Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) (2 page)

“Well no. And what there is, honestly, nobody would want to go near it, much less look at it. And not smell it.”

“Oh, no, Abe, not smell it. Not for love nor money.” Declan put the zippo back in his pocket. “Candles are all lit now, Abe, as you see, and balanced all be it a little unsteadily, on the little table. So, fish to fry and all that. We’ll have to love you and leave you.”

“Well, leave you, anyhow. And thanks for the tip about Dalia, although I think you may have spoiled my appetite for her establishment.” Holding out the knife to Liam, Declan said, “Would you like to do the honors?”

Liam smiled. “Under the circumstances we could take one each, do you not think?” Declan nodded once and Liam said, “So. After you.”

The two thin red lines across Abe’s forehead leaked and ran then suddenly poured like red waterfalls. He gurgled and spluttered, coughed and choked.

As they left Liam called out, “Don’t forget the pills, Abe.

Declan tossed him the car keys and said, “Double or quits. What do you say?”

“Sure. Time or distance, you choose.”

== == == 

The Range Rover slowly gnawed up the flat, gray road across the flat gray landscape.

Declan said, “Do you really want to check out that brothel you asked him about?”

“Would I want to go anywhere that slug has been? I was thinking about those three singers in the Hilton last night, though.”

“Oh, I just bet you were. But we both know the rules.”

“I know. And there’s bound to be another Hilton on the way.” Liam’s voice was dreamy, “What I was thinking, though, wouldn’t it be grand if there was a woman who’d got what all three of those girls had.”

Declan laughed and said, “Then we’d both be wanting the same woman.” 

“True enough.” The road didn’t get any more interesting over the next minute or two. “I need something to take my mind off the next job. I hate these back to backs.”

“Right. This next one coming up, it’s hard to tell who you want to kill more, the target or the fucking client.”

“He does sound like a ginormous douche. Let’s hope we don’t wind up having to do them both again.”

Declan said, “Like this one you mean?” 

“Exactly.”

“And it’s in Asscrack fucking Ohio.”

“Ah, no, my friend. Where we’re going, they work and save for a family trip to Asscrack.”

A sound in the distance was like a huge cardboard box being suddenly flattened. Liam saw a rising plume of black smoke in the rear view mirror. He stopped the car and they both peered at the dashboard. Liam smiled, “One point two miles.” He held out his hand. “I’ll have that ten bucks now, if you don’t mind.”

“Fair play to you, you read him right that time,” Declan said as he handed Liam the ten.

“When it came down to it, he couldn’t make the decision. Wouldn’t know which shoe he’d try to tie first.” Liam said as he swung the Range Rover back onto the road.

“Putting things off and putting them off until it’s all too late.” Declan shook his head. “What were those pills?”

“Tylenol.”

I
WANT
TO
say that I hoped it was quick. That it wouldn’t be drawn out or too painful.

After all that he’d done to me, though, I’d be lying if I said that.

It was a bright, sunny May day on Main Street when the hitmen came to town.
From the window of the DeLacey Doily Café, cups paused, halfway to red lips that waited, open in anticipation. The ladies of the town, and that included me, all watched a squat, matt black Range Rover pound with a lot of noise and no hurry, up our quiet little main street. It stopped at the curb right opposite the café, in the tow-away zone. By the hydrant. Right next to officer Jacey.

A wicked smile stretched Jaycey’s thin, bloodless lips as she took out her fat little book of tickets and her cheap, scratchy ball-point pen.

Even from across the street we caught a flash of the driver’s dark, golden brown eyes over his black shades as he stepped around the car and tilted his red lips towards officer Jacey’s ear. Before she got a ticket ready to write he had loomed up, tall and black suited behind her shoulder.

Her neck flicked like there were hornets in her hair. Her eyes glazed when she turned to look in his face and we all saw her knees sag. His dark head low as he turned it to talk in her ear. Her shoulder went up and head cocked to one side like she was being tickled.

He said something else to her and her face flushed. Jacey fumbled as she put her book of tickets away in her back pocket. She jumped back when the passenger door opened and another dark haired man got out. From across the street they looked like they could be twins. Jaycey hurried, bustling away with her head shaking and low.

Both tall, broad, and dark in sharp black suits they wore bright white shirts with high, open collars. We all studied the huge, angular frames of the two men, dark silhouettes in the bright sun. Feet planted wide apart, they looked right in the café window. You could feel a thump of shock and the temperature in the café rose as a distinct perfume hit the air.

All of us, all of the ladies in the DeLacey Doily Café licked our lips slowly as we took in the tight Italian cut suits stretched hard over the bulges in front of their hips. And we all breathed in sharply as they stepped off the curb, heading right this way.

Even insolent, pouting little Kylie, the tattooed tart who hid in plain sight as the DeLacey Doily’s laziest waitress drew herself up straight, touched the back of her neck and lifted her chin towards the door as they approached.
 

The little bell jingled like a hysterical toy fire alarm as the door sprang open. They let it slam against the frame as they strode in the middle of the room.

The air in the café quivered as they stood and their eyes swept the room. I know mine were not the only thighs that shook and fell ever so slightly apart as they gazed around, tall and smoking hot. Their eyes cut across all of the ladies of the town and the first voice rolled like a massive bowling ball.

