Death Angel

At the sound, the assassin’s entire body seemed to tense, his attention so tightly focused on her she could almost feel the touch of it on her skin. Until then, if she’d thought about it much, Drea would have said he was already alert, but now he was somehow more so, as if all his senses were heightened, his focus so intensified she felt the burn of it on her skin and her laughter choked off as abruptly as if his hand had closed around her throat.

"I don’t share," Rafael said, an irritated note underlying the ease of his tone. The top man never shared his woman; if he did, then he lost an edge, an important one, in the authority he had over his men. Surely the assassin knew that. But they were alone in the penthouse apartment, with no witnesses to what Rafael did or didn’t do, so maybe that was why he’d thought he could have what he wanted.

Again the assassin said nothing, merely watching, and though he didn’t move there was abruptly something lethal stewing in the atmosphere between them. Curled against him as she was, Drea felt Rafael’s almost imperceptible twitch, as if he, too, was aware of the change.

"Come now," Rafael said, his tone cajoling, but Drea knew him well; she caught the uneasiness he was trying so hard to disguise, and because that wasn’t something she was accustomed to seeing in him she almost darted an alarmed glance at him, before catching herself and instead inspecting a fingernail as if she’d spotted a chip in the polish. "That’s a lot of money to throw away for something so brief. Sex is cheap; you can buy a lot of it with a hundred thousand dollars."

Still the assassin waited, as silent as a tomb. He had made his request, and the only thing yet to be determined was if Rafael would grant it, or deny him. Without saying a word he made it plain that he wouldn’t take the money that had been offered; instead he would walk away, and at best Rafael would no longer be able to call on the assassin’s services when needed. At worst-Drea didn’t want to think about what the worst could be, would be. With a man like this, anything was possible.

Rafael suddenly looked at Drea, his dark gaze cool and assessing. She sucked in a breath, alarmed by that abrupt coolness, by the assessment. Was he actually considering the idea, weighing the cost if he continued to say no?

"On the other hand," he mused, "perhaps I have convinced myself. Sex is cheap, and I, too, can do a lot with a hundred thousand dollars." He removed his arm from around Drea’s shoulders and stood, straightening his pants with a practiced movement that made the hem break across his foot at precisely the right spot. "One time, you said. I have business across town that will keep me tied up for five hours, which is more than sufficient." He paused, then added lightly, "Don’t damage her." Without even glancing at her again, he walked across the living room toward the door.

What? Drea bolted upright, unable to think straight. What was he saying? What was he doing? This was a joke, right? Right?

Drea pinned her desperate, disbelieving gaze on Rafael’s back as he walked to the door. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it. Any moment now he would turn around and laugh, enjoying his joke at the assassin’s expense, never mind that he’d almost sent her into cardiac arrest. She didn’t care that he’d scared her half to death, she wouldn’t say a word to him about it, if he’d just stop, if he’d say, "Did you really think I was serious?"

There was no way he’d give her to the assassin, no way-

Rafael reached the door, opened it…and left.

Barely able to breathe, her lungs constricted by the tide of rising panic that threatened to strangle her, Drea stared blindly at that door. He’d open it now, and laugh. Any minute now, Rafael would come back in.

She didn’t look at the assassin, didn’t move, didn’t blink, so thoroughly was she frozen. Her own pulse roared in her ears, her heartbeat like thunder. The hugeness of what Rafael had just done was so overwhelming she couldn’t process it. Her body and most of her brain had gone numb, but a part of her mind still functioned, still grasped that Rafael had thrown her to the lion and then walked away without either a moment’s hesitation or a single backward look.

The assassin moved into her line of vision, silently approaching the door and locking it-all the locks, the dead bolts, even sliding the safety chain into its slot. No one would be able to enter, even with a key, without alerting him.

Life flooded back into her body and she fled, clattering in her four-inch heels across the marble tiles. Her body acted of its own volition, driven by desperation, without thought or plan. She dashed toward the hallway, then realization brought her to an abrupt halt as her brain caught up with her body. Down the hall were the bedrooms, and that was the last place she wanted to be.

Desperately she looked around. The kitchen…there were knives, a meat mallet-maybe she could defend herself-

Against him? Any effort she made would be laughable to him-or, worse, make him angry, perhaps even angry enough to kill her. Within minutes her goal had changed from avoidance to simple survival. She didn’t want to die. However brutally he treated her, no matter what he did, she didn’t want to die.

There was no safe place, no haven where she could hide. Even knowing that, admitting it, she couldn’t just stand there; with nowhere else to go, no way to stop him, she ran out onto the balcony, high over the city. She reached the wall and could go no farther, unless she tried to fly, and her sense of self-preservation was too strong to allow that. As long as she was alive, she would try to remain that way.

Blindly she reached out and gripped the iron rail set atop the wall, her fingers locking around the metal as she stared at nothing. Central Park spread out beneath her, a cool green oasis in the middle of the vast thicket of steel and concrete that was Manhattan. Birds soared below, and overhead fat white clouds drifted lazily across the pure blue of the sky. The hot sunlight touched her face, her bare arms and shoulders, while a breeze flirted with her curls. She felt disconnected from all of that, as if none of it was real, not even the heat of the sun on her cheeks.