Kiss or Kill

Copyright © 2022 by Victoria Jade All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS 1. Melodie 2. Melodie 3. Nikolai 4. Seraphina 5. Nikolai 6. Nikolai 7. Seraphina 8. Seraphina 9. Nikolai 10. Seraphina Epilogue: Nikolai The End About Victoria Jade Stalk Victoria Jade Beautiful people can get away with murder. The words linger in my mind, hauntingly so, as if foreshadowing something just out of my mind’s reach. Something that’ll sneak up on me when I least expect it, like so many other things in my past have done. I manually roll down the windows of the old black Mercury Comet and secure my oversized sunglasses on my face. It’s okay. I’m okay. I am no longer the prey, I’m the fucking hunter. Sometimes life has a funny way of coming full circle. Squaring my shoulders, I give myself the same pep talk I always do before a first-time encounter. Pulling into the parking lot, I ease my car to a stop smack dab in the middle of traffic, forcing cars to go around me and forgoing the dozens of open spots. A few old white men honk their horns at me, one even flips me off. But fuck me, right? I’m a damsel in goddamn distress! I hop out of my car and pop open the hood, disconnecting the wire Benny told me about and then ripping it from the car altogether. Once back in my car, I throw the wire in my purse and give myself a once-over in the mirror. My red lipstick is flawless, as usual. Not even a speck of color tarnishes my whitened teeth. I swipe a clear gloss over the red, a product that promises to plump my lips, and then I smile like an idiot at myself—trying on different faces, still unsure of the type of woman I’m going for. This could very well be my first mistake, not having a solid plan before arriving at the meeting spot, but I won’t send those bad vibes out into the universe. My identity. It’s a toss-up between a doe-eyed little vixen who couldn’t possibly make it on her own without a gorgeous man to take care of her, or a badass bitch who doesn’t need a man but chooses one—agrees to let him be in her life on her terms. With so little time I was unable to really study up on my target. Typically, researching a target’s profile provides me with all I need to know, and it’s easy to decide whether to play the vixen or the bitch, because I know exactly what kind of woman the target prefers. I can read them like a fucking book. Men are simple creatures after all, and 99 percent of my targets are men. I’m usually sure of myself, of my role. But with this one? I’m just not confident which route will be best. I pull up the information on my phone just as another dickhead honks. Can’t they tell I’m a damsel in distress for fuck’s sake? I close the visor as my lips begin to tingle, the plumping serum making me feel like I’m having an allergic reaction and should consider a dose of Benadryl, but honestly, what better way to capture his attention than going into anaphylactic shock, am I right? I’m being dramatic. This is what the plumping serum is supposed to feel like. I focus back on the task at hand and look at the profile on my phone. Nikolai Chernoff: the man I’m going to effortlessly, inconspicuously, and accidentally meet this morning. I look over my briefing and read the words I’ve already memorized. Twenty-three. Heir to his late father’s fortune thanks to their family-owned luxury vehicle dealerships all over California. One long-term relationship with a woman named Silvia. Tragically, she went missing while on a girl’s getaway trip with her friends a year ago. Think Natalee Holloway in Aruba, circa 2005. Nikolai still hosts fundraisers in hopes of finding the person or people responsible for her disappearance. Her body hasn’t been found and he’s been very vocal that Silvia wouldn’t have done anything to harm herself. I researched Silvia just to get a good idea on the kind of woman he goes after. Her Instagram was a mix of ring-light selfies and an abundance of volunteer work. Pictures of her at the humane society, holding old, haggard cats and petting ugly dogs. There were photos of her all dressed up at galas benefiting cancer research and human trafficking awareness. As one can probably assume … this makes things a bitch for me. She was clearly a good human—or was pretending to be, says the little devil on my shoulder—and that kind of mask is a hard one to compete with, hence why I’m still unsure of my go-to personality for this first run-in. It doesn’t help that I had virtually zero time between my last job and this one. My getaway was Saturday night, and it’s just Monday morning. I had to get from Chicago to California on a red-eye, go from being a redhead to a brunette, and flip my accent from Irish to that of a typical West Coast American. So, to sum it up … I’m like hella stoked to catch some gnarly waves this weekend, dude. If I prayed to anyone—if I were naive enough to believe there was some higher power—I’d be praying right now. I would pray to the gods that this meeting goes how I need it to go. Because if it doesn’t, it’s my head on the line. These people don’t take losses well … which is why I haven’t lost yet. It’s easy to succeed when it’s the only option. Sadly, though, if there is a god, he’s a