Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance(85)

Two guards down, four more to go.

I drag the body into the bathroom, stuffing him into the tub, pulling across the shower curtain. Before I can leave, one of the partygoers comes in. He’s tipsy, doesn’t notice me as I keep pressed to the wall behind a recess. He unzips, and I hear the sound of his pissing.

His life is ended in the blink of an eye. Never even had time to make peace with whatever god he prays to, poor sap. Not like a prayer would do guys like this any good.

Back in the hall, I head towards the private bedrooms. A guard waits outside two of them, and there’s no way I can approach him without him seeing me, so it’s time for the gun.

One shot. A soft hiss of air. He’s down, a hole in his forehead and a splatter of blood across the wall. It’s messy. This is why I prefer the knife. I rush in to grasp his body before he can hit the ground. I jab the blade up into his skull from beneath his jaw anyhow, making sure it’s done as I lower him down to the floor gently.

Then I listen at the doors.

One room is empty, the other, I hear two people inside. Sounds of moans, sex. They’ll be distracted, making the kills even easier.

I head inside casually, the door opening to show them at the bed. One with his pants around his ankles, the other man on his knees. No sign of the woman.

I fire a shot and that ends the man’s pleasure, but just as the other man realizes he’s now fellating a corpse, I end him too. It worked well; neither got to cry out in the brief time it took me to kill them. Small favors.

I only have moments to get the rest of the job done. A bullet to the head is no absolute guarantee—people have lived through stranger things, and I make sure they’re dead with my dagger once again before heading back out.

Nothing short of absolute success is acceptable to my employer. Nobody survives. That was the term of our contract. The stakes are too high for anything but.

Yet as I’m exiting the room, a guard arrives just in time to see the mess of his comrade splattered over the wall. That’s why I hate guns. So messy. I can generally control the spurt of blood from my dagger until I’m done positioning the corpse.

Everything would go to hell here and now, if I weren’t so well practiced at death. This is my life. I live it, breathe it. It’s what I’m good at. Before he can utter a word, my hand is at his mouth, grasping tightly. He’s reaching for the gun at his belt, but I stop him, seizing his hand.

The conundrum is that while I stopped him from sending warning to his fellow guards and getting his weapon, my two hands are now tied up as well.

He glares at me, a death stare. If looks could kill, he’d be as good an assassin as I am.

I let him push me back, though, and we’re backpedaling into the gory murder scene of the bedroom. This guy’s good. He’s not distracted by the scene at all as I hoped he would be. Maybe he’s born into death too. I have to up my game.

I head-butt him, and blood gushes from his nose. It’s enough to set him off balance, so I twist around, get behind him, then force him to the floor. My two hands are still occupied, and I can’t risk letting him speak or get his gun, so I make use of other limbs.

My legs get in around his neck, and I clench my thighs about him. I twist, using my hand at his mouth and my two legs to wrench his head back, suffocating him, straining that neck until at last… I hear it. The crack of bone.

His arms go limp, but he’s not dead. There’s still movement in his eyes. I’ve just crippled him, severed his spine. I end his misery with a knife at the back of his head, beneath his skull.

That’s four guards down. And counting the two outside the door and the two at the car, that’s all of them. But the job’s far from done.

I head back into the hall, avoiding the main party room and its boisterous laughter and music. I go to the main door, open it up, and take out the two guards there. The blood spray spreads wide and won’t be as easily noticed, so I haul them into the penthouse suite.

Now it’s my time to join the party.

There’s too many of them, even with how drunk and drugged they are. If I just walk in and start killing them, it’ll be a noisy mess. So I go to a small, hidden fuse box in the wall. Something you’d never know was there unless you were an employee. I pry it open, cut the lights, and all is dark. But the music still plays.

I hear voices of surprise, laughter, mockery. Anger.

But the darkness is nothing to me. I switch on the night vision of my mask, but I don’t really need it. I can still visualize them all where they were when the lights went out, pinpoint them by the sounds they each made. The guards took professionalism, skills, training to deal with. These rich and powerful men? They are like slaughtering hogs on the farm.