Rough Edges Read Free

opportunity to see if the new drug works, it’s going to be much harder to autopsy her brain once I’m done with her.”
    â€œYou’d be better off taking her out. I used to work at the Edge. She keeps that place running. Without her, the whole structure crumbles and all the people searching for you go find new jobs.”
    Stynger stood, and it was all Randolph could do not to back away. “I only need a little more time. Once the island facility is finished, they’ll never find me. If Ms. Bayne is killed, her men will never stop looking for the person responsible for her death. It’s possible they could assume it was me, even after you parted company with Ms. Bayne on such unfriendly terms.”
    He’d been fired. One little mistake and she’d cut him loose. No one was even going to miss the kid he’d accidentally killed. She’d been a street rat, worthless. Certainly not worth losing his job over. Considering the dusty, poverty-stricken hole she’d lived in, he’d probably been doing her a favor by putting her out of her misery.
    Bella had seen things differently. With the clout she had in the industry, Randolph hadn’t been able to find work since. At least not until Stynger’s job offer came along.
    Then it had hit him. Stynger had hired him
because
of his unhappy ties to Bella. The good doctor had set him up to take the fall if things went wrong, and it was only now that he realized how she’d set him up.
He’d
drugged Bella’s water supply.
He’d
rigged an explosive device in her house. Even as careful as he’d been there could still be some piece of evidence tracing him back to the job. Some camera that recorded him near her home. If anything happened to her, her people would find it. And then they’d find him.
    â€œYou knew they’d come after me, didn’t you?” he asked, barely keeping his anger in check.
    â€œI have no doubt that I’ll be blamed eventually, but by then I’ll be out of reach, hidden and protected by my gracious benefactors. And their army.”
    Randolph had been played. The money she’d offered him was too good to be true. He should have known not to make a deal with the devil. There was no love lost between him and Bella, but he’d been an idiot to let his fury for the woman who fired him drown out his better judgment.
    Too late now. His only hope was to move forward and do whatever it took to keep Stynger from eating him alive. Because as deadly as the men and women who worked for the Edge were, not one of them was anywhere near as soulless and evil as the woman standing in front of him. All that would happen to him if Bella’s men found him was he’d be killed. If Stynger turned her wrath on him, he’d pray for death.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do now?” he asked.
    The red slash of her lips curved up in a smile. “Just a little errand. It’s nothing, really.”

Chapter Three
    B ella didn’t call the authorities as Victor had hoped. Instead, she called in one of her employees who knew his way around explosives. Within thirty minutes, the device was disarmed and her house was being searched for other unpleasant surprises by a crew of people skilled enough to ease some of the tension radiating down through Victor’s limbs.
    If he hadn’t seen the device, there was no way to know how long it would have stayed there, ready to blow. The fact that it hadn’t detonated when he tried to turn on the oven was a small miracle. Just the idea of it happening while Bella was home was enough to make him sweat.
    Then again, Victor had spent the past several weeks sweating, constantly worried about a woman who would likely rather break his nose than welcome his concern. She took too many risks with herself while proactively guarding her employees. She was impatient. Impulsive. Sometimes even a bit reckless. And sexy as hell.
    He knew better than to