A Very Merry Hitman (Holiday With a Hitman #2)

10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Dear Santa, I can explain…

Dante eyed the rundown apartment complex as they drove slowly through the parking lot, wondering if his target was home.

“You need to calm down,” Elli said as she pulled into a parking spot near the apartment they were about to break into.

“I haven’t said one single word,” Dante bit out even as he tried to temper his rage. He knew she was talking to him and not Theo, even though Theo was in the front seat with her.

Because someone had tried to hurt Aileen. Again.

And he hadn’t been there, so he was feeling extra murderous tonight.

Realistically he knew this wasn’t his fault, but at the end of the day it didn’t matter. Anything could have happened to her. And he couldn’t stand the thought of someone hurting her, of the world without her. She’d been through enough and he refused to let the world hurt her again.

She’d brushed all of them off after the attack, told them she was fine. Even him . It sliced deep that she hadn’t wanted his help.

“That’s what worries me,” Elli muttered as she turned the engine off.

“You need to stay here and keep watch,” Theo said into the quiet as Dante double-checked his weapon and mask.

“What? Why?” Elliana demanded. “I already disabled the complex’s security system. It was literal child’s play.”

“Because there could be any number of doorbell cameras we don’t know about. Or other personal security cameras. Or people and their damn phones. Dante and I are used to this and we’ll be able to blend in. You, however, are a tall, hot blonde who stands out anywhere, and the only one in this car that Time did a spread on. You can’t risk being seen and caught on cameras.”

“I really hate it when you’re logical,” she muttered, but she still kissed him then turned to Dante. “You better not do anything stupid, because I guarantee Aileen wants you back whole and unharmed. Be smart!”

He blinked, surprised by her words, but he slid out of the vehicle, tugged his ball cap on low and shut the door.

It was time to take care of business. He was only surprised this place even had a security system. At one time it had been decent, but years of neglect had made the small complex a faded, peeling green, and some of the roofs had long-faded blue tarps that he guessed weren’t from the last hurricane but the one before.

Theo strode off in a different direction as Dante headed for the stairs. They’d parked close to their target’s apartment, which was on the second floor. Elliana had disabled the system and it was after dark, so that was a plus because there was only one flickering light as he made his way up the sturdy concrete steps.

This place might be falling apart, but it had been built well once upon a time, in the seventies if he had to guess. So the bones of it were solid. Probably why it was still hanging on. If the rest of the place had been built with concrete, there’d be decent insulation. Always a good thing in his line of business.

At the top of the stairs, Theo was waiting across the way at the top of the other set. He shook his head, the code that he hadn’t seen anyone to worry about.

Dante removed his ball cap and slid on his thin balaclava while Theo did the same. Then the weapons came out.

Instead of kicking in the door like he wanted to, only because he wanted to bash something in, he picked the lock in less than ten seconds. The door was steel, but the lock was a piece of shit.

Pistol in hand, he eased the front door open and was greeted with a wave of Christmas music. Okay, not what he was expecting. But it confirmed the insulation was good because he hadn’t heard it outside.

He motioned to Theo that he was going in first. His longtime friend and sometimes partner on jobs nodded, fell in behind him and closed and relocked the front door.

Adrenaline pumping, Dante moved past a dark room, swept inside. The Christmas music shifted to voices talking and it took a moment to realize it was from a well-known holiday movie.

The first room was a simple bedroom with a twin sized bed, a pink and white comforter and a bunch of moving boxes stacked in one corner.

Theo swept what turned out to be a bathroom in a similar condition—clean and sparse.

They found the man they were looking for in his living room, eating pizza, the TV on low. Adam Jackson, per the info Elliana had dug up. When Jackson saw them, he dropped the piece onto a plate, made a move to get up, but both Theo and Dante had their weapons trained on him.

“Where’s the purse you stole the other night when you were dressed like Santa?”

The man swallowed, his hands spread, palms out as he looked between the two of them. Dante knew they looked scary as fuck in their masks, let alone with their weapons—which had suppressors on the ends.

