Monster (3 page)

Without taking down Lex
Keith first.

God damn it.

All those years for
nothing.

And he would just go on
doing what he had always been doing with no one willing to stand up
to him.

I might have been a
girl. Young. Weak. But somehow I was the only one with the balls to
chink his armor. How long would it take for someone else to step up?

Would anyone even
bother?

I
should have at least found a group who would release the
incriminating evidence I had in the case of my disappearance or
death. Just so the information was out there if someone started
looking. So their job would be easier. God, I was so stupid. And
arrogant. Thinking no one would touch me. That I had been careful. I
had
been careful. But
there was simply no such thing as careful enough when you were
dealing with someone who ran a criminal empire.

Great.

That was just great.

I should have created
fall backs. I wasn't exactly dealing in legal operations. I was
fucking with people's lives in my business. People got pissed off and
did stupid things. Like having girls kidnapped.

And now I would lose
the chance to do something that would mean something. That would make
my existence worthwhile.

Damn it.

“Why aren't you
looking for something to defend yourself with?” his deep,
booming voice asked, surprising me, making me slam hard back into the
wall I was propped against.

I
hadn't even heard him come down the stairs. Or pry the doors back
open. Or step into the damn
train car. He was a ghost.

“That might have
been an option if my limbs were working,” I said, sounding
surly and my words slurred the slightest bit.

His shoulder lifted
slightly and dropped. “Drugs will wear off soon.”

“Couldn't just
rape and kill me now when I can't feel it?” I asked, my jaw
getting tight in my anger. My anger that ran very heavily toward hot.
Something that had always confused and troubled my mother growing up-
how I flew off the handle, from normal to rage monster in
two-point-seven seconds.

“I ain't gonna
rape you,” he said, his eyes holding mine, willing me to
believe him.

And for some reason, I
did. At least on that point.

“So just killing
me then. Wish I could say I was surprised. Are you going to make me
suffer first?”

At this, his brows drew
together. “The fuck is wrong with you?” he asked,
sounding genuinely curious.

I went to lift a hand,
surprised when it followed the instructions, waving in the air. “How
long do you have?”

With this, I got a sigh
as he crouched down in front of me, his elbows on his knees. “You
a criminal? Dealer? Thief? What?”

“Not a dealer or
a thief. Why?”

“Because normal
fuckin' people don't talk about their death like we're discussing
what color you're gonna paint your fuckin' toenails.”

“I never said I
was normal,” I hedged. It was the truth.

“You got yourself
into something criminal if I was called in to take you.”

“What? Like
you're a big deal or something?”

Honestly, I was
curious. He seemed to carry himself like he was someone important. He
had taken me with what seemed to me to be practiced professionalism.

I'd never seen him
before. But, then again, I only had eyes for Lex and his associates.

“Yeah, doll, I'm
a big fuckin' deal.” He paused, letting his words settle. “What
you got yourself into?”

“Honestly, I
don't know,” I answered. It was true enough. I really didn't.
“I'm not exactly the kind of person who has enemies.” At
least not enemies that knew they were my enemies.

“What do you do?”

“What?”

“For a living,
kid. What do you do?” he asked, sounding impatient. Like I was
trying his nerves.

Yeah,
I felt
real
bad about
that. Asshole.

Also, I chafed against
the 'kid' comment. Maybe I looked young. And maybe I was younger than
him, but I hadn't ever been allowed to be a kid.

“I'm a hacker,”
I said, shrugging, glad for the sensation to come back to my
shoulders. If my legs would just start responding, I'd feel a lot
better.

“A hacker?”
he asked, his brows going upward. “You're a hacker?”

“What? Because
I'm not some pimply, pervy thirty year old hiding out in his parent's
basement, I can't be a hacker?”

“Don't meet a lot
of hackers with tits is all,” he said, smirking a little when
my eyes started shooting daggers at him.

“Listen asshole,”
I started, my words hot, “I get that you have a job here. To
hold me and kill me or whatever. But please refrain from torturing me
with your asinine male chauvinistic ramblings first. Having tits
doesn't negate having a fucking brain, you idiot.”

At this, he chuckled,
the sound low and deep and maybe it made my insides feel oddly
wobbly. Okay. It
definitely
made my insides feel kinda wobbly.

“Alright, I take
it back.”

“Take what back?”

“You ain't a
criminal.”

“Why not?”
I asked, unreasonably annoyed that he came to that conclusion. I was,
in a way, a criminal in my own right. I broke tons of laws daily.
Granted, mostly privacy and cyber laws. But still. They were laws.
And I broke them. That made me a criminal.

“Because any
criminal worth their salt would know better than to call someone
holding them hostage an asshole and an idiot when they got at least a
buck fifty on them weight-wise.”

“Maybe I thought
you were too dumb to rise to the bait.”

