Four Hitmen: A Quadrouple Bad Boy Mafia Hot Romance (Lawless Book 3)
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© Alice May Ball, TzR Publishing, 2017
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FOUR HITMEN
AN MFMMM ROMANCE
Alice May Ball
© Alice May Ball, TzR Publishing, 2017
Cover Design by Signs of Desire for TzR Publishing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or to any actual events is purely coincidental.
All the people and places are portrayed in this story are fictional. All characters are over the age of eighteen, and entirely imaginary.
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I GUESS I’M A lucky girl. My small-town life was easy enough, being the wife of the son of the richest man in town. Drunk, yes. Violent, often. Stupid? You have no idea. If there was a dumb-lympics, he’d have won gold in every event.
Except, of course he’d never have shown up, if he did he’d have been drunk and stoned, and, of course he’d have tried to cheat. Because that’s who he was. And that’s why he’s dead.
My life changed so much when the two hitmen he hired came to town, oh my god. They pulled up on Main Street in the hot morning sun, strode into the diner looking for him. I nearly melted in my seat. And I know all of the other ladies in town did the same. If you didn’t see them fidget, the scent would have hit you hard.
When those two big men stood in their black suits and the little bell over the diner door tinkled behind them, and their hard eyes cut around the room, there cannot have been a dry seat in the place.
The testosterone tang cut through the female fragrance and their male voices shook the floor almost as much as their boots.
“Who knows where Hollis Cullen is?”
I had status in the town on account of Hollis. Well, more because of his family name, but I couldn’t say that I was popular. Not with the other women at least. It was nothing personal. They just all wanted Hollis, or thought they did.
Plenty of them still took their turns with him, even after we were married. Not that I really could have blamed them too much because I guess he was just about the meanest and most dangerous thing that there was in that little town.
Until Liam and Declan showed up, of course.
It turned out Hollis had hired two big-city hitmen to fix a problem of his own making, a problem that would probably have been righted in a couple of seconds if Hollis had known how to make an apology. He didn’t bother to be around for the appointment that he made with them, of course. Hollis thought it was a sign of strength to go around pissing people off for no good reason, so why would he keep an appointment? Not content with that, he tried to cheat them on the payment. The down payment.
And that was the end of Hollis. It meant that I had no reason to stay in that little poke of a town. And Declan and Liam both gave me reasons to leave. Really big, hot, hard and urgent reasons. Oh, my.
So, Liam and Declan do their work, which is dirty and not exactly legitimate, and they come back to me. And then what we do is filthy. And not legitimate at all.
I had legitimate before. My life with Hollis was entirely legitimate. Legitimate got me a big house, a state-of-the-art kitchen and a constant supply of bruises and cuts, all where they wouldn’t show. I was the envy of all of the women in the town, which only meant they hated me slightly more than they all hated each other, and probably a little bit less than they despised their own no-good men.
Believe me when I tell you the men in that town were all no good. Every one of them went out of his way to find an opportunity to prove that to me beyond any reasonable doubt.
So, yes. I am a lucky girl. Lucky to have gotten out of a cruel, loveless marriage headed for nowhere in a dead-end town. Lucky that the two biggest, hardest and horniest hitmen ever scooped me up and whisked me away to be their plaything. Lucky to never get a minute of sleep or rest from the endless needs and exhausting demands of the two studs.
Lucky that I can just about keep up with the two of them. They wear me out night and day, but you won’t hear me complaining about that.
Some odd things went down on their last mission, though, complications occurred. They left me wondering about the true status of our merry troupe of travelers.
Some of the cloud on my dirty little horizon was just me worrying how the three of us were going to keep our group tight. Whether we really could hold together. I had really strong feelings, stronger than I ever knew before. Stronger than emotion alone. These physical pangs and aches ran deep. I felt them hard just thinking about Declan. And on a different note, but just as powerful thinking of Liam.
Deep down I felt that their feelings for me were every bit as strong and as true, but they didn’t talk about their feelings much. I’m always afraid that men’s feelings are apt to change.