“Who knows where Hollis Cullen is?”

It took a moment for me to speak. My breath fluttered in my breast. These strangers, these huge hunks of raw animal power wanted something that I could give them. I felt the jealous gazes of all the other women in the café as their eyes swivelled my way.

When the ladies all looked at me I felt their thin breaths of envy, the two men looked me. Their hard eyes froze on me and held me. I could hardly move my eyes to look from one to the other and my stomach fluttered like a tiny sparrow, caught in a huge jar. Slowly then they looked at each other.

My mouth dried. There was a definite moment between them before their eyes turned back to me.

Should I have been so ready to take them to Hollis? In my girlish, unrealistic soul, I wanted to do whatever these two hunks wanted me to do. More than anything I wanted them to want me to do something for them.

Anything. Really. Anything. Some things maybe more than others. I knew that was just girlish fantasy, though. That kind of a thing would be with Hollis from the day we met and forever after till the day I died.
 

Hollis had been a ‘good catch’ when we were in high school, as my momma never failed to tell me, with Daddy nodding like a donkey behind her, watching me over her shoulder with his eyebrows raised.
 

Was Hollis the great ‘catch’ because he was the football star with the looks of a Michelangelo sculpture, a floodlight smile and the super magnetic personality that made everyone feel magical and alive, the man that every girl adored and every boy wanted to be? No.

Hollis was the ‘catch,’ because his daddy owned the lumber mill. The mill where my daddy and almost everyone else’s daddy worked. The mill that kept every other business in our little town
in
business.

With an ax and a cart when there was nothing here but the trees and a few cabins by the river, Hoagie started Cullen’s Lumber. Now, the town of Cullen has over fifty thousand inhabitants, all of them with a debt of gratitude to Hoagie Cullen. He carries debts of other kinds for most of them, too. Hoagie is not an easy man to like, but he’s almost impossible not to admire. I should know since he’s my father-in-law.

His son Hollis, my husband, on the other hand, was impossible to like and I never heard of anyone admiring him. Not after they’d actually met him.

A rustle went around the café as the two men prowled towards me and stopped to stand on either side of me. Uncomfortable I looked up, but I couldn’t see their eyes through their dark shades. Then I couldn’t stop my gaze from following the flys of their white shirts, down to the dull gleam of expensive looking belt buckles and on down to the strained Italian fabric at my eye level.

Their manner was polite and my thoughts were distinctly not. A thing that Hollis has made me do, that I never would have done if he hadn’t forced me, that I thought disgusting. He made me do it all the time, and always complained about how I did it. How I had no ‘enthusiasm’ for it. And I didn’t. Not until a shocking half a second ago. My throat tightened and I had to moisten my lips. Little Kylie glowered at me with hot pokers in her eyes.
 

The broader of the men was on my left. With a graceful, soft New England brogue he said, “Would you take us to him, Miss?”

And the other said, with the trace of a Pennsylvania twang, “If it isn’t any trouble to you.”

They were on either side of me as I stood and I felt light-headed. There was an air of danger about these men, something that troubled the air, but one touched my hand. The touch was soft, but a shudder like a sonic boom went off deep inside me.

At the same time I felt the warmth of the other man as his accent breathed softly into my ear, “We’re here. You’re alright now.” For a moment I could only stand still. A need came over me and my eyelids fluttered as I moistened my lips.

There was nothing I wanted more than to lead these two lusty, dangerous men out of the café, in front of all the small town’s fine ladies. And nothing I wanted less than to take them to my husband.

As the two men in black followed me back out into the hot sun, a long sigh dragged out of the women in the café at once.

L
IAM
AND
D
ECLAN
watched Courtenay from behind as she led them out of the café, and passed a couple of looks back and forth between them as they did. They watched her get into her Toyota and wait for them as they crossed the street. Liam handed the keys to Declan and he got in the driver’s side of the Range Rover.

Laim said, “She seems like a nice woman.”

Declan looked over at him and laughed. “Do you never fucking say what you mean?”

Liam laughed. “Okay I'll tell you what she is. She’s a fucking dynamite little piece of ass. Are you satisfied now?”

Declan started the engine as she pulled out. Following behind he said, “After watching the ballet that her tits and ass make, no, Liam. I’m not satisfied and I think I may well not be for some time.”

“She’s a gorgeous woman with a naughty sparkle in her eye, did you see that?”

Declan licked his lips as he drove. “When I was able to get my eyes out of the front of her dress and my mind out of her panties, yes, I clocked the little gleam of mischief in her emerald eyes. Now that you come to mention it, I did.”

“This Hollis,” Liam said, frowning, “From all that I can see, he seems like a total asshole. He sells the skankiest bullshit drugs, and he wants us to whack one of his own dealers.”

“That’s right,” Declan chewed the inside of his cheek. “I guess he thinks that will make him the big number one gangster here in Zitville.”

Liam’s head shook. “Hasn’t got the balls to do it himself, but he still thinks he’s going to be top dog, calling in some out of town help.”

“Sounds too dumb to live, right?”

Liam said, “Just supposing, alright, just for a moment imagine that we offered to off the fuckup for her. What do you think the ripe and juicy Mrs Cullen might say?”

Declan’s voice was serious. “It’s business, Liam. Don’t go getting off track now. We’re here to do a job.”