The Hitman Next Door

by Jackie Ashenden

He’d bought the property with his contract money years ago, paying a guy he knew in Terlingua to keep the place well-stocked and maintained. He’d only used it a couple of times as a bolthole in case of any sudden heat coming down on him, and both times the property had served its purpose well. No one would be able to find them out here, of that he was certain.

  He only stopped once more and that was to use the burner phone to send a text to Duchess, telling her he wouldn’t be in for the next week due to a personal matter, but that he’d be in touch. Duchess was the only person who knew about his past, but he wasn’t going to tell her what was going on, because quite frankly the likelihood of her attempting to interfere with the situation by trying to ‘help’ was quite high. And he really didn’t need her help. This was his mess, he’d handle it himself.

  Rhys sent a text to the guy who managed his place, informing him that he was here and maybe he might want to drop off some supplies at some point, another to Vivi’s father telling him that Rhys had taken Vivi off for a surprise long weekend for her birthday and that she wouldn’t be in on Monday, but not to worry, and one more to Donny, telling him to leave a message if he heard anything about Jason. Then he put his phone away, got back into the car, and drove on down the highway.

  Fifteen minutes later, he pulled onto a rutted, dusty track that was the driveway to the old cabin. The car bounced around a bit, shaking Vivi and she moaned, turning in her seat as if trying to find a comfortable position and failing. But she didn’t wake up, which must mean she was truly exhausted.

  Dawn was fully breaking when Rhys finally pulled up outside the low, stone and adobe style building, surrounded by scrubby looking trees. There was a terrace out to one side, the roof of the house extending to shade it, and which made a nice place to sit out of the heat of the day if Rhys ever just wanted to sit out there. But he never had.

  This wasn’t a vacation home. This was a place to hide.

  He got out of the car and went up the uneven stone steps to the front door, unlocking it and pulling it open. Inside, the place was extremely basic but pretty large. Only one room with a kitchen area down one end, a dining table and chairs arranged on the other side of a counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the space.

  Near the front door, a couple of queen sized beds had been pushed up against the wall, while near the wall opposite the beds was a living area with a couch and a couple of armchairs. The wall near the living area consisted of windows that looked out across the barren rocky landscape outside, and a set of French doors that led out to the terrace. Heavy, dark exposed wooden beams made the place feel cave-like, in stark contrast to the white walls.

  He gazed around in some satisfaction, doing a quick scan of the place to make sure everything was in order, then he went back outside to the car.

  Vivi was still asleep and he debated about waking her or leaving her there for now. But then the sun was coming up and it would get stinking hot and he didn’t like the idea of that. What he did like the idea of was carrying her again, holding the warm weight of her in his arms and against his chest, having her all sleepy and relaxed, melting into him.

  It was a dangerous thing to want, especially when he’d indulged himself once already by picking her up out of bed. Then again, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t handle himself and besides, who knew when he’d get the chance again?

  Carefully he opened the car door and reached across her to undo her seatbelt, before gathering her up in his arms. She was very, very warm, the sweet vanilla-cookie smell of her enveloping him. It made his mouth water, especially when he straightened and her head fell against his shoulder, and he caught the delicate flower scent of her shampoo. Vanilla and flowers, so sweet. So Vivi.

  She was still wrapped in the blanket, which was a good thing since that kept her bare skin away from his, but he didn’t fail to notice that the edge of the blanket had slipped down from her chest, revealing her tank top. Her very tight fitting tank top. It was a pale green, the fabric thin and he could almost see the faint pink tinge of her nipples beneath it.

  The dark, hot thing inside him growled, but he ignored it the way he always did when he was with Vivi, dragging his gaze away from her chest and carrying her into the house.

  He laid her down on one of the beds, covering her with the blanket even though the faint chill of dawn was long gone. Then he went and moved the car into the stables so it was out of sight, before popping the trunk and examining the small arsenal he carried around with him wherever he went.

