His Secret Assassin

Chapter 18: Matias

Thirteen days.

It'd been thirteen days since the morning I woke up and Kiara had disappeared, thirteen days that I hadn't been able to catch a glimpse or a scent or even a crumb of her other than my senses playing tricks on me and making me think I could smell her or see her blonde hair just around a corner. I'd chase after those miniscule hints of her but it never led me anywhere but dead ends. I was at the end of my rope, ready to tear the city apart until I found her and made her tell me why she'd left when she'd promised me to stay.

Sorrow from a broken heart started to fill my mind, but I shoved it to the same box I'd put the sadness of my dead family so I could function until I had the ability to deal with it. I heard my front door open and I ran upstairs from my office, hope flaring that Kiara had made her way back to me. I was disappointed to see only Uncle Jasper, but it was always good to see him. He'd been trying to help me find Kiara, but his old contacts hadn't come up with much. I was starting to think she'd been taken, and I didn't know which option made me more furious.

"I'm sorry, my boy," he said before I could even ask if there were any updates. "Nothing still."

I nodded with understanding, turning and going back to my office, letting Jasper decide whether he wanted to follow me or not.

"I heard you finally found Webb."

"Yeah," I responded in a dead voice. "With Kiara gone, I thought maybe he'd gotten to her again so I started the search there. He must have someone good on his payroll, because it took me longer than usual. But as of yesterday, that job is finally done."

"What're you planning on doing now?"

I shrugged, sitting down on my chair and waiting until I heard him settle on the recliner I'd gotten just for him a while back before I answered.

"I've been sent a few contracts to look over, but nothing worth my time yet." My computer pinged at that moment, and I turned automatically to see the coded email subject line from 'Discreet Deeds' that said 'Double or Nothing'. "Speak of the devil, here's another one."

I clicked on the email to read the details out loud, knowing Jasper would be curious.

"ISO woman who can take me to heaven or hell, as long as the price is right. 1 night only"

Translated, it was saying they were looking for a woman, dead for 1 million or alive for double that amount. I never took hit contracts on women, so I was just about to delete before something in the back of my brain had me clicking on the link at the bottom. The link was always encrypted and you had to know the right thing to click on the page and have the right passcode in order to access the picture and additional info so that if anyone else but who it was intended for saw it, they only saw a page about junkie escorts.

I nearly jumped out of my chair when I got through all the security and found myself staring at a picture of Kiara, her gorgeous smile filling my screen. I clicked "accept" faster than my brain could send the signal to do so, knowing that when I did the link would show a 404 Error page instead to let them know the contract was accepted. I didn't want anyone else going after my woman.

"Now that's curious; why would anyone take out a 2 million contract on that sweet thing?"I growled, just now realizing the truth of his question. Could it be someone in Webb's old connection going after her?

"I'm not sure, but I'm sure as fuck going to find out."

Thank god for technologically advanced friends; in just under two hours, my phone was ringing with a call from someone whose skills at finding information made me afraid of what she knew about me. The only time she'd been unable to find what I needed was anything about Kiara after she'd left

"Hit me, Queenie."

"Always so formal," she teased but dove right in. "Took some doing since the originator had it bouncing all over the place, but my magic fingers and I found your man. Someone who goes by the name Roman put the hit out on your girl. His real name is Jacob, but that's unimportant. What IS important, is that this Roman is a very bad man. Was in and out of juvie since he was 13, and while he's never been convicted of anything in his adult years there's lots of suspicion surrounding him with a few unexplained house fires and other deaths- the others for which no bodies have been found. He works as a type of liaison for a real estate company that I can already tell makes way too much money to legally make sense."

I thought for a second. "That's good to know. Anything on why he put the hit out on her?"

"Nothing solid. He's got some shady connections in the underworld, including your dearly departed friend Webb."

I clenched the phone in my hand, the plastic creaking in my grip and threatening to crack if I didn't let up. "Fucking Webb."

"Yeah, his name fits don't it? He's got all these little tendrils everywhere, like a creepy spider. Those big ones from The Hobbit, specifically. Man those things really give me the creeps. Why do they always have to make spiders so big? Like in Harry Potter, I just-"

"Okay, thank you Queenie, for the information. I'll let you know if I need anything else." She didn't take my interruption personally, she never did. With a quick "no prob", she hung up the phone and let me get to what I needed. She was odd and quirky, but fucking phenomenal at her job.

I paced in my office for a while, thinking about what to do next. A plan began to form in my mind, and I sat back at my desk to map it out. I was going to find and kill this Roman, and when the danger was over I was going after my girl.