Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
“You’re coming with me,” I reiterate, not one to let gray areas linger. “Sometimes you won’t have a choice, baby. Daddy knows best.”
“Okay,” she says, nodding. “I mean, yes. I want to go with you, I don’t want to go home.”
The driver loads our bags into the car, then climbs in, and I tell him the destination.
Hannah doesn’t want to go home, and right now that house is her home. I don’t have anywhere better to give her, and if I did, that could tie us together, so her going back to her shitty hovel for now fits best into her being safe.
Why didn’t I ever put down roots? Why did I always have to play the next hand, run the next con, make enemies bigger than any one man can handle?
Why, just when I get something I care about in my life, mine is more than likely coming to an end?
“What’s the matter?” Hannah asks, and I realize I’m rubbing my temples, mumbling to myself.
I shake my head. “It’s nothing. Just details. Work stuff.”
Putting my arm around her, I pull her in close. She snuggles down as we drive, and before long I hear her start to sigh in her sleep, content and without a care in the world.
I take the opportunity to pull out my phone and send off a quick text to my lawyer, telling him to be here tomorrow morning, and giving him the basic details. I also have funds I can’t touch for the time being, somewhere far from here, but he knows about them and I make him promise Hannah will get the lot if I can’t change my will before the Albanians take me out.
He won’t double cross me, because I’ve faked my death once before and he knows it. There will always be an element of doubt about whether I might return, furious, should he fail to pass on the money to Hannah.
I then book a single plane ticket to the Caymans, leaving tomorrow night. Open ended. It’s where my house is that will be our home. No private jets this time, no first class. She might need to quietly get out of town for a while to keep her safe, and I want to make sure I’ve thought of everything and made plans.
“We’re here,” I whisper in her ear as we pull into the hotel parking lot, and she stirs, looking beautiful as she comes out of sleep.
I don’t take my jacket from her as I guide her in through the lobby, to the bank of elevators and then up to my room. It’s orderly, clean, and elegant, but there’s only so many hotel rooms you can see before they all blend into a single bland, unremarkable image in your head. What I want, is to make a life with her, but I don’t see how I can possibly have that.
Spending one last night together is the next best thing.
chapter thirteen
Dietrich
Something pulls me out of sleep with a jolt, and for a moment I lie, listening and staring, wondering if this is it and hoping it isn’t.
No sound of breathing, no sound of a gun being drawn back, no voice telling me to get the fuck out of bed. Just silence.
Deciding I must have imagined it, I reach out to the other side of the bed for her, and hit nothing but air.
She’s gone. But where? To the bathroom?
“Hannah?” I call out, but get only silence back. I raise my voice a couple of decibels. “Hannah?”
My heart starts to thunder as I push the sheets aside, standing naked in the dark. I flick on the bedside lamp and see nothing. No sign of her.
Her clothes are gone from the floor, her shoes missing from by the door.
I rush to the bathroom and throw open the door, but I already know what I’m going to see. Nothing but darkness.
It’s then that I spot the cell phone I gave her along with the necklace and a note on the writing table.
Mr. Belotti,
Thank you for making me feel special, and like a dumbass. I told myself I’d be honest so, I loved being with you. Being Jamie was fun and sexy and I don’t believe in regret so I’ll figure out the lesson in all of this someday.
I know it has to come to an end, and I understand my part in screwing things up. Note to self…don’t have sex up against windows. It’s messy in more ways than one.
So, yeah, you got a text confirming your flight to Grand Cayman. Don’t forget your sunscreen. You’re a pretty pale guy.
I’m taking your jacket because it’s cold outside and in all the stuff you bought for me there was no coat and I don’t want any of it anyway. I think it’s best if you don’t contact me.