The Hunter: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Boston Belles Book 1)

The second I was done waving goodbye to Knight and Luna at the airport, I drove back to the apartment in Sailor’s car, applying major-ass self-restraint not to rip the wheel from its socket and throw it out the fucking window.

She wanted to bail on this arrangement now, when we were so close to the finish line? Yeah. No. Fuck this and fuck her.

Literally. I was going to. Punishingly. Because that’s how she liked it, and because I drew the line when her insecurities started messing with my sex life. Damn, I had pre-cum leaking from the tip of my cock, ninth grade-style, just from thinking about what I’d do to her.

When we’d gotten back home from the theater last night, I couldn’t help it. I’d waited until everyone was asleep, picked up the phone, and called Cillian. He sounded like he was at a busy restaurant, only that didn’t make any sense, because it was hella late. Everybody in the background spoke French. When I told him it was serious, he muttered under his breath and went outside. The noise of waves crashing on the shore filled my ears. Where the hell was he? Cannes? Monaco? Fucking heaven?

“You better be dying or talking with your mouth wrapped around the barrel of a gun. It’s three a.m.” I heard the flicker of a lighter as he lit a cigar. My brother didn’t do pot or cigarettes. Only King of Denmark cigars.

It may have been three a.m. in Boston, but not wherever the fuck he was. Was he in Europe? Did he use Da’s Gulfstreamer? Way to leave the carbon footprint of a thousand Nephilim in the name of exotic pussy. And to think I was the one with the bad rep between us two.

“Wishful thinking, brother. It is unlike you to be optimistic.” I adapted his flatline voice.

“Get to the point,” he hissed.

I paused.

“Promise not to snitch on me first.”

I was taking a big risk here, but I had no one to talk to about this. Knight wouldn’t understand. He’d known he was in love with Luna before he was out of diapers, a hopeless romantic. Vaughn wouldn’t, either. Fucker was so cold I doubted he loved his own mother.

That left me with my brother. A comfortable medium: deadly sociopathic, but with the ability to mimic and think like a normal human.

“What makes you think I care enough about what you’re about to say to promise you anything?” he asked, sounding entertained.

Cuntcuntcunt.

“Kill,” I warned.

“On with it, ceann beag. Gossip is beneath me.”

Everything is beneath you, I thought bitterly.

“I’m fucking the nanny,” I admitted, flat out.

My confession was met with loud silence. I unglued my phone from my ear to see if the call was still on. It was. For a second, I regretted how spontaneously I’d given my half-brother—my full-hater—enough ammo to make Da leave me penniless.

Then Cillian spoke. “Is there more to the story, or is this a state-the-obvious theme night?” he growled darkly.

“Wait, you don’t seem surprised.”

“That’s because I’m not.”

“How did you know?” I sat up on the couch. Everyone’s doors were closed, so there was no danger of my being heard.

“Figured when she called me about you that you’d found your way into her heart. And the only tool you have to dig into a woman’s body is your dick. I did the math.”

“Do you think Da knows?”

“Doubt it. He just wants your dick not to shoot everywhere like it’s the wild west, and you seem contained.”

“Well, I haven’t fucked anyone else in all this time. I’m also sober.”

“I don’t care. Move along. My time is precious.” Cillian flicked the cigar with a soft thud I could hear. The music from the restaurant he had left became louder for a second, when someone pushed the door open and called for him in French. He answered her, also in French. She giggled and closed the door.

I shook my head. She’d asked him what he wanted for breakfast. He answered with her name—Rachelle. I Googled the time difference between Boston and Paris. It was nine a.m. there. Fucker. I shook my head.

“Anyway, we were supposed to keep this shit happening until she moves out, but she wants to break it off now.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want to be celibate again!” I snapped. Idiot.

My brother chuckled. He found few things as pleasurable as my distress. “What changed her mind?”

