Serve ‘N’ Protect by Tee O’Fallon

Chapter Thirty

Using her feet and elbows, Cassidy crab-walked backward, breathing hard and staring at the tip of the odd-looking silencer. A stupid thing to do, really, since it meant she was in the gun’s crosshairs.

In the movies, professional hit men always used silencers so no one would hear the shot. But why in the world would he be here, in her house? None of this made sense.

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

“I’m doing this because I’m getting paid to.” Still aiming the gun at her, he went to the window, pulling the curtain aside then peering out.

“Paid to?” she choked out. “By whom, and why?” She shook her head, still struggling to absorb the reality that a hit man was in her house.

“You ask a lot of questions, lady.” Abruptly, he dropped the curtain, refocusing his attention solely on her. “Questions I don’t have time for. Do you have any other storage devices besides this external hard drive?”

Think. But no matter how she answered his questions, she was in big trouble. “No.”

“What about a new laptop?”

“It’s—” She’d been about to blurt out that it was at her parents’ house when it occurred to her that he’d used the word new. Why wouldn’t he have just asked if she had a laptop, period?

“It was stolen.” The only other person who knew she had a new laptop was Markus, because he’d bought it for her. She hadn’t even told her parents.

“The new one.” His voice had taken on an impatient edge. “I searched your house. It’s not here. Where is it?”

The only things on those devices were her own personal files, which couldn’t possibly be of sufficient value as to drive someone to hire a professional to steal it, and…

Teedle Tech documents.

Her eyes widened. Oh my God.

She had told someone else about her new laptop. Walt Teedle. And she’d told him not to worry about the stolen one because she had everything she’d downloaded prior to the break-in on an external hard drive.

“That sonofabitch,” she muttered, staring up at the man holding the gun. “Walt Teedle is behind this, isn’t he?”

Hit Man shrugged.

“He had someone break into my house and steal my laptop, didn’t he?”

His silence and those cold, dark eyes told her everything she needed to know.

“Were you the one who tried to run me down?”

He made a scoffing sound. “If I’d tried to kill you, trust me, you’d be dead. That was some rank amateur.”

Holy shit.Now she understood why her requests for all those receipts and other documents were ignored, along with her repeated requests for a password refresh. Their system wasn’t down, and it wasn’t that Teedle couldn’t find the documents. He didn’t want her to have them. She was still missing a piece of the puzzle. “Walt Teedle hired me for this job. Why would he do that and then try to kill me?”

“Not my problem.” With his free hand, he reached down and grabbed the front of her shirt, jerking her up until he was practically nose to nose with her. “Now where is the laptop?”

Stupidly, she found herself fixated on his eyes. Brown, with tiny gold flecks glittering in the midst of all that evil. Not that it did a thing to lessen the meanness vibrating off the man.

“I’ll never tell you where the laptop is.” If she did, he’d kill her in a heartbeat then go to her parents’ house where her mother was home alone. If anything happened to her mom or any other member of her family because of her, she’d die. Hell, she was going to die anyway, but if she could save her family from the same fate, she’d do it without question. If only Markus were here. If only—

Give it up, Cass. He’s not here, and he’s not coming.

“New York, New York” blared again. Hit Man raised his enormous booted foot, readying to slam his heel down on the purse, but stopped. He grabbed the purse and dumped the contents on the floor.

“Isn’t that sweet,” he said, picking up the phone and looking at the screen. “Mommy’s calling.”

The phone went silent for a moment, only to ring again a few seconds later.

“If I don’t answer her, they’ll come looking for me.” Which was the last thing she wanted. If she could talk to her mom, maybe she could come up with a veiled message letting her know something was wrong. But how to do that without having them race over here, right into the middle of this mess?

The phone beeped. Her mom had left a voicemail message.

“Let me call her back. I promise I won’t say anything.”

The man narrowed his eyes at her for a moment then held out the phone to her. When she reached for it, he jerked it away. “I’ll hold it. Press your finger on the print scanner.”

She did as he ordered then watched as he stuffed his gun into his belt. While he examined her phone, her gaze was drawn to the butt of the guns. His and Markus’s. Now that she’d had time to process things, her mind began spinning with options. But he was a professional. There was no way she could get to those guns.

He turned, angling such that she could see he was scrolling through her text messages. From her viewpoint on the floor, she couldn’t tell whose messages he was reading. Only the green and blue bubbles were visible. He began tapping something on her phone.

“What are you doing?” This couldn’t be good.

“Telling mommie dearest that everything’s fine, not to worry, and that you’re still running errands.”

He kept tapping, too long for that to be the only thing he was telling her mom.

A soft whoosh told her he’d sent the message. A moment later, another whoosh indicated her mom had responded. Then he started typing again.

“What are you doing?”

He sent yet another message. The whoosh she heard next confirmed it.

He dropped the phone to the floor then crashed his heel into it, shattering the cover.

Cassidy twisted away as pieces of glass and plastic flew at her face. “What else did you tell my mother?” she demanded. “What else?”

“That you’d be staying with friends for a couple of days, a last-minute decision. You did say you needed some space, after all.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in his eyes. Before she could react, he backhanded her across the face.

She cried out, reeling from the blow. The entire left side of her face throbbed and her cheek stung. The next thing she felt was something hard and cold rammed into the side of her skull. His gun.

“Now. Where the fuck is the laptop?”