Hitman's Revenge (a Forbidden Bad Boy Romance) (10 page)

I
took
a long drag off the cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the night as I stood propped up against the pole right outside the room. I really didn’t care so much for smoking, but after the harrowing escape and tense standoff with Hazel, I felt like I needed something. Alcohol would only muddy my brain, and there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for me to deal with Hazel right now.

Flicking the remaining burning embers off onto the sidewalk, I started to mentally counting the number of guys I was going to kill.

The anger over what they had done to Hazel burned low in my chest, an unsettling need to beat the living shit out of every single of them just like they had with her. Those bruises had given me a feeling I hadn’t expected, a burning need to punch the shit out of the wall to release the pent-up tension. Hazel had suffered, both physically and mentally.

“Shit,” I whispered, looking out over the parking lot. The rain was still coming down in buckets, but in another couple of hours daylight would break, and we would be on the run again. I couldn’t afford to stay in one place for a long period of time until I got Hazel to a safe place. Colt wasn’t going to take her disappearance too lightly. He liked to be in control and had just lost all of it. But I wasn’t an idiot. I’d finally come to the conclusion that Colt knew exactly what he was doing. He was setting up another trap.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, pressed on the message and waited for the file to download. It was double my usual rate, perking my attention just a little. Of course I couldn’t take it, not with Hazel in my care. Still, my curiosity was piqued. The file downloaded and I flipped it open, my heart stilling in my chest as I read the name.

No, aw hell, no. This couldn’t be happening.

I reread the message then fought the urge to throw the phone at the ground, to erase what I’d just seen. This was the roadblock I hadn’t expected or anticipated. How could I have been so stupid?

Hazel Bradshaw
. That was the hit. Someone—it had to be Colt—had put Hazel’s name out for a damn hit. Now every hitman on the fucking east coast would be after her. Granted there weren’t many of us, but still, they would be deadly and they would keep on coming. She wouldn’t be safe; she wouldn’t be able to go back to her house or even bury her fucking dad right now until I could get the hit reversed or fucking kill her myself.

No fucking way that was going to happen.

I ran a hand through my hair roughly, my mood darkening. There was no doubt in my mind that Colt had sent out the hit, having people chase us and flush us out so he could go in for the kill. This was payback for what I had done… the hit I had taken and brutally completed months ago. This was all my fault.

“Dammit,” I muttered, shoving the phone back into my pocket. My ability to keep Hazel alive just became extremely difficult.

I
ignored
Hazel’s frown as I popped the lock on the sleek car, jimmying open the handle with a satisfied grin. Boosting cars was something I was good at, and we couldn’t very well stay in the jeep just in case it had been spotted fleeing from Colt’s compound.

“Can we at least leave them a note?” she asked as I put our bags in the back seat. “I mean, what if it’s someone’s only ride, Jack? What if they’re broke and—”

“We will leave it as we found it, I swear,” I replied, my thoughts already hours ahead.

In another twelve hours I would be wiping down this car as well, abandoning it in some mall parking lot in favor of another car. It was something I had learned over the years. As long as I stayed one step ahead, I could keep us alive. With the sum Hazel had on her head, she would be a prime target for a lot of different hitmen of various levels and skills, and I had to watch out for them all.

Just fucking great.

I climbed behind the wheel, and Hazel reluctantly climbed into the passenger side, looking a bit sick that we had just committed a felony. She shouldn’t be here; I knew she shouldn’t be here, but I couldn’t make myself turn her over to anyone else for safekeeping. The cops would be no use with their incompetent, bumbling ways. And with a bounty on her head, there was no one I could trust not to just cash her in. If they knew how much she was worth… and she was worth a fucking lot to me. People grew desperate when you least expected them to.

Gunning the engine, I pulled out of the parking lot and toward the interstate. I had an idea of where I might go to plan for the moment when Colt was going to catch up with us. It was just a matter of time, and I wanted it to be when I was the most prepared and Hazel was safely tucked away from the threat of violence. Easing the car onto the interstate, I turned north, my mind already formulating a plan of action.

While Hazel had slept the night before, I rigged the door with a remote camera so that I could keep an eye on her. I made a run to the nearest department store, selecting all of the things I thought a woman might need in a pinch. The coconut vanilla shampoo had been a peace offering of sorts, reminding me of the smell of her room back at the house, where I hoped to deliver her when this was all over.

