Shattered Pieces (Undercover Elite Book 1) (12 page)

Johnnie

I look up to see Hunter walking into the room. He reminds me of a handsome college frat boy. His tousled, dark blonde hair and smiling blue eyes are deceiving because underneath those boyish good looks, is one of the most proficient computer hackers in the nation. Anything that needs to be tracked down online, he is able to find. It is why they call him
Hunter
; there is no escaping his all seeing, cyberspace eyes. If he gets you in his sights, he can find out anything he wants to know. He is indispensable to the team.

I get up and make my way over to him, tousling his free flowing curls. "I owe you a thank you.” I bend down to hug him and giggle as he waggles his eyebrows at Cash, taunting him.

“Hey,” Cash growls, “that’s long enough.”

I chuckle and make my way back over to Cash to sit on his lap. “Don’t worry; my heart is safe with you. Remember, I can’t bond.”

“Bullshit, you’re bonded with me.”

“Well, I can’t bond with anyone else then.”

“Good girl,” he croons and hugs me to him as he and Hunter discuss the upcoming job.

“Well, Cash, it will have to be you going into the car lot to buy the car because my surfer boy good looks aren’t going to give off the smell of money like your blueblood does,” Hunter says.

“I know I can’t go. He knows what I look like.” I think out loud.

“Oh no, my dear, you are going in with me. You’ll just have to go in disguise. I’m going to put you in the position to savor this kill. You’re going to be able to see the confusion in his face when he asks if he knows you. You’re going to enjoy the pretense of making him think his eyes have deceived him and then you’re going to enjoy the ultimate deception of ripping that wig off right before you shoot him between his eyes. This job is going to be as much about the psychological as it is about the kill. I do love a good mind-fuck.”

“Damn, you are ruthless.”

“You, of all people, should know just how ruthless I am when it comes to you, love.”

“I’m flattered,” I murmur as I nuzzle in his neck. “You smell so fucking good.”

“Get a room, guys,” Hunter states.

“Nope, right now it’s time to get dressed and go meet a man about getting a car,” Cash answers. I can tell he is in work mode and Steven Taggart is the mark in his mind. Under normal circumstances, I might feel sorry for a man about to suffer Cash’s revenge, but not this time. This time, it’s about my revenge too.

I finish up the last touches on my make-up and the woman looking back at me in the mirror’s reflection isn’t me. It is my sister, Rhonda. I have purposely made myself look like her but even I am shocked at the final outcome and how close the resemblance is. Steven Taggart is going to be in for the master of all mind-fucks when he finds himself questioning whether the woman he had murdered has risen from the dead.

Cash struck a chord of mischievousness in me when he said this job is just as much about the psychological as it is the actual kill. I want to make my sister’s murderer suffer. I want to make that bastard feel like he’s going crazy and I want to watch as he starts to doubt everything he has come to know as truth about my sister’s death.

He took a piece of my soul the day he killed the only person in the world I was ever close to. I know that nothing I do will bring her back, but I can and will avenge her death. Her whole life was spent suffering a series of horrible events at the mercy of ruthless men. It started with the pedophile who robbed her of her innocence, and ended with her murderer who robbed her of her last breath. Rhonda was subjected to the cruelty of fate’s sadistic pranks time and time again. She was out of control but I’m going to make it up to her by getting it back. I am taking back the control she was never afforded in her short life on this earth.

I have no doubt that when the time comes, I will be able to look Steven Taggart right in the eye as I pull the trigger. I will watch his horrified look when he realizes who I am. He showed Rhonda no mercy and I will show him none in return. I have to do this. I know, in my heart of hearts, that if I don’t, I will never be able to move on with my life. Now is the perfect time. I have a partner who has the resources to help me. We will exact revenge and, with his help, we won’t get caught.

“Damn girl, you look good.”

I look up to see Cash standing in the doorway and licking his lips.

“Well, maybe I’ll be generous later and let you fuck a stranger.” I’m being sassy and assuming that’s what every man wants. It had most certainly been the mindset of the men I was associated with in the past. Though, I guess they weren’t the best examples in my life.

“I don’t want to fuck a stranger. I don’t want to fuck you in a wig and even give you the impression that I want another woman.”

I reach out to touch his cheek. He looks so sincere that it pulls at my heartstrings. There is no doubt about it; Cash is a good man.

“Are you ready to go see the look on a man’s face when he sees a ghost?” I ask.

