I scolded myself internally. No, that would have been the worst thing I could have done. If Leo were already suspicious of me, Saffron winding up dead after a hit with me would have just proved any point he wanted to make to himself. And besides, I had loved Saffron at some point in my life, and I wasn’t about to pick her off just because I was being paranoid.
I had to remind myself that so many of the conversations I had with people like Leo came down to posturing. Everyone was trying to project something, trying to convince people they were harder than they were. Leo was probably just testing me, laying down the law to make sure that I wasn’t going to try and pull any shit on him. How could he know anything? Unless Saffron had gleaned something from our brief meeting, there was no way he could have figured anything out. Sitting here and worrying about it would only make things worse.
I heard my phone buzz in my coat where I had dumped it on the floor while we were getting undressed, so I rolled away from her and went to pick it up. She let out a small, soft noise, still in that post-coital haze, and sat up.
“Who is it?” she asked, her voice soft. I looked down at the message, and my heart dropped.
“Anthony, it needs to be tonight. I’ll expect you tomorrow morning.”
It was from Leo. God, I could have guessed that without even looking at the message. He always let me know exactly when he wanted the hit carried out, but I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t even get one evening with Sabrina to make her feel safe and cared for. I tossed my phone back onto my jacket and looked back up at her.
“No one. Hey, I have to head back into the city tonight to pick up some of my shit, is there anyone you want me to bring back here? To keep you company?”
Her face lit up.
“Well, actually…” She raised her eyebrows. “My friend, Lily. I could really do with her around.”
“Does she know about everything that’s happening?” I asked. I didn’t want to drop someone who had no clue of what was going on into this situation.
“She knows enough.” Sabrina nodded. “Here, I can call her, ask her to close up the restaurant for a few days. That should ease up some of the heat on us, right?”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed, and handed her my phone. She quickly tapped out a message, then let it sit on the bed next to her as she watched me gather myself.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Everything’s great,” I replied. “I’ll be back later tonight, don’t worry about it.”
“You know I’m going to worry,” she commented, and I smiled t her.
“Trust me, I’ll be fine,” I reassured her. “I’ll go to the city and bring her back, then pick up my stuff.”
“Yeah, she just texted back, and said she’s all good.” She glanced at the phone as it buzzed again. “You sure all of this is going to be okay?”
“It’s going to be fine,” I soothed her. “I promise.”
I planted a kiss on her forehead, and she gave me the address of the restaurant where I could pick her friend up. I went outside to the car, took a deep breath, and stared at the sea for a moment. Part of me wanted to lose myself to its vastness, but I knew that I had too much to do to indulge myself any further.
Chapter Nineteen
As soon as he was out of the house, I took myself on a tour of all the rooms. It was so much bigger than I had thought at first - I assumed it was just the living spaces, but there was a fuckton more than I even I could have imagined. I took my time going around the place, finding little passageways here and there. What was there to say? Everything from a wine cellar to a cinema, to a little route that led out to the sea to swim. I was too nervous to go outside - I needed someone here with me before I would feel comfortable leaving the house - but I could imagine coming out here in a less stressful circumstance and having an amazing time. I pictured Anthony and I splashing about in the shallows, me in a tiny bikini, him in trunks that showed off his incredible body. Maybe getting intertwined in the sand, one thing leading to another…
I wandered back upstairs, not wanting Lily and Anthony to arrive back and see me not there. At this point, anyone not being where they said they were was cause for major panic, and I didn’t want to be the one who caused any of it. I wandered around the wine cellar and picked out a nice bottle, assuming Anthony wouldn’t mind. I mean, this place was all about absurd luxury, and it seemed silly not to take advantage of that in any way I could. If I was going to be stalked by murderous bandits, that I could at least enjoy the vino, right?
I stood by the window and stared out at the ocean, letting out a small, satisfied noise to myself. I found myself calming as I took in the enormity of it, the regularity of the waves as they lapped up against the beach below.
I wasn’t sure how long I was standing there, but before I knew it, Anthony and Lily were coming through the front door. It was the first time in a while that I hadn’t jumped at someone appearing around me. I guess this place made me feel safer than the others.
“Sab!” Lily exclaimed as she ran towards me. She threw her arms around my neck and clasped me to her. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I replied, gently extracting myself from her iron grip. “Here, I got us a bottle of wine. Is that okay, Anthony? I took it from the cellar.”
“Sure.” He waved his hand distractedly. “Help yourself to anything you want. I have to head back into the city, but I’ll be back later tonight.”
He came over to me and planted a quick kiss on my cheek before he left again, offering a small nod to Lily as he backed out of the door. As soon as it shut behind him, Lily turned to me, her eyebrows raised.
“Um, can we come to your boyfriend’s beach house whenever we want?” she asked, gesturing around. “Because I might close the restaurant for good and move in here.”
“It’s pretty amazing, right?” I grinned as I looked about the place. But I suddenly felt tense, odd, as though we were being watched. A shiver ran down my spine, and I frowned as I looked around.
“Sab? What’s wrong?” Lily followed my gaze, trying to figure out what had bothered me.
“Nothing.” I shook my head, finishing