The Hitman Next Door

  The Hitman Next Door

  A Texas Bounty Novel

  Jackie Ashenden

  Copyright © 2019 by Jackie Ashenden

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Best friend. The guy next door. Secret hitman.

  * * *

  Rhys has wanted his best friend Vivi for years. But if she knew all the wicked, dirty things he wanted to do with her, she’d never speak to him again. She’d also never speak to him again if she knew he was a contract killer.

  * * *

  But when Vivi’s life is threatened because of Rhys’s dark past, it’s up to him to protect her. Off grid in a remote cabin, it becomes harder and harder to resist years of pent up need.

  * * *

  And when Vivi shows that she wants him too?

  * * *

  All bets are off.

  * * *

  But can he protect the woman he loves, and his heart at the same time?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Big Bad Marine - Texas Bounty #5

  About Jackie

  Also by Jackie Ashenden

  1

  Rhys Fox didn’t miss his previous career as a hit man. Oh, there had been parts of it he’d enjoyed – the strategy, the planning involved in taking out a difficult hit mainly - but he’d never liked the killing people part. It was a necessary aspect of the job, of course, yet he’d always been of the opinion that once you started enjoying taking people out, then you became part of the problem rather than the solution. The problem being evil assholes and the solution being him and a bullet. He’d tried never to become the problem simply by taking on contracts only for people who were - a luxury his reputation allowed him.

  No, what he’d enjoyed most about his former career and what he actually missed now that he was a member of the Duchess Bail Bond fugitive recovery team, AKA a bounty hunter, was the silence. As a hitman, he’d worked alone and didn’t usually have five people all standing in his office shouting over the top of his head.

  Yeah, he missed being a lone wolf. It was a fuck-load quieter, paid a hell of a lot more, and he didn’t have to deal with stupid bullshit like the running bet on when Duchess - who owned Duchess Bail Bonds - and Quinn Redmond - who owned rival bounty hunting business Lone Star Bounty - would have sex with each other.

  Rhys hadn’t made a bet and he wasn’t particularly interested, and he wished all the people in his office would fuck the hell off. Because he wanted some goddamn peace and quiet to think about how else to make his best friend Vivi’s birthday - which was tonight - the best it could possibly be.

  Rose, his boss’s little sister, a bouncy blond with definite opinions and who was currently voicing them with the volume turned way the fuck up to eleven, looked incensed as West, another fugitive recovery agent in the Duchess team, tried to insist that he was leading the betting stakes, not her. Nora, another agent, hard as nails and with a tongue sharp enough to flay the hide off an elephant, was trying to tell West he was wrong, while her biker president lover tried to pull her away, muttering about having ‘shit to do’ and ‘no time for this bullshit’.

  And then there was Rush Redmond, Quinn’s brother, also from Lone Star Bounty, who was there for no apparent reason that Rhys could see, and who was grinning like a lunatic while singing Shake It Off by Taylor Swift.

  Definitely, it was time to leave.

  Not bothering with goodbyes - not that he’d ever bothered with goodbyes - Rhys pushed himself out of his chair, skirted around the desk, and headed for the door. He was going to have to hurry if he wanted to get to the bakery on time and pick up Vivi’s birthday cake. Then he had to stop by his own place for a couple things, get to Vivi’s and set it all up before she came home from work. He’d planned for this to be a surprise and if there was one thing he was very, very good at it, it was making plans and following through with them.

  Rush stopped his T-Swift rendition as Rhys moved past him. “Bro, wait up.”

  Rhys didn’t, going straight out the door. “What?” he asked, not bothering to turn around since he could hear Rush’s heavy boots on the floor behind him.

  His friendship with the middle Redmond brother was a strange one, since Rush found it almost physically impossible to stop talking, while Rhys never said anything unless he had something to say.

  But even with his constant running at the mouth, Rush was undemanding company and that’s why Rhys liked the guy. Rush never required a response - hell, he didn’t even seem to care if Rhys listened to him or not - and Rhys appreciated that. And sometimes he just liked sitting there with a beer, letting the other man ramble on, a comfortable wall of sound. Rush was also good with a gun and Rhys always respected a man who was good with a gun.

  All normal shit in other words, and pretty much the opposite of his previous existence. Which was exactly what Rhys wanted.

  A normal friendship. A normal life. And absolutely no killing people for money.

  “Thought you might want to go hang out at Jack’s,” Rush said, falling into step with him. “Have a beer or six.”

  “Haven’t you given up on bars?”

  About a month earlier, Rush had gotten it on with the sheriff’s daughter and it was looking pretty serious. Infamous for his enthusiastic patronage of bars and strip clubs, the ex-con had sacrificed it all for the love of his cop girlfriend, Ava St. George.

  “I’ve given up strip clubs,” Rush corrected. “Not bars. Anyway, Ava’s got a shift tonight and I’m bored as fuck.”

