Lance: A Hitman Romance (Santa Espera #2) (5 page)

“Your clothes suggest a certain sense of coordination too, as though they’re calculated. That’s not something every person who lifts weights does. That means that you’re smart too. Not university smart, but smart in a practical way. If I were to use the nomenclature, I would say that you have
street skills
.”

That smile seems frozen on Lance’s face. Inside I score myself a victory and go on.

“You say your friend recommended me. That must mean that he knows the type of work I do. The types of people I usually see. And I’m sure you saw it mentioned on my website as well: those in the military, police officers, fire fighters … people who have typically experienced great levels of trauma, yet have been conditioned to consider that type of lifestyle as normal.

“But you don’t strike me as that. You’re too well-dressed and too put-together to really have been in the thick of things. Besides, to be completely frank, you’re cocky. And people who have seen things they can’t un-see tend to lose that part of themselves. All this to mean, while you’re no stranger to violence, you’re certainly more in control of what you do. You didn’t just come back from fighting in the trenches.”

I give him a moment to respond if he wants, but still he says nothing. Those eyes have never left mine, and I wonder what he’s thinking about all this. What he’s thinking about me.

“You came here demanding Amin to let me see you today. But you claim not to need therapy. You’re secretive by nature, and you prefer to play by your own rules. You don’t like it when people tell you what to do. Especially when it puts you in an uncomfortable or vulnerable position. So, adding all these things up, and thinking about the type of work that would require these particular qualities, I’d have to say … that you’re a bodyguard.”

Lance suddenly snorts in laughter, but recovers himself a second later. I watch him, keeping my face expressionless.

“Oh man,” he says, unable to suppress his smile. “I think I may have fucked the brains out of you last night.”

I clench my jaw.

“I’m wrong?” I ask. “Okay. So tell me what I got wrong.”

Lance recovers and his cocky smile returns. His eyes stay on mine for a long moment before he finally looks away, glancing around the room.

“You know what I like about this office?” he asks, and I furrow my brow. “I like how calculated everything is.”

I blink. “Calculated?” I ask him.

“Calculated,” he repeats, nodding. “The blinds on the window, letting in only a certain amount of light. The things on your desk, making it look like you work hard, but that you’re not messy. The arrangement of the chairs, the color of the walls. Hell, even the books on your bookshelves. It both invites your patients in and lets them know that you mean business. It’s all calculated.”

I swallow. I need that water again but I won’t give him the satisfaction.

“And why would I calculate things like that?” I ask.

“Because you want to make people trust you,” he says, his eyes finally returning to mine. “You want to make people open up. I can see it now. You welcome them to this professional office with open arms and you let them talk about themselves and they tell you everything that’s been going on with them, all the little problems and stresses they’ve had in their life. And you listen. Or at least, you pretend to listen. Because I’m willing to bet that for someone as accomplished as you, you’ve probably heard it all. Hell, I’ll even bet you even stopped writing down in your little notepad what they say, and instead just jot down their body language or how they speak. Am I right?”

Now it’s my turn not to say anything. Lance’s smile widens.

“I thought so,” he says, nodding. “I like that. It must be hard. A female psychologist as smart and as hot as you are? It just makes sense you wouldn’t stop until what you do is perfect.”

I swallow, my cheeks burning slightly. Whether at being read so well or at the strange compliment, I’m not sure. But he’s still looking at me and I need to say something.

“That’s a fascinating theory, Lance,” I say to him. “But we’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you.”

Lance’s eyes dance. “We don’t have to talk at all, if you want,” he says, and now I have to look away to stop the blush from rising to my cheeks. I compose myself and look back at him.

“So … you’re not a bodyguard, that much is established,” I say. “But it’s obvious that you’re no stranger to reading people. That’s not something everyone can do.”

“Nor nearly as well as I can,” he says. “… Except for you.”

Focus.

“What
did
bring you here today, Lance?”

“I told you, a friend.”

“But why?”

Lance opens his mouth at first, but then he hesitates for a split second before saying, “I don’t know.”

Interesting.

“Okay. So one day your friend came up and told you that you should see a therapist and you came?”

“No,” he admits. “We were talking.”

“I see,” I say, jotting his reluctance to answer down on my notepad. “And what were you talking about?”

Lance smiles again.

“Nothing you want to hear about,” he says.

I give him a smile. “Try me.”

Lance’s eyes narrow a moment before he takes in a breath and lets it out.

“I know this guy,” he finally says. “He’s the kind of guy that does work that a lot of people would never be willing to do.”

“Oh?” I say, jotting this down. “And what type of work is that?”

A beat passes. “He kills people for money.”

