Page 46 of Hit Man

She’s smart, and I let my guard down. Look too closely and she’ll figure out I’m not all I appear to be. I’ll be damned if this sudden desire to play superhero is going to interfere with my assignment.

“And Mendoza bought into it,” Hayden comments rather than questions. Aside from my sister, Luciana, only Hayden understands exactly how persuasive I can be.

“Unlike his father, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Little-Man couldn’t have picked a better time to piss me off. He’s the perfect scapegoat, which I plan on taking full advantage of. I’m not close to being done with him yet.”

“You spent the day covering for some woman when you could have been searching through the contents of those boxes. Why go through all this trouble of protecting her?”

I wisely keep quiet.

“You understand her name was not part of the guest list? I’m waiting for the background check I just issued on her and her friend to come in. In the meantime, we need to anticipate the worst, that she might possibly be Fahder’s plant sent to spy on his bastard son.”

I sigh, wondering the same thing myself.

“If she gets in your way again, terminate her.”

I ball the towel up in my fist and hurl it across the room. Hayden’s likely testing the waters, still questioning me by intentionally riling me up. Yet I fall victim to it anyway. “I’ll find out what she’s up to. She might be nobody,” I say, protectively.

“Better keep it that way.”

I’m a professional. A killer. On the goddamn job. The sooner Aubrey is out of my life, the better for both of us.

“I’ll bring you in on something. But if you start cursing, I’m disconnecting our call.”

My eyebrows arch. What the fuck? “Tell me.”

“Fahder is unpredictable. And something big is going down, I feel it in my bones.”

I stiffen. I’d begun to think the same thing myself.

“I don’t have the time or the patience to fuck around. Right now, I’ve got a man in Acapulco tracking him.”

“Dios mío, the elusive asshole went to Acapulco?” I mutter.

“Our man was quite amused when Fahder showed up at the warehouse dressed in drag.”

Our man. Don’t fucking tell me.

“Who?” But I already know who.

“McDuff.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Blocking out that image, as well as the thought of how, in the chaos following the explosion, I missed Fahder’s escape.

“Right now, he’s holed up in a seaside hotel and keeping a close eye on the warehouse. A few of Mendoza’s men even showed up to help. To help and spy onPapi.”

And goddamn McDuff is working my case. My target. The smug-faced Irish whore.

“You did us a favor. Capturing and interrogating Fahder too soon would have been a mistake. Something more is going on here than trading weapons. I suspect the answer to that question lies inside those crates.”

I blink. A mistake. Hayden’s admitting he fucked up? It’s like the world’s stopped rotating. Unimaginable. An event in itself.

“Whatever Fahder is involved with, it’s both bigger and on a broader scope than we imagined. Or so your counterpart has convinced me.”

“Your hired hand has been thorough.”

“He’s not one to waste time.”

Gritting my teeth, I glare at the phone. What is wrong with this picture, damn it? I’m the man of action in this group. While McDuff is still finishing his pint of Guinness, I’ve usually got things locked and loaded.