Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Read online

  Stolen from the Hitman

  Alexis Abbott

  Alex Abbott

  Contents

  Copyright

  Stolen from the Hitman

  Prologue

  1. Liv

  2. Liv

  3. Liv

  4. Liv

  5. Liv

  6. Max

  7. Liv

  8. Max

  9. Liv

  10. Max

  11. Liv

  12. Max

  13. Liv

  14. Max

  15. Liv

  16. Max

  17. Liv

  18. Max

  19. Liv

  20. Max

  21. Liv

  22. Max

  23. Liv

  24. Liv

  25. Max

  26. Liv

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Captive of the Hitman

  1. Mikhail

  2. Alicia

  3. Mikhail

  4. Alicia

  5. Mikhail

  6. Alicia

  7. Mikhail

  8. Alicia

  9. Mikhail

  10. Alicia

  11. Mikhail

  12. Alicia

  13. Mikhail

  14. Alicia

  15. Mikhail

  16. Alicia

  17. Mikhail

  18. Alicia

  19. Mikhail

  20. Alicia

  21. Mikhail

  22. Alicia

  23. Alicia

  Glossary

  Saved by the Outlaw

  24. Cherry

  25. Cherry

  26. Leon

  27. Cherry

  28. Leon

  29. Cherry

  30. Leon

  31. Cherry

  32. Cherry

  33. Leon

  34. Cherry

  35. Leon

  36. Cherry

  37. Leon

  38. Cherry

  39. Leon

  40. Cherry

  41. Leon

  42. Cherry

  43. Leon

  44. Cherry

  45. Leon

  46. Cherry

  Epilogue - Cherry

  Glossary

  Also by Alexis Abbott

  About the Author

  © 2016 Pathforgers Publishing.

  All Rights Reserved. If you downloaded an illegal copy of this book and enjoyed it, please buy a legal copy. Either way you get to keep the eBook forever, but you’ll be encouraging me to continue writing and producing high quality fiction for you. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Wicked Good Covers. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.

  This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only. All sexually active characters in this work are over 18. All sexual activity is between non-blood related, consenting adults. This is a work of fiction, and as such, does not encourage illegal or immoral activities that happen within.

  More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing.

  Content warnings: violence, murder, human trafficking

  Wordcount: 73,000 Words

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  Stolen from the Hitman

  This new release copy of Stolen from the Hitman includes TWO bonus novels: Captive of the Hitman and Saved by the Outlaw. All three books are standalone set in the same universe. I hope you enjoy all three novels!

  Prologue

  I step out of the black sedan and into the midnight rain that’s drenching all of Paris tonight. The raindrops roll down my black leather jacket, trailing down my gloved hands to trickle in thin drops onto the dark cobblestone of the streets beneath my feet.

  It’s past midnight, and most people are already either sleeping or shuffling out of the bars to get ready for the next day’s drudgery in the city of lights.

  The apartment building in front of me is an upscale kind of place, not unusual for some of the city’s wealthier residents. The stone on the outside might have been white once, but it is now faded, the lion statues near the entrance having lost their bite long ago. As I step towards the door and swipe the cardkey, the glass doors open for me, and I make my way in swiftly, my weapon low at my side.

  I pull my collar up and keep my gaze down as I make my way to the stairs leading below ground level. I have one stop to make before seeing to the main event for tonight. A short flight of stairs brings me to a door, and I can hear a television playing behind it. Raising a fist, I pound on the door.

  “What?” comes the superintendent's surly French voice from within the room. I wait a moment before pounding on the door again, a little more demanding this time. I hear an angry groan from the other side before footsteps approach the door. “If the internet is out again, it can wait for the morning,” he says as he opens the door, but his eyes widen at the sight of me for only an instant before I’m upon him with a cloth to his mouth and nose, his whole body seizing up as he draws a sharp breath before slipping into unconsciousness.

  Closing the door behind me, I carry the limp body back to the chair he’d been sitting in. There are reruns of old football matches playing on the television, giving me a backdrop while I shuffle through the man’s belongings, knowing I only have a small window of time to find what I’m after.

  In another few seconds, I discover the apartment master key sitting under a soiled napkin, and I take it, leaving the room as swiftly and silently as a phantom.

  My footsteps make little noise as I ascend the staircase, key clenched in my hand. The stairs go in a spiral up the side of the building, and a glass pane window gives me a full view of the world outside as I move.

  As I near the top floor, my gaze glances out over the cityscape to my right, and the soft glow of the remaining city lights hover over the Parisian skyline like a corona. I slow my steps for just a moment, my cold gaze pausing to appreciate the tarnished jewel of Europe before I pick up my pace again.

  The soft glow of the city lights have only an instant to shine on a glint of metal on the silenced-pistol I’m drawing from my jacket pocket.

  I soften my steps to near-silence as I reach the top floor, a wide and polished foyer leading to a single ornate door with a large man posted outside it, his arms folded as he thumbs through a dirty magazine.

