Chad's Chase (Loving All Wrong Book 2) (9 page)

“However, you must understand that while I love your normal side, I can’t accept the darkness. What I just saw, the infrared on your forehead, is the scariest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen. Thought I was about to lose you, man. And I don’t ever wanna see or feel anything like that again. But now you have some kinda twisted feelings for your assassin, which I translate to
death wish
.

“So here’s what’s gonna happen: we’re gonna pause workin’ on Red Rhage for now, until you get your shit sorted out. Fuck off for now and don’t come anywhere near my family. Not even Alina, because I consider her my family.

“Whenever you need me, man, I’ll show the fuck up, but as for my family I don’t want your darkness shadowin’ their lives. Don’t want them knowin’ the ugliness of your second life.

“Respect my wishes. If you don’t, I’ll sever all ties with you. Until you sort out this sordid thing you got with this chick,
fuck off
.”

Because he understood, Chad nodded.

If he had a family he loved and cared for, he’d demand the same. Chad had two sisters who’d issued him the same warning.

They wanted him nowhere near their family. Hardly ever picked up the phone when he called, and invited him to none of their family gatherings. His sisters thought him and his father symbolized nothing but death and destruction.

JK, he’s a pastor’s son. Goes without saying he couldn’t just sit and talk guns and bullets with the guy. Chad told him everything, and the guy would listen and never judged, but never accepted either. That dude might be an asshole, but he had the one coveted thing Chad didn’t have within him: humanity. And this made JK complete enemies with his dark side.

Appeased with Chad’s easy agreement, JK relaxed in his chair and folded his hands behind his head, smirking. “So,
how
exactly are you gonna get this Killing Byrd on Team Chad?”

Brow arched up, Chad looked at his friend as though the answer had been obvious. “I’m gonna fuck some sense into her.”

M
onday nights at Empty Cage were b-o-r-i-n-g. Very few customers came out to blow their dough on Mondays, so the strippers are usually found curled up in a booth, freezing from the air-conditioner, while watching the club entrance for the next lone customer who walked in so they could pounce on him.

I glanced over to the stairway leading up to Chad’s office. No sign of the boss’s goons. No sign of him. Maybe he was shaken up from dodging a bullet earlier in the day and wouldn’t bother showing up?

Sitting bored-out-of-my mind in a booth at the back of the club to shield off the chills from the blasting air-conditioner, feet pulled up and tucked beneath me, I yawned for maybe the hundredth time.

This chase was starting to debilitate me. After following Chad undetected for the past three weeks, I’d finally,
finally
gotten the perfect opening to take him out. My plan, everything, was fucking perfect. A clean takeout. I’d set up camp on the roof of a high-rise across the hotel building he was having a meeting in, had the clearest fucking shot of him, counted down to zero to pull the trigger…then some moron had jumped right in the fucking way.

Pissed, I’d fired anyway, if only to shoot the goddamn imbecile who thought his partner’s life was more valuable than his.

The brave thing to do was keep post and aim for another shot at him. The smart thing to do was Usain Bolt it from the scene.

I went with smart. Because Chad was, well, Chad. He was a fearless, ruthless demon, and if he’d gotten even a glimpse of his shooter, it wouldn’t have been pretty for me. He would’ve found me before I could even think to leave the country. And even if I
did
manage to escape him by the skin of my teeth, and ran back home without getting the job done, it still wouldn’t be pretty for me.

For one, The Voice didn’t take failures lightly. And two, I wouldn’t gain my freedom.

So, I ran, and decided to strike that down as another failed attempt at eradicating Chadrick Niiveux’s existence.

Hence I was back to square one. And I had no damn doubt it would only get harder from here on out, because now that someone had tried to lodge a bullet to his brain, he was likely going back to having no shadows or footprints.

See, over the past three weeks, all of a sudden, he’d developed a pattern; leaving traces, which made it easy as lying to trail him, easier for me to plan, know where he was going to be and at what time.

I’d found it strange at first, considering I’d been studying him for all of six months and had never once gotten that kind of opening. It almost seemed as if he was deliberately leaving himself open. And I didn’t question, didn’t hesitate. I saw the opening, I took it…

And I failed.

I wanted out of this life. But knew I’d never get an out unless I succeeded.

My nightly shivers were coming back. Since Sydney had left, I’d been sleeping by myself and the loneliness was haunting me. Driving me insane. For sex, I screwed around with the club girls, and ordered call-girls a couple of times.

Otherwise, I was stuck being alone. Feeling claustrophobic in my apartment, as sleek and spacious as it was. And, mentally, it was taking a toll on me.

Catching sight of the tall Indian stripper—the only one allowed up the stairway when Chad was at the club—approaching me, I uncurled my feet from beneath me.

This particular stripper watched me constantly—not in a sexual way—and she thought it wasn’t to my knowledge that she did. I long deduced she was a spy for Chad.

As she reached up to my booth, I straightened up and put my slut face on.

“Hey, Blood.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I made a show of biting my lip and raking my eyes up and down her body. Though she wasn’t really my type. She was too lithe, too soft. I liked women who had a bit of firmness in the right places. But, hey, for all I knew she would probably be a better fuck than ‘my type’.

Around my height, she had extremely long, jet black Indian hair, dark eyebrows and even darker lashes. And to say her lips were full and sexy was an understatement. They were damn near eatable.

