Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Kiara’s Lamborghini, on the other hand, suffered an unfortunate incident when it accidentally drove itself onto a cargo ship, which is due to arrive at the Kerguelen Islands, somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean, roughly this time next year. It’s a real shame, especially considering the abundance of weapons she still had stored in the trunk. It’s even more of a shame considering there are no flights in or out of the Kerguelen Islands, and the only way to get it back would be to put it back on another cargo ship.
Diving into the driver’s seat of my rental, I take off toward my storage unit, already searching for details of my newest target.
Alistair Montague Vale. Eight-million-dollar payout.
I scoff. Apparently the bastard insists on using all three names. He’s probably the type to get his initials monogrammed onto his briefcase and cufflinks. Sounds like an egotistical, elitist fuck to me.
Alistair is a strategic wealth architect. By day, he wines and dines his ultra-high-net-worth clients, and by night, well . . . Alistair sure has been a naughty boy. He specializes in filtering money into offshore accounts, laundering through boutique art auctions, and manipulating cryptocurrency pump-and-dump rings. He truly is a stand-up man of the community.
This target isn’t a physical threat. Taking him out should be relatively easy, depending on his location and current security setup. He’s a social threat and has the ability to bring down multiple heavy hitters. He also has a big mouth, which is exactly how this contract came through.
The Bellini Mafia family.
They’re a family that’s been on my radar for a while, and they generally take care of their own problems in-house, but with such a high-profile case, they’re playing it smart and outsourcing to a professional. This isn’t the kind of job that will go under the radar. It will be splashed over every news station across the country, but they won’t find anything, not where I’m involved.
Arriving at my storage unit, I give myself a moment to look deeper, searching into his real-estate portfolio—both the legitimate properties and those bought under the table with dirty money and back-room handshakes. From what I can tell, he owns properties across the globe, making him one hell of a flight risk.
His primary residence is in New York with his wife and children. However, he mostly frequents a property in Austin, Texas. He has offices there, a mistress, and a secret affair baby.
As I mentioned, he’s a real stand-up guy.
My gut is telling me that Austin is where I need to be, and after doing a deeper dive into his Austin estate and hacking into his home security and phone records, I confirm exactly what I need to know.
Grabbing everything I need, I start loading up the rental, and within ten minutes, I’m back on the road, heading to the private airstrip in the San Fernando Valley.
It’s a three-hour flight, and I spend every second of it looking deeper into Alistair, and by the time the wheels are deploying over Texas, I know exactly how I’m going to approach this.
I wait until nightfall, staking out the property and watching Alistair’s movement. His phone line was easy to tap, though I was surprised anyone still uses a landline for anything. Listening to his conversations has been pure entertainment. He’s cocky, that’s for sure. Thinks he’s untouchable. He knows there’s a possibility that the Bellini family will organize a hit, but he severely underestimates them. They aren’t the low-level mafia family he thinks them to be. They obviously have the means to find him outside of New York.
He thinks he’s safe in his little city penthouse at the top of the fifth-floor complex, and that in a few days, he’s going to smooth this all over, but little does he know that he won’t make it through the night.
Glancing down at my wrist, I watch as the time ticks over to 10 p.m., and not a moment later, under the cover of darkness, I slip out of my newest rental and step out onto the street, my gaze sailing up to the fifth-floor penthouse across the street.
Hired guards are stationed at the front of the building, and more inside, but dealing with them isn’t going to be an issue, and unfortunately, collateral is sometimes required as part of the job.
Now the question is, do I slip into the shadows and go in like a ghost in the night—silent and deadly? Or do I go full Kiara chaos and take this job guns blazing, unforgiving, and relentless?
As I stride toward the luxury apartment complex, two sharp pops fill the night, and I watch the guards drop to the pavement, each with a bullet placed cleanly between the eyes.
My head snaps toward the sound, and there she is in all of her fucking breathtakingly lethal glory. Kiara St. James. Standing just up the street, gun lifted to her lips as she blows across the barrel like she’s putting out a candle, that infuriating, delicious smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.