  “Can’t tonight.” Rhys said. He didn’t bother with an explanation, because Vivi was a subject he didn’t talk about with anyone. Not because she was a great secret or anything, he just preferred to keep her as separate as he could from his work life, call it an old habit. And anyway, when a man was best friends with a woman, people tended to get the wrong idea and he didn’t want to have to talk about that either.

  He shouldered through the Duchess office’s doors, not waiting for Rush.

  But the other man was like lint. Once he was stuck on you it was difficult to get rid of him. “Why not?” Rush persisted. “Hot date?”

  Rhys pushed the elevator button. “Nope.”

  “Nope?” Rush glared at him. “That’s all you got for me? Just ‘nope’?”

  Rhys gave his friend a look that usually made lesser men shut the fuck up. But Rush, unfortunately, was not one of those men.

  “Aw, bro, don’t give me that shit,” Rush said. “I want the gossip.”

  Rhys didn’t reply, stepping into the elevator as the doors opened, running through what he had to do for Vivi tonight in his head instead. Rush followed him in and leaned against the back wall, his hands in his pockets.

  “You know I’ll find out,” Rush went on. “Especially if you’re going to be a cagey bastard.” His blue-green gaze narrowed. “It’s a woman, right?”

  Rhys remained silent. Usually ignoring the other man worked when Rush was being particularly persistent and lint-like.

  “Yeah, it’s a woman,” Rush muttered, answering his own question. “So, girlfriend? One night stand? Stripper? Or…” He broke off, his eyes widening all of a sudden. “Shit. Is it your mom?”

  The doors opened
and Rhys stepped out, heading toward the building’s exit.

  “Is it your mom?” Rush repeated, following along at his elbow. “I mean, do you even have a mom? I guess you do since everyone does, but—”

  Rhys pushed open the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and turned left.

  “Aw, man. Don’t be a spoilsport,” Rush called after him. “Throw me a bone here.”

  But Rhys only extended one hand and gave Rush the finger, keeping right on walking. He didn’t have time for any of Rush’s bullshit today. He had a present, a cake, and a surprise birthday to manage for the closest person in his life and nothing was going to derail him.

  Vivienne Hale, AKA Vivi, was important to him. He’d met her in high school and it hadn’t mattered that he’d been a senior and she a junior, or that he was a loner who kept to himself, while she was part of the most popular clique in school and involved herself in every club on offer. She’d unilaterally decided that he needed a friend and she would be that friend, a goal she’d pursued the way she pursued everything - fiercely, relentlessly, and with absolute confidence that she would succeed. Failure was not an option for Vivi.

  Of course, a friend was the last thing he’d wanted, but Vivi hadn’t given a shit about that. She’d started her friendship project by enlisting his help for whatever club thing she was managing at the time, and that usually involved carrying books or boxes, or setting up booths or moving chairs, basically anything that required physical strength. All the while chatting cheerfully at him about anything and everything under the sun.

  No, he hadn’t wanted a friend, but Vivi had rolled right over his reluctance like a bulldozer rolling over an environmental protestor. Flattening him with her relentless optimism, bright cheeriness, and absolute determination to be his friend whether he wanted her to be or not.

  It shouldn’t have worked. But Vivi’s saving grace was that although she seemed like Pollyanna with a generous helping of Disney princess thrown in for good measure, she wasn’t actually stupid. And although she talked and talked, somehow she knew that asking questions about him would have been a deal breaker. So she didn’t. She never poked or prodded or asked for things he didn’t want to give. And slowly, determinedly, she’d broken through all the barriers he’d thrown up, squeezed herself through the cracks in his soul, and by the time he’d graduated, he’d found himself in possession of the one and only friend he’d ever had.

  He’d asked her once, why she’d chosen him, and she’d just shrugged and said it was because he looked like he needed it.

  Maybe he had, because whenever she’d asked for his help, he’d provided it. And when she’d started sitting with him at lunch, he hadn’t told her to fuck off. And when she’d started talking in the cheerful way she had, he hadn’t told her to shut up.

  At first he’d told himself that he suffered her because being actively rude would have felt like kicking a puppy and although he was a major asshole, he wasn’t into puppy kicking. So he’d tried being sullen instead. But she hadn’t gotten the hint. In fact, she’d told him that being so dark and brooding was an excellent way to make himself more attractive, and that if he kept that up, all the girls would be beating a path to his door.

  So he’d stopped being sullen and settled for uncommunicative.

  That hadn’t stopped the girls - unfortunately - and it hadn’t stopped Vivi from being his friend either. And that was kind of unfortunate too, for… reasons.

  Reasons that he never allowed himself to think about.

  Reasons to do with your cock…

  But Rhys had ignoring his more basic instincts down to a fine art so it barely registered as he made his way to the bakery to pick up the cake, and then to the jeweler to get the present he’d had made. Then all that was required was a quick stop at the liquor store to grab a bottle of Vivi’s favorite craft beer since she didn’t like wine, another quick stop at his apartment to grab the movie he’d downloaded onto a memory stick, then it was on to her place.

