Hitman's Secret Baby: A Bad Boy Romance (10 page)

“What if there was no one left to want Ethan dead.”

He stared hard. “You’re not thinking of getting the police involved again,” he said slowly, but he knew that’s not what I meant; it wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“Do you think it’s so easy to kill off an entire criminal organization?” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “You think if it was, the police or a rival gang wouldn’t have done something like that years ago?”

“Okay, maybe not all of them, but what about just the ones who might have a stake in Ethan being dead.”

“That’d still be a lot of guys,” Mason muttered, more to himself now, like he was thinking about it, turning the logistics over in his head.

“I just happen to know someone who might be able to hook us up with a hitman,” I said smoothly, and he scoffed a laugh, shaking his head.

“You’re right, this is fucking insane.”

“Is it doable, though?”

“For someone in my line of work?” He considered it, frowning. “I don’t know if I’d trust anyone with this. It would have to be me. I’d have to do it.”

I hadn’t wanted to hear that. I’d greatly suspected it, sure, but I hadn’t wanted to consider it. I pulled in a breath, feeling guilty and off-balance. “Could you?”

“If there was even a single link back to me, my life would be over. If my boss found out, I’d end up strung up by the balls.”

“Why couldn’t you have someone you trust do it?”

He shook his head sadly. “I don’t trust anyone, Taryn.”

I nodded, guilt smothering the anticipation that had been building in me since I spoke with Anna and Ethan about this. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s dumb.”

“I didn’t say dumb. I said insane.” Mason laughed, suddenly—a genuinely amused chuckle. “You said you didn’t want our daughter to know her dad was a murderer and now you’re asking me to kill like half a dozen guys.”

I smiled wryly. “Someone taught me that sometimes it’s okay to do whatever it takes to protect your family.”

“He sounds like a wise man.”

“He’s a lunatic, actually.” I reached out to take his hand, threading our fingers together. “But, uh, I kinda like him. A lot.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He stood, shaking my hand loose and walking away, and I reeled, not knowing what I’d done wrong. I tracked him across the room, to the minibar where he grabbed a small Jack Daniel’s bottle and screwed off the top.

“Do what?”

“I need to think about this, Taryn,” he said, not looking at me. “Give me a few days to figure out how to start.”

I felt dismissed. His whole body had become a brick wall, closed off to me completely. I stood, stepping closer to him, but he turned his back and drank down the entire contents of the miniature bottle.

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll get going then.” The moment had taken on the uncomfortable air of a cheap booty call. I grabbed up my purse and opened the door, taking a last look over my shoulder and asked hopefully, “I’ll see you soon?”

He still wouldn’t look at me. “Sure, I’ll be in touch.”

I didn’t know what the hell had just happened. As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, my muscles feeling well-used, my body still tingling, I felt like Mason had dumped a post-coital bucket of cold water right over my unsuspecting head.

Maybe my suggestion really was just
that insane.
Or maybe this was what he was like on a job, switching to stone-cold work mode while he plotted to kill people. If that was true, it scared me a little. Had my idea fucked him back up again after all the progress we’d recently made?

I couldn’t bear to be responsible for that, but what choices did we have? The window to save Ethan would eventually close, and then what?

I was at a loss, floundering in a strange sea. This wasn’t my world and I had no right imposing on it like this.

More than anything, I wanted to see my daughter. I had that luxury, still.

I pulled out my phone and called Justin to check they were home, and then I hopped in my car for the short journey to his place.

When I walked through the door, I was greeted with a flurry of ribbons and
Frozen
pajamas, Daisy’s arms wrapped around my waist before I’d even fully stepped into the house.

“Uncle Justin did it,” she informed me, as she led me into the kitchen.

I looked over her uneven pigtails, some of the hair falling out of the ribbons, and laughed. “He needs practice.”

“Hey,” he admonished from the coffee pot. “I’m getting better, okay?” I kissed his cheek and he muttered in my ear, “You okay, sis?”

“I don’t even know,” I told him quietly.

He pushed a fresh-made coffee into my hand. “You seen him?”

“Just now.”

