Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (19 page)

I didn’t say anything. She was right. She also, apparently, wasn’t finished going hard on me.

“I’m just stunned you didn’t figure this out sooner. You really think that a guy like Mads accidentally missed you in Chicago? Because if Lily was the one who killed him, that means that you weren’t there to do your job. You think a guy as trained as Mads wouldn’t have made
damn certain
you were in that hotel room?”

I thought about it. She was right. It wasn’t until Chicago, when I saw Mads with his broken neck bleeding out onto the floor that I had realized there was something going on I couldn’t explain. Mads was a lug of a guy, but he was fairly intelligent. He’d clearly waited until Lily was alone in the room and I was gone to make his strike.

But finally the light clicked on for me. “He wasn’t going to kill Lily. He was there to take her.”

Corina nodded like I was a small child finally grasping basic arithmetic. “Go on, genius.”

Her comment rankled me, but I knew this was just part of her game. She loved making fun of me. “He knew he couldn’t take me one on one. So he waited until I was gone, so he could kidnap Lily because he knew that I would follow her. That was the plan.”

“
The plan
that your resourceful little girlfriend managed to foil almost instantly. But it did set up the window for Matthew to be there when she was taken, so he could leave behind the lighter.” She sighed wistfully. “I can’t wait to meet this woman. Sounds like I could learn a thing or two,” Corina quipped, chuckling admirably.

I shuddered. “
Both
of you in the same room? Someone should warn the U.N.”

Corina laughed as she parked the car in front of an airplane hangar. “You might just want to step aside and let me and Lily handle things, Cruz. I think we’ve got this by ourselves.”

***

“You’re flying the plane?” I asked a few minutes later, trying to keep from rolling my eyes. My fingers were itching to take control of
something. Anything.

Corina handed me her rose gold iPhone 6s+ that was a mirror of my own. “Call Flea,” she said. “I’ll do the flight preparation.”

“You want me to talk to that fuckweasel?”

“Kiss and make up, Cruz. He’s the only one who knows where we need to be going.” Corina waved her fingers and pulled on aviator sunglasses before walking over to the runway guy holding the pre-flight checklist on a clipboard. I sighed and dialed.

It rang almost ten times before Flea picked up the phone. “What,” he grunted, sounding annoyed.

“It’s Cruz,” I said.

“You owe me a bottle of all-purpose cleaner,” Flea replied. “It took me forever to get the dirty scuff marks off the desk and floor from your girlfriend’s luggage wheels.”

“Put it on my goddamn tab,” I retorted.

He sighed. “You really do have the worst timing dude.” I heard the sound of high-pitch-voices giggling in the background.

“Your groupies settling in for another night of your needle dick and shitty marijuana?” I was still angry at being sent on a wild goose chase out of his shithole apartment. I wasn’t letting this go. “I might actually be doing them a favor by delaying their inevitable disappointment when you do finally get around to fucking them.”

“You sure are bitter for a guy who pointed a gun
at me
, the guy who also has the info you need to get your girlfriend back,” he said pointedly.

“I know one hundred and fifty ways to kill you and make it look like an accident,” I said, pausing dramatically. “I think humiliation is a good way to go. How about auto-erotic asphyxiation in a dive motel somewhere in the Bronx?”

“Point taken,” Flea replied, his voice cracking up two octaves. “Let me just get the file.”

Soon enough we were in the air and cruising to Nevis, Corina confidently at the controls of the plane. I stretched and yawned, jiggling my leg. “Get up,” Corina intoned. “Go walk around and bring me back a granola bar or something. You’re driving me up a wall.”

“And leave you up here alone?” I joked.

“I kicked your ass in flight school,” she retorted. “I was top of the class.”

“Because you fucked the instructor,” I retorted.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever you need to tell yourself to get you through the night, Cruz. Bring me my bar and then go take a nap. You look like shit.”

I hadn’t slept for any meaningful amount of time in weeks. It was hard to drive me to the point of exhaustion, but it seemed to have happened. “You’re right,” I sighed, pulling off my headphones.

“I’m
what
?” Corina asked me, a huge smile on her face. “Because if I’m not mistaken, you just said two words I’ve never heard leave your lips in all the years that I’ve known you. And I need to hear them again.”