“Ain't dumb,
doll. That's why I know you're more than some two-bit hacker pissing
off some nobodies.”

“Oh, do please
tell me how you know that,” I drawled dryly.

“I know that
because I know who I was hired by. And he ain't a nobody.”

“Who were you
hired by?” I asked, a tightening in my belly.

His head tilted to the
side.

“Lex Keith.”

Holy.

Shit.

Three

Breaker

She flinched back like
I had struck her, physically shrinking away from me. Her eyes,
already big, got wider.

So she knew who Lex
Keith was.

Which only confirmed
what I had been suspecting. That she was definitely not some
upstanding citizen caught in the crossfire. Or some random chick Lex
had a thing for that turned him down or something.

Good people didn't know
men like Lex Keith existed.

Good people didn't know
exactly how bad it was that a man like Lex Keith had paid someone to
kidnap her.

All that was left to
answer was what she did to get on his bad side. Hacked into his
systems? Messed with his money? She lived in the crappiest apartment
I had ever seen, the smell of soy sauce seeping through the walls,
the floors worn and uneven. If she stole from him, one would imagine
that she could at least buy herself something better than a twin
sized bed with a mismatched pile of throw blankets to ward off the
chill of the late Autumn air.

The only thing worth
anything in her apartment was the laptop that she had on her desk.
Not one of the plain streamlined black ones you can walk into any box
store and pick up. No. Her's was some special order kinda shit. Top
of the line.

Which made sense if she
was a hacker like she claimed.

“Lex Keith?”
she repeated, her voice airy. Her hands were curled into themselves
tightly, her nails cutting into her palms. Terrified. She was
completely terrified.

“What's he want
you for?”

Her eyes went to mine,
dark and desperate. “I don't know. I don't know how he even
knows who I am.”

I believed her. Call me
crazy, but I was a damn good at detecting lies. She was being honest
with me.

“But you know who
he is.”

Her head bobbed up and
down. “Unfortunately.”

“So you know he's
a crazy fuck?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea what he
does to women?”

At this, a hard
swallow, her voice a lot weaker. “Yes.”

“Shit,” I
said, getting back onto my feet, looking out the open train doors.

“Who are you?”
she asked, still sounding weak. I think I preferred the chick who was
slinging venom at me a few minutes before. Ain't nothing worse than
knowing you (or you by proxy) put fear like that into a woman. Only
the worst kind of scum did that.

Maybe I was a fuckin'
monster after all.

“Breaker,”
I said honestly. What good would it do to lie to her?

“Is that like...
a real name?” she asked.

I turned back to find
her studying me. “Yeah, doll, it's a real name. My last name.”

“What's your
first name?”

“Why?”

At this, her eyes
rolled. Rolled. Like she was annoyed with me. “Fine. Don't tell
me. I was just curious. Don't need to be all suspicious. Not like I'm
a threat to you. Scared I'm gonna hack into your computer and see
what kind of twisted porn you're into?”

“Twisted porn?”
I asked, feeling my lips twitch upward.

“Yes. Twisted
porn. Granny fuckers. Bestiality. Or the more tame, but no less
disgusting: gangbangs, monster cocks, ATM, creampie, facials...”

Jesus fucking Christ.

No way was the tiny
slip of a chick with the big god damn doe eyes sitting in a train car
I trapped her in, knowing full well what might happen to her at Lex's
hands, talking to me about coming on chicks faces.

I scraped a hand across
my brow, trying like fuck to not imagine her naked, mouth open,
begging me to come on her.

Fuck.

Last thing she needed
was me walking around with a hard-on. She was freaked enough.

“You have an
extensive knowledge of porn. You little perv, you,” I went
with, trying to lighten the mood.

To this, she snorted.
“I get paid to look through browser histories. Most men's
histories are at least seventy percent porn.”

“Not mine, doll,”
I said, shaking my head.

Another snort. And an
eye roll.

“I
want pussy,” I said, looking down at her, “I go get some
pussy. I don't stare at it through a fuckin' computer screen. I get
my fingers and cock inside a
real
one. And maybe, if it's real sweet, I'll get my tongue in it too.”

I fought the smile
tugging at my lips when I saw her blush. Bright, bright crimson.

Considering she had
just checked off a bunch of sexual acts without flinching, I had to
assume it was because she was getting a strong mental image. Of me.
Face buried between some soft thighs. Maybe hers.

“You're a real
prince,” she said, trying to cover her embarrassment. But her
cheeks were still flaming.

“Girls want
flowers and candy, they go for the nice business men. They want a
good solid fucking that can make them see the face of god, they come
to men like me. I make no apologies about being who I am.”

“What is a man
like you?” she asked, her eyes shrinking, like she was trying
to see through me.

“What?”

“What are you?
What do you do?”

There wasn't really a
title for men like me. Men who did what they were paid to do. No
questions. Very few morals.