Hitman's Captive: A Bad Boy Romance (25 page)

Tough luck. Should’ve
known better, Alessa. You’re not made for this sneaky crap.

I allowed myself a small
sigh, and started rifling through the notes instead. He probably wouldn’t
notice a missing $20, and it would be enough for a cab fare…once I figured out
where the hell I was going to go.

As I was taking a couple
of $20s, my fingers caught on something else and I drew it out.

A photo. A thin faced,
wiry man looked back at me - unremarkable brown hair and dull green eyes
sporting middle-aged wrinkles. No one I recognized.

I flipped it to the other
side.

Jimmy O’Connor.

And a string of numbers
that I didn’t recognize.

The argument earlier came
back to me, playing backwards through my mind as I put together pieces I’d
barely been paying attention to.

Manny’s death spooked
O’Connor…fucking bastard was supposed to give us the hitman’s
identity…untrustworthy intermediaries.

This was something. Maybe
not a silver bullet, but Leo might be able to use it.

My heart racing, I
pocketed it and the $40, then returned my father’s wallet. If he was keeping
the photo that close, I was pretty sure he’d realize it was missing quickly -
but I needed to be away from here by then anyway.

They might not know what
I’d heard, but the moment they realized I knew
something
…I was dead. And
at the moment, I wasn’t sure I could look my father in the eye without giving
it away.

I bit the inside of my cheek
again in thought and stepped out of the office. I had information that might
help Leo now, but I had no clue where he was. My father owned at least half
this city, his most bitter rivals owned the other half - and I already knew
they were looking for my blood. I had no friends who could possibly shelter me
from any of that, and I was likely to be recognized the moment I stepped out of
the house.

There was only one person
I could think of who might be willing to stop and listen to me…and could
possibly reach out and find Leo for me.

It might be a long shot,
but that was all that was left to me now.

Chapter Nineteen

Leo

I slowed automatically as
I neared New York City - and it wasn’t just the traffic.

I knew the call I had to
make, but I’d been putting it off for the last day and a half. I had nowhere
else to go - but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to trying to convince
Jay to help me again. Especially after I’d lost Alessa…I wasn’t sure I could
stomach hearing his reminder that I should have killed her at the start.

As if that would ever
have truly been an option for me.

I was late getting to New
York anyway, after stopping at Pittsburgh for sleep and a change of car on the
way. I knew that I should have been racing to what little safety I could find
before the news got out, but somehow this time my hard-wired instinct for
survival wasn’t driving me the way it used to. And the break had been good for
me, at least in some ways.

I still didn’t know
whether I was going to find myself smashing down Santini’s door to ask Alessa
why
she’d left, why she couldn’t have waited just a few more days, why she went
back to live a life she didn’t really want…all the unanswered questions that I
couldn’t quite move past. Or whether I was just going to accept that kidnapping
was never going to work as a way to form a relationship. Obviously.

But however confused my
feelings there were, at least the anguish had dulled to a slow, steady ache
that left me with a little room to think about how to get out of this alive.
Whatever mistakes I’d made, I’d never given up before and I wasn’t going to
start now. I could figure out the rest of my life once I found a way out of the
country.

Biting the bullet, I
finally entered Jay’s memorized number into the new phone I’d picked up in
Pittsburgh.

For once, he picked up
after the first ring. Now I just had to stop him from hanging up.

“Jay, I—”

“Leo?” His gruff voice
interrupted me with a tone I couldn’t interpret - at least not over the
too-loud bluetooth coming through the car stereo. Probably disapproval. That
was usually a safe bet.

“Yeah, listen, I’m
sorry—”

“I have Viktor’s killer
for you.” His voice didn’t change, but he could have reached out through the
phone and slapped me over the head and I would have been less surprised.

What?!

“You…you do? After this
long?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity at bay. Not just a lead - the actual,
honest-to-god answer. I had no idea how hard Jay must have been working to get
this, but I didn’t know how I’d ever return a favor that big.

“That’s what I said,
boy.” Okay
that
was definitely disapproval. Jay didn’t like repeating
himself.

“How the hell did you
manage that? Have you told the
bratva
—” I couldn’t help myself.

“No, this is your shit.
You fix it.”

“Of course, sure - so who
is it? Do you have proof?” My mind was already going at a mile-a-minute pace,
trying to work out how to play this. It was almost enough to overwhelm the
constant hurt of Alessa’s abandonment.