My pen stops mid-word. I look up and Lance is staring at me, and I feel that fluttering in my heart again. But it’s not like the fluttering I felt before. This one is full of excitement, and nervousness. And something else … something deeper …

I swallow, suddenly needing water again.

“A lot of my clients have jobs that require them to kill people,” I say to Lance. “People in the army. Police officers.”

But Lance shakes his head.

“This guy isn’t like any of those people,” he says. “This guy is the opposite of them.”

I swallow again. The bottle of water beckons to me and I pick it up, taking another drink. When I put it back it’s almost empty.

“And … how does this guy feel about the type of work he does?” I ask. Lance slowly smiles and his eyes burn directly into mine.

“He likes it a lot.”

I feel myself slowly nod.

“And … did something happen at this guy’s job that made you want to come see me?”

His smile falters. “No,” Lance says. “My job is just fine.”

I lean in. “Then why did you come to see me, Lance? What do you want to talk to me about?”

He looks uncomfortable, the first I’ve seen of this, and for a fleeting moment I feel certain that I’ve got him. It’s the right words, the right tone. His walls are slowly parting, if ever so slightly, and I know that if I watch him closely I’ll be able to see beyond those cracks to what’s hidden, just past his rugged exterior.

But then his smile comes back, and I can almost hear the brickwork crashing back together.

“I told you,” he says. “I’m only here because a friend told me to come here.”

I try to hide my disappointment as I nod. We look at each other, and each of us waits for the other one to say something. But it’s too late. I know that the moment’s passed. Lance almost opened up, and for a first session that’s actually very impressive. But his guard has surely doubled now, and he won’t be giving up anything else up today.

“Did you want to ask me anything else?” he says.

“That’s up to you,” I say. “Do you want to
talk
about anything else?”

“No,” Lance says, and he gets up out of the chair. “I think I’m done here.”

“Well,” I say, getting up too, “I’m surprised I’m saying this, but that was actually a good first session.”

Lance looks up at the clock. “Well you know, Doctor, these things usually last an hour, don’t they? We could pass the time in … other ways.”

My heart skips a beat in my chest, but I reel it back and level my gaze at Lance.

“I told you, what happened last night was a one-time thing. It will never happen again.”

“And I told you,” he says as he heads to the door. “Never say never.”

Lance opens the door and walks through as I poke my head out, unable to stop from glancing at his ass as he walks.

“Make another appointment with Amin,” I say, and Lance turns to look at me. “Same time, next week?”

He winks. “It’s a date.”

I try not to smile as I close the door, blocking him out of my sight. Turning around, I lean back against it and take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Once I’ve collected myself, I go to grab my notepad, ready to make a new file for Lance.

Lance

Fifty-seven … fifty-eight … fifty-nine …

My cell phone vibrates and I pause in the middle of my last chin-up, looking over at where it sits on the coffee table. I read the name on the lighted screen and release a gust of breath through my nose.

Sixty.

Dropping down onto bare feet, I pad across my apartment’s grungy wooden floors and pick up the phone, swiping to answer it.

“Yeah?”

“Lance,” comes Gil’s slimy voice. “It’s been a while … We haven’t seen you around here lately …”

“No work,” I reply. “No reason for me to come in.”

“I’ve got work for you to do,” he says, and I can hear his smile through the phone like a snake. “Come to the restaurant.”

“Now?” I ask, looking out the window and into the bright sunlight. It’s the middle of the afternoon.

“Yes,” he bites, and I can tell his smile is gone. “Now.”

The line cuts dead and I look at my phone to see he hung up. I drop it back on the table, shaking my head, and walk to the bathroom to take a shower.

I haven’t been back to the restaurant in four days, but that’s just because I haven’t had any jobs to do. Gil knows perfectly well that I only do what I’m hired for, nothing more. I’m not about to spend my time lurking around some dank, windowless room shooting pool and sucking up to Gil.

I turn on the shower and strip off my boxers, the only piece of clothing I’m wearing. As the water takes a minute to heat up, I look at myself in the mirror, flexing my biceps. I always make it a point to stay in good shape. You need it for the kind of work I do. You never know when somebody’s going to try to run, fight, or beg for their life …

Nathan!!!

I open my eyes, once again unaware of having closed them. Shaking my head, I turn around and test the water with my hand before stepping in.

As the warm, cleansing spray washes the sweat from my body, I think back on the last job I did. The memory’s been fading as the days have gone on, which is a good thing. That first night, after I left Sandy’s place and came back here, I couldn’t fall asleep. Every time I did I kept seeing the guy’s face right behind my eyes. And his voice kept crying out … begging me to do what’s right. To make sure somebody took care of-

NO!

