Last Hit (Hitman) (34 page)

"In other room."

"Still alive," Daniel says, and I can tell by the way he says it that he's not pleased.

"
Da
. Revenge is for Daisy alone. This, I give to her." Out comes Nick's gun again, and he offers it to me, handle first. "It is only for her."

Daniel mutters a very American curse.

Nick shoots him a furious look.

I stare at the gun being offered to me and then at Nick. Nick, who I thought I knew. "You…want me to go in there and kill someone?"

"Is not
someone
," Nick says, and his accent grows thicker, a sure sign he is agitated. He takes my hand and puts it on the gun, forcing it into my grasp. "It is the fucker who took you from me. Who has stolen Regan. I give you revenge so you can sleep at night."

"Nick," I cry, wanting to release the gun, but his fingers are wrapped around mine. "I'm not going to
murder
someone."

"Let her go, man," Daniel says in a low voice. "She's not like us. Look at her. She's terrified of you."

It's as if Nick is seeing me for the first time when Daniel says that. It's like it's just now occurred to him that I won't like the idea of killing Sergei. It's like he's just now realized there's more to my reluctance than fear from being kidnapped.

I watch the light in Nick's eyes die slowly as he sees the way I hold myself back, the way I regard him with fear. I watch the hope in them—the terrible, awful love in them—wither away. Now, there is nothing but sadness as he regards me. Sadness and yearning.

"So," he says, and his voice is so cold, so even, so calm. "Sergei has told you who I am,
da
? And now you are afraid of me."

"You're a hitman," I say. "You all murder for
money
." The words taste vile in my mouth. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"And what would I say to you, little Daisy?" There is so much pain in his voice. So much self-loathing. "That I want to kiss you and make love to you even though I am not worthy of your smallest attentions? Far better to say nothing. It is easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission."

I shake my head. This is a nightmare. This is all a nightmare. I want to go home and wake up in my bed, curled up against Nick's side, Regan asleep in the other room. I want things to be like they were when my eyes weren't opened to the truth.

But I can't go back to that. And now that I know the reality of who—and what—Nick is, I want to laugh at myself for not seeing it before. There's a predatory grace in every motion that he makes. His eyes are cold at times, calculating. He handles guns like he was born to them. He's covered in strange, dangerous-looking tattoos. He grew up in a family of coworkers who are 'not good' by his own admission. He's wealthy and pays for things with cash. He rents cars and lives in apartments across the street so he can watch people.

And he watches me. He's always showing up at the right moment.

It's so obvious, so chokingly obvious, that I feel stupid.

Nick's hand drops away from mine so quickly that I have no choice but to clutch at the gun he's left in my grasp. It's like his eyes are begging me to see him on the inside, past the trappings, but my mind is too bruised and unhappy at the moment to see anything but the fact that Nick is not who I thought he was.

His hand reaches up to brush my cheek, and when I flinch away, he flinches in return. "I knew I could not keep you," he says. His voice is hoarse with emotion. "Such a beautiful, innocent soul. I just wanted you for as long as I could have you. I knew it was wrong, and I did not care. Someday, I hope you forgive me."

Tears cloud my eyes, but I'm still trembling, still holding on to that gun.

"Sergei is yours to do with as you please," he tells me. "Whatever you choose, I understand. But I know something about monsters." Nick clears his throat and swallows. The Adam's apple is prominent in his throat, and I can't look away from it—from him.

"If you do not dispatch the monster that harms you, he will rise again and again in your dreams and you can never feel safe. Every day of your life, you will look around the corner and wonder if it is him. When you come home at night, you will fear the dark spaces of your rooms. Small things like your closet will become a place of terror. I save Sergei for you so that you can hold the metal in your hands and feel the power of the bullet and see the evidence firsthand of his death. That way you sleep at night and go out into the day without fear." He tips my chin up so we can stare into each other's eyes. "See the truth in my eyes and know I do this for you."

The truth of his words ring in my ears. He speaks of my father's life and maybe his own. I do know he does this for me even if I don't understand all of it; I know that Nick's statements to me are the truth. If he is capable of love, he loves me, and he doesn't want me to be afraid.