  He always kept his personal favorite weapon - a .22 Sig – in a holster in the back of his jeans since it was small enough to wear comfortably. But all the rest of the tools of his former trade he kept in the trunk of his car. A military issue sniper rifle, a couple of semi automatic pistols, ammo, a few grenades for whenever he wanted to put on a motherfucking show, plus a few knives of differing sizes. Reflexively, he checked over the weapons, then after a brief debate with himself, he picked up the rifle, one of the semis, and a couple of boxes of ammo, and carried the lot into the house.

  Vivi had rolled over onto her side away from him, curled up on the bed, her breathing indicating that she was still asleep. So he crossed over to the bed she wasn’t currently occupying and slid the weapons underneath it and out of sight.

  He didn't want to make her feel unsafe by having all his guns on show, but he didn’t like not having weapons to hand, especially if things turned to shit, and her physical safety outweighed her feelings.

  His defense taken care of, Rhys moved over to the kitchen area and looked through the pantry items, searching for some ground coffee that wasn’t too old. Vivi would want some when she woke up and God knew he needed some, too. He should be sleeping himself, but he wasn’t going to do that until his guy had arrived with bread and milk and other supplies. Plus, he should be awake when she was just to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid like run off into the desert or something.

  Or grab the keys to the car and drive back to Austin.

  He glanced over to where she lay on the bed and frowned. Hell, he wouldn’t put it past her. She’d been scared as they’d driven out of Austin, and Vivi wasn't a person who accepted things like that passively. She liked to be in control of a situation, but since this was a situation she had no control over, she'd probably want to do something drastic to get that control back again. Such as take his car.

  She sighed, shifting on the bed again, and the wall between himself and his emotions shuddered. Regret was working its way through the cracks in that wall, making his chest feel tight. It wasn't an emotion he ever indulged in because he knew that once he started down that road he’d never stop, which meant he couldn’t ever indulge it.

  But he felt it now, like pain.

  He shouldn’t have shot Cruz, not in front of her, shouldn’t have let her get a glimpse of the killer he was deep inside. He should have somehow kept himself hidden, shoved that demon down so deep, she’d never know that the man he was with her wasn’t his true self.

  Yet he hadn’t and now it was too late.

  Part of you likes her being afraid of you. Part of you has always wanted her to know who you really are.

  Yeah and that was the part he kept locked down tight whenever he was with her so it couldn’t ever escape. And by thinking about regret and all that other shit, he was tempting fate, testing those locks. He had no doubt he could keep control of himself, not let the killer out again, but still. Perhaps it would be better if he concentrated on…other things right at this particular moment in time.

  Rhys dragged his gaze away from Vivi and went back to the far less disturbing task of making coffee instead.

  This time Vivi’s dream wasn’t a pleasant one. It turned out to be the old running-away-from-faceless-attacker nightmare type scenario and it woke her up, her heart thumping, every muscle in her body tight.

  She stared blankly at the dark exposed beams of the ceiling above her, trying to get her breathing back under control, slowly becomi
ng aware of two things. One, that there actually was a ceiling and two, she wasn’t in the car anymore.

  Okay then. So clearly she’d been out a long time since the last thing she remembered was Rhys turning into a cold, hard stranger and telling her to go to sleep.

  Oh God. Rhys, pulling out that gun and firing…a man falling…

  Vivi shut her eyes again tightly. Maybe when she next opened them, everything that had happened the night before would just be all part of that awful dream, and she’d wake up back in her bed in her apartment, her best friend still watching Casablanca out in the living room.

  Yes, and the moon is made of green cheese.

  Okay, so that wasn’t going to work was it? It had all really happened. Someone had shot at her and Rhys had shot back, with a gun he’d apparently been carrying the whole night without her even being aware of it. Where had he gotten it? Had he always carried it? And why? Did bounty hunters frequently carried concealed weapons everywhere they went? She could understand that if so, except the way he’d pulled it out had been so smooth and fluid, like he’d done it a thousand times before. Then he’d pulled the trigger without even hesitating…

  Vivi opened her eyes, her heartbeat thumping in her head, staring at that unfamiliar ceiling again.