That was where she needed to be, not on the run with me, but even there wasn’t safe. Back in the room I did a quick search on my phone of any connection to Nixon and Colt other than what I already knew. There wasn’t any. That meant I would have to visit a few more people once I was able to stow Hazel safely away. But not until then. I couldn’t take that chance.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?” I asked, noticing the tremor in her voice that she couldn’t quite shake. She had startled the hell out of me in the bathroom this morning, her greedy eyes making me feel like a piece of meat she wanted to devour, in a damn good way, too.

It had been a long time since someone had looked at me so hungrily, and I had found myself doing the same with her, mourning the fact that she was still clothed. Those pert breasts, the slight rounding of her stomach, the hidden treasure between her legs, it was enough to make a man go wild with curiosity. But it was Hazel, not just any other woman off of the street. Hazel, who I had grown up with, respected enough to leave her the hell alone with the exception of that one night long ago. It was fucking Hazel, and I wouldn’t be fucking her no matter how much I wanted to.

“Do you think we are going to, I mean, do you think I’m going to die?”

“Shit,” I started, clenching the steering wheel. How the hell was I supposed to answer that? I wanted to tell her hell no, that I would protect her and she was going to get out of this without another scratch on her pretty face, but I couldn’t promise that now, not with the bounty on her head. I was going to try my damnedest to keep her alive, but my confidence was slipping; I was only one man. “I don’t think we are going to die, no,” I said slowly, lying through my teeth, weaving in and out of the traffic to keep my mind off the fact that I could essentially be staring at her lifeless body if I failed.

“You don’t sound so confident,” she said with a little laugh. I looked over to find her staring out the passenger side window, her profile gorgeous in the morning light. Idly I wondered why she didn’t have a boyfriend or heaven forbid, wasn’t married by now. The thought made me frown, my eyes back on the road. “You are going to be fine, Hazel,” I said through clenched teeth. “I promise. Let me do the worrying.”

“Oh, Jack,” she sighed. “Stop trying to protect me, I’m not that little girl anymore. We both need to be worrying about what might happen. You need to tell me what’s going on.”

I couldn’t make myself disagree, but I couldn’t tell her that, either. Hell, we were going to need a damn miracle.

T
he first inkling
of an issue came about four hours later. One moment I was listening to the music on the radio, trying not to think about the way that Jack’s scent was filling up the small space or how my stomach was growling from hunger, then Jack was punching the gas, sending us careening down the interstate.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately, clutching the side of the seat with my white-knuckled hand, my heart racing.

“We’re being followed,” he said softly, his eyes glancing back and forth from the road to the rearview mirror. I looked back immediately and saw a sleek black car following us, darting in and out as Jack changed lanes. “Is it Colt?” How did he find us so quickly?

“I don’t think so,” Jack replied, moving around a tractor trailer truck with ease.

“But how did they find us?” I repeated.

“Hold on. This could get bumpy,” he replied ignoring my question. I looked in the side view mirror nervously, my heart in my throat as I watched the car. Oh god. We weren’t going to get out of this alive. Either they were going to catch up with us, or Jack was going to kill us with his reckless driving. I didn’t really know which one was worse.

Jack veered to the right suddenly and took the exit ramp, riding on the median to pass a bunch of cars stopped at the light ahead before braking and making a sharp turn to the left, narrowly missing being clipped by oncoming traffic.

I squeezed the seat as tight as I could, trying not to scream as we went barreling down a side street, my view of the other car lost in the mirror.

“I think we lost them,” I said breathlessly, my heart pounding in my ears. How did Jack do this all the time? I would have already had a heart attack by now!

“We didn’t lose them,” he ground out, turning the car into a cramped alley and cutting the engine.

“Wait! What are you doing? Don’t stop!” I yelled as he climbed out of the car, opening the backseat side to retrieve his bag. He didn’t answer as I watched him pull out a gun, screwing on a silencer to its barrel before shutting the door. “Stay in the car. If for some reason this doesn’t work, you run, Hazel. Take the car and get the hell out of here.”

“Wait!” I said again as he shut the door and walked away.