His hand cups my cheek and holds it tenderly. "But whatever you decide, kitten, I will support you."

Daniel makes a sound of protest in his throat, but Nick shoots him a furious look, and he goes silent. Nick turns back to me, and there is silent pleading for understanding in his eyes, but he nods. "It is your choice, Daisy. You hold his life in your hands, and I will honor your wishes."

"Even if I let him go?"

"
Da
, even that."

I wouldn't, though. I'd turn him over to the police so they can enact justice. That is the smart thing to do. But it's good to know that even now, I am in control. I nod at Nick.

He just watches me, heart in his eyes.

I swallow hard. I want him to take the gun back, but I suspect that if I offer it to him, it will be the end of everything. Nick will take it back and disappear out of my life as silently as he entered it.

And I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. So I clutch the gun in my hand.

NIKOLAI

I have fucked this up.

Daisy is looking at me like I am no better than Moscow sewer rats. Like I am not better than Sergei. Daisy needs food and to rest, not to be forced into killing a man. Her body is trembling, and while her hand is clutched around the gun I've given her, she looks like a leaf could fell her.

I retrieve the gun from her hand. She resists at first, making a small sound of protest. Thankfully, she allows me to rest an arm around her shoulders. Carefully I direct her toward the sofa where she collapses.

"Rest for a moment Daisy. We talk later."

A soft, low sob escapes her, and it rips through me. Biting my cheek to corral my anger toward Sergei, I lay a blanket over her body. The warmth of the blanket and perhaps the enveloping comfort of the sofa allows Daisy to relax. Kneeling beside her, I stroke her brow and am relieved that she does not flinch from my hand. Whatever she has been through, she still allows me to touch her and she still takes comfort from me. It is enough. If this is all I have from her but she lives safe and happy for a long time, then it is enough.

"Nick, man," I hear Daniel settle into one of the chairs. "You gotta learn to be a little more subtle."

I flick a finger at him but say nothing so as not to bother Daisy. "I'm going to order us some food," I tell her.

"I'll take a steak. Rare." Daniel tosses his dirty boots onto the gold inlaid coffee table. "I like to hear the faint moos when the dome comes off the plate."

Daisy shudders at this statement. "Gross," she mumbles.

I take her participation as a positive sign. As long as she remains willingly with me, it is positive. Even if she no longer loves me, even if she hates me.

"You should leave, Daniel." I tell him, flipping through the room service menu.

"Can't. We've unfinished business." He nods his head toward the room with Sergei, but his wordless gesture is unnecessary. Daisy knows what we talk of.

"Sergei, you mean?" she asks.

"
Da
." I crouch next to her again. "But we need fuel. Blinis? Meat? Cabbage soup?"

DAISY

I stare at him in
a daze. Nick is offering me food like we're on vacation. Like it's normal to order room service while we have a kidnapped man sitting in the next room, waiting for me to execute him.

I can't process this. My hands curl and go to my forehead. "Nick…I…"

I don't know what I want to say. There's so much bubbling in my head. Nick wants me to go in the next room and shoot a man. A man who is our enemy. But that's what the bad guys do. They murder and kill.

I've always thought of myself as one of the good guys. But I look over at Nick and realize that I've fallen for someone who can't be considered one of the 'good guys' by any stretch of the imagination.

He's a killer.

And it's awful, because I still want him. I want to curl up in his arms and have him stroke my hair and mutter Russian endearments to me like everything is going to be okay. His touch has always made things better in the past.

Does it make me bad for wanting him?

He doesn't seem to realize my distress. He's still crouching in front of me, his hands brushing over my shoulders, face looking up into mine.

It's still the same Nick as before, the same possessive touch.

And I suddenly feel…bad for accepting it. I've lusted after a killer all this time.

No, I correct myself. I've lusted after Nick. I knew his job wasn't legal, not exactly. I was fine with him being a computer hacker, but now that I know he's some sort of mafia hitman, I have an issue with it?

The problem is with me—and my brain.

