Lost Cause Read online

  Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2022 Sam Crescent and Stacey Espino

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-0660-3

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Audrey Bobak

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LOST CAUSE

  Killer of Kings, 8

  Sam Crescent and Stacey Espino

  Copyright © 2022

  Chapter One

  Priest lifted the edge of his sleeve and checked his watch. Things were about to go down in four minutes and seventeen seconds. His jobs were meticulous. He’d been staking out this hotel for the past six days, and today he’d get the job done.

  Boss had strict instructions for this hit.

  He expected Priest to make an example of Marcus Olivieri, to send a message to the rest of the mafia family not to conduct business in their city. They were into human trafficking and prostitution rings, and Boss wouldn’t tolerate it. Neither would Priest.

  His legs were cramping up from his crouched position, but he had the perfect vantage point to see the asshole getting off the elevator. He checked the sights on his 9mm, loving the feel of the cool metal in his palm. Priest could still remember the first day he held one, nineteen years ago. The weeks following had been a blur.

  He was a different person today than he’d been all those years ago.

  Keeping his mind in the present was the only way to ensure his sanity.

  One minute and thirty-three seconds.

  This contract was going smoothly. Too smoothly. As soon as the fucking maid began pushing her cleaning cart down the hallway, Priest checked his watch again.

  “Fuck.”

  Any second and his target would be stepping off the elevator with the barely seventeen-year-old girl he planned to force into their prostitution ring. He’d fuck her, beat her close to death, pump her full of drugs, and then send her to their whorehouse for grooming.

  As soon as the maid swiped her keycard on the room where he planned to carry out this hit, he ground his teeth down hard, his mind going through all the possible scenarios. He didn’t want an innocent to get killed on his watch, but that bitch had some bad timing.

  The elevator door opened with a ding, and an obscenely drunk young woman stumbled out, attempting to hang off his target. She giggled as he led her to his hotel room. Why was the maid in the room? The room had already been rented and pre-paid for two weeks. It had been cleaned at 9:44 that morning, so there was no fucking reason for the maid to be there. The maid assigned to this end of the floor tonight wasn’t even a blonde.

  Once he heard the door close, he stood up and kept tight to the wall as he moved in closer to room number 4423. He kicked open the door as planned, his pistol in his outstretched hand. Priest scanned the room. The girl was already crashed on the bed, the bastard unbuckling his belt. The man froze in place with the red dot dead centered on his forehead. Where the fuck was the maid? He’d watched her come into the room, and her cart was still just outside in the hallway.

  Whatever. This contract needed to be finished or Boss would be on his case tonight.

  “You like little girls, motherfucker?”

  Marcus shrugged nonchalantly, so Priest brought him down to size with a bullet to the kneecap. His screams were much louder than the shot with his silencer securely in place.

  “Shut the fuck up.” He moved in close and stripped him of all his weapons and his cell phone. “Take off your clothes.”

  He kept his gun in his target’s direction as he did a rough search of the luxury room. Marcus wasn’t going anywhere, too busy bleeding on the carpet. Where was the maid? He couldn’t leave a witness behind. Killer of Kings demanded every hit be clean. And he wouldn’t let Boss down, not after he’d saved Priest from self-destruction almost a decade ago.

  She was nowhere to be found. He even checked under the bed.

  Priest returned to Marcus Olivieri. He was in his underwear, not looking too suave now with snot leaking down his face. The man whimpered and begged for his life like a little bitch, but he wasn’t leaving this room alive regardless.

  “Underwear too. Then get on the bed.”

  The girl had passed out. Priest grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her unceremoniously off the bed. She barely came to. He reached down to the ground and pulled her up to her feet by the back of her hair. “Go home to your mother. Understand? Stop drinking. Don’t talk to fucking strangers.”

  She nodded repeatedly. He opened the room door and shoved her out into the hall where she fell to her knees. Then he tossed a wad of bills from his pocket onto the carpet outside. “Go home!”

  Once alone in the room with Marcus again, he went to work, slitting the man’s throat to shut him up. Priest held his palm to Marcus’s chest to keep him from thrashing as the blood drained from his body. Then he reached down and cut off his balls in one clean stroke, shoving them into Marcus’s mouth. When his men found him, one of their high-ranking soldiers, it would send a message loud and clear not to fuck with Killer of Kings. Boss was systematically bringing down their numbers one by one.

  He washed his hands in the bathroom, the blood mixing with the water and swirling down the drain. His mind almost went back to those weeks of carnage so long ago, but he stopped himself before slipping into oblivion. When he heard a barely audible sniffle, he knew his maid was hiding in the linen closet.

  Priest was fairly certain she hadn’t seen his face. Not that his identity meant a thing. He was hard to miss with half his face covered in ink. It was the complication that pissed him off. It would be so easy to end her life like most hitmen would do without a second thought. For Priest, it wasn’t so simple. He shouldn’t care, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill an innocent.

