“That changes nothing,” I tell her, taking her hands in mine, “You’ve devoted your life to helping other people, Hannah. Whatever your motivations, that’s still a beautiful thing. I wish that I could believe in helping other people. The only person I know how to really look out for is myself. I used to know how to keep others safe, or at least I thought I did. I promise to do everything in my power to protect you, too...but I’ve failed so many times.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Hannah says, looking up into my eyes.
“But it is,” I tell her. “You have no idea.”
“Actually,” she says, squeezing my hands, “I kind of do.”
Chapter Nineteen
-Hannah-
I pour myself another glass of whiskey, watching Lukas out of the corner of my eye. I can’t back down now. I have to tell him what I know. He’s been kind enough to sit down and wait for me to work up the nerve. I hope that he isn’t furious with me when he finds out I've been snooping through his things. He’s already accepted my admissions with so much grace, so much tact and forgiveness...I hope that I don’t fuck everything up now.
“Since I moved in full time, I’ve learned a few things about you, Lukas,” I begin, cradling my glass in my hands.
“Such as?” Lukas says, his face unreadable.
“Well,” I say, “Besides the fact that you sometimes come home from alleged hunting trips with stab wounds...”
“I can explain that—”
“Let me get this all out,” I insist. “Before that night, I knew that something was up. I got lost in the house one night and found an open door on the ground floor. It was your...I don’t even know what to call it...the room where you keep your...tools.”
Lukas takes another sip of his whiskey. “My weapons,” he says, frankly.
“Yes,” I reply, “I wasn’t even going to ask about them. But when you came home all bloodied...I can’t imagine what the connection is, but I know that your day job is less than safe, Lukas.”
“Let me—”
“That’s not all,” I press on, wanting to get everything out in the open before I lose the nerve. “Lukas...I know about...your family.”
For a long moment, the only sound in the room is the low crackling of the fire. Lukas stares at me, sitting stock still. It’s as though he’s turned to stone in the face of the ungodly truth I’ve just dredged up. Finally, he wets his lips and speaks.
“My family. What exactly do you know?”
“I know...that you had a wife,” I say, unable to meet his gaze as I go on. “I know that she was very beautiful, and that you were married young. I know that you had...children. A boy and a girl. I saw the photo album, Lukas. They were amazing, those kids. Gorgeous. But Lukas, I’m so sorry...I know what happened to them.”
“What do you mean?” he says quietly. I can hear that his teeth are gritted.
“I thought at first that maybe there was a divorce. An estrangement or something. But Gertrude...after she took a turn for the worse, she said some things. She said that she wished she could have died before her family. And she wasn’t talking about her parents. She was talking about...her grandchildren. Your kids. Lukas...I know that your wife and children were taken from you. I just don’t know how. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I’m so, so sorry.”
I wrench my eyes back up to Lukas’s. His head hangs forward, his eyes are tightly closed. I wonder for a moment if I should leave—pack my bags and go so that he never has to think about any of his again. Was I wrong to tell him? Honesty is important, but did he really need me to bring this all up on the very night his mother...? I should have left it alone. I should have let him grieve one death without remembering so many more.
“You should know the truth,” I hear him say.
“What?” I gasp.
“I want you...to know the truth,” he says, “About what happened to my family. That way, you’ll know exactly why it is that love is out of the question for me, just as it is for you. But Jesus...where can I even begin?”
“Try the beginning,” I suggest, “That’s usually the best way to go.”
“The beginning...” he laughs bitterly, “Well, let’s see. In the beginning, I was a rich little boy with an elegant mother and a very stern father. When I was still a toddler my father took an assignment in Germany, my mother and I went with him and we stayed there for twelve years, hence my accent."
I wink at him and smile.
"As I grew older," he continues, "I started to understand that Father’s job was not like most other fathers’. No...my father had a very exciting occupation. He worked for the CIA, as an operative. His missions were almost exclusively high-level assassinations and executions. All throughout my childhood, I fancied that my father was some sort of James Bond character, without the scantily-clad women of course.
From the very start, I knew that I wanted to do what he did when I got older. I took all the necessary steps, received all the necessary training, and finally established myself as a successor to Grayson Roth. The CIA welcomed me with open arms. And even after my father was killed on a mission, I still believed in the American government. I still believed in what I did.
I loved my job, but it wasn’t the only thing I loved in the world. When I was very young, still an undergraduate, I met a girl named Andrea. She had this audacious red hair and bright green eyes. Freckles everywhere. We fell in love and married right after graduation. She wanted to be an artist—a photographer. We travelled all over the world together—that was one of the benefits of my job. We were adventurers. We were inseparable. Or at least, that’s what we thought.
After a few years of marriage, we decided that we wanted some company. We wanted a family, and a home together. She became pregnant. Twins. Between my family’s money and the obscene amount I was making from my work, I had more than enough of a nest egg to support as many children as our hearts desired. But as soon as the twins were born, we knew that they were all we’d ever need.
