This contract was going smoothly. Too smoothly. As soon as the fucking maid began pushing hercleaning cart down the hallway, Priest checked his watch again.
“Fuck.”
Any second and his targetwould be stepping off the elevator with the barely seventeen-year-old girl he planned to force into their prostitution ring. He’d fuck her, beat her close to death, pump her full of drugs, and then send her to their whorehouse for grooming.
As soon as themaid swiped her keycard on the room where he planned to carry out this hit, he ground his teeth down hard, his mind going through all the possible scenarios. He didn’t want an innocent to get killed on his watch, but that bitch had some bad timing.
The elevator door opened with a ding, and an obscenely drunk young woman stumbled out, attempting to hang off his target. She giggled as he led her to his hotel room. Why was the maid in the room? The room had already been rented and pre-paid for two weeks. It had been cleaned at 9:44 that morning, so there was no fucking reason for the maid to be there. The maid assigned to this end of the floor tonight wasn’t even a blonde.
Once he heard the door close, he stood up and kepttight to the wall as he moved in closer to room number 4423. He kicked open the door as planned, his pistol in his outstretched hand. Priest scanned the room. The girl was already crashed on the bed, the bastard unbuckling his belt. The man froze in place with the red dot dead centered on his forehead. Where the fuck was the maid? He’d watched her come into the room, and her cart was still just outside in the hallway.
Whatever. Thiscontract needed to be finished or Boss would be on his case tonight.
“You like little girls, motherfucker?”
Marcus shrugged nonchalantly, so Priest brought him down to size with a bullet to the kneecap. His screams were much louder than the shot with his silencer securely in place.
“Shut the fuck up.”He moved in close and stripped him of all his weapons and his cell phone. “Take off your clothes.”
Hekept his gun in his target’s direction as he did a rough search of the luxury room. Marcus wasn’t going anywhere, too busy bleeding on the carpet. Where was the maid? He couldn’t leave a witness behind. Killer of Kings demanded every hit be clean. And he wouldn’t let Boss down, not after he’d saved Priest from self-destruction almost a decade ago.
She was nowhere to be found. He even checked under the bed.
Priestreturned to Marcus Olivieri. He was in his underwear, not looking too suave now with snot leaking down his face. The man whimpered and begged for his life like a little bitch, but he wasn’t leaving this room alive regardless.
“Underwear too. Then get on the bed.”
The girl had passed out. Priest grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her unceremoniously off the bed. She barely came to. He reached down to the ground and pulled her up to her feet by the back of her hair. “Go home to your mother. Understand? Stop drinking. Don’t talk to fucking strangers.”
She nodded repeatedly. He opened the room door and shoved her out into the hall where she fell to her knees. Then he tossed a wad of bills from his pocket onto the carpet outside. “Go home!”
Once alone in the room with Marcusagain, he went to work, slitting the man’s throat to shut him up. Priest held his palm to Marcus’s chest to keep him from thrashing as the blood drained from his body. Then he reached down and cut off his balls in one clean stroke, shoving them into Marcus’s mouth. When his men found him, one of their high-ranking soldiers, it would send a message loud and clear not to fuck with Killer of Kings. Boss was systematically bringing down their numbers one by one.
He washed his hands in the bathroom, the blood mixing with the water and swirling down the drain. His mind almost went back to those weeks of carnage so long ago, but he stopped himself before slipping into oblivion. When he heard a barely audible sniffle, he knew his maid was hiding in the linen closet.
Priest was fairly certain she hadn’t seen his face. Not that his identity meant a thing. He was hard to miss with half his face covered in ink. It was the complication that pissed him off. It would be so easy to end her life like most hitmen would do without a second thought. For Priest, it wasn’t so simple. He shouldn’t care, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill an innocent.
He almost pulled out his cellphone to call Bain because he knew he was working nearby. Anyone else on his team would take the shot. But he refrained, not wanting to look incompetent. He checked his watch. Fuck, he should have been out of there by now. He knew Chains had taken a hostage at one point, trapping her in his basement rather than killing her. Boss had been pissed off to a new level. Priest had no intentions of following the same route but couldn’t figure out what to do with her.
Hetucked his gun into his holster and opened the closet door. Priest crossed his arms over his chest as he looked down at her on the bottom shelf. He was surprised she’d managed to squeeze in there at all.
“Get out.”
She didn’t hold back the sniffling now as she spilled out onto the bathroom tiles from her cramped position. She stayed on the floor in the fetal position.
“Get up.”
Inch by inch, she stood up, her hands clutching her apron. Her knuckles were white, her face blotted and tear stained. “I didn’t see anything.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
Priest scoffed. He grabbed her by arm and tugged her into the main room where the white sheets were soiled red, the body sprawled out in the most unflattering position. She gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth.
“Now you see.”
She shook her head back and forth. “Please no.”
His curiosity got the better of him. “Why were you in this room after hours?”
“The last shift forgot to replace the toilet paper. She asked me to check before I left.”