ankle, aching ribs, and a phantom ache between my legs thatcouldhave been there had Kane not stepped in. “Yeah. I was skating with the girls yesterday afternoon. Fell on my ass.”
Rolling her eyes, Jules sits back and flicks through none other than Kane Bishop’s file. “I don’t know why you do that, you aren’t twelve anymore, Jess. It’s time to do grown-up things.”