  He almost pulled out his cell phone to call Bain because he knew he was working nearby. Anyone else on his team would take the shot. But he refrained, not wanting to look incompetent. He checked his watch. Fuck, he should have been out of there by now. He knew Chains had taken a hostage at one point, trapping her in his basement rather than killing her. Boss had been pissed off to a new level. Priest had no intentions of following the same route but couldn’t figure out what to do with her.

  He tucked his gun into his holster and opened the closet door. Priest crossed his arms over his chest as he looked down at her on the bottom shelf. He was surprised she’d managed to squeeze in there at all.

  “Get out.”

  She didn’t hold back the sniffling now as she spilled out onto the bathroom tiles from her cramped position. She stayed on the floor in the fetal position.

  “Get up.”

  Inch by inch, she stood up, her hands clutching her apron. Her knuckles were white, her face blotted and tear stained. “I didn’t see anything.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  Priest scoffed. He grabbed her by arm and tugged her into the main room where the white sheets were soiled red, the body sprawled out in the most unflattering position. She gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth.

  “Now you see.”

  She shook her head back and forth. “Please no.”

  His curiosity got the better of him. “Why were you in this room after hours?”

  “The last shift forgot to replace the toilet paper. She asked me to check before I left.”

>   His day had gone to the shitter because of toilet paper? He’d never live this down.

  “Well, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I’m sorry to say your life will never be the same.”

  ****

  Cleo couldn’t breathe. Her body felt like lead, her feet frozen in place.

  She didn’t want to look at the crime scene, but she also couldn’t look away. Now her nightmares would be rooted in reality. The murderer had found her, and she was going to be next on his kill list.

  Her mind whirled with thoughts, her life flashing through her mind like a person on their deathbed. What had she accomplished? What dreams had she seen through to fulfillment? She was only twenty-four. Cleo hadn’t achieved anything of significance in her life, and now it was over. It wasn’t fair. She was going to die because of toilet paper.

  “I won’t say anything. I promise.” She was desperate, begging, and didn’t care how pathetic she appeared. If there was something she could do to prolong her life, she was going to do it.

  “I’ve heard that before. Usually right before I pull the trigger.”

  She dared to sneak another peek at the murderer. He was the scariest man she’d ever seen. His face was covered in tattoos, his eyes dark and empty. And damn he was huge. He could break her in two with no effort at all. She was completely at his mercy.

  “I’ll do anything you ask. Please. Please. Please,” she chanted.

  “Stop talking. I need to think.”

  Was he considering letting her live? A tiny ray of hope brightened inside her. He’d let that other woman go free, so why not her?

  “Give me your identification.”

  “My purse is in the locker downstairs.”

  He groaned, an angry sound that sent a shiver up her spine.

  “Name.”

  “Cleo Bennet.”

  “We’re going for a ride. If you open that pretty little mouth of yours, you won’t make it out of the building alive. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Push your cart down to your locker. Don’t make eye contact with anyone. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  He opened the door first, looking both ways down the hall before motioning her to get out. She held her breath, grabbing her cart like a zombie. She didn’t feel like herself. Maybe she’d wake up and discover this was all a nightmare.

  Cleo wondered if she’d get a chance to escape. Maybe they’d come across other guests or a manager and the killer would slip up or get nervous. Who was she kidding? She doubted this guy was afraid of anything, and she knew he was capable of murdering her in the grisliest way imaginable.

  He took position behind her, prodding her when he seemed to consider her pace too slow. Her nerves were completely on edge. She swore she’d shatter into a thousand pieces at any moment. Once in the elevator alone with him, she pushed the basement button and stood still, watching him through the reflection of the mirrored walls.

  Was it stupid to notice his sex appeal? The man was a sociopath, probably some kind of serial killer. But his shoulders were broad, and she could tell his entire body was hard judging by what she saw through his unzipped jacket. He wore all black with gun holsters hidden under his lapels. His hair was black and roughly pushed back off his face. His lips…

  He noticed her staring, and she immediately diverted her attention, her heart jolting.

  “Eyes forward.”

  She bit her bottom lip. Fortunately, the doors opened on the basement level, and she pushed her cleaning cart off the elevator. She continued on to the locker room. At this hour, there weren’t too many on shift, just some floaters.

  When she got to her locker, she undid her lock and opened the door. He pushed her aside, immediately rummaging through her purse. He pulled out her wallet, dropping everything not of interest to him.

  “Cleo Bennet,” he read.

  “I already told you that. I wasn’t lying.”

  He glared at her and continued rifling through her personal stuff.