  He has time only to raise his head while I raise my pistol. When he crumples to the ground a second later, I wonder if he even had time for fear to swell up in his heart. His is the only life I might have had a shred of remorse for taking tonight, if I hadn’t hardened my heart to such business long, long ago.

  I walk over to the man’s body, and the roaring laughter and music coming from inside the door tells me that not a soul heard my approach. I bend down to check the bullet hole in the guard’s head before pressing an ear to the door.

  The voices within are mostly older men, some slurred, some merry, but all speaking in Russian, my mother tongue. But I hear some of them speaking to women.

  “Boris, tell that bitch of yours to bring another beer and take a seat on me.”

  “She doesn’t speak Russian yet —the only language these French girls understand is cock, don’t you know?”

  “Well shit, she’d better start giving me some poetry then, unless she wants to be given to the help outside!”

  There’s a sound of a terrified
, quiet voice in French I can’t quite make out, but it’s followed by laughter from the men. “Hey, maybe she should meet her date for tonight, go get the guard and have him come strip her for us, I’m bored with poker for tonight.”

  As they’ve been speaking, I’ve been sliding the master key into the lock and turning it quietly, slowly. My muscles tense as I hear heavy footsteps approaching the door, and I see that my chance is coming faster than I expected.

  Just before the footsteps reach the door, I throw it open, cracking the corner against the face of whomever was being sent to fetch the dead guard, and he crumples to the ground as I move in and bring my heel down on his throat and hold up my pistol.

  The room is a haze of cigar smoke in the palpably tense instants I enter the penthouse. It’s a luxurious suite, with marble floors and mahogany furniture giving the place the look of an upscale antique store. There’s some art hanging on the walls, all rather high-quality forgeries. At least ten men turn their eyes to me, many of them in recognition. Some are old, some are young. Three are sitting around a table, playing poker. Another few men are sitting around on couches and armchairs, apparently having been talking before I came in. There are two women in the room, one of them on a man’s lap in an armchair, the other holding a tray of cocktails.

  “You bastard,” one of the men playing poker has time to growl at me before three rounds of my weapon strike true on all three men at the poker table, my aim moving with deadly precision before one of the women screams, and I duck behind the half-wall that leads into the room as chaos breaks loose.

  The remaining men stand up, some of them reaching for their guns as they dive for cover, and shouts in Russian fill the room. I hear footsteps and movement the moment I’m out of sight, and I make a note to watch for those who’ve left the room. Bullets hit the wall behind me as I duck, but I can tell from the number of shots fired that not all the men have weapons at the ready. Meaning I have only a matter of moments to end this before this becomes a full firefight.

  I hear a cry from one of the men and the sound of glass breaking on the ground, and I seize my opportunity, popping out of hiding.

  One of the enslaved women had struck one of the armed men with her tray, and before he can get his bearings and retaliate, I put a bullet between his eyes and charge into the room.

  Having been distracted by the scene, one of the armed men starts to turn to me, but I reach him first, grabbing his wrist and shoving his arm up as he fires, blasting a hole in the ceiling above before he cries out as I break his wrist and bring my pistol to his heart and pull the trigger.

  Five rounds.

  The gunfire had ceased, and I turn in time to feel a sting on my right arm as one of the older men brings a kitchen knife across it, and there’s blood on his blade as he finishes. I recognize the man, the one they’d called Boris, and his steely eyes lock with mine.

  “You think this game of yours will go unnoticed?” he snarls. “You think the Bratva will just roll over and play along with your wishes, you fucking upstart?”

  I have no words to waste my breath on, and even as he brings his knife in for another strike, my fist is faster, and I catch him in the stomach, doubling him over. I wrench the knife from his hand and ram it into his belly faster than he can react, and as blood runs down the man’s front while he gasps, collapsing into the hot fireplace, I turn my attention to two younger men who are barreling for me.

  Grimacing, I hurl the knife at the wall, not far from the first woman, who jumps back, her eyes wide as she looks at it while I brace myself to deal with the two men.

  One dives for me, and I easily use his weight against him, hurling him to the ground as I swing to catch the second man with a blow to the chin, sending him staggering. He comes back around to tackle me to the ground, but a swift kick to the knee cripples him with a pained shout, and he falls to the ground with his partner.

  While they gather their bearings, I reach down to one of the bodies of the armed men, picking up a pistol and putting a bullet into each of the men who dove for me. Their bodies thud to the ground unceremoniously.

  With the room cleared, I move to the wall near the entrance to the hallway. My heart jumps to my throat as a man I’d missed stands up from behind the couch, pistol in hand, but before I can turn my weapon to him, I hear him grunt as the first woman sinks the kitchen knife into his back from behind, and she stands back as he falls to the ground, her hands shaking as the weapon falls from her grip.

  My eyes watch her for a moment as she looks up at me, fearful. “Flee. You saw nothing tonight,” I inform her in French, and she simply nods before dashing for the door, her footsteps echoing down the stairs.

  Returning my attention to the hallway, I brace myself before blind-firing two rounds with the pistol I’d picked up, and I hear two men shout and shuffle for cover as I turn around the corner. One of my shots catches the hip of a man diving into the bathroom, and swiftly, I follow him in before he can regain his bearings.