“Get your ass over here
and you’ll see.”

“Okay, sure. When?” I was
too shocked to refuse Jay anything right now.

“Now.” It was a typically
outrageous demand - Jay would have no reason to even think I was near NYC.

I glanced at the clock,
and judged the traffic around me.

“Two hours?”

Jay grunted and hung up.
I took that for a
yes
and then tried to get my head around what had just
happened.

I’d called him to beg for
some form of shelter, and received both that
and
the potential way out
of this crazed situation. Without even trying.

Maybe I’d been screwed
when it came to Alessa, but this was a stroke of luck that felt more like
divine intervention.

Of course, he hadn’t
given me a chance to tell him Alessa had escaped - or, rather, I’d
inadvertently let her go - so when he heard about that, I could still get
thrown out on my ass. Though, really, he should know about that by now - that
sort of gossip would have been everywhere within hours, and Jay had his ear to
the ground.

Fuck. Stop questioning
it.

I needed to take everything
I could get right now. I sped up as I turned into NYC proper, my earlier
reluctance gone now that I could be sure of my welcome, at least initially.

The streets passed in a
blur as I made the familiar turnings, trusting that Jay’s Russian connections
had at least kept him out of Antonio Santini’s wrath, whatever Alessa might
have said. I didn’t feel entirely comfortable in Brighton Beach - but then I
couldn’t be comfortable anywhere anymore, if everyone knew what I looked like
now. At least until I squared things with the
bratva,
then maybe I had a
chance
.

I kept my head down,
grateful that I knew the route to Jay’s place without thinking about it, and
pulled up into the same space Alessa and I had parked in only a couple of weeks
ago.

Fuck. It felt like a
lifetime.

And the thought of Alessa
had my heart thumping uncomfortably again. Irritated, I shook my head. I
couldn’t meet Jay like some love-sick kid - even I wouldn’t blame him for
withholding the information if he saw that.

I made my way down the
side of the house and gave the familiar worn wooden door down to the basement a
knock before pulling it open.

Or, at least, I tried to.
It was locked.

I frowned at that. It was
never
locked. Jay had never needed to lock it.

Fuck, the Italian threat
must be worse than you thought.

I felt a twinge of guilt,
and hoped it hadn’t caused him too much difficulty as I knocked again - louder
this time.

Then I waited, until
after several minutes of impatience I heard the sound of a key rattling in the
lock and Jay finally swung the door open.

I gave him a quick smile
of greeting as he stepped back, following him in and pulling the door shut
behind me. Then I headed down the stairs and took in the unchanged place around
me before finally settling my gaze on the older man.

He was looking at me with
an expression I couldn’t place, but I offered him a grim smile anyway.

“Thanks, Jay. Seriously,
I owe you.” The heartfelt appreciation snuck into my words before I could stop
it, but I didn’t regret it. I’d meant what I said.

He just shrugged
awkwardly. “Yeah, you do.”

“So—” I gave up on
waiting for him to offer what I needed - he always preferred for me to ask
anyway.

“There’s someone here to
see you.” He cut in before I could finish, and my blood froze.

Was this a trap?

I wasn’t sure I could
blame him if it was - giving me up for his safety, which I’d put in jeopardy in
the first place. And when I was as good as dead anyway…

But the hair still stood
up on the back of my neck, and I took a step back, just one.

“Jay…” My tone was
measured and calm, a small plea to reconsider, but he was already walking away.

“Leo!” Alessa’s
breathless voice ripped my attention away and it was all I could do to keep my
mouth from dropping open as I saw her.

She ran up to me but I
stepped back before she could throw herself into my arms. Everything in me
itched to take her, to wrap myself around her and have her sweet, warm body
once again resting against mine. To breathe in her intoxicating scent and never
let her go.

But she doesn’t want
that. Not really.

She’d left, and I wasn’t
sure I could take the bruising mixture of hurt and hope and need that pounded
through me. I’d spent the whole journey thinking about finding a way to see her
when I got here, but it had just been an unhealthy combination of misplaced
desire and my inability to accept her choice. I’d been an idiot in letting her
affect me so badly, and there was no reason to put myself through it again.

“Leo?” She’d turned
hesitant now, looking at me with wide eyes that seemed on the verge of
reflecting the same hurt I felt.

I felt my face close off,
the familiar arrogant mask coming down as I gave her a wry smile.

