Free Bound to the Beast: Russian Hitman Romance by Ada Stone Page A

something, so I tried the next as I started the car and plugged the address into my GPS. I knew where the art school was, but didn’t know the area well enough to be sure where this address was located. It was some apartment building, I knew that much, but I didn’t think I’d ever been there before.
     
    I tried the second number and got an angry woman who only spoke Spanish—until I told her I was the police, then she informed me in perfect English that she didn’t know any Christopher and her son’s name was Michael. I decided she wasn’t covering for Christopher, since she sounded like an older woman and was a mother. My target’s mother was dead, that much I was sure of.
     
    The next number went to a voice mail that belonged to some sort of pop up business that sold strange potato sculptures. I made it through all of the phone numbers and only the last one told me that he’d only just gotten the number, indicating that it might have been Christopher, but I doubted it. He seemed calm, collected, and honestly thought that I was just some friend searching numbers in his contacts list.
     
    Whatever number he’d given the DMV; it definitely wasn’t his most recent.
     
    I gave up on the numbers and followed the GPS downtown to the art district. I drove through a rundown area that was made semi-beautiful by spray painted murals, strange little New Age shops, and cafes that all served foreign coffees and strange danishes that could have just as easily come out of a plastic wrapper as from their ovens. This was the land of hippies and activists and starving artists—which was why the apartment that I finally arrived at was a wreck. It was just barely above falling apart, the outside half painted with a color that might have supposed to have been white, but was closer to puke green and humidity gray. It wasn’t a good color.
     
    Heading up the steps, which were covered in marker, chalk, and paint, drawings of anything and everything covering the concrete, I worried briefly that I might have trouble getting in. Most apartment complexes had security gates or at least a card reader to make sure that only residents could get in.
     
    My worries were unfounded, however, as apparently this apartment complex was cheap enough that the door was simply open, allowing anyone who chose to enter at will.
     
    Nice place, I thought as I headed inside.
     
    There was someone in the lobby sitting at a desk, but they were reading a paper—or sleeping—and didn’t even notice as I casually headed to the stairs which would lead me to the fourth floor of the building.
     
    The place was as grimy and uninviting on the inside as it was on the outside. The walls were painted white, but had smudges and finger prints and even a hole through part of it. It looked like no one had been through to clean in a very long time, and the lights flickered. It certainly looked like the kind of place where a low life like Christopher might live. As I reached the fourth floor, I started searching for the number I was looking for. As I did so, I noticed that a young woman and a man of similar age came out of one of the doors. Instantly, I recognized the woman.
     
    Susanna.
     
    What was she doing here?
     
    The coincidence seemed tremendous that she would be here of all places. A quick desire ran through me, not just for her body, but an urge to have her see me, recognize me. I wanted her to know that I was there, fate having brought us together once again. But she wasn’t alone, and things had been left…badly before. It was a bad idea, and more to the point, I wasn’t the type interested in any sort of long term relationship, which seemed exactly the thing this young girl did want.
     
    Keeping out of sight, I waited at the opposite end of the hall for the pair to exit the apartment before I began to search for mine. I watched as they disappeared, ignoring the surge to go to her and take her with me, then I began to check the numbers. With each