From the start, they were perfect. We had a little boy and a little girl. Peter and Charlotte. They had my coloring, dark hair and blue eyes, but they had their mothers’ features, her softness. The moment they were born, my entire life was turned on its ear. I wasn’t doing my job for the sake of honor and country anymore—I was doing it to keep the world a little safer for my children. Or at least, that’s how I justified it in my mind. The families of men in my line of work are never entirely safe, but I convinced myself that we were the exception. What a righteous goddamn fool I was.
Andrea begged me so many times to quit my job. We didn’t need the money, not a cent of it. She accused me of being an adrenaline junkie, of being a happy assassin. I told her she was crazy at the time, but she was right. I was acting on some sense of justice, as if I could help make the world as safe place all on my own. Even though my own father had died trying to do just that, I was arrogant enough to think that the world wouldn’t be able to hurt me. I soldiered on, secure in my delusion.
When the kids were old enough to take on a trans-Atlantic flight, I decided to take the family on a vacation. I wanted my children to be worldly, experienced. I wanted to show them all the amazing things that this planet has to offer. I just wanted to give them everything, to teach them everything. My wife and I had learned so much, seeing the world together. I never thought that I’d be unable to protect my family, should something go wrong. I never in a million years thought that the CIA would let my work harm the people I loved.
I was so, so wrong.
I should have known that sooner or later, all of the lives I’d ended would stack up against me. My hands are stained with the blood of so many men and women. Why didn’t I think that someone would want to give me a taste of my own vile medicine? How many widowers, widows, and orphans had I created in my life? It only made sense that someone would seek me out eventually. Someone would want some justice for themselves, too. And that vengeance would come at a cost far too dear for me to
have ever imagined.
During my last months at the CIA, I was tasked with killing the boss of a certain high-profile organized crime syndicate here in the United States. It was a covert job, and I ended his life without leaving a trace. Or so I thought.
It turned out that one of the syndicate's high-ranking officers was working as a mole within the CIA. He learned of my assignment and my identity in no time. Once the organization knew that I was responsible for their Boss’s death, they decided to settle the score. Even though I was just doing my job, they decided to come after me personally.
I’d decided to take my family on a trip to Rome that summer. When we landed and checkout into our hotel, five hit men were lying in wait for us. They weren’t just there to scare me, or threaten me. They were there to destroy my life. Not by killing me. That would have been too humane. Instead, they restrained and gagged me, drugged me so that I couldn’t retaliate but didn’t quite lose consciousness. And as I sat there, helpless, they lined up my family right in front of me and shot them one by one, execution style.
It was hours before I regained use of my body. Hours that I had to sit there, staring at the lifeless bodies of my wife and children. When I finally came to, I couldn’t make myself leave. I couldn’t do anything at all. When I didn’t update them on my travel status, the CIA finally sent their own people to come check in on me. I was catatonic by the time they pulled me out of that room. I was in shock. I’m told I was in the hospital for a month, under suicide watch.
But when I came to, it was as another man. I’d undergone a transformation, as I lay staring at the corpses of my family. I rejected the pain, and the grief, and the endless sorrow. Instead, I hardened myself. I cast off my entire life and started anew. I left the CIA, and abandoned all the useless morals and values that I’d always thought would keep me safe. But one thing was for sure—there was no way I was going to stop killing.
Here’s the truth of it, Hannah. For the past seven years, I’ve been a hit man. A contract killer. I take the lives of heinous people and get paid good money to do it. I don’t take pleasure in killing people, but I’m not going to stop. It’s the only thing I have left to contribute to this world, and I intend to continue doing it.
If that’s something you think you can live with, then by all means, let’s sit here and keep up this admissions spree. But if you want to walk out that door right now and never see me again, I won’t try to stop you. I’m giving you this final chance, Hannah. If you want to run away, now’s the time to do it.”
Chapter Twenty
-Hannah-
Lukas swings his dark blue eyes up to mine. My body feels as though it’s going to rip in two. I am devastated for him, terrified of him, and impossibly attracted to him, all at the same time.
“Are you telling me,” I finally croak, my fingers tight around my whiskey glass, “That you kill people...all the time? For a living?”
“Yes,” he says, his eyes unblinking, “That’s the truth.”
“I...I don’t...Lukas, you realize that I’m a nurse. My entire life is devoted to keeping people alive, to chasing death away. But you...”
“I usher it in the front door,” he nods, “Aren’t we an odd couple?”
“This isn’t funny,” I hiss, “Lukas...you’re a criminal.”
“No,” he says, his voice suddenly razor sharp, “To be a criminal, you have to exist within the arbitrary confines of law and order.”
“And I suppose you’re above all that?” I say archly.
“Yes,” he says, “I am. Not because I’m better or smarter than anyone else, but because I choose not to trap myself within that system. When you’ve seen the things I’ve seen, lived through all I’ve lived through, you start to understand that the law is not everything it’s cracked up to be. Think about it, Hannah. What has the law ever done to protect you? Have either of the men who abused you so terribly ever been brought to justice?”
