RELEASE: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

  RELEASE: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance copyright 2017 by Naomi West. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.

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  Contents

  RELEASE: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  [Bonus #1] Hawk’s Baby: Kings of Chaos MC

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  [Bonus #2] Hitman’s Promise: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Books by Naomi West

  Hawk’s Baby: Kings of Chaos MC

  Outlaw’s Baby: Devil’s Edge MC

  Hitman’s Promise: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  DARK SEDUCTION: Millennium Mayhem MC

  RIP ME: A Dark Romance

  CUFF ME: A Dark Romance

  DARE ME: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  Mailing List

  RELEASE: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance

  By Naomi West

  By the time I’m finished, she’ll be begging for her release.

  I’m going to hunt down Abby Winters and make her pay for her crimes.

  The things she did got my brother locked up on death row.

  It won’t bring my brother back home safe, but forcing Ms. Winters to her knees might help ease my pain.

  I hope she’s comfortable down there. This will not go quickly.

  My brother doesn’t deserve to be rotting away in a jail cell.

  What he did wasn’t his fault.

  It was that g*ddamn drug they gave him.

  He was a veteran suffering from PTSD, and those Big Pharma rats sold him on a pipe dream.

  What they failed to mention was that their “miracle cure” would send him spiraling out of control.

  My brother is my world, and they took him from me.

  Or rather, she took him from me.

  Abby Winters.

  CEO of Pharma Vitae.

  And the woman responsible for this whole f*cking mess.

  Nine times out of ten, people like her get away with their crimes.

  But for once, I’m going to make things right.

  I’m going to kidnap the prissy little b*tch and make her plead for my mercy.

  I’m going to take everything from her, just like she took everything from me.

  Her pretty, puckered lips…

  Her soft, pale curves…

  That last flash of innocence in her eyes…

  All of it belongs to me now.

  And I’m never letting go.

  Chapter One

  Zed

  Bottle of cheap bourbon in hand, Zed Hesse stood in the center of the disaster that his apartment had slowly become over the course of the last year. He swallowed another mouthful of Jim Beam, hoping that the brown liquor would numb him on the inside. But, as he looked around at the grave of his memories, at the photos of his twin brother Kai and his family, he knew that the liquor wasn't doing any good. It never would, either. It could cover the hurt, but it would never heal it.

  Zed walked over to the wall that had become a morbid shrine to his brother's murder trial. He ran a hand over his short, spiky ginger hair as he read over the articles pinned to his wall.

  “Decorated Military Veteran Kills Wife and Two Children,” read one. “Kai Hesse, Veteran, to Plead Insanity, Defense Says,” read another. Still one more read, “Kai Hesse Sentenced to Death for Murder of Family.”

  Zed scratched a hand over his broad chest. Even as he'd descended
into this morass over the last year, he'd still kept himself focused and in shape. His own military training in the Air Force wouldn't let him to do less. That's all his life had become, though. Obsession with proving his brother's innocence. The rest was just instinct. Breathe in, breathe out, exercise. Keep the mind and body in shape, no matter what you threw at it.

  He brought the bottle back to his lips and took another swallow. No, it didn't help. But, he was right. It did numb the pain. It did help to lessen the hurt of the last year. Hurt that he hadn't been there for his one-minute-older brother as he suffered through the pain of his PTSD symptoms. Anger that he hadn't recognized the warning signs of what had been coming. Despair that his brother was, right now, sitting on death row, alone and friendless, as he faced the executioner's needle.

  He closed his eyes and thought back to a time before all this. A time when Kai was happy with his family, and Zed wasn't obsessed with proving his innocence. Kai and his wife, Marilyn, had thrown a birthday party for Spencer, their youngest son. They'd grilled out in the backyard while the kids had run in the sprinklers. Zed could remember the smell of the hotdogs and burgers as they cooked on the open flame; he could even feel the warmth of the sun on his neck.

  The sound of the children laughing filled his ears, even now. They were so carefree, so full of life. Now, they didn't have any worries, but neither did they have any breath.

  Memories of the funerals crowded his thoughts. Memories, as clear as if they had happened yesterday, of the news reporters hounding him, of the cable channels parking outside his front door. Thoughts about all those days in courts, sitting on the family's side behind his brother. Zed glanced over at his old Air Force officer's uniform, where it hung, perfectly dry-cleaned and pressed, from the closet door. All those days were gone, never to return.

  No birthday parties. No having a beer with his brother on the back porch as they watched his niece and nephew run and play in the grass and sprinklers, not a worry in their little heads. No laughing with Marilyn, his sister-in-law and the best thing that had ever happened to Kai.

  Gone. Gone and buried.

  He tipped the bottle of bourbon back, upending it for a good, long, mouth-burning pull.

  Kai's doctor said the medication would make him better. He'd said it would fix the depression and the PTSD symptoms, that it would just take time for the effects to kick in, and that the side-effects would go away.

  They'd been wrong. So wrong.

  Zed took another drink and dismissed the memory of the police's call that night with a shake of his head. He didn't want to remember. He couldn't.

  He flared his nostrils and clenched his fist around the bourbon bottle's neck as he looked at the glass coffee table in front of the couch, pictures of his brother and dead family strewn across it. They were testaments to Zed's own failure at helping his brother, both before and after the murders.

  He'd tried, too. He'd tried so hard to defend his brother, both in the courts and in the press. But no one would believe him that Dimalerax, the medication his brother had just started before the murders, was the cause. He tried to talk to the manufacturer of the medication, Pharma-Vitae, but they wouldn't have any of it. They referred him to their public relations department, but all they did was give him the runaround.