“What are you doing here,
princess?” I raised an eyebrow, letting the mocking amusement flash through - only
this time, it was self-deprecating more than anything. “You finally managed to
escape - and I’ll give it to you, the fucking me plan was a whole lot better
than the running ones.”

Okay, maybe that was a
little more bitter than I’d expected—

“
What?!”
Alessa’s
brow furrowed and I tried not to notice how cute her face was when she screwed
it up like that. Then she
was
in my arms, ignoring my distant posture as
she wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my chest. She looked up
before I had a chance to react. “You thought I—?
You fucking idiot.
Some
guys were there - in the village - my father’s guys. They saw me and…I couldn’t
exactly say no. I—I wanted to come back. To have those last few days together…”

She trailed off, biting
her lip, and I could barely breathe through the relief that flooded through me.
She hadn’t run. She hadn’t wanted to run.

I finally wrapped my arms
around her the way I’d wanted to so much, cautiously trying to ease my bruised
heart open again.

She was right. I was an
idiot.

“Oh fuck.” I leaned down,
breathing in the warmth of her hair and clutching her to me. “I’m sorry.”

She met my gaze, eyes
shining with unshed tears and I couldn’t resist anymore - I kissed her. I
pulled her to me and took her mouth in the sort of long, passionate kiss that
I’d been dreaming about the last couple of days. The kind I’d thought had
walked away from me. She moaned against me, instantly melting into my body and
letting me support her as her hands ran all over my back, inflaming every need
I’d tried to push away and ignore.

Fuck, I needed this. I
needed
her.
I didn’t want to ever let her go again.

I finally broke the kiss,
needing to talk more. I couldn’t help myself any longer. I had to tell her.
Everything that I’d wanted to say that heart-wrenching day she’d left.

“Alessa, I wanted to—”

She broke into tears the
moment I stopped kissing her, cutting me off before I’d said anything as she
clutched me as if her life depended on it. My heart twisted in alarm and I
stroked the drops forming in her eyes away as she shook in my arms, feeling
terrible for doubting her.

“Oh fuck, Alessa, I’m
sorry. You’re right - I was an idiot. If it makes you feel any better, it’s
been tearing me up—”

“It was them!” She clung to
me, her voice breaking as I held her tightly and rubbed her back, wanting to
take it all away. Then she looked up, gaze locking with mine in a sudden
vehemence that surprised me, wet tracks still clinging to her cheeks. “My—my
father, and uncle. They killed Viktor. T-they used me as—as bait, and…so the
Russians didn’t suspect, kn-knowing I’d be killed too!”

My blood froze as I
stared at her, the anguish written on her face seeping its way into my soul and
turning it black.

It only took a split
second before I saw red, sudden rage burning through me and calling for their
blood. I wanted every one of those fuckers dead. I fought to come back to
myself, to remember that Alessa needed me right now, and not a mad killing
spree.

I breathed hard and when I
could finally meet her gaze again without snapping, I saw the pain there,
punctuated with a hesitant uncertainty as she looked at me.

I lifted her up in an
instant, letting her legs circle my hips and pulling her tightly to my chest as
if she was the most precious thing in the world. Which she was.

I cupped her head to me
and kissed her thoroughly, letting her feel all my passion and anger and
protective fury. Knowing she wouldn’t shy from it, that she embraced that part
of me even if it was violent and coarse - because it was all for her.

“They don’t deserve you.”
I met her eyes, my words fiery and intense. “They never deserved you, princess.
They’re bastards and you’re the best thing I’ve ever known. I was—” I took a
breath and continued anyway, guessing there was never going to be a better
time. “I was going to ask you to stay with me - that day. You always deserved
better than a life dictated by weak-minded, controlling fuckers. I—it’s not
much, but we can go wherever you like, do whatever you like. I’ll show you
Italy, and Europe, and any other dream you can think of. Just stay with me.”

I breathed deeply, seeing
the stunned expression on her face, my heart beating at double speed as I tried
to work out whether it was pure incredulity at the idea or…something more.

“Oh god, Leo. Yes, a
thousand times yes.
”
If I hadn’t already pulled her as close as I could
get her, I was pretty sure from the way she wriggled against me that she’d be
trying to climb inside my skin. More tears fell from her eyes as she bit her
lip and nodded. “That’s what I want. You. More than anything. I was so scared
to admit it…I didn’t know how I could ever leave my family. But now—now my life
is mine. And the moment I thought that, I knew what I wanted for it - I wanted
you. Whatever, wherever. Just you.”