CAUGHT: A Hitman Romance (13 page)

“Tell me one more thing,” I demand.

“Yes?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“What tipped you off?” I ask. “Where did that sudden realization come from?”

“The song,” she says. “You whistled a song just before you shot the guy—and then you whistled the exact same song yesterday after we had sex.”

I look at her, opening my mouth with disbelief. “I did?”

“Yes,” she says, sounding surprised. “You don’t remember?”

“Not really,” I admit.

She leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek, something she has never done before.

“It’s very distinctive,” she says. “One day you’ll have to tell me what song that is.”

I nod. “One day.”

Nike / Epilogue

I tried to get away from this darkness. Drug dealers, murderers, the scary part of this town. The scary part of life. I grew up in a dump surrounded by all of this.

Just like Mars, I worked my way out of it, but unlike him I didn’t crawl out of this misery by doing atrocious deeds. There was very little my parents could and would do to help me achieve a better life, but at least they weren’t destructive.

I worked my way out by being the good girl, the diligent girl who worked hard, who earned a scholarship and fled to college. I made it, even though I had trouble letting go of my past.

And now I fell in love with a hitman. A murderer.

I couldn’t help it. Apparently, that darkness from my upbringing never let go of me. I cannot deny that his past is part of the insane attraction I feel for this man. In a way, it makes me feel more connected to him, especially considering the little run-in we had with this Christian guy. Mars is wounded, dark and troubled—and he wanted out. He may have chosen the wrong path at a young age, but he has worked hard to become the good man he is today.

We were lucky. Christian came to his senses and realized that the smartest thing for him to do would be to shut his mouth about that whole mobster connection between him and Mars. He got away with criminal assault and won’t lose his business or his life over all of this. Getting Mars arrested—especially after he spared Christian in a situation where he could have easily killed him—and having to reveal his own relation with the mob would have made things worse for himself. A lot worse.

He is locked away, but not for long. I don’t know how I feel about him getting out eventually. He might threaten us again.

But what I do know is that I am in safe hands with Mars. His past may be rotten, but he is living straight now. I feel safe with him.

Mars is sitting next to me, his strong arm around my shoulder, as we scan the city below us. The view that unfolds in front of our eyes is a lot more beautiful than the ones I have been used to before. We picked a different rooftop. A new one, for a fresh start.

“So,” he says, squeezing me lovingly. “What is with you and rooftops? You never told me what that is all about?”

I sigh. I have postponed having to answer this question again and again. It has been more than three months since our encounter with Christian and Mars worked hard in earning my trust during those weeks.

I guess it is time to reciprocate.

“They make me feel safe,” I begin. “Which is why it’s such an irony that I had to witness…
that
, that night.”

“You have no idea how sorry I am for that,” he says. “I wish for nothing more than for you to be left out of this.”

He pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath.

“We could have started like a normal couple, meeting a week later,” he continues. “You stumbling into me with that cute, nervous smile on your face.”

“Making a fool of myself,” I add.

“You were adorable,” he says, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “But I want to know more. Rooftops make you feel safe? From what?”

I shrug. “Life in general, I assume.”

“Elaborate.”

“Well, I grew up in that neighborhood, where… you know.”

“Yes,” he says, nodding so I don’t have to actually vocalize it.

“It’s a gruesome area to grow up in. I hated it so much,” I say. “It was loud and dangerous and our little apartment was crowded and dirty. I had no room of my own, no safe and quiet place that I could escape to—except for the rooftop. I could be by myself and safe from all the trouble that was going on downstairs.”

“I see,” he says. “But what did you do up there?”

“Everything,” I say. “A lot of reading. And my homework. I wanted to do good in school so I could get out of that shit hole. The rooftop was the only place where I could find the peaceful and quiet environment I needed.”

He chuckles. “What a good girl.”

“Don’t tease me!” I complain. “It worked out fine, didn’t it?”

I look up at him, casting him a playful frown.

He responds with a warm smile. “Yes, it did.”

I move closer and straighten up to kiss him, but he is faster than me. He puts one hand at the back of my head while the other arm holds me in a tight embrace, pushing me closer to him. Our lips meet, shyly getting a taste of each other before our kiss demands for more. Mars wants me, and he is not shy to show it. His tongue claims mine with relentless need, and the sheer desire with which he takes me causes me to let out a faint moan in between our sensual kiss.

