Deadly Sins (21 page)

The precautions were necessary.

But the terror in her wide, wide brown eyes was so worth it—

Ahhh, and what a hell of a good time his boss was gonna be missin’.

*   *   *

The meeting wasn’t set for midnight; it was set for four. It would have looked too unusual to see his vehicle leaving his house that late at night. Too many would have noticed.

To see him driving into the mountains after noon, though, wouldn’t have seemed that unusual. He did it often enough that it wouldn’t have been remarked upon. And this meeting was too important to allow others to witness.

Twenty-four years, two attempts, and still the job hadn’t been completed. He’d allowed himself to be swayed by intricate plots and imaginative schemes designed to fail and to keep him from his ultimate goal. To ensure he never gained what should have been his all along.

So many years.

When it had begun, he had been a younger man. A man with optimism. A man who believed in all the careful details and plans he had made over the years.

Only to learn that too often there were so many others willing to destroy those carefully laid plans.

That final triumph had been denied him, despite the years and the hard work. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many he killed or how often he conspired or with whom, he had been denied what he had worked so hard to attain.

He had bled for it.

He had shed blood for it.

More than two decades later and still he was denied all he had dreamed of.

He was taking the simpler route now. Time was running out. He was no longer a young man, nor was he in the prime of his life. And he had been fighting this battle far too long, just as his father and his grandfather had fought for what should have been theirs, only to see it taken from them. He should have done this sooner.

As he made the turn into the mountains and drew ever closer to the meeting he had planned, he acknowledged the error he had made from the beginning. This was the route he should have taken. Rather than forcing his partners to stain their hands with blood as well, he should have forced them to contribute the funds.

He should have allowed someone else to stain their hands with blood. Allowed someone else to simply kill those fucking Callahan brats or their fathers before they’d had the chance to breed. To steal what he had thought to claim as his own.

What had he done instead?

Instead, he had allowed himself to be convinced, to feel that smallest iota of sympathy for those incompetent twits he had been working with.

To have mercy on the children.

His father had always told him that killers of children were given a very special place in hell. It had been the only rule his father had, never shed a child’s blood, and neither his father nor he had done so.

And that had been his first mistake.

The second had been in believing the Callahan cousins had given up the fight for the land their parents held when they went off to the Marines.

Clyde Ramsey had somehow known the plot to frame the three young men for murder had only been a stay of execution. They would have died in prison, and Clyde had known it.

Wily, intuitive, that old bastard had ensured the cousins shipped off to the military instead. The one place their enemy had no influence. Then Clyde had fought the battle for them.

That son of a bitch. He was wilier than most and it had taken far too many years to kill him. Far too many years and too many resources. He’d been blocked at every turn, and in those years he’d learned his partners in crime were no more than enemies in disguise.

There had been a time when he had considered letting it all go. A time when he had convinced himself he could do without that dream that his father and his father before him had envisioned.

He’d been willing to accept life as it was.

Then David Callahan had returned to Corbin County. Along with his brothers, he had returned with a hunger for vengeance and a refusal to relinquish the past. That refusal had ensured more blood would be shed.

Pulling the vehicle to the clearing in front of the rotting line shack he’d indicated, he sat for a moment and allowed memories he rarely visited to intrude upon him.

A woman, eyes so bright with life, her hair long and filled with a multitude of curls as she laughed up at him. Her lips were pert and bow shaped, and soft as the finest silk. Her kiss had made him forget about the plans his father had made him swear to complete.

He wanted nothing more than a life in her arms. Nothing had mattered but loving her. Seeing her smile when his eyes opened each morning. Seeing the love he knew would soon glow in her gaze.

Nothing else had mattered.

Nothing—

His hands tightened on the steering wheel as the remembered fury began to rage through his soul.

For years he had courted her, loved her, tried to seduce her. For so many years he had convinced himself that the way to her heart was his patience.

She had taken one look at that Callahan bastard and within weeks had eloped, her belly already filling with their first child.

He had to force back the agonized sound of overwhelming pain that escaped only when he slept. That ripped at his throat each time it raged through him.

She had been his soul and she had torn it out with such a lack of mercy that it had destroyed him. He had never imagined that woman, whose smile was so innocent, whose laughter had filled him with such joy, could rip him apart as she had.

His sweet, precious—

The door opened.

Dark, silent. No flames flickered, no demons emerged, but he knew it for what it was.

The entrance into hell, and he was going to walk into it willingly.

For vengeance.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped from the pickup and moved to the entrance of the old line shack. The one place he had known peace and happiness. Here where he had once met the only woman he loved.

“’Bout time,” a voice drawled, dark and as merciless as pure, blood-red hatred. “Stay in the doorway. I can’t see your face; you can’t see mine.”

But he had no doubt the shadow across the room knew exactly who he was.

“I have no desire to see your face.” He knew who he was dealing with; that was all that mattered.

“I received the down payment,” he was told. “The half million looked nice in my account. Just as the next payments will as well.”

A half million per target, a half million on deposit. Two million dollars. It had taken a lifetime to embezzle the money he had hidden around the world, and now a hefty chunk was missing from it.

“Are you certain this course is the one you want to take?”

He was stepping into hell—for fury and for hatred.

For a past he couldn’t forget.

“I paid the deposit.” He shrugged as though he had never had a moment’s hesitation.

“I have to hear the words,” he was told. “I won’t take the job without them.”

“I paid the deposit,” he protested.

“Doesn’t matter,” the assassin assured him with a slow, amused denial. “I have to have the words. You won’t cry later that you didn’t know the consequences.”

He knew well the consequences, and they would result in the dream that had driven his family for far too many years.

For the most deadly sin of all.