Vividly, my mind threw up images of us together: Mason fucking me, kissing me, holding me in his arms on the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish them, as well as our frosty goodbye.

“Daisy, tell Mommy about your new drawing,” Justin said, a welcome reprieve.

“It’s a family portrait,” she babbled excitedly. “But you can’t see it yet. Neither can Uncle Justin. When it’s done, you’re both gonna love it! Auntie Anna and Uncle Ethan, too.”

“I can’t wait, honey.”

“Mommy,” Daisy said softly. “When can I come home with you?”

“Soon,” I promised, feeling anything but certain.

It wasn’t fair for me to keep leaving her with my brother, even though he loved her dearly and she was safer here. I was at a loss, completely, over what to do. I was at Justin’s more than I was at home myself, these days. When I wasn’t with Mason, anyway. It felt like living a double life and it struck me again how I was becoming more and more like Mason.

“Why not now?” Daisy asked.

I’d always prided myself on being honest with my daughter, teaching her the virtue of it. But now I floundered. Where to even begin?

Thankfully, Justin interrupted. “I’d miss you too much if you went now, Dais. Can’t I just keep you a little bit longer?”

Daisy rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. “I
suppose
.”

“It’d be so quiet around here without you,” he quipped, and she ran at him, tousling for a moment.

“Does Mommy have a boyfriend?” Daisy suddenly asked slyly, in Justin’s arms and speaking with him conspiratorially.

Justin looked at me with wide eyes. “Um…”

“Would that be okay, Daisy?” I asked, a terrible sense of inevitability weighing on me.

I couldn’t keep entirely lying to her. I had to say
something
, prepare her somehow. Mason’s odd mood-swing today had left me reeling, wondering just how deep his regrets really ran, if he was even stable enough to be in our lives or if he even wanted to be, but it was still a possibility and I had to lay some groundwork for that.

Daisy made a show of considering it. “I guess, if he was nice and he deserved you.”

I huffed a laugh; God, I loved her so much. “There might be a man and you might get to meet him one day, if you both want to, and if things get less complicated. He’s not the reason you can’t come home, though,” I lied—semi-lied. It wasn’t Mason, it was the danger he brought and the fact Daisy might get to meet her father only to have him ripped away again. I had to keep reminding myself of that. “I would never put another person before you in all the world.”

“I know, Mommy,” she said earnestly. “I think I’d like to meet him. Someone has to judge him. Right, Uncle Justin?”

Justin chuckled. “Damn right.”

“I wish it wasn’t as complicated as it was, honey.”

“Grown-ups always say that,” Daisy complained.

I snorted. “I know. It sucks, doesn’t it? But I mean it. I’d never say it if it wasn’t true.”

Daisy nodded, seeming content for the moment with that inept explanation. I still felt awful, but slightly less so. How could I tell my daughter the father she thought died ten years ago was actually alive? And if he left again, she’d have built up her hopes for nothing.

Soon
, I told myself. I had to be satisfied that she was at least safe from Mason’s world, even if she was confused.

“Anyway.” I clapped my hands together. “You’d better go change,” I told her. “Can’t get ice cream in your PJs.”

“Ice cream?” Daisy cried, grinning, all thoughts of boyfriends and coming home banished.

“How about a sundae? Fudge sauce and sprinkles?” I was buying her complacency, I knew, but it was the least I could do.

Daisy ran off upstairs like lightning, almost tripping over her own feet. I turned to Justin, heaving a massive sigh.

He squeezed my shoulder briefly. “What’s going on?”

“I think I just asked Mason to kill someone.”

Justin choked on his coffee, spluttering it everywhere. “
What
?”

I explained what I’d talked to Mason about, and Justin’s expression became more and more horrified with every word.

“My poor niece’s mother is just as insane as her father,” he said incredulously.

“You tell me what the hell you’d do,” I snapped, my rapidly fraying nerves showing.

Justin knew I’d gone to the police, so that was out, and I watched his face twist as he mentally considered option after option in his head, eventually blowing out a breath. “I don’t even know.”

“
See
?” I asked, my voice sounding high pitched and hysterical. I needed to get a grip. “Not so easy.”

