But I do regret it now. Now that I know why she wants Alex dead. Alex is the princess’s dirty secret. The stillborn she supposedly had nineteen years ago wasn’t actually a stillborn after all. It was Alex. And Lisa Carmichael, the woman Alex has called “mother” all her life, is actually the midwife who helped deliver her.
Lisa was supposed to take newborn Alex to a local hospital and claim to have found her abandoned near a dumpster. But Lisa had something else in mind. She kept Alex hidden until she and her husband, Joe Carmichael, could get certified as foster parents. Then she mysteriously found a four-month-old baby behind the hospital. They took Alex in as their first foster child and eventually adopted her. That’s when Lisa started blackmailing the princess.
When Alex turned eighteen, the princess refused to make her annual extortion payment. That’s when Lisa and Joe got desperate and their greed drove Alex away. Which only presented the perfect opportunity for Princess Amica to finally get rid of her dirty secret.
The only thing standing in her way was her ex-Black Ops father who never let Alex out of his sight.
That’s when they called me.
I come out onto the street where the open-air market is lively with merchants and patrons haggling over fish, produce, and textiles. Since I arrived on the island yesterday, I’ve taken the time to acquaint myself with almost everyone in the town of Los Llanos on the other side of the island where I keep my boat docked. You never know when someone will turn from acquaintance to ally.
I continue down the narrow street until I pass the last booth in the market and come upon a fishing supply store. A bell rings when I enter the shop and the young girl behind the counter looks up from her magazine.
“Buenos dias.”
She casts a bashful smile in my direction as she closes her magazine and sits up straight. “Buenos dias, señor.”
Her light-brown hair hangs over her shoulder in a messy braid and her green eyes are practically flashing signals at me. She looks like a sweet girl who probably just wants to be fucked by a foreigner, but I’m not interested. She’s pretty, but she’s not my Alex.
I flirt with her a little so she gives me the fresh bait from the tank in the back of the store. Mackerel are actually quite delicious to eat. They’re not just bait for larger fish.
I take the bag of mackerel from her and flash her a warm smile. “Gracias.”
She leans over the counter, trying to show me her cleavage. “Hasta luego.”
I head out and through the market again. Alex will no doubt be taking a long nap right now to rid herself of the impure thoughts she’s having of me. So it should be safe to walk down the street. Not that she’d recognize me.
I’ve grown my usual four days of scruff out to a thick eight-day beard. And I’ve changed out of the clothing I was wearing when I had to save her life this morning. Now I’m wearing a tourist T-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, sunglasses, and a fisherman’s hat.
As observant and vigilant as Alex is, she misses a lot of obvious signs that she is being played. She didn’t know that I was watching her right now as she screamed my name while caressing her wet pussy. That was quite a show.
It was difficult not to climb in her window and fuck her properly. It’s even more difficult not to get in there and taste her. My craving for her is so strong it’s painful. But I can’t make my presence known yet. I have to debrief Crow and set my plan into motion first.
Crow has been keeping an eye on Alex for me this past week while I was in Monaco. And I do not like the news he’s given me about this new romance she has herself caught up in. Nicolas Costa.
I chuckle to myself as I pass the convenience store at the end of the street. All Alex has to do is think of me and she comes. According to Crow, poor Nicolas couldn’t even get past first base when Alex was drunk. He’s a pathetic excuse for a man. And an even more pathetic excuse for a bounty hunter.
But I’m not worried about Nicolas hurting Alex. And I’m even less afraid of Alex falling for Nicolas. Alex will be mine again. I just have to make sure I approach her cautiously and at precisely the right moment. The only problem is I’ve been given a deadline.
Since I failed to deliver on my promise to kill Alex in Los Angeles, I’ve been given two weeks to kill her in La Palma. And my old friend Crow is eager to finish the job for me if I fail again. Twenty-million dollars is a lot of money. Even in the assassination business.
What they don’t know is that I don’t have two weeks. I have only one day to convince Alex not to get on that plane with Nicolas. I don’t care if the prince is genuinely working against his wife in an attempt to keep Alex safe. Crow won’t allow Alex to step off that plane in Monaco for a beautiful reunion with her biological father. Crow will take down that plane and every person on it to get that twenty-million.
When I turn onto Dolores Street, I’m pleased to see Nicolas working out his sexual frustration in his garden. I cross the street with a spring in my step and stop next to his gate.
“Hola, amigo!” Hello, friend.
He looks up from the dirt he was just probing with his shovel. “Hola.”
I proceed in Spanish and, I must admit, I’m quite impressed with my proclivity for foreign languages. “I noticed you moved in recently and you’ve already found yourself a beautiful friend from across the way.”
I wiggle my eyebrows, though I’m not sure he can see it under my sunglasses. His lips turn up slowly in a wary smile.
“Yes, do you know Alyssa?”
I shake my head. “No, sir. But if you really want to impress her, I have a boat you can charter.” I draw my knife out of my holster and use it to point toward the harbor where I’ll be mooring my boat later night. “If you’d like to take it out for a little while, I’m sure your girlfriend would find it very romantic. I’ll give you a special rate, since you’re my neighbor.”
