Page 26 of Hannah and the Hitman

My cell had vibrated in my pocket more than once while we were eating. Since that meal had been a shitshow, I’d ignored the calls. Then I got another while I was in thetiny bathroom with Hannah. Three in the matter of minutes had me annoyed.

Hadn’t whoever the fuck it was known I was busy?

I hadn’t wanted to look and find out, finally having Hannah right where I wanted. Cornered between me and a sink. The sink wasn’t part of the plan. A wall or a bed were better options, but I was always able to revisit and revise any situation. We’d been alone. In averysmall space. I wasn’t even sure I could stand and piss without hitting my head on the sloping ceiling but if I’d have found a way to fuck her.

It hadn’t been Dax calling to tell me he needed me along for a job. It’d been a Vegas area code, which meant Sal Reggiano. I was smart enough to know the powerful man needed a call back, with Joey Brains or some other assistant doing the work. Even when I had been inches from my girl.

Whatever the mob boss had to say wasn’t for Hannah’s ears. Or her family’s.

The calls were a cold-shower-like reminder–more than the scolding from Dax–that I was being stupid being with Hannah. I’d been at her parents’ house having dinner!

Dax was going to shit a brick when I told him. We didn’t do stuff like family get-togethers. Holidays. Leftovers. Football tailgating.

Hell, I wasn’t the man who hung out with people whose biggest concerns in life were forgotten potato salad. Sure, Hannah had an ice-queen mother, a lush father who stuffed dead animals—so fucking ironic, a pompous brother, and a skanky sister who’d tried to play footsie with me under the table before I kicked her in the shin and shutthat shit down. They were harmless. The self-involved were easy to manage because they didn’t see anything but themselves.

They especially didn’t see Hannah.

Her family’s kind of crazy was normal. Not the kind like me and Dax who roughed up or killed people for money. Okay, Hannah’s family was really fucking crazy.

Still, I was a bad option for her. No matter how much I’d wanted to lower my head the few inches between us in the bathroom and kiss her, I couldn’t. Not with a mob boss blowing up my cell.

I couldn’t have missed the flash of hurt in Hannah’s eyes when I told her I had to leave. She seemed to have a talent for hiding her emotions, but I could see it. She thought I wasleavingleaving. That I was walking away. Permanently.

I’d put that hurt there.

Perversely, I was pleased because it meant she felt something for me. I couldn’t have hurt her if she hadn’t had interest or like or… felt something when she was with me.

I felt the same way. There was way more than interest and a shit ton of like. Hope? I had no idea what the fuck that was. All I knew was that her resigned expression to someone else bailing on her started to melt the ice around my heart.

That was a big problem because when one had a heart, killing became really fucking hard. Big Mike had lost his wife–Dax’s mom–before I came into the picture. He always talked about how she had been the love of his life and a drunk driver had taken her out on the way to work. She’d been a nurse. Loved helping people. When she was gone, he said she took his heart with her and filled the void withthe need for justice. To rid the world of drunks who had no license because they had seventeen DUIs. The police hadn’t been able to do anything but follow the sad, weak laws. But Big Mike hadn’t been held to them. He told us it made killing and roughing people up easy when you didn’t feel. And when the people he took out deserved it. The world was a better–and safer–place without that specific drunk and all the drug dealers, sex offenders, and other scum he came across after. He shared this no nonsense, no feeling approach to life with us.

I hadn’t been interested or pulled to someone until Hannah. It made no sense. Why now? Why her? She was tame and normal and… extraordinary. From what I could tell, she’d been through a lot. Alone, or at least with a crazy cast of helpers.

Besides Dax, I was alone, and I’d been okay with it. Hannah was the kind of person who loved people. Interaction. Seeing them happy.Thatwas what made her good.

I wasn’t good. I was successful based on the Maserati I was driving and the penthouse I owned. But taking calls from mob bosses was a pain in the ass, not a sign of success. I didn’t want Sal Reggiano or anyone else to interrupt my time with my girl. But he had.

I didn’t want to be the one who bailed on her. I wanted to be the one who stuck.

An hour later, I was back at my apartment. The ride down the mountains from Coal Springs was faster, the drive downhill the whole way and after rush hour.

I sent a text to Nitro.

Find out everything you can about a guy named Kevin who lives in Coal Springs. Late 20s, early 30s. Dated the town librarian.

It wasn’t much for him to work with, but Nitro would get the info on the ex. I’d take care of that asshole. Later.

Taking care of current business, I dialed the number that had called me during my time with Hannah. Knowing I had to deal with a mob boss, I’d skipped calling him back from my SUV. It wasn’t that I respected him all that much, but my clients weren’t to be underestimated. They wanted someone dead and paid good money to see it happen. They weren’t high school football coaches or plumbers.

I was a bad guy, but these guys werebad.They’d have shot Hannah’s family one after the other for being annoying shits, then kept right on eating their well-done burgers.

I stood in my kitchen while the call rang, looking out the windows at the expansive view of the Rocky Mountains. The sun had already set, but twilight lingered.

“You haven’t completed your job for me.”

Shit. It wasn’t Joey Brains. It was Sal Reggiano himself. He was talking about Turkleman. And he was doing it over the phone. It was probably a burner, but it meant hereallywanted this guy dead.

Because of Hannah, I’d forgotten about the job. Entirely.