CAUGHT: A Hitman Romance (8 page)

Mars

It’s been close to a month. A fucking month.

You’d think that’s enough time to get my head straight, but on the contrary, I decided to make things worse by continuing to see her, date her, as if she was my fucking girlfriend.

I am keeping an eye on her. At least that’s what I am telling myself. If I pretend to be her lover, a trustworthy companion, I might become the one person she eventually confides in. If she ever does, that is.

We have been seeing each other a few times, but never for longer than a few hours. It was bad enough that she stayed overnight the first time I took her home. I don’t want this to turn into a routine too early, not with her especially.

It’s another early morning and I am standing in front of the mirror, staring at the sorry ass in front of me.

“Idiot,” I hiss at myself. “Fucking idiot.”

Nike left a hair tie she last time she was here, and it’s lying in front of me like a warning. Dark red, like the blood I have shed. I lift it up and twist it between my thumb and index finger.

I don’t know what to do with her. More than three weeks since I first fucked her, since that pathetically glorious night that made me lose my head, and I still don’t know.

The same goes for Christian. I have met him once and told him that he shouldn’t worry, that he should leave things untouched and just continue with his life, free of the mob’s constant threat. He sat in front of me, nodding, but insecure as fuck. He doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t believe that there is nothing for him to worry about as long as he keeps quiet.

So, he went and did the opposite of what I told him. He started to investigate, and he noticed that I am no longer carrying out jobs like I used to. He started to dig into my affairs, and now we really have a fucking problem.

I am meeting him today, once again determined to reassure him. Too bad I can’t just whistle a soothing melody to this bastard so he could calm down.

I finish to get ready, leaving my new life apartment in old life clothes, because that’s how Christian knows me. Dark and rugged jeans with a black sweater and an old leather jacket that is well past its peak. It was the first expensive item I bought for myself when I started earning good money with a bad job. It’s as old as my killing career, but unlike many other aspects and items, this is one I am not willing to leave behind.

I hesitate for a moment before I close the door behind me, and then head back inside. It’s better to be safe than sorry, and so I add my unobtrusive handgun to the outfit, hiding it in its holster beneath my leather jacket. I hope I won’t have to use it, but it’s always good to have it with me, especially when I am going to that place.

Christian is waiting for me at his establishment, the bar that provided us with a hidden back room to conduct our business. It’s the middle of the day and none of the staff have even arrived yet to prepare for the night. I knock at the heavy, dark wooden door and hear him unlock it from the other side within a few seconds, as if he has been waiting behind the door like a pathetic dog.

The door opens and I see his furrowed face appear. Christian is not much older than me, but he looks tired and used up, which is probably a side effect of not only running a bar all by himself but also of years of stress due to being handled by the mob.

“Come in,” he says, his voice unusually dark and low.

He steps back and I slip through the door, which he quickly closes behind me. The bar is dark and empty, with most of the chairs still turned upside down on the tables.

I follow him to the bar where he pours both of us a drink without asking whether I want one or not. Whiskey, neat.

“You seem distressed,” I notice when he hands one of the small glasses over to me. “Did anything happen?”

Christian brings the drink up to his lips and finishes it in one go, before he looks at me with furled eyebrows.

“You know very damn well what happened,” he hisses. “There’s a killer out there who eradicated the entire gang—and you want me to believe that they’re not after me next.”

I nod quietly, taking a careful sip from my own drink, just for the impression, not because I actually like it.

“That’s fucked up, man,” Christian adds. “And you know what’s even more fucked up?”

He glances at me through narrow eyes, supporting himself on his elbows as he leans over to me.

“What?” I ask, raising one eyebrow to show how little his affected behavior impresses me.

“The way you’re dealing with this,” he hisses. “Just telling me to let it go, to live my life without worrying. After all of this happened? Do you really think I’m that stupid, Joe Mars?”

I flinch at him mentioning my real name. I have never used that name with the mob, and there were only a handful of people—mostly the boss and his immediate associates—who knew my legal name. It probably wasn’t that hard for Christian to find out, but the fact that he is mentioning it now shows that he really did some digging in my direction.

“That’s right,” he says as if he was reading my mind. “I did some research, Mr. Stockbroker. Trying to make a name for yourself out there, are you?”

“Get to the point, Christian,” I hiss at him.

He clears his throat and straightens up to his full, yet not very impressive, height.

“I think it was you,” he declares. “You wanted out. You have never enjoyed being involved in this business and you know the mob better than I ever have. You wanted to get out and you knew that things were going downhill with them. The fights, the deaths, the mistrust—they were weakened, and you took the first chance you got to eliminate them once and for all, man by man.”

I don’t reply anything to his accusations and take another sip from my drink, just damping my lips, mostly to win time.

“Am I not right?” Christian continues, now placing his hands on his hips, trying to hold an intimidating and confident posture. But I can see his hands shaking when he lifts them up. He is anything but calm and confident, because he knows who he is talking to.

“I see why you would think that,” I say. “But don’t you think that even if your accusations were true, I would admit to them right now?”

His face freezes.

“So, you’re saying I’m right?” he says in disbelief.

I shake my head. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re not denying it either!” Christian insists. “And you want me to live in a fool’s paradise so you can go after me next!”

I roll my eyes at him. This guy is making things worse for himself with every sentence, and he doesn’t even realize it.

“I have no intention of killing you,” I tell him, even though I am not entirely sure at this point.

“But you killed the others—”

“Christian, listen,” I interrupt him. “We have something in common, you and I.”

