by Mary Stone
“Want me to run a background check on him?”
“Oh, no!” Kylie knew he was only joking, but she’d actually been thinking of doing just that. She didn’t think her mother could afford to have another whirlwind romance let her down. And there were so many creepy guys out there. She wrinkled her nose as she listened to them laughing. When was the last time she’d heard her mom sound so happy? “He seems a little too good to be true, doesn’t he?”
Jacob nodded. “I have it on good authority that I’m the only guy in the Asheville area who’s the total package. So yes, I’d proceed with caution.”
She smacked his massive bicep lightly. “I could do a background check…” she murmured.
“Ah. Kylie. You’re a strange girl. He’s probably fine. And your mom is old enough to look out for herself, isn’t she?”
Maybe. But she hadn’t been twenty-five years ago. And her mother was so trusting. She just didn’t want her to be hurt again. A background check wouldn’t hurt anyone. She’d do it in secret. Everything was probably fine with him. But just in case…
“I’m sure. Thanks again, Jacob,” she called to his back.
He did a three-sixty spin, saluted her, and kept walking. “Take care, sweetheart. Don’t you go getting yourself in any more trouble.”
Smiling, she went back to the hospital room, where Dr. Phillips was putting on his jacket. “If you’ll forgive me,” he said to both of them. “I do have my first appointment in twenty minutes. I need to get down to my office.”
“Oh, of course. I can’t thank you enough!” Rhonda gushed.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Hatfield,” he said to Kylie, bowing slightly. What was this, Regency England? Then he turned to Rhonda. “And a great pleasure meeting you, Ms. Hatfield.”
“Oh! Rhonda!” she giggled, as he took her hand and stroked it with the pad of his thumb. As he bowed, she looked at her daughter like she’d just struck gold. Kylie was surprised she didn’t squeal like a kid.
“Rhonda,” he said, his mouth traveling over the word like he was enjoying a glass of fine wine. What a Prince Charming. Kylie felt like she’d stumbled into a fairy tale.
“See ya,” she said to the man as he stepped away from the hospital bed, thinking, We’ll see what my magic mirror reveals about you, Prince Charming.
When he finally left, Rhonda wiggled her eyebrows in excitement. Then she grabbed onto Kylie’s hand and nearly squeezed the life out of it, with a lot of strength for a woman who’d just been hit by a car. “He’s so handsome, isn’t he? He’s a doctor too!”
“Mom,” Kylie sighed. “Calm down. What do you know about him, really? I mean, I heard Ted Bundy was totally charming and handsome.”
Her mother wasn’t listening. Instead, she stared dreamily to the door he’d just exited. “Yes, but he’s a doctor, right in this hospital. An ENT.”
“You think doctors can’t be serial killers?” Kylie warned. “What about that neurosurgeon in Virginia who was stuffing people into fifty-five-gallon drums?”
“And now you’re an expert?” Rhonda practically pouted at her daughter. Ever since the serial killer case, Rhonda seemed to think that her daughter actually liked all things that involved mass-murderers.
Kylie rolled her eyes. “I just want you to be careful.”
“Sweetheart,” she said, smiling a sad little smile. “I’ve been careful for twenty-five years. Any more careful, and I’d have been in a coma. I think I’m allowed to be a little reckless for once.”
Kylie filled her water glass. Her mother was right. She did deserve to have a little fun. And like Jacob had said, she was a grown woman who could take care of herself. Besides, despite what Jacob thought, it wasn’t all the Hatfields who attracted trouble. Usually, it was just Kylie.
It was on the tip of her tongue to mention the New York trip, and her brief run-in with the former love of Rhonda’s life. She decided not to spoil her mother’s good mood. But she still couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d uncovered during her internet search; namely, her father, married, with a whole family she and her mother had known nothing about. And criminal ties? The whole thing was something out of a Lifetime Movie Network flick.
“Mom,” she said, sitting down in one of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs. “Do you know if our family ever had any mafia ties?”
