How to Shield an Assassin Read online

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Epilogue

  Afterstory

  Dictionary

  Author

  This book is a work of fiction, so please treat it like a work of fiction. Seriously. References to real people, dead people, good guys, bad guys, stupid politicians, companies, restaurants, events, products, locations, pop culture references, or wacky historical events are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Or because I wanted it in the story. They belong to their own owners. Characters, names, story, location, dialogue, weird humor, and strange incidents all come from the author’s very fertile imagination and are not to be construed as real. No, I don’t believe in killing off main characters. Villains are a totally different story.

  HOW TO SHIELD AN ASSASSIN

  Unholy Trifecta Heist 1

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Oct 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by AJ Sherwood

  Cover by Katie Griffin

  shield initial Letter O Logo design by Follow Art/shutterstock; Set of isolated aim of sniper weapon or futuristic game target by Elegant Solution/shutterstock; Gray industry wall by mxbfilms/Shutterstock

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Purchase only authorized editions.

  www.ajsherwood.com

  Trigger warnings:

  Referenced child abuse, assassination in action

  Tags:

  Not child safe but child approved, children know best, Remi approves this book, idiots in love, but Remi loves them anyway, criminals make the best uncles, family of choice, Ari acknowledges Remi as the smarter one, Carter admits his own insanity, nothing blows up, Ivan is very disappointed by this, Kyou has PLANS for Remi, licking solves all problems, bedsheets, lifeskills, children should come with warning labels, it’s not stealing if you’re stealing it BACK, right?, the author once again regrets nothing

  Part One

  1

  He was being tailed.

  Ari walked steadily, easily, not letting on he knew he was being followed. Badly being followed, at that. The street was narrow—more alley than anything—with most of the lights flickering or out altogether. Abandoned trash littered the sides, and he kicked it absently out of the way as he moved. It wouldn’t take much to disappear here. The shadows were thick, he was wearing dark clothes. He had a parked SUV waiting not far away. It was the perfect combination for a disappearing act and easy enough to pull off.

  Two things stopped him: curiosity and a nagging sense something was off.

  The footsteps were light, barely heard on the pavement. Like there was no weight in them, rather than being merely silent. No matter how well trained, an adult man couldn’t walk like that. Ari walked half a block, his ears trained on his tail, becoming slowly convinced it wasn’t an adult following him.

  A child?

  What kind of fucked up adult sent a child to tail an assassin?

  Ari had been in the business for nearly twelve years. He didn’t have a lot of morals, maybe a handful, but kids featured at the top of his very short list. He didn’t do kids. He didn’t hurt them, he sure as hell didn’t kill them, and he’d been known a time or two to step in and teach a lesson to any adult who thought kids made a good toy. Having this kid out on his tail at nearly eleven o’clock at night, in one of the worst sections of Memphis, made rage crawl up his throat and choke him.

  He finally couldn’t take it anymore. He either had to find the adult who’d set the kid on him and beat the ever-living shit out of him, or take the kid to a safer place—no, scratch that. He’d do both. But it was time to end this madness. At the next working streetlight, he stopped dead, not turning around, and waited.

  The footsteps stopped too.

  “Hey,” he said calmly. “This whole cat and mouse thing ain’t cool, okay? How about you come over here, in the light, and you tell me what you need. I might be able to help you out.”

  Ten seconds passed, a weighty pause while the kid figured out what to do. Ari half-expected flight, but instead the footsteps firmed, no longer trying to sneak. A smile twitched his lips up. This one had guts. He loved gutsy kids. World needed more of them.

  Ari was well aware of how he looked. At thirty, he was young, but his profession had left its mark. He wasn’t ugly—his Italian blood made him look like a ’50s era bad boy—but his vibe scared people off. Most people looked at his rangy frame, the scars along his arms, the flat look in his dark brown eyes, and found other places to be. As he didn’t want to scare the kid, he turned slowly, kept his hands well away from the weapons tucked up under his leather jacket, and tried a smile on for size.

  Then she stepped into the light, and the smile abruptly dropped.

  The little girl couldn’t have hit double digits yet. Eight, maybe, but it was hard to tell. She might’ve been a beautiful child but it was hard to see that, too. Bruises littered her face, neck, and hands—some of them yellow with age, others fresh enough to be mottled purple. Her tangled, butterscotch-colored hair fell all around her face and down to her waist. Her clothes were obviously someone’s cast-offs. They hung poorly on her. The thin denim jacket actually looked like an adult’s, as it swarmed her and did little to keep her warm in the cold November weather. One look at her and he wanted to kill the SOB who had made her his punching bag.

  She was scared, he could see it in her shaking hands, but she faced him squarely, which was more than most adults could manage. Looking up at him, she swallowed hard before speaking, words raspy. “I’m Sarah. I saw you beat up Hardy back there.”

