Hometown hitman, p.1
Hometown Hitman, page 1
HOMETOWN HITMAN
JACOB CHANCE
Copyright © 2022 Jacob Chance
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This novel is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to people either living or deceased, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are only used for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
Cover design by Shepard Originals
Edited and Proofread by Ink Machine Editing
This book contains mature content.
Sometimes you need a second chance, because you weren't quite ready for the first.
CONTENTS
1. Lynch
2. Whitney
3. Lynch
4. Lynch
5. Whitney
6. Lynch
7. Whitney
8. Whitney
9. Lynch
10. Whitney
11. Lynch
12. Lynch
13. Whitney
14. Lynch
15. Lynch
16. Whitney
17. Lynch
18. Lynch
19. Whitney
Honeymoon Hitman
Chapter One
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
LYNCH
“You should try to behave yourself Lynch, you know the agency will be watching.” Agent Curtis walks into the division office and sits down behind my desk, just as I’m starting to clear it out.
“So, what, they’re telling me to fuck off, and now you’re in here telling me how to fuck off?”
“I’m not telling you anything. It was just a suggestion. And maybe a reminder.”
“Well, let me remind you not to get so comfortable when you’re speaking to me,” I snap back. “And let me also suggest you go ahead and fuck off.”
She waves her hand. “Relax, I’m just teasing you.”
“What are we, girlfriends now?”
“Don’t be bitter, and try not to worry. I’ll save a spot for you in Special Activities, if you ever find your way back,” she says.
“Save me a spot? Look at you, so full of yourself you can’t even see it.”
“See what?” Now she’s curious.
“The first player brought up from the practice squad is just the last person who wasn’t good enough to make the starting lineup.”
“Great analogy. Have you ever heard the saying, out of sight, out of mind?”
“Are the two of you almost finished measuring your dicks? Or do you need another minute?” Abraham Locke, the agency’s director of covert operations, stands in the doorway.
“No, sir, we're finished,” Agent Curtis' answers in a squeaky tone. She looks mortified.
“Yeah, we’re done.” I can’t help but laugh at her discomfort. “Hers is much bigger than mine.”
“So I’ve heard.” Director Locke smiles. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Of course, sir.” Agent Curtis rises from behind the desk with a confident smile.
“Not you.” Locke chuckles at her assumption. “I was just speaking to him.”
“Yes, of course, sir.” She immediately flushes with embarrassment. “I’ll just be–”
“Sitting here waiting to be shipped back to the practice squad,” I interrupt before she can finish. “Excuse us. We need to talk.” I grin and follow Locke toward the door.
Agent Curtis sticks up her middle finger and silently mouths “fuck you” at me as I go.
“Don’t you need your belongings?” Director Locke stops at the door, pointing back at the box I’ve been filling for the last few minutes.
I shake my head. “No, I’m good. None of that shit is mine anyway.” I wink at Curtis, leaving her behind to unpack the team’s office supplies.
“Better watch out for that one,” Locke warns me as we make our way down the crowded corridor. The stream of highly capable and extremely busy agents parts in an almost supernatural manner as Director Locke’s protection team clears a wide path before him
“She’s harmless.” I chuckle. “A little too ambitious for her own good, but harmless.”
“Still, I want you to be careful. Word around here is that little miss ambition is looking to move up, fast,” Locke asserts. “Otherwise, I guess she does seem pleasant.” He chuckles.
“Only because you don’t know her that well.”
Locke stops walking, causing a ripple effect of abrupt adjustments throughout the corridor.
“Don’t kid yourself, Lynch. I know everything about everyone who even thinks about entering this building.” He pauses and catches my eye to ensure I know he’s serious. “Ten minutes before they think it. We need to speak privately.” Locke dismisses the agent standing just out of arm's reach behind him. “Wait here. I’ll be fine.”
I follow him through the glass doors to our right and out into the courtyard. The lead agent from the team who escorted us through the building stays by the door. His eyes are laser focused on everything and everyone around us.
Three more agents fan out to clear the nearly one dozen employees currently occupying the large outdoor space. When they’re finished, they return back inside and stand in front of the other three doors to the courtyard.
Abraham Locke is a very important man.
“So, Agent Curtis is ambitious, is she?” He smirks at me, probing to see just how well Agent Curtis and I know each other. But he’s my friend as well as my mentor.
“Not that I can personally confirm. If that’s what you mean.” For a moment we both stay silent, and I’m not quite sure if I’ve overstepped. Locke’s sense of humor has been known to come and go quickly.
