Chapter One

Spade

I wasn’t just a killer. There were men wielded power like a weapon. They sharpened their knives of intimidation, yet hid behind the false security of walls, guards, and guns.

I wasn’t one of those men. I worked alone, camouflaged in the shadows.

Real power came from patience. Like a spider spinning an intricate web, I only needed to wait for my prey to vibrate one of the gossamer filaments. To make one misstep. Once I had him, I intended to make him suffer the same fate as his victims, to watch life slowly fade from his black, soulless eyes.

Madden Kyng. He was known as the cartel Kyng. He peddled his poison on the streets while wearing Brioni like Bond. The man reeked of hypocrisy while reigning over his empire. His day of reckoning had come.

I’d become an artist, torture my medium. Kyng would be my masterpiece. He’d die a slow, agonizing death. I’d perfected my craft and refined my pharmaceuticals. In small doses, scopolamine could make my targets groggy, but I wanted their bodies stiff with the incapacitating effects, and I wanted their minds paralyzed with fear.

My first kill had gone unnoticed by law enforcement. Another drug dealer dead in the street, caught in the crossfire of a dangerous profession. Another followed. Both were members of Kyng’s cartel.

A smug smile curled my lips. Not even Kyng realized he had an enemy at the door. Then I killed Laf, the one considered his top general. As long as the medical examiner continued to rule the deaths as drug overdoses, I’d continue to send them to hell.

Sitting in the corner of Inferno, Kyng’s playpen of iniquity, I flicked open the lid of my lighter and rolled the wheel, striking the flint. Flames licked the wick. I breathed in the scent, snapped the lid closed, and then flipped it open again.

People crowded onto the dance floor of the upscale downtown nightclub. Chrome, glass, and exclusivity. Music droned out the chatter of voices. Women wore leather. Their skin glistened as they pulsed and gyrated on the dance floor. I didn’t come to dance. I was here for a specific purpose.

In the corner, roped off in a private area, Kyng surrounded himself with guards. Massive men scanned the crowd, protecting their boss. I lifted my cola to my lips, letting my gaze linger over the rim. The man smiled and laughed, arrogant in his position.

No one was untouchable. Every man had a weakness. Madden Kyng’s stood to his left. Nalini Bryan. My prey was stunningly beautiful but deceptively deadly.

Heat slipped under my skin with the hunt. A cascade of dark hair draped over her bare shoulders. Long lashes framed sultry brown eyes rimmed with black. Red slicked across her luscious lips. Leather pants rode low on her hips. The flawless flesh of her full tits played peek-a-boo through a red, lace-up corset. A diamond jewel winked from her bellybutton of her exposed midriff.

She was petite. I could span her waist with my hands or crush her throat with one fist. Movements were fluid as she swiveled her hips to the music. The song changed to something popular with a faster beat. The crowd cheered. One of the other girls tugged her hand and pulled her toward the dance floor.

Kyng grabbed her, wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and yanked her onto his lap. His palm covered the tit cresting out of her corset, and his mouth slammed onto hers. He kissed her, groped her, then shoved her off his lap and smacked her ass.

Nalini stumbled to catch her balance as she wiped smudged lipstick from her face. Kyng bent over the table and snorted another line up his nose.

As Nalini and the blonde moved onto the dance floor, Kyng nodded at one of his men to follow them. In the crowd, I was just another guy dancing, looking to get laid.

I had the ability to blend in when I needed camouflaged but also to intimidate when the situation required it. To quote the movies, I had a particular set of skills that made me dangerous to men like Kyng. I could find anyone. Some might call me a killer. They’d be right. I killed. But I didn’t see it as murder.

I balanced the scales of justice.

True justice was an eye for an eye. Kyng was a drug dealer. His victims died with his poison in their veins. He didn’t know it yet, but he would know soon. I was his endgame, and he’d meet the same fate.

Planning my next moves, I waited for an opportunity for checkmate. To kill the king, I’d take his queen. The one thing he couldn’t live without.

I slipped my lighter into my pocket. Staying near the edge of the dance floor, I worked my way closer to the women. Bodies with sweat-slicked skin bumped into me. The pungent odor blended with the cloying scent of perfumes. Lights flashed, and the bass of the music matched the steady rhythm of my pulse.

