The Assassin’s Heart Read online

  The Assassin’s Heart

  Alexis Abbott

  © 2018 Pathforgers Publishing.

  All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only. All sexually active characters in this work are over 18. All sexual activity is between non-blood related, consenting adults. This is a work of fiction, and as such, does not encourage illegal or immoral activities that happen within.

  Cover Design by Wicked Good Covers. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.

  More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing.

  Content warnings: mafia violence, abusive childhood

  Wordcount: 56,000 Words

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Charity

  2. Jake

  3. Charity

  4. Jake

  5. Charity

  6. Jake

  7. Charity

  8. Jake

  9. Charity

  10. Jake

  11. Charity

  12. Jake

  13. Charity

  14. Jake

  15. Charity

  16. Jake

  17. Charity

  18. Jake

  19. Charity

  20. Jake

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  Charity

  If there’s anything my parents have instilled in me over the many years of homeschooling I have received, it’s that people cannot be trusted.

  No one is good.

  Especially men.

  So as I search desperately for the locket I lost under the hotel bed, and I hear the telltale sound of heavy footsteps, my heart begins to race.

  I can’t be found here.

  Maids in this hotel have been fired for much less.

  I can hear faint, deep voices in a quiet, serious conversation, and then the click of a card key sliding through the sensor. My stomach turns. These guys do not sound particularly friendly at all.

  Just as the doorknob is turning, my fingers close around my locket. But I don’t have time to get out of here, and I can’t be caught snooping around the floor of these strangers’ hotel room.

  I decide that my best choice is to stand up and face the door, ready to smile sheepishly and apologize for being in their room past check-in hours. But when I try to bounce back up, I realize with a yelp of pain that one of the loose locks of my hair has somehow gotten tangled up in one of the coils under the bed! I’m stuck!

  I do the only thing my body is programmed to do: I flatten myself to the ground and shimmy underneath the bed completely, clutching the locket and praying like crazy that these guys don’t notice me hiding here.

  I am so going to get fired. It was a panic response and I instantly recognize how dumb it is, but it’s too late.

  I hear the door click open and from my position under the bed, I can see two sets of men’s boots walk into the room, shutting the door behind them. One of them wanders into the bathroom while the other stands in the doorway looking at him.

  I start to sheepishly shuffle to the edge of the bed, to take my chances with an apology, say I was still cleaning up their room and got delayed. But then I freeze when I hear what they’re saying, my blood running cold.

  “We’re talking murder here. Are you sure you’re up for this, kid? This is serious. I’m not talkin’ about child’s play here, you understand? The blood’s gonna be on your hands, nobody else’s.”

  I clasp my hands around my mouth to keep any sound from escaping.

  This can’t be happening. No, this can’t be happening. Not to me. Not here. Not now. I’ve always been the good girl. Sheltered. Careful.

  Becoming a maid at a middle-of-the-road hotel is not the ultimate dream job I had in mind when I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology two months ago. I poured so much energy, so much blood, sweat, and tears in the hopes of later going on to veterinary school.

  It can’t end here, underneath a cheap bed in a middle-of-nowhere hotel, caught by two guests as they discussed... What, exactly?

  Blood on his hands.

  Murder?

  They can’t mean that literally.

  I do my best to push the thought out of my head. They must be actors. Maybe they’re just rehearsing some lines back and forth, trying to remember them. I once found a fashion magazine on the bus—they were strictly forbidden in our house—and they talked about actors and actresses and how to practice for your roles.

  And stuck beneath a hotel bed, my hair being painfully tugged by the coil, my breathing held, my body aching as I desperately try not to move, that sounds a lot more plausible than it being anything dangerous.

  Why didn’t I just let my parents send me to the nunnery like they wanted? Instead, I secretly applied to university, got as many scholarships as I could, and went off to try to save the world in my own way.

  And look where that got me.

  My homeschooled life, being totally sheltered from alcohol and boys and fun and adventure, helping to raise my 6 siblings, being preened to be the perfect wife... It was all so safe, so secure, so... boring.

  But this isn’t the adventure I wanted. My mother always told me that I was too naive to handle the great big world out there, and that sticking close to home, living a simple, modest life would suit me best.

  As my heart thuds, and I hear the growled voices of the men in the room grow darker, I think she and my father were right.

  The world is too dangerous for me.

  Men are too dangerous for me.

  Even a job as a hotel maid is too dangerous for me.

  I hold my locket tight, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to drown out the sound of their conversation above me. My grandmother gave me the locket, and I always wear it. When I realized I had lost it in the last room I cleaned, I rushed back to find it. It’s a source of strength, and I’ve always kept it close to my heart since she first gave it to me when I was nine.

