Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me. Shannon McKenna
sad.
The broker had been most forthcoming, with András’s knife digging into his carotid artery. He’d provided the business card and a physical description of the torque’s designer. A stunningly beautiful, mysterious young woman who could only be Kurt’s lying, murderous ex-mistress.
Whom Georg Luksch had sworn was dead. How very strange.
“Help me understand this situation, Jakab.” Novak’s voice was deceptively gentle. “I spent a fortune to have Georg freed from prison. I spent another fortune to have his face and body put back together. I groomed him to be my successor, to take Kurt’s place at my side. I made him rich, powerful. Now I discover, by pure chance, that this filthy whore is alive and flourishing? And that Georg has contracted a PSS agent to locate her? Without informing me?”
“He…how did…but how do you—”
“How do I know this?” Novak’s smile peeled back from long, yellowing teeth. “I have my ways, Jakab. I know everything, sooner or later. I know that it is my old protégé, Vajda, who is charged with the task of looking for her. A good choice. A whore to catch a whore.” He wrenched the dagger loose. It left an ugly divot in the gleaming table. “I have been used,” he announced. “Lied to. Where is she, Jakab? Where is Steele?”
András braced himself. Lied to, Novak’s pet hate. The words “lied to” always ended in a bloodbath.
Jakab reached out an entreating hand. “Boss. I don’t know! I swear! They don’t tell me these things! And I am sure that Georg did not mean to mislead you. Perhaps this is a misunderstanding. The situation is complex. The woman is—”
Thunk. There was a choked gasp from Jakab. The dagger had pinned his hand to the table. The man’s jaw sagged. Blood pooled under his palm.
“Complex, did you say?” Novak’s voice had gotten even gentler. “I think it is quite simple, Jakab. Nothing like a knife through the hand to simplify things.”
Jakab had begun to shake violently. “But…but I cannot…I don’t—”
“Where?” Novak put his hand on the jeweled finial. “Where is she? Or shall I twist it?”
Jakab gasped, breath hitching. Novak wrenched the blade out. A shriek of agony jerked from Jakab’s throat. “Tell me, you useless bag of shit!” the old man rasped. “What has Vajda discovered? Where is the bitch? Tell me! Now!”
But Jakab could no longer answer. Something was very wrong with him, something more serious than a minor puncture wound. His mouth began to froth. He pitched forward, eyes wild, face squashed against the table, blood pouring from both nostrils.
His twitching slowed, gradually ceased, while they all watched, in silence.
Novak blinked, and examined the dagger in his hand with renewed interest. “Poison,” he commented. “Interesting.”
András stared at the meat that was now his responsibility to remove, with an inward sigh.
“Get rid of this garbage, András,” Novak ordered. “Cut off a few identifying pieces and send them to that lying pig, so we all know where we stand. Then get Vajda for me. He had no business working for Georg in the first place. We will remind him of where his real loyalties lie.”
“I will take care of it, as soon as Daroczy is discharged from the hospital,” András repeated, with grim patience.
But Novak was no longer listening. The boss’s eyes burned as he turned the dagger in his hand. “He will bring her to me. And I will use this blade,” he mused, his voice almost dreamy. “This very blade, once the poison is removed, of course. It must be slow. She will watch, in the mirror. And I will save her eyes for last.”
Georg bucked and heaved grimly against the body of the sex professional who writhed against him on the bed. She was making too much noise. It was spoiling his fantasy.
He was annoyed. He’d thought she’d do so perfectly when he’d seen the photographs of her. The initial effect was striking: the long red hair, the perfect body. She’d had extensive cosmetic surgery done to her face to make her look as much like Tamara Steele as it was possible to look. The surgeons had done a good job.
It was her voice that was the problem. He remembered Tamara’s husky alto voice all too well. It made him shiver with raw hunger.
This woman’s wailing squawks of feigned appreciation were high-pitched, strident, stupid. They ruined the effect.
It was disappointing. Boring and exhausting, too, but there was no question of stopping, not with three of his men standing over the bed watching him, as was his custom. He could no longer conclude a sexual act without an audience.
Fortunately, Georg had no lack of willing spectators.
He tried to close his ears, picturing Kurt Novak’s pale, crazed eyes watching him as he possessed Tamara. Sweat broke out on his forehead. The most erotically intense moments he had ever experienced.
The thought detonated something inside him. He jerked, convulsed, came.
He collapsed for a few panting seconds upon the woman’s damp body. He could hear the heavy breathing of the men watching. Her perfume was unpleasantly strong in his nostrils.
He clambered off her body, fastened his pants, buckled his belt. The woman propped herself up on her elbows. He did not look at her, but he saw out of the corner of his eye her miffed expression. Arrogant bitch. Expecting to be praised and petted for doing her job.
One of his men cleared his throat. “Uh, boss?”
“What?” He sat down at the desk and powered up the computer, already putting the experience out of his mind.
“Can we…?”
Georg glanced back at the three men who’d stood slavering over the bed, and then at the growing outrage on the masklike Tamara face superimposed upon the redheaded woman reclining on the bed.
He shrugged. “If you like. I don’t want this one again.”
She folded herself up defensively. “That wasn’t in the contract! There’s nothing about taking on four men in my contract!”
“So you’ll be paid quadruple,” he said indifferently. “In cash. And I can refrain from mentioning this bonus to the agency.”
Her red lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, calculating.
Georg turned back to the computer, bored with it, and pulled up the file of digital photos he had collected of Tamara. He clicked through them with dreamy concentration, studying her from every angle. The whimpers, grunts, and muffled laughter that began to emanate from the direction of the bed faded away, and he was alone on the earth with her. No one else existed. Perfect beauty. Beauty, strength, perfect symmetry. The only fit mate for him. She just didn’t know it yet. She had no idea of the vast empire he would offer her, the power, the wealth, the luxury.
A voice intruded on his reverie. He turned and found one of his men, Ferenc, holding a waxed cardboard box in his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the woman was now on her knees, rocking vigorously as she serviced two men at once, one with her mouth, the other with her backside. The man holding the box did not appear to notice the pornographic tableau behind him.
That alone was remarkable enough to snap him to full attention.
The man’s eyes were frozen wide, his skin greenish gray. There was a greasy sheen of sweat on his forehead.
“What is it?” Georg demanded. “What’s in the box?”
“Jakab,” Ferenc said hoarsely. “Or…some of him.”
Georg pushed aside the packing material. A blood-drenched, severed head and hands were wedged inside. Jakab’s eyes stared up at him, wide and startled. He looked perplexed at his fate.
It would seem that Novak had discovered Tamara was alive.