I wasn’t immune to the spike of adrenaline or the coil of tension knotting in my gut. I’d hunted, cloaked in the shadows. The fucker understood the game too well. Moves and countermoves.

It wasn’t enough to kill him. I wanted him to suffer.

For weeks, while watching Kyng, I’d watched her . She’d become an obsession as much as Madden. I wanted them both.

Nalini lifted her arms, dancing to the heavy beat of the music. The dance floor was packed. The bodyguard stood against the wall, a few feet from her. As the song continued, I shifted with the crowd.

“Come with me.” The blonde grabbed Nalini’s hand. As they danced, her friend leaned into her. “I need another hit.”

“I’m good.” Nalini shimmied her hips.

“I need to pee,” the friend screamed at the bodyguard.

The bodyguard was torn between following the blonde or coming back for Nalini. He glanced to Kyng, who nodded in the direction of the blonde. The guard stepped away from the wall and split the crowd. As he followed the friend, I closed the space between me and Nalini. Heat radiated off her body, releasing the scent of her perfume. It saturated the air with her pheromones.

As she swayed to the music, I rested a hand on her hip.

My touch chilled her flesh. She shivered and pressed closer, still moving to the music.

“Dance with me, beautiful,” I said.

With a slow roll, she turned toward me. Her wild gaze shifted to the people dancing around us. We were in the center of the dance floor, crushed together by gyrating bodies. Lights cut through the darkened room, and strobes created a disorienting pulse.

I’d planned for contingencies. Once I had her isolated, I had options for extraction. Preferably, she’d come quietly. However, I wasn’t optimistic. She was Kyng’s, and his guards gave her a sense of security. They couldn’t protect her from me.

She brushed a strand of hair from her face with her fingers. A tendril clung to her lip. I grazed my finger across her bottom lip, catching the soft, damp hair, and pulling it from her mouth. Her breath was moist and warm against my skin.

Time seemed to slow as she stared into my face and nodded.

With a few steps, I steered us deeper into the swarm of bodies.

Mesmerized by the music, she closed her eyes and swayed her body seductively. Using those around us, I shifted closer. My fingertips slipped onto the bare skin of her midriff.

Touching her was like touching electricity, sending a scorch of current surging through me. The room was too hot, my cock was too interested, and the fucking target in front of me was too provoking.

Perspiration trickled along my spine. She wobbled toward me, so small and tempting. With my hands on her hips, she tilted her face to mine. Those beautiful brown eyes were blown. She was high as fuck.

I felt the anesthetizing patch in my pocket. Since I didn’t have a charming personality, I’d have to coerce her out of the club another way.

She stilled, and the music seemed to fade. Soft breaths floated past the rim of her plump lips. Her delicate pink tongue touched the bow, then slicked along the glossy fullness to disappear back into her mouth.

After weeks of watching her, I wanted to give chase with a kiss, to taste her, even knowing the bastard watching had just had his brutal mouth on her. I glanced over my shoulder. Kyng stood, his drink clutched in one hand and the other balled into a fist.

One of his guards made his way around the edge of the dance floor. I continued to shift us into the throng of bodies.

“You shouldn’t stand so close to me,” she said.

My hand slid onto her hip. “I enjoy doing things I shouldn’t.”

Standing this close to her, my body reacted. My chest tightened, and my balls grew heavy as my cock kicked into a full mast behind the fly of my black jeans. I wasn’t supposed to play with my prey or to think about her smooth skin flush against mine, or of taking her for pleasure instead of punishment.

I leaned closer, running my nose along her neck and breathing in her scent.

“You must like getting into trouble.” Her voice trembled with my nearness.

I raked my gaze along her body. “Are you trouble?”

Remember my face, Kyng, because I’m about to take something you can’t live without…just as you did to me.

Her flesh shimmered, and her heartbeat fluttered in the column of her neck. I placed my fingertips on the faint bruises collaring her throat. My thumb pressed against her pulse as she swallowed.

