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Chapter One

Chains was hungry

No, starving

He needed food

After all the shit that went doith Shadow and Boss at Killer of Kings, he’d decided to take a vacation He didn’t want, nor did he need, any shit in his life right now At ti a killer took a toll on a man, and he wasn’t a fool His kill ratio rivaled many of the killers he associated with Of course, Boss had overtaken all of thehter he’d just done based on a mafia mark

Rubbing the back of his shaved head, Chains entered a shitty looking diner He’d have preferred a restaurant, one that served Russian food, but right now he couldn’t be picky Taking a seat in the back of the diner, he grabbed the orn reasy burgers and stuff more suited to a fifties-style menu

His cell phone buzzed, and he glanced down to see it was Boss

The fucker was alive and well, not that he would ever doubt hiet out of a hit, it would be Boss

Turning off his cell phone, he placed it back in his pocket He’d already left word for Boss to know he intended to have so

To get this … burning under control

The rage inside hih this latestShadoith Riley He didn’t knohat it was all about, and he didn’t care either All he knehen he wanted to kill those he worked with, he had to leave

So far, Viper, Bain, Killian, and now Shadow had each fallen for a wo a woman into their lives Killers shouldn’t have women They always had a “use by” date, and if one of their enemies heard of a way to take theo It hy he never allowed himself to take any pleasure other than in the women he paid for The whores on the streets wanted his money, and he only required a quick release

If he didn’t feel like fucking one of the streetwalkers, he’d found plenty of escorts and agencies willing to give him what he wanted

He didn’t want love

Glancing around the diner, he saw several fa One of them had that very prim and proper American look with crisp white shirts, the kind they wore to church

He stared at the In his line of work, he’d seen a lot of shit He’d seen stuff that had sickened him to the core

One of the worst things was the child trafficking rings Boys and girls sold for a fortune to meet the de some of the victiht sight of anything going down, he checked it out, and was sure to ht they could use vulnerable children

After surviving one of the worst childhoods ie the horrors that awaited in the big orld He’d been an unlucky bastard, being thrust into one of the worst Russian orphanages

Every one of them had to learn to survive, and that hadn’t been the worst of it The people who claimed to protect thee, and the girls that were there, they had it a lot worse than the boys They were trained to shut up and take it

As a child, seeing the dairls faced at the hands of men, he’d taken a personal dislike to anyone who harmed a child

“Hey, sorry it took et you?”

The feht his attention around to the wo in front of hio Her head was bent over her notepad, and she was on the chubby side The unifor around her ie

Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she looked pale He couldn’t get a good look at her, and Chains wanted to look at her

“What’s good here?”