  Perhaps thinking about Rhys firing that gun was a bad idea. Perhaps she should be checking out where he’d taken her instead.

  She turned her head.

  She was in what looked to be the interior of a big one-roomed house, with a kitchen down one end and a long row of windows on the opposite side. A living area was arranged near the windows with a couch and a couple of armchairs. The furniture was all heavy dark wood and very rustic, the coverings and pillows brightly colored.

  She turned her head a little more.

  There was another bed next to hers and Rhys was lying on it. He was on his back, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and regular. Asleep.

  The lines of his face were relaxed, his surprisingly long and thick black lashes resting still on his carved cheekbones. There was nothing unfamiliar or strange about him. He looked like he always did, like Rhys, her friend.

  Except last night, he’d killed a man.

  An echo of fear caught at her, making her breath catch, and she had to look away from him, sitting up slowly and scanning the room once again.

  The light coming through the windows had the heavy, golden quality of afternoon, which meant she’d not only slept through most of the night, but most of the day as well. God, she really must have been tired.

  The scent of coffee hung in the air with a slightly musty smell beneath it. The smell of a house that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

  She wrinkled her nose. Was this Rhys’s place? Seemed like a strange location to have a vacation home, at least for a man like him. Seemed strange for a man like him to have a vacation home, period. He’d never mentioned it to her before, at least not that she could recall since he never went on vacation.

  So that’s what you’re going to think about? How weird it is that he has a vacation home in the desert?

  Vivi pushed her hair back from her face, her hand shaking. Well, she wasn’t exactly okay with the whole shooting, kidnapping and refusing to take her home thing, but right now she didn’t want to think about that. Rhys having a vacation home seemed like the least odd thing about the whole damn night.

  She let out a soft breath, chewing on her lower lip. Here she was, six hours from home, in the middle of freaking nowhere while her best friend, AKA the man who’d kidnapped her, was having a nice nap in the bed next to hers. Now what?

  Getting out of here, that’s what she wanted to do. And given that he’d been very clear he wasn’t going to be running her back to Austin any time soon, if she wanted to go home, she was going to have to get there herself.

  Vivi slid off the bed then looked down and frowned. She was still dressed in her pajamas, which weren’t exactly great traveling attire, but then she didn’t have any other clothes to change into, not when he’d picked her up from her bed and dumped her in the car. Already annoyed and getting more annoyed by the second, mostly because it made a nice change from being afraid, Vivi snatched up the blanket she’d been wrapped in and put it around her shoulders so at least she didn’t look like she was trying out for a position at Sugar Daddy’s, Austin’s newest strip club. Then she looked around the room, hoping he might have left his keys somewhere obvious.

  Her gaze snagged on a gleam of silver sitting on the kitchen counter. Bingo.

  Glancing once more at Rhys to make sure he was still asleep - and yes, it appeared he was - she moved quietly around the bed and across the room to the kitchen area.

  Sure enough the car keys were sitting there and she closed her hand around them, feeling a certain amount of grim satisfaction. He wasn’t going to be thrilled to be left here without a car, but that was too bad. He shouldn’t have shot that guy. He should have stayed being her friend not turned into some…killer.

  What about the fact that you were nearly shot and he protected you? Don’t you think you should stick around and see what that’s about?

  No, she couldn’t. She just…couldn’t. Because she had a feeling the explanation for that would be one that she didn’t want to hear. One she couldn’t deal with.

  She didn’t like surprises. She’d never liked surprises. Before her parents had adopted her, all she’d craved was familiarity and stability. Safety. And none of what was happening now was familiar, stable or safe.

