Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,45

Then again, maybe the idiot in charge of this crime scene would just shrug and say, “Power surge, huh, whatever.”

Ricardo didn’t look anything like impressed as the guns appeared this time around. “Seriously? You keep your gun and your super spy computer in the same place?”

“Not exactly.” August pulled down his P90—adorable, but really too much gun in most cases—to reveal a retinal scanner behind it. He leaned in and waited for it to activate. One quick burst of light later, the wall of guns separated twelve inches to reveal a small, black screen. Another scan of his face, and—

“Protocol required, sir?”

“Is that Alfred?” Ricardo sounded incredulous. “There’s an Alfred voiceover on your computer. Are you an actual cartoon?”

“Batman was a comic book first, as I’m sure you know, and no, if you were listening at all you would know it was JARVIS.” August turned his attention back to the computer. “Identification. Start within fifty miles.” That would capture footage from the local airport, but not the international one—that sort of search would take a lot longer, and the odds were pretty good that this guy was a local.

“The image, please.”

August pulled the image up on his phone and held it up to the screen. A second later the file was transferred.

“Working, sir. Please standby.”

August leaned back with a nod. “Hopefully this will only take a few minutes. If he’s not a local, we’ll have to branch out, and that could take as long as an hour.”

Ricardo snorted. “I thought a supercomputer would do better than that.”

“Do you have any idea how difficult facial recognition can be?” August asked, a little put out. “This isn’t that shit you can find on Google or Facebook. This isn’t even the stuff that the casinos are using. This system can tap into Homeland Security and its various governmental proxies and do a very deep, very thorough search of every non-private security camera in the country. If this person is still in the States, my computer will find them, and even if he isn’t it’ll tell us where he left from and under what alias.”

“That sounds incredibly illegal.”

“It absolutely is,” August confirmed cheerfully.

Ricardo waited a moment. “So?” he said finally. “How did you get it?”

“Ricky, please. I’m both rich and a professional hitman—neither of these things engender a strong urge to respect the law.” He leaned in closer, ready to tease his companion some more, when—

“—can’t believe you just let them in here without getting them to sign on to the site! Not to mention checking their IDs, of all the—are you rookies?” Someone new was entering the living room downstairs, someone with authority. Very loud, very angry authority.

“Uh-oh.” August turned and tapped the screen three times. The guns closed over it, then the wall closed over the guns. August pulled the shoe rack into place just in time to hear the first noisy creak on the stairs. “Shit.” They weren’t going to have time to make it down the hole in the bathroom, and even if they did there might be techs or cops at the other end. He was going to have to blow his cover to get out of this, and that would make things tougher for—

“Wha-mmph!” Suddenly Ricardo’s hands were on his hips and his mouth was on his lips, pulling him in close and overwhelming him before he could react. August’s first impulse was to knee the ever-living fuck out of Ricardo’s groin. His second impulse was to moan into the kiss, to lean into the firm, urgent pressure that Ricardo was giving him from chest to thigh. His third impulse was to think Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…give me more.

It wasn’t supposed to feel this good. Kissing Ricardo Torralba was supposed to be like kissing a mannequin—cold and impersonal. He’d never really imagined Ricardo kissing him, even if they were fucking—which, yeah, he’d gone there a few times. Biting him, maybe. Cussing him out, probably. Kissing him? Like this, hot and urgent, turning August on so hard and fast that it was all he could do not to wrap his legs around Ricardo’s waist and urge the man to fuck him up against the wall?

He wasn’t supposed to feel so real. He wasn’t supposed to feel so wanting, so real and wanting that he made August respond honestly, even though a lie was so much safer. He wasn’t supposed to be so…

“Jesus tapdancing Christ, what in the hell is this?”

Ricardo pulled away, not fast but not lingering