23. Miguel
23
MIGUEL
I exhaled another hard breath, feeling like I’d run a marathon again. I wasn’t old. I was fit. But with all the sprinting I had been doing, and the fighting, and missing solid hours of sleep, I was worn ragged.
It was all worth it to fuck my sweetheart, though, because as Isabel slumped over the chair, turning her head to rest her cheek on the cushion, her smile made my day. It made my year.
Seeing her sated and content, even peaceful after I’d fucked her hard, proved that this was right . So many things still seemed wrong, all these details that didn’t line up and make sense, but between us, we’d made a match.
“Thank you,” I said as I helped her up.
I slid out of her slick heat, watching my cum dribble out of her and drip down her leg.
Sleepily, she sighed and let me turn her to face me.
“For what?” she asked, a hint of humor in her tone. “I should be thanking you for making me come like—Ah!” Squealing as I lifted her into my arms, she smiled and draped her arms around my neck.
I carried her right back to the room she’d darted out of, planning on cleaning up together. It seemed that her need to storm off and think, to have space, was over.
“Thank you for being upfront,” I replied as I set her in the shower stall that was still wet from when she was in it. “For being honest.”
She nodded, yawning as I turned the water on then entered the stall with her. “I prefer honesty,” she explained simply.
“Not many do.” I stood under the water to rinse off, careful not to let the full brunt of the spray hit my stitches on my arm. The ache worsened, and I looked forward to falling into bed and sleeping more than a couple of hours.
“I feel terrible that I could’ve been the reason for that Cartel man to come in that room and hurt you.”
Keeping my back to her as I let the water rain down on me, I smiled wide. I was charmed by her caring about me like this. This wasn’t flattery or stupid claims. She was genuine when worrying about me. It’d been so long since anyone had been concerned about me that I let it warm me from the inside out. Like a balm. A gift.
“It’s not your fault.” Though that call probably was the link the Cartel used to find us. Any calls made to a number registered to Louis Flores would be watched and tracked. But she didn’t know that then. She was in the dark, and that was the first thing I’d rectify.
I meant it when I said I’d protect her, but she would be able to be even safer if she knew what she was facing and up against too.
“It’s Louis’s fault that any of this is happening.”
“But why me?” She shook her head and yawned again.
Seeing her so sleepy prompted me to clean us up faster than talking. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
After we showered and dried off, I tugged one of my t-shirts over her for pajamas, since she hadn’t brought any, and I pulled on a pair of boxers.
Climbing into bed with her felt like heaven. The second I reclined and rested my head on the pillow, I sighed and welcomed her closer to snuggle against me. Feeling every inch of her warm, soft body was an addictive lure to shut my eyes and sleep.
“How?” she asked belatedly as she cozied up to my side.
With her leg over mine, her hand on my chest, and her head tucked close to mine, we lay with me on my back and her hugging me. Slowly and steadily, I stroked her arm. Lazily following the lines of ink on her skin, I caressed her and let her comforting presence soothe me.
“How do you intend to find out anything?” she asked. “You’re a hitman, not a spy.”
“For now.”
She peered up at me. “For now?”
I nodded. “Louis was supposed to be my last hit before taking a break. I’ve been at this job a long time, and I’ve been wondering about trying something else with my life. But then he went into hiding, and I wasn’t able to finish that one last job. The hit was changed to you, and obviously, things aren’t falling into place like they should have.”
Like before, she didn’t react with shock or surprise. While she didn’t seem too strong and experienced with witnessing death and violence up close, she was aware of such roles and actions out there. Hitmen and contracts to kill weren’t going to shock her.
With a father like Louis Flores, she had likely always been aware of the dangerous side of life, even if it had never touched her personally.
“How does that work? A… hit like that?”
“My contact called me when I was waiting for Louis to show up. When it looked like he wasn’t going to show, Drago—my contact’s alias—called me and said he’d been tipped off and had gone into hiding. I figured that I would be off the case. That this was it.”
Keeping her hand in place, she rubbed her fingertip up and down my chest lightly. “And then you’d be off vacationing or something?”
“Or something.” She was throwing my life out of whack in a good way, so much so that I saw myself just being with her, protecting her forever.