  She lived in a loft near Republic Square - a fancy place with big windows, exposed brick, and full to the brim with Vivi’s usual cheerful clutter of books, papers, knickknacks, pillows, blankets, magazines and about a billion cups of half-drunk coffee. She was not a minimalist. It drove him consistently crazy. He often tidied stuff away for her, which she either noticed and thanked him profusely for, or didn’t and grumbled about having lost something he’d tidied away.

  He didn’t mind. He liked doing stuff for her even when she didn’t notice. Because basically Vivi was and always had been, the one bright spot in his dark and fucked-up life, that comforting glimpse of normality when everything else turned to shit, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  They both had keys to each other’s places - even though he spent more time at hers than she did at his - so he let himself into her loft, going over to her little dining table and dumping the stuff he’d brought with him down onto it.

  Then he moved around the room, reflexively checking the big windows for signs of tampering or any other clues that the loft wasn’t completely secure. It was another of those old habits he’d picked up from his previous job and he’d never managed to kick it, not that he tried particularly hard since this was Vivi and her safety was an absolute priority for him.

  Nothing seemed out of order - at least, nothing but the usual Vivi untidiness - so he didn’t bother with checking the feeds for the security cameras he’d installed himself not long after he’d returned to Austin. They were probably overkill and Vivi would have a fit she ever found out he’d put them in, but they were only in the main room, plus he only checked them every week or so. It wasn’t like he sat in front of them 24/7 watching her or anything.

  Beginning a mini clean-up, Rhys took more cups of coffee and a couple of half-eaten noodle boxes over to the little galley kitchen that ran along one wall. Then he put the beer in the fridge to chill, arranged the birthday cake on a plate, found a vase for the flowers, tied the birthday balloon to the back of a chair, put the present next to the cake.

  And finally sat down on her comfortable, squashy and slightly worn couch to wait for her to get home.

  Vivi fumbled for her key, feeling completely exhausted. The key was at the bottom of her purse somewhere, not immediately to hand, and for a second she couldn’t even manage the effort it took to find it.

  Letting out a breath, she leaned her forehead against the wood of her loft front door and stood there a moment, trying to find some energy.

  God, it had been a hell of a day.

  She loved her job, working as a lawyer in her father’s family law firm, but some days it really took it out of her. Getting home at nearly nine thirty P.M. for the third time that week for example. And that was early. A couple of days ago she hadn’t gotten in till after midnight.

  Still, if she wanted to make partner she had to put in the hours, that’s all there was to it. Her father was pressuring her to do it and hell, she wanted to do it herself. In fact, that had been the goal the moment she’d entered law school, to get a position at Hale, James and Associates, and then make partner. The time it took for that to happen depended on the firm, but at Hale she was looking at maybe seven years. At the earliest.

  Not long. A blink of an eye.

  “Yay,” she muttered against the door. “Only another three years of constant exhaustion and no life to go.”

  But she couldn’t think like that. This was what she’d wanted, this was the goal she’d set herself way back in high school and she wasn’t going to give up just because she was tired. Quitting wasn’t in her DNA. And besides, her father would be terribly disappointed and if there was one thing she hated, it was disappointing her parents. They’d given her so much when they’d adopted her and she wanted to do them proud.

  Forcing the exhaustion away, Vivi straightened and dug into her purse for her key. Finally finding it, she shoved it into the lock and opened her front door.

  Expecting the apartment to be in darkness, she blinked aro
und in confusion, because all the lights were on.

  And on her dining table was a…cake, a vase of her favorite deep crimson roses, and a…balloon with ‘Happy Birthday’ printed in glittery writing on it.

  Exhausted and confused, it took Vivi’s brain a few seconds to catch up.

  Oh, shit. It was her birthday today, wasn’t it? Her father had said something to her this morning about it, but she’d had a ton of stuff to research and had kind of forgotten about it till now.

  She blinked at the flowers. Had Neil gotten her those? Surely not? Because how would he have gotten in? He was a colleague from another firm and they’d only had a couple of dates so they definitely weren’t at the stage of swapping keys yet.

  “You’re home finally,” a deep, gritty masculine voice said.

  Vivi’s head snapped round and a wave of sudden relief went through her as Rhys stepped out of the hallway that led to her bedroom and the bathroom.

  There was only one person who had a key to her place. Only one person - apart from her parents - who’d even remember it was her birthday and only one person who’d bother to surprise her.

  Her best friend.

  Rhys Fox.

  She smiled at him, her throat going tight the way it always did when he did little things like this. “All of this is for me?”

  Rhys leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He was wearing his usual uniform of a black casual shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black jeans, looking tall, dark and tough as he lounged there. She’d always thought he was excellent male-model material because the way his black hair was cut ruthlessly short highlighted the almost too-perfect bone structure of his face; arrogant cheekbones, strong jaw, straight nose. A mouth that didn’t smile nearly as often as it should.