Never Love a Hitman (The Carlotta Family Book 1)

by Eden Rose

He’s turning blue in the face.

  I knew one thing for sure and that would I need to find Vincent. Once I find him, maybe I could get some answers on what happened to my wife.

  However, while I made a deal with these two jokers, I couldn’t help but think about Calista. For the past few years, I’ve felt guilty over what happened to Amanda and it took me until last year to even think about being with someone else. Only four days with Calista and I’m ready for a lifetime with her.

  That lifetime is going to have to wait.

  Calista

  I think the hardest part about a vacation is coming back from it, I think to myself as I stir creamer into my third cup of coffee.

  The first day back to work is dragging on and on. No matter how much coffee I have had to drink, I can’t get back into the swing of things. The worst part is, I have a whole twelve more hours left in my shift at the ER ward.

  My body is still humming from the sensual way Victor made love to me the last time we were together. How he kissed me and made me feel special.

  Then I remember that he left me and didn’t even say goodbye. Didn’t even have the balls to face me before leaving. This asshole!

  When I left paradise, I left it feeling slighted. Upset at the fact I threw myself at a hot, rich man who wined and dined me but dropped me like a five dollar whore. Obviously, I was just kidding myself. The real me is nothing like I was on vacation.

  And yet, I feel like a jilted lover.

  “Dr. Inzo!”

  The smile is on my face before I even turn to see my friend coming at me with a big smile on her face. I missed Sheila more than I would ever admit to her. She’s the biggest gossiper in this hospital. I swear, she probably told half the hospital that I didn’t get married before I left the state for my would be honeymoon.

  Sheila is an extremely curvy woman with so much attitude that you would want to hate her but she’s sweet at the same time. She’s been assigned to me since I bid on this shift at the hospital a year ago and we’ve became friends over time.

  Her waist long blonde hair is flying behind her like a curtain. “I’m so excited you’re back!” She squeals acting as if I’ve been gone a year.

  “You’re such a fucking drama queen,” I tease her.

  “We haven’t talked since you’ve called off the wedding. How are you?”

  I shake her off. The last thing I want to do is admit to her I fell in stupid with a man I just met on my would have been honeymoon. How the man oozed charm, sex, romance… The perfect package. And then he left me after mind blowing sex.

  “I’m fine. Just trying to get back in the swing of things. You know? Anything good happen while I was gone?” I’m hoping I’m throwing her off the scent of how I’m mentally kicking my ass for being stupid.

  She giggles and gathers her hair to put it to one side. “Well, Katie from registration was banging the other Katie from registration. We all found out about that because the first Katie told everyone that the other Katie was wild in bed.”

  I nod my head while chugging the rest of my coffee. The caffeine shoots through my veins like a forest fire. “Really? How did you guys find out about this?” I’m only mildly interested in hearing about the Katies and what they are doing. Both of them are kind of skanks, anyways.

  “Are you ready for this? You’ve got to make sure you’re ready for this shit.” She pauses as if I’m going to deny the fact that I’m ready. I move my hand in the air to signal it's time to tell me. “Dr. Man Slut was banging the first Katie and they invited him over. Of course, you know Dr. Man Slut loves to brag to anyone who will listen.”

  Dr. Man Slut, as Sheila kindly refers to the doctor who’s constantly trying to sleep with anyone who has a vagina, is actually Dr. Kyle Taylor. The man is a complete dick head and no one really likes him after you get to know him a little bit. The worst part about him is the fact he’s cute and rich… So you get sucked into his web of douchebaggery.

  “You know that if he were to hear you talking about him, he would probably think you wanted to bone him, right?” I tease her and elbow her in the side.

  “Yeah right! He wouldn’t know what to do with all this even if I gave him a taste.” She runs her hands down her body in slow motion wiggling her eyebrows at me.

  I giggle at her. “You are such a slut.”

  She throws her hair back behind her shoulders and laughs at me. “Just because you’ve been with the same man for-ever doesn’t mean I’m a slut.”

  “Anything else happen while I was gone?” This is a dangerous game I’m playing by asking her if anything else has happened. I’m hoping she doesn’t see I’m trying to throw her off my vacation.

  “Yeah. Dr. Man Slut is after you, girlfriend. I don’t know what you did to piss him off but he wants your shift.”

  This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been told he wants my shift. Most people do and a lot of think I slept with someone to get it. Truth is, I didn’t. Somehow I was chosen for this position just out of medical school and I’m going to keep it as long as I can. “He can try but I’m going to stomp him into the ground,” I snap my fingers from left to right.

  That’s when Sheila looks at me clearer than before. “You got laid.”

  “What?” I demand stepping back from her. Can she smell it on me? I can’t smell Victor anymore but I can still feel him on my body. I can still feel all the ways he filled me those last couple of nights. The man was a great lover. Too bad it's over.

