I walked on. The glitz and glamor in these places didn't mean shit to me. I only hoped I could raise my son right and prevent him from turning into a spoiled asshole once I retired and spent my own millions on my family.
Going through the place on auto-pilot was easy. Boring as fuck too. The bedroom downstairs looked like a typical kid's room, probably for some older kid who'd gone off to boarding school abroad.
I got the shock of my fucking life when I yanked open the closet and saw the trembling teenager inside. He was a boy with light green eyes and lighter skin, clearly the son.
Fuck, why hadn't the intel said anything about him? What asshole botched our report and sent us out here to mow down his parents with him inside?
My one condition with Borzia since day one was I didn't do kids. Now, there was one staring me in the face, eyes so wide he looked like he was on the brink of a heart attack. He couldn't have been more than fourteen.
He sputtered, first in broken Spanish, pouring from his lips like a machine gun. He switched to English when he realized I barely understood.
“Please no kill! Please! Mercy, mercy, mercy...”
My jaw hit the floor. Raising my gun at a target was second nature, but now I pointed it at the floor, wondering what the fuck we were gonna do with him. In all three years of working for the cartel, this shit had never come up, not even once.
I'd have to take him back to Borzia. My boss was fucked up and ruthless, yeah, but he'd understand. He'd scare the boy straight, send him far, far away, where he'd never think about this again, as soon as we were all sure he wouldn't talk.
I started to reach for my phone when I heard a single footstep behind me. I spun, and saw Snipe standing there, peering through the scope on his rifle.
The boy's scream was cut off by the deafening shot. I whirled around, saw the kid slumped, a cherry red hole in his chest.
Just like that, the teen was never gonna worry about anything again.
I must've broken the all-time record for popping the killer right in his fucking face. Two bullets tore Snipe's head apart. His body hit the carpet silently and I stepped back, fishing out my phone.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I just killed a man with Borzia blood, and I was fucked. Didn't matter how much he deserved it.
The first thing I did was snap the phone in pieces. Then I went straight for the window to the boy's room, sliding it open and praying I could fit through the narrow crack. I made it – just barely – and high tailed it to the SUV.
The Colombians came pouring out the front door in a hurry when I started it up. All I had on my side was their confusion. They looked at me like scorned guard dogs as I went flying down the private drive, wondering how the hell I'd get my ass back to the States and pack up everything before Borzia found out.
The whole mission had just changed. Now, for the first time in my life, I was the fucking target. None of his boys were top dog in the assassin business like me, but he had a lot of them, and soon all his rabid dogs would be hunting me down.
And not just me, Evan Cole. For betraying him, he'd come after Jenny and Ty.
I pounded the wheel and screamed. Nearly lost control of the vehicle several times in my mad, mad flight to the nearest city, where I shelled out at least a quarter million for an illicit flight home without a passport.
I was going on thirty hours without sleep when I roared into the driveway. My sister-in-law's car was in the driveway, but not much else.
Good. It's not too late.
I relaxed 'til I got inside and saw Izzy at the kitchen table, messy tissues balled up next to her, eyes like flaming diamonds.
She'd always been hot tempered, but now she was a fucking banshee, the first demon I had to face for my fuckup. The note she held up was scrawled on the neat cream paper I'd seen on Borzia's desk. It hit me in the face, Izzy covered my eyes, nose, and mouth, grinding it into my soul like a death row verdict.
I didn't have to read the fucking thing to know. She said it for me.
“You! You and your evil fucking work!” Her shrill voice nearly burst my eardrums. “They were both gone this morning when I came, and this was on the table. Give me one good fucking reason why I shouldn't phone the police and have you dragged away for what you've done. You just killed your wife and son!”
Woke up with my temples throbbing like jackhammers. I jerked up, my cock straining uncomfortably in my pants.
I thought about Cassie, relishing the perfect sweetness of her lips and tongue, the way she'd squirmed and burned with her own heat while I blew my load down her throat. Her precious lips were an antidote, a cure to my sickness. It was the first time I'd dared give my flesh the reins since Jenny.
It wasn't as bad as I expected. The guilt only hit me when my balls were dry, and then I had to swallow the bitter bullshit, the betrayal of binding flesh with a woman who wasn't my wife.