Driven to the Edge: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance Read Online Free

an innocuous business park consisting of two nine-story towers fronted with blue-green panes of glass. Home to a couple video game developers, a campus for an English learning college, and Martinsen Enterprises, the trucking company that moves all of the Császárs’ product.
    I’m here for Luka Martinsen.
    I bid Alicia goodbye in the parking garage with a hint of a smile, but it doesn’t show on my face. I’ve already shut down. Normally I can keep it up: that glib persona, the cheery playboy who can talk his way into anywhere. I can play any part necessary to get the job done.
    But this is the first time I’m walking into a murder I’m not being paid to commit.
    It feels different.
    I take the elevator to the top floor of the parking structure, where a skybridge connects it to the Towers themselves. I have a plan. Or at least most of a plan.
    Opening up the burner phone, I look over the details Vin sent me. For a biker, he’s weirdly good with computers. But then again, I suppose he’s the dispatch and freight moving equivalent of a biker.
    Any Császár property has ridiculous security. I would know, I’ve worked with them. But the advantage of storming into this particular building is that none of them know my face.
    Even if what happened in La Jolla has reached these guys, they may not know it was me. And even if they do, to them I’m just a name.
    Walking briskly, purposefully over the skybridge, I make my way to reception. Vin’s sent me the locations of Luka Martinsen’s personal offices. I’m not sure where our meeting will take place.
    The lobby is so stereotypical corporate rich guy: lots of chrome and black leather and glass and natural light. All the receptionists look like they could be models in their spare time. Even the people sitting in the waiting rooms look wealthy.
    I stroll up to the closest desk and put on a winning smile for the girl sitting behind it. She can’t be older than twenty. I’d hate to have to kill her, because innocents as collateral damage isn’t really my thing, but if I have to fight my way out of this place, nothing will stand between me and the door.
    “Hi.” I pitch my voice low and confident, full-chested. “Jake Hawthorne. Mr. Martinsen is expecting me.”
    The woman flits me a quick smile and types up something on her computer, fingers flying across the keys. She nods a little to herself, as if relieved my story checks out, and gestures to an elevator.
    “Take the elevator to the ninth floor waiting area,” she says. “Mr. Martinsen won’t be too far away.”
    It’s the most tense elevator ride of my life.
    The small waiting room atop the ninth floor is empty. There are comfortable suede chairs lining the wall, a big brown sofa, a coffee machine, some magazines. It’s so bizarrely casual. Like I’m not walking into a den of pure evil.
    Luka Martinsen has all manner of innocuous business, but I know the truth. I know about the coke. I know about the guns. And I know about the girls. Brought in via port usually, far from home, promised jobs as housekeepers and hotel workers, unaware of the horror that awaits them. I know exactly how much blood is on Luka Martinsen’s hands.
    As I stand in the waiting room, shifting my weight on the soles of my fine leather shoes, I regret getting involved with these people at all. If only I’d known how bad it actually was, maybe Alain would still be alive.
    But what’s done is done. I can’t bring my brother back. But I can destroy the men who killed him.
    And more importantly, I can find his daughter.
    Martinsen thinks I’m here to pitch him new logistics software. Vin promises it looks legit. But the longer I wait, the more I wonder. Is the other side of that door so silent because they’re planning an ambush? Did they figure me out?
    I sit down and pour myself a coffee. Probably won’t help my nerves, but it feels warm and tastes good on the way down.
    When the door opens, it’s a man I don’t recognize. My