Last Breath (Hitman #2)(16)
Author: Jessica Clare

“Why can’t I have that gun?” she asks. “It looks like it would be easier to shoot.”

“Nope,” I shake my head. “This baby only has a .22 and your big girl gun is a .45. You can shoot a lot bigger holes with a .45.”

Shrugging on a loose-fitting linen top over my beater tank to cover the two knives I have strapped to my sides, I turn to face Regan. She’s pointing the goddamn gun at me. “You aiming to shoot me, sugar?”

“What?” She looks confused and a little distressed.

“Then don’t point the gun at me.” I point to the ceiling. “You only point the gun at a target, so ceiling or floor unless I’ve done something to piss you off so much that nothing short of a bullet is going to clear the air.”

She flushes but lowers the gun.

“Good girl.” I pull open the door. “What’s our code?”

“Your name is safety. ‘Honey, I’m home’ is danger.”

“Good girl.” I repeat and close the door behind me. The door’s thin and I can hear a muffled sob and then a deep breath. Then…nothing. Good girl, indeed.

I run downstairs, not wanting to be gone too long. The drumbeat in my blood says that Regan needs me back soon, soon, soon.

Once on the street, I head for Copacabana Palace Hotel. While there are dozens of small stalls along the beach, I figure it will be easier to get everything I need from one place. But first . . . I duck down the first alley I come to and then wait three heartbeats. When my tail, a dark-haired male in his late twenties with pock marks and loud boots, pauses at the mouth of the alley, I reach out and grab his windpipe. His hands come up to claw at my fingers, but my grip doesn’t abate. With a fierce jerk, I pull him into the narrow passage between the two cement structures. It’s easy to swing his head back against the wall, and though he might outweigh me by a good twenty pounds, I’m far stronger than him and at least four inches taller. My forearm keeps him from breathing for thirty seconds. When he’s turning blue and his breath is noisy and labored, I ease off slightly.

“Why does Gomes want her back so bad?”

He spits in my direction. Gross. This is why I hate close up contact. All the fucking fluids like blood, piss, spit, and vomit can spray over you like spray from a shaken soda can. Maybe he doesn’t speak English. I ask him, “Falas Inglês?"

He presses his lips together in a universal non-verbal refusal to answer, so I reapply my forearm to prevent a bunch of spit in my face again. “I don’t care if you speak English or not because if you don’t give me a good answer, you’re going to die here.”

“ Engasga na minha porra!” he gasps out, telling me that I should choke on his cum.

“No, thank you. I prefer eating pussy to drinking some stranger’s cum.”

“That puta does not belong to you,” he finally says, showing that he does speak English just fine.

“Who does she belong to?”

Gomes’ man struggles ineffectually against me. I lift him higher until he can barely reach the ground. The muscles in my right arm are shaking and I know I’ll have to put an end to this soon.

"Não é da sua conta."

None of my business? Is he fucking kidding me? “Since you’re following me and trying to kill me, it kind of is my business.”

He tries to swing his head forward to head butt me, but the forearm against his windpipe prevents such movement. An evil grin spreads across his face, and I know what he’s going to say even before it comes out of his mouth. “That whore loved every minute of my cock inside her.”

My left fist smashes his mouth in and I feel the gratifying crush of jawbone under my hand. Blood sprays out of his mouth onto my shirt. It’s linen. Blood is fucking hard to get out of linen. There’s no Tide Stain Stick for Assassins at the supermarket. Playtime is over.

With a swift upward jerk of my knee, I introduce his balls and cock to his kidney. “Guess you won’t be using that anymore.” I release him to fall to the ground at my feet, moaning out of his broken mouth. Deciding the world can do without one more rapist, I twist his head to break his neck with one swift motion.

My shirt is covered with his blood and spit. Crap. Can’t go into the hotel like this. At one of the street vendors, I buy the first shirt I can find. It’s bright blue and can be seen for five miles in the dark, but it’s better than the fluid-splattered cotton I’ve left in the alley shrouding the dead man.

The whole thing has only taken about five minutes, and I’m at the hotel in no time.

My visit to the hotel shop takes longer than I’d hoped. They want me to make decisions about color and fabric. Patterns or solids. I don’t care and I’d venture to guess that Regan doesn’t either. After about fifteen minutes of nonsense, I buy everything they recommend. I pay for the load of clothes and shoes and underwear and other female stuff in cash and no one blinks. It could be because I’m a stupid North American tourist or it could be that crime is so common that no one cares if my money is clean or dirty so long as it is negotiable currency.

I take my three shopping bags and hurry back to Regan. My watch says I’ve been gone an hour. It feels like two days. As I approach the door I hear the chamber on the Ruger being pulled back. “Daniel here,” I say while knocking and then move to the side in case she shoots through the door.

Inside there are some muffled sounds and then a curse. Finally she says with resignation, “Come in. I’ve got the gun pointed at the ceiling because I don’t know how to do the fancy thing with the bullets.”

Disengaging the lock, I go in low in case there is anyone else with Regan, but it’s only her. She has a funny look on her face, but it’s indecipherable to me.

“Something happen to your shirt?” She gestures toward my shirt. Not wanting to tell her that Gomes has sent yet another man after us, I shrug. “I like blue, what can I say?” Holding up the three bags, I ask, “Trade?”

She sets the gun down on the floor in front of the sofa, barrel pointing toward the wall. Smart girl. She picks up stuff fast. I like that I don’t have to repeat anything with her. She knows and goes.

“What’s all that?” Her head jerks toward the bags.

Setting them down on the table where I cleaned my guns, I pick up the abandoned Ruger off the floor. “Stuff for you. Clothes, shoes, shit,” I reply absently as I shake out the bullet and then eject the magazine. Once everything is back together, I go into the bedroom and pull on a nylon holster vest and stick my two Rugers inside the breast pockets.