Page 58 of Hit Man

He climbs onto the boulder directly in front of us.

Big feet. Big hands. Big . . . attitude. That’s right. Attitude.

I shake my head and, placing my housing drawings back inside my purse, I zip it closed. The drawings are smaller renditions of the larger ones in my apartment. But still, I’m not leaving them behind on this mountain.

“Come on,” he tells me before disappearing over the boulder.

I stare up at where he’d been a second ago before hastily scrambling after him. Praying that the last thing I see of Diego isn’t the two pink smiley faces etched into the bottom of the flip-flops.

17

Diego

Hijo de Dios! I’ve hit an all-time low.

Hayden is going to kill me. No joke, he might genuinely put a hit on me. No fuckups allowed. And on a scale from one to ten, ten being the worst, this rates an eleven.

It’s all her damn fault.

I scowl at her.

She glares right back.

The farther away from Casa Bella we head, the greater the tension between us grows. Off come the boxing gloves. Because if this beautifully annoyinggringathinks there will be no consequences resulting from her ruining the easiest freaking job ever, she’s gonna learn the hard way I’m not a man you fuck with.

Fucking—now that’s a different story. But my screwing up this assignment in an arena-worthy performance . . . sirens, cameras, action . . . goddamn it.

Hayden is going to put a bullet between my eyes. Or worse, replace me with that good-for-nada Irishman.

I stop midstride and pull out a pebble lodged between my foot and the damn flip-flop.

“Mierda.”

“It’ll be less irritating if you took them off.”

She’s right. But I ignore the suggestion, what’s left of my pride, the machismo I always seem to be fighting against, driving me forward in what has to be the most useless, impractical, ridiculous pair of shoes ever known to mankind.

Or womankind.

I wince as the cut on my heel scrapes against a rock. Ridiculous shoes, yet one step better than crossing this terrain barefoot.

As we descend, the boulders cropping up are larger yet less frequent. We’ve been slowly working our way down the mountain, and judging by the sunrise on the horizon, we’ve been at it for five hours.

Five hours wasted.Dios, I could have been on my way already if not for her.

She grunts behind me. I don’t stop to help. Better that I keep us moving, lead us out of this shit hole and back into safer territory.

The past five hours I’ve been contemplating my next step—no pun intended. The instant those sirens began blaring like some fire truck parade, my cover was blown. Even on the off chance no one witnessed me crawling across that field, my disappearance from Casa Bella is going to cast suspicion on me.

Sooner or later, someone will find the license I planted by the crates. Little-Man will be questioned. I could have continued my investigation. Easy-peasy.

There’s no going back now. My cover is ruined. And all I have to show for months . . . hell, almost a year . . . of effort is the grayish-colored rock safely stashed inside my bag.

And her.

I glance over my shoulder. Her head’s down so she doesn’t see me checking on her progress. Yeah, she should have been a redhead with all the angry fireworks going off around her.

Most now . . . directed at me.