“My friend from Cali was over with his fiancée. I kind of ignored her when they were here. And when we did talk, I reminded her that it was just temporary. I think I called it fuck-buddy purgatory.”

“And they say romance is dead,” he noted sarcastically.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m starting to believe I’m the only living person in Boston who hasn’t had the displeasure,” he jested. “Did your friends bring up your sordid past in Todos Santos, by any chance?”

I thought about the story Knight was telling Luna when we thought Sailor wasn’t there and let out a growl.

“She knew I was a player.” I dismissed his theory, though really, could I blame her for bailing on my ass? The weekend was disastrous.

“It’s easy to forget in a city where she’s your only source of entertainment and your social life is nonexistent.”

“What do I do now?”

“Grovel.”

“Screw that.”

“That’s an option, but not nearly as pleasurable as the redheaded beauty sleeping under your roof.” Kill’s husky voice became roughened.

He thought she was beautiful? That made me feel stupidly proud and inanely angry at the same time.

Another groan escaped me. “Gotta go. For the record, you didn’t help at all,” I said.

“For the record, I didn’t try.”

He hung up first, but sent a message a second after.

Cillian: Told you not to touch that one.

Now, two days later, here I was, pushing the door open, expecting to find Sailor in the kitchen, sulking, waiting for an apology (why was I apologizing again?), eyeing me like I took a shit in her bed—like she had for the remainder of Knight and Luna’s stay. The worst part was, I was going to apologize. I’d bought flowers from Trader Joe’s.

I even Googled best flowers to get a chick.

I put work into this thing.

But Sailor wasn’t here. The apartment was empty. I strode to the kitchen island, disposing the flowers on the counter and imagining the worst—she was just the type to throw the last five months away and bail on me—when I noticed a piece of paper on the kitchen island.

I picked it up.

Hunt,

Lana is in town early. I went to see Crystal for an urgent meeting, then found out we landed the GW cover. I’m flying to New York and will be back in a couple days. Notified your father.

Be good.

Sailor

I gritted my teeth to a point I was surprised they didn’t turn to dust.

I had two days of zero supervision without my nanny dearest, and all I wanted was to have her back. The irony wasn’t lost on me. My most unholy temptation was living under the same roof, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I pulled my phone from my pocket, but as I stared at her name in my contacts, I realized this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have on the phone.

It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have at all, to be honest.

Besides, maybe some time apart would do us good. Maybe it’d set her head straight and make her see we didn’t need each other after all. Maybe it would remind me of what Sailor was: a temporary fix. I’d talked about her and analyzed her behavior—with my tyrant brother, no less—which meant this shit had gone too far.

The more I thought about it, the more I was happy she wasn’t here. Good riddance.

I hoped she’d have fun shooting the GW cover she wasn’t even excited for.

Maybe she would. Sailor did a fine job lying to herself. She hated fame. Loathed interviews. Detested being in the spotlight. And recently, I suspected, she’d also come to despise archery itself. She was working on autopilot.

Feeling my nostrils flare with anger, I grabbed the flowers and shoved them into the trash can, cramming them in with my foot, half-kicking them all over the kitchen.

I grabbed my laptop and retired to my room, planning to go ham on some Thai food and listen to Syllie’s recordings to finally find incriminating information on the asshole.

Without the goddamn nanny.

Four hours into the recording, I hit the jackpot.

By the sound of it, he was meeting face to face with someone. I didn’t know who, but prior to that, I’d heard him driving for an hour and a half, so it was likely out of Boston. He’d been fidgety on his way there—changed radio channels frequently, sighed and muttered profanity at the traffic. He’d called his wife twice and forgotten what he wanted to tell her both times. Kill had called him once to get some details about our refinery trip to Maine. He’d cross-examined him about the health and safety failures. Three of the machines there were down. It all sounded like gibberish to me. Desalter units. Vacuum distillation. Amine gas treater. The only thing I knew was this shit sounded like something I didn’t want to touch. After Sylvester hung up the phone, I heard him punching the steering wheel again and again and again, mumbling, dammit.