I rolled my eyes and climbed over my seat. “
You’re right
,” I repeated.

“Bring me a Coke, too,” she called back to me.

After my serving duties were finished, I sat down in a reclining chair in the bulkhead. I was asleep before my eyes closed. My dreams were brief passing moments and memories of Lily’s skin against mine mixed with the sight of her being pulled into a van that I couldn’t manage to catch, the cold black steel perpetually inches from my reach.

When I woke up, I felt something soft covering me. I snatched it off my body like it was poison before realizing it was a cream-colored cashmere blanket. Corina was standing over me laughing. “You looked cold,” she explained.

“Thanks,” I grunted, feeling my hair and realizing that it was sticking up wildly. “Wait, who’s flying?”

She rolled her eyes. “We landed about ten minutes ago, and before you freak out that I wasn’t going to wake you up,
I just did.
”

“I slept the whole way?”

She nodded. “We’re here. You ready to storm this motherfucking castle?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CRUZ

“You got a plan, Romeo?”

I was pulling out syringes and slipping them into the sleeve of my leather jacket, checking my gun and concealing it appropriately. “Shoot anything that moves that isn’t Lily or Matthew,” I replied, slamming the trunk of the black Mercedes closed. I snatched the keys from Corina and pulled on my sunglasses. It seemed like we were closer to the sun here. “And I’m driving.”

“I thought you hated guns,” she said a few minutes later as we drove across the pristine island with gleaming white mansions nestled into green hills.

“I do,” I replied, riding the ass of the car in front of us. I laid on the horn. “But situations have a way of changing things.”

“You never used a gun to come rescue me,” Corina said, giving me a fake pout.

“Was there ever a situation where you needed rescuing?” I pointed out.

She shrugged. “That one time in Russia. When you syringed the guy who had me hostage.”

“You told me you were in control then!” I exclaimed.

“Well, I didn’t exactly want you to think that I needed you any more than I did,” she said, keeping her voice light and even.

“So you weren’t engaging in bondage roleplay when I busted into that guy’s penthouse? He actually had you tied up against your will? And you lied to me about it?” I shook my head. “You are unbelievable, Corina.”

“Take a right up here,” she replied.

I turned into the circular driveway of a towering hotel. I was out of the car before I even had it all the way in park. I shoved the keys into the valet’s hands. “We won’t be long,” I insisted to the speechless bell boy.

Corina slid out of the car and trotted to keep up with me. “You always did know how to make an entrance,” she muttered. “Back elevator.”

I saw where she was pointing and ran ahead. The doors were about to close but I slid my hand in the swiftly-shrinking gap between the doors; I figured an elevator to the penthouse would require the use of a keycard that I didn’t have. It was now or never. The rubber seal bounced off my skin and opened. A tall man in a black suit was standing there. I had a syringe in my hand and into his neck before he could even lift his hand. I grunted as I put my hands under his armpits, supporting his slide down to the floor.

Corina stepped into the elevator neatly, a bemused look on her face. The doors closed behind her.

I was feeling cocky. “I swear to fuck, half of this assassin game is just lucky timing.”

“Speak for yourself. The rest of us come prepared,” she replied, pulling out lipstick and applying it in the mirror of the elevator walls.

I patted down the guy, digging into his suit pocket for the keycard that would take us upstairs. “Shit,” I said. “I think it’s in his pocket but his leg is pinned against the goddamn wall.” I looked up at Corina, who had her arms crossed over her chest. “A little help, Rina?”

“You wasted a syringe,” she replied, twirling a keycard in between her fingers. She slid it into the slot. The elevator rumbled to life beneath my feet. “Flea made it for me.”

“My syringe wasn’t wasted. It was just a little
premature
,” I replied, my ego wounded.

“Which is par for the course for you,” she retorted with a smirk.

“I set you up for that joke.” I pulled out my gun as the elevator climbed higher and higher.

Ding
.

Corina looked at me with a smile, pulling a gun out of her boot. “You ready?”

“Always,” I replied as the doors opened into the penthouse.

It was empty. Or at least the living area and kitchen was empty. Corina put a finger to her lips and tilted her head toward the hallway. We moved slowly, checking each of the bedrooms. The killer view of the ocean was almost a distraction. I found myself wanting to be relaxing on it with Lily at my side.