Her focus drifted over my shoulder. Her hand rested on my chest as she stumbled back with a step. Her fingers curled into my T-shirt. “I’m sorry.”

“What have you done to be sorry about?” With her hands on me, my abdominals clenched, and an unwanted flare of heat sent a rush of blood into my cock. She was toxic. And my dick didn’t get to change the focus of my objectives. I gripped her, tugging her closer.

“You like to live dangerously.” Her gaze darted from me to Kyng’s VIP section again. “But I don’t,” she whispered.

“Wait.” With my hand still on her hip, I spun her away from Kyng. My body blocked his view of her.

She stilled. “You’re going to get me in trouble. Please, let me go.”

A warm slip of power slithered over me as she begged me to release her.

When another bodyguard approached, I let her go. She rushed to them, then cast a last glance over her shoulder. A tentative smile tilted her lips. I cocked a brow and smiled at her.

Don’t worry, Nalini. The pieces are just shifting on the board.

As the guard ushered her back to the VIP section, I locked gazes with Kyng. A predatory gleam darkened his eyes. He lifted his drink to his lips. He pointed to me as he spoke with one of his guards.

I made my way back over to my table. Kyng’s muscle approached.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Mr. Kyng would like you to leave.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

My gaze shifted from the guy in front of me to the blonde leading an unsteady Nalini to the rear of the club. I leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know Mr. Kyng, and I don’t know you.”

“This is Mr. Kyng’s club, and your presence here is irritating him.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Tell him I apologize. I’ll go after my friend returns. He’s in the restroom.”

“Get your friend and go now.”

“Sure.” I stood and walked toward the rear of the club. “Are you going to follow me into the john?”

“You going to take a piss?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Do you want to hold my dick for me?”

The guy grumbled. “Get your friend and get out.”

I pushed open the door, took two steps into the bathroom, spun, and sliced the blade of my forearm against the man’s throat.

Doubling over, he grabbed his neck and tried to take a breath. With a hard thrust, I rammed my thigh into his chin. Air swooshed from his lungs. His jaw cracked, his upper body jolted back, and blood poured from his mouth. He dropped onto the bathroom floor. Disoriented and in shock, his arms flopped to the side, and his nearly severed tongue dangled between his lips.

I stood on his hand as I bent down and slipped a clear patch from my back pocket. I stared into his eyes. “You’re not so pretty anymore.”

He groaned, trying to twist away from me. His suit coat gaped, revealing a gun tucked against his ribs.

“I’ll take this.” I curled my fingers around the grip of the gun, pulled it from the harness, checked the safety, and slid it into the back of my jeans.

A low moan rolled from his chest. He couldn’t speak with his tongue flopping against his swollen lips.

“I can make you feel good,” I whispered. “Is that what you say to women before you lead them to your boss?” I tugged the snap on his trousers, lowered the zipper and parted the fly. After peeling the protective film from the clear patch, I placed it over the veins running beneath the skin of his lower abdomen. “Welcome to my party.”

The toxin would bleed through his skin. As he sweated the nanofibers would dissolve, leaving no trace of the method of delivery, just another dead drug pusher.

I stepped over the man as he gurgled on a mouthful of blood. I slipped out of the men’s restroom. A line formed along the hall for the lady’s room. As the king’s queen, she wouldn’t wait in line.

Making sure I wasn’t followed, I wandered to the far end of the corridor. Cameras captured every corner of the club. I had moments to make my move. A digital keypad locked on the last door on the right. I stood next to it. Opposite me, the emergency exit sign marked the door on the left.

Muted music drifted from the belly of the club. I steadied my breathing. My pulse slowed. Calmness washed through me. I became one with my surroundings. Breathe. Listen. The spider anticipating the vibration on his web.

Finally, someone entered the men’s room. A guy screamed for help. I banged on the door and waited for my prey.

Nalini

Tracers followed flares of light. A tattoo of blinding white flashes sounded in my ears. Colors weren’t supposed to make a sound or have a taste, but the euphoric kaleidoscope breathed with life. Blues warmed my flesh. Reds pulsed in my core. I swallowed the sweetness in my mouth, an aphrodisiac of sin.