“Ahhh, the good old days.” He tilts his head back as if reminiscing. “I do miss the nineties.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that one.” I try to redirect the conversation.
“Right… right.” Locke drifts back from what I’m sure is yet another story from a time when professional relationships weren’t so professional.
“So this last trip was a rough one.” He turns back to face me, watching for my reaction.
“Rough? No, the trip was fine. I will say I’m a little surprised by the agency’s after action plan for me.” I try to stay calm, but my temper gets the better of me. “What the hell just happened?”
“What do you mean, what just happened?” Locke looks disappointed in me.
“This was supposed to be a briefing. Just a briefing. That’s all,” I say.
“You can’t possibly have believed that. You had to know there would be significant push-back on this one.” He raises an eyebrow in my direction.
“I followed the orders I was given.”
“You did.”
“And now I’m out?”
“Who says you’re out?” he asks.
Now I’m confused.
“You were told to take some time and let things settle down around here.”
“Settle down?”
“Lynch, the agent you killed had been in this business for almost four decades.”
“He was a sociopath.”
“A sociopath with connections.” Locke walks over to a concrete bench, waving me over as he sits. I follow and join him.
“Those connections are now severed. Most of them are insignificant; merely people who are overall indifferent about his absence. They’ll accept the situation as it unfolds.” He slides in closer and lowers his voice. “But some of those connections are deeper. Much deeper. They’ll simmer, spark, and flame at the loss of a friend or mentor. They will feel the sudden loss of a powerful ally more than the rest, and they’ll try to burn you down.”
“So the agency wants to wait and see if I survive any retaliations?”
“And why wouldn’t they? Are you special? What makes you think you are? What makes you think any one of us in this place is special?” Locke pauses, waiting for my response.
“I’m not special.”
“That’s right. And don’t you forget it.” He leans in again. “We all have our talents, and most of those talents make us very useful weapons. But a weapon can be discarded and replaced in the blink of an eye, especially in the heat of battle.”
“In this place, there are plenty of weapons to go around,” I respond in agreement.
“In this place”— Locke slaps me on the back—“we’re always in the heat of battle.” He stands, as if we’re finished talking.
“And in this place… it’s hard to know who really has your back.” I rise, waiting for his reaction.
“I’ll always have your back,” Locke assures me.
“What are my orders, sir?” I ask in a display of loyalty.
Stopping, he faces me one last time on his way back inside. “Survive the next few weeks.”
I hold my palms up. “That’s it?” I feel let down. I was expecting some great words of wisdom.
“Survive.” He points at me and walks out, leaving me alone in the courtyard—alone with a giant bullseye painted on my back.
2
WHITNEY
“Whitney, love of my life, can I get a refill?”
I continue wiping down the polished surface near Bones, who’s a frequent flier here at the Big Red Bar. “Save your sweet talk for someone who hasn’t heard it so many times.” I laugh and swipe the wet cloth over the wood a final time before tossing it aside. Taking away his empty glass, I place it with the rest of the dirty dishes and wipe my palms on my jeans. Looking up, I see the ever-present mischief in Bones’s dark eyes. For someone with such a somber daily grind, Bonesy, as most of the male regulars call him, may be the happiest man I’ve ever met.
He props his mottled chin on his hand. “You know you’re one of my favorite people.”
“Being a bartender makes me a lot of people’s favorite,” I droll, plucking a clean glass from a shelf. Tilting it forty-five degrees, I place it as close to the tap as possible, just like my mom taught me when I was barely old enough to even be inside this place. Now the technique is second nature and I don’t need to think about what I’m doing. And most nights, I don’t.
“Here you go.” Setting the perfectly poured draft down in front of him, I smile.
“Thank you.” His spotted hand wraps around the glass before he raises it to his lips, swallowing a large gulp. “It was a long day at work.” His longtime job as the town’s gravedigger and groundskeeper at the local cemetery is where Bones earned his nickname.
“That’s your last one,” I let him know.
He swipes his lips with the back of his hand. “But it’s only my second.”
“I know. But too much alcohol isn’t good for your heart.”
“This old ticker is just fine. You let me worry about that and keep them drinks ah–flowing.”
I aim a pointed stare at him. “Bones, you know my mom would come back from the grave and kick my ass if I didn’t take care of you.”
“I guess it’s a good thing she’s not here to see, then,” he states.
I shake my head. “I sure wish she were, though.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He respectfully raises his glass in her honor before downing another healthy gulp. “They just don’t make ’em like Mary anymore.”
