Chapter 2

"Are you seriously doing this?" Olek's voice cut through the bass thumping from the strip club. Even with the windows up, Lust & Lace's music shook the car like it was trying to tear the metal apart.

I ignored him. He was lucky I let him breathe in this car right now. One more word, one more doubt, and I might lose the little nerve I'd managed to scrape together all day. 

I leaned into the rearview mirror, trying to smear crimson lipstick onto lips that wouldn’t stop trembling. It was my sixth attempt. My hand shook like I was seizing, and I pressed the tube harder, praying the pressure might steady the limb.

​It didn't.

​The bright red bled past the corner of my mouth, jagged and ugly against my pale skin.

"Fuck," I muttered under my breath scrubbing it with the edge of a napkin that already looked like I'd mopped up a crime scene with it.

Olek’s mouth twitched; that half-smirk he got whenever he was seconds from laughing at the wrong time. He caught himself just in time, probably remembering the last time he didn’t. One smart comment and he’d ended up in the ER, cradling his jaw and mourning his almost-missing front teeth.

"That pep talk working out for ya?" he drawled.

"Don't you have some actual stabbing gigs tonight?" I dabbed harder, turning the thick red into a streaky pink mess. "Or is harassing me your new, pathetic hobby?"

He huffed a laugh, a short puff of air, but I zoned him out, focusing only on the involuntary tremor in my hands.

My stomach had been in knots since morning. Since that fucking dream. His hands on me, his voice...Christ. I woke up wet, my thighs sticky and my chest aching with shame. I was so disgusted with myself because I'd betrayed Haley by letting him inside me like that, for letting him give me an orgasm even if it was just a dream.

I hated myself for it. Hated him more.

"When I started stripping," I muttered, mostly to keep my pulse from breaking through my ribs, "I thought the worst part would be the nudity, you know. Being up there with my tits out while strangers eye fuck me. Letting their sweaty hands ‘accidentally’ graze my skin. Letting them shove sweat-slick bills down my thong damp with God-knows-what."

Olek’s eyebrow twitched. "That’s a picture I didn’t really need."

"But no," I went on, painting my lips again. "That’s not the worst part. It’s the makeup. Every night I sit here painting myself into some fuckable fantasy. A doll. A whore. A goddess. Whatever the hell they want me to be. All this contouring, all these false lashes, all this shimmer for the same men who couldn’t tell a winged liner from a windshield wiper."

I was already late but I had to do my makeup in the car because the last time I went in barefaced, Olga had told me to sit the night out. And sitting out meant no cash. I couldn't afford no cash. More importantly, it was the only place that I could cross paths with my target and I wasn't about to fuck it up.

Finally, I turned to look at him.

I let my gaze trail over his taper fade, the messy blond hair that refused to behave and those stupid innocent blue eyes that made people trust him instantly. He had the face of a saint, smooth lines, sharp cheekbones, a mouth that curled too easily into a smile that could make anyone feel safe.

But Olek wasn’t safe.

He was the Syndicate’s golden boy; the number one assassin, top of the kill board for ten damn years. I was fifth, which wasn’t bad considering I’d only been in the game for six years. 

He also had a natural advantage; he was a man in a world that still thought women couldn’t pull a trigger without crying about it. But if we were talking merit? I’d be top three. I’d never missed a mark. Not once.

"Rave, please think this through," he said, leaning back against the driver’s seat with a sigh that sounded more like defeat. "This guy isn’t like the suits you usually put down for cash. He’s not some banker screwing his secretary or a wannabe thug flashing a Glock to feel untouchable. Dominic Sokolov is the fucking Mafia King. The most dangerous one to ever crawl out of the underworld. He’s bad news."

"I know who the fuck he is," I snapped, my patience shredding. "You think I’ve been planning this shit for over a year just for fun? You think I like dancing half-naked for degenerates every night? He murdered my sister, Olek. He took her from me. And he’s gonna pay for what he did."

He stared at me like he wanted to slam his forehead into the steering wheel until the horn gave up and muttered something under his breath, probably cussing me out. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a brown envelope before sliding it across the seat toward me.

 "I put a dossier together. Photos, schedules, a map of his rotations the last six months. You’ll know where he goes, who escorts him, the men who matter."

I should have been grateful. I was. The part of me that survived on facts and angles and perfect timing was already running through the contents of that envelope. The part that wanted to shove the dossier under Dominic Sokolov’s skull and watch the blood spell the truth was louder in my head.

"Be careful," he said his voice softer now. "Josh needs you. He’s already lost Haley, don’t make him lose another sister."

I froze for half a second my jaw tight. He always pulled the family card when he thought I was being reckless.

"Nice try," I muttered with any eye roll. "Guilt trip denied."

But my hand lingered half a second longer than I wanted it to, just enough for him to notice the tremor I couldn't quite hide.  He didn't call me out but I wished he did. Because for someone who always spoke his mind, his silence grated me more than I would care to admit.

"I put a little extra something in there for you," he added casually which instantly made me suspicious.

I tore the flap open and peeked inside. My stomach dropped.

"What the fuck is this?"

"It's a gun, Rave," He rolled his eyes. "You know, metal thing, goes bang?"

"Not just a gun," I said, pulling it halfway out. "You gave me a fucking FN Five-Seven?"

"Figured you’d need something small but with teeth." He shrugged like this was no big deal. "You’re welcome."

"You’re insane," I snapped, shoving it back into the envelope. "You know they strip-search us before every shift, right? If they find this on me—"

"Then hide it," he cut in with another eye roll. "I don’t care if you have to stick it up your fucking—"

I cut him off with a glare. "Finish that sentence and I swear I’ll pickle your balls and gift them to your mother for Christmas."

His lips curled into that cocky smirk I hated. "That’s my girl. And Raven?" he called as I shoved the door open."Don't die in there."

The club’s neon glow hit me as I slammed the door and for half a second, I wondered if I’d just made the dumbest decision of my life. Walking in here with no plan, no backup, just the pure rage of vengeance and hope that finally I was going to see my sister's murderer.

Because if the rumors were true, Dominic Sokolov was walking through those doors tonight.

***

I stared at the stranger in the mirror and for a long moment, I couldn’t tell if she was me or some feral creature stitched together out of hate and vengeance. 

My dark hair spilled down my back in molten waves glinting under the shitty fluorescent light making it look darker and shinier than it really was which only added to the allure.

My eyes trailed downward taking in the black leather shorts that clung to me like a second skin. They were cut high enough to expose the curve of my ass every time I shifted and the zipper sat teasingly low on my hips leaving little to imagination. My smoky red lips curled into a smirk as I adjusted the straps of my barely-there bra, as I imagined the reaction of men when I finally got on stage. 

I’d chosen black on purpose, not the crimson that bled across every other body in this room. 

Apparently, red was his color. His favorite. The Don’s worshippers had painted themselves in every shade of it tonight, desperate to please. 

Once every few months, he came down from whatever gilded cage he lived in and chose girls. That was the ritual. The promise that kept half the girls here starving themselves into size twos and wearing red to get his attention. If you were chosen, you didn’t just dance for faceless men anymore. You belonged to him. You were taken out of this neon purgatory and into his orbit.

Wearing black was practically spitting in his face. So I made sure I wore it from head to toe. I wasn’t about to blend in. I wanted his eyes on me. And what better way to lure a man than to show up in the one color he couldn’t stand?

I needed him to notice me. To select me the way he’d once selected Haley. To take me into the same darkness he dragged her into. Because that was the only way I could slit his throat from the inside.

And tonight, I was ready to walk into his hunting grounds.

Only I wasn’t a prey.