  She was my confidante, the one woman who believed I was strong and capable of so much more than my parents wanted for me. All of my bravery comes from her, and I hold the locket tightly in my hand, trying to channel that bravery now.

  My heart begins to beat more rhythmically, and my brain clears enough to think again.

  I’m going to get through this, I promise myself. I won’t even get fired. It’s all a misunderstanding. I’m just a maid who dropped her locket and went back to get it. Everyone will probably just think it’s funny that some young woman would lose her head if it weren’t attached to her neck.

  I start to feel a little bit better, bravery rising in my chest.

  And then, in an instant, in a single phrase, it all fades away.

  “Do you need a gun or do you already have one?”

  Jake

  I don’t trust the look of this guy.

  But if I want to bring my plans together, I might just have to take a chance. It will all depend on whether he turns out to be wasting my time with this job. It wouldn’t be the first, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  The man looks to be in his late twenties, about my age. That’s unusual for my clients, but not unheard of. Chances may well be that he’s a middleman for some rich old fucker higher up the food chain.


  That, or he might be the solo act he presents himself as.

  He has been sketchy with the details, which gives me a bad feeling in my gut, but in this line of work, that game of trusting and second-guessing your instincts never ends. The man’s eyes are as black as his hair, and he has the same rugged look about him that I do. If I didn’t know better, I might suspect that this is another man in my line of work trying to outsource a dangerous job.

  When you deal in blood, anything is possible.

  I’m cautious. I am always cautious, but the stakes of this job are high enough that I can cut no corners, and my client is of the same mind. Half an hour ago, we met up in the hotel lobby, pretending to be friends from high school catching up. I walked up to this man who I’d never seen before and embraced him with a smile as fake as his, and I had to hold myself back from cringing at the smell of his cheap cologne. It made him smell like the inside of a locker room in a middle-class suburban community center.

  We chatted for a few minutes over a drink at the bar, even though it was only around 2:30 in the afternoon. But at a hotel like this one in the middle of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where businesspeople were coming and going faster than anyone could keep track of, nobody cared. Anonymity was one of the perks of working in a big city like Philly. Even with our cover stories, we were practically invisible.

  I greeted him by the name Gabe, as he had instructed me before we met in person. I didn’t believe for a second that Gabe Hutz was the man’s real name. At least, I hoped it wasn’t, because if it was, this guy was such an amateur that I’d need to pull out while I still could. But he handled himself like a professional all the way through. Over a drink, he chatted idly, pretending to catch up on how the past few years have been. He pretended that he was passing through for his cousin’s wedding, and I pretended I was a local who stuck around Philly and put down roots. To the outside observer listening in, we looked perfectly normal, down to the moment that he invited me up to his room to see a wedding present his uncle was giving him.

  Minutes later, here we are.

  His demeanor changed as soon as the door closed behind us. He was more nervous than he let on, and that almost made me feel more at ease. It was more like what I was used to.

  I’ve spent years building my career. I started with the lowest of the low, killing men who were already wanted criminals or presumed dead, the types of scum that would never be missed. I made the right friends and dealt with the right enemies, and over time, I built trust. Clients came back once they got a taste of how efficient I could be.

  Half the time, I even scare myself with this skill I never knew I had.

  But this has been my life ever since my first kill. Ever since I ran from home. It’s the only life I have, but I’ve made something out of it. Maybe it will be something I am proud of one day. But I don’t pretend it’s anything other than what it is: blood money.

  I am a hitman.

  There is no way around that.

  I didn’t ask for this life, but I found myself nudged into it inch by inch. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m an adrenaline junkie at heart. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the right time. Or maybe I’m truly the black-hearted killer that haunts my own nightmares.

  Right now, I’m just a man discussing a job.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this, kid?” Gabe asks behind my back. I make my way into the room, looking around. I first step into the bathroom, flicking the lights on and peering inside. I move to the shower curtain and pull it back, then turn around only after making sure nobody is there.

  In the mirror, I see my reflection looking back at me. I’m a few inches taller than my client, with short brown hair and pale green eyes. I haven’t shaved in a few days, and the scruff is growing as rugged and wild as it always does.

  “This is serious. I’m not talkin’ about child’s play here, you understand? The blood’s gonna be on your hands, nobody else’s,” Gabe continues, watching me from the entrance of the bathroom. I turn my eyes to him, a steely gaze meeting his. He shouldn’t be saying anything until I’m sure the room is clear, much less talking about murder.

  I move past him without a word, pulling open the closet and checking inside briefly before moving to the main area of the room. My eyes rove over each facet of the place—from the drawers under the television to the desk by the window to the nightstand to the large bed, freshly covered in sheets.

