Freed (Bad Boy Hitman Romance) (8 page)

Chapter 8

“Have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

Ahhh, damn
. I groaned inwardly. We really needed to change seats. The chick behind us and her friends were total gossips. But god forbid someone else had a conversation and disturbed her. Vanessa and I had just sat down in our usual spots of our Human Sexuality and it was already starting.

“Adam Campbell is in the hospital.”

My ears perked up and I leaned back in my seat. Adam Campbell was the guy who was supposed to get hold of me for a date.

“No way,” her friend replied. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah. Apparently, he was jumped last night, sometime after supper.”

“Why, like was he robbed?”

“Not that I know of. It was really bizarre from what I hear. Like a random act of violence.”

“Rebecca.” Vanessa gave me a nudge.

“Shhh.” I gave her a look that said shut up. She obliged.

“Then why?” The second girl asked.

“Dunno, but he quit this class. A friend of mine works for the registrar and said he’d called from the hospital this morning to drop it.”

A weird feeling came over me, and I looked down at the empty seat several rows below and to the left. The seat where Kyle usually sat. I looked down at my watch. Class started in two minutes, and we had a quiz. Why would he be late on a day like this? The professor locked the door on quiz days. If you’re late, you miss out and get a zero.

But then again, he was a trust fund baby. Maybe he was just taking classes for something to do and wasn’t really serious about it. My ponderings were cut short when the professor came strolling into the room, closing the door, behind him.

“Good morning class. If you haven’t already, put your books away. It’s time to find out what you’ve learned thus far and if you’re keeping up with your reading assignments.

“Shit, I should have studied last night,” Vanessa grumbled under her breath as she placed her textbook under her seat. “Least I would have gotten something out of the evening.”

~*~
 
TT ~*~

Kyle

“Yeah, I’m having a little difficulty getting much out of her.” I silently cursed. This was supposed to be a simple job, but this girl was a little harder to crack than most. She was a damned vault when it came to her life prior to moving to California. I looked down at my mobile phone, waiting for my boss, who happened to also be my father, back in London, to chew my ass out from the other end.

Flynn: “I sent you out there because I thought I could count on you.”

“You know you can. It’s taking a little longer than I expected. What do you want me to say, Flynn?” I raked my fingers through my hair in frustration.

Flynn: “I want you to say that you know where Tanner and his little cunt are. That’s what I want you to say. I want you to say that the little bitch you’re courting has squealed on her sister, and that within a couple of days, Tanner will be in your hands.” The pitch in Flynn’s voice rose with each word. “That’s what I fucking want you to fucking say.”

I cringed. It had been a long time since my father had been this angry.

Flynn: “Just because you’re family doesn’t mean I won’t fucking have you taken out as well if you fuck this up. First, Lance blows up the goddamned facility there in the states, and then Tanner takes off while still being indebted to us. Those pricks are going to make us a laughing stock!”

My father was being melodramatic, as per usual. At least in my opinion. The Lance debacle was over 5 years ago, and Tanner nearly as long. Lance, who went rogue, was the son of the man who had run the facility in the states. Word was Lance and the little slave he’d fallen for were holed up somewhere in Canada. We had people working on it. As for Tanner, sure he’d been one of the best trainers the Organization had ever had, but fuck, why did we really care? If he wanted out, whatever, as long as he kept his mouth shut, why the fuck should we care?

If I ran the organization, I certainly wouldn’t be worried about some assholes that skipped out on the company, never to be heard from again. There were more pressing issues, in my opinion. While Lance was somewhat understandable, this vendetta on Tanner that my father seemed to be carrying was completely personal and a waste of resources.

But I wasn’t the boss – yet. However, when I was, there would be some serious shifting of focus. But, until then…

“Look. She’s different. She’s just harder, that’s all.”

There was a pause on the other end. Maybe I had gotten lucky, and he hung up?

“Flynn?” My father preferred I called him by his first name. Always had. Not like he was much of a nurturing father anyhow. I didn’t grow up going to football games and receiving affection from him, so it seemed more appropriate anyhow. If I were to sit and psychoanalyze myself, I would image that would be part of my own issues.