Indian Girl shifted in a wave of nervousness, watching me with careful eyes. “Um, I—”

“I’m bored and horny,” I cut in. “Let’s fuck in the back room.”

Eyes widening a small fraction, she quickly glanced around as though checking if anyone overheard our convo. Then she licked her lips, uneasy, bosom notably rising and falling heavily as a result of the change in pace of her heartbeat. “I’m sorry, I don’t do gir—”

Faster than she could think to defend herself, I shot up and grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her, then slammed her face-down on the leather-covered seat in the booth.

Stretching my body out along the back of hers, I swept her long mane over her shoulder and bit her lobe before whispering in her ear, “I don’t ask women to fuck me. I tell them to, and they just do it because they can’t fucking resist me. Like you won’t be able to, tonight.”

She wiggled beneath me with a muffled protest, but I kept my body over hers in a sturdy but passionate way to create the illusion to others who might be watching that we were making out. “What’s your name, pretty Indian?”

When she stubbornly didn’t answer, I pulled on her twisted arm and she yelped, but the club music was loud enough to drown it out.

“I asked you a fucking question.”

“Nadia,” she squealed into the seat. “My name’s Nadia.”

“Are you a spy for the boss?”

“No,” she said right off the bat.

I pulled her arm tighter. “Tell me the fucking truth.
Are you
a spy for the boss?”

She whimpered. “No.”

“Then why are you the only one allowed upstairs?”

Her answer was slow in coming this time. “I…have sex with him.”—Too late to be true—”We have an arrangement, and whenever he comes here, it’s only for me to fulfill his sexual needs.”

This was possibly the worst lie I’ve ever heard. But she was loyal to her boss, and I could tell no matter what I did, she would in no way spit out the truth about spying for him. Despite not attracting me physically, her loyalty flattered me. If I hadn’t already shot my chance by twisting her arm, I could’ve tried coaxing her to replace Sydney. Spy or no.

I released her arm, and she let out a loud exhalation, sagging beneath me. But I wasn’t done with her. I wanted her tonight.

Snaking my hand around to her pelvis, I urged her up until she was on her knees. Placing my palm flat on her stomach, I pressed her back against me and kissed across her shoulder blade.

When she didn’t protest or fight me off, but instead emitted a soft moan, I drifted my hand down her stomach and teased my fingertips along the edges of her lingerie bottom. Still, she didn’t fight me off, her breathing kicking up.

Recognizing a green light when I saw one, I dipped inside her lingerie bottom and was surprised to find her soaking wet.

Smiling at the discovery, I brought my mouth to her ear again. “So you’re a spy for the boss,
and
you secretly want me.”

She denied neither.

Slowly, gently, coaxingly, I licked up the side of her neck. I needed her to forgive me for hurting her, so I could steal her from under Chad, make her my new bitch. Piss him off. “You want me to take you in the back, don’t you, Nadia? You want to feel my mouth on you, kissing you, licking you, petting you?” As she opened her mouth to answer, I added, “The
truth
.”

The breath she drew in was frail and shaky as she answered, “Yes…but…”

“But what, Nadia?”

“The boss,” she breathed out in a heavy exhalation as I rubbed my fingers over her clit, and back. Over, and back.

“He sent me…He sent me for you…”

My fingers stopped working. Chad was here? “What?”

Trying to regain her composure, Nadia delivered the message less breathy this time: “He wants you to meet him in the Chill Room. He’s already there waiting for you.”

My heart pounded, hard, loud, and I felt the sudden urge to run. Fast. Because the pounding of my heart wasn’t from fear or fright. But from something else entirely. Something I couldn’t quite name yet. Something I didn’t understand. “W-why?”

“I don’t know.”

Shoving her down again, I flipped her over on her back and straddled her. She wasn’t scared this time, however. She was turned on, dazed. “You’re his spy. And I know the boss is a dangerous man. So tell me the truth. Am I in danger?”

Nadia’s eyes glazed over, her face nothing but a picture of sex and hunger as she watched my lips, hers parting.

“You want me to kiss you, Nadia?”

She nodded.

“Answer me with the truth and I will. Am I in danger?”

“No. You’re not.” She shook her head to emphasize. “You’re so very not.”

I didn’t keep my promise.

After making a quick trip to the dressing room to ditch my minuscule weaponries which would raise questions should I be frisked, leaving only my all-purpose knife tucked in my boot, I freshened up—don’t ask me
why
I was freshening up—and headed straight for the Chill Room upstairs.

The Chill Room was where the wealthier customers who came in groups and wanted to party privately, or have an unconventional business meeting—talking figures while a stripper rubs her tits in your face kind of unconventional—went whenever they dropped in at Empty Cage. The stairway to the Chill Room was on the opposite of the stairway to Chad’s office. And the strippers had no business climbing these stairs unless they were requested by the occupants of the Chill Room.

But I was requested, wasn’t I? By the boss himself.

I was shocked to find there were no securities standing guard outside the door. The hallway was ominously isolated, as a matter of fact, with only the thumping club music vibrating through the walls.

Stopping at the door, I took a deep, prepare-for-the-worst breath, before turning the doorknob.

Chad’s presence was tangible, commanding, dominating. Sitting upright on a long sofa banquette that stretched along the walls around the room, his feet were splayed apart, palms resting flat on his knees, shoulders squared, eyes staring straight at me.