Death of an Assassin (Saint Roch City Book 1)
Read Death of an Assassin (Saint Roch City Book 1) Online
Authors: Ian Hiatt
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© 2016
Ian Hiatt
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Cover Art by Eugene Teplitsky
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ISBN 978-1-62007-691-0 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-692-7 (paperback)
For all the people who indulged my addiction to penning words.
Congrats, you’re all enablers.
’m a problem solver.
Or maybe you could call me a freelance recruiter for the eternally losing team.
Passive-aggressive bounty hunter?
Whatever you want to call me, it doesn’t change what I do.
And tonight, I am on my game. I’m dressed to kill and downing the free drinks Terrance O’Halloran is buying for me. He’s a good-looking boy, no question about it. Trust fund baby pulling down a C average at an Ivy league in the middle of Boston or New York or some other metropolis far cleaner than the one he’s come home to roost in. He’d probably go and work for Daddy once he got himself a nice piece of paper to hang on his wall, letting everyone know it only took him six years to convince his professors to accept bribes.
I don’t take bribes, though. I do take bourbon on the rocks. Straight. But Terrance is a frat boy at best. So I finish off the cocktails he sends me all night with some disgust. Eventually, he works up the courage―read: buzz―to come over and ask me for a dance.
“Hey, baby, I bet you can do all kinds of things with that body,” he says, his voice husky and warm on the back of my bare neck. His hand cuts up the smooth and slinky black dress I’ve picked for the occasion. While his line twists inside me, therein lays the joy in my work.
I casually toss back the ringlets of my crimson hair, draping them on the shoulder farthest from the disgustingly moist breath as he stops short of thrusting his hips against me. With a soft laugh and inebriated demeanor, I turn to him and let my lips pucker for a fraction of a second.
He notices. They always notice.
“You have no idea,” I say to him, leaning close and doing my best to match his gruffness.
His gaze falls to the ground to stare at my heeled feet, then traces up my legs, eventually taking note of every individual curve. He’s writing his roadmap for tonight. What places he plans to visit when he finally convinces me to come back to his apartment paid for by money he never earned. He gives me a nod of approval. I’ve passed his test. Intoxicated, beautiful, and so incredibly out of his league that he’d be insane to resist me.
“Why don’t you come show me then?” he says, not really asking as he grabs my wrist and gives me a tug toward the gyrating crowd of twenty-somethings in the middle of the club. He’s spent the night pumping me full of wasted drinks. Fruity flavors only elicit boredom from me.
Amid the flashing mauve lights of sweat and unquenched desire that is the Saint Roch City nightlife, Terrence tries his luck, pressing close to a predator he takes for prey. I meet each of his movements, leaning into him. He needs to believe that I’ll be his tonight. His pet. His to control. Those fumbling hands wander and grab at me. I choke down vomit with each of his awkward groping misadventures, but I still manage to do the same back.
If the bounty weren’t so high on this waste of oxygen, I wouldn’t be bothering.
Sometimes, I like to play with them. But this one wouldn’t be worth the cab fare back to his place and the trouble of finishing the job in the morning.
Eventually, when his fingers scratch at my chest and threaten to tear the dress that I’ve grown so fond of over the course of the night, I decide that I’ve had enough. He’s drunk. He’s horny. He’s done.
I lean in and whisper into his ear. “Why don’t we go back to your place for a little…
privacy
?”
He grins like a dog that’s just been given a bone, stupid and giddy.
“Yeah, baby. I’ll show you a good time…” I couldn’t even make up the lines falling out of the poor bastard’s mouth. I slide my hand along the rim of his pants, tightening his leash. He won’t wander far.
By the time we leave the club, I hear him salivating beside me, his breath puffing small clouds in the cold night. If I let him, he’d throw me on the rusted-out dumpster in the alley and take me right there. If I wanted him to get tetanus, I might. But I don’t want this stupid prick lingering. Lingering jobs are reserved for the truly wonderful dregs of society.
He stumbles a few times as we walk, whether from the drink or the desire, I can’t be sure. Either way, it’s perfect. I’ve only dedicated three hours to this job, and at my rate, that’s several thousand dollars per groping, drink-fueled hour.
“Mmm, baby, I am going to do all kinds of shit to you… You want that?”
He grabs my wrist again and then pulls me against him, stopping on the sidewalk.
I lean close to him, but I don’t let him taste my lips. I never let them kiss me. With a breathy moan, I grab his shirt and pull him against me.
“I’m all yours tonight,” I say before stepping off the curb and giving him a devilish grin and a beckoning hand as I pull the neckline of my dress down just the slightest bit, exposing enough cleavage to make his eyes light up like a thirst-addled man spotting an oasis. He is clay in my hands.
As I step back a few more paces, my heels echoing clicks up and down the night-lit street, I arch an eyebrow. He steps from the curb, his foot splashing in the puddle of the gutter, staring at me with insatiable lust.
He crows and smiles. “Oh, baby, you are gunna look so good ridin—”
His head bounces smoothly against the hood of the oncoming silver Lexus, the sharp crack of a skull fracture lighting up my night. With his body lifted off the ground, he moves like a rag doll tossed about by a toddler, ignorant to the fact that the human body can only contort in so many ways. Terrance O’Halloran lands like a heap of unwanted garbage on the side of the road, the crumbled curbing snapping his neck to the tune of a used toothpick, as though he needs anymore causes of death for the morgue to choose from. The driver of the Lexus pauses, eying me while I stand in the middle of the road, a light breeze carrying my hair as effortlessly as the soft fabric of my dress. The silver car speeds off into the night, likely to find an all-night car wash to scrub away the blood smeared over the fine vehicle.
The dull, glassy eyes of poor Terrance stare up at me like any other species of road kill you might come across. The dumb bastard is still grinning as his brain matter leaks into the puddle he had stumbled in only moments ago.
I sigh and purse my lips. It was a boring death to come up with, but I’d rather his obituary not make him sound like a hero. I consider checking his wallet for cash, but I know I’ll have an envelope of at least twenty grand slid under the door of my cozy three-room apartment. I’m a hungry vixen, but not greedy.
My name is Layla. And I am a siren.