Page 38 of Hit Man

Luckily, Mendoza fast-forwards the video.

“Keep going. Unless you want an eyeful of me and my big dick?” I wink at Little-Man, who returns it with a look meant to kill. Yeah, but he doesn’t deny it.

I have the upper hand here. Because I know exactly what happens next. The Academy Award–worthy performance about to be played out. I’m going to sit back, give them a gander at something else my Scandinavian-Mexican blood gifted me with, eat up their reaction as the thought of me having sex with Aubrey is firmly planted in their heads. This earlier exchange helping feed into this morning’s lie by making it more believable.

A second collective uproar echoes around the room as I strip for the camera, slowly, taking my time to fold my shirt then my pants and set them on a chair, before turning and offering the fucking Peeping Toms a full-frontal view.

Cocky bastard.

“Damn, you’re hung.”

“You got a third leg between your thighs?”

“Didn’t know cocks came that big.”

I don’t react, not wanting to draw their attention from the television screen, where I’ve turned, climbed into Aubrey’s bed, and, placing my arms behind my head, make myself comfortable.

“Did she invite you or did you just show up?” the redhead asks.

I shrug my shoulders. “What difference does it make?”

Next is a very-much-alone Aubrey entering her bungalow. Drunk. Stumbling as she steps inside. Unaware of me, waiting for her.

I’m conscious of how quiet the room grows and for a second, all I want to do is punch each and every man here in the face, beginning with Mendoza.

On camera, Aubrey sways back and forth. A smudge of mascara is below one eye. Her hair wild and her lips glossy.

As beautiful on camera as she was that night.

I hit my fist on the table, causing every man in the room to jump and turn their attention toward me. Missing how her dress drops to the floor and her kicking it away.

When they turn back, all they can see is her bare back and tight ass.

Our intense exchange follows. My charming her while I question her, throwing her off balance at the appropriate times. My snatching the dress out of her hand and tossing it over the camera.

“Jesus Christ. We can’t see or hear anything,” Mendoza snarls.

No shit, Sherlock. Another example of how Mendoza’s definitely not up to par with his father when it comes to brain power. The fact he wired each bungalow with a single camera proves what a second-rate thug he is. Daddy’s unwanted bastard desperately trying to earn some respect. Nowhere close to being as dangerous as Fahder, who is ranked number four on the watch list of the world’s most dangerous men.

If only I’d gotten to the man after the big boom went off. Questioned him before helping him drop down in the ranks on that list from four to zero, null,fini.

“Goddamn it.” Mendoza fast-forwards before hitting Pause.

There’s Aubrey in a skimpy white bikini, sitting on the ledge of the north-end pool, her legs dangling in the water.

My breath hitches for a fraction of a second. My cock hardening within my pants as if in agreement.

Mierda.

I noticed this morning how pale she is as she lay against me, seeming even fairer against my biscuit-colored skin.

I glance down at my hand, flexing it as I think about how my mother used to call my sister Luciana and me her biscuit babies because of our mixed heritage. My mother was a Scandinavian missionary working in Loreto, a troubled, drug cartel-riddled hole of a town on the Baja peninsula, when she met my father, a first-generation Mexican, who evidently excelled at getting a womanintothe missionary position—Luciana and I being the living proof of this. Though I’m proud of my roots, I often consider what my life—and my sister’s life—would have been like if we were raised in beautiful, basically crime-free Copenhagen instead of in an unpredictable barrio in Mexico.

Those hard-core thugs taught me how to be a cutthroat. A natural, too. It’s to be expected, given my Viking-conquistador mixed blood, right? Before Hayden arrived in Loreto, and redefined the termthug.

Even as a kid, I’d no choice but to work for him. My sister, Luciana, made it impossible for me to refuse him.

Years later, I still work for that Bastard, though in an entirely different capacity. He wants answers. And I’ll be damned if I’m not the operative to give them to him.