Nicolas eyes the knife in my hand with even more unease. “Thank you, friend. I’ll keep that in mind.”
I give him my number then he continues digging his hole in the ground. I smile as he bends down and scoops up a dead crow. He drops the bird into the hole and begins piling the dirt on top of it.
“Watch out for those crows,” I call out. “They’re everywhere.”
***
I slap the two-pound sea bass onto the counter in my small galley kitchen. Sliding my boning knife into it’s belly, I cut it open and smile as the blood runs out onto the plastic cutting board. I rip out the guts with my hand and throw them into the waste bin at my feet.
As much as I don’t want to think about Carla, preparing my own dinner always makes me think of the night she left. I knew she was planning to leave me. But I couldn’t bring myself to care.
It had been one and a half years since I gave up my job as a hit man. I had just began working for the Los Angeles Police Department. Carla and I had moved into our apartment in Venice Beach recently and, all circumstances pointed to us having a happily ever after. But I was not a happy man.
Not only was I no longer doing the job that made me who I was, I was still grieving the results of my final job as a hit man. The only thing that made me feel partially alive was chasing a perp or fucking a beautiful woman. Carla was beautiful, but she wanted more from me than just a fuck. She wanted something I couldn’t give. And, after a hundred discussions about our future that went nowhere, and the countless disgusted looks she cast in my direction whenever she found empty condom wrappers in my pockets, she finally got fed up.
After I clean and sauté the fish, I sit down on a bench seat on the deck with my dinner plate and my glass of local wine and I watch Alex’s cottage. Moving the boat to this side of the island is part of the plan. As I finish my last bite of sea bass, Nicolas arrives at her door. Checking in on her to make sure his bounty doesn’t slip through his fingers. Maybe he’ll pretend he’s checking to see how her knee is doing.
I really should have stopped her from going into that clinic today. I would have preferred for her to fin
d out she’s pregnant after I make my presence known. I don’t like having an unfair advantage. But the truth is that the child inside her, our child, will make our reunion that much more interesting. No doubt she’ll be angry when she sees me. She’ll be tempted to risk her life and the life of our unborn to make me pay for my sins. But I’ve seen the softer side of Alex. The part of her that wants nothing more than to be touched, cherished, loved. She knows she can have all that and more with me.
My chest floods with violent rage as I watch Alex open her front door and invite Nicolas inside. The thought of his hands and lips on her is the worst part of this whole mission. I want to slowly break every bone in his body and watch him writhe in pain for even thinking he could touch her. But, once again, patience is a virtue.
I must wait for the right moment. Alex is carrying my child. Which means I’ll do anything to keep her. I’ll endure any agony to get her back. I’ll kill anyone. I’ll agree to any of her demands. But I need her to forgive me first.
Forgiveness.
Such a simple word with such complicated and varied implications depending on who you ask. What is forgiveness? Does it mean you forget the wrongs committed against you? Does it mean you embrace your tormentor?
I wish I knew. The answers to these questions become even more murky when the person you need to forgive is yourself.
I wash the dinner dishes and shower, then I get dressed to head out on patrol. Lurking in the shadows, collecting intelligence and investigating every lead is part of who I am. It’s why I was such a great detective. And why I was an even better hit man before that. It’s why Princess Amica contacted me first when she needed Alex killed.
It’s too bad that she caught me at a very low point in my life. If I had been high on another kill, I may have taken Alex out, no questions asked. But I hadn’t taken a job in three years. Though I fantasized about leaving the L.A.P.D. and going back to my old life, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I hesitate to describe myself as broken. Broken people don’t have the capability to put themselves back together. But that’s what I did over the last few months as I investigated Alex and her family. In learning Alex’s story, I learned that I was not alone. And maybe, if I wasn’t alone, I still had hope.
I slide my .44 Magnum out of a drawer and hold it in my hands for a moment, lost in thoughts of the last time I used this gun for a hit.
I’d been working as a self-employed hit man for two years after leaving the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence in France, more commonly known as the DCRI. I was working on high-level counterintelligence operations and realized my biggest thrill was taking out the bad guys. But not just taking them out. I took pride in completing each job without collateral damage. But that all changed on a warm August evening three years ago.
I was sent to London to take out a CIA operative who had gone rogue on a counterterrorism operation. I was hired to take him out before he was caught and tortured into giving up his secrets. He’d been in hiding for three months, but my intelligence had placed him in a small flat in West London. His family wasn’t supposed to be with him that night.
Even three years later, it still makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t get the image of that little boy dead, looking so peaceful in the comfort of his father’s arms. I had come into the man’s bedroom while he slept. As he lay on his side sound asleep, I put one bullet through his back, where his heart would be, and another bullet in the back of his head. The first bullet ripped right through his chest and lodged in his son’s brain. His son was snuggled up against him underneath the covers.
I tuck the .44 into the waistband of my shorts and pull my T-shirt down. Looking at my reflection in the porthole, I scratch my jaw and muss up my hair before I pull on a baseball cap. Turning away, I slide my sunglasses over my eyes.
I am not a good man. But Alex and our child are my chance to redeem myself. I just need to convince her that we are safer together. Because she’ll never be safe as long as there’s a hit on her head.