“But Drago told you to kill me?”
I nodded, fighting a yawn. “First, he asked me to kidnap you, and I protested.”
She shifted to gaze up at me directly. “Why?”
“That’s not my style. That’s not what I do. Kidnapping is messy. It’s more complicated. I am and always have been a contracted killer. Nothing else.” Smiling at her, I laid my heart on the line as much as I could at the moment. “But then I saw you, and I didn’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”
She leaned in to press her lips to mine. Tenderly. Slowly.
Cupping her check, I stared into her eyes and marveled at how I could’ve found her, found a better purpose in my life. How we could’ve hit it off and gotten so close so quickly.
Before things could get heated again, she pulled back so she could stare into my eyes. Her brow furrowed again, and I knew she was still awake enough to remain serious, not sleepy and relaxed.
“But what about these other men trying to kill me?”
“Like the man in the hotel room?
She nodded. “And the sniper. And, if you’re correct, that man who said he’d rape me in the alley.”
“I don’t know.” I hugged her closer and sighed, savoring every note and hit of her jasmine scent. “But if I had to make a guess, the hit placed on you could’ve been shared with other contractors.”
“More people might be hunting me down?” She blinked her eyes open wide.
“I will protect you, sweetheart.”
She grinned. “I like that.”
“My protection?”
After another drugging kiss, she nodded. “That too. I meant that little name you’ve used a few times now.”
“You are my sweetheart.” I sealed it with a kiss.
“Last week, I was a target for you to kill,” she mused. “And before that, we were strangers.”
I shrugged. “Now, we’re…”
“We’re what?”
“Partners,” I said quickly. That seemed like the easiest label.
“I like that, too. Partners.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if others are trying to get paid for the hit placed on you, but they won’t succeed.”
“It won’t work. It doesn’t matter who tries to get me or kill me. Louis will not care. He’s made it clear that he only cares about himself.”
“Whoever placed the hit seems to think that he would care. That it would lure him out of hiding.”
She rolled her eyes. “What is he even hiding for? Who’d he piss off to have a hit placed on him ?”
“I don’t know. But we’ll look into it.”
“And this femme fatale thing… I can’t see him having anyone to work with him. He’s a pariah. He’s such a cruel loner that he would never accept a woman as his partner.”
“What about your mother?”
“She was given to him. She never chose him in marriage. It was arranged, probably as a bribe. And for as long as I can think back and remember, he was never faithful to her.”
“And she knew?”
She nodded, frowning. “Yes. When I was young, she’d always act worried, asking, ‘what about the other girl?’ I think she was concerned that he would hurt his lovers somehow. But she was always dismissed. Between her drug addiction and the psychiatric help she needed but often ignored by taking more drugs, she sounded loopy and crazy.”
“Then when that man said that about Louis’s woman, he couldn’t have meant her.”
Sad again, she nestled up against me, burrowing her face on my chest. “No. Definitely not her. She’s in rehab and powerless. The staff called me recently to warn me that she might not have much time left.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, kissing her forehead. I didn’t know Esmeralda. I didn’t care to meet her. But I did hate that Isabel could feel down at all, for any reason. She was quickly becoming my priority, and I wouldn’t apologize for that.
“Thank you. But my mother is not an answer to any of this.”
I didn’t think so either. “The only answer we’ll get is from Louis. And to figure out where he’s hiding so I can deliver him instead of you as a finished kill, we need to backtrack to whatever he could’ve done to have such a big and hurried hit on him.
“Okay.” She yawned, slow to open her eyes as wide as they had been open.
“Tomorrow, we’ll head out first thing. I’ve got a confidant in the Carmello Cartel. We’ll go there and start asking some of the tough questions.”
She nodded, closing her eyes again and snuggling toward me.
I watched her fall asleep, feeling like a king, like a god, hell, even like a mighty, invincible hero.
In my arms, she could trust that she was safe and wanted.
And I would never slack in that mission.
As I closed my eyes and held her, the sweet promise of a deep sleep approached.
Isabel was my mission now. She could be this bright and different future instead of any more hit jobs that could be dangled my way.