by Ava Bloom
“You’ll help me?”
She placed her hand over my heart. “I swear to help you look smoking hot.”
I laughed, the panic in my stomach fading quickly.
* * *
I’ll be ready in an hour.
* * *
The next fifty-nine minutes was a whirlwind of curling irons, hairspray, bronzer, highlighter, nail polish, and dresses. Sadie wasn’t kidding when she said this was her Olympics. She ran between my apartment and her apartment to gather supplies and equipment like her life depended on it. By the time Lance knocked on the door, I looked incredible in a low-cut red dress that emphasized my chest, tall black heels that made my legs look long and lean, and my hair in beachy waves down my back. Whereas Sadie looked like she’d just come back from the gym. Her brow was damp with sweat, and she was still breathing heavily.
“No offense, but could you stay in my bedroom until we’re gone?” I asked as I was heading towards the door.
She froze in the middle of the hallway and then backpedaled into the bedroom. “Sure, right. Of course. I’m happy to be the tiny elf behind the scenes. Have a good night!”
Lance cleaned up well. He had on a navy-blue suit with a white shirt underneath, the top few buttons open to reveal a few inches of his tattooed chest. His black hair was gelled back into a perfectly coifed wave.
“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” I said honestly.
“I knew I’d see you again,” he said, biting his lip, his green eyes running down every inch of my body slowly. “You look incredible.”
“You clean up pretty nicely yourself.”
He turned sideways and held his elbow out for me to grab. “Are you ready?”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he said, winking.
I didn’t like surprised. I never had. But everything about Lance had been a surprise. Our meeting, our sleeping together, his text. Fate had treated me well so far, so I decided to sit back and enjoy the ride. I wrapped my arm around his and let Lance lead me away.
8
Lance
I’d wanted to disappear from Josephine’s life and then reappear only to kill her and be done with it. However, Sadie had seen me in the hallway. She would be able to connect me to Josephine, and I would surely be one of the first people she would think of when her friend turned up missing. Josephine didn’t have a lot of people in her life to point the finger at. So, I’d decided my best strategy would be to make it look like I wanted to pursue a relationship with Josephine. Then, I’d slowly fade away like so many relationships do. When Josephine went missing after work one day, it would look like a robbery gone bad, and no one would be any the wiser. Until then, though, I had to play the part.
“So, you really aren’t going to tell me where we are going?” Josephine asked as we took an exit off the interstate.
“We are going to eat some of the best food in the city,” I said, wagging my eyebrows. “In my humble opinion, at least.”
“Well, my interest is certainly piqued,” she said. “Also, I’m starving. So, if you are taking me to some fancy restaurant where the portion sizes are as big as my pinky finger, you better think again.”
I almost laughed and mentioned that I knew all about her ravenous appetite from all the Chinese takeout I’d seen her eat, but then I caught myself. “Don’t worry, you won’t go hungry.”
“A taco truck?” Josephine asked ten minutes later, standing on the curb in front of the large metal van. “The best food in the city is in a taco truck?”
“Don’t knock it until you try it.”
She held up her hand in an oath. “I swear to you that I will not judge you or your affinity for this taco truck until I’ve tried it for myself. I just find it hard to believe this kitchen on wheels is serving up the best food in Houston.
“I first ate at this truck when I was at a country music festival a few years ago. It moves around the city every few weeks, but I follow its location on their app and eat here at least once per month.”
“Hold on!” Josephine said, holding up her hand to stop me. “You were at a country music festival? I can’t picture that at all.”
“Why not?”
“The people who go to those festivals wear cowboy boots and hats and denim. You are covered in tattoos and leather and hair gel. You just don’t fit the stereotype,” she said.
“A friend had an extra ticket. It’s not really my scene,” I said. I didn’t tell her that I was at the music festival tracking a target. He was a hitman who had gone rogue and taken out the young daughter of one of his enemies. In the end, the Petrov family decided he was too much of a risk. He couldn’t be controlled, and he would draw attention to their operation. I’d strangled him after he got drunk and stumbled off into the woods to take a pee.
I ordered a beef fajita taco with diablo sauce and extra peppers. Josephine opted for the taco of the month, which was a chicken fried rice taco. Again, I wanted to mention her almost unhealthy obsession with Chinese food, but that wasn’t information she had shared with me.
In all my years as a hitman, I’d never spoken to one of my targets before. I followed them, made the plan, and executed it…and them. There had never been time or need for conversation, so this was my first experience trying to pretend I didn’t know all of her daily habits and routines. It was a lot harder than I’d anticipated.
“This is the best food in the city,” she said, groaning around the huge bite of taco in her mouth. “It’s incredible. They are reinventing the taco in this truck. They are making history.”
I laughed. “You sure are enthusiastic about your food.”
“We have to eat three times a day, so why shouldn’t it be enjoyable?” she took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Food hasn’t been very enjoyable for me lately. I don’t have as much time to cook as I’d like. I mean, you saw my kitchen. It was almost unusable.”
