Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,20

had come after him was going to go after August too. Once they’d figured out that the hit hadn’t gone down as planned, August and Ricardo were both getting eliminated. It was entirely possible August was already dead.

But he could still be alive.

And as much as Ricardo didn’t want to admit it, August was right—two heads were better than one. Whoever wanted them dead or arrested or whatever had been smart enough to be three steps ahead of two hitmen who knew their shit.

And despite his line of work, Ricardo did have a conscience of sorts, and he wasn’t fond of people getting killed who didn’t deserve it. His time in the military had extinguished any apathy he’d had about collateral damage. August was an obnoxious asshat who offended every one of Ricardo’s sensibilities, but he was as much a victim in this particular situation as Ricardo. Maybe Ricardo’s moral compass was a little wobbly, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of letting August die while he made his escape.

Swearing under his breath in multiple languages, Ricardo aimed the car in the direction of August’s neighborhood, and he gunned the engine.

By all rights, he shouldn’t have known where another hitman lived. August, however, was a unique case, since he lived a double life. No one knew where Batman lived, but they sure as fuck knew where Wayne Manor was.

Augustus Mason was an heir to the fortune of a couple of billionaires who were nearly as high-profile as Lance Baldwin, if less useful or exploitative. Augustus had never strayed far from his roots; even now, he schmoozed at high-society shindigs. He walked red carpets now and then. He went to charity balls and generally charmed people into believing he was a decent human being.

Everyone who was anyone knew his face, but only the simultaneously gossipy and secretive hitman community knew about his double life as hired gun August Morrison. There were all kinds of theories about where his fake surname came from. Ricardo preferred the one where he fancied himself as being a rock star murderer the way Jim Morrison was, well, a rock star. It fit August’s exceptionally high opinion of himself.

He thought August was an idiot for being so friendly with cameras and the public. There was an art to hiding in plain sight, and August had mastered it about as well as preschoolers tended to master finger-painting.

Stupid or not, though, it worked to Ricardo’s advantage this time, and he drove to August’s house as quickly as he could without drawing attention. A few times, he circled a block to make sure he hadn’t picked up a tail, but mostly he drove like hell toward the exclusive neighborhood where the dumbass made his home.

To his credit, August didn’t have quite such a conspicuously opulent place as Lance Baldwin. It was big and extravagant, using the sleek ultramodern design Ricardo had thought Baldwin would—a lot of glass and metal, strange angles, and moderately successful attempts to make solar panels look like art. He had no doubt August had implemented dozens of security measures. In fact, he was counting on it this time.

He parked a few streets over, same as he had at the storage facility, and walked right up August’s front gate. There was a camera on top of the wall, because of course there was, and Ricardo waved at it.

“Let me in, asshole,” he said to the lens. “Don’t make me fuck with your rating.”

No response.

He took out his phone and held it up. “I’m not joking.”

Nothing.

Ricardo shrugged and focused on the screen. He tapped it a couple of times, and he pulled up the Rate My Hit site, which he showed to the camera.

Still nothing.

So, he started typing, narrating his words aloud as he wrote them: “Didn’t know I was ordering a poser punk who wears suits off the rack from Kohl’s, but—”

The latch on the gate clanked. Then the gate swung open. Ricardo snickered, gave the camera a sassy wink, and started up the path to the front of the house.

He’d barely cleared the bottom step—marble, of course—before the door swung open. Wearing only a pair of boxers covered in Madagascar penguins and an oddly thick pair of socks, August glared at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He pointed sharply at the phone in Ricardo’s hand. “And you better not have posted that, I swear to God.”

“We have to go.” Ricardo brushed past August and into his house. “Now.”

“Uh, come on in?” August let