5. Miguel
5
MIGUEL
I sabel Flores was the focus of my entire day.
And I couldn’t complain.
I still wanted a break after this. The urgency to get a job over with was still there. Done and dusted. Then I’d take off somewhere and figure out whether I wanted to keep at this nonstop pace of working one job to the next. If I disguised my break as a holiday effort, then whatever.
But my patience returned. I wasn’t in a rush.
Instead, as I followed the one and only lovely Isabel Flores around the tourist-clogged parts of Acapulco, I planned to take my time, to treat this as a leisure to follow her around.
Because the more I got to know about this mural painter who seemed more familiar with nonprofit agencies around the globe than she did fashion or anything that would mark her as a member of the elite upper crust of society, the more I wanted to know.
It started off as curiosity. Last night, I headed back to my room to have a drink and pore over her file that Drago sent me. This morning, it was as if all the exposure I’d given to myself had seeped into my brain and revved me to want to know everything about her.
When she stepped out of her hotel lobby wearing a short white dress, clunky pink necklace, and her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, I had my first real look at her.
It was a sucker punch to the gut. Never before had the sight of a woman affected me like that. Like I was ensnared. Like I was ruined if I couldn’t follow the temptation to watch her move.
The grayscale still shot from footage in New York City hadn’t done her justice. None whatsoever.
In the flesh, Isabel was a fucking goddess. Stunning, confident, and so damn gorgeous.
And the tattoos? The sleeves of ink? That hadn’t shown in her photo. It wasn’t in her bio, either, under the area where physical features were supposed to be listed.
They were either new or she often covered them up.
All I knew was that they made her hotter than hot. Too sexy to handle. Irresistible, as if her getting tattooed gave her an edge of rebelliousness.
The tats went a long way toward tossing out any expectations someone could’ve had about her appearances as the daughter of a wealthy businessman. But there was something more about her that set her apart from Louis Flores. She didn’t look like a spoiled, haughty daughter of the elite. She didn’t act like a bratty stuck-up who looked down her nose at everyone deemed too inferior for her socio-economic status.
She looked, on the outside, normal.
Like a woman simply out on vacation and intent on sightseeing. The fact that she was alone and remained alone was a bonus. If she was here with a lover or friend, I’d need to account for how I’d get her away from them. It wasn’t an issue. She was, fortunately for me, alone.
The theme of her outing of the day was clear. Art. All the art. I didn’t mind it, but I’d never spent an entire day only checking out the art scene of a new location. Granted, this was her specialty, her chosen field or industry. Mural painting was an odd one.
I couldn’t say I’d ever been asked to eliminate an artist, certainly not one who would apparently have no problem with heights or getting down to the dirty work of using spray paints.
Most of the targets I was ordered to kill were deviants. Murderers. Rapists. Rats who’d threatened the Cartel. Any enemy of the Cartel or another crime organization was likely to get a hit put on their back. Others, too. Politicians, up and coming influencers in the government. Even more petty individuals like bitter exes, lovers who’d rejected someone, and some cases of bitter jealousy within the Cartel.
Never an artist, though. Never a seemingly normal yet alluring woman who just wanted to walk around an art museum and consider all the pieces stored there.
She’d captured my attention, that was for sure. It didn’t distract me from remembering that I was supposed to kill her, but for the first time in my career, I wasn’t in a hurry to take her out.
I’d never failed to take out a target. No matter the details of the hit, I never, ever failed to claim another person’s addition to my kill list.
This is different, though.
While I didn’t have a habit of questioning any details of a hit being placed on someone, and I never involved myself in the motivation of why someone was supposed to die, with Isabel, I did struggle with reluctance that came from how the contract to kill her had come to me.
The contract was changed at the last minute. Per that call with Drago, the decision to have Isabel kidnapped seemed like a convenient alternative of a plan since Louis had gone into hiding. Then when he tacked on the plan to just have her killed instead of taken, that was even more rushed and last-minute. It was the timing of it all that had me second-guessing what was going on here.
It’s none of my business.
Questioning a hit would be the end of my reputation if I wanted to continue to get work. I was expected to deliver on the promise of death, and in other circumstances, that was what I’d do. And it shouldn’t have been any different for this contract to kill Isabel. It was just business, as far as I was supposed to know. Like usual. Her death would be business and nothing more.
I exhaled a long breath at that thought as I followed her walking back toward her hotel after lunch.
Nothing about this is usual . For starters, I’d never let myself be attracted to a target.
Weaving around people and maintaining a steady distance to her, I stalked her back to where she was staying. It wasn’t enough to see her enter the lobby. I walked in another side door, making sure to follow the elevator number lighting up.
Ninth floor. Got it.
I turned toward the stairwell and sprinted all the way to her floor, racing the elevator. Catching my breath, I stepped out into the hallway and waited near her room.
The elevator’s ping sounded, and with a gentle whir, the doors opened.
Waiting with my back against the wall, out of sight around the corner of the intersecting hallways, I watched her walk her fine ass down the other way.
One. Two. Three… Four. I counted off the doors to see which one she chose. Five. Oh, fuck me.
