Hitmen Triumph Read Online Free

thumbs-up. Then he burned rubber as he blasted out of the parking lot in the shiny red Mustang. Nice car. Expensive car.
    I opened the envelope. Nate’s envelope.
    It held one-hundred dollar bills. Ten of them. Clean, crisp and new.

chapter six
    I found Nate in the dressing room with a few other players who had arrived early. When I stopped beside him, no one paid much attention to the two of us. A few other guys were already there. Some of them were sitting and rolling tape onto the blades of their sticks. Others were talking quietly, telling jokes.
    â€œHere, Nate,” I said, handing him the envelope. “Some guys just gave this to me. They must have gotten you and me mixed up.”
    This was about as much as I had said to him since the night of the charity golf tournament. After it ended, he’d found me at my car. Our argument had been short, and I remembered every word.
    â€œIf Mercedes hadn’t found that other ball, would you have even told me what was happening? Or just taken the money? And what about all that extra cash in your pocket? What’s happening, Nate? Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
    â€œI can’t tell you,” he had answered. “Trust me, okay?”
    â€œWhy don’t you trust me and tell me what’s happening?”
    â€œWhen I can, I will,” he had said. “
    â€œThen I guess we don’t have anything to talk about until then.”
    I was mad and I had walked away. I shouldn’t have. Now there was a big wall between us; it was going to stay there until he trusted me enough to tell me what was happening.
    If it hadn’t been for the fact that we played on the same hockey team, I’m surewe wouldn’t have even seen each other again.
    Now Nate took the envelope.
    â€œDid you look in it?” Nate asked. His voice was cold.
    â€œNo.” It was a lie. I was hoping he would tell me about the money in the envelope without me asking. Or finally tell me how he got all the money he was able to gamble at the charity golf tournament. Maybe then I could start trusting him again. Large amounts of cash delivered in plain white envelopes are very suspicious.
    â€œNext time,” Nate said, “open your mouth a little earlier and say something. That way there won’t be any confusion.”
    Had he just insulted the way I speak? Or did he mean I should have told them my name?
    â€œWhatever,” I said.
    He folded the envelope and put it in his front pocket. He stared at me. I stared back. The night of the charity golf tournament was a big wall between us that both of us pretended wasn’t there.
    Who knows how long we might have stared at each other. Fortunately, another player stepped into the dressing room and told us to stop blocking traffic.
    Nate moved toward his equipment. I sat down by mine.
    I dressed for the game in total silence. The silence of not speaking. The silence of being deaf. The silence of feeling like I no longer had a brother.

chapter seven
    Three to three against the Rebels. Four minutes, ten seconds left in the game. I was in the players’ box, watching, as a Rebels forward got dinged two minutes for tripping. That gave us a one-man advantage on the upcoming power play.
    The crowd was roaring for the Hitmen. I knew that because I could see the hands clapping and the mouths moving. But I couldn’t hear it. My world was total silence. When I play hockey, I don’t wear the processor thatdelivers audio signals to the implant in my skull. I don’t wear the magnetic “spider” on my skull either. The spider is a flat circular device a bit bigger than a quarter. It is connected to the processor on my ear by a thin wire hidden by my hair. The equipment is too expensive and, on the ice, too easy to break.
    I felt a tap on my shoulder. Jonathan Koch, our coach. Everyone just called him Coach Jon. He was in his early thirties, wide and strong, with dark hair. He could bench press