“It might have been a little cluttered,” I said, winking at her. Just the thought of her apartment had me itching to tidy it up. I liked things to be organized, for everything to have its place. Josephine’s apartment looked like someone shoved the contents of an apartment into a t-shirt cannon and it exploded.
“Once this case is over, I’ll sort everything out again. It has been crazy since my ex left. He tore the place apart packing up his stuff and I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to re-organize.”
“I didn’t know you just got out of a relationship,” I said, mostly to myself.
She laughed. “Well, why would you? We just met, and it isn’t something I advertise.”
I stuttered, trying to recover. “I just mean, you seem very confident for someone fresh out of a long-term relationship.”
“Then I’ve got you fooled,” she said. “The truth is, I’m terrified about this date. I haven’t dated anyone in a long time, and I’m afraid maybe the rules have changed.”
Her honesty was incredibly sexy. It was nice to be with someone who didn’t pretend to have everything figured out or play hard to get. Josephine was one-hundred percent herself one-hundred percent of the time. It was refreshing. Then, I remembered this wasn’t a real date. I was on assignment. It didn’t matter whether I liked Josephine or not. She’d be dead in the next couple days.
“No rules,” I said. “As long as we’re both having a good time, it’s going well.”
She patted her stomach. “I’m having a great time.”
“Want to work off our dinner?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow and looked a little horrified, I couldn’t help but laugh. “I didn’t mean sex. There’s a club two blocks over. We can grab a drink and dance.”
She looked relieved. “If you can deal with my spastic body movements, then I’m up for anything.”
There was nothing spastic about the way Josephine moved. She’d been a little stiff at first, but by the time she’d finished her second drink, her body had begun to twist in turn with the music. The club played
a lot of current club songs, which wasn’t exactly my style, but they had great bass and were easy to dance to. Josephine swirled around me, running her hand through her hair and swaying her hips. I found myself forgetting to dance, too interested in watching her move. The red dress she had on was enough to get my heart pumping on its own, but the way she slid up and down my body was too much.
“You’re an incredible dancer,” I said, shouting to be heard over the music. I grabbed onto her waist and watched her body bump and grind against mine. The entire time, I couldn’t help but think this was the best assignment I’d ever been on.
“Sadie taught me that great dancing is all about insinuating sex,” she said, locking her brown eyes on mine as she ground her hips against me.
“Thank God for Sadie,” I said, gripping her tighter until there was almost no space between us. I was straining against my suit pants and I knew Josephine could feel it. She circled her hips, brushing against me ever so slightly, teasing me.
The song shifted to a slower tempo, and Josephine wrapped her arm around my neck and tipped back, letting her head hang, her chest on full display. I kept reminding myself that I couldn’t be interested in Josephine. Not really. It was an act. Our date was a cover story. Nothing more. But every time our bodies met, every time my hands traced the line of her curves, it became harder to remember.
Her hand slipped over my abs and down until she was trailing across my zipper, the friction enough to send a jolt of pleasure through me. “Do you want to get out of her?” she asked, her lips brushing against my jaw.
I nodded. It was clear where the night was headed, and I was way beyond the point of good decision making. I grabbed her hand and held it close as we navigated through the dense crowd of the club. The night was warm and sticky, but that didn’t stop me from pulling Josephine against my chest and kissing her. We were both sweaty from the club, but she smelled like vanilla and cinnamon and I wanted to take her right there on the street.
“We should get back to the car,” she said, pulling away to glance around nervously.
I nodded, fighting against the animal desire inside of me, and led her to the car. As soon as the doors were closed, I nearly climbed over the console to get to her. Her dress had ridden up her legs as she sat down, and I drew a line from her knee up her inner thigh, running my finger along the delicate lace of her panties.
“I usually make men wait until the third date,” she moaned, her breathing heavy. “I just want you to know this isn't normal for me.”
“Me, either,” I said. I usually don't sleep with people before I kill them.
My fingers were seconds away from pushing aside her panties and slipping inside when something vibrated against my thigh. I jumped.
“Sorry,” she groaned, disentangling herself from me to reach into her purse and pull out her still ringing cell phone. “Would it be horrible if I took this? It's for work.”
“No, no. Go ahead,” I said, waving her away and then reaching into my pants to readjust myself.
She held up one finger and mouthed an apology as she answered the phone and got out of the car. I watched her pace back and forth on the sidewalk, eyebrows furrowed, hands waving in frustration.
When she got back in, she slammed the door and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that. It’s just…ugh.”
“Is something wrong?”
“The damn Petrov family,” she said, chucking her phone into the bottom of her purse and throwing her head back against the headrest.
My heart rate picked up. It was bad enough I had to pretend I didn’t know anything about Josephine after following her for weeks, but talking about the Petrov family—my employer—with the target they’d hired me to kill felt a little too meta even for me.