When he lets go of me, we’re both breathing heavily, our bodies heaving with lust and desire for more.

“You know what you should do,” he whispers.

I tilt my head to the side, looking up at him quizzically. “What?”

“I think you should write a book about this,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s just for practice or for finding closure with all of this. I’m sure it would help you in many ways.”

I smile at him. He doesn’t know it, but I have long started to work on a manuscript. It’s not a detailed retelling of his story. Artistic freedom called for some alterations, but he definitely served as an inspiration.

I don’t want him to know about it, yet. It’s a surprise, something that excites me, just like he does.

I turn around and straddle him. His hazel eyes look up at me, displaying need and adoration equally, while his hands wander beneath my dress.

“I may write that book,” I tell him. “One day.”

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1: Taken

Copyright © 2016 by Stella Noir & Linnea May

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Stella's Newsletter

Linnea's Newsletter

LIZ

Her big day has finally come. My sister Sandria can hardly contain her excitement and has been fluttering about for days and weeks. If this is what she is like during the preparations for a simple engagement party reception, I cannot wait to see what she will be like when the actual wedding approaches.

My graduation from college a few weeks ago was by far less interesting to my family than this event. For everybody except me, that is. I didn't even expect my family to show up that day, but they did. All four of them sat there, my two older sisters and my parents watching as I dutifully received my degree and hurried off the stage right after. They clinked glasses with me, they congratulated me in a formal and distant manne
r
—
as it has always been with u
s
—
and then they drove off, only to have Sandria announce her engagement a few days later.

So that was that.

When it comes to my family, I'm not even mad or disappointed any longer. When there are no expectations, no need for their praise or attention, no hope for affection on their par
t
—
how could I ever feel bad?

I am the third of three daughters, and obviously, I was meant to be a boy. After two girls, I was my parents' last attempt at conceiving a male heir who could continue the family name. Instead, I not only turned out to be another girl, but I also grew to look like my late grandmother on my father’s side. A dark haired woman with big, dark eyes and what my mother considers a “challenging personality.”

My grandmother was a rebel, mostly because she married late and reproduced even later, focusing instead on her own career. She was a writer, a journalist, and an avid traveler. All that was tamed a little when she married my grandfather and became a mother. But she stopped after having just one child an
d
—
heaven forbi
d
—
divorced her husband when my father went off to college. She dove right back into her work, traveling the world and writing pieces about all kinds of topics for the biggest newspapers.

She died when I was seven years old after that bitch cancer took a hold of her. Although I only remember very little of her, I feel a deep sorrow for her early death. I feel like she was the only person in my family that I was close to.

Just like her, I didn't follow along the path that has been laid out for me as eagerly as my sisters did, despite giving that impression at first look. I have always been a good student; I took every class they wanted me to, learned to dance and play music. My little rebellion when I took to the goth community for a while during High School can hardly be seen as anything but cute.

Doesn’t sound too bad now, does it? Others would say that I am the perfect daughter.

But I never make the right friends. I never say the right things, and I am unwilling to behave as they wish me to. I am too quiet, too withdrawn, too weird, and too blunt. I have too little interest in the right people, the right men, the right topics that define life. When they let me chose an instrument to take lessons for, they were delighted to hear that I wanted to play the violin. Such a decent and perfectly elegant instrument, an excellent choice for a daughter of the Barrington household. However, they neither wished nor expected me to fall in love with the instrument. Instead of a silly little decoration, something to brag about, the violin became my companion, my only outlet for expression. The better I got, the more I played, the less I spoke.

Not being able to hold a proper conversation with their guests at the dinner table is a deadly sin in my family's world. They tried to take the violin away from me, but there was nothing they could do about it when I left for college. As much as they wanted to control me, they also wanted me to follow the normal path of a well-educated child of a good family. So they had to send me off to college.

When I told them that I decided against both Brown and Yale to go to a private liberal arts college instead, they didn't even put up a fight. They didn't care anymore. Besides, college was primarily supposed to be a place for me to meet a man after all. For them, it doesn’t matter what I majored in, but for me to attend an Ivy League school would have been appreciated. It sounds good. And there are suitable bachelors gracing the campus with their presence.

Then again, my choice for a different school was a good fit to the overall “challenging personality” that I allegedly inherited from my troublemaker grandmother.