  “Nope. I know that look. You look satisfied about something. Obviously it wasn’t your boring sex with Josh.”

  Only mildly offended, I place my hand over my heart. “How could you even know how he was in bed? Wait, do I want to know?”

  “Like I would fuck him. Yeah, right. That man would need an how-to class and book just to know how to turn me on.” She blows on her fingers and then rubs it on her shoulders.

  “Anyway. Aren’t we here to help patients and not have you pick my brain about my ex?”

  I will do anything to avoid this conversation with her. The last thing I need is for her to get onto my trail with Victor. Victor still makes my heart race and my thighs clench at the thought of him. I don’t get it. I really don’t understand how the man can still get me on my knees.

  Sheila’s eyes widened. “I believe the lady protests too much!”

  “To know what a lady protests or doesn’t, you would have to be a lady!” I call with my back to her as I walk down the hall to check in on one of the patients who says he’s in pain.

  Unfortunately, with this time of year we have a lot of patients who come in claiming to have something wrong with them but they are looking for a cool place to sleep. We all know it’s fake and they are playing us, but a lot of them are homeless. A lot of them would either end up here or in jail.

  I knock on the door to Mr. Sampson’s room. He’s an elderly man around the age of seventy with a bad temper. He’s also a frequent patient at the hospital for having heart pains. I don’t believe him because to have heart pains he would need to have a heart. The man is unruly, argumentative and down right nasty to anyone that looks at him.

  He’s also been homeless for the past couple of years. Something about the stock market or something. He’s extremely rude and very demeaning every time you try to ask him how he’s doing. He’s only here so he has a place to sleep.

  Arizona’s in for a hot spell of over 115 degrees over the next couple of days which means a lot of homeless people are going to be coming in. I wish we had the ability to have a cooling room here but we don’t have the space. The cooling room would cut back on the false claims of having an emergency.

  “Mr. Sampson, I see you are still having problems with your heart,” I state as I walk through his room.

  The old bastard is propped up on pillows with the television remote in his hands and a grimace on his face. “I was wondering when you would be back. What kind of doctor leaves her patients to go galavanting around the beach? A woman doctor
. That’s who!” He spits at me.

  He’s looking aged since I last saw him a week ago. His skin is thin and crepe paper looking with blue veins popping out. I decide to ignore his insult. This is what he likes to do. He likes to piss me off and make me think he’s some big deal. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “You would know that if you were a real fucking doctor.”

  I bite my tongue so I don’t tell him what I actually think of him. He’s a rude man who has no life other than to try and make our lives hell. He’s miserable. “Mr. Sampson, if you keep speaking to me that way, I will have to ask you to leave this hospital and not come back.”

  He groans. “Or you’ll cry?”

  Turning on my heels, I stroll out of the room and walk to the nurses station to drink the rest of the coffee. Mr. Sampson is a fucking asshole who wants everyone else to be miserable with him.

  Victor

  Leaving the resort without saying goodbye to Calista was a dick move and I wouldn’t be surprised if she punched me in the dick when/ if she ever saw me again. I left her in the room after making her come so hard she almost blacked out like a coward.

  However, I’m going hunting.

  Sal lights up his cigar and points to me with it. “You. Something happened to you. You need to tell me.”

  “No, Sal. It's nothing dealing with the family.” Which is not entirely false. This is something I need to do for me in order to find out what happened to my wife.

  We never even found her body. We don’t know if she’s alive or dead. I need to find out what happened to her. It’s been too long.

  Taking a big puff off of his cigar, he gives me the look which tells me he’s not happy about something. “Victor, you’re one of my top earners. Don’t do something you’ll regret in the end. I’m warning you. If you cross too much of a line, I won’t be able to protect you.”

  He doesn’t have to say what he’s talking about because we both know he’s referring to Amanda. Amanda was his favorite and since he didn’t have a daughter and he spoiled her rotten.

  “Thanks, Sal. I won’t mess anything up too bad.”

  First step in finding someone that doesn’t want to be found is finding someone who knows that person. This could be hard since Vincent and Savannah Moretti have fallen off the face of the earth to avoid the former’s prison sentence.

  “Wait!” Sal shouts as I get off my chair. “Who are you going after?”

  I raise my eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m hunting?” I tuck in my chair then down the rest of my scotch. The burn feels good as it slides down my throat.

  My mind keeps shifting back to Calista. I can’t seem to get her off my mind no matter how much I’m trying to focus on this job.

  “You get that same look in your eye whenever you’re about to go do a job. Victor, I don’t give two fucks what you do, but you need to make sure you’re doing this for the right reason,” Sal instructs. “I can’t save you from everything.”