“Don’t even think about lying,” Dante growled, when it seemed the guy might. Because he had zero tolerance for bullshit or wasted time right now. He knew Theo didn’t want to kill the guy, but Dante had no such compunction.

“In the first bedroom, in the closet. Top shelf behind a pair of jeans,” the man blurted, his dark eyes darting back and forth between them.

“You check,” Dante said. “If it’s a trap, I’ll shoot him in the knee.”

Theo kept his weapon up as he left the room, then moments later he came back, held up the dark purple leather handbag. Or clutch. Whatever. “This it?”

“Yep,” Dante bit out. “Why’d you attack that woman twice? And why dressed like Santa?” He had a feeling the Santa was just a good cover, but wanted clarification— before he beat the shit out of this guy.

The man blinked, frowning. “I didn’t attack anyone. I mean, I pushed that woman when I took her handbag,” he said, chin nodding to the purse Theo had set down on a nearby table.

Dante had to rein in his rage as he found his voice.

But Jackson continued. “Some guy hired me to take the purse,” he added, looking down slightly, having the decency to appear ashamed. “I didn’t want to hurt her…”

“Yet you attacked her again today?”

The man’s gaze shot up and he was already shaking his head. “I didn’t do anything to anyone today! I was with my si—” He clamped his jaw shut.

“Were you going to say sister?” Dante growled, taking a small step forward. “Because we already know about her.”

The guy lunged to his feet, rage flaring in his dark eyes.

“Sit,” Dante snapped out, the word whiplash sharp. “We’re not hurting her. We don’t hurt women,” he added, his tone pointed.

The man slowly returned to his seat.

“Hands where we can see them,” Theo said quietly when Jackson started to lower his arms.

The guy froze, but nodded. “I didn’t hurt anyone. And I haven’t…done anything like the other night in a while. But it was too much money to pass up and I just lost my job,” he muttered. “Cutbacks. Right before Christmas,” he added bitterly.

“Who hired you?” Dante demanded, not liking the sound of this at all. It had been planned, intentional. “And why her?”

“I don’t know why her, I swear. And I don’t know who hired me either, not really. It was a friend of a friend type of thing, asked if I wanted to make some quick cash with a snatch and grab. Said I could keep whatever was in the purse and the purse itself. I just had to turn over the cell phone.”

Okay, now they were getting somewhere.

“Why?” Dante pushed .

“I don’t know and I didn’t ask either.”

“Where were you today?” Theo interjected when Dante went to ask another question. “You said you were with your sister.”

The guy cleared his throat, nodded as he glanced at a small picture frame of him and a pretty, dark-haired, smiling woman, her arm around him. His expression softened slightly. “We went to the movies, then to a couple shops she wanted to stop at. Then there was a free show on the green near her college. Some holiday thing. She didn’t want to go alone, so…” He shrugged, the action jerky.

And damn it, Dante was pretty sure the guy was telling the truth. He looked at Theo, who nodded slightly. They weren’t at square one exactly, but this wasn’t ideal. They’d been hoping to wrap this up tonight but now they had more questions than answers. Who wanted Aileen’s phone, and why?

He looked back at the man. “Tell me the names of the places you stopped at with relative times.” Once the guy answered, Dante made it clear they’d be checking his alibi, then continued, “Who is the friend of a friend who contacted you, and how did they contact you? I want their phone number.”

“I ran into him at the corner shop. Chance thing. Or…I assume it was. I was just grabbing milk and ran into him in the parking lot. He approached me with the offer and I said yes. Apparently whoever hired him wanted a lot of degrees of separation.” He shrugged, but Dante could see the fear in his gaze.

“How do you know the guy?”

“We used to run in the same gang. Feels like a lifetime ago,” he murmured, looking down again.

From what they had on him, Dante figured he was being truthful. The man had run in a gang when he’d been a teen, but when his parents died and he started taking care of his sister, he moved them to a different part of Miami and started working a couple shitty, low-paying jobs. He’d been seventeen then and he’d definitely pulled some shady shit too, because he’d been brought in on suspicion of burglary a few times over the years but nothing had ever stuck.