I didn’t know what Madden had given me tonight. I didn’t care. If I was high enough, I could forget how fucked up my life had become. I was never high enough.

Whatever he’d given me made me ache, a physical need for touch.

My skin burned with a blistering intensity from the euphoria. Energy pulsed through my body. I ran my hands over my hardened nipples and thought of the man on the dance floor. The man with the penetrating gaze.

For the first time in…forever…I hadn’t been repulsed. I hadn’t wanted to be high. I’d wanted to disappear into the warmth of his body. For a moment, I imagined he was there to rescue me.

Because the brush of his fingertips hadn’t made me shiver with fear but tremble with a wild recklessness. With his body pressed against mine, I’d forgotten the risks. I’d forgotten everything when I’d stared into his brown eyes, so brown they were nearly black with black lashes.

Dark hair had wisped across his forehead and feathered against his brows. Whiskers shadowed his angular jaw. Those lips had promised more than words. His warm breath had teased my skin, sending a dangerous burn of need through my veins. I imagined the feel of his mustache on my skin…between my thighs. Oh god, my core fluttered with an ache.

He was big, built, and intimidating. I couldn’t push the thoughts of the stranger out of my head. Obsessions were dangerous. My life was toxic. Three years ago, I’d been a different girl. There was nothing left of her. Madden had seen to that.

I rubbed the itch on my arm. Maybe if I had another hit, this time would be enough to take away the high because I lived in a nightmare, each night bleeding into the next. My only escape would be to never wake up.

Only Madden wouldn’t let me go. Not even death could win against Madden Kyng.

Ayla slumped on the settee in the corner of the room, and her head lolled to the side. I couldn’t watch her willingly shoot poison into her veins. I hated myself and what I’d become. I hated that there was nothing left of who I used to be. If I could be free, I’d suffer the withdrawal, pay my penance with pain, but the choice wasn’t mine. Not anymore.

Ayla pushed her supply bag toward me.

I leaned against the door. My heart raced, and my hands trembled. “I’m good.”

At least I wasn’t feeling anything bad. Right now, I wasn’t feeling anything but aroused. My limbs were heavy. I was high, but on what, I had no idea. And I didn’t trust Ayla. I didn’t trust anyone, especially myself.

It didn’t matter. Madden violated my mind the way he violated my body. I’d learned to live with the highs in order to survive the lows.

“What did he give me?” I asked. My skin flushed. A lethal elixir of sexual heat slipped through me. I pushed my hair from my face.

Ayla wiped a bit of drool from her mouth. “It’s Dominic’s birthday, Nalini. Kyng wants you to celebrate with him.”

Madden’s gift would be a night of hell for me, twisting and writhing beneath Madden’s enforcer in a delirium of pain. Dominic didn’t care about pleasures except his own, and those always came at the price of agony.

“I’ll give you just enough to get through tonight,” she said. “Tomorrow, I’ll take care of you.”

The offer was tempting, to drift away in a cloud of ecstasy. But I knew bliss would never come, only the crash. I never asked for the hit. Never wanted it. But with Madden, I wasn’t allowed to say no. Ayla never said no to the high either. Rather, she gloried in it, relishing the temptation of the Kyngdom.

Someone pounded on the door.

“Just a minute.” Although she seemed to move in slow motion, Ayla shifted to put away her syringes and supplies.

I twisted the lock.

“Wait,” Ayla said, but it was too late.

The door ripped from my fingers as the man from the dance floor pushed into the private office. I stumbled back a step. He’d been tall and imposing in the crowd, but in the club’s office, he overwhelmed the space, sucking the oxygen from the room with his heated gaze and imposing form.

“You,” I stammered. The rabbiting of my heart had nothing to do with the toxins rushing through my system or the fear I had of my tormentor.

He’d followed me. Even after Madden’s goons had threatened him, he’d come to find me.

Ayla crumbled to the floor and staggered to her feet. “I think I know you.” She stood and braced a hand on the wall to stabilize herself. “I’ve seen you before, at the bar with Laf.”

A sinking feeling ripped through my gut. Another one of Madden’s men? I tried to back away from him, but his hand snaked around my arm.