It took a lot of sweet talking on my part to get Princess Amica to agree to let me finish this job. She wanted to hand the job over to my friend, Crow, but as the only other person who was there with me that night in London, he knows I won’t give this one up. He knows I wouldn’t have come out of retirement for just any case. There may be no loyalty amongst thieves, but there’s a different code of ethics for hit men. Crow remains loyal to me.
But $20 million is a lot of money. He’s still hanging around the island, helping me with intelligence and waiting for me to screw this up so he can step in and finish the job. I don’t care how many years we’ve been friends, if he so much as breathes on Alex, I will gut him faster than a sea bass.
The image of that dead boy’s face flashes in my mind again and I take a seat at the small table near the galley kitchen. I grit my teeth against the memory and the mental self-flagellation that always follows. The inner voice telling me I don’t deserve to live after committing such a heinous act. That child didn’t deserve to die.
I went three years barely clinging to a long list of excuses to keep on living. It wasn’t until I started following Alex that I began to see what my purpose is. My purpose is to save her. To love her. And I will stop at nothing to do just that.
***
The Arkham Bar is housed inside a small, blue building with a clay tile roof. It has a warm, Spanish-island feel on the outside, but the modern, artsy interior feels cold. I feel a bit exposed in this tiny place, but that’s why I brought Crow here. Because if I feel a bit exposed, he’s going to feel downright naked.
The bartender asks for our drink order as soon as we take our seats in the uncomfortable white barstools. Crow keeps his black hoodie pulled tightly around his face as he sits next to me and we both order an Alhambra lager. We wait in silence as he retrieves the beers from a cooler under the bar and flips off the caps before he slides them to us. I pay for the beers and tip the bartender generously, then I let him know we’re not to be interrupted.
“If you didn’t want to be interrupted, you should have chosen a different fucking bar,” Crow complains in his British accent. “I look like a fucking wolf in a hen house here.”
“Don’t worry about maintaining a low profile in this bar. Worry about it when you’re out there walking the fucking streets. How many times has Alex seen you?”
He takes a long pull on the bottle of beer to make me wait. “I don’t know and I don’t care. If your girlfriend is feeling the heat, then she’s got good fucking reason to. She’s getting impatient.”
He’s referring to Princess Amica growing impatient waiting for me to get Alex out of the picture. “I don’t give a fuck if she’s getting impatient. I have to do this my way.”
He chuckles. “And your way is to have a go at her first? Fuck her body and her mind then kill her. Is that it?”
“You don’t know enough about my strategies to question me.”
“I know your strategies don’t always work.”
I should crack his skull for that comment, but I can’t. I need to keep Crow close, where I can keep an eye on him. I’ll take his snide comments about how I fucked up my last job. But once I have Alex back, safe in my arms, he’s on his own.
This is a not a business for making and keeping friends. Crow and I stumbled upon a friendship when I passed up a job due to a booked schedule. I’d been taking out marks for more than a year and my services were in high demand. It was Crow’s second job, and he came to me asking for advice. Two years younger than I was and thirsty for blood after a tour in Iraq, it was difficult not to feel sorry for him.
I took him under my wing and brought him along on my last two jobs. I owe him my life for getting me out of that London apartment when I was too stunned to move. But he’s the one who screwed this up with Alex. He had to throw that fucking cigarette butt onto the street when he was following Alex on Hope Street. If she hadn’t found that, she wouldn’t have found out about her father so soon.
And I might have had a chance to tell her when she was ready.
Crow knows he fucked up, which is the only reason he refused to take the job off my hands when Amica wanted to hand it over to him. Now he thinks I’m trying to prove myself, but I have nothing to prove to him or Amica. Alex is the only person I need to prove something to.
“What is her schedule like? Is she going to the Billionaire Club next week?”
Crow looks at me sideways as if he knows what I’m thinking. “Don’t think of throwing away this payday for that girl, Daimon.”
“I can’t tell you what I’m planning. But it has nothing to do with that fucking $20 million. What I have in mind will be much more lucrative, for both of us.”
“Both of us meaning… you and me or you and the girl?”
“You and me. I just need to get that fucking bounty hunter out of the way without raising any red flags with the local law enforcement. It will be done soon.”
He downs the rest of his beer, but he still holds it close to his chest as he contemplates this. “She’s giving you three days to make it happen. And so am I.” He lets go of the beer bottle and slides off the barstool. “This better be good.”
I smile as I realize he doesn’t know about Alex and Nicolas’s plans to fly to Monaco in less than two days. Typical Crow. Always one step behind when he thinks he’s one step ahead.
The bartender brings me another beer, as if he can sense that I need it. I sip it slowly as I contemplate my options here. I need her to start believing me and questioning her parents, otherwise she may try to kill me again. And I’m done underestimating her.
I’m through underestimating everyone.
I never imagined that Princess Amica had hired me to kill her own biological daughter. But I should have known that there was something far more mysterious about Alex from the moment I stepped inside her adoptive parents’ home. Which brings me to my other predicament: Keeping Alex’s mother, Lisa, alive.