Page 71 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Mac

“It was so nice seeing you again, Eleanor. You too, Jake. Enjoy your night.”

I grab the edge of Eleanor’s chair, dragging her to my side so she won’t see my eyes narrow at her hero, Red Elephant’s head chef.

The fucker keeps “forgetting” my name, and it’s starting to feel real intentional.

His face is blank, expressionless, but his unwavering stare feels challenging, and it’s all I can do not to bare my teeth at him.

He’s the luckiest fucker alive that Eleanor loves his food so damn much. It’s, like, the one thing I can’t do for her.

“Jesus, Mac, you going to pee on me next time?” she huffs, but I can hear the rawness underneath the exasperation. I know my girl likes it when I go all caveman on her.

“Maybe,” I grumble.

“He’s not interested like that. We talk food. There’s nothing remotely sexual about our conversations.”

I level her with my most unimpressed look. “Okay, first of all, he is interested. Second, you talk about food the way some people talk about sex,” I point out. “Don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise, darlin’.”

She shifts on her seat, rolling her eyes. “Fine, but it’s not like whatever is going on is my fault, right? I’m not flirting, I’m… sharing a passion with someone. I’m trying to learn how to improve from someone better than me. ”

I can’t hide the grin. “ Better is debatable. And you know it’s not you I’m worried about, baby,” I add, catching her hand and placing a small kiss on the tip of each of her fingers. When she responds with a sultry smile, my cock swells under the table.

I pay special attention to her left ring finger. I make her replace that ugly silicone placeholder with the big-ass diamonds every time she leaves the house. She tried to get me to swap it for something smaller, but I know she secretly loves how huge it is when it catches the light.

“Because I’m your good girl?” she whispers, eyes entranced by what I’m doing.

I take her thumb between my teeth and grin at her sharp inhale. “Damn right.”

“Well, isn’t this romantic? I’m almost sorry to interrupt,” announces a deep voice.

We both look up as the chair on the other side of the table is pulled out, and a tall, thick, Hispanic man folds himself into it. He takes up every inch of space, dominating it and showing his utter lack of concern for the danger he’s in. Eleanor squeaks, recognizing him immediately.

Felix.

My heart leaps into my throat as he reaches for the empty bread basket. Seeing nothing but crumbs, he frowns and sits back, like he doesn’t have a care in the world save an empty stomach.

I recover, but it’s damn slow. How is he here?

How did he know where I was? Fuck… Eleanor…

I can see the piece in its holster under his jacket, though he hasn’t drawn it.

This restaurant is quiet, winding down for the night.

There aren’t enough witnesses for him to concern himself, and he’s a professional cleaner.

This is bad.

“Darlin’, why don’t you go to the—” I begin.

“Eleanor, stay right where you are,” Felix counters, leveling those dark eyes on my girl.

When she makes a fearful noise, I bare my teeth at him, feeling a primal kind of anger that only seems to rise up in her defense.

“I’ll fucking kill you with my bare hands if you look at her again. You don’t look at her,” I snarl. “This is between you and me.”

Eleanor’s hands are shaking as she lowers them into her lap.

I leave mine on the table where he can see them, to put him at ease, just in case he’s feeling brave or stupid.

I can see it out of the corner of my eye when Eleanor presses the panic button built into the underside of the watch she wears whenever she leaves the house.

Wes’s design. It sends an SOS and a GPS coordinate to the group chat when pressed for five seconds.

Wes or Dimitri will respond, and when they get no answer, they’ll rally their asses on over.

Good girl.

“Hey, hey,” Felix says, lifting empty palms in mock surrender. “It doesn’t have to be like that, Mac. We’re old buddies. I come in… well, not peace, but I come to settle our debt. Eleanor here can just be our witness, eh, mama ?” he winks and flashes her a smile.

“Hey,” I growl.

He grins wider.

“You left Nicole to die,” Eleanor hisses, sounding more ferocious than I’d expect, considering her hummingbird heartbeat.

“I gave her her best chance. And look, I know shoulda-woulda-coulda means jack shit, but for what it’s worth, I was gonna go back for her.

But when we got down there, Dimitri was already there, looking ready to rip my dick off, and I realized I didn’t have to go back.

My best move was to split,” he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, “with my dick intact.”

“The fuck do you want, Felix? Because from where I stand, not killing you after you kidnapped one of us settles our debt just fine.” He doesn’t need to know that killing him is very much the plan.

“I didn’t kidnap her. I didn’t know who she was, okay? And everything’s fine now, right? No harm, no foul.”

“Fuck. That.”

He hums, sucking on his teeth and regarding me with a quiet that’s unsettling in its calm. “I thought you might say that. So, I came prepared.” He reaches into his lapel, and both of us tense, but he just tosses a piece of paper onto the table.

I reach for it, scanning, frowning at the printed email. “What am I looking at?”

“How well do you know this cabrón ? The General? Your patron, or… handler. That’s what you lot call it, right?”

Blood freezes in my veins. Felix knows about the General?

I have no way to verify, but the email feels eerily similar to the ones we receive with information about our hits. I scan the text, pulse picking up when I see the time, date, and place of the Volkevich wedding, and the words USB drive . And a ridiculous sum of money.

My boss hired Felix to steal Volkevich’s USB? And us, to kill Volkevich at the same time? And he never bothered to mention anything about how the job would likely cause us to cross paths with a dangerous man that I’m pretty sure he knows I have a history with?

What the fuck.

He watches realization slowly dawn, and a smile spreads across his face. This time, there’s no mirth, only knowing eagerness and a twisted kind of pride, like he figured it all out.

“Yeah, he never told you that, huh?” he shakes his head, like I’ve just confirmed his suspicions.

“The second I realized who that lady was and what she meant to your Russian, I knew you guys were involved and that some real shady shit was going down. Whatever game this General is playing, we’re just pawns. ”

There’s no proof, but his words arouse a series of long-standing, unanswered questions.

It’s hard to trust a man you’ve never seen, and the General is an enigma.

By design. Obviously, he’s got an agenda, but I haven’t given it that much thought beyond how it aligns with our own fucked-up moral compass.

“So?” I challenge.

“So… you owe me one in exchange for that intel you bought from me months ago—a cleaning job, wasn’t it? Right here in this fine, fuckin’ fancy-ass establishment, if memory serves,” he says, making it clear his memory serves him just fine.

I swallow, and the word carries a bit less weight this time as the blood starts draining from my face. “So?”

“So, I’m not a fucking pawn. Are you? I’m calling in my favor—we’re gonna find the General and kill him.”