He furls his eyebrow. “I don’t think th—”

“We both never belonged,” I continue. “We both could have been eradicated at any moment if we stepped on anybody’s toes. You were useful for them, but also a constant danger. Who knows how long they would have let you go on like this before the boss decided that you pose too much of a threat.”

“But I never—”

“Shut up!” I bark at him. “Let me finish, you idiot! One more interruption and you’ll find yourself with a bullet in your head!”

He stares at me and his face loses all of its color, but he remains quiet for once.

“It doesn’t matter what your intentions were. The mob doesn’t trust people just because they don’t openly pose a threat,” I say. “It is hard to earn their trust, especially when you’re an outsider to them. You and I, we both were such outsiders. I was hired by them, and you were used by them. You should be just as happy as I am that they are gone.”

He frowns at me and pours himself another drink.

“So, you really did it,” he whispers, sounding disgusted. “You really killed all of them.”

I don’t give him a reply, but raise the glass to my lips again, taking another sip that barely reaches my throat and mostly moistens my lips.

“What’s important now is the future, Christian,” I say. “You can live in peace now—if you let things go.”

“If I let things go,” he repeats, his voice low and full of terror. “Are you threatening me?”

I turn around to him, catching his small and light gray eyes on me.

“Maybe,” I say. “If I deem it necessary, yes Christian, I am threatening you to stay quiet.”

“Or else?” He asks. “Or else I’ll end up like the others?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

He flinches when I suddenly jump up from my barstool.

I’m done.

“Everything that needs to be said has been said,” I tell him. “It’s up to you now, buddy.”

He looks at me, his face in an unreadable expression. There is a hint of fear, but not enough for my taste. I will have to watch this guy.

“Goodbye, Christian,” I say, and turn around to leave.

I close the door behind me without hearing another word from him.

Nike

“Ugh, sickening,” Amanda says when she sees me trying on a new outfit. She winks at me.

I am standing in front of my full body mirror, turning and stretching to see if the dress I bought with the help of her recommendations suits me as well as it did in the store where I bought it. It's a dark red flare dress with lace around its Bardot neckline—nothing I would usually dare to wear, but Amanda convinced me to go for this one and I trust her judgment.

“Sickening, huh?” I ask, smiling at her.

“Yeah, you’re like a teenage girl,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Head over heels for that guy—and all I told you was to get some fling action!”

I chuckle, straightening my dress for the umpteenth time.

“That was all I was going for,” I assure her. “How could I have known that he would turn out to be more than just a fling?”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I’m happy for you, you know that,” she says. “Just be careful, okay? Some of the things you told me about him sound fishy to me.”

I want to object, but I know she is right. I told her about his behavior in the beginning, about his accusation of me playing some sort of game with him. He was so certain that we had met before and that I was hiding something from him. And the way he looked at me…

It also struck me as weird how intrusive he was on our first date, not even physically, but emotionally. There was more than one time when I suspected him of being a police officer or some sort of detective, even though those thoughts were soon cast aside after we had sex. That was a whole other kind of weird, because the intimacy we shared in those moments was out of this world as well. It was something that could not be faked, something real and deep. As wonderful as it was, it also scared me—and still does. 

It was as if he knew. As if he knew what had happened just a short while before we met. That horrific incident on the roof. Too much time has passed for me to go to the police now, so all I’m left to do is to try to forget about all of it. I want to cast the memory aside and bury it as deep as possible, overshadowed by positive memories and thoughts.

He is helping with that, even though his extreme devotion still confuses me, and so do his questions. His curiosity about me is endearing and odd at the same time. When I wanted to know why he keeps asking these questions about my past, my personal life, my darkest secrets, he just said that he wants to know as much as possible about me.

I tried to convince him that there is not much to know about me, that my life is and always has been uneventful, but he has never been content with that statement.

“You don’t have to worry,” I assure Amanda, who is still watching me from the side, leaning in my door frame with her arms crossed in front of her chest. “I may remind you of a teenager right now, but I’m still a big girl. I can watch out for myself.”

“Ah, I know, I know,” she says. “Don’t mind me, I’m probably just jealous.”

I turn around, catching a smirk from her.

“I mean, come on,” she adds. “He’s a great catch! Handsome, rich and didn’t you mention that he is a fantastic lover, too?”

She grins at me while my cheeks blush as if I really was that teenage girl she just claimed me to be. I have a tendency to be a little too open in front of Amanda sometimes.

“In any case, he keeps you off the rooftops,” Amanda continues, sending a cold shiver along my spine.

It’s a mystery to me how I managed to keep that terrifying encounter from her. She has commented on my nightly rooftop excursions and the fact that they have stopped so many times, yet I never told her why that was. It almost feels as if telling her would make everything more realistic. If no one but me—and the killer—knows about it, I could still convince myself that it never happened. Despite the police reports that verified an actual murder taking place that night.

I swallow hard, trying to get rid of these dark memories. They make my heart sink to the bottom of a black sea that resides within my chest, storing all the bad memories that I have tried to get rid of.

Yet I used to dwell in them every time I sat up there, scanning the city skyline below and tracing the streets that used to be my home, a long time ago. A different life that had a different me as the protagonist, a younger me, a poorer me, a sadder me. It strikes me as a sick irony that it took another man’s death for me to stop following that unhealthy habit.

“Aren’t you late?” Amanda interrupts my dark rumination.

I glance over to the clock on my nightstand. Damn, she’s right.

“Oh, yeah!” I exclaim, hurrying to gather my stuff.

I shouldn’t do this. All those horrible thoughts and memories have no room when I am about to meet him. Although I am sure that it will be easy to forget about them once I am standing in front of him.

That’s how it’s been every time I saw him so far.

However, tonight will prove to be very different.