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Chapter 1
He wasn’t callous enough to kill the man while she still watched. But as soon as the skinny brunette scrambled off the bed to retrieve the rest of her ruined clothes, Uriel fired a single, economical bullet in the would-be rapist’s heart. A small target, yes, but Uriel was a good shot.
The woman gasped in shock and turned her pale face to him. Usually he pumped another round in his target just for good measure—he was careful if nothing else—but this time, Uriel let it be a one-bullet deal. He figured the poor woman had had enough.
Who was she? What had brought her to infamous Foley’s apartment? Not pretty enough to be an escort, she was no prostitute or junkie either, not that it made a stitch of difference. There was something in the way she moved, in the way she yanked her clothes on with her back against the wall and her gaze shifting between him and the dead prick. Nervous, understandably afraid, yet alert. Judging from the red marks over Foley’s nose and temple, she’d placed a few hits too. Good woman.
“Here.” He ripped the sheet off the bed and proffered it. There was blood on one corner. “Wrap that around you. It’ll be windy on the way down.”
She took the offering without glancing into his eyes, for which he was glad. He might be an assassin—the best—who’d just caught his latest target, but the sight of a woman’s pain or fear always tore at his soul. Rage bubbled to the surface. He pushed it down. Nothing came out of anger. Or any other emotion, for that matter.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked in a small, tight voice. Her dark eyes looked too big for her narrow face.
Uriel hated the dead prick even more. What kind of voice did she usually have? What change would her ordeal bring? What else
on top of her dignity had this scumbag stolen?
He turned his back on her so she could adjust herself in her clothes and drape the sheet around her.
“Down below,” he replied, surprised his voice came out strangled. What the hell was wrong with him? “You can call station security there.” He’d be long gone by the time they arrived.
She nodded and held the sheet around her shaking frame while he pushed the remnants of the shattered door aside to let her pass. He always made grand entrances, either by busting through something or, if the occasion called for it, by showing up like a ghost ship, slow and silent. Deadly. With his height, either way worked.
For this present contract, he’d have chosen the latter method if he hadn’t heard the woman’s calls for help. He could’ve chosen to wait for a clear shot, and usually did. Waiting for that one split second of perfect clarity was what differentiated him from the rest of the wannabes out there who thought owning a fancy gun and having a good eye entitled them to the title of assassin.
But he hadn’t waited today. Couldn’t have waited.
Uriel threw a leg over the matte black air pressure bike’s seat and extended a hand to the woman. Her fingers were cold and bony but firm. For a split second, their gazes met. He’d never believed in any sort of link, mojo, karma or fate. That crap was for those who didn’t have the guts to ask for what they wanted, or to take it when it was available. But when he looked into her brown eyes, he couldn’t deny what he saw. There was something there. Something special. Strength tempered with wisdom. This was a woman who wouldn’t bend under the weight of life.
She opened her mouth, looked about to say something. He didn’t want to hear it. In case it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. In case it was.
Uriel closed his hand around hers, felt his heat seep into her palm, watched her eyes grow to the size of tokens. He swung her behind him to break the moment. For some inane reason, breaking eye contact with the skinny brunette was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
She weighed almost nothing. He could tell she wanted to hang onto him for safety but was probably loath to touch him more than she had to. He looked like a killer. He was a killer. She gripped the back of his greatcoat and waited until he’d kicked the stand before she actually wrapped an arm around him. And if the feel of it didn’t make him want to squeeze her hand for comfort….
“Hold on tight,” he threw over his shoulder.
Below the concrete-and-steel ledge of his target’s posh rooftop apartment, Cartagena spread in a semicircle, the station’s interior a couple of miles wide and several long. A little over five million people, some of them barely up to that standard and others definitely not, lived—survived—inside that giant honeycombed steel and thermoplastic toilet paper roll. The irony had always appealed to him.
The manmade breeze from mammoth ventilation units caressed his face. He leaned sideways, put his thumb on the control and gently maneuvered his APB off the thin building’s roof. Behind him, the woman’s other arm encircled his middle. She held him tightly.
From beneath the layers of pain, self-imposed solitude and violence surfaced a surprisingly strong emotional reaction. Like a bubble rising in a muddy pond. It didn’t last long, but for one glorious instant, the lifespan of a spark, Uriel enjoyed the woman’s embrace, even if she only held onto him for fear of plummeting the five hundred feet to the ground. Still, human contact felt good. This human’s contact.
The hydroponics gardens would make for a perfect landing spot, nice and private without being too secluded for his charge’s safety. He could deny it all he wanted, but he genuinely cared for her safety, so he aimed his APB there. As soon as he touched down near a comms booth, she took her arms off him. He felt more bereft now than ever. Cold replaced the warmth of her lithe body against him. No longer held by her wiry arms, he felt loose, disjointed, scattered, and hated himself for it.
The woman dismounted, backing away from him and toward the comms booth, arms crossed and with those big dark eyes riveted
to him. Their gazes met and held again. That something was there still. He didn’t know what it was. But it was something.
“What’s your name?” she said. Her voice wasn’t so high-pitched anymore. Tough cookie.
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me.”
He turned his head away and looked at the station’s inner ring rotating on itself. The huge solar panels outside the honeycombed thermoplastic were about to fan out and angle toward the sun to catch its rays and energy. It would be day soon. He pulled the hood of his greatcoat over his head. Hid in the shadows once more. Familiar shadows, like an old pain.
“Uriel.”
He instantly regretted giving her his name. Never make it personal. Others had died for seeing his face, never mind knowing his real name. She was now armed with both.
She took a bold step forward. A gesture that belied the conflicting emotions raging in her dark eyes—fear, healthy curiosity, and that thing he couldn’t put his finger on. “I’m Amelia.”
A tingle spread through his chest. Amelia. Nice and clean, uncomplicated.
“I won’t forget what happened.” Her eyes confirmed it.
Damn. He hoped she would. The fear, the pain, everything. Him most of all.
Uriel twisted the handle hard, which revved the engine into a deep roar before lifting off at an acute angle and swerving high above the hydroponics gardens.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back.
His weakness surprised him—well, damn, he’d have been turned into the proverbial pillar of salt in five seconds flat. Uriel looked back down. Not leisurely, not out of idle curiosity or manly pride, but out of sheer need.
Her pale upturned face was like a tiny moon in a night sky. Receding. Disappearing. Strangely, he felt as if he’d just left a part of himself behind.
But she’d been looking. At him.
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