Tool: A Hitman Romance, #3

By Claire St. Rose

This is book 3 and the conclusion of the Tool Hitman Romance Series! 

He's got a dangerous tool, and he knows how to use it.

MAYA

I thought my father hired Quinn to be my protector.

But it turns out that he's more of a prison guard.

It's Quinn's secret job to keep me under his watchful eye, so I don't do what I desperately want to do:

Run away from my mob boss daddy, who's trying to marry me off to the rich, arrogant son of some other mafia creep.

Quinn doesn't give a d*mn either way.

He's just there to collect a paycheck and get back to a life of whiskey drinking and one-night stands.

Until one night, we go too far and end up in the shower together.

Now, there's no going back to the way things were.

He says he's a loner with no room in his heart for love.

But I know that there's a man deep down inside him who feels something for me.

At least, I hope so.

Because if I'm wrong, then by sundown tomorrow, I'll be married to a monster.

Unless Quinn comes back to save me.

QUINN

The last thing I needed was a girl like Maya Butler.

A spoiled, high-maintenance brat who thinks she can tell me what to do just because her daddy's footing the bill.

But once I got a taste of her, she became an addiction that I couldn't quit.

I took her, claimed her, and made her beg me for more.

There's just one problem:

Some mafia scumbag thinks that she belongs to him, and he'll start a war to take her away from me.

But Mimi is mine. No matter who says otherwise.

I may not have started this war.

But I'm sure as hell going to finish it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBook Publishing World
• Release date: Jul 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393351054

Book preview

Tool: A Hitman Romance Book 3

By Claire St. Rose

He’s got a dangerous tool, and he knows how to use it.

MAYA

I thought my father hired Quinn to be my protector.

But it turns out that he’s more of a prison guard.

It’s Quinn’s secret job to keep me under his watchful eye, so I don’t do what I desperately want to do:

Run away from my mob boss daddy, who’s trying to marry me off to the rich, arrogant son of some other mafia creep.

Quinn doesn’t give a d*mn either way.

He’s just there to collect a paycheck and get back to a life of whiskey drinking and one-night stands.

Until one night, we go too far and end up in the shower together.

Now, there’s no going back to the way things were.

He says he’s a loner with no room in his heart for love.

But I know that there’s a man deep down inside him who feels something for me.

At least, I hope so.

Because if I’m wrong, then by sundown tomorrow, I’ll be married to a monster.

Unless Quinn comes back to save me.

QUINN

The last thing I needed was a girl like Maya Butler.

A spoiled, high-maintenance brat who thinks she can tell me what to do just because her daddy’s footing the bill.

But once I got a taste of her, she became an addiction that I couldn’t quit.

I took her, claimed her, and made her beg me for more.

There’s just one problem:

Some mafia scumbag thinks that she belongs to him, and he’ll start a war to take her away from me.

But Mimi is mine. No matter who says otherwise.

I may not have started this war.

But I’m sure as hell going to finish it.

Chapter 1

Maya turns off her phone and throws it on the bed. It springs up and down on the cover, then springs off and hits the floor. She doesn’t notice it. She feels the tears welling up in her eyes, hot and agonizing, but she doesn’t even try to brush them away. There’d be no point. She’s not in control of her body right now, and that’s fine—she doesn’t need it to do anything aside from what it’s already doing: processing.

And like this, she slowly begins to understand what she’s just done. Put a hit on her father. Sell herself for Theo’s death. Trade one life of killing for another. Theo or Quinn. Family or Stitches. Death or death.

The words jump around in her brain with strange finality, like the phone bouncing on the bed before it clunks down with a little thud to the ground.

For some reason, her legs go weak, but instead of sitting down on the bed or at the desk, she slumps down with her back to the mattress, facing the door. She’s eerily calm. She’s so calm even she knows there’s something strange about it, like she was looking at her body through the eyes of someone else. She’s generally and scarily calm, despite the circumstances and the day she’s had, and her thoughts come to her one at a time like letters she can open and examine at will.

The first thing she needs is a plan, and the first thing on that plan is some place where she can go tomorrow. The mansion is one hundred and fifty percent off limits, and with the mansion comes that whole chunk of the outskirts of the city. Better to get away and stay away, especially now that she’s given the order for Theo to go in the ground. For all she knows, Quinn’s already at the mansion, plugging guardsmen. Getting closer. Doing anything other than what he was doing, which was sitting in her car in hotel’s parking lot, going exactly nowhere, waiting to see where his thoughts would lead.

She’s still sitting on the shag, cheap-ass carpet of the Motel Six, facing the door like she’s waiting for someone to come plowing through at any moment. She’s still calm. She’s still completely in control of the situation and even more so, of herself. There are no doubts about her contract being filled, that in three days or less she’s going to read in the paper or see online an article detailing the ruthless and efficient murder of Theo Butler, respected and deeply beloved businessman.

What would they say about her? Would she even be mentioned? Whereabouts of Maya Butler currently unknown? No—that wasn’t right. Maya Butler could not be contacted at this time. Not that either.

With any luck, they’d have forgotten about her. Or, better yet, the kill would be so efficiently done, and the body so well hidden, or an excuse provided detailing how her father was out of town and wouldn’t be back until so-on-and-so-forth. Something offering enough liberty that there’d be at least a week before any kind of suspicion would be entertained.

Maya hopes.

She could really use that week. It could be that maybe she doesn’t intend on ever seeing Quinn again, and getting as far away as soon as possible just so that she doesn’t have to think about what she’s leaving behind, or what might come after her. She’s been tagged all her life by her father and her father’s people. Quinn’s just the latest in the newest batch of prison enforcers.

The hell am I doing? she says, not even sure whether she’d said it out loud or whether the thought was so abrupt and sudden it just sounded like it. She gets up off the ground and smooths out her skirt, then picks up the phone and manually dials the first number she can think of.

Mmmellow? Anthony Gerard says. He stretches the word like an eighth grader chewing Hubble Bubble.

Anthony! Maya cries, all smiles. She manages just by saying his name to make Anthony seem like the most unexpected and wonderful surprise she could have ever imagined. But that’s her talent— putting on voices and faces just like a trained actress. But she’s had a lifetime of practice and deceiving other people. Like with Theo, when she wanted her way but knew she wouldn’t get it unless she could apply herself—the tone of her voice and the smiles or frowns of her lips. Like a bribe, the curve of the lips or the blink of mascaraed eyelid would add extra value, like another ten or twenty-dollar-bill handed over to the traffic cop. "How are you?"

Maya Butler? Anthony matches her tone to the pitch. It’s been ages!

"Way too long—I know." She smiles and begins bit by bit to explain the situation. Not the real situation. Never the real situation, but the situation as designated by her needs. There’s been a fight. She improvises on the spot: a nasty fight.

Yes, with Quinn... And Daddy too, she says a little quieter.

The quiet becomes a prolonged silence. While she scrubs her bare feet up and down the cheap sheets of her motel bed, she lets Anthony color in the silence like a toddler with a new box of crayons. The enormity of the argument, her hurt feelings, and the devastation left by the exchange of words. She doesn’t have to make up any of it. By the silence itself, Anthony assumes the worst. Assuming the worst, he becomes immediately sympathetic. Does she need a place to stay? Something to eat? A listening ear? Someone just to share the silence? He’s already making up the room. Of course, he and his boyfriend will sleep on the couch; she doesn’t need to say anything (and she doesn’t). And does she need a ride? If she just says the word he’ll be there as soon as he can.

No, no. Maya tries to