  She wanted to get home. Get back to her apartment and to work. She had an important meeting first thing Monday morning that she couldn’t miss, and then there was her birthday dinner with Neil that was…hell. Tonight.

  She wasn’t going to make that, obviously, but if she left now, she’d be back by tomorrow at least, and hopefully Neil would understand.

  Vivi turned around, the keys in her hand.

  And all the air vanished from her lungs, because Rhys wasn’t in the bed asleep.

  He was standing right in front of her.

  Her mouth opened but no sound came out, her heartbeat suddenly deafening in her head. She’d never thought of herself as being particularly short, but she was aware, abruptly, that he was very, very tall. A good four inches taller than she was, at least. And that his shoulders were very broad, blocking her view of the door completely.

  She had a weird flashback to the night before, after that bullet had gone past her ear and he’d grabbed her, pulling her hard up against him before angling his body to shield her. It had all happened so fast she hadn’t registered it at the time and then, afterward, she’d been too shell shocked and scared to remember, but for some reason the memory of it came back to her now. Vividly. Of how hot his body had been and how hard. How safe she’d felt as he’d turned to shield her. How completely protected she’d been…

  She shivered. God, what was the matter with her? He’d shot someone and all she could think about was her own safety and how good it had felt to be held up against the granite wall of his chest. She was insane. Clearly.

  Rhys’s expression was unreadable, but there was an intent look in his eyes that for some reason made her heart leap up into her throat and stay there.

  “Where are you going, Vivi?” His voice was dark and gritty and cold, the way it normally was, yet she must be super-sensitized to the sound because it made awareness prickle all over her skin in reaction.

  He was standing very close to her, close enough to feel the heat of his body and smell his warm, earthy forest scent. That prickle of awareness sharpened.

  She swallowed, her mouth bone dry. This was weird, this was…not right. She’d been this close to him many, many times and she’d always managed to ignore her own physical reaction to him. It had never been a problem. But now? Since last night? It seemed she’d not only lost control of the situation, but she’d lost control of herself along with it.

  The thought was scary enough to make her shove the prickling awareness awa
y hard, reaching for the familiarity of irritation instead. “Actually,” she forced out. “If you must know, I thought…” She broke off as the look in his eyes intensified and he took another step forward.

  Too close.

  She took a quick step back, feeling the edge of the counter dig into her spine, her breathing getting fast and her stupid heartbeat suddenly going through the roof. Holy shit, this was wrong on just about every level there was. She should be finding him looming over her like this frightening, especially after last night. He certainly shouldn’t be…

  Hotter than hell?

  “You thought what?”

  Again his voice made her shiver and she tried to pretend it was because she was afraid, that he was scaring her, since the alternative…. Yeah, she couldn’t deal with that.

  “N-nothing,” she said quickly. “I smelled coffee, so I went to find one.”

  She didn’t know why she was lying to him. She should tell him she was going home and go. But he was standing over her like a giant, looming even. Being intimidating, scary…

  It’s not fear.

  Vivi’s heartbeat thumped, the truth thumping along with it. No, it wasn’t fear. It was worse than that. Much, much worse.

  He said nothing, staring down at her, something gleaming in the blackness of his eyes. Something…hot.

  The awareness inside her got wider, deeper, her pulse continuing to skyrocket. This was insane. She had to take control of this and yet she couldn’t seem to move.

  “Give me the keys, Vivi,” Rhys said. “Now.”

  She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to. Because she knew if she did, there would be no more chances to escape. He wasn’t going to let her.

  Again, that thought should have made her afraid, yet it didn’t. In fact, she had a horrible feeling that what was pulsing through her now was a kind of…excitement.

  How long are you going to ignore what this is?

  She took a silent, shaken breath, staring up at the man who was supposed to be her friend, trying desperately to ignore the feelings tangling inside her, trying to see the person she’d known for over fifteen years and not the menacing, terrifying stranger he’d turned into the night before.