The Hitman Next Door: A Texas Bounty Novel

by Jackie Ashenden

  The soft sound of footsteps came from behind him and he turned around to see Vivi coming back out from the hallway. She’d changed into an old pair of sweatpants that had once been dark blue but had been washed so many times they now looked like a faded sky, and a plain, loose white T-shirt. The tee had a wide neckline that left one of her shoulders bare, exposing the smooth curve of it, and it was clear she either didn’t know that the vibrant purple lace of her bra showed through the white fabric, or she didn’t care.

  Rhys found himself irritated by both possibilities. If she didn’t know her bra was visible, he certainly did and seeing it wasn’t helping him. And if she didn’t care, then his friend-zone status couldn’t be more obvious and he really didn’t appreciate the reminder.

  Especially not when she was looking so lovely. He preferred her like this, with her thick hair all glossy and sleek around her shoulders, and her makeup scrubbed off. She looked so fresh-faced, like the teenager she’d once been, with the barest sprinkling of freckles across her nose and wide hazel eyes, tilted up slightly at the corners.

  Vivi wasn’t a typical beauty, her jaw was too strong and she had a bump in her nose from when someone in her high school cheerleading squad had accidentally elbowed her in the face. But her features were arresting and when she smiled a man would have to be dead not to smile with her.

  Pausing beside the table to pick up her beer bottle, she came over to the window where he stood and his gaze went to the necklace he’d given her, still around her neck, glittering in the hollow of her throat.

  “Are you sure you like it?” he asked, not knowing why he wanted the reassurance because that wasn’t like him. Maybe it was because her response to the gift had been a little weird. “The necklace I mean.”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Her hand went to touch it. “I love it, Rhys. Truly.”

  There was no mistaking her sincerity. Plus, he should know that when Vivi said something, she meant it.

  A strange tight feeling in his chest, one he hadn’t realized was there until now, gradually eased. “Good,” he said simply.

  She leaned against the window frame, putting one hand in the pocket of her sweatpants. “So what other exciting things have you got planned for tonight?”

  Her wide, generous mouth was curved in one of her beautiful smiles, but there were dark circles under her eyes and a certain pallor to her olive skin. She looked like she needed at least a week’s sleep.

  “I got a movie for us to watch,” he said. “Casablanca, because I know you like the classics. But…” He gave her another once-over. “I think we might do that another night.”

  “What?” Her straight, dark brows flattened. “Why? You know I have a thing for Humphrey Bogart.”

  “Humphrey Bogart will still be there tomorrow. And you look exhausted.”

  She pulled a face and the fact that she didn’t protest told him all he needed to know about the state of her exhaustion. “Sorry. I’m lame, I know. It’s been a hard week.”

  “You should cut back on your hours. You’re working too hard.”

  “I can’t, you know I can’t. Not if I want to make partner.” She sighed. “Look, I’ll be fine. Tomorrow’s Saturday so I can sleep in.”

  Not that she would, knowing Vivi. She’d be up at dawn going for a run and then she’d probably go into the office. The damn woman didn’t know when to stop and she was going to run herself into the fucking ground if she wasn’t careful.

  Not that he could tell her that since she was a stubborn cuss when she wanted to be.

  “We’ll do the movie tomorrow night,” he said, deciding. “You can get some rest tonight.”

  Vivi wrinkled her nose. “I can’t tomorrow night. Neil’s taking me out to dinner.”

  A streak of something hot went through him, though he didn’t let it show.

  Fucking Neil. Always fucking Neil.

  Vivi had met the guy at some lawyer drinks thing a couple of months back and the way she talked about him, you’d have thought the sun shone directly out of his ass. Rhys had never met him, but had hated him pretty much instantly. He tried not to let that show, either.

  Hadn’t stopped him from doing a background check on the asshole, though, just to make sure Vivi wasn’t in for any nasty surprises. Unfortunately Neil had turned out clean as a whistle and so Rhys had to put up with him potentially being in Vivi’s life the way he’d put up with all the other boyfriends Vivi'd had over the years.