And there were the complications. Big, blond, German complications called Horst and Gunner. A dangerous pair of German twins had been sent to attach themselves to Declan and Liam for a mission of some kind. They seemed like they might be trying to nose their way into the boys’ lives as well as their work. Would we accept another two players or would that break the illicit bonds in our circle? I wished I knew
Could we go an international round or two, or would that be too much of a strain for our nasty group, our trio, our three in one? Most of all I wanted to keep what I had and I know well enough that in this life you can never be certain of anything.
I know that I am incredibly lucky to have the two most fantastic men, and to have them all to myself. They’re highly protective of me and very possessive, but they aren’t jealous. The only thing wrong is that I can never get enough of them. Believe me, I do try. I try really hard.
HE VIEW OF the valley, over the whole misted purple smog of Los Angeles, spread in front of Carlo as he stood at the very edge of the steep cliff. Close behind him, too close, the two men were silent.
“Is this all going to take long?” He didn’t dare to look around. Carlo was a big guy and he was experienced and skilled in situations of confrontation. Working fifteen years as an enforcer for Hammer deLunghi had given him some authority in the business of force and the application of pressure.
“Are we detaining you from something?” He couldn’t tell which one of them said that, but he thought it was the taller of the two. Whatever they had gotten him out here for, it had better be worth his while or they would really be regretting it. Now, though, he was too close to the edge. One slip of his shiny shoe-leather on the crumbly ledge and he could be gone. The drop was several hundred feet.
“Is there somewhere you’re pressed to be? A meeting you have to atten
d?” That was the other, the shorter man, behind Carlo’s right shoulder. Built like a shorter model of a linebacker, if it came to it, this would be the one Carlo would have to take first. The look in his eye said he was unstoppable.
In a scrap, if you don’t stomp the unstoppable one first, he’s sure as hell going to stomp you.
Carlo spoke with his bored tone. The powerful man, polite because he can afford to be but with an undertone of urgency. A need to move on. “Let’s do what we need to do.” He started to turn but as he did, the strong nose and hard eyes of the taller man were even nearer than he expected.
“I feel you.” He turned to his colleague, “That's what the kids say now. Do you hear them? ‘I feel you.’” And his face turned slowly back to Carlo, dangerously close. He could lose his footing. He pressed his lips together as the man said, “Because I would sooner see our business concluded here, too. There’s a certain tight spot I’m yearning to dip in and get wet. If you catch my meaning.”
“Ah, me, too.” His friend’s voice was closer, too. They surely weren’t going to edge him off. Whoever they were, they wouldn’t ever have the sanction to do that. Not him. Not Carlo. The man said, “There’s a milky pair of thighs I’m anxious to bury my head between, and I’d sooner you didn’t keep my tongue from delving there for a moment longer than is entirely necessary.”
“Oh, that’s a sweet spot, right enough. Milk and honey from a hot, trembling little pot.”
“Tight and wet and slippery.”
They were too near. “But there’s a thing or two that we need to transact.”
“As I believe you’ll know.” Carlo didn’t know shit. Whoever these fuckers were, he was going to have words. Something would be done about this.
They backed away from him. They didn’t say anything, but he felt it more than he heard their feet move. They stood back a couple of feet, hands folded in front of them, by the front of his car. On the hood there were three wrapped blueberry muffins from a classy LA bakery. And a red pill.
“Gorgeous and delightful a spot, though this is,” said the taller one. He was almost gangly. Like one of those big birds. What were they? Cranes. The little linebacker and the crane. Both in black like the Blues Brothers or the Men in Black.
The linebacker said, “A pastoral haven from the teeming metropolis, wouldn’t you say?” And he cocked his head a little to one side. “Apart but still in view, a peak of solitude with a plain vista of the Angeleno smog and sprawl.”
Carlo faced them square. But he didn’t move closer. Calculating the situation, if it came to a showdown, he didn’t like his odds. He had a gun under his shoulder. Another at the back of his belt, and a two-shot in his sock. If he went for any of the weapons, it would be a no-going-back move. And one of them could easily beat him to the shot.
“It is quite high,” said the little linebacker. Who the fuck were these guys?
“And it’s pretty isolated,” said the crane.
They waited. Carlo said, “Yes. It is that.”
“And that’s why we decided that it would be the perfect place for our little chat.” The linebacker made it sound like a Sunday morning coffee with friends.