Not a day goes by that I don't think about her. When you lose your mom, who also happens to be your only relative, it hits in a different way. Even though she’s been gone for five plus years, the pain lingers like a fresh wound. She left me this bar and the inn that goes along with it, so her legacy still lives on. Keeping business thriving is my number one priority. Of course, in a small town like Albans Cove, it’s easier when you’re the only place to get a drink in a twenty-mile radius.
Raised voices capture my attention and I notice two of my regular patrons arguing. They slide from their stools and square off like a couple of drunken MMA fighters in a cage. Fists clenched, they continue to shout at each other, and neither looks too steady on their feet. It’s sad and almost comical to watch, for a few seconds at least.
I race around the bar, but before I can get to them, Kenny, one of my bouncers, breaks them apart. With a meaty hand on each of their chests, he holds them in place.
“Gentlemen, you know I don’t allow fighting in here. Take that shit outside where it belongs,” I scold them.
“Sorry, Whitney,” they chorus. “My bad.”
“Now, sit your sorry asses down. You’re gonna drink some water and have something to eat so you can sober up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they both say, sheepishly climbing back onto their stools without argument.
Nodding my thanks to Kenny for separating them so quickly, I head back behind the bar and pour two glasses of water over ice. I set one down in front of each of them. “Drink up,” I order, leaving no room for disagreeing. I dump some pretzels into two bowls and set them on the bar. “Eat.”
Both men dig in, and I barely hold back my smirk. Most of the men I deal with are like puppies; they get rambunctious, and when you show them who’s in charge they tuck their tails between their legs.
“Hey, Whit.” Ashley, one of the bartenders bumps my hip with hers. “Sorry I’m late.” I might believe her if she showed a fraction of real remorse, or if she wasn’t late for every single shift she works. If she wasn’t my best friend, I’m sure I’d have handed out some disciplinary action by now. But every time I’ve spoken to her about her tardiness she just says, “but you love me anyway.” She’s not wrong. I love her despite the fact that she lacks any sense of time. She underestimates how long it takes her to do anything and everything. But she makes up for it with her sparkling personality, and all the Big Red Bar’s patrons are crazy about her.
“Hey, girlie. How’s your day been?” I ask.
“I caught up on laundry and cleaning. It was almost more exciting than I could handle.”
I let out a brief laugh. “Now that you’re finally here”—I glance at her and clear my throat—“I’m gonna head back to the Inn and take care of some things.” I wag my finger at the amateur boxers seated at the bar. “Don’t let these two have any more to drink. They’re sobering up.” I nod toward Bones. “No more for him either. He doesn’t know this, but his wife called. And per his doctor’s instructions, he needs to cut back on drinking. We can help him help himself.”
“Pfft, like that’s gonna work,” Ashley says.
“It will if we cut him off at two drinks every time he’s in here.”
“But he’s gonna give me those puppy dog eyes and make me feel guilty.” She sighs.
“You need to toughen up. You’ve lived in Albans Cove your whole life and you’re still a softie. When are you going to become a hardened bitch like me?”
She shakes her head. “You’re not a bitch. You just don’t put up with any shit. When I grow up, I want to be more like you.”
“You’re thirty-three. What are you waiting for?” I tease.
She shrugs. “You can’t rush perfection.”
“Yeah, especially when you don’t know what a sense of urgency feels like.”
She raises one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I am what I am, and I don’t see myself changing any time soon.”
“You’re the least stressed out person I know, so maybe you’ve got it all figured out,” I say.
“Right,” she agrees. “Maybe more people need to adopt my attitude.”
As much as I’d like to be more relaxed like Ashely, that’s not the way I’m wired. I’m not someone who can function without maintaining a set schedule and staying on top of things. Between running the Inn and this place, I have a lot of responsibilities, and my mom taught me the importance of doing my best, no matter how insignificant the task might be. If I don’t maintain my routine, I’m apt to drop some of the balls I’m juggling, and I can’t afford for that to happen—monetarily or emotionally.
“Are you excited about the Pig’s Nuts Festival?” she asks, referring to Albans Cove’s annual celebration that’s held at the end of every October without fail. The real name is the Pignut Hickory Festival, but it’s evolved into the Pig Nuts Festival over the years. Personally, I think Ashley adds the extra S on purpose. “With this being the one hundredth year, are we doing anything special for it?”
“I’ve got a few things planned, but I don’t think our customers are coming here for anything more than the drinks and conversations.” I let out a quick laugh.
“True.” Ashley smiles.
My stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten since this morning. The guests I had at the Inn checked out this morning, and cleaning their suite kept me busy.
“Ash, I’m gonna get out of here. Do you want me to bring you something to eat in an hour?”