I hurried to turn around in the seat, keeping Jack in my view at all times as he walked to the end of the alley, leaning up against one of the buildings as if he was waiting for someone. With my heart in my throat, I forced myself to stay put. I was of no use to Jack right now, I understood that, but at the first sign of him getting injured, I was going to be out there, gun or no gun. I’d rather die trying to save him than run and leave him behind.

Jack moved the gun to eye level and I saw it recoil in his grip. I heard the sound of a car careening out of control before it ricocheted past the alleyway. Jack jumped out of the way and a second later, the loudest boom echoed in the small space. I couldn’t stay put any longer—he could be injured—and I chose that moment to jump out of the car, staying low so that Jack couldn’t see me. He moved away from the wall and disappeared around the corner. I contemplated my options, the need to keep Jack in my sights outweighing my need for my own safety as I raced after him.

The black car was smashed up against the wall, the passenger side pressed up against the concrete with no way of escaping. Jack had the driver’s side door open in an instant and was in the process of dragging out a stunned man as I stayed out of his sight, close enough to watch.

He leaned down and there was a look of disgust on his face as he checked for a pulse, kicking the body once before reaching into the car again. A short curse followed before he dragged out the next guy. My hand went up to my mouth to keep from making a sound as Jack held his gun to the man’s temple, a man who was fighting to even stand up.

“Tell me who sent you!” he was shouting, pressing the gun hard against the man’s head. The man said something, but I couldn’t make out the words. What was Jack going to do? What were we going to do with the man… take him with us?

Jack shook him once more, leaning down to say something in his ear before a small pop followed, and the man fell to the ground, lifeless.

I pressed my hand against my mouth hard in an effort to keep from screaming as I realized that Jack had just shot the man in the head. I watched in horror as he calmly placed his gun in the waistband of his jeans before starting to search the two dead men.

Jack had killed a man.

Granted, he had been chasing us, but he could had turned him over to the police or left him tied up next to the car instead of ending his life! I felt sick…

Turning away, I forced down the bile in my throat as I ran blindly back to the car, shutting myself inside as I tried to process what had just happened.

I knew Jack was a killer, a hitman, but it had all been so abstract before, just a word, a job, but now I saw the realities of it—of who he really was.

I’d seen the proof of what he could do, the violence he had within him. He had killed the man without a thought, without a flinch.

“Oh god,” I whispered, those words becoming hauntingly familiar to my vocabulary as of late. I was running with a killer.

Had Colt been right? Would he kill me too if the price was high enough? Wasn’t that what he did for a living anyway? I couldn’t handle this; I couldn’t stomach this. I wanted to go home and forget this part of my life, black it out from my memory. Jack was not the man I remembered, the man I had hoped would come.

The driver’s side door opened and the object of my horrible thoughts climbed inside, his hands resting lightly on the steering wheel. I swallowed hard, wondering what he was going to say and how I was going to answer. My stomach was in knots, my throat raw with the unshed tears that wouldn’t come. There was so much to be sad for right now.

“Are you okay?”

“I-I’m not fucking okay,” I said honestly, looking over at him. He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t decipher, one that I didn’t know if I wanted to. “Who the hell are you, Jack? What have you become?”

His jaw clenched tightly as he reached up, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear, his touch soft and surprising.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelled, surprising him. An hour before I would’ve longed for his caress, begged him to touch me as he’d just done. But now, he’d broken my heart. “Why, Jack? Why?”

I waited with bated breath to see what he was going to do next, if he was going to talk about what had just happened, what I wasn’t supposed to see. “You know who I am. And you don’t have to worry about those guys anymore. I’ve taken care of them.”

“Who were they?” I asked softly as he grasped the steering wheel and turned the key firing the ignition. “Colt’s men?”

He looked at me sharply, his eyes flaring in anger. “Just leave it the hell alone, Hazel. They are done with, that’s all you need to know.”

The lump in my throat grew bigger and I looked away, staring out the passenger side window so he couldn’t see the tears sliding down my cheeks. The car eased out of the alley and back towards the interstate, leaving the mess behind us in the rearview mirror as I struggled to maintain some ounce of composure.

How many people had he killed? How many people was he going to kill before all of this was over? Did I want him to kill, or did I want him to stop, to find another way to get out of this alive?

Somehow I knew this wasn’t going to be the only incident. This was just the beginning, with the new Jack, and I didn’t know if I could get used to it at all.