“The mafia family?” I asked, hoping I sounded genuinely unsure.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m totally fitting the stereotype of the workaholic lawyer right now, but they keep intimidating my witnesses. I had a guy all lined up to testify. He had a ton of information on the family and was willing to help me out, but then he kept seeing Petrov goons hanging around his daughter’s school, and now he’s out.”
“That sucks,” I said, wondering what Josephine would think if she knew I was a Petrov goon.
“It’s bullshit that these people can intimidate witnesses like that. I’m trying to get police protection for my witnesses, but the judge doesn’t think there is enough cause. With my luck, he’s probably in the pocket of the Petrov family, too.”
“But isn’t Pauly Martinetti guilty?” I asked. “I mean, he did kill Steven Petrov. So, you are technically defending a criminal.”
“It is not my job to decide whether Pauly is guilty or not. It’s my job to see that he gets a fair trial, and with the Petrov’s intimidating my witnesses, that won’t happen.”
It was rare to meet someone who had such a gray view of justice. Most people saw things as good and evil, black and white. Most people would look at what I do and call me a monster, paying no attention to the fact that I was doing everything to protect my mom, that I was blackmailed into killing people because of the sins and debts of my father. Did it make me a monster to try and protect the little bit of family I had left? If so, then call me a monster. But for the briefest second, I thought that perhaps Josephine wouldn’t be appalled by the things I’d done. Perhaps, she’d be able to see my motivation. Perhaps, we could be together.
I pushed the idea from my mind. There was no future for us. I had to do my job. I was one of the goons she was railing against. Someone sent to ruin the case against the Petrov family and ensure Pauly Martinetti never walked free again.
“It’s good to know there are good lawyers out there,” I said, smiling at her. “I’m sure everything will work out okay.”
She reached across the console and grabbed my hand. “Thanks, Lance. I sure hope so.”
Guilt twanged through my chest. I knew how everything would work out for Josephine, and I hated lying to her.
9
Josephine
The evening had been headed in a pretty steamy direction before I’d taken the call from Phil. He was an ex-cop who had been paid off by the Petrov’s for years to look the other way when they did something illegal. He’d resigned a few years before, but never spoke publicly about why. The Pauly Martinetti case was going to be the first time he would talk about everything he’d seen. Until last night.
I understood his desire to protect his daughter. Honestly, I would have made the same call in his position, but it still didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. I was losing one of my key witnesses because the judge wouldn’t grant protection orders.
By the time I’d finished the phone call, the moment had passed. Luckily, Lance was understanding. He drove me home and asked me out again for the following night. I knew my day at work would be a long one. I’d have to make a million phone calls to try and find someone who would recognize the danger my witnesses were under and see if I could get Phil back on board. However, I also knew nothing would make me happier after a bad day at work than to see Lance. We’d only just met, but something about him was comforting. For the first time in weeks, I was able to forget about the case for a few minutes at a time. Rather than running out of the shower in the morning to scribble notes in the margins of my case files, I luxuriated under the warm water, remembering the feeling of his hands on my body. He made me feel seen and important. And, just as important, he made me feel respected. He cared about my job and knew it was important to me. He was nothing like Michael.
Work was as bad as I’d expected, so when I pulled into my parking space at my complex and saw Lance’s car idling in the spot next to mine, I smiled. He got out of his car and came around to open my door.
“Honey, I’m home,” he teased, grabbing my briefcase out of my hands and carrying it inside for me.
I realized as soon as we walked into my apartment that I didn’t have any food in the kitche
n. I hadn’t made my usual Sunday morning grocery store trip the day before, so there was nothing but a few non-perishables and some expired milk.
“I don’t have a single edible thing in this house,” I said, embarrassed. “You said you wanted to come over for dinner and I was so excited about seeing you that I didn’t even think about what we’d eat.”
Lance laughed and dropped my briefcase on the floor. “Lucky for you, I already took care of dinner.”
I tilted my head. “You did?”
“There’s a Chinese place a few blocks over. The delivery guy should be here any minute.” As he spoke, the doorbell rang.
“I went for crab rangoons, egg rolls, chicken fried rice, orange chicken, and extra fortune cookies,” he said, dropping the bags on the coffee table.
I leaned across the table, grabbed his cheeks, and kissed his forehead. “You’re an angel.”
As we ate, I tried my best to crack his shell a bit. Lance was sweet and attentive, but he wasn’t big on sharing. I knew almost nothing about his life.
“Did you grow up around here?” I asked, trying my best not to inhale my food like I usually did, and actually breath between bites.
“No, Austin. My mom still lives there.”
“That’s not so far away. Do you get to see her often?” Talking about mothers was a sure way to bring any man to his knees. Good relationship or bad, men always like to talk about their moms.
“Not as much as I’d like.”
“It sounds like you had a good relationship if you’d like to see her more often. That’s nice,” I said. “My family is in Kansas, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the twelve hours that separate us.”
“Did you not get along with your parents, then?” he asked, ripping open his crab Rangoon to scoop out some of the filling.