“Perfect. Wouldn’t you say so?” The crane’s smile gave Carlo a chill. A light breeze made him unsteady.
The two men stepped toward him. They moved together, like they were choreographed. They were only a pace away now. Carlo had to remind himself not to step back. He badly wanted to take a step forward, almost as much as he wanted not to show fear to these men. “Well, yes. I mean, yes, it’s high.” He almost bit his tongue when he said, “And pretty steep.”
“Oh?” the little linebacker smiled “Are you afraid of something untoward occurring?”
“Do you fear an accident?” The crane lifted an eyebrow. “A mishap of some kind?”
“Well…”
“See,” the crane seemed to relax. The start of a smile tugged at the edges of his lips. “Look at what it was that you did to that poor little puppy.”
“That little girl’s puppy.” Where the fuck did they get that? Nobody knew about that. Not any of it. Not even Hammer knew about that.
Carlo said, “You guys probably do terrible things all the time.”
The linebacker’s shoulders relaxed. “Ah, now he’s looking for a little philosophical discourse here. A little debate.”
The crane thrust his face closer to Carlo’s. “You looking for the cut and thrust, the lunge and parry, the contest of ideas, are you?”
Linebacker smiled at the crane. “Now that could be right up your alley, my friend.”
“It could right enough. But, do you think it’s really the intellectual contest that your man is after here? Do you think the combat of concepts, the trial by fire in the cauldron of cogitation that he’s really in pursuit of,” the crane stopped as the linebacker cut him off.
“‘The cauldron of cogitation’? Where the fuck did you dredge that from? Did you just pluck that out of your ass or is there some venerable provenance to that turn of phrase?”
“Look, it’s a figure of speech.”
“Well, I can fucking see that. I know that it’s a figure of speech. I heard you speak it,” The linebacker’s voice hardened. “But what I’m asking you is, is it a figure with a past, one that comes with a literary or a theatrical heritage? Is it Shakespeare or Marlowe? Are you quoting Henry James or Dylan Thomas there? Or did you pluck a line out of The Sex Pistols ‘Never Mind the Bollocks,’ or was it just a figure that you fashioned yourself out of the sordid clay that oozes though your mind?”
“‘Sordid clay,’ I quite like that, I have to say.”
“Yeah. The ‘oozing’ was overdoing it though, don’t you think? Still, enough of the shmooze now, are you going to put your fucking hand up to that ‘cauldron of cogitation’ or what?”
“Okay, it’s bullcrap.”
“Oh, well, I know that, but is it your bullcrap? That’s what I’m getting at.”
Carlo cleared his throat, “If you want to continue reviewing each other’s grammar or whatever it is.”
“OH!” The crane’s face jabbed near and Carlo almost lost his footing. “It speaks!”
Linebacker said, “Do accept my deepest and most profound regrets for our dallying.”
Crane fixed Carlo’s eyes from way too close as he tilted his head to one side. “We for sure don’t mean to be toying with your precious time, my friend.”
“Well, you might not have very fucking much of it left.” the linebacker spoke, almost under his breath.
“No. From here on, your every moment is to be treasured. Of that we are acutely aware.” Were they threatening him? Him, Carlo? They wouldn’t dare. As soon as he got back to town, no, as soon as he got into his car, Carlo was going to have inquiries made. Who the fuck did these clowns think they were?
The crane said, “We are most sensitive to the pressure of time.”
Linebacker was close behind him, “More precious as each second slips by.”
They spoke in turns, “And each tick means there’s one fewer left to come.”
“You know that when people die by strangulation, they invariably come.”
The crane turned his face to the linebacker, “Is that a fact?”
“It’s believed to be the body’s last gift to the soul. That short, sensational leap surges through the body and the spirit as a ‘farewell.’ Or as a distraction.”
Crane nodded, “Oh, it could be that.”
Linebacker said, “I believe medical opinion is divided.”
Carlo was anxious to move things along. “Guys…”
Crane’s eyes widened but his face didn’t move. “‘Guys’!”
Spreading his hands, Carlo appealed to them, “Really. Guys.” They ought to be reasonable. What the fuck was this all about?