Page 70 of These Rough Waters

“I swear to God, Everett, I will drown you in the bay if you don’t shut up.”

He chuckles, “Kolten would avenge me.”

“Kolten wouldn’t give a shit.”

Rett pouts, watching me as I slide my feet into my boots, grabbing my coat from the hook before he joins me, and puts on his own. “What are you doing?”

“Spying on your little girlfriend, obviously,” He scoffs, “Hey, does she sleep naked? I wouldn’t mind getting a look atthat.”

I hit him. Straight in the mouth. The crunch is satisfying, his howl of pain even more so. “Watch your mouth.”

“You fucking cut my lip, asshole,” He wipes the blood from his fat bottom lip.

“Maybe you’ll learn to shut it now.”

“Not likely,” I hear him grumble as I open the front door and begin the short journey across to her cabin. It was dark, the water lazily rolls against the shore to the side of me, the sound of it almost serene with the stars overhead burning bright and the fat, swollen moon bouncing its silver rays off the surface of the water.

I didn’t like this. My intuition was rarely wrong, and it wasn’t so much that something was wrong with Maya, it was clear she had stood me up, and I’d deal with that and respect whatever it is she has to say, but it was the fact thatsomethingwas wrong.

I didn’t know how I knew that, or why I knew that, I just did.

Rett loudly walks behind me, the frost on the grass crunching with his steps, “Shut the fuck up, Rett.”

“We’re not on a job,” He hisses.

“Shut. Up.”

I can practically hear his eyes roll but he quietens, using his many years of training to turn invisible, not a sound, not even the noise of his breaths and if I didn’t know he was behind me, I’d believe I was alone out here.

Something at the corner of the cabin catches my eye, something moving within the shadows caused by the brightness of the moon. And then another shape moves, low and stealthily, I see three in total all moving around Maya’s cabin.

My heart drops into my stomach.

“Torin,” Rett hisses.

“I see them.”

“Just who is she?” He asks.

“I don’t give a fuck right now,” I growl, “No one touches her.”

Despite the last five years of retirement, you don’t forget, and these fuckers were about to find out just why I was one of the most feared hitmen to live.

I don’t miss my targets and I never fail a job.

And these three, they’d just become my next hit.

Thirty-four

Rett and I had worked several jobs together but even if we hadn’t, we were raised and trained together. And I didn’t need to tell him what to do or why. It was a threat to Maya therefore it was a threat to me.

I will destroy anyone who jeopardizes her safety and even though my brother and I didn’t always see eye to eye, he had my back, and I had his. They don’t see us approaching, the two of us splitting off to deal with them separately.

I could see one of them testing the windows to see if they were open while the other looked out. Not much of a lookout since he never even saw me coming.

I grab, shoving a hand across his mouth to stifle his scream as I drag him away and out of view. He scratches at my hands which I position and twist, quick and hard, snapping his neck. His body hits the floor and the rush of the kill pumps adrenaline through me, taking me back to then.

I pull the body out of sight before I creep back around to where the other one was. He’d moved on from the windows and now had his back to me. Heart thumping, blood rushing, I creep towards him, keeping low and quiet, but my foot lands on a branch and it snaps loudly under my weight.

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