“Rafer Callahan’s bitch Cambria Flannigan. Target one.

“Logan Callahan. Any whore who slept in his bed within the past three months. Crowe Callahan. Any lover he’s had as well that could possibly be carrying his brat. I want no more Callahans to claim any part of Corbin County. And I want the Callahan cousins broke. Frame them for it if possible, but be warned, in twelve years I’ve not been able to frame them for breathing, even though everyone knows they have to do it.”

Silence filled the darkness for but a moment. “Half million per Callahan lover. What if there’s no chance of conception with the lover? Or extenuating circumstances but no conception?”

He stepped into hell for love. “No matter who whores for each of them, I want them dead if there’s even the barest chance of procreation.”

“Done.” Silence stretched between them then. “You can go now. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll ensure the woman isn’t breeding before I go after the youngest of the bunch. I want the strongest targets first.”

“Crowe,” he murmured.

Laughter whispered through the room. “Ahh, how little you know your enemy. No, the strongest isn’t the eldest, nor is it the youngest. The strongest is the one with the least to lose, and the least to love. The other two have other concerns, but this one lives only to see those he loves safe. And there’s very little he loves.”

“Logan.” There was no inflection in his voice; he ensured it.

He was rather relieved actually. It was Logan whose eyes seemed to see the most, whose silence was always the most condemning.

He nodded to the assassin. “Once each target is disposed of, then payment will be made.” Turning, he strode quickly, confidently, back to the truck, slid into it, and drove away.

*   *   *

The assassin moved to the window slowly, leaned against the frame, and stared out at the back of the truck as it drove around the bend of the rough track leading into the line shack.

He scratched the side of his cheek before feeling absently at the growth of beard that shadowed his unshaven cheek and jaw. A frown pulled at his brows and a sense of disappointment filled him.

Hell, sometimes a man just didn’t know people the way he thought he did, because he would have never guessed the Callahans’ enemy was the man who had arrived and reaffirmed the contract to kill.

He just would have never guessed—

The next day

He watched Skye leave, his nostrils flaring, fury burning sharp and bright through his senses.

Resentment was like a heavy, hot cloak, smothering him, weighing him down, and causing paranoia to creep inside.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t right.

He had found the other two.

And now Jenny was dead. Her blood had tasted as sweet as hell as he filled his condom. Her eyes had been filled with agony as he slit her throat.

He’d done everything perfectly when they’d kidnapped and killed Marietta. He’d left her broken body lying in her own blood. Her arms were left tied to the bed. One leg had become disjointed at some point and lay at an odd angle, but that was okay.

And still, still, his boss said he was considering another route because Cami Flannigan still hadn’t been found. Because he hadn’t killed Skye O’Brien?

Lord love them. Not yet. That would be idiocy.

As he’d tried to point out, killing Skye O’Brien right now simply wasn’t a good idea.

Let him take care of Ellen Mason and Cami Flannigan first, then they could discuss killing another of Carter Jefferson’s daughters. But if they killed her before they took care of the others, then the FBI was going to come down on them like a ton of bricks before they could ever finish.

The governor would make damned sure of it, and the assassin wasn’t ready yet to have to attempt to kill three other women and try to do it around a federal investigation that would all but shut the fucking county down.

He hadn’t had time to find Cami, but he’d been working on it. Rafer Callahan had her hidden. They were good at hiding. It wasn’t his fault.

Hell, he wasn’t even going to bother telling him about the contact he’d made, the bodyguard he might have in his pocket now. The one looking for her.

His boss was going to have to give him more time. But as he stared into the other man’s cold, cold eyes night before last, he’d seen the refusal to do so, even though he’d said he would consider it.

He drew in a deep breath.

Jenny’s body would be found in a few days, but it wouldn’t take much longer than that. She might be a little nobody, even to most of the people she worked with, but she did have that brother in Arizona. He would check on her when he missed her calls after a day or so.

If he was lucky, sooner.

Maybe by then his boss would be done considering it.

Consider it? After all the work he’d done, it would be considered?

He would follow her at a sedate pace, joining the other individuals walking to the town square for the weekend social, a weekend of music, food, and socializing hosted by the county every weekend during the summer months.

His employer was making this job more difficult than it had to be. All his meticulous planning for what? So he could decide that actually watching the house the night they kidnapped Marietta wasn’t as important as being a part of the kidnapping?

Then to decide that because in a matter of days, just fucking days, he hadn’t found the Flannigan girl he was too slow and they needed help?

That because he’d allowed Logan an alibi, that perhaps he might not be effective?

Might not be effective?

Yeah, he could predict that little fucking whore would be screwing around with Logan Callahan at three in the morning, couldn’t he?

What the fuck was his boss’s problem?

Was he losing his mind?

Hell, he couldn’t do it all.

He was one man.

He couldn’t watch those Callahan bastards, find the women his boss liked to play with before he killed them, women the Callahans had had, and find a missing Callahan and his woman, and kill the girl.

It wasn’t his fault that those stupid women who gave birth to the Callahans had written their trusts to try to ensure that no one killed their boys for their inheritances.

It wasn’t his fault that the only way to steal everything the Callahans had was to either see them in prison or force them to leave the county before this year was out.

What he knew was that this wasn’t working and his boss was now trying to blame him.

Callahan had an alibi, but it was her word over the witness’s. Unfortunately, Skye’s word actually seemed to carry a little weight. Not just in Sweetrock but in the state itself because of her foster father.

Who would have figured?

Carter Jefferson had lost his daughter in Corbin County twelve years ago to the Sweetrock Slasher, and now the girl he’d all but adopted was here trying to pull the same shit his daughter had tried to pull.