Oddly enough, I think back to the movie we watched together, back at home. It was a movie about superheroes, and I'd gone on and on about how I wanted the bad guys to get their due.

Nick had been offended. Hurt, even. He'd tried to tell me that the bad guys were just doing what they could. That they were making the best out of a bad situation.

I'd thought he was picking a fight with me. But maybe…maybe he was talking about himself.

I'm too quick to judge,
I realize. I don't know Nick as well as I thought, but I can't hate him. Not when he's here to rescue me. Not when he's putting his life on the line for mine. Not when he's looking up at me as if the world begins and ends with my smile.

I can't hate Nick. I'm still hopelessly in love with him.

With the bad guy.

I wonder what this makes me.

NIKOLAI

Daisy is silent for so long
that I worry about her. I caress her arm and repeat my question. "Food? Blinis? Borscht?"

She thinks for a minute, and a tentative smile touches her mouth, as if she seeks to reassure me. "I don't know what those are."

"Blinis are small pancakes served with caviar. Borscht is a beet soup. Is very good," I say, encouraging that smile. I would do anything to have her look happy again.

She considers this for a moment. "Blinis, I think. No caviar, though. And thank you, Nick." Her small hand touches mine.

Nodding, I bend down thoughtlessly and press a kiss to her forehead. She sighs deeply and then wraps her arms around me. Without another thought to Daniel, I capture her mouth and hungrily kiss her, sucking in her breath and giving it back to her in the next moment. I feel exultant.

Her lips are tentative at first but then her fervent passion leaks through, and we kiss as if we have been separated months instead of days. I run a hand down her back, feeling the fine bones of her shoulders and the individual bumps on her spine. These all reassure me that she is still alive, still possibly loving me. The bottom of her shirt has pulled up and I can stroke a tiny path of skin.

I feel her shiver in response. This time I know it is not from fear or the cold, and I press her more tightly against me, my fingers dipping below the waistband of her pants. She moans quietly, and I respond with my own guttural sound of need.

A cough behind me interrupts the fog of desire that has swept over me. Daisy breaks away and burrows, embarrassed, into my chest. Turning slightly so that Daniel can see me, I send him a heated glare. "Go away."

"Can't."

In that moment, I want to go and shoot Sergei myself so that Daniel will leave us alone. Instead, I press another kiss on Daisy's forehead and place a room service order for a bottle of vodka, borscht, two orders of blinis hold the caviar, and two steaks, one with the head still attached.

"Daniel, go check on our guest."

Daniel releases a huge sigh as if my request is extremely burdensome, but he gets up and slips into the adjoining room without another word. After the door closes behind him, I kneel down by Daisy's side again. Her head is resting on her small hands, and she looks uncertain.

"Do you need anything?" I brush the loose strands of her hair away from her eyes and tuck the fine silk behind her ear. "I can get you anything."

"No." She struggles to sit up, but I press her down. "I can't lie here with you kneeling beside me. It makes me feel weird. Or weirder, I guess." She pushes into a sitting position, and this time I do not protest. Patting the empty cushion beside her, she gestures me forward. Stiffly, I sit beside her until she curls her body into mine. Lifting her, I situate her in my lap, tucking her legs in and resting her head on my shoulder. Her nose burrows into my neck and a rush of joy permeates my bones.

"I'm sorry I never told you before what I am." My throat is tight as I await her response. She exhales, and I feel her body relax as she does.

"It's not like there was ever a good time, right?"

"Right." I'm so grateful that she is accepting and so, in this moment, I try to make her understand.

"When I was fifteen, Alexsandr sends me to Florence to take care of a curator of a small private museum. He is old, maybe fifties, and is surrounded by young boys. At first, I balk at doing this job. He is taking in young boys off the street and giving them a warm place to sleep, food in their bellies, clothes on their backs. Ignoring Alexsandr's summons to finish the job and return, I begin to watch. I take a chance and meet one of the boys who is delivering a painting. Up close I can see that he is scared of everyone. He scuttles through the streets, looks no one in the eye. I try to approach but he flees."