I needed a goddamn vacation.

Just as I thought that, heavy footsteps came from behind the closed door to my right. Corina nodded and I swapped places with her, slipping a syringe into my palm. The door opened and another minion stepped out. The needle bit into his neck and delivered its poison rapidly. He dropped to the floor. Corina caught him before he made too much noise. We buried him under the bed and shut the door behind ourselves.

“One lug down, a million more to go,” Corina quipped in a low voice.

We kept walking, clearing each bedroom with the dance-like coordination we’d developed after five years of working together. It was a nice, comfortable familiarity.

Corina paused in front of a closed door; a bathroom off of one of the bedrooms. I listened. The sound of running water floated out from the crack. I nodded and switched spots with Corina. A moment later, it opened and my syringe-filled palm was at the neck of…

“Matthew?” I hissed.

Corina grabbed my wrist, slowing my trajectory. Matthew nearly yelped but stopped himself. I exhaled, my heart beating at what I’d almost done.

Corina tiptoed over to the bedroom door and closed it as quietly as she could. Then she leaned her body up against it and nodded for the all-clear.

“Do you greet your other godsons with poison?” Matthew asked me, jokingly.

I hugged him hard, rustling his curly blonde hair. “You asshole,” I whispered. “That last time I called you. You really
were
running a drug empire!”

Matthew grinned. “Well, I didn’t technically lie. You asked if I was running
my
drug empire. And I wasn’t. I was running
a
drug empire.”

I shook my head. “What’s the situation?”

“They have Lily in the back, just down the hallway. She’s not tied up or anything. There are about eight guards in there.”

I smiled. “Only eight? Give us something hard to do.”

Corina hissed from the doorway. “Can we break up this little reunion, please? I really have somewhere to be.”

I nodded and looked from her to Matthew. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Wookie prisoner trick?” Corina asked.

“Wookie prisoner trick,” I replied.

Three quick minutes later, Matthew had loosely zip-tied my wrists together and was leading me down the hallway with a gun at my back. “I can’t believe you aren’t in school,” I murmured.

“I’m just taking the semester off,” Matthew replied. “You know I can catch up with no problem.  I was already bored.”

I shook my head. “We’re talking about this when we get out of here. And there will be
stern
fucking yelling, young man.”

Matthew chuckled softly. “Alright, Cruz.”

I took a deep breath as he shoved me through the double doors at the end of the hallway and into a large room.

“Easy!” I yelled dramatically, twisting my arms to make it look like Matthew was hurting me. “Christ, you already have me here. You don’t need to break my fucking arm.”

Two of the guards smiled with pleasure at my apparent pain.

“Found this one lurking in the living room,” Matthew grunted. “He took out Sikes in the elevator. Go see if he’s alright.”

The two guards trotted off without a word. I knew Corina would make quick work of them. I strained to hear the thud of their bodies but was interrupted by the husky voice of a woman. “Ah, Cruz. So good to meet you in person.”

The woman was stunning. Her tan skin gleamed in the sunlight coming through the window, and she held herself with an easy, confident poise that seemed natural and not at all practiced. “Sorry I’m not mutually familiar,” I replied, clearing my throat. This second living space was a mirror of the one I’d walked into earlier. It also smelled like disinfectant. Matthew pressed the gun harder into my back. It was a warning, but of what? Surely this woman wasn’t deadly.

“Victoria Romano,” she said, holding out a slim, gold-bangle-covered wrist. She chuckled and brought her hand back to her side. “I seem to be making a habit of trying to shake hands with people who are otherwise occupied.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Well, let’s get down to business. You are the man, if I’m not mistaken, who killed my husband.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer it.

“Ah, a quiet one. Alright.” Her heels clicked as she walked over to a mahogany sideboard. Her long fingers wrapped around a small gold box. She removed a black matte tube of lipstick and twirled it open. She applied it slowly with a well-practiced motion. She didn’t need a mirror to do it. She stared at me and twirled the cap back into place. Three strides later she was inches from my face. She inhaled deeply. “I always hate to do this to the pretty ones,” she said. Then she reached up and kissed my neck. My skin erupted in goosebumps against my inclinations.