She blinked, surprised. “Mafia?” Then she laughed, long and loud, like the mere idea was preposterous. “Well, you know I’m from Georgia. And your father’s family moved to New York from Kansas before he was born. As far as I know, the Mafia isn’t very big there.”
“But…” Kylie said, thinking. She almost let it spill that she’d been in New York, but what good would it do? Besides, Rhonda didn’t know William Hatfield. She only knew Adam Hatfield, and Kylie got the feeling that the two men, though the same person, were like night and day. “Never mind.”
She gave her mother a kiss on the forehead and dimmed the lights so that she could rest.
17
That little bitch had stirred up all this shit, then had run back to Hicksville with her tail between her legs. New York had taken a bite of her ass, chewed it up, and spit her out.
She might have been gone, but she sure as hell wasn’t forgotten.
The call came in as I was trying to enjoy my lunch, the first meal I’d eaten since learning about William Hatfield’s original family. I started with social media, since all twenty-somethings seemed to be addicted to sharing every moment of their day.
The little bitch’s Facebook page was set to private, smart girl, but I saw enough. Enough to know that she had her daddy’s chin, and probably his drive and curiosity too.
And that wasn’t allowed.
That little country mouse and her mom didn’t know what kind of trouble they’d unearthed.
I lifted the phone to my ear. “Yes, Nino,” I said, my eyes traveling over a picture of Kylie Hatfield, standing in a field with a giant black dog. “What is it now?”
“You said I could call you during the day, boss. Is it okay?”
I gritted my teeth, then found a picture of her with her blonde-haired mother. I clicked over to Rhonda’s page, and voila. Her mother wasn’t nearly so smart. Her page was entirely public. There were dozens of photos and memes and such. “If it wasn’t okay, I wouldn’t have answered. Do you have an update?”
“I’m here. I found them.” His voice was low and gravelly, as if he’d been up all night. Nino did that. He didn’t sleep, especially when there was a job to do, like the adrenaline and excitement of the hunt made it impossible. Of all the men we employed, Nino Capitano loved to do the hits more than anyone else. He was relentless and showed absolutely no mercy, whether his target was an old man or a helpless woman. It was like he actually got pleasure out of ending a person’s life.
And he was young too. Not yet thirty. He was fit and muscular and had a way about him that few people wanted to mess with. When people saw him coming, they made way for him.
I toyed with my sandwich. That didn’t make him Einstein. I’d expected he’d have found them by now. They weren’t exactly hiding. “And?”
“And this should be like taking candy from a baby,” he said, sounding too confident.
I didn’t want swagger. I wanted the job done. “I don’t want candy. I want them dead, Nino. And quick. Can you do it, or not?”
“Yeah. Already got some dumb chick here who needed money to fund her drug habit to mow the mother down with her car.” He snickered. “All that took was fifty bucks.”
Fifty bucks and a blow job, knowing Nino. “And the result?”
He scoffed. “Not much of nothing. Stupid bitch chickened out and laid on the brakes at the last minute.”
Fury ran through me. A hit and run? Really? And what was Nino doing, using some stupid crackhead to carry out his dirty work?
“Stop playing around. Put a bullet in their heads. The end.”
“I’m on it. Don’t you worry.”
But I was worried.
Nino didn’t fully understand all the implications of this situation. He didn’t know how badly William Hatfield had fucked up.
He hadn’t officially divorced his first wife, which meant his second marriage wasn’t legal. Which meant…
All the money. The power. The carefully built tower of cards.
All of it, could come tumbling down.
“I am worried,” I said through gritted teeth. “Paying someone to do your hit for you leaves a witness. And you know how I feel about witnesses.”
Silence.
Then, “She was a crack whore.”
“Which means nothing aside that she was desperate. And probably not careful. Did she know where the ATM cameras were? Did she use her own car? Know how to remove all fingerprint and DNA evidence? And even crack whores can look at a mug shot.”
