Page 8 of Stolen By the Hit Man
“They…uh…they’re around. They might be hiding.”
“Hiding?”
He shrugs. “Feral alley cats, you know. They’ll show up eventually. It might be a few hours.”
“Hours?”
He clears his throat. “We need to talk. Come on."
I follow Joaquin through a narrow hallway into a front room that looks even crappier than the kitchen, if that’s possible.
And I thought my little sister-wife shack was pathetic. The living room has been converted into an office space—if someone wanted to work in a 1970s office time capsule. The only thing missing is ashtrays and rotary phones.
Joaquin gestures to the ugliest sofa known to mankind.
I sit down and watch him, confused, as he rummages through desk drawers.
My mouth drops open when I watch him unload a cartridge from a very scary-looking handgun and stow all of it in a safe hidden in the wall. With his back to me, he does his best to block my view of the keypad mechanism.
“What kind of place is this?”’
“It’s my house…and my office,” he says. My eyes widen as he takes a wad of cash out of a duffel bag and distributes it among seven different bank deposit bags.
“And what is it that you do, exactly?”
He doesn’t make eye contact as he replies hastily, “I’m a contractor.”
“Oh.” A contractor? Who would hire a building contractor who works and lives in a place that looks like this?
“Are you sure you don’t have something else to tell me?”
He turns around and plants two fists on the top of a World War II-era metal desk.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he replies. “I lied about the cats. Well, there are cats in the neighborhood, but that’s not why I brought you here. You don’t belong with that guy.” A rugged index finger points directly at me as he says that last part.
I don’t know what to say to that. Tears form in my eyes, and I hoarsely whisper. "I know."
He notices the tears and winces. "Sorry for being so abrupt. I haven’t slept in 24 hours, and I just finished a job."
"It's not your fault," I say, wrapping my arms around my waist.
He exhales. "If you can sit tight, I gotta go shower and burn these clothes. It's been a long morning, and I smell like ass."
Before he moves toward the bathroom, Joaquin reaches back and tugs at the back of his shirt, peeling it off over his head while I watch.
My heart races in shock. The walls and ceiling disappear. All I can see is the broad, bare chest and stomach with enough hair to keep a girl interested.
His heavy eyebrows rise in confusion. “What?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks.
I could be mistaken, but I think I see a hint of a smirk as he lumbers to the bathroom.
While he’s gone, another door is abruptly flung open in the hallway. I jump in fright at the noise. A tall, stylish blonde woman in wildly expensive-looking high-heeled boots clip-clops into the office area. My jaw drops because I’ve never seen anyone like her before.
The woman is so stunningly beautiful that I almost feel like I need to apologize for being here.
She freezes for half a second when she sees me.
