Page 95 of Hit Man

His two rottweilers sit.

“Where you from?”

“Loreto.”

Someone whistles. Yeah, what can I say? Badass in my teens. Badass into adulthood. Working for the same Bastard, but now wearing suits instead of leather.

El Chulo nods. “The original wolves. You running with them?”

“Yes.”

Fear and loyalty might come and go like a gunshot. But respect is something that lasts a lifetime. But I don’t let it go to my head. I’m a man on a mission. “I’ve got personal business with this man.” Reaching into my pocket, I remove a blurry picture of Mendoza. It’s a grainy, unfocused picture. Hard to make out his face. I’m an explosives expert. Pretty good with women. A killer. If you want magazine-worthy photos, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Yet it doesn’t matter. The picture is just a pretense to get El Chulo to talk. I already know Los Lobos are working for Fahder. What I don’t know is if they’ve been recruited by his son.

“It’ll cost you triple this amount.”

“Deal. You recognize him.”

“Yes. He’s the same man that tight piece of ass came asking about.”

A tight piece of ass?

El Chulo’s men chuckle. One man grabs his dick and gyrates his hips.

“A female? Who?”

“That information will cost you another ten grand. But, compadre, it’ll be worth it. You’ll have a hard-on for a week after meeting her.”

Dios mío. I’ve already got stiff cock from a woman I’ll only see in my dreams. I grit my teeth. A woman? Asking about Mendoza? Who could she be? As far as I know, Hayden has one woman on his payroll . . . Kylie Smith. Yeah, she’d give you a hard-on for days. But I left her in Paris six months ago with another TORC hit man. Preoccupied and with her hands full, for sure.

Not Kylie. So who? “Ten grand, agreed.”

“She came to us asking for information about enriched uranium. Said she’d paymuchodinero if we found out where the man you’re asking about is shipping crates of it to.”

Holy motherfucker.

El Chulo leans back in his recliner, then taps the wad of hundreds on his thigh.

Jesus Christ. Like the warning Hayden gave to McDuff, someone else is working this assignment.

Months of undercover work. My spinning around like a hampster on a wheel, up and down, around and around. No closer to ending things than when I began this assignment.

“Patience,” Hayden is always reminding me.Dios, the time for being patient is when I’m six feet underground.

“You’ve been digging up information for this woman. Fifty grand, for everything you’ve found out.”

El Chulo’s eyes go wide.

His men fall silent.

Big news. Big problem. Big money. Hayden will have to get over it.

“Someone’s planning on building a nuclear weapon,” El Chulo comments. For a man namedpimp, he’s pretty goddamn astute.

“Looks that way.”

“Terrorists. No one is safe.” He shakes his head. The same man who issues death sentences like he’s blowing snot into a Kleenex.