Read Online Enemy Lover by Karin Harlow - Free Book Online Page A

secretary was doing in the slums of southeast D.C. He still could, but not if someone discovered Mageek first.
    Improvise, adapt and overcome. Marcus lived for this kind of shit.
    He glanced up at the dimly lit windows of the tenement, watching for looky-loos, but no one had the balls to look out the window. Out of sight . . . out of mind. That was good for him tonight.
    Slowly, he pulled the black neoprene mask down over his face. He gave the street one more sweep. Then, with a stealth and grace that came as naturally to him as his black hair and blue eyes, Marcus moved across the street to the man on the ground. Beneath the sputtering glow of the streetlight, the asphalt glittered with slow rivulets of blood. The coppery scent hung heavy in the air. Marcus’s nostrils twitched at the blood scent. His adrenaline surged, but he kept his focus on what he was there to do. He grabbed the thug by his four-hundred-dollar Nikes and dragged the lifeless form to the curb. Then tossed him into the Dumpster.
    Silently, he walked around to the back of the building and took the stairwell up to the tenth floor.
    He had already familiarized himself with the other apartments, all of them empty. Blalock had made sure there would be no witnesses to what he did here every Wednesday night. Another plus for Marcus.
    Even before he opened the heavy metal door leading from the stairwell to Blalock’s floor, he heard the shrill screams. Noiselessly he moved down the hall, stopping several feet from Blalock’s apartment door. When the screams escalated in volume, Marcus remained motionless.
    He’d watched and listened to Blalock for almost a month. He knew the creep paid a pretty price to rough up the girls. As the minutes dragged on, Marcus continued to stand silent outside the door, the screams only white noise. He’d learned a long time ago to tune out the peripheral shit of his job. It had seeped into his everyday existence as well. Autopilot was safe, no room for emotions to cloud his judgment. In his line of work, there was no room for error, not even a fraction. If he failed, more lives were lost. And failure was never an option.
    But tonight the screams set his nerves and ultraheightened senses on edge. The scent of fear blasting from the apartment was so thick that it clogged his nostrils. The hard, fast staccato of heartbeats and the thick swish of blood as the heart pumped at capacity reverberated against his chest. Yes, he felt the fear, smelled it as if it had been something tangible. But he did not allow it to sway him from his course. He moved closer to the door, itching to get in and get out. His plan had been to wait for Blalock to come out after the girls had been collected, but Mageek wasn’t coming back for his girls, and if his body was discovered, someone might call the cops.
    He glanced at his Swiss-made chronometer. The screams coming from the apartment changed.
    A little girl’s scream for her life. Her life force cried out for help, then, like a candle being snuffed, it was gone.
    He felt a pull to the apartment that had nothing to do with his mark. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, shutting out the fragmented images of a girl, naked and dirty, being pulled off her dead mother, who had just been raped by soldiers. American soldiers. As the images flashed in his brain like a slideshow on fast forward, he continued toward the stairwell. This was not his battle, damn it! His war was with the boss of the man inside the apartment. A long wail made the hair on his arms stand straight up.
    “Fuck!” He whirled around. As he strode to the door he grabbed the doorknob and twisted it so hard that the tumblers snapped. He pushed open the door and stepped in. The dim apartment smelled of sweat, sex and fear. The wailing had turned to a low whimper.
    “You killed her!” a girl’s voice gasped. “You killed Amy!”
    A sharp slap followed by a low moan of pain prefaced Blalock’s denial. “That wasn’t supposed to