“This is the shittiest creek you’ve gotten stuck up, sis.”

“I know.”

“And you
keep
fucking Mason.”

I cringed. “Yeah, that does keep happening. In the grand scheme of hit-jobs and dead exes rising from the grave, I think it’s the least of my problems.”

He studied me intently. “I disagree.” I frowned at him. “Look at you. You’re a mess, Taryn. I get all the other stuff is serious but you’re still in love with him and it’s screwing with you so bad.”

“How can I love him?” I asked desperately, feeling torn down the middle. “I told you before, I don’t even know him.”

Justin touched my shoulder again. “Just because he’s changed, doesn’t mean he’s not still Mason in a ton of other ways.”

My breath hitched and I swiped furiously at my face; I would
not
cry over this, not with my daughter just upstairs and my best friend’s husband’s life on the line. “Pull it together,” I told myself sternly.

Justin smiled wryly, pulling me into a hug. “Just be careful, please. I trust you to make good decisions, sis, but this is a messed-up situation. Don’t lose your head.”

“Literally or figuratively?” I joked, but it wasn’t really a joke, was it?

“Both.”

I pulled away, running my hands back through my hair. I felt more composed and Daisy’s footsteps coming down the stairs sure helped me to focus.

I nodded at my brother. “I’ll try. And if I can’t I’m relying on you to slap sense into me.”

“Deal.”

Daisy came into the kitchen, bringing noise and color with her, and I took her hand in mine and remembered exactly what all of this chaos was in aid of.

My family,
Mason’s
family. The most important thing in the world.

Chapter Ten
Mason

After she left, I felt hollow.

It was all hitting a little too close to home, now. My sister knew what was what, there was a vague plan in place, and once this was all over, there would be nothing keeping me here anymore.

You have a child
, my conscious helpfully supplied. I scoffed. What kind of father was I, while I made steps to kill more people? What kind of positive influence could I be in my daughter’s life? Taryn’s life, even?

Even after the incredible time we’d spent together recently, I’d shut down right in front of Taryn, all but telling her to get out. She’d reached out and told me something I had wanted to hear but how real was it really? She’d just asked me to kill people, and she was so free with her emotions and so crushed down under all the chaos I’d brought into her life. I couldn’t help but think instead of anything like love, it was simply
need
that Taryn felt.

And I couldn’t blame her. Need would pass with time, once Taryn looked at me and saw how much I didn’t belong here. Love, though…

Why
should
she still love me? I didn’t deserve it in the least.

I did, however, have to figure out a way to protect my family.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized there was no guarantee Monroe would stop at Ethan in his quest for revenge. He could go after my sister, too. And Taryn was already involved. If she spoke out she could make herself a target.

Monroe may have been doing this for his own family, but he was a criminal of the tallest order. He was a cold, heartless son of a bitch who only cared about himself and his business.

No. This was too personal. I couldn’t stand by and wait to see if Monroe’s organization would or would not come after more people I cared about.

I’d abandoned them for too long, but not anymore. My apologies to Taryn, to Anna, and in passing to Daisy, were meaningless in the face of action.

It was time to put my skills into play.

Ian answered his phone in two rings, just like always.

“I need another favor,” I told him.

I’d already asked him to dig up Ethan’s dirty laundry, to find out Carl Monroe’s beef with the Fosters, and now I was going to him again, using up all my hard-earned credits.

Almost like my good standing didn’t mean anything anymore, like I was treating this job like my last.

“Shoot,” Ian said—man of very few words, the bluntest guy I knew. His OCD left him little patience for humor or unnecessary verbiage. Made him a great fucking PI, though.

“Can we set a meeting? It’s big. Really, really big.”

“Sure. I presume I’ll be compensated for the long-ass drive over there.”

I rolled my eyes. “’Course you will, Ian.”

I planned to meet him tomorrow evening in The Royal, ready to cough up his gas money. I figured it was as good a place as any, and the people there were careful not to
notice
what they shouldn’t be noticing.