  I point my pistol to his head as I press myself against the wall, and he holds his hands up in surrender, terrified. I nod to the hallway and mouth ‘how many?’ He glances to the doorway and holds up one finger. I nod and fire my pistol, catching him between the eyes before whipping around into the hallway and aiming for the far bedroom doorway.

  A bullet from the man standing there catches me in the shoulder before my shot hits him in the throat, and he slumps to the floor as I clutch my wound, moving forward with no time to waste. One bullet remaining in the gun I came into the room with, I kick the door open and instinctively aim it at the bed.

  My target is there, sitting on the lavish silken sheets and holding a pistol to the head of the second woman I’d seen him sitting with when I first burst into the room. His eyes are the coldest of any of the other men I saw on my way in. His room is lavish, gold vases and a few pieces of real art hanging on the walls, a large amount of cocaine on a table near the bed and a closet hanging open, full of expensive, tailored suits. He’s every bit the man of hedonistic pleasures I always knew him to be.

  “Move, and she dies,” he says, calm and collected. The woman in his grip looks at me with wide, petrified eyes, and I know the one question on her mind is whether or not I value her life enough, even as I have my barrel trained on her captor. He isn’t the oldest man in the room, but of all the mobsters I’ve killed tonight, he’s the highest ranking by far. “A lot of the men in this room might have called you a friend before tonight, you know,” he says coldly. “Maybe even more. Others might have had you killed before you got ambitious. I must admit, my one regret is speaking on your behalf all those times.”

  We stare each other in the eyes for several seconds. There’s so much I want to snap back at him, so much I want to tell him of how much hatred I have for him and all that he represents.

  But I will not play his games.

  The woman shrieks as I fire my pistol, blood spattering on the rich pillows behind the mob boss as he drops his gun and falls back on his bed, lifeless. The woman recoils from the sight, some of the blood in her hair as she screams.

  I lower my pistol, my eyes moving to her momentarily before I walk over to look at the man’s lifeless eyes before turning to her. She quiets, looking up at me in terror, the unspoken question of what is to become of her written all over her expression.

  “Go,” I say simply, and it’s a moment before she nods hastily and darts out of the room. I give her a few minutes head start to move around the house and ensure that everyone was dead. This job could afford nothing less than perfection.

  Bodies are strewn across the entire apartment. Smoke still hangs overhead as the dull Russian music drones from a stereo by the television. Blood is spattered across the unfinished game of poker, and there are bullet holes in forged paintings that must be worth hundreds of thousands.

  I survey my work with neither a smile nor frown, but I feel a certain sense of peace as I stride out the door, dropping the superintendent's keys by t
he guard’s body. I have no intention of cleaning the place or even doing so much as closing the door.

  Tonight, I mean to send a message.

  1

  Liv

  “Smile, honey!” my mom calls out, grinning widely from behind a big black camera. I struggle to balance both my clunky valedictorian plaque and the enormous bouquet of roses my father presented to me. My face just barely peeks out from behind the flowers and my dad pulls me close in a tight hug just as my mom snaps the photo. I blink rapidly, the flash burning behind my eyes. It’s probably the hundredth picture taken of me today at my high school graduation ceremony. The sun is beginning to make its slow descent down the horizon, casting a dreamy pinkish glow across the football field.

  “Oh, that’s a great one!” exclaims my mother, who rushes over to show Dad the photo, kissing the top of my head along the way. Both of my parents are taller than me and very athletic; my mom is an avid runner and my dad used to compete in bodybuilding competitions. As a result of their shared passion, I have been raised with the expectations of attaining and maintaining physical perfection. But while I lack my parents’ height and overt athletic appearance, I am certainly a contender in my own right.

  Ever since the day I was born a couple months premature, I have been tiny. I’ve always been a little smaller than all my friends and fellow students. So it was a struggle for my sports-obsessed parents, trying to situate me in an athletic track that I could feasibly do. I mean, it’s not like a five-foot-one girl is going to make it big as a basketball star or anything. And since I was also lucky enough to be born with asthma, I have never been the runner my mom hoped I would be (not for lacking of trying, I might add). But after years of bouncing back and forth between different sports programs, we finally settled on the one sport that’s become my ticket to success, my passion, the thing that drives my every thought and heartbeat.

  Gymnastics.

  I may not be able to sprint a mile in record time without hyperventilating, and I may not be able to even reach most of the exercise bars at the gym. But I can bend and twist and flip my body in ways nobody ever expected from me. I’m a pretty damn good gymnast, if I do say so myself, and getting to this point has meant years and years of hardcore dedication and training. There’s something so freeing and fulfilling about teaching my body to fly through the air, every muscle straining to the brink. Every time I run and leap, spin and stretch, I feel my heart soaring in my chest. And there is nothing in this world so satisfying as landing a difficult move, my feet grounding me gracefully to the earth once more. It makes me feel like a superhero. It makes me feel like I can fly.