It was maddening that Nino hadn’t thought of these things first. I needed to let the family know that our hit man needed a few lessons of his own.
Which was disappointing. He had such possibilities. And he should have still been hungry to please, unwilling to stop until the job was done to perfection.
Most importantly, he needed to never forget it was me who’d made him what he was today and put him in the lap of luxury. He’d still have been standing outside the Sudsy Car Wash with a chamois cloth, working for dollar tips if it wasn’t for me. He owed me big-time, which was why, although he liked to play macho, he jumped when I told him.
And there was a good chance that one day, that growing ego would take over and he’d go off and do something stupid. Nino may have had a pretty face, a good body, a nice bank account, and all that stuff that made him irresistible to women. But deep down, he was still just a dumb street thug who’d dropped out of high school.
“I’ll get it done.” He sounded like a petulant child.
“And done quickly. Professionally. I don’t want you getting some heroin addict to do something you should be doing yourself. Get it done. Right, this time.”
He laughed, but I could hear the nerves behind the sound. “It ain’t that easy. You want me to come back to New York, right? I need to bide my time. Can’t just walk up to them on the street and gun them down. If I get caught, your ass is on the line too.”
I stiffened. “What did we say about that, Nino?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t utter a word about you. I know. But don’t you think they’ll discover the kid’s little trip to New York? Discover her little visit with William? The dots won’t be too hard to connect from there. This needs to look like an accident.”
He was right, but we were running out of time.
“We’ve done a very good job of covering our tracks. That’s the least of my worries. Plus…you won’t get caught, will you?”
“I might if you rush me into anything. Just trust me on this, okay? Ideally, they need to be together, so I can end them both at once and be out of town before the police even arrive on the scene. I’m looking for the right moment.”
He was just annoying me. “Just do it. And do it right.”
“Fine.” I could sense his cocky little grin on the end. “And I expect a really good welcome home present after all this is done.”
I hung up without answer and shoved my phone across the counter, away from me. My eyes trailed to the laptop screen as I licked chicken salad from my fingers. I scrolled to a picture of the little bitch with her mother, the senior bitch. They had identical smiles and eyes, though the mother was bleached blonde and the younger had dark hair.
They’d pay.
But above all, William would pay too. He needed to learn this lesson, once and for all. He was like Nino—we’d given him everything, and now he wanted to play a deadly little game with the family?
He needed to fall in line and give us respect. We’d been his gravy train for all these years, and this was how he repaid us? No. It didn’t work like that.
No one played games with this family and got away with it.
Some days, Nino couldn’t believe that this was his life.
To think, three years ago, he’d been unable to pay rent at his crummy little shithole in Brooklyn. He barely made minimum wage at the car wash, getting dollar tips from rich assholes in Armani suits as he dried their Mercedes and BMWs. He’d been a total loser, licking at their boots, wishing he could be just like them.
Now, his suit cost more than what he used to make in a year. Women threw themselves at him. He had a swanky place in Manhattan, his own car, money to burn.
He’d traveled business class to Asheville and had gotten blitzed on the free champagne while talking to a leggy blonde hair model who, if the flight had been an hour longer, he probably would’ve gotten into the mile-high club with. He’d done her in the family restroom at the Asheville airport instead, thinking the whole time that a woman like that wouldn’t have even let him shine her shoes three years ago.
Nino had grown up in the projects in Brooklyn. Never expected much out of his life than what his parents had achieved. His father had worked at the same damn car wash until he was gunned down, caught by a gang’s stray bullet. His mother had turned to prostitution to keep the family afloat, until he’d dropped out of high school to get a job at the wash. By then, his mother’s drug habit had consumed every cent she was making. She OD’d the day after he turned eighteen, leaving him alone in the world, and thinking that he’d be working that shit job for the rest of his life.
And then, one day, he’d been introduced to the family, and his life had changed overnight.
