Page 18 of Mine to Keep (Bloody Desires #10)
eleven
the others
Martha’s high heels clicked on the floor of the lobby as she and Skylar walked to the check-in desk of the hotel The Void booked for them. It wasn’t the best hotel, but she’d slept in worse.
She looked around, a frown marring her face. She really didn’t want to be here. Yeah, she agreed to do the job with her husband, but something about this job didn’t seem like it’s on the up and up.
They’d retired assets for The Void before, but none with a track record like Viper’s. No one as adept at eliminating targets or who had as much training.
She hated to think it, but this felt like a suicide mission.
But no matter how much she told Skylar they needed to drop it, he’d found a way to convince her that it would all go off without a hitch.
Sometimes with sex, sometimes with showing her their bank balance for this job, half of the contract already transferred to them.
It was enough to build their vacation house and go to Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica without breaking the bank.
She could go shopping while they were here as well. As they were passing some stores, she’d seen a few outfits that she could wear while on one of those vacations.
After they’d checked in, they headed to their room. Twenty minutes later, a knock sounded at the door and when Martha opened it, she saw a briefcase waiting there.
She grabbed it and brought it inside and plopped it on the bed.
“They should have my knives,” she murmured after popping the top and only seeing the gun with the silencer, Skylar’s favorite. Usually, he liked long-range weapons, but this hit was short notice, and The Void probably couldn’t get something that large without a bit of a heads-up.
Skylar reached around her, pulling back the insulation of the briefcase and showed her the collection of sharp knives.
“They got you, baby.” He kissed her neck then pulled the gun and clips from the eggcrate foam.
“We already read the intel from The Void. You wanna go ahead and get this done now, and shop later?”
Martha smiled at him, excitement dancing in her belly. That’s exactly what she wanted to do.
On the flight over, both Martha and Skylar had looked over the notes from The Void.
Not only the information about Viper they’d been pouring over since they‘d decided to take the job, but also the hotel that he was staying in. According to the intel, he had the room for a few more days, until his flight back to California. They could wait until tomorrow to kill him, but if they could shop instead of plot a kill, she’d rather do that.
“You know me so well,” Martha told her husband, kissing him long and deep. When they finished this job, she planned to ride him like a fucking bronco. She was always horny after a kill.
Before they go, Skylar took a holster from his bag and pulled the machete from the case and strapped it on. They’d need it to cut off Viper’s head before they sent the confirmation of the kill.
She and Skylar checked Viper’s hotel floor plan once more, then headed out. The hotel Viper was staying in was only a five-minute walk from theirs. Not the smartest move by The Void, but they planned to check-out the next day and be long gone before anyone discovered the scene of the hit.
No one spared a glance at them when they entered Viper’s hotel or when they headed straight to the elevator. They got off on the third floor, then took the stairs up to the fourth floor, then down the hall to Viper’s room.
The Void provided them a master key that unlocked any door in the hotel.
Skylar stood on one side of the door, while Martha stood at the other.
She took one of her knives out, and held it by her side, out of view of the camera at the end of the hall.
Skylar did the same with his gun, flicking the safety off.
Meeting her eyes, Skylar held up three fingers, then counted down in a soft whisper. When he got to ‘one’, he waved the keycard over the lock and pushed the door open.
Quick as a flash, Martha darted inside the dark space, heading to the bedroom. She saw the lump of a body under the blanket and threw a knife in the direction of the torso.
A scream tore from the man’s throat and he sat up, reaching for the knife embedded in his flesh. But before his scream could reach a fever pitch, Skylar came around the corner and pumped three slugs into the man’s forehead. Blood and brain matter sprayed on the wall and pillow as he fell back.
Martha hurried over to the bedside table, clicking the light on so they could get confirmation that the kill was done so she could go shopping.
But when she looked down at the body, she saw a muscular white man with wide open blue eyes, not a leanly-muscled Black guy with light brown eyes.
Did they come to the wrong room? No, they were at room 4845, the room the intel said Viper was in.
So who is this guy? His friend? A lover? Some unlucky bastard in the wrong place at the wrong time? She pulled the knife from the man’s belly and wiped it on the sheets, looking into his unseeing eyes.
Skylar walked over to her and cursed “Who the fuck is that?”
“No clue. He wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“No shit, Martha.”
“Hey,” she said, pointing at him with the knife she yanked from the man’s abdomen. “Don’t give me shit. I thought this hit was supposed to be clean.”
Skylar blew out a long breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We gotta get out of here. We’ll call The Director when we get back to the room, and figure out our next move. The intel he gave us was current as of this morning, West Coast time. What the fuck changed in a few hours?”
It was on the tip of Martha’s tongue to tell him shit could change at the drop of a hat, but she wasn’t in the mood to spar words with Skylar.
Especially now that it looked like they wouldn’t be going shopping.
Skylar gathered her in his arms, kissing her cheek. “It’s all good, baby. Let’s do something fun today. How does that sound?”
She huffed, but said “I better get at least three pairs of shoes out of this.”
“Five. And I’ll carry the bags.”