  Normally he didn’t mind too much since none of them stuck around for very long - they didn’t seem to care for the fact that Vivi’s best friend was a guy. A guy who made sure he looked as menacing as fuck whenever they were around, it had to be said. But Neil was different. Lately Vivi had been talking about settling down and how she thought this idiot had potential. It might even end up being serious and though he hated the thought of Vivi being with someone else, he couldn’t say a word about it.

  She was his friend and if she happened to fall in love with some other guy, get married and have a family, well, Rhys would just have to put up with it.

  Unless you don’t.

  The thought settled down into his mind as lightly as a feather.

  Well, shit. He wanted Vivi. He always had. And he wanted a family, too, a wife and kids, the whole white picket fence deal that he never had growing up.

  Normality.

  He’d spent two years putting what had happened during that last contract behind him, where three good friends had double-crossed him and Rhys had had to take one of them out. He’d been expecting some blow-back, but he must have hidden his tracks well because no one had come after him. It had been two years, fuck’s sake. If no one had come after him in two years, no one was going to, so why the hell shouldn’t he try something with Vivi?

  He had a good job, colleagues he worked well with, and a friend in the shape of Rush, so why couldn’t he have the family too? Sure, there was the fact that Vivi didn’t know about his past, but hell, he didn’t need to tell her, did he? That life was dead and gone, and he tried not to think about it as much as possible, so what would be the point anyway?

  There was, of course, the little fact that she’d never shown any interest in him sexually whatsoever, but then, he’d never made a move.

  What if he did? What would she say?

  “You’ve gone very quiet all of a sudden,” Vivi observed. “What’s up?”

  He could ask her, right here, right now. Then again, how would he approach it? He’d never even been on a date before, let alone had to tell a woman he was interested in her. Normally he just showed them the money and they took their clothes off.

  But he couldn’t do that with Vivi. She was precious to him and he absolutely could not fuck this up. Which meant he probably needed to think on this some more.

  “Nothing,” he said. “We’ll do it another night then.”

  Vivi, naturally, picked up on the terse note in his voice, a concerned look crossing her face. “Hey, you know I’d much rather watch Casablanca with you. It’s just that he asked a few days ago and—”

  “It’s fine.” Rhys pushed himself away from the wall, heading over to the galley kitchen to put his bottle in the trash. “We’ll do it some other time.”

  “Rhys,” Vivi said.

  “I should get home. It’s late.” He was being too short with her and he knew it, but he needed some space to think this through, come up with a plan of attack. She was too important for him to go about this all half-assed.

  Rounding the counter, he pulled open the cupboard door and dumped the bottle in the trashcan.

  As he did so, he noticed a mark on the white surface of the windowsill next to the cupboard. He frowned, all thoughts of space and plans vanishing out of his head as he moved closer to examine it.

  The mark was barely visible and looked like… He put out a finger, touched it. Mud. What the fuck was mud doing on Vivi’s windowsill?

  An icy feeling crawled down his spine.

  Outside
was a fire escape which made access to the window very easy, and yet, as he checked the window catch itself, nothing appeared tampered with. But still… There was mud on Vivi’s windowsill, mud that had been on the bottom of someone’s shoe. Someone who had come into the apartment via that window.

  Rhys straightened all of a sudden and turned, scanning the apartment, looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. He hadn’t seen any signs when he’d come in, but he hadn't been looking

  “Rhys?” Vivi was staring at him, puzzled. “Are you okay?”

  He ignored her. Everything seemed fine, nothing out of place. Except for that damn mark and the cold feeling in his gut that wouldn’t go away.

  He’d learned to pay attention to that feeling, because it had never, ever been wrong. And he was positive it wasn’t wrong now.

  Someone had been in Vivi’s apartment, someone besides him.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Rhys said flatly. “Let’s watch Casablanca now.”

