Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (12 page)

Suddenly I felt a breeze and the weight of the suitcase being lifted from me. “I’ve got it,” Lily insisted, grunting as she lifted the bag. “I’m blind, but I’ve got it.” She dropped the bag with a thud. “What did you pack in here? My brick collection?”

I hefted myself out of the shaft and slowly, incrementally, opened my eyes. We were, as I’d figured out fifteen minutes ago, at the very top of this moldering building, the light breeze of a perfect day gently rustling through my hair. The sun was starting to set. “Keep moving,” I said, lifting her suitcase above my head and walking to the edge of the roof. We were thirty stories up. The same dirty, sludge-filled alleyway was so far down below me I felt a slight nudge of vertigo. I normally wasn’t afraid of heights.

“Are we jumping between buildings?” Lily asked me sardonically. “Because I’ve watched a fair amount of parkour videos and I think I might be able to do it.”

It was another few moments before I realized she was kidding.

Like I said: I was used to traveling alone.

***

Penn Station was bustling with people. Lily sat on her suitcase while I stared up at the departures board. “I’ve always wanted to go to Boise,” Lily said drily, nibbling at the skin around her cuticle.

I traced my thumb along my bottom lip. I was calculating. I hadn’t planned on not being able to take a private plane somewhere. And with no fake passport for Lily, I couldn’t risk taking the commercial route. I was counting on Corina not knowing that I couldn’t rustle up a passport for her in time. But I knew with every second that I was paralyzed with indecision was just another moment that Corina would figure out that we weren’t on a plane.

I never froze like this. It was Lily. Corina knew me better than anyone. I realized the solution was sitting next to me. I needed someone who Corina
didn’t
know. Lily would be unpredictable by her very nature.

“You decide,” I said to Lily.

She blinked up at me, her finger hanging on her lips. “What?”

I tilted my head toward the board. “You decide where you want to go,” I repeated. “I’m leaving it up to you.”

She smiled. “That was unexpected, Mr. Control Freak,” she said. She didn’t even look at the board. “Santa Fe,” she replied easily.

“Santa Fe?”

“Santa Fe. I’ve always wanted to go there. See the Georgia O’Keefe museum, maybe explore Albuquerque and see if I might run into Jesse Pinkman.” She tilted her head sexily. Even though she looked exhausted from a day of running on foot across the city and didn’t have a speck of makeup on her face, she was more beautiful than ever.

I held my hand out to help her up off the suitcase. “Santa Fe it is,” I said, putting my aviators back on and marching toward the ticket booth.

Twenty minutes later we were boarding the last train out for the night to Pittsburgh. I was relieved that Flea had actually given us cash. The tickets were around $1500 for both of us. The itinerary said it would be two days to get to Santa Fe from here. We had to change trains three times, which was good for confusing whoever might be looking for us.

It was a bonus that I knew Corina hated the desert. She needed the humidity to make her skin glow. I laughed out loud at this thought as I swung our bags into an overhead compartment and slid into the business class seats we’d managed to snag.

“What’s funny?” Lily asked, looking shocked. “Of all the shit that’s happened today, hearing
you
randomly chuckle is by far the most terrifying.”

I sighed good-naturedly and grabbed her knee. “I’m punchy as fuck right now. Anything is funny.
Anything
.” I stared into her eyes. “How did you know the code back at Flea’s place?”

She wrinkled her brow. She was trying to decide whether or not to talk to me. Her need to be right won out in the end. “The canvas on the wall,” she said. “In the living room.”

“The blank canvases?” I thought back, trying to remember. I hadn’t seen anything written on it.

“Some secret international spy you are. Or
whatever
you are,” she sighed, laughing darkly. “There was black marker writing in the bottom right-hand corner, sort of like someone would do on a bathroom stall? It said ‘I got your number on the wall.’”

Gears turned in my head. I felt like my brain had turned to soupy, gooey mush. “I’m lost. I have no idea.”

She slapped my shoulder. “Get some pop culture, Cruz. It’s Tommy TuTone. The song? ‘Jenny’? Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine!” she said in a sing-song voice.