  Not a single person was willing to listen.

  “I tried,” Zed whispered, his voice the voice of a wounded man. “God, I fucking tried so hard.”

  From those pictures, all his family's eyes stared out at him, suddenly alive, suddenly questioning.

  “Why didn't you help us, Zed?” Marilyn's image asked. “Why didn't you help him? Why couldn't you get him free? Why is he the one to pay for their mistakes?”

  The loss bloomed inside him like some disgusting night rose, a flower that could only come in the darkest hours and grew only in the pits of despair.

  But rage soon replaced the loss. Rage at his failure, rage at the company, rage at the whole fucking system that had come down on his brother. Sent to a war zone, Kai had come back a broken man. The doctors and the VA couldn't help him, so they gave him a pill. And the pill had just made things worse. Then the company responsible had washed their hands clean of any wrong-doing. Zed kicked the table over, upending and sending it into the couch. The glass crashed and shattered, sending crystalline shards and printed pictorial memories everywhere.

  What had he become? How had he fallen so far? He just blinked in surprise at his outburst, at the mess he'd made. He went into the filthy kitchen, with its piles of empty takeout containers and pizza boxes, and set the bottle of bourbon on the counter. He grabbed a glass out of the dishwasher, filled it with water, and took a long, cleansing drink. When he was finished with it, he drew another glass and drank it down.

  “I need to get my head straight,” he said to the empty kitchen. “I need to take a break. I'm going fucking crazy here.”

  He left the whiskey in the kitchen and went into his bedroom, stepping over the piles of clothes on the floor. He grabbed the TV remote and laid back on the bed, turning on the television.

  Zed was hoping he could find something soothing and mind-numbing. The Three Stooges, maybe, Or old Warner Brothers cartoons. He and Kai had always loved those as kid, especially Bugs' antics.

  What he found, though, wasn't soothing. Or mind-numbing.

  Instead, what he found was the exact opposite. He perked up and rose to a sitting position on the bed as his eyes bored into the TV.

  Abby Winters, new CEO of Pharma-Vitae, was being interviewed. She had long, wavy, butterscotch hair that flowed loose behind her and caring, almond-shaped blue eyes that seemed deep and welcoming. Understanding, even.

  “Well, Cheryl,” Abby said to the interviewer, “I'd like to think I have a very open-door policy when it comes to my management style. And I feel that really works with a company like Pharma-Vitae. We're a medical company. Not some faceless corporation. We're here to help people, first and foremost. Our goal is to provide safe and effective medication to the patients who use the medicines we develop and manufacture every day, so that they, too, can lead full and healthy lives.”

  She'd listen to him, Zed knew, when no one else would. She'd hear his complaints and help investigate where everything went wrong. Together, they'd get Kai exonerated. She'd order her corporation to accept responsibility for the medication they manufactured, and help to set the record straight for his twin brother.

  And, if she didn't want to help him willingly, he'd just have to figure out a way to make her.

  # # #

  Abby

  Abby could feel the men's eyes on her, judging her, watching her every move for the smallest sign of weakness. Her supporters amongst the officers of the company watched to make sure the board of directors had made the right decision in selecting her. Her detractors and opponents eyed her like sharks sniffing the water for the scent of blood.

  “And, with our first quarterly earnings report for the fiscal year coming soon,” she said, addressing the table in a cool, collected voice, “I believe we'll outperform most estimates on our per share earnings. Any questions or comment?”

  “One item, Ms. Winters.”

  “Yes, Mark,” she said, acknowledging Mark Letterman, their VP of Marketing, “Go ahead.”

  “Do you foresee the poor reviews of Dimalerax negatively impacting our growth in future quarters going forward? The team and I have noticed several complaints coming in through QC and Legal.”

  She cleared her throat. She hadn't received any information on this. Dimalerax was one of their flagship products, and formed the bulk of their business on their balance sheet. And here she was, in one of her earliest meetings, getting blindsided by questions about it. “I haven’t been made aware of any complaints as to the efficacy or side-effects of Dimalerax, Mark. Why don't you and I discuss this at a later date, so we can take some real time to deal with the issue?” She turned to the rest of the assembled meeting. “Any other questions or concerns?”
r />   Abby received only quiet shaking of heads and general smiles of acknowledgement from around the conference table.

  “Excellent,” Abby said, as she pulled her files and papers together into a stack in front of her. “As you know, I have a conference that starts tomorrow, so I'll be out-of-town, attending. If there are any immediate causes for concern or five-alarm fires, I need to know immediately. But, other than that, you know the drill. Now, you guys go get some lunch and enjoy your weekend.”

  “Mark,” she said, as her table of employees dispersed themselves and headed out to a long lunch, “Stick around for a minute, please?” She stayed seated in her spot at the center of the table.

  She needed to know what this issue with QC and Legal was about, but, she didn't necessarily want to sow dismay amongst the ranks. Or, quite honestly, to start putting it into records of any meetings, before she knew what was going on. On top of that, Mark needed to realize he couldn't try and pull a fast one on her, or blindside her like that ever again. Yes, Abby could be understanding and caring. But she could assert herself whenever she had to.

  Aside from that, she couldn't stand Mark Letterman. Something about him just seemed smarmy and sleazy, like you'd just put a thousand dollar suit on a lounge lizard. He was the epitome of a creep marketing executive, and if she hadn’t needed to be in a room alone with him, she wouldn't have been.

  “Absolutely, Ms. Winters,” Mark said, a frown creasing his face as the room quickly and quietly emptied of its occupants.