  Calista

  By the time I made it to my parents after my first week back at work, I’m exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well because I keep wondering if I did something wrong with Victor. Why else would he leave without telling me anything about him? I know we were having fun and not telling the other about ourselves but… Didn’t I mean something to him?

  And that stupid question game! Was that used to throw me off on who he really is?

  Or was I just foolish for falling in stupid with the man?

  I bang my head against the steering wheel listening to the horn beep a little.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I pull my head of the steering wheel to look at my mother. Even though the years have made her older, she’s still beautiful. I’m happy to see she’s gone back to blonde and stopped dying her hair dark brown. She’s much better looking with blonde hair.

  Opening up the door, I’m in my mother’s arms before I can even blink but I’m not knocking it.

  “Hi, baby. How are you?” She murmurs in my ear while hugging me closely. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened with Josh. He didn’t deserve you anyways.”

  I choke out my request to get a word in but she doesn’t let me.

  “That jerk took advantage of my baby all along. He made you work while you were going through medical school. A real man wouldn’t have done that. He would have worked so you didn’t have to.”

  “Mom!” I yell loudly to get through to her. “I’m not upset about Josh at all. I had a great vacation. It's just hard getting back into the swing of things, you know?”

  She tusks. “No, there’s something else going on. I can tell. Who is it? What happened? Is it that doctor again?”

  I shake my head prying my body out of her arms. “Mom, I’m fine. The doctor is an ass but I’m fine. Let’s go inside and see what you made for dinner.”

  “Now, we can find you a nice Italian man,” Mom tells me while pulling me into the house. “Didn’t I tell you that was what was wrong with Josh all along? He wasn’t Italian!”

  There’s no use in trying to stop her. She’s going to keep telling me all the ways Josh was wrong for me. A moron would tell her that he wasn’t right for me because I wasn’t in love with him. I’m not dumb and I’m going to listen to the lecture over how he wasn’t right for me.

  “You need to find an Italian. We’ll find you, sweetie.”

  “Is that my two favorite girls?” Dad yells from inside the kitchen.

  He steps out of the kitchen wearing his normal suit but without the tie this time. “Did you have a nice vacation?”

  My dad cracks me up. Even though he knows I went on what was supposed to be my honeymoon, he refuses to call it that. He has hated Josh from the beginning.

  “Yes, dad,” I reply. “It was great.” Hot, steamy. Nice. With a sexy man who leaves me after a wonderful night.

  Of course, that last part was left unsaid.

  Victor

  Finding someone who doesn’t want to be found is difficult in itself. However, finding someone who doesn’t want to be found because they don’t want to go back to prison is something completely different.

  Like any good hunter, I spend a week researching Vincent and Savannah Moretti. They’ve been on the lam for fifteen years but they had to mess up somehow. How can they have enough money to survive through all these years? If they got a job, their names would have popped up on the database used to research any priors.

  There’s only one thing I can do and that’s go to New York in hopes of tracking down some loose lipped asshole who doesn’t know any better. I bring Lorenzo with me as back up but I don’t think I will be needing him. I’ve been studying the Morettis and what they have done in their past this week that I could probably be him.

  “How do you think you’re going to find someone?” Lorenzo asks me with his mouth full of nuts. The man never stops eating! If you see him without food anywhere near his body, be afraid. Be incredibly afraid. The man eats more that a family of six every day.

  I shake my head. “Can’t understand you with all those nuts in your mouth, asshole,” I rib him and elbow him in the side.

  Lorenzo dramatically swallows everything in his mouth to prove how strong he is. The dumb ass is always trying to prove that he's bigger and badder than me. “How the fuck do you think you are going to find someone to talk to you?”

  I smirk at him. “You need to learn the powers of persuasion. You want to be the next me? You have to figure out how to get the info you want.”

  “The guy is Pop! He's a ghost.”

  Speeding up to the stop, I slam on the breaks to make his head hit the window. “Fuck!” He shouts at me.

  “Oops! Didn't see that ghost in front of me.”

  The rest of the drive into Manhattan is quiet mainly because I proved my point about ghosts. At least, I'm hoping.

  Even ghosts have a way of showing themselves when you least expect it.

  *

  Pulling up to an unassuming gambling a
rena, I see the man I’m going to force into telling me everything that I want to know. Maybe, I will let him know ahead of time… But, probably not. This mother fucker is a government official who I just caught at an underground casino ran by The Lucky Family.

  He’s bobbing and weaving as he walks to his car.

  After I park my car, I stroll out towards Senator Adam Voorhees who is in the process of throwing his briefcase into the back of his Mercedes. “Hello, Senator,” I croon out to him.

  The man stops what he’s doing instantly and looks back at me with disdain. “Who the fuck are you?” He growls. Voorhees is an older man with a beer belly and a balding head. I think it's funny how women are trying to fuck him just because he’s a senator and think the scandal will make them famous.