said, “I know, I’m sorry. The last place took a little longer than—”
“I don’t want your excuses.” The suit jabbed a finger at Ricardo. “We’ll be expecting a discount.”
Ricardo arched an eyebrow. This guy was lucky Ricardo had a policy of only taking out his target or people who directly threatened him. He’d had to crawl through traffic to get here, and right now, his moral compass was kind of tilting in the direction of being okay with shooting someone just for being an asshole.
But he schooled his expression and his tone. “Of course. I’ll be happy to take thirty percent off the final total.”
The suit blinked, mouth open and pointed finger hovering in the air as if he’d been poised to argue, but had been caught off guard by the generous accommodation.
Ricardo smiled. “So. Could you show me all the places where rats have been sighted?”
It was common knowledge that when rats started fleeing a ship, humans would be wise to follow. As much as people didn’t think much of rats, they collectively understood the animals’ survival instincts and their ability to sense that something wasn’t right, especially once the ship started filling up with water.
Even the most self-important paranoid billionaire, however, didn’t stop to question why a colony of rats had suddenly arrived in his house. Or if it was perhaps unwise to, regardless of the desperation to be rat-free, give an exterminator a thorough tour and near unlimited access to one’s home, particularly the basement and attic.
Ironically, Baldwin’s propensity toward overworking and underpaying his workers extended to his household staff, and that had worked to Ricardo’s advantage. For someone barely pulling in twenty thousand dollars per year with no health insurance and two kids to feed, a fifty thousand dollar bribe was irresistible. Baldwin had put in millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of security and fortifications, and in the end, all it had taken was fifty grand to get one staff member to turn a bunch of rats loose in the basement, and another fifty to compel a second staff member to call a specific exterminator to take care of the problem.
Two bribes, a few dozen rats, and some fake decals later, no one even blinked when “Marty” from Pest Assassins asked to see where the rats had been spotted.
It took a good hour and a half to show Ricardo all the places where the rats seemed to be congregating.
“They just came out of nowhere,” the suit—whose name turned out to be Kyle—told Ricardo on the way down to the wine cellar. “There’s never been any issue with pests in this house. Never. Then suddenly we have rats!” He huffed melodramatically. “If Mrs. Baldwin sees another one, I swear she’s going to fire us all.”
“The rats aren’t your fault,” Ricardo said blandly. “A couple of them must have come in through a weakness in the foundation. Once they’re inside, it only takes a few months for a single pair to produce hundreds of descendants.”
Kyle blanched. “Oh God.”
“Don’t worry.” Ricardo gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “I’ll have them out of here soon. We might have to fumigate, though, and that’s—”
“Fumigate?” Kyle squeaked. “But the party is tonight!”
Ricardo froze. “Party?”
“Well, yes!” Kyle flailed a hand toward the stairs they’d come down into the wine cellar. “Didn’t Ian tell you when he called?”
“Um. No?”
Kyle huffed as if Ricardo were the most clueless man on the planet. “The Baldwins are hosting a joint fundraiser for Governor Hall and Mayor Young. Everyone who’s anyone in town—in the entire state—is going to be here tonight.”
Ricardo’s blood turned cold. Everyone who’s anyone… and all of their security. He had no doubt about that. They wouldn’t leave their heavily-armed entourages at home just because they were going to a well-protected fortress; how could they demonstrate how important they were without their own personal mini-armies? Plus it wouldn’t be a Mayor Young event without some representatives from the police department, and Governor Hall was forever harping on the fact that he had an exceptionally good relationship with both the National Guard and the brass at a nearby Army base. Ricardo would be genuinely stunned if no one from those bases showed up.
Fuck. Fuuuck. This was not good.
In theory, he could bail on the job, but his liaison had been specific that it had to happen tonight. She’d made it clear that whoever had arranged this job would have Ricardo’s head—literally—if Lance Baldwin survived to see dawn.
Keeping his voice calm and his American accent in