  Ari slowly sank to one knee, putting them on the same eye level. It helped. She stopped shaking, looking relieved he no longer loomed over her. So she’d seen him beat up the local drug dealer, had she? Ari was actually only here on a job, a quick in and out to kill a serial rapist. He’d stumbled across the drug dealer trying to force himself on a girl because her father was an addict needing his fix. Ari had made sure the dealer would be in the hospital for the next six months, and the girl had enough money to make a run for it, maybe make herself a new life in a different city. He was proud of both deeds tonight, but why would a little girl watch that kind of violence and decide to approach him?

  “Yeah, honey, I did. He was a bad man. His face needed rearranging.”

  “Do you beat up bad men as your job?”

  Just what the hell was that she thinking? She thought that of him and still approached? Alarm bells started blaring in the back of Ari’s head. “Yeah, honey, I do. Why?”

  From the pocket of her sagging pants, she drew out something that made a lot of clinking noises, and held out both hands to him. It was a jumbled collection of change, perhaps two dollars altogether. With her chocolate brown eyes, she looked up at him, pleading. “Can I hire you? Will you stop him?”

  Despite the fact Ari routinely killed people in his line of work, he didn’t actually feel murderous most of the time. Right now, the rage that rushed over him threatened to overtake his common sense. He ha
d to choke it back, bitter as it was. “Who’s hurting you, honey?”

  “My stepfather. Momma left last year, and when she did, he got mad. He…” she trailed off, eyes falling to the pavement. Then her chin firmed and she squared her shoulders, meeting his eyes once more. “I need you to stop him.”

  Oh, Ari would stop him, alright. He held out both hands, taking the change from her. “You just hired yourself an assassin, sweetheart.”

  She lit up in relief, dumping the change in his hands. “He lives at 314A Osborne Way.”

  “Tell you what, kiddo. You come with me and stand just outside the house, okay?” No way in hell he was going to leave her standing on a dark street in Memphis. She’d be kidnapped and have even worse done to her. Ari wasn’t taking that chance. He pocketed the change, standing.

  Sarah nodded, fell into step with him, taking two steps for his one. He noticed, and slowed down so she wasn’t jogging to keep up with him. Ari might like kids but he didn’t have a lot of experience with them—mostly because no sane adult would trust him with their kid. As they walked, his thoughts raced ahead. After he dealt with her stepfather, then what? What happened to her when her mom was already out of the picture? “Honey, you got any relatives? Grandma, grandpa, uncles, anything like that?”

  Shaking her head no, she kept walking.

  Shit. With no relatives, that meant she’d go straight into foster care. And fosters were a crap shoot. Ari knew from personal experience.

  An insane thought nudged into his brain. He nearly paused mid-stride when it hit. Maybe he could adopt her. Ari could admit that sounded crazy on the surface. No one sane would look at him and think dad material—much less him—and he was half-convinced he’d screw up any child handed to him. But when he looked down at the child walking so trustingly at his side, the thought occurred to him that even if he screwed up royally, he was still better than what she’d had. Ari wouldn’t beat her, he’d make sure she was fed and protected. That alone made him a hundred times better than the bastard claiming to be her father.

  And it wouldn’t be entirely for her. Ari had great friends, and a brother, but he was alone a lot. Sometimes that loneliness got to him. It wouldn’t hurt for him to raise her, would it?

  They reached the house before he could really make a decision one way or another. It honestly looked like an abandoned house. There was a broken-down stove on the front porch, dead flowers in pots scattered about, and someone’s dirty laundry on the ground. The only sign of life came from the light in the window, flickering, clearly from a TV. Kneeling, he put a light hand on Sarah’s back, drawing her eyes up to him. She was back to being scared, staring at the house like it contained the boogeyman. To her, it likely did. “You change your mind, sweetie?”

  Shaking her head, she pointed to the door. “It’s not locked.”

  Right. “You stay on the porch, okay? If someone comes to get you, you scream for me. I’m going to take you to a safe place after this.”

  “You are?” Her expression was hard to see in the dim lighting, but he could hear her surprise clearly enough.

  “Yeah, honey. Can’t leave a kid on the streets. That’s quello non va bene, you get me?” With a pat on her head, he moved toward the house, stride becoming quiet as he moved. Not that he worried about the bastard hearing him approach, but occupational habits kicked in. Ari briefly debated putting the silencer back on his Glock and then shrugged. Ah well, it didn’t matter.

  The door was indeed unlocked, although it stuck a little, warped with time. He shoved it aside, one hand already on the gun strapped to his back. Ari really wanted to kill this SOB, but at the same time, he was of two minds about killing in front of a child. Was that the right thing to do? His alternate plan was to put a bullet in each of the asshole’s shoulders, keep him out of action for a while, then take off.

  A heavy man with a three-day beard and beer belly slouched in the single easy-boy in the living room. At Ari’s entrance, he lifted his head blearily to stare at Ari. “Who the fuck’re you?”

  “I’m here because of Sarah,” Ari answered calmly, loosening the gun holstered at his back.

  “That runt? You into kids?”

  Ari froze mid-motion, the gun still under his jacket. What the hell had he just said?

  Jumping to the wrong conclusion, the drunkard lifted a lip, his leer truly repugnant. “Five hundred dollars, you can have’er.”

