Page 16 of Hit Man
Diego
“Pendejo!”My fist tightens around the fluffy bath towel I use to dry off from my shower. I hurl it across the room where it settles without a sound on my bungalow floor. If only that drunk idiot who’d fallen off the dance floor had landed as quietly. “If Mendoza’s anything like his father, there won’t be an investigation.”
“Better hope you’re right and that Fahder shows. I demand answers, without further interruptions,” Hayden responds, then falls silent. Great, the goddamn silent treatment. A sure sign of my boss’s displeasure with my update. Like my hand was the one to push the idiot to his death. Like I’m single-handedly responsible for this added complication. I grind my teeth together. Hayden’s been a controlling bastard since we ran the streets of Loreto. A hardheaded guy who’s only gotten worse with age.
“Ese maldito idiota tenía que caer.”Yeah, idiots and dance floors just don’t mix. The accident was anything but unexpected. Especially considering the rumor of a safety net is just that, a rumor.
“English,” Hayden grounds out.
Although fluent in English, Italian, French, and Spanish, for whatever reason, he always insists on English. Every so often I treat him to a little Danish, my mother’s native tongue. Keeping him on his toes, which really pisses him off. But there’s a time for everything though I’m wired enough to fuck with him a bit further.
“Pinche estupidó.”
“Diego . . .” he warns me.
I run my hands through my damp hair. Getting close to the elusive Fahder is proving more difficult than anticipated.
That’s what impatience gets you, I can almost hear the ticktock of Hayden’s thoughts. To his credit, he doesn’t actually say it. Good thing. Despite a night of sex that has my dick hardening every time I think about it, I’m still too worked up about the shit’s-hit-the-fan-fest soon to follow thependejo’sdeath. The last thing I need is Hayden pulling me off the job. Or worse.
My orders are to CLIT—Capture, Loosen Up, Interrogate, Terminate. So I set myself up nicely with Fahder’s bastard son, Juan Carlos Mendoza and his crew. Waiting for Fahder to show.
He never did.
Rumors of bad blood and hurt feelings . . . Mendoza with a hard-on to prove daddy wrong. Typical father-son bullshit.
The kind I never had the opportunity to personally experience.
I returned to the streets. Tried flushing Fahder out of his fortress of a home after realizing his security was tighter than an Afghan embassy. Succeeding with spectacular success, if I do say so myself. Except he had an escape plan and disappeared before I could get a visual on him.
So I’m reporting in to Hayden to inform him I’m back at Plan A. I’m at Casa Bella, waiting for Fahder to arrive at his bastard son’s estate. Exactly what I’d been doing before my impatience with the whole fucking assignment led me onto the streets of Mexico City.
Action is a necessary evil.
Fuck knows I’m the guy to get that party started. Losing track of the sly bastard is irrelevant. Casa Bella is the next logical place for him to go.
Except now there’s a dead man on the premises and Mendoza’s guest are suspicious about how it happened. I’m unsure if it was an accident or if thependejowas actually pushed. But what I’m certain of is that Mendoza will want to avoid negative publicity, and a police presence at Casa Bella will cause a media sensation. And if Fahder gets wind of this, he’s not going to be too happy with his bastard son. How can I work this to my advantage?
“Do I need to book a flight to Mexico City and handle matters myself?”
I glare down at the phone.
“Well?” Hayden demands.
Fucking terrific. The last time he took that tone with me was when I failed to infiltrate the compound of a volatile group ofculerosback in Shelby, Oklahoma. And the result? A month spent retraining at Hayden’s Hell Camp after being benched like some third-rate rookie while two actual rookies took over my assignment. Turns out, Hayden got what he deserved for sidelining me, in the form of a traitor on his hands.
In our line of business, risk of exposure isn’t tolerated.
Secrecy is the name of our game. I work for a PSC, a private security contracting company working off the grid, out of the public eye, and unknown to our enemies. TORC is so clandestine, it makes the stealth Russian spy network seem overexposed.
TORC does the work the public doesn’t want to hear about. Necessary work like spying on Fahder, ranked number three on the worldwide SHIT list—Suspected Human International Terrorist. We’ve discovered he’s been buying vast quantities of weapons from another target, a man named Novák. The shipment arrived from the port of Marseille a few weeks ago. My job is to find out where they’re headed next. And more importantly, for what purpose.
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
Call me a hit man, a killer, whatever. Spying, interrogating, terminating arrogantpendejos, maintaining world peace is the name of our game. Whatever it takes to keep governments working and people safe. Whatever Hayden orders, using whatever means necessary.
Like fucking a woman for information.
I shake the thought off.
