It had been a pretty nice hit.
“It’s good to know you didn’t lose your touch out in the desert, Arden.” I turned towards the voice and watched Rinaldo Moretti walk into the plush office where he conducted a lot of his business. He wasn’t much to look at, my boss – average height, mostly bald, mid-fifties, a bit of a gut on him – but what he lacked in looks, he made up for in power. The man could make shit happen with a couple taps of his finger.
He was nervous about something today. Even though he walked with confidence and showed nothing in his face, there was something bothering him. The vein near his temple was beating rapidly, and his left hand kept clenching into a fist.
Behind him were two other men – Mario Leone and Terry Kramer. Mario was a huge guy – towering over my six-foot-two frame by a good five inches with enough muscle to deter most anyone from taking a stab at the boss. Of course, that was exactly why he was hired. Terry was a little wiry guy who looked like a dwarf next to the massive pile of muscle. If Mario fell over, Terry would get crushed, and it would suit me just fine if he did, too.
Leone was okay – he would sit down and have a beer with you when he wasn’t working and just shoot the shit. Terry was a whole other story. He was an obnoxious kid who rubbed me the wrong way even before he started trying to take my job.
None of them looked unusually concerned about anything – just Rinaldo.
“No, sir,” I responded automatically. I gave Mario a nod but ignored Terry completely. I took a long brea
th in slowly and silently, hoping we weren’t going to spend the entire afternoon reminding me of where I had fucked up. I’d already paid my dues as far as I was concerned.
“Good to know because this next one’s going to be a little more challenging.” He dropped his ass onto one of those big, leather executive chairs and leaned back.
“Whatever you need, sir.”
“Show him the picture.” He huffed a quiet breath through his nose and glanced away from the desk. He was annoyed with this person he wanted me to kill, no doubt about it.
Leone walked over and dropped a magazine on the desk in front of me. On the front page was a man I recognized immediately – I’d seen him in at least a dozen Bruce Willis style action films.
“Brad Ashton,” Jonathan said. “I saw him in that terrorist movie with the chick with the boobs.”
“Angelina Jolie,” I reminded him.
“Yeah – that one.”
“He’s got round the clock surveillance and never goes anywhere without a guard,” Rinaldo said. “Paparazzi follow him everywhere, too. The guy is never alone. He even fucks in pairs.”
“Makes him harder to hit,” Terry said.
Like I needed his fucking opinion.
“It’s gotta be close,” Rinaldo said as his eyes turned to me. “In his face, you know? Up close and personal.”
“I’m a sniper, sir,” I reminded him.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them. My eyes closed a little longer than a normal blink as I tried to reset and get my head back on straight. If I didn’t, it was likely going to get knocked from my shoulders. There was no doubt that most of my work was from afar, but I had done plenty of hits up close and personal, too.
“Whatever, dude,” Nick snickered.
Rinaldo glanced at him, and he replied with a toothy grin.
“You tellin’ me you don’t know how to shoot a handgun?” Rinaldo raised an eyebrow at me as he leaned forward a bit in the chair. “Because I happen to know you’ve done that once or twice before.”
“No, sir,” I responded. I hoped the tension I felt in my body wasn’t outwardly visible. I didn’t think it was – I tended to stand up pretty straight anyway. I didn’t miss Rinaldo’s jab – the reason I had been sent into temporary exile months ago had to do with putting someone down with my Beretta. Like Nick bringing it up wasn’t bad enough.
I had never heard of James Carson prior to killing him, but he was apparently pretty important to his cousin, Miss Fiona Carson. When the wife wasn’t around, Fiona happened to be sleeping with Gavino Greco, my boss’s primary competition. Her cousin had been a witness to an assassination where Rinaldo had ordered the hit, and I had made it happen. I hadn’t known who the guy was; I only knew he had been behind the dumpster when I killed Robert Franco, the idiot who dared dip into Rinaldo’s casino profits.
I thought I had cleaned up the scene, but it was a bigger mess than a witness, according to Rinaldo.
“I’ll take care of it for ya, boss,” Terry piped up. “I took care of plenty for ya while he was on vacation.”
Vacation.
Asshole.