She neared the sixth door, tugging the tie out of her hair as she walked. Lifting her arms made her entire stride somehow sexier, like a woman on the runway, swaying her hips. Lifting her hair, then letting those long, glossy locks cascade down against her bare upper back not covered with the style of her white halter-top cut of her dress.
Fuck… me.
I was addicted, stalking but with interest for something more than killing her.
I could see her now, how she’d turn and shoot me a slight glare, displeased that I dared to trespass on her space and trample over her idea of privacy.
Those plump lips could curl in a smirk as though she’d issue a challenge to back off.
But I wouldn’t. In my mind’s eye, I saw her scowling as I ran after her, catching her around the waist.
Her door opened and shut, and she was out of my sight, but still, I lingered and stared at where she’d disappeared. Carried away with the allure of this fantasy of how else I could stalk her, with a different ending in mind, I zoned out and entertained the daydream of her telling me off. Maybe she’d try to slap me.
My dick hardened beneath my pants at the vision of getting her mad and riled up.
Then she could buck against me as I held her hands above her hand and pinned her to the wall.
She’d protest, maybe, and I could silence her with a hard kiss until she melted. She could resist, turning her head away, but she wouldn’t be able to stay strong against the torture of my hand pushing her dress up, reaching between her legs and seeing just how wet she was for me.
Her legs would part for me, and I’d have access to slide my fingers?—
A housekeeper pushed a cart too quickly around a corner, smacking the cushioned corner of the wheeled unit against the wall.
She bared her teeth in a sheepish expression as I whipped my head around to see what was happening.
“Whoops,” she whispered as the items on the cart shook and rattled from the hit against the wall.
I sighed, knowing it had to be for the best that I was interrupted.
Fantasizing about the woman who had an ill-timed hit placed on her?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I shook my head as I left the hall. I couldn’t stand out there. I couldn’t linger with that housekeeper nearby.
Getting onto the elevator, I adjusted my growing erection in my boxers until it wasn’t as uncomfortable.
I hung out near her hotel for a little while longer, unsure how I wanted to approach this. I had the means to stalk her phone, too, but I would need to get closer to the device first to be able to set that in motion. Counting on the small camera I’d pressed on the wall near the elevator exit on her floor, I headed back to my hotel and took a cold shower where I ordered myself to stop obsessing about the sexy raven-haired artist.
The tiny camera I’d stuck on the wall would tell me when she left the building, assuming she wouldn’t opt for the stairs, but even then, I’d see her passing.
She wouldn’t stay in all night. I knew that without any evidence. She was here on vacation. She’d go out, if not for dinner, then to explore the nightlife. Something. Hell, maybe she’d find a late-night art gallery opening or something.
Night fell, and I hung out near her hotel again to see where I’d be following her next.
Like I expected, she showed up. It was a little later than I would’ve guessed, but she was heading out, dressed to party.
God damn, sweetheart…
In a coral-hued dress, even shorter than the one she’d had on for her art trip, she strode from her hotel toward the nearest club.
Hmmm.
I paid my cover and entered after her.
Going out to pick up someone for the night?
I wouldn’t be cool with that. Not because I was jealous of another man with her. Of course not. But, uh, because that would be a witness to my killing her.
She walked ahead of me, dodging a twisted way inside the loud club. Bass notes boomed until the ground shook. Lights flashed in a strobe effect, casting too-quick shadows over her and making me pick up my pace to make sure I didn’t lose her.
The music sped up.
Dancing guests moved in a mob, a sea of lifted arms and swaying bodies grinding together.
She was ahead… somewhere.
I think.
A flash of orange light lowered, buzzing before it lifted once more.
There.
I spotted her black hair, the waves hanging loose and tumbling over her bare shoulder.
Right?
I eased around someone, damning this fucking crowd.
I couldn’t be sure where she was. I was losing her.
Another burst of light shone down. Back and forth, the line of green sparked out over the collective mass of drinking and dancing people here to have a good time, all of them seemingly here to prevent me from reaching her.
She glanced back, her brown eyes narrowed as they locked on me.
Looking over her shoulder, she checked to see where I was. I felt the full hit of her stare on me. Only me. It wasn’t a random look around. She’d turned partly to mark where I was.
She knew I was here.
My heart beat faster, tripped up with the vibrations of the music thudding so heavily, the tight confinement of so many people crushed together in one room shrouded in darkness with unreliable lights.
Magnetic forces tied between us. An invisible tug tightened, urging me to get to her. And it wasn’t one-sided.
She’d spotted me. She was on to me. Yet, she didn’t run.
With a turn behind a taller man dancing, she vanished.
Fuck!
I was slipping. I was getting too distracted, so turned on and fantasizing about her, for fuck’s sake, that she knew I had been tailing her.
I pushed a woman grinding against me aside, needing a clear path ahead. Dancers swarmed too close, crowding me back from where Isabel had headed.
Her coral dress was lit up further into the throngs of people in front of me.
There!
Annoyed that I’d been sloppy in stalking her, I ignored my regret that she’d gotten to me and weakened my focus.
I plowed past people, chasing after the woman I couldn’t—under any circumstances and for more than one reason—lose.