Hard Target Read Online Free PDF Page A

against a counter casually, as if there isn’t a dead body in the lab. “I’m listening.”
    “Oliver has off today, so it’s my job to deliver time sensitive packages. I signed for one, not even twenty minutes ago, and then came up here.” I flick my gaze to the body on the floor, then back to him and shudder.
    His mouth quirks on one side. “I saw you.”
    Of course he had. “Once I got to the lab, I let myself in. No one answered and I couldn’t leave the package, so I grabbed the nearest lab coat and went searching. Except that guy found me instead.” A shaky breath leaves me. My knees tremble, but my heart rate is slowly returning to normal. “Then you saved me.”
    “That remains to be seen.” He grabs my arm. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Four
    Benjamin
    M organ’s face is so white that I’m tempted to give her time to calm down, but we can’t stay here. Security has been alerted, yet they have not responded.
    Something is very wrong with this entire situation.
    I grab her arm, my grip harder than I mean for it to be. “Let’s go.”
    For the third time in my life, I’m scared shitless for another human being. The first time was for my brother, when I thought our father would kill him and the second… well, the second was for a woman who the Bratva thought was getting too close to me. But Kate managed to save herself by breaking things off with me. I hadn’t been the most understanding, then.
    “It will be okay,” I tell her.
    “Are you sure?” she asks, licking her lips.
    I’m not sure at all, but confidence is what she needs right now. “Yes.”
    She smiles at me. It’s watery, sweet and grateful. The kind of smile a woman would give a man for rescuing her.
    “Have you ever seen him before?” I ask, knowing it’s a long shot but figuring it’s worth a try.
    “No. Never,” she says, her voice strained. “I need—”
    Whirling her around, I push her against the wall and lean in. “You need to keep going, love. Later, I promise you can rest.”
    While there is every need to hurry, there is no need for me to look or act guilty because I shot a man. If anyone should see us, they would assume that I’m throwing her out for sharing company secrets. More likely than not, they would send up a silent thanks to God that it’s not them, that they’re going home for the day with the security and a paycheck that a job brings.
    She eyes the place where I’ve hidden my gun. “By killing me?”
    “I’m not going to kill you, Morgan,” I say, disgusted with her assumption. While my brother had a strict policy of only killing the guilty, I have a strict policy of killing those who are trying to kill me. Or in Morgan’s case, killing those who would kill her. She’s innocent in this. She has to be.
    A gun to one’s head will make most anyone spill their guts.
    “You’re going to kill me for sleeping with Ben?”
    There was no mistaking the pure terror and disbelief in her voice. She actually thought that was why he wanted to kill her. Morgan isn’t dumb and she’s not a ditzy blonde either. She simply doesn’t realize that evil lives, hell, thrives , in the world, at least not the kind I’m used to being up close and personal with.
    The majority of the people on this planet go through life like that, thinking that the guy who took their parking spot deserves the ninth circle of hell, or the woman who stole their man away should rot. They don’t worry about things that go bump in the night. They think their governments will protect them. Their military and law enforcement.
    But in the world I left behind, everyone has a price. Everyone will look away for the right incentive. Honestly, I hate that she’s had to experience even a little of that, but it’s better this way. She will be better for it.
    I’ll make sure of it.
    “I really don’t know what’s going on, Ben.” Her voice is whisper thin.
    “I know you don’t.” Grabbing my key card, I scan it, triggering elevator.