  Red washed over his vision like a riptide. Ari didn’t even remember moving, his gun coming up automatically and putting two bullets in the man’s head in a quick double-tap. The stepfather never saw it coming, his eyes wide with surprise as life faded out of them. Ari stood there a second, shaking, bile rising in his throat. This filthy sack of shit was willing to sell his eight-year-old daughter to a pimp?

  Never had two dollars been put to such excellent use.

  Holstering the gun, he stepped back out, straight to the little girl obediently waiting for him on the porch. With the dry-rotted curtains hanging in front of the window, she’d not been able to see the murder, but she didn’t need to see to know. Ari stared at her, waiting for some sort of emotional response on her part. Anger, fear, tears, something.

  She smiled up at him in relief. “Thank you.”

  Oh hell. Ari remembered being there, a child at the mercy of adults more likely to use fists than words. He looked at her and saw himself at that age, and his whole being rebelled. He really couldn’t leave her alone now. “Tell you what, kiddo. How about I adopt you? I can’t trust you to the foster system. I gotta tell you, I’m probably not good dad material, but you’ll be safe with me. And no douchebag will get his hands on you again, I can promise you that.”

  She cocked her head up at him, her face becoming gradually more expressive with hope. “You’re an assassin, right? Can you teach me to be like Black Widow?”

  Was that her hero? Her lack of fear of him now made more sense. “Yeah, kid, I can teach you the moves.”

  Her smile was lopsided, impeded on one side because of the bruises, but it spoke of pure joy. “Then please adopt me.”

  “Sure thing.” Ari reached out with both hands, picking her up, feeling nothing more than skin and bones. The urge to go kick the corpse inside a few times rose. Damn him and the mother who had abandoned her to him. “Anything you want from inside?”

  Shaking her head no, she latched onto his collar with both hands, fingers tangled in the fabric. “You really, really want to keep me?”

  “Kid, I like your guts,” he admitted honestly. “Not many adults have your kind of savvy, to walk up and make a deal with me. But let’s discuss details after we get out of here, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed blithely.

  He stretched out his legs, eating up the ground while keeping a firm grip on her. Ari’s SUV was actually parked in front of the supermarket down the street. He’d headed a little away from it earlier, when Sarah started tailing him, but it was to their benefit to blow this popsicle stand quickly. Not that the neighborhood wasn’t used to gunshots, but he liked to avoid the pesky police when he could.

  “What’s your name?” she asked him, keeping her voice to a loud whisper.

  Ari appreciated her attempt at being quiet. His name wasn’t something he used all that often and he liked it that way. “Ari. Aristide, really, but everyone calls me Ari. We’ll need to change your name, and mine, so that we’re family on paper. That okay?”

  “Yeah. I don’t like the name Sarah anyway. Momma once said the nurse at the hospital named me cause no one else did.”

  Maybe he needed to track down her mother, Ari mused. Just so he could put a bullet in the woman. It would make him feel better. “Okay. We’ll think up a different name for you. Tonight, though, let’s head to a Walmart and get you some different clothes and toys and shit.”

  Someone would think he’d offered her the holy grail. “You’re going to buy me stuff?”

  “Yeah, duh,” he answered with a wink, startling a smile out of he
r. “Look, I know you got the raw end of the deal when it came to parents, and I’m not saying I’ll be any good at this father thing, but taking care of you? That’s my pleasure, princess. So you get clothes, and toys, and stuff. Just make it portable, capiche? We gotta boogey sometimes. You’ve got a two-bag limit.”

  “Okay,” she promised faithfully.

  He reached the SUV. The people in the neighborhood had been smart enough to leave it alone, fortunately. Unlocking it with the fob on his keychain, he popped her into the front seat, buckled her in, then darted around to the driver’s side. As he started up the engine, another thought occurred, and he ordered her, “And call me Dad, okay? Especially in public. People will assume I’ve kidnapped you if they think I’m not your dad.”

  She gave him a cheeky grin. “But you did kidnap me.”

  “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” he dismissed with an airy wave.

  Giggling, she touched the leather interior of the car with wonder. “You’re a good assassin.”

  “One of the best in the business.” He wasn’t surprised she’d leapt to that conclusion. The car wasn’t a cheap one, after all. “Okay, squirt, let’s go shopping.”

  Ari focused on getting them out of the area quickly, not wanting to linger in this bad section of town. Putting distance between himself and that corpse was the priority for a good half hour. But he heard no sirens, saw no sign of police heading in. It could well be no one had bothered to report it. Only after he’d gone some distance did he realize the little girl at his side was deadly still and quiet.

  He was no expert on kids. But an eight-year-old just sitting in a seat without even fidgeting was weird, right? In her shoes, he’d at least be asking questions, but she wasn’t doing that either. Had she been trained by that abusive asshole to stay still and quiet? Or had she learned to behave this way to avoid his fists?

  Whichever the reason, it pissed Ari off royally. There was no way he could fix what had been done to her, but at least he could help her now. “Hey, gattina. You got a name you want to be called by?”