It started with a simple car wash, and a simple compliment. He’d whistled at the sleek black car, then given the swanky Mercedes S-class the tire cleaner for free, and words were exchanged. It spiraled out from there. The next week, he was living in the lap of luxury, eating breakfast in bed with Dom Perignon to wash it down.
It was maybe a week after that that they’d taken him into a basement of a building in Manhattan and asked him if he’d ever fired a gun before. If he’d been willing to kill another person. He was told, in no uncertain terms, if he was willing to give to them, they would continue to give to him, and generously.
Nino had kept out of gangs, because of his mother. She didn’t care much about what he did, but all she ever told him was not to get wrapped up in gangs. So, he hadn’t. But it turned out he had a knack with a gun. It just came naturally to him. And this was more than a gang. Much more. A gang was a brotherhood, but this was so much more. It was a family.
And he enjoyed it. Sure, the work was nasty, but he overlooked that. He didn’t care who the order was for. It was a job, like anything, but one that paid well and had changed his shitty life to something he was proud of. He’d read once that a person could make a good living if they took the jobs that no one else wanted to do. Well, he’d taken on the job that people were afraid to do, he liked it, and he’d made more than a living. The work was damn good.
He pulled up at the address he’d found for Kylie Hatfield’s apartment. It was just off the UNC college campus, so there were a lot of college students walking around outside or studying on the steps of the building, a giant Victorian mansion. Some of them were hot pieces of ass, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted. It wasn’t exactly remote. They’d just provide a lot of problems, if he expected to pull off this hit quickly and cleanly. He didn’t need a bunch of witnesses, or even worse, to bump off the wrong girl.
Taking another look at the picture of his target, he committed it to memory, then strained to view the girls across the street. None looked quite like Kylie.
He’d have to get closer.
He stepped out of his rental car, slammed the door, and jogged across the tree-lined street toward them, feeling for the Glock in his jacket pocket. As he got nearer, he became more and more sure. Not one of them was the woman he was looking for. Fucking hell.
A blonde looked up and smiled at him. “You’re not from around here,” she said.
He silently cu
rsed. He needed to do better blending in.
It had broken his heart to change out of his Armani suit and into a pair of jeans that felt too heavy on his skin. Sure, he’d topped it with his favorite Italian leather jacket and darkened his hair, added some scruff to his chin, but he still stood out among all these uppity college kids who thought a degree was the way to make it.
He gave her a wink and changed his accent to a Boston one. “I’m not. You know Kylie Hatfield?”
She wrinkled her cute nose and shook her head. “Sorry.”
“‘Salright,” he said, heading for the door. Ordinarily, he’d have stopped and chatted the girl up, probably have gotten her to take a ride with him, but he had other things on his mind. He reached the front doors of the place just as a college kid came out. Before the doors could shut, he grabbed the handle, pulled it open, and slipped inside.
In the downstairs foyer, there was a large staircase and a number of mailboxes. It didn’t take an Einstein to find Kylie’s. K. Hatfield, 2A was written in big black letters. He scanned the downstairs and saw an apartment that said 1A. Looking like he belonged in the place, he strode up the staircase, his eyes focused on the door at the top of the stairs, to the right. That had to be Kylie’s apartment.
He’d nearly reached it, intending to listen at it, maybe try the knob to see if it was unlocked when it suddenly flung open, and a man walked out. He used a key to lock both locks before heading toward the stairs.
“How’s it going?” the guy said. Hicks were so damn friendly and polite.
“Good, man.” He strove to keep the Brooklyn out of his voice, turning it southern this time.
Shit. That had been close. Then Nino did a double take, recognizing the man from her Facebook photos. Her boyfriend, probably. Although his hair was much shorter than in the photos, the guy was big and built.
Nino wasn’t worried about that.
What he was worried about was getting his ass caught before he finished this job. He’d already screwed up, hiring the crackhead to stage an accident. It had been a good idea at the time, but he couldn’t screw up again.
