“Apparently the client didn’t trust you.” Cruz used his shoulder to get his hair out of his eyes. Sweat from the muggy heat prickled his skin. “I was hired to do what you two couldn’t. Did you snipe her in her office seven weeks ago? Couldn’t make your mark from two hundred feet? Fuck, man, you’re slipping. The job should’ve been done, and you two could be holding hands, sipping mai tais in the Bahamas right about now.” Cruz thought of the long, livid scar on Mia’s arm. Thought about how close she’d been to death, and felt the thick, cold chill of his blood pumping through his veins.
“We’re not g—”
“He’s baiting you. Shut the fuck up, Dick,” Muncie snapped. Feet scraping across the same stone surround where Cruz stood. “He’s yanking your chain.”
“We were all paid to do the job.” Cruz didn’t bother to lower his voice. He wanted their attention diverted here—away from the house—so he needed to keep the party going in the graveyard. “She’ll only die once. And I’m the one who’ll do the job. She knows me. Trusts me. And I’m smart enough not to bring the cops down on me. The rest of you will still have your dicks in your hands when I finish the job. You won’t get another opportunity to get off a shot,” Cruz said easily, attuned to the stealthy footfall coming up on his left. No point masking his location.
He knew if he could see Muncie ahead of him, the guy in back of him saw him. “Piss off,” he told Lemon. “Keep your up-front money and walk the fuck away while you have the chance. I won’t offer again.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Lemon shouted, moonlight glinting off the long barrel of his Lapua.
“The man who’s going to collect the balance of my fee, and put in a request for the balance of yours as well. Still banking in the Caymans, Dickhead?” A wild guess.
“Holy fuck! How do you know where we—”
“Jesus, Dick!” Muncie groused, sounding even more incensed as he crouched low, the Lapua Magnum cradled in his arms like a baby, forming an elongated silhouette on the stones behind him. The guy needed a shower and a gallon of deodorant. He reeked of cigarettes and stale perspiration, a surefire gotcha.
They sure as shit weren’t going to get lucky tonight.
Cruz tested the ledge of the stone foundation that ran around the base of the mausoleum. Solid. Muncie and his nose a lighter black in the shadows. Moonlight glared on the small bald spot on the back of his head, making a nice bull’s-eye. Cruz stepped closer to the man without making a sound. He edged almost within touching distance, directly behind him. Oblivious to his imminent death, the man bitched, “You’re telling the prick everyth—”
A sniper rifle was no contest in close combat, and the hand was faster than a bullet in this case. A quick, practiced twist of the guy’s neck, and Muncie was permanently out of the picture. Not the way Cruz liked to do things. But it was expedient, and he felt a pulse pounding with growing urgency to get back to Mia. He didn’t like that she was alone and unprotected in that big, empty fucking house.
“Kev?” Lemon prodded after several minutes of throbbing silence. He sounded justifiably nervous.
Cruz ignored him. Someone else was closer. Someone weighing in excess of two fifty, judging by the sound of his stealthy footfalls. Heavy smoker by the sound of his ragged breathing in the thick, muggy night air. Number three? Smart enough not to join in the convo as he closed in on Cruz’s location.
Cruz stepped over Muncie’s slumped body, keeping his back to the stone wall, turned the corner, then waited in the deep shadows, breath held. He didn’t have long to wait. Number three’s sausage-like fingers curled around the stone corner less then a minute later.
Cruz grabbed his thick wrist, yanked hard, and jettisoned him out in the open.
Arms outstretched for balance, and with an involuntary yell of surprise, the guy stumbled into the narrow dirt alley between the tombs and into full, stark white moonlight, a small handgun still clutched in his hand. Antonio Romero. Cruz knew him to be a small-time contractor with no conscience and a rep for brutality.
The moment the big guy fell to one knee, Lemon got off a head shot. Romero toppled. The blood pooling beneath his head looked black against the gravel. Lemon gave a victory yell. “See that, Kev? I got him.”
Cruz shook his head. Idiot. The muzzle flash gave him pinpoint accuracy as his own shot followed Lemon’s within a half a heartbeat. “Wrong him, Dickhead.”
Three down. One to go.
The fourth man, silent and now invisible, lurked. Cruz scanned the surrounding area for any telltale movement. But the still, mottled darkness revealed no secrets.