Flynn: “If you can’t get the information out of her nicely, then you get it out of her not so nicely. She’s an attractive girl. We take her and sell her. I could get a nice chunk of change for her.”

“I don’t know about that…” It’s not that I had a problem with going the physical route to get the information I needed, but with Rebecca, I didn’t really want to. Not sure why, but I was enjoying the mental cat and mouse game we were playing. Once my true identity was revealed, we wouldn’t be able to go back to where we are now. The game would take on an entirely different tone. For now, she was entertaining me. I had no intention of giving up my toy yet.
 

Flynn: “So you’ve fucked her?”

“She wasn’t a virgin, so regardless of whether I fucked her or not, she wouldn’t be worth as much.”

There was another silent pause.

Flynn: “You have two days, Kyle. Two days. Either get the information freely, or you take her, fucking beat it out of her, and then hand her over to us.”

By handing her over to us, Flynn meant ship her overseas to be trained and sold to the highest bidder. My jaw clenched as I mulled over the idea of another man having her. Adam learned what happened when someone tried to home in on my territory. He was lucky I only beat him senseless and didn’t go the easy route and put a bullet into his hippie, surfer head.

She was special. There was something in her that was different. Not warm and fuzzy, but she was colder – more calculated – she was a challenge. She reminded me of me, and I liked it. She was both mentally and physically stimulating. I needed to know what made this woman tick, and I wouldn’t be able to if she was in the hands of other trainers.

~*~ TT ~*~

Rebecca

All day. I’d waited all day and not a single text from Kyle. I didn’t even see him around campus. This was bullshit. Complete bullshit.

Grabbing my phone out of my purse, I found his name and sent him a message. Short and sweet.

Rebecca: Okay, not sure what your deal is, but lose my number. I’m not going to be some one night booty call.

That’s what you wanted from the beginning
, a voice in the back of my mind chimed in. Damn, I hated that voice, especially since it was right.

I waited.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” I looked up from the phone and over at Vanessa, who was sitting on her bed, the book she’d been reading now on her lap and her entire focus on me.

“You look royally pissed. Who are you texting?”

I looked down at the phone. Still no response. Not that I expected one. “Ummm. Nobody.” I didn’t want to get into it with her. I was the one who wasn’t supposed to get hung up on men.

“Please, I know you a little better than that by now.”

I looked away from the phone to my roommate again and smiled. She thought she knew me, but she didn’t. She knew what I wanted her to know, and that’s it. Like everyone else I’ve met here in college, she didn’t even know I had a sister. As far as she knew, my father was dead of natural causes, and my mother was off doing her own thing. She didn’t know the skeletons I kept tightly sealed in the closet. Hell, if she knew half of the thoughts that raced through my head from time to time – some rather dark and disturbing - she’d never be friends with me.

“Well, I do,” she insisted, making me smile wider.

“Does anyone really know anyone?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. People show others what they want them to see.”

“Not everyone is like that. I’m an open book.”

I studied Vanessa’s smiling face and nodded my agreement. She was one of the most open people I’d ever met. She lived freely, loved freely, and everything about her had to do with being honest and real. She lived in ignorance when it came to many things. Regardless, once more I felt a hint of envy.

“You’re the exception.”

“You need to have more faith in the world and the people in it, Rebecca. You’d be a much happier person.”

I shrugged and then looked down at the screen of my smartphone. No reply. With a huff, I tossed the phone onto the night side table. “I’m happy enough,” I mumbled more to myself than to her.

I was just starting to get into the book I was reading, a new Dean Koontz novel, when there came a knock on the door. Vanessa now had her headphones on and didn’t even realize there was someone knocking.

With a sigh, I slid from the bed and made my way to the door. Opening it up, I was only halfway surprised to see Kyle standing there with that grin on his face that both angered me and made me swoon at the same time.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I hit him with a glare. “What are you doing here, Kyle?”

Leaning one shoulder against the door jamb, he reached out and twirled a strand of my hair around his index finger. “Well, I received a nasty gram from a certain someone and thought I had better get my ass over here.”