“I’m not much for pop music,” I said, grinning. “I prefer classical.”

“You’re a pretentious fuck, then,” Lily retorted. Her tired eyes glittered at me from her seat. She rested her head on my shoulder. “Wake me up if there’s a gunman standing over my body,” she yawned.

I leaned my cheek against her thick bun. Her hair smelled like coconuts, just like her skin. I knew that I shouldn’t sleep. The last thing I should do was sleep.

But Lily’s warm breath was filling up my airspace, and the weight of her soft cheek on my shoulder was relaxing me. The train started off, and the
chug-a chug-a
was the last element of this symphonic lullaby that sent me into dreamland.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CRUZ

The shuddering squeal of the train brakes shook me out of my sleep. I sat upright, my hand in the back of my jeans looking for my gun. It was still there. But I felt like I was forgetting something. I looked to my left.

Lily was gone.

I stood up, pushing past the people who had already gotten out of their seats to disembark. The aisles were packed with humans.

“Hey! Watch it!” said a white guy whose comb over was sticking up after a long night on the train.

I ignored him and walked as fast as I could to the back of the train car. I hit the button and the doors opened. The brisk, early-morning Pittsburgh air hit my bare arms with a slap.

She wasn’t in the next train car. Or the next.

Think, Cruz. Breathe. Take a pause. Count.

My breathing under control, I ordered my thoughts. I needed to get back to our bags. Then I could wait until the train was clear and watch the platform. She still had to be on the train.

Unless someone had thrown her off of it while we sped through the Pennsylvania countryside. I swallowed hard, not allowing myself to think about that. I made my way back to our seats, lost in thought over how Corina would operate. If she had already made her way to Lily, there’s no way Corina would have left me to sit there alone.

Corina’s style was more dramatic. I would have woken up with Corina in Lily’s seat, a devilish grin on her face. I knew that for sure.

That calmed me down as I weaved my way back through the same people who were already pissed at me. I narrowly avoided punching Comb Over Man this time when he purposely tripped me. A hand shot out from an open door, grabbing my arm. I nearly pulled my gun out of habit.

“Cruz!” Lily yelled at me. “It’s me. Calm down.” She was bright-eyed and looked well-rested.

“Jesus, I thought you were fucking gone,” I said, trying to get my adrenaline back down. I felt like I might be sick on my own shoes.

“I had to pee and wash my face,” she explained.

“Don’t fucking do that again, okay? You scared me half to fucking death.”

“Oh,
you’re
scared? Really. Okay,” she spat, pushing past me to get back to our seats.

It was nine hours to Chicago in the upright, business-class seats. We were both wide-awake, but Lily wasn’t talkative.

I wasn’t interested in divulging any more details in public surrounded by a full train of people. And it seemed like she was eager to keep the promise she’d made in her apartment: she wasn’t interested in talking until she could have more information on what exactly was happening.

I chewed over the details in my mind.

I’d known the second we’d pulled into the hospital in that ambulance who she was. I knew that I was the reason her life had been ruined even before I met her through the hookup app.

I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.

It was completely out of character for me to do that; ignore my instincts, force down the truth so far that it was buried somewhere in the center of the earth. I liked things in the daylight as much as possible. I already spent too long lurking in shadows as it was. But this was a truth I wasn’t ready to face.

As we pulled into the Chicago station, a train attendant came into our car. “Ladies and gentleman, we regret to inform you that there is an ice storm that has shut down the tracks in Western Missouri.” The attendant held up their hands in apology. “We’re able to make it through but a freight train is stuck and is blocking the route.”

There was a collective groan in the car.

“I’m very sorry but you’ll have to stay in Chicago at least overnight. Updates will be emailed to you as we have them. Please see the customer service desk if you need help arranging accommodations.”

Lily looked at me. “Is this good news or bad news?”

I turned it over in my mind. “It makes us less predictable anyway,” I said, standing up to get our luggage. “And the good news is, I know exactly where we should go.”

It seemed incredible that an ice storm was brewing southwest of us. The Windy City was experiencing a last-ditch heat wave that made it a balmy seventy-seven degrees. “Have you been here before?” I asked Lily, who was wide-eyed as we made our way through the West Loop and northeast toward the heart of the city.