“I’m ready and so looking forward to it.”

Oh, I’m looking forward to it too. Oddly enough, I’m not scared that he’ll recognize me. I owe him nothing. As far as I’m concerned, if I look him dead in the eye and lie to him and he knows I’m lying, I don’t give a shit. Let him wonder what’s going on, let him wonder what I’m up to, and let him wonder what course his life is about to take at the hands of another human being.

If working in strip clubs has taught me anything, it has taught me that men love control and they’ll do anything to gain and keep that control. The best way to throw someone, especially someone like Steven, off his game is to take the reins of control out of his hands.

Cash

There is one thing about my line of work that’s a constant; you don’t know how you’re going to react to killing someone until after the first kill. For me, it was a sense of relief because I had done it. There is so much build-up to the actual act of taking a life that the anxiety can be excruciating and I was just glad for it to finally be over. There is only one first and I had finally crossed that line. I had proven to myself that I was in the right line of work and could handle it. I felt a sense of satisfaction that I had killed a ruthless drug lord and, in the process, I had taken down a very dangerous organization.

Women are different, though, because they are so detail oriented and have to analyze everything. They don’t just want to know what happened; they want to know why it happened.

I can’t help but wonder how Johnnie will react to her first kill. I do believe the fact that she suffers with RAD will help her not feel guilty. In my line of work, guilt is an emotion that can potentially cause a lot of problems for our organization (
Undercover Elite
) because it isn’t just the person suffering from it who is affected; it’s the whole group. The last thing we need is a team member going to the authorities and spilling his guts in a moment of guilt-laden weakness.

I know I’m taking a big risk by bringing a new member into the fold. I have discussed bringing a woman on board for a while because I thought it would add to our surveillance capabilities. A woman can be a great distraction and if that woman can be trained to kill and work right alongside us, then that takes things to a whole new level. Since the idea of bringing a woman on board was basically my idea, what my little trainee does and how successful she is doing it, is going to reflect on me. The outcome of this mission will determine whether she will remain a permanent fixture with
Undercover Elite
.

“Are you ready?” her voice cuts through my thought processes.

I make my way over and look down on her. Even at six feet tall in heels, I still have two inches on her. “Killing someone is serious business, Johnnie.”

“Look… I know where you’re headed with this and you have nothing to worry about. Steven Taggart didn’t just kill my sister. The drugs he brings into the country have taken countless lives, I’m sure. I’m doing society a favor by getting rid of this dirt bag.”

“You’re right, but thinking about killing someone and actually doing it are two different things.”

“I’ll be fine. You even said that you have been thinking about bringing a woman into the organization. Wouldn’t you rather bring one in who’s fucked-up rather than some sappy little girl prone to tears and guilt ridden emotional outbursts?”

“I’d rather bring you in. Let’s go.”

I tell her the truth. I want her working alongside me. I don’t just want any woman; I want her, specifically her. There are so many facets of my life that she has touched and transformed already. It isn’t easy to
date
when you have the job of a mercenary. Not many women are going to believe that you’re going into work when you leave at two am. Going out of town at a moment’s notice and not being able to tell them where you’re going doesn’t sit well with most ladies. Women think you’re fucking around on them when you can’t be straight up about your life and your job. I have to be secretive with the general public about my job and I don’t want to have to be sneaky with the woman I’m sleeping with.

The general public knows that my family has worked in media for years. I’ve worked alongside my father with some of Hollywood’s most well known stars. I choose to remain in Louisville, Kentucky because the horseracing here draws in some of the most elite society has to offer and that definitely goes for the media industry as well. One of the things I do is buy and sell film plots and book rights to make movies. It is a broad description and doesn’t nail me down as far as people being curious about the details of my job. It’s very easy to say that you can’t talk about what you’re doing while movie plots are under negotiation. It’s the perfect cover because it allows me the ability to maintain my privacy. It’s mandatory I have the condition of secrecy in my public life but I refuse to be forced to have it in my personal life. Up until now, I’ve fucked the women I want, when I want, and it has been nothing more than that. Johnnie changed all of that without even knowing she had.

Little by little, as I watched and protected her without her knowledge, I slowly bonded with her. I’m not a man who is accustomed to hearing ‘no’ and when it comes to her, the word isn’t even going to enter the equation. It’s simply not an option. I crossed all sorts of moral boundaries to get her and I’ll damn sure cross them to keep her.