Page 2 of Twin Deception

She smiled and waited for the song to end before blowing out her candle. The older woman next to her grinned while the man clapped. They had to be her parents. Her family. United and happy and together before the holidays came.

What did you wish for?

What are you hoping this year will bring you?

If I had to wager a guess, she already had it all, spoiled and pampered to eat at a place like this. It wasn’t my business, but being surrounded by all these families and couples was getting to me. It made me wonder what it’d be like to be a parent, to have a teenager and miss how quickly they had matured and grown up. To watch them blow out a candle and mark another year lived.

Snap out of it.I scolded myself, exhausted from this morose mood that had claimed me since coming to this resort in anticipation of getting close enough to Louis to kill him.

It wasn’t so easy to ignore it, though. It wasn’t a simple matter of looking the other way and minding my own business. Seeing all these guests who’d traveled here to celebrate the holidays with their families reminded me how I didn’t have one. How I didn’t haveanyone.

I couldn’t with my career. Taking a break would give me the opportunity to look for someone to settle with, but my heart wasn’t in it.

They’re not kidding when they say this is the most depressing time of the year for some people.I wouldn’t commit to self-diagnosing myself as depressed.

I sighed again, glancing in the mirror for Flores. He still hadn’t shown up to talk with the man at that table near the exit. That was the liar he was supposed to speak with.

No, I wasn’t depressed.

Just fucking bored.

And sick of waiting around.

Come on, you bastard. Show up so I can get out of here already.

While I didn’t know where to go or what to do next on this break I wanted to carve out of my schedule, I knew I couldn’t stand hanging around here for much longer.

I reached for my phone to glance at the time—again—as someone approached me from the right.

“Is this seat taken?” a woman asked as she slid her ass onto the stool next to me.

“Now it is.” I didn’t bother to mask my appreciation as I dragged my stare up her curvy body. A woman didn’t dress like this to blend in. A sexy piece of ass like this didn’t smile and bat her eyelids like that to excuse her presence.

She wanted attention, and she had mine. For now. I openly admired the huge swells of her tits practically spilling out of her red dress. Before I could drag my gaze away, she lifted her hand to trace her manicured nail over the hem. As if I needed her to point at the assets she was fond of showing off.

“Am I interrupting something?” Her voice had that sultry, practiced purr. She raised her thin brows and glanced at my phone in my hand on top of the bar.

She was, actually. I was here on a job. Peeking in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar, I checked that the politician’s table looked the same. Yep. No Flores yet.

Where the fuck is he?

Drago had sent me all he had on him. I didn’t know whether my regular contact was a hacker or what. We’d never met in person, only speaking via encrypted call. It didn’t matter if I could put a face to the name. All that mattered was his playing the role of themessenger, and he never failed to send me the intel I needed to pull off a kill.

“No,” I lied to her. “You’re not interrupting.” Or she wouldn’t be once I finished off Louis. This blonde was after one thing. A hard, quick fuck. It wasn’t going to fill the hole in my heart of not having a family, but she’d be a distraction. She’d pass the time, at any rate.

Under my fingertips, my phone buzzed. As was our custom, Drago would text me precisely thirty seconds before he’d call. That was our system, something put in place so I could have time to excuse myself to listen to him.

“I’ll be right back. Excuse me.” I nodded at the blonde and took my phone outside to the patio. Glad to be hearing from my contact, I wondered if he was merely updating me with a new location for the old man I was supposed to kill.

“Miguel,” he greeted. “There’s been a change of plans.”

I huffed. “Tell me something I don’t know. Louis isn’t here, so something’s up.”

“He isn’t going to be there,” Drago replied bluntly. “The hit has been changed.”

“What?”

Dammit. I could adjust to changes as well as anyone else. No, that wasn’t true. As a hired assassin for a crime family, I had the ability to shift and react quickly. But I didn’t want to. Right now, I just wanted this job over so I could… figure out something else to do for a change.

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