“Who are you?” Ayla stumbled to me, grabbed onto my arm, and tried to put distance between me and the stranger. “Don’t touch her.”

The man pulled a gun. He definitely was not one of Madden’s men. Madden would never allow anyone to threaten Ayla, his sister—stepsister. The one he trusted above all, even his lieutenants. Ayla had betrayed her own mother to protect Madden.

But I couldn’t hate her. I should. Even though she served her stepbrother, bound herself to one of his generals, she’d also been my only friend as long as I didn’t break any of Madden’s rules.

“This isn’t about you,” the man said. “I’m here for Nalini.”

I jerked my gaze from Ayla to the gun. He knew my name. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet.”

His voice seeped into me, a dark guttural promise of depravity. I didn’t need to be sober to know my night of hell was just beginning.

Maybe I should have let Ayla dose me again. I didn’t want to feel. Yet, my body vibrated with awareness of this man. Strong fingers still gripped my arm.

There was a quiet strength to him. Muscles rippled beneath his fitted T-shirt, the kind of potency that came from absolute power. His grip tightened, and my body responded.

I wasn’t supposed to feel. Emotions made me weak, and Madden would only exploit my weaknesses. I needed to be numb. I needed another hit.

“What do you want?” I asked him. The raspy quality of my voice revealed I wasn’t sure what I wanted his answer to be. There was a dangerous edge to him that made me want to be on the receiving end of his attention. But I was scared of what that would mean to me. I belonged to Madden.

“You.”

His simple reply terrified me. I understood what it meant to be wanted by a dangerous man. Fear clawed into my throat. I was Madden’s prisoner. His pet. Too broken to fight. Too addicted to run. After three years, I no longer cared what he did to me.

He’d already destroyed me, corrupted my thoughts, and blackened my soul. I was a toy he shared just to watch me break.

The stranger’s body pressed into mine. “We’re leaving. Now.”

I stilled at the darkly spoken command. Oh my god. He wasn’t just a guy at the bar.

Ayla swept her hair from her eyes. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

A slow smile curled the corner of his mouth. Why did he look even more sinister? An icy tendril of fear sliced into my chest.

A dark shadow fell across his face, a harbinger of the hurt he’d bring me. Because this wasn’t a man I could turn away from or someone I could pretend wasn’t there as I drifted into the delusion of my high. I’d been taken once before and shackled in a prison I couldn’t escape.

“Trust me. You don’t want me coming back.” He curled his hand around the back of my neck. “Sit there and shut the fuck up,” he said to Ayla. “Or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

He dragged me toward the door. “What do you want with me?” Did it matter?

“He’ll never make it past the guards,” Ayla said.

I swallowed and licked my lips. “She’s right. You don’t know me, but you don’t want to do this.”

“I know everything about you.”

“Then you know Kyng will come after you.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“He’ll kill you.” And then he’d punish me. “I can’t leave.”

I’d tried when I’d run once before. His fingers gripped my wrist, reminding me of the punishment I’d received for betraying Madden. The bindings had left my wrists and ankles scarred, but the damage inside had taken months to heal.

I’d also learned how deeply I’d been ensnared by the Kyngdom. Even if I had escaped, Madden had the power to destroy me. I’d stopped fighting after that, accepting that I’d never be free, not from Madden, not from my prison, or the poisons lacing my blood.

Bruising strength gripped me. Heat from his hand burned into me. His touch was another addictive drug. Intense and toxic. My nipples tightened painfully as the heat seeped lower, pooling low in my belly.

“Walk now, or I’ll drag you out.”

I tried to focus on his face. Flares of light surged through me, and the sweet taste of arousal bloomed on my tongue. I could have the night of torment Madden had planned for me, or I could succumb to my eventual demise and hope this stranger ended my life quickly.

“I’ll go,” I said.

Once away from Madden, maybe I would finally find an escape from my prison. I rubbed the itch in my arm again. Unless it was already too late for me.

Ayla cut in front of him to block the door.

“Get out of my way or don’t.” Danger swirled in his darkened eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his fingers closed around my throat. “Either way, I’m taking Kyng’s queen.”