  “What are these for?” The killer held out a bottle of pills, giving it a shake, and she felt her entire face turn hot and red. She felt nauseous. “They’re diet pills,” she whispered. She didn’t need to be told they didn’t work. She’d tried everything, and those were her last resort next to getting her stomach stapled.

  The world seemed to stop spinning. He looked her up and down, inch by fat inch, then tossed the pills over his shoulder.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He ignored her, and she didn’t push her luck. This man had just sliced up that man upstairs and he could do the same to her.

  “Who do you live with?” He examined her driver’s license. It was expired. She just didn’t have any free time to get things done. Rent was expensive, so she took every extra shift she could, like tonight.

  “Nobody.”

  “You’re lying.”

  She shook her head. The threat in his voice made her eyes start to water again. “I swear. I don’t even have a pet because of my allergies. It’s just me and my … fish.”

  He cocked his head.

  It was the dumbest thing, but she worried about who’d feed Fred once she was dead. No one would check on Cleo, no one would care. A wave of sadness washed over her as the reality of her situation really hit home. Not a single person would remember her.

  “I just want to go home.” Tears traced down her cheek.

  “Who’ll notice you’ve gone missing?”

  “I don’t want to go missing,” she said.

  “Answer the question.”

  More tears fell. She wasn’t sure if she was more sorry for herself or embarrassed. If he knew the truth, he’d have no reason to keep her alive.

  “Lots of people,” she managed to squeak out.

  When he cocked an eyebrow, she tried her best to keep herself in check. Did he know she was lying?

  “Who? Names.”

  “I-I don’t know…” She busied herself collecting the contents of her purse from the floor before standing up again.

  “We’re done here.” He spun her around. “Back to the elevator. Hit P3.”

  Oh God, this was it. He was taking her to a second location, the number one thing to avoid in the emergency handbook for women. Would he rape her? Chop her up? Or slit her throat like that poor man upstairs?

  “Good night, Cleo,” said one of the maintenance men from the other end of the hall.

  “Good night, George,” she replied.

  The elevator door closed, and any hope of rescue was gone.

  The parking garage had never been this foreboding. Her kidnapper blended into the shadows, and her white uniform stood out like a target. He stopped at a black car and opened the passenger door.

  “Put your seatbelt on.” He slammed the door shut behind her.

  The car had a deeply masculine scent. It must be his scent. She wanted to hate it but couldn’t. A few seconds later, he sat in the driver’s seat, his large frame rubbing up against her arm.

  His cell phone went off as he drove out of the parking garage.

  “Yeah. It’s done. Message sent loud and clear.”

  He tucked his phone away.

  The night was dark, growing darker as they distanced from the city center.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Part of her didn’t want to know, but the other part felt she may as well know if she couldn’t change anything.

  He didn’t answer her, which scared her even more.

  A few minutes later, he spoke, the deepness of his voice a sharp contrast from hers. Everyone always told her she had a baby voice, and she hated it.

  “That man in 4423 wasn’t worth his skin.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “He was a human trafficker. That girl was his next victim, one of hundreds in their prostitution ring. The younger they are, the more money they can get out of them.”

  “And you let the girl go?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t there to k
ill her.”

  So, he saved her? That made her angry. “Why don’t I get to go free, too? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “You’re a witness.”

  “So was she.” She was bargaining, reasoning, using every tool she had to get free.

  “She was plastered. God willing she’ll return home and straighten out her life.”

  Cleo was confused. Was this guy a serial killer or a saint? How could he slash a person up and also have a moral conscience? It didn’t make sense.

  “What about me?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. You’re an unfortunate complication that thoroughly fucked up my entire night.” He turned onto the freeway, heading farther and farther from everything she knew. “I want to kill you, you have no idea how much. It would be so easy to dump you out here in the ditch, end your life with a bullet to the head. Or maybe I’d just snap your neck and save my ammo.”

  She opened her mouth to breathe. A full-blown panic attack was brewing.

  “But even though you’re a hotel maid with no family ties and no pets but a goldfish, you haven’t done anything wrong besides being an inconvenience to me.”

  “So you’ll let me go?”

  “No, my boss would never approve of that. I’m stuck between killing you or keeping you prisoner for the rest of your life. And that sounds like a lot of responsibility on my part.”

  “There has to be another option.”

  He pulled to the side of the road. With no lighting way out here, it was complete blackness. As soon as the car began to slow to a crawl, she opened the door and rolled out onto the ground. Immediately, she started running blind. There was still some light from his headlights and the moon, but once she got far enough, it would be impossible to see. She didn’t care.

  The man was going back and forth from one horrible scenario to another. He offered no outcome where she came out on top, so she had to take a chance. She hoped he’d see her as too much trouble and would drive off rather than traipsing through the mucky fields after a hotel maid. When she didn’t hear footsteps in pursuit, a little smile pulled at her mouth. Cleo kept running, needing as much distance between them as possible.