I breathe in and out, hard. This is
not
going to bother me. The guy got what he deserved. He does not need any of my sympathy.

Except that’s not exactly true, is it?

Because when I checked his background for performing the hit it turned out that Gil had lied a little about what exactly this man had done. It was enough to make me reconsider, but not enough, apparently, to turn the job down completely. Because I didn’t want to get on Gil’s bad side. Isn’t that right? That’s why I did it anyways. That’s why I did as I was told.

Like a good little doggy should.

The water splutters for a moment as I hear the neighbor’s toilet flush overhead. A moment later it goes back to its normal pressure.

I shake my head. I’ve got to stop thinking about this. The job is done and there’s nothing I can do about it. I turn around and drop my head, letting the warm shower envelop me, take me to a more relaxed place.

She would know exactly what to do.

I shake my head, feeling renegade water droplets trickle down from my hair to my eyes. Doctor Katie Simmons. What a fucking babe. It doesn’t matter that she’s hot as hell. And it doesn’t matter that I’ve already had to jerk off to the memory of fucking her Wednesday night. I can tell what kind of woman she is, even if she did let her guard down outside of Mario’s. But still, there’s something different about this woman … something that sets her apart …

She saw inside you. She saw past your walls.

I shake my head again, reaching over and blindly grabbing the soap.

No, she didn’t. She didn’t say anything that really meant anything. I’ve gone over our conversation again and again, and she only asked questions that anybody could ask. She didn’t do anything special at all.

So then why did you open up? Why, for even that one second, did you feel yourself open up to her?

Just shut up, okay?
I begin lathering myself up, knowing that if I stay in here too long the water’s going to turn cold.

And as if granting my wish, I feel the temperature slowly but steadily begin to drop. I hurriedly lather up, pausing for a second when I reach my cock and finding it hard as a rock.

Huh. Well shit.

I would love to jerk off to the thought of her right now, but Gil’s already waiting and I shouldn’t be too late in showing up. Putting the soap back, I quickly rinse off and then turn the water off, stepping out.

As I grab a towel and begin drying myself off, I stare at my reflection in the mirror and shake my head.

In the end, she doesn’t know anything about me, even if she thinks she does. She has no idea what I’ve been through. She would never know.

Fully dry now, I walk out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, tossing the towel over the door to dry. I take some clothes out of my dresser and put them on. Dark colors, always dark. Sometimes duty calls when you least suspect it, and there’s no sense in trying to sneak around at night if you’re going to be wearing bright orange and green.

Slipping my shoulder holster on over my t-shirt and throwing my leather jacket on top of that, I grab my phone, keys, and wallet off the dresser and leave my apartment, heading out the front door, locking it behind me.

As I stride down the hallway I glance left and right at the cracked plaster, the burnt-out ceiling lights. I moved into this apartment a couple years back, when my old place was getting too hot for my liking. It’s shitty and run-down, no one can deny that. But nobody asks too many questions and it’s the perfect place to shake off some heat. Everybody living here hates the cops, and the cops hate them right back. So they don’t mingle. My kind of people.

I walk down the stairs and step outside, squinting against the bright afternoon sun. I walk to my car and get in, starting it up and pulling out of my space and onto the road in the direction of Gil and this new job he apparently has for me.

It’s a beautiful day, but I feel my stomach start to act up on me again as I drive. I grab the open bottle of antacid I got a few days ago and shake a few into my mouth, chewing them. Although they’re a different brand from what the bartender gave me, these ones also taste like candy. Was it so hard to get people to take antacid that they had to make them all taste like the same candy? I mean, aspirin tastes like shit but people still take those, don’t they?

I turn the corner and see Mario’s Pasta and Pizza up ahead. My stomach burns, but less so now that it has a few antacid in it. I pull into the parking lot and go around back, parking in an empty spot and turning the car off, getting out.

The lunch rush must be done because the parking lot looks practically empty. When I walk through the front doors I only see one couple sitting at a far table. The restaurant is quiet and when Sandy, standing at the front podium and doing something on the computer screen, looks up at me, she does a double take before her cheeks flush red.

I smile as I approach her. She keeps her eyes on me but drops her head, making her look like a school girl playing coy.

“Hi, Lance,” she breathes when I stop in front of her.

“Sandy,” I say.
That’s strange. Why don’t I feel anything right now?

“You left the other night before we could get together.”

The memory of Katie and me fucking just outside makes my cock stir in my pants. But I pull myself back to reality.

“Sorry baby,” I say. “Something came up.”

She drops her gaze again, putting on a sexy look, and I know that she’s expecting a certain reaction.

