Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
I can’t bear it.
Shouldn’t I reward her for not running when I revealed I’m a professional killer?
“There was a job,” I say, my lips numb. I’ll only tell her surface level stuff, just so she won’t be disappointed. I won’t get too detailed. “I was hired to remove someone, Meg. And…I didn’t recognize the name when I received the assignment. I’ve seen so many names on paper over the years.” Stop here. You should stop here. But I don’t. Because she slips her hand into mine and kisses my shoulder and it all comes spilling out. “His grandmother used to feed me, before my parents traded me to cover their debt. I would wait at her backdoor, covered in filth and she’d give me a paper plate of whatever they’d eaten for dinner that night. She was so kind to me. The only person who’d ever been kind to me and I…I killed her grandson. She discovered him in a pool of his own blood.”
I’m shocked to feel moisture trickle down my side. It’s Meg’s tears.
She’s crying for me?
“Why did you kill him?”
“He was a cocaine smuggler. He made a deal with a rival operation. My boss wanted to make an example out of him. I didn’t even think, I just fulfilled my duty. That’s what I always do. It’s just an endless cycle of violence.”
“And you don’t want to do it anymore.”
“No.” I pull her closer and kiss the top of her head. I can’t believe she isn’t trying to leave me. “Problem is, I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“You play a mean violin.” She wraps her arm around my middle and holds me, too, as if she can sense I’m about to fall apart. “Maybe…maybe the problem is that you never take a break? Maybe you need a vacation from your job…before you go back. That’s normal, isn’t it? Professional burnout?”
“I suppose so.” My lips twitch, because I sense she’s trying to make light of a heavy topic, which is so like my Meg. But my amusement fades to dread. Dread of her answer to my next question. “Would you stay with me if I returned to my job?”
Several seconds pass. I hold my breath, but she finally nods. “Yes.”
I can’t hide my surprise. Or my immense relief. “You’re taking this very well.”
“I have no choice,” I think she says, her tone conflicted.
But I can’t be sure.
Later, I’ll recall this moment and be sure, though.
8
Meg
Am I the sort of person who condones murder now?
No. No, it’s wrong. Nothing excuses violence.
Except maybe a child being sold and being given no choice but to train and become an assassin or starve to death. If Koen hadn’t been traded for the debt, what fate would have befallen his parents? He isn’t a psychopath, otherwise he wouldn’t feel guilt and grief over taking the old woman’s grandson away from her. It’s driven him into solitude.
Maybe I’m naïve, maybe I’m making excuses because I have feelings for Koen that continue to expand and grow complicated, but…
I believe that, if anything, his ability to still feel guilt and pain after the life he’s led makes him stronger of character than most.
I’m one of those women who marries an inmate, aren’t I?
Oh God.
“You’re still here,” he says, planting a hard kiss on the crown of my head.
Speaking of the ability to feel guilt, did I really try and suggest he simply needed a break from being an assassin? Maybe…maybe the problem is that you never take a break. My heart sinks into my stomach from simply replaying my own words. How can I do this job Etta asks of me? I should tell him to run. To find a peaceful life away from the world that did such a number on him.
“Of course I’m still here,” I say, turning my mouth into his shoulder. After a hesitation that comes from a place of inexperience, I…sip at his shoulder. I open my mouth partly and suck gently on his skin, my intimate muscles tugging between my legs when he sucks in a hiss, his hips shifting beneath the covers. “Do you…like that?”
“I can’t think of a single thing you could do to me that I wouldn’t like.” His nostrils flare when he cuts me a smoldering look. “Except run.”
I’m filled with the urge to make him believe I won’t. The deal with Etta means nothing right now. It’s an afterthought when this man is looking at me like I’m the axis of his world. Nothing can go wrong in this moment. There’s only now—and the need to make him secure in how I feel. How nothing has changed despite what he told me.
Garnering all of my bravery, I push up on my left elbow and look down at the sheet that covers his body from the neck down. My pulse is rapping wildly as I pinch the top and peel it down, down, down, revealing his flexed chest, so crowded with ink. My gaze on him is like a touch all its own, and his jaw slackens under my regard, the tendons in his neck and forearms growing more and more prominent.