“Had you seen your friend at that gas station before?” Dante asked.

Jackson paused, then shook his head and cursed. “No. So I guess it wasn’t a coincidence. He made it clear that he asked me because I don’t have a link to him or my old crew anymore so…yeah, that tracks.”

“I want his name, his cell phone number and any other gang associations he might have.”

Jackson paused, looked between Theo and Dante.

To Dante’s surprise, Theo lowered his weapon. “No one will ever know you spoke to us. And I know right now you’re contemplating your odds of getting out of here alive if you do tell us the truth. So I’m going to make you an offer I don’t think you’ll refuse. Because what’s going on here is way bigger than you. Our employer is going to offer up a scholarship for your sister, no strings attached. No grade requirements, not that it matters because we know she makes all As and will one day hopefully make a fine doctor. You tell us everything we want to know, we let you walk out of here and your sister gets the rest of her college paid off. Tuition, books, dorm room, everything.”

The man blinked, staring at them as if waiting for a punch line.

Dante was surprised by Theo’s offer, but kept his expression neutral—not that Jackson could see more than Dante’s eyes through the mask.

“I understand why you’d be hesitant to believe us,” Theo continued when he didn’t respond. With one gloved hand, Theo pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills. “And here’s some cash to tide you over through the holidays until you can get back on your feet. But there is one contingency—you can’t tell anyone about us or that we were here. Nothing about the scholarship, which will be an anonymous donation and have no link to you. Absolutely nothing. Not even a peep to someone you’re sleeping with. And we’ll know if you talk,” Theo growled. “And we also require that you reach out to us if any of your old crew makes contact about any kind of job. I don’t care if you think they’re not related, we want to know if any of them contact you.”

Jackson slowly nodded. “I figure I have a fifty-fifty chance of you guys telling the truth or just shooting me.” Then he relayed the name of the man who’d approached him, his last known phone number and the guy’s stomping grounds. Which lined up with the guy’s history .

“What about today? Do you know who the Santa was today?” Dante asked.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Jackson said, shaking his head. “I took a one-and-done job so I could pay for my sister’s tuition next semester, that’s it. And I made it clear that I wouldn’t be using a weapon or hurting anyone. I just want my sister to have a better life. And she has no idea about my…extracurricular activities.”

“And she won’t. Not by us anyway, because we don’t exist,” Dante murmured now that they’d gotten all they could. He’d have preferred violence, but Theo had a way with getting people to talk.

And hell, this had been the right move. While it might temporarily make Dante feel better to smash the guy’s face in, he just looked young and beat down by life as he sat on that couch. And it was clear he loved his younger sister, which was a point in his favor. So if they truly paid for his sister’s tuition, he’d be more likely to be honest with them from this point forward.

“You don’t exist,” Jackson repeated, nodding at them.

Theo left the number of a burner phone that Jackson could call if he heard from his old crew again, but Dante didn’t think anything would come of it. This guy had been essentially a throwaway, someone that if ever hunted down wouldn’t know enough to cause trouble.

Or at least that was what whoever had hired him thought.

Because they had enough useful information to dig deeper. Someone had asked his old gang for a favor so now they had a starting point.

Once they were in the SUV with Elliana steering out of the place, Dante spoke. “That was smart, what you did back there.”

“I know.” Theo sounded smug about it.

Dante sighed, silently impressed. “You’re so obnoxious.”

“True, but it’s hard not to be when I’m always right.”

Elliana snorted, but Dante could see her grinning from his angle.

“Are you really going to pay for his sister’s college?” he continued.

“Yep,” Elliana added. “Theo and I talked about it before we picked you up. I knew you’d disapprove, or at least strongly push back, so we didn’t tell you.”

She wasn’t wrong—because he wasn’t always rational when it came to Aileen—so Dante didn’t argue. All he said was, “Take me to Aileen.”

Theo and Elliana exchanged a look that he couldn’t quite make out from the front seat, but it felt charged.

Laying his head back on the rest, he ignored them.