“Don’t worry, though,” I say to her, almost needing to force the words out. “I’ve been thinking about you, and I want to see you again. Tonight.”

Sandy gasps and her eyes open again.

“Tonight?” she says.

“That’s right,” I rumble. “I can’t wait to take you again. Hold you down and fuck you until your pussy explodes.”

She takes in a shuddering breath and looks at me.

“Okay,” she breathes. “I’ll be here.”

I force myself to give her one last smile before I keep walking, leaving without saying goodbye.

What in the hell just happened? That woman is throwing herself at me! Why don’t I want to fuck her?

I can feel Sandy’s eyes on my retreating back but I don’t turn around. I reach the double doors and push through them, then walk down the hallway to the back room.

Stopping outside the metal door, I hammer with my fist three times before I hear the metal latch slide back. The door opens a crack and the barrel of a gun comes out to greet me. I merely push open the door and walk past the guard. But two steps into the room and I slow down my pace.

If this gigantic room was devoid of life back on Wednesday, then it’s practically barren right now. The only people in here are Gil, Jackson, and Willy, plus the guy at the door whose name I don’t even know.

“Lance!” shouts Gil as the guy shuts the door behind me. “Get over here!”

Gil is seated behind his desk with Willy and Jackson standing beside him. I walk over, feeling strange and exposed in such an empty room. It doesn’t help my unease that Gil doesn’t look happy at all.

“When I tell you on the phone to be here
now
, I don’t mean in half a fucking hour!” he shouts as I reach his desk. I keep my face calm, and in my periphery I see Willy looking nervous and Jackson looking like he’s got front-row seats to the greatest show on earth.

“I had things to do,” I tell Gil in an even voice.

“The only thing I want you to do is whatever I tell you to do!”

Whenever Gil gets like this he reminds me of an oversized baby. One who’s just been denied his third bowl of ice cream. But unlike normal babies this one won’t just throw tantrums. Instead, this one will do a few lines of coke before killing you.

“Okay,” I say, my voice calm despite the resentment that’s bubbling up inside of me. “I’m here now. So why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Gil breathes heavily as he stares at me for a second, but then he breaks eye contact and looks around at all three of us, taking us in.

“I have something I want you to take care of,” he tells us. Beads of sweat pepper his forehead and I wonder how many lines he’s done since this morning. Probably more than I want to know. “There’s a loose end in a recent job that I want tied up.”

“A loose end?” Jackson asks, his eyes landing right on me. “Who fucked up?”

“Nobody fucked up,” Gil says. “It’s just something I want done.”

“What is it, boss?” Willy asks. Gil looks up at him.

“The guy Lance took care of a few days ago,” he says. “He has a son. A little baby called Nathan. I want you three to take care of him too.”

Silence reverberates around the room. My mind is whirring, and Willy’s face has blanched of all color. The only person showing any sort of positive emotion is Jackson.

“What, didn’t Lance do the kid when he did the dad?” Jackson asks before looking at me and shaking his head. “Sloppy workmanship, old pal. If it were me, I would’ve made sure the whole family went out.”

“This isn’t part of the deal,” I hear myself say to Gil. “Doing the son … this isn’t part of the job.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Gil says. “And I’m going to be in this business for the next few decades. Haven’t you seen those ninja movies? I don’t want some pissed-off son coming after me for revenge in twenty years’ time.” He focuses on me and his pupils are huge. “You need to finish this, Lance,” he says to me. “You need to do the job that I tell you to do.”

I taste bile in my throat as I stare down at this piece of shit who calls himself my boss. I could kill him right now. Half a second and it would be over with.

But Jackson would react, and as much as I hate the guy I have to admit that he’s quick on the draw. He’d have to go too, and then the guy at the door. And what about that couple out front? They’d hear the shots for sure. Something would have to be done about them.

Inside my head, I sigh. No. Even if I managed to kill Gil and get it done in the best possible way, who would I work for after this? It’s like Willy said: working for Gil sucks but at least we have
some
of our freedoms. The other bosses out there are just as bad, or worse. No, I’m not going to kill Gil right now.

Gil’s still looking at me, and despite the pain in my stomach and my growing hatred for this man in front of me, I force myself to nod. Gil’s face breaks out into a wide smile.

“Goooooooooood!” he says, and he suddenly turns in his seat, holding his hand up to Jackson, palm facing him. Jackson blinks, then brings his own hand up and high-fives Gil. Gil turns to Willy, doing the same, and then he turns to me.

What the fuck is with this guy? I want to pistol-whip him instead, but what can I do? I lift my hand and Gil reaches forward, slapping his palm onto mine.

“Yeah!” he says. “Whoo! You guys are the best!”