She shook her head. “No, I haven’t,” she replied. “I’ve rarely had occasion to leave New York.”

She looked adorable staring up at the towering architecture.

“It’s not quite as modern as New York, but the great thing about the city is that it had an incredible master planner rebuild it the second time it burned to the ground,” I said, pausing at a crosswalk and hitting the button. A bus flew by us. “So the city has parks everywhere, and the streets are wider than NYC to let light into the buildings.”

Lily nodded, still awestruck. “It’s stunning here,” she said. I could see her softening in spite of herself. We crossed the river over a bridge. The concrete and steel moved and rumbled as cars crossed it at high speeds.

“Chicago is one of my very favorite places,” I said to her. I felt like I was playing tour guide. There was a happiness that I hadn’t felt in years settling through my body.

We finally made it to the theater district, the golden and red famous CHICAGO sign over our heads. “We’re almost there,” I said to Lily, who was fumbling for her phone to take a photo. I grabbed her elbow and whispered in her ear. “We can play tourist in a bit. Let’s make sure we have a room first.”

The Wit Hotel was my go-to spot when I traveled to Chicago. Nobody knew that but me, so I was confident it would be a relatively safe spot to rest overnight. Thankfully they had rooms available. We rode the elevator up to one of the uppermost floors. I’d splurged.

I won’t lie. I was trying to impress her. It was ridiculous. We were both running for our fucking lives. And here I was trying to
show off
with money I’d stolen at gunpoint.

Money I’d stolen at gunpoint
in
front of her.

“Well, this is nice,” she said quietly as we stepped into the room. It had wraparound windows at a ninety-degree angle that showed off a hundred different buildings around us. This was the heart of the city. I could practically feel it beating underneath my feet.

I had barely set the bags down when she spun around to face me.

“Talk,” Lily commanded.

I knew I wasn’t squirrelling out of an explanation this time.

She had me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LILY

I wasn’t letting another second go by without having an explanation. I’d waited patiently enough as it was. There was no way he was escaping the truth this time.

Cruz held up his hands. “It’s a long story,” he said.

I shrugged and looked around at the gorgeous room. Truth be told, I wanted nothing more than to draw myself a long bath and fall asleep in scalding hot water with bubbles fizzing around me. I felt like I’d left my brain behind somewhere in rural Ohio. I couldn’t let Cruz know that, though. “I have some time,” I retorted, crossing my arms. “Who do you work for?”

“I’m an international assassin,” he said. The words hung in the air like a neon sign, glowing between us. It seemed impossible. But I knew it wasn’t. “I work for people…I’ve never met them. I just go where they tell me to go and do what I need to do.”

“And ‘doing what you need to do’ - that’s killing people, right?” I asked, feeling my knees shake slightly. I’d had a long time to think about it on the way over here. I shouldn’t have been shocked. But hearing it was hitting me harder than I thought it would.

“Killing
bad
people, yes,” Cruz said, putting his hands up slowly as if he were surrendering to my inevitable anger. “Really, really bad people.”

“How could you possibly know that? You don’t even know their names,” I said pointedly.

“What I told you in the restaurant – about my fake job? The same goes for this. I don’t make the decisions but I’m given the information I need to know that what I’m doing is completely justified.”

I felt a guffaw rise up in my throat and echo around the room. I couldn’t believe this. “You fucking tell yourself that? Is that how you sleep at night?” I insisted, my voice getting louder and louder.

“You don’t know when you open up a patient whether they’re going to make it or not. It’s the same with me. I inject them with poison. Whether they die or not is not up to me. It’s up to the medicine,” Cruz retorted, his face twisting in anger.

I laughed darkly. “You are unbelievable,” I spat.

“It’s my job, Lily.”

“How did you know about my patient dying? And don’t you dare say it was a lucky guess.”

Cruz paused. I saw his eyes move a millimeter to the left and then back. It was so quick I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not. “Flea,” he said. “I had him run a file on you.” He stared at me, not blinking at all.