Chapter 6 Talbot
TALBOT
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!”
“Ahhh!” Elsa screams as I storm into the tiny office in the back of the warehouse. “Hudson, help!” She starts sprinting. “Help, the crazed assassin is after me!”
“You set me up. You set me up with this shit show, and now we’re all fucked!” I take off after her, knocking into the table.
Lawrence curses when I jostle the drone he’s working on.
“She didn’t even want an assassin. She hired me to be her fake boyfriend,” I holler.
“I didn’t set up anyone. She knew the passwords!” Elsa shrieks.
Hudson’s standing up and scowling at us, looking over his computer at the chaos.
“Fire her.” I lunge, grabbing my little sister around the waist while she screams dramatically. “Hudson, she can’t work here anymore. She sucks. She’s a terrible operative.”
Elsa kicks at me as I pick her up and half drag her back to the couch.
I grunt as one of her boots connects to my hip, and I throw her down.
“Why did you let Misty think that this is an escort service?”
“I’m sorry, escort? Like male-stripper escort, not like security escort?” Elsa claps her hands over her mouth to try to keep from laughing.
“Stop laughing,” I snarl. “She thought I was a prostitute.”
“What?” Jake wrinkles his nose. “Who hires a prostitute for the price of a four bedroom in Manhattan?”
“Especially one that looks like him.” Anderson snickers.
“I’ll have you know I had a lot of women who wanted to sleep with me at the party,” I shoot back at him.
“Did you even shower before you went over there?” Lawrence makes a face.
“I bet she calls you,” I say, disgusted, “and complains.”
“We already changed the phone number.” Elsa blows me a kiss.
“I hope you told her no refunds, though,” Hudson adds, frowning. He’s not happy with the turn of events. “It’s already your fault we didn’t get paid on that McCarthy job, Talbot.”
“The fuck it is!” I protest.
“We can’t be giving refunds to people.” Hudson glowers
“Aw, maybe she should get a refund. It is Christmas.” I drape my arm over his shoulders.
“Especially since she didn’t even get to see your dick.” Lawrence’s mouth quirks.
“Or did she?”
Jake and Anderson collapse in laughter.
“No refunds.” Hudson’s surly.
“Don’t we want to make an exception in this instance?” Lawrence asks. “I mean, it sounds like Elsa made a mistake...”
“She knew the passwords!” Elsa screeches.
“This is why you can’t make nepo hires, Hudson.” I cross my arms.
“I am the one who found the evidence to close out that Malkin contract,” Elsa says. “You’d all be dead at the bottom of the river if it weren’t for me.”
I head to the closet to pull out my snowboarding gear.
My oldest brother’s staring at me.
“What? I’m on break. I fulfilled the job. We got paid. Misty decided she didn’t want my expert services. Merry Christmas to us, I guess.” I lug my bag out. “I’m going to hit the slopes. My plane leaves in three hours.” I toss a ball of paper at Anderson. “Give me a ride to the airport.”
“You,” Hudson points at me, “need to go kill Austen.”
“I can’t just waltz in and pop a cap in his ass,” I argue. “She knows my whole plan. If I kill Austen, Misty will just freak out and probably confess to the police.”
“No one in their right mind is going to confess to hiring a hitman,” Jake scoffs.
“You don’t know this girl.” I run a hand through the short hairs on the back of my neck. “She’s… weak, soft, defenseless. She’s a mess. A doormat. People just walk all over her. She wouldn’t last five minutes in an interrogation room. She’ll put us all in danger.”
“This is a knife at our throat.” Hudson slams his hand on the table. “Fuck, this whole thing could be an elaborate ruse by one of our enemies to try to take us down.”
“Shit,” Anderson drawls. “It could be Fitz after us because you won’t finish his job.”
“You haven’t called him back yet?” Hudson scowls at me.
“You can tell Fitz to shove it when he calls here again. I don’t care if his last name is Svensson. I’ll deal with him in January. Maybe.”
I shoulder my bag.
“Put that down,” Hudson says. “You need to make sure she feels like she made the decision to kill Austen. Get her to say yes to the hit. By any means necessary.”
“She’s obviously sex starved if she’s paying you, of all people.” Jake snorts.
Elsa jumps on me. “You’re getting a pedicure first before you jump into Misty’s bed.”
I throw her off. “We are all way too close.”
My eldest brother says, “You need to finish the job.”
I look helplessly at my snowboarding equipment. “But it’s Christmas, Hudson.”
Several of my brothers start singing that annoying song from Alvin and the Chipmunks—loudly and off-key.
“I have jobs lined up all winter, and this is the only time I have to snowboard.” I toss my gear on the concrete floor.
“Then you better make sure Austen Langley’s obituary is in the paper sooner rather than later,” Hudson warns. “You’re not risking my company’s reputation because you want to snowboard and eat melted cheese in a hot tub.”