It’s okay. It has its place. Even having a bad seed in the family is seen as an accessory in their world. I am that bad seed. The weird outcast that no one understands and no one cares for. Like an adopted puppy, I am taken care of just enough, but always know that I don't belong. I have become invisible to them.

They don't have to show me. I don't need their dismissal to feel out of place.

All my life, I have felt that there is something profoundly missing for me. I know that I am yearning for something, but I still cannot put my finger on it. All I know is that I don’t fit in. I am not even hurt by the fact that my family has become alien to me and vice versa.

It’s all the worse that I had to move back in with them. No one is happy about this arrangement, and I don’t know who’s hoping more for me to get out of here as soon as possible: me or my parents.

Our house is a location for parties, receptions, and dinners all the time, but very few are as big as today’s event. I am standing among all these people, shaking hands, greeting everybody I have to greet until it finally gets crowded enough for me to become an irrelevant factor at this party. The redundant daughter that some people don’t even know about.

I grab my glass of champagne, the third of the day already, and flee to the garden, staring off into space in an attempt to avoid further conversation.

I hate social events. I hate groups, and I hate socializing. In a way, I am perfectly fine with just mysel
f
—
and in a different way I am not. Not at all.

Happiness is such a mystery to me.

There are few things that make me smile, and some of them scare the hell out of me.

I can still feel the restraints around my ankles when I walk. The places where the rope cut deep into my flesh. I didn't do anything to help my tortured skin, and I am not trying to hide it. No one will notice anyway. The faint, red lines that circle my ankles just above my feet. They burn with every step as the pantyhose rubs against them.

They make me smile. Pain makes me smile.

Like many others, this one is self-induced. A reminder of the darkest corners my mind wanders off to when I am by myself. When I touch myself to the thought of being tied up, choked and raped by a stranger.

I am always alone with these thoughts. I am the one who ties my ankles, spreading my legs as far as I can and tying them to the bedposts to restrain myself while another piece of rope goes around my neck, only choking myself enough to feel it but never bad enough to leave marks there. I still have to be careful, especially when I have to look presentable for my sister’s engagement party. But if it were up to me, there would be marks around my neck as well. I cherish bruises, even if I have to inflect them myself.  

My family is right to keep me at an emotional distance.

There is obviously something wrong with me.

Our house is filling up with more and more people. I decide to fetch myself another drink, determined not to engage in any small talk or even eye contact with anybody as I make my way to the bar.

A swarm of faces crosses my path, old and young, strange and familiar. I don't care for any of them. I see my parents standing close to the entrance of the parlor, where they positioned themselves to greet every single guest who enters.

They are talking to a man I have never seen before. Dark and tall, with black hair and broad shoulders beneath his tailored suit. Everything about him is black, his hair, his suit, his tie, even his eyes, as far as I can tell from here.

I try to avert my eyes, as I would usually do. But I can't.

I turn away for just a moment before I find myself searching for him again.

He looks rough. His angular jawline is studded with a three-day stubble, something that is rarely seen in these circles. I am sure that he is only a few years older than me, but he radiates a maturity that is well beyond that.

I wonder who he is. Not only have I never seen him before, but I also cannot assign him to any of the stories my parents have shared about some of the unfamiliar guests that are to be expected tonight.

I cannot place him at all.

It takes more effort than I'd like to admit to finally avert my eyes from him. I exchange my empty glass with a new one and find myself turning towards him again as I make my way back to the terrace.

He is still talking to my parents, now standing with his back to me. The way he stands feels unnatural to me. So straight, with his shoulders back, chest out, legs slightly apart. He is taller than my dad to begin with, but the way he is standing only emphasizes the difference. The tailored suit hugs his impressive frame in just the right places.

They are joined by my sister's future father-in-law now, and the way the two men greet one another suggests that they know each other well.

Is he a family member of my sister’s fiancé? If so, why have I never heard of him before?

If he was indeed related to William Bishop, I am sure I would have heard about him or at least any man whose description he would fit.

My eyes are drawn to his neck as he leans forward to greet Mr. Bishop. Something catches my eyes. A black line of ink, running along his neck on the left side. A tattoo. It is barely visible, peeking up just above his collar. A sharp black line that must be connected to a bigger picture underneath.

Well, now he certainly has my attention.