  Rhys was acting weird.

  He was standing in the kitchen area, his brows drawn down, dark eyes roving over the rest of the apartment like he was looking for something. His whole manner had changed, going from obviously irritated at the mention of Neil’s name and talking about going home, to a still alertness that she found vaguely alarming.

  And as for him suddenly changing his mind… Rhys was decisive to the point of mulishness and once he’d made his mind up, he didn’t change it.

  Which meant something was clearly up.

  She folded her arms. “What do you mean, ‘let’s watch Casablanca now’? I thought you wanted to go home?”

  His gaze came sharply to hers and there was something in it she’d never seen before. A clear, focused intentness that sent a small bolt of electricity she really did not need sizzling down her spine. “I’ve changed my mind,” he repeated, the deep grittiness of his voice sounding strange to her, though she couldn’t imagine why. “We’ll watch it now.”

  Unease twisted in her gut, which again was odd because there was no reason for it. Perhaps it was his sudden shift in mood, though for a guy who had only one kind of mood that was odd enough in itself.

  “What’s going on, Rhys? You’re acting weird.”

  Abruptly, he turned and went over to the fridge, pulling out another beer. “Nothing’s going on. Come on, sit down. I’ll get the movie going.”

  Irritation pulled at her. She did want to watch the movie and since he preferred playing first person shooter games on a console, she rarely got to watch them with him. Then again, he hadn’t been wrong. She was tired. And she kind of wanted to go to bed.

  “Is this about Neil?” she asked as he came around the counter that separated the kitchen area from the rest of the apartment. “Because if you’re worried about—”

  “It’s not about Neil,” he interrupted, moving over to the TV as he took something out of his pocket. A small memory stick. “I’ve just decided I want to watch the movie now.” He stuck the memory stick into the port on the TV and fiddled with the remote. “Sit down on the couch and get comfortable. Do you want a blanket? Another beer? I’ll slice up that cake.”

  Vivi frowned harder at him. Yeah, he was definitely acting weird.

  “Rhys.”

  He didn’t look up from the TV, cycling through the menus to find the movie on the stick. “What?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you change your mind? You never change your mind.”

  “Well, tonight I did.” He looked up from the TV finally and glanced at her, gesturing to the squashy, comfortable couch covered in cheerful sunflowers that she’d gotten on sale from a fancy designer store a year or so ago. “Sit.”

  Sometimes he said things in a way that sounded not so much a request as an order, and she thought it was probably a holdover from his military days. He’d clearly been an officer at some point and maybe forgot that she wasn’t one of his soldiers.

  Normally she tried not to pay attention when he sounded like that, because it made her feel uncomfortable, yet tonight, the way he said sit irritated her. She didn’t like it and especially not on her birthday.

  Vivi looked around exaggeratedly. “Hmmm. Not seeing a dog anywhere around here.”

  Another minute shift of his dark brows. “What?”

  “You. Telling me to sit.”

  His mouth tightened, which was Rhys for intense exasperation. “Sit down, please.”

  But the irritation inside her only sharpened and she wasn’t quite sure why. Then again, was it any wonder? She was tired and she’d worked a long day, and it was her birthday, and suddenly she simply wanted to go to sleep, and not have to handle her best friend being even weirder than normal.

  “Look, I appreciate everything you did for me tonight, Rhys, I really do. But…I want to go to bed.” She gave him an apologetic smile, shoving her irritation away. “Would you mind? Hey, I’ll even call Neil and put him off until Sunday or something.” Neil wouldn’t mind. He hadn’t batted eyelid when she’d first mentioned that her best friend was a guy. Which was a good sign.

  Rhys didn’t answer immediately, his gaze scanning over the room yet again, before settling on her once more, razor sharp and focused.

  Heat prickled over her skin and she nearly shivered.

  Okay, this was getting out of hand now, not to mention hugely uncomfortable. If Rhys was giving her electric shocks with only a look, she really needed to go to bed and go to sleep, and hopefully everything would be back to normal by the time she woke up in the morning.