Until then, I stayed cooped up in my hotel room, contemplating with a kind of growing dread about the moments beyond this job. If I pulled it off, and Monroe and his ilk were disposed of, would I just pack up my bags and move back to New York? I owed Taryn at least cash to help raise our child, take the strain off her after all these years. A monthly check in the mail, then, would be all my child knew of me.

Maybe that was for the best, though.

It wasn’t even technically a job. I sure as hell wasn’t getting paid for it. The benefits were solely personal, having nothing in common with all the jobs I’d taken in the past decade—barring one.

My very first: William Foster.

What a way to come full circle.

When the time rolled around to go meet Ian, I was much calmer, much more ready to have this conversation.

I found him tucked away in the corner of the bar, sipping a scotch and soda—nothing ever changed about this guy. He still combed his fair hair over his startling bald patch, still had the same beady eyes and short, stubby frame, and he
still
wore that same worn-out black suit every time I saw him.

I appreciated that old reliability, though. It was why I’d worked with the guy for years.

“I hope you’re not driving home tonight,” I quipped, eyeing up the alcohol.

He gave me a withering look that told me it was none of my damn business. “C’mon. Tell me this
really, really big
deal of yours.”

I did, flagging down the bar guy—who by now was more than eager to fetch me drinks for the tips I doled out—and ordering myself a drink and Ian another for propriety’s sake.

“My boss can’t hear about this, okay?”

“When do I ever go chatting with your damn boss, Baldwin?”

“I know you do jobs for him sometimes.”

“I’m not gonna blab,” Ian snapped. “You know me better than that and it’s more than my money’s worth.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath, genuinely not knowing how this was going to go down. “I wanna get rid of Carl Monroe.”

Ian’s face didn’t betray a thing, but his long, silent pause did. “You wanna deep six the Monroe family.”

“Only the ones that might come after
my
family,” I stressed, as if Ian had any moral compass strong enough to give a shit why I was doing this. I’d been spending too much time around regular people with regular consciences, obviously. “That’s where you come in. I need to know about rifts in the organization, about who’s looking to overthrow the big man and who won’t be crying at his funeral.”

Ian took a drink. “For the record, I gotta tell you how fucking crazy this is.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“So long as you know.” He drained his glass and started on the next. Outwardly, he looked as composed as ever, but I’d never seen him pound a drink so fast before. “The logistics of this are almost beyond me.”

“
Almost
,” I repeated meaningfully.

Ian shook his head impatiently. “I won’t take favors for this, Baldwin. I want hard cash. This is my ass on the line.”

I had more than enough saved for whatever he was asking for but it was a testament to how fucked up this was that Ian, a man with cash to spare and who was notorious for trading big jobs for bigger debts, would only ask for money.

“You planning on skipping town right after or something?” I asked curiously.

“I have contingencies in place and if I’m doing this, I’d like to supplement them, yes.”

“None of the organization will be able to link this back to us.”

“Bullshit,” Ian said flatly. “You know as well as I do that if just one of Monroe’s loyal guys lives, they’ll have both our balls on a plate within the day.”

“That’s why I need his best and brightest in one place, all at the same time,” I explained. “And I need to make it look like a rival hit.”

“Then you stage a deal between them and the Thorne brothers.”

“Those assholes?” I pulled a face.

Assholes was correct; Monroe was bad but the Thorne brothers were two sadistic sons of bitches. I’d crossed paths with them numerous times; they liked to get personally involved with the punishing of their own wayward employees, and those that crossed them faired far worse.

Monroe despised them more than any of his other
colleagues
, but they had the best drug ring from the Midwest to the East Coast so he still dealt with them from time to time out of necessity.

“Pick a neutral city,” Ian went on. “Make Monroe believe the Thornes have something to offer, and then boom. Bye-bye birdie.”

“And I do that how?”

“We find the rift,” Ian said thoughtfully. He seemed to be getting into it now; I knew I could rely on his obsessive and puzzle-solving nature, if nothing else. “Get the message to Monroe through the weak links in his organization.”

“Make it look like his own guys are working with his enemies to betray him?” I asked, marveling at how Ian had so quickly come up with something. He made it look so damn easy, the bastard.

