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  Mostly though... it had just been gathering information. Getting to know him. Learning how he operated.

  Alright, so I was a little obsessed.

  But taking him down was the only thing that mattered in my life.

  Which was kind of sad if I thought about it.

  So I didn't think about it.

  I checked the time on my cell (a burner, I was like a drug dealer with an aversion to contract plans), powered down my laptop, put a bottle on the door (I couldn't afford the good kind of security and it was a bad area, but my methods had always proved effective enough), then I turned out the lights and got into bed.

  The bottle crashed sometime after I had finally fallen asleep. My body moved before my mind was even awake enough to react consciously. I was half off the bed, my heart hammering hard in my throat, trying to grab one of the bats (or even one of the knives) that I had stashed around my bed.

  The light flicked on, half blinding my sleep-tired eyes.

  And then there was a man.

  With a very nasty gun.

  Pointed at me.

  "Where the fuck is Alex Miller?" he demanded, his voice gruff, guttural and brooking absolutely no argument.

  Actually, everything about him, head to toe, was intimidating, meant to scare the ever loving hell out of anyone he crossed paths with.

  He was well over six feet of solid, unyielding muscle underneath his black jeans, tight black tee, and leather jacket. He had on huge, heavy combat boots and leather gloves. The gloves struck me as weird before I realized that he was likely trying to not leave fingerprints during whatever the hell he was going to do to me.

  His shoulders were wide, pulled back. The hand holding his gun was steady. His head was shaved on the sides in a deep undercut, the hair on top long and falling to one side, a really pretty natural shade of blonde.

  His face was strong. Wide of jaw, chiseled, with a full beard that was a shade or two darker than the hair on his head.

  Then there were his eyes.

  They were the lightest shade of blue I had ever seen. A color I could only describe as ice. And the look he was giving me, well, it matched.

  If he wasn't there to possibly rape and murder me, I would have said he was really good looking. In a truly terrifying way.

  "I'm Alex Miller," I said, deciding to go with the truth. If he did any kind of digging at all, he would find that out for himself. I wasn't exactly in the position to piss off the bad guy.

  And with that, to my utter shock, he looked stricken.

  Like... maybe he didn't want me to be Alex Miller.

  Why, I wasn't sure. But it was there. In the tightness around his eyes, his clenched jaw, the way his spine seemed to straighten all the more.

  Then he was tucking the gun away and going through my purse to validate my claim. And then he took my purse. Slinging it over his shoulder like it was the most normal thing in the world.

  It was then I realized what was going on. Because he didn't want my purse. He went through it. He was in my wallet. He knew I didn't have any money. So he would only take it with him if...

  Oh god.

  He was taking me.

  "What the fuck did you get yourself into?" he asked, sounding sad almost. And resigned. Like he didn't want to do it, but he had to.

  "I don't know what you're..." my sentence cut off as his hand moved out fast. I saw the flash of the needle before it plunged into the side of my neck, the pain sharp and instantaneous, making me cry out. My eyes flew up to his, silently begging, and to his credit, I saw regret there before my vision and mind started swimming.

  Then there was nothing.

  Blissful oblivion.

  I woke up being jostled around, my body slamming down on something hard and cold. I felt my lashes flutter, but kept my eyes mostly closed, able to only see a slit of vision, but it was enough.

  Enough to see that I was inside what looked like an old, dirty, gutted out train car, illuminated by construction lights hung from the roof of the car, the wires snaking out of the open doors where I heard some kind of humming noise. A generator. Outside the dirty windows, it looked like I was in a train station. Except it wasn't. Or, at least, it wasn't anymore. It was abandoned.

  My captor turned back to me and I made my eyes shut completely, not wanting him to know I was awake yet. And then the weirdest freaking thing happened. He reached out and brushed my hair out of my face.

  "Damn it," he mumbled to himself, the words carrying some kind of weight that I found myself wanting to understand.

  But then he was moving, from the sounds, away from me.

  I slit my eyes again and saw him manually closing the train car doors and doing something to them. I imagined, locking them somehow so I couldn't escape. Then he turned, shoulders slumped forward, as he tore up the staircase.

  I slowly pushed myself upward, forcing my dead limbs to work, both annoyed and horrified when they moved like dead weight- completely useless to me. But I eventually got myself up into a seated position, looking around.

  I was right. Gutted train car. There weren't even any seats. Just the metal hold bars for standing passengers and filth covered floors.

  No. Not just filth covered.

  Blood.

  There was dried blood on the floor as well.

  Damn it.

  I knew it.

  My heart refused to pound in my chest, still dulled by whatever drugs he had forced into my system. But the fear managed to permeate my foggy brain.

  He was huge.

  There was no way I would be able to fend him off. And I didn't have any kind of weapon on me. I was screwed. I was going to be tortured and end up in a dumpster or shallow grave somewhere.

  Without taking down Lex Keith first.

  Goddamn 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 Goddamn 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.
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br />   "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.

  "I do what I'm paid to do."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as breaking into shitty apartments above what I can only assume is the worst tasting Chinese in the city, kidnapping the pretty girl living all alone and drag her back to an abandoned warehouse to await further instructions."

  "That's it? So you're like, what, a kidnapper? That's what you do?"

  "When the price is high enough."

  "What was I worth?"

  "What?" I asked, leaning against the wall across from her, crossing my ankles and my arms across my chest.

  "What are you getting paid to kidnap and hold me hostage?"

  Well, there was no reason not to tell her.

  "For the abduction, ten grand. Two grand each day I gotta keep you."

  To this, she huffed out air. "Guess I'm in the wrong business." There was a pause, her hand going up to run her fingers through her hair. A nervous habit? "Well, not for long..."

  She seemed so resigned. So accepting of her fate.

  I'd seen grown men, hardened criminals, beg. Grovel. Cry. I'd seen them pissing themselves when they realized there was no hope for them.

  And here was this chick, a nobody, just a girl... sitting there calmly realizing her time on Earth was over and she would never get a chance to do anything with her life... and she was calm about it.

  The fuck was that about?

  "I don't suppose I could talk you out of this?" she asked, her tone dead, knowing there was no chance.