  “Yes,” Rhys said. “I do mind.”

  Vivi opened her mouth then shut it.

  They’d never actually had a disagreement before, mainly because although Rhys usually listened without comment to all her reasons why something wasn’t a good idea, or why she didn’t want him to do something, most of the time he went ahead and did whatever the hell he wanted anyway.

  He almost never looked her in the eye and flat out contradicted her.

  She didn’t quite know what to say. “Well,” she said at last, “you might have to deal with it. Because I want to go to bed.”

  Rhys didn’t even blink. “Go to bed then. I’ll watch the movie.”

  This was getting stranger and stranger. “What? But….”

  “But what? You go to bed. I’ll watch the movie. Seems logical to me.” He moved over to the couch and sat down, his movements surprisingly fluid for a man so tall and broad. Then again, there was something surprisingly fluid about all Rhys’s movements, as if he’d never had a moment’s awkwardness in all his life.

  It was hot, which was definitely not something she should be noticing.

  Vivi tried not to look like she’d been staring. “Since when have you been such a Bogart fan?”

  Rhys raised the remote and pointed it at the screen. “I thought you were going to bed?”

  Her irritation deepened. “I thought you wanted to watch it with me.”

  “I do. But you’re tired.”

  “So you’re going to watch it anyway?”

  “Yes.” The movie had stared to play and his attention was fixed on the screen. “Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out.”

  Okay, this had gotten beyond strange. When Rhys came to visit or she visited his place, they talked or watched TV, or sometimes played computer games. Mostly it was her chatting while Rhys listened, which was fine. Normal. But him hanging around watching her TV by himself while she was sleeping? No, that had never happened. Especially not him watching a movie she knew he probably wouldn’t like, that he’d actually brought for her.

  Something was definitely up.

  She wanted to push him about it, but she was tired and irritated, and he was making her feel…unsettled. So if he wanted to sit out here watching her Bogart movie without her, while she got some sleep, then he could have at it.

  “Fine.” She couldn’t quite manage to keep the grumpy note from her voice. “Good night then.”r />
  And she turned and went to bed, leaving him to it.

  3

  Rhys waited until he heard Vivi shut her bedroom door, then he put down the beer and got out his phone. Hitting the app that controlled the security cameras he’d put into Vivi’s apartment, he waited for the feeds to load.

  Of course she was annoyed with him. He was being weird about watching the movie without her. But hopefully she’d stay grumpy with him and not actually be curious as to why he was acting like a douchebag, because he really didn’t want to have to explain the real reasons as to why he was still here, watching her birthday movie without her.

  She also would not be pleased if she knew about his cameras, which was yet another thing he couldn’t tell her about.

  Telling her the reasons why he had her apartment monitored would necessitate telling her about what he’d used to do for a living and there was a whole lot of shit that came with that. Such as how being his friend made her vulnerable.

  That she wouldn’t need protecting if he hadn’t been her friend was a thought that occurred to him on a daily basis. There was a long list of people who would come after him if they ever discovered who and where he was, and she could potentially be used as leverage against him. But she was also the one thing he couldn’t give up, which meant that pretty much his main mission in life was protecting her.

  And if that meant having security cameras in her goddamn apartment then that meant security cameras in her goddamn apartment.

  The feeds finally loaded and Rhys fast-forwarded through the day’s footage until around midday, when the window in the kitchen was pushed up and what looked to be a guy in a black hoodie slipped quickly inside.

  Fuck.

  The icy feeling in Rhys’s gut deepened.

  He’d been meticulous in his career as a hit-man. A third party had always dealt with his contracts and his name had never, ever been involved, his identity kept as secret as possible. But despite all of that, the risk that someone could track him down and find him still remained.

  If he’d been by himself it wouldn’t be so much of a problem, but he wasn’t. He had Vivi. And that made her a target.