  I step over to the curtains and slowly draw them closed, panning over the parking lot below to make sure nobody is watching from downstairs.

  I take a few steps toward the bed, peering down at it thoughtfully, eyes roving over the covers, then down to the space below the bed frame.

  “You listening to me?” Gabe says suddenly, sounding a little irritated by my silence.

  “Yes,” I say simply, my gaze meeting his once more, my sweep of the room complete.

  “Look,” he says as he approaches the desk and sets his briefcase on it. “I know all of this is...a lot, but I don’t want this fucked up.”

  Let him get pissed off. If he doesn’t want to be careful and keep us from getting arrested, that’s his problem, and I won’t let it become mine. I’ve never fucked up a job and I’m not about to start now.

  It makes me worry that this man is not quite as experienced as the amount of money for this job he’s promising suggests. But it’s too early to tell just yet, and so far, he has made good on all his promises, despite his jumpiness. Even if I still have the slime from our first handshake on my palms, his money is as green as anyone else’s.

  “Do you need a clean gun?” he asks, his hands on the briefcase as he looks over his shoulder at me. “I’ve got a .22 here that can get the job done just fine.”

  “I use my own,” I say in a low but firm tone. He gives me a look, but he doesn’t argue with the even gaze I’m giving him. I wouldn’t trust any gun Gabe wants to give me. This man is slimy, but he looks like no killer I’ve ever met. I would be surprised if he even knows what ‘clean’ means in this line of work, and for all I know, it could be some shoddy piece of shit that will be more of a liability than anything else.

  Contract killing was not the first thing I turned to when I started down this dark road, but I found that I liked it partly because I have complete control over every aspect of it from start to finish. Barring whatever special conditions the client specifies, I decide when to strike, how to strike, how to make my approach and escape, and what weapons to use. Gabe isn’t the first man to think he can hand me a gun and hope it impresses me.

  Gabe and I lock eyes for a few moments, but he nods at last.

  “I just want to be beyond sure that all our bases are covered, understand?” he says, stroking his chin anxiously. “This isn’t your everyday job.”

  I nod slowly. He was like this when we were only talking online, too, constantly nagging and beating around the bush. It was like a fly buzzing around my head, and it was growing more annoying by the moment. But I need the money bad enough that I’m willing to put up with him a little while longer.

  “It’s got to make a splash, you understand?” he says, pacing back and forth a little. He keeps looking from the briefcase to me uneasily. “It has to make the entire city stand up and take notice.”

  I nod again, and I get the sense that my silence is frustrating him almost more than his overbearing cologne is annoying me. That makes me want to say even less. Maybe I’m just a contrarian at heart. But the more time I spend around this man makes me like him less, despite the money he’s offering. And the fact that he wants this to ‘make a splash’ tells me there’s a much bigger ego at work just under the surface. This is a man who wants to know he’s responsible for something big. Despite what he says, there will be blood on his hands as well, and he knows it.

  There is a kind of voyeuristic kick men like him get from pulling the strings that take lives. If his targets weren’t some of the worst people imaginable, I would keep from indulging this disgusting fantas
y of his. But if this man is worse than the men he’s paying me to kill, I will be impressed.

  “There’s going to be a lot of heat,” he says, looking at me meaningfully. “Can you handle that?”

  I let the faintest smile cross my lips before I nod.

  He picks up the briefcase and sets it down on the bed, sliding it over to me. “Good. Here are the details. I hope it goes without saying that this information puts a big, red target on you, so deal with it when the job is done.”

  I don’t react to his statement as I take the briefcase and pull it toward me, making note of the security code he has on the lock before clicking it open and looking at the contents.

  There are papers within containing so many details about the targets that they themselves would probably be shocked to read them all. My eyes scan over every details.

  Two men are detailed in this job. The first of them is named Desmond Lamar, a wealthy man in his late forties who lives in an upscale neighborhood I recognize. The client has provided me with details of his schedule, as he likes to spend time at home. That will be the site of his execution. He is a married man with two kids, both of whom have basketball practice on weekday afternoons, leaving the house almost empty. His wife Janice is a stay-at-home mother, and she poses the biggest risk for the hit. But Desmond is a man jealous of his privacy and ‘personal time’, meaning he is often away from his wife even in his own house.

  I am to leave the body on site after the deed is done and be gone like a shadow. I glance over the details Gabe has produced for me on him. I see an internet search history that paints a very ugly picture of the seemingly quaint father of two. His tastes in pornography would raise an FBI agent’s eyebrow, and he spends so much time chatting with sex workers online that some cam girl probably has a fat bank account with him to thank for it. His wife doesn’t know about any of this, but she will probably find out after I’m done with him.