He’d slammed his car door shut (I made a mental note to check where he’d driven with the tracking device I’d put there) and walked into someplace. It sounded quiet, the earth crunchy with leaves. He talked to someone. Male. He sounded older and not from here. Thick, Eastern European accent. Russian, maybe. His English was impeccable, though, his words measured.

“How are we getting along with the plan?” Syllie sniffed.

He was pacing, I could tell. Hours upon hours of listening to his recordings had helped me recognize his tells: the way he talked, walked, and clicked his pen in succession when he was nervous.

“We are making progress, but as I said before, it is a sophisticated operation, and there are a lot of things to take into consideration. We are planning for seven potential scenarios. The men involved in the operation would like some reassurance that their families will be compensated, should something happen to them.”

“And they will be compensated,” Syllie snapped. “As long as the Fitzpatricks are out of my way.”

“I’m afraid they’ll need more assurance than that. I do not blame them for being skeptical. It is not every day a beggar tries to dethrone a king.” The Eastern European man clucked his tongue, lighting a cigarette by the sound of the lighter flicking.

“Where is this coming from?” Syllie spat. “The details of our deal have already been signed and agreed upon.”

“Deals change. The risk is great. Your reward, greater.”

“And the contract?” Sylvester was probably foaming at the fucking mouth at this point.

“Good as any old piece of paper. You’ve yet to pay a penny, and they’ve yet to execute your plan. They can still back out. Right now, it seems like they are.”

“You think I have millions lying around, waiting to be gifted? Think about the amount of money Royal Pipelines will lose as a result. We’re talking at least two hundred mill in the red, not to mention the legal fees. And don’t get me started on our shareholders. It will be a black day for Wall Street.”

I sat upright in my bed, causing the half-empty cartons of Thai food to spill from where they were propped on my thighs to the carpet. Hell if I cared. This was what I needed—some kind of admission, proof that Syllie was planning something. And he was. Weirdly, the first person I wanted to run to with this information wasn’t Da or even Kill. It was Sailor. Which went to show how pussy-whipped I was, because she had no skin in this game. But I knew how proud she’d be that I’d nailed it.

That’s it, asshole. You’re going cold turkey on this bitch, even after she comes back. You need to get her out of your system.

“You will lose a fraction of what you are gaining.” The man who spoke with Syllie took a drag of his cigarette. “And have the world at your feet in return. If your excuse for why you shouldn’t raise refinery workers’ salaries is stirring pity in Wall Street brokers, you may want to try another tactic.”

“What are you asking?” My father’s right hand retorted. “Get to the point.”

“They would each like three million dollars over the course of the next three years, paid in unmarked Bitcoin, so they can trade and resell them as they see fit. As for me, I’d like a substantial number of shares in Royal Pipelines. I’ll buy them kosher, and you’ll slip the money back to me through the back door.”

“What do you consider substantial?”

“Fifteen percent is my starting point.”

“Is this a joke?”

“I’m afraid humor is not my strong suit.”

There was silence, and then some arguing. In the end, they didn’t reach an agreement, but it was easy to see the Eastern European dude had Syllie’s balls in a vise. I stopped listening when Syllie stomped his way back to the car and slammed his door.

I wanted to take this to Cillian and Da, to throw it in their faces and tell them I’d been right all along. In fact, I’d shoved my feet into my sneakers and dropped the USB with the recording in my front pocket, halfway through the door, when I remembered what Cillian had said.

It was my operation to handle.

It was my war to fight.

I’d started it, and I needed to finish—a hunter going for the kill.

Even though I knew Sylvester Lewis was up to something, I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. There was more to unveil. Worst of all, I knew Syllie to be a very resourceful man and was afraid he’d spin it somehow with his smooth tongue.

No. I was going to wait it out and deal with him myself.

I was going to earn my place at Royal Pipelines.

I was going to show Athair I was his.