Free Viper: A Hitman Romance by Zahra Girard Page B

Just outside of Key Largo.  Her dad was Cuban, her mother was from New Orleans, I think.  That's just what she told me.  She kept most of her life secret.  And I did the same to her.  Which seems strange to say, but it's just part of how you get by in this business.  I didn't even find out her full name until after she died."
    I'm on the floor now, too.  Right across from Ryker.  His eyes are closed, and he sounds like he's no longer here in his office, but far away, living in a memory that seems a lifetime ago.
    "What happened to her?" I ask.
    His eyes open again.  Emerald greens shine at me, bright, and with more than a bit of sadness in them.
    "Eleanor was the best smuggler in the Gulf.  She ran people and goods from all over Latin America.  We met because I needed to get into Cuba secretly, and she was the first smuggler I'd come across that I didn't feel would stab me in the back and ditch me out at sea as soon as they got the chance.  I spent six months after with her.  She taught me how to surf."
    That smile comes back again, just for a second.  He runs his thumb across the picture, brushing Eleanor's face.
    "I was horrible at surfing.  No matter how much she tried, she could barely get me to do more than stand on that board.  It used to piss her off to no end."  He chuckles.
    I reach out, rest my hand on his leg.
    "Eventually, I took a job in Thailand.  It went bad.  I ended up spending nearly a year in some black site prison, and when I finally busted my ass out, I made my way back to the Keys.  Came to find out Eleanor was dead," he lets out a great big sigh, every part of him seems to fill up and then deflate.
    "I'm sorry," I whisper.
    He shakes it off.  The moonlight coming in through the window shines brighter around the edge of his eyes, and I see the smallest tear there.
    "She was always independent.  Worked only for herself.  Partly because she was good, partly because she just had too much fire inside to call someone else her boss.  Things got ugly when a cartel moved in and took over smuggling in the area.  She spit in some cartel bosses face.  I mean, right in his face.  Called him a 'pendejo' and a few other things, or so I heard.  Then she wound up with a bullet in her skull.  She was three months in the ground before I got there."
    There's a moment of silence between us.  Ryker's back in a memory and I do not feel right about doing anything that might pull him out of it.  When he looks up at me, there's a litany of pain written on his face.
    "That's why you don't get close in this business.  Because as much as I go around killing people, I never forget that I'm wearing the biggest target of all on my back.  And anyone else I care about is going to be wearing that very same target.  You just open yourself, and them, up to getting hurt."
    "I'm sorry," I say again.
    I hold out the second picture.  He doesn't take it, he just looks at it.
    "Who is she?"  I ask.
    Pain flickers again, and then his face is cold, hard stone.  Quicker than I can blink, there's the click of metal and cuffs are back on my wrists.  Tight.  He jerks me to my feet and the picture flutters free of my grasp and falls to the ground.
    "No one.  We're done here."
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE
    RYKER
     
     
    I cuff her back to the bed.  Then I spend the rest of the night on the floor, sleeping off a fifth of scotch and five rounds of the best sex I've ever had.
    It hurts .
    Not the floor.  Digging up memories that should stay buried, and secrets that burn like red hot coals. 
    We almost got too close there.  Fuck it.  We did get too close.   As much as I'm starting to like Jessica, I have to be careful.  She can know about the dead — Eleanor is safe out of anybody's reach — but she can't know about the living; about the little girl I'd never even known I had until three years ago.
    A lot can happen while you're locked away in a jail just outside