The Deadly (Part 3 of the Syndicate Series)

Chapter 1- The Club

8 YEARS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ROSINE DUPONT

Allegra:

If I had to dance with one more greasy and sweaty boy in order to not blow my cover, I was going to lose it. I may have been trained extensively for situations such as this, but every girl had their limits, and mine was being pushed. Well, pulled really, in the form of someone's hand tugging my skirt up my thigh.

The man didn't have a face yet, since my back was pressed to his front, but he had a feel and a smell. It was a surprisingly rich smell, high-end cologne in the midst of a sea of cheap body spray. As music threw vibrations and bass across the dance floor, I finally turned around.

He wasn't who I was looking for, but the closest I had found so far. Others may have been oblivious to the gun that I knew was strapped to his ankle, but it was an assurance of my mission- this was probably a soldier, not the boss. Not the one I wanted most, but still on the list. He would have to do for now.

I knew what he wanted. There was research done on these men, the bad ones who followed their leader blindly, and they were almost all possessive. I could use it to my advantage.

Slinging myself against him, I faked being much more intoxicated than I really was, "What's your name?"

"Doesn't matter," He tried to play it off as dark and mysterious, but I knew he wouldn't really give it to me. This type of man in this type of job couldn't really risk it. He was a liability to his boss if he did.

I doubt that he could hear it because of the music, but I tried to give him a sexy and flirtatious laugh. He took the bait, smirking, even though Forte always told me that I couldn't pull off ' sexy' as well as I thought.

His hand went around my waist while the other squeezed my thigh. In heels I was almost as tall as he was, so I fell onto him, and he grabbed me, thinking I was too drunk to stand. The possessiveness that I was counting on kicked in, and he whispered into my ear, his hot breath feeling cool in comparison to the throng of sweating bodies pressed around us, "Let's step outside."

I nodded, knowing he would take me out the back door, somewhere that no one would come across us, completely out of sight. He was half carrying me, but hands still roamed without my consent. I could have broken every bone in this man's body, but it wasn't that sort of mission. I should have felt something- not lust, not excitement, I should have been repulsed. But some part of my brain couldn't process emotions when I was working. There was just the Nothing. That level of subjectivity probably meant that I was bordering on psychopathy, but it was easier this way. He was a bad man, he helped sell other human beings. He deserved it.

He was still speaking, dragging me through the back hall of the club and saying things that he probably thought were encouraging me. No one stopped us, they were all too busy drinking and getting high to notice the nice looking rich boy dragging out in the drunken young woman.

The back door swung open with the harsh sound of metal slamming into brick. It closed slowly again, taking the volume down with it until all I could hear was the bass pushing the beat through the brick of the building. Any other girl would have been shocked by the way he whipped me around so that my back was to the wall. Even with the cold air waking us up, he was sloppy, obviously he had been drinking as well.

The man's hands were clawing roughly, grabbing and pulling at my clothes like an animal. Again, it would have been terrifying if I was anyone else, but I was in total control. His lips were pressing against my own with drunken fervor until I finally shoved him away.

He staggered back, surprised even in his drunken state. It would be so easy to make it quick, but he deserves so much worse. He was a rapist, a human trafficker. He didn't command what this organization did, but he supported the practice and took part in making it possible. Killing him slowly, making sure that he suffered just like he did to the women he hurt, was fair. But he was only part of my target, and he wasn't the one that I needed to spend the most time on.