I take a long sip of whiskey. He’s absolutely right about that. Neither Gregory nor Sloan has ever paid for their crimes against me.
“You want to hear something sick?” I say, licking a drop of liquor from my lip, “They’ll never be brought to justice. Gregory’s family is as WASPy as they come. Real pillars of the community. And Sloan? His brothers are cops. His father’s a senator. They’ll do anything they can to protect their own.”
“That’s exactly my point,” Lukas says earnestly, “The law is not just. Not ultimately. Those in the wrong scarcely pay for their crimes. That’s where people like me come in.”
“But killing people is a crime in itself!” I exclaim, “How are you any better than them if you stoop to the level of murder, Lukas? Can’t you see why I’m having trouble with this?”
“Of course,” he says, leaning toward me, “Because you’re still trapped in your own thinking. You’ve been brought up to think that the government, and the legal system, and all that nonsense functions to protect you. But it doesn’t, Hannah. It doesn’t protect anyone. Not even people like me. I was a part of that machine, and I still wasn’t safe. So I decided to start thinking for myself, looking out for myself. That’s the only way to truly be safe.”
“By rejecting the whole of society?” I ask incredulously.
“Yes,” Lukas says simply, “Yes, that’s exactly right.”
“Is that what you expect me to do?” I ask quietly, “Just...cast off everything and become some lawless vigilante, like you?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Lukas grins, draining his glass. “Tell me, Hannah. What has following the rules ever done for you?”
I cast back through my life, trying to come up with an answer. But my memories are flooded with darkness. Years of abuse at the hands of Sloan. Shame and disillusionment from my parents and Gregory. Can there really be any truth to what Lukas is telling me so adamantly? Is there really this whole other way of life that I’ve been blind to?
All these years, I’ve been trying so hard to do the right thing, please everyone...but where has it gotten me? The only bright spot of my entire life has been meeting this mysterious, incredible man. But to continue on with him, to share his life, I’ll need to scrap everything I’ve ever known about the world and start fresh. Can I really do that? Can I really put that much faith in someone I barely know?
Knocking back the last drop of whiskey clinging to the bottom of my glass, I choose my next words very, very carefully.
“Lukas,” I say, “If I had any sense at all, I would gather up my things, say goodbye, and leave this place forever. I would erase you from my memory and never again think of you. If I was smart, I’d turn you in to the police, and have you locked up for crimes against humanity.”
“But?” Lukas says, his voice raspy.
Slowly, I make my way toward him, one tiny step at a time. I draw myself up before Lukas, the most dangerous and dazzling man I’ve ever met. Standing before him, staring down into those flinty blue eyes, I decide to take the biggest risk of my life. Because when I’m really honest with myself, I haven’t got a thing to lose that I would mind being rid of.
“But if I were to walk out that door,” I whisper, my voice hoarse with pent-up lust, “I would never forgive myself. I only have one choice, Lukas. I have to stay here with you. I want to stay."
Lukas stands, his powerful body not an inch from my own. The slim space between us is charged, absolutely electric.
“Does this mean,” Lukas says, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, “That you’re finally ready to give yourself to me? Without any qualifications? Without any reservations?”
I swallow hard as Lukas’s finger traces the shell of my ear. I know, in that moment, that I’m a goner. And I couldn’t be happier about it.
“Yes,” I breathe, my voice barely audible even in the near silence of the room, “Yes, Lukas. I’m all yours.”
“Thank God,” he groans.
With the smallest shift of his body, Lukas displaces the pocket of air between us
. Our bodies press together, slowly and reverently. I’d expected him to throw me down onto the floor, fuck me with abandon—quick and dirty. But instead, he takes his time. His hands cup my face, raising my lips to his. Lukas’s kiss has all the controlled power in the world behind it. As his lips press against mine, I feel something shift inside of me. Silently but completely, I put myself into Lukas’s hands. I give in to him, fully. And I know that he can feel it.
Lukas pushes his fingers through my hair as he opens my mouth to his. His tongue glides against mine, sweeping into my mouth, tasting me. He keeps a hand firmly on the back of my neck, holding my face against his. As he kisses me, he slides his hand down my spine, pulling me tightly against him. My body melts against his. I wrap my hands around his back, clutching onto him with all my might. My knees are barely up to the task of holding me upright.
Freeing both hands, Lukas grabs onto my hips and tugs me into him. I groan as he grinds his groin against me, letting me feel just how hard he is for me. Eagerly, I bring my hands to his chest, run my fingers down along his firm body. Lukas allows my advancing touch to travel down the length of him, glancing across each abdominal muscle in turn. I run the tips of my fingers down along the solid “V” of his pelvis, until finally they brush against the fine leather of his belt.
“Can I?” I ask breathlessly, “Please?”
“Go ahead,” he says, sliding his big hands over the swell of my ass.
I gasp delightedly as he grabs hold of me, and kiss him eagerly as my fingers fly to undo his belt buckle. I whip the leather strip open and have his fly open in a heartbeat. I let my breasts press against his rock hard chest as I slip my trembling hands down the front of his briefs.
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