“That way, if there’s any loyalty left in the ranks…”

“It’ll turn them on each other, too. And when the blame falls on the Thornes, they’ll just assume it’s civil war inside Monroe’s organization.”

“They might get involved—those boys do love a fight—or they might take the boost to their grim reputation and not give a shit.” Ian shrugged. “Either way, everyone will be too busy in-fighting and blaming each other to talk rationally and figure out what really happened.”

“It’s a solid plan,” I said, heavy on the gratitude.

Ian nodded, pulling his tablet out of his messenger bag. “I’ll need some time to figure out who Monroe’s inner circle is.”

“So you’re gonna do the job?”

“I want twenty grand,” Ian said bluntly. “And the next time I need something, you don’t get to say no.”

For the first time in my life, I was hit with the long-lasting consequences of that statement. Owing Ian my future business meant I was still in this for as long as he saw fit to hold me to the debt. It meant we were still connected—
I
was still connected to him, to my job, to my seedy, underground life.

“How about forty grand and we skip the last part,” I offered, failing to make it sound as casual as I’d hoped.

He eyed me up suspiciously, certainly not beating around the bush. “You’re thinking about getting out.”

I sighed; I didn’t even know the answer to that damn question, and yet it kept coming up, over and over again. “Let’s just say that I’d like the option.”

Ian’s eyebrows shot up. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all very interesting.” I waved him off, eager to get back to the matter at hand. “I know someone from the Thornes’ camp who I can trust. I helped her out with a personal matter a couple years back.”

I knew several people from their organization, actually. Some of them so money hungry they’d stab their own sisters in the back for a payload. But money didn’t always buy silence the way personal debts did, and this girl—I’d helped her out big. Plus, she worked for the Thornes’ global shipping company and had no real loyalty to either of the brothers—she just collected her paycheck and went on her way.

I pulled out my phone and dropped her a text, testing the waters. Ian flipped through his tablet in silence. Presumably that was where he stored his info on whoever he was blackmailing at any given time.

“That thing secure?” I asked idly, itching for another drink but trying to keep my head straight.

Without looking up, he told me, “It’s rigged to wipe itself clean in the case of three failed password attempts.”

I was surprised he hadn’t rigged it to explode or something, as paranoid as he was. My phone buzzed and I checked it.

The message read:
What do you want?

She wasn’t dumb. I messaged her back with some very vague, heavy-on-the-deniability details and an offer to meet up and discuss them, and she asked for some time to think about it.

I was confident she’d say yes. Until then, though, I had some things to do. Once I left town, there would be no coming back until the Monroe job was finished. There might be no coming back at all.

“I gotta go,” I told Ian. “Update me when you find something.”

Ian waved me off, again without even bothering to look up, and I left the bar to stand in the clear evening air, so different from inside that dank place.

I wondered if Taryn would want to see me so soon after our awkward goodbye yesterday. I didn’t know if my sister would want to see me, either.

But if I had to leave town soon, I couldn’t do it without telling them. I wasn’t the cowardly boy who ran away anymore. Even if my sister still couldn’t look me in the eye, and Taryn couldn’t truly forgive me, I had to let them both know how much they meant to me before I left.

I walked off the slight whiskey buzz, heading for Taryn’s diner. It was an hour before closing time and I suspected she’d be there tonight.

I was right.

Through the glass windows, I watched her behind the counter.

She poured coffee and chatted with a man in a trucker cap. She smiled freely, her grin bright as the moon in the sky. Her hair was braided to the side, her dark eyes full of easy warmth, and I felt momentarily stunned by her.

After a minute, she caught my eye.

I had no choice but to head inside; I couldn’t well stay out in the street looking like a gawking idiot.

“Hey,” she said, softly surprised.

I gave her a small smile, slipping onto a stool at the counter. I hadn’t been in here since my weird nightmare relapse the other week, but Taryn had all of my focus tonight. I felt nothing could pull it away from her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, offering me the coffee pot. I nodded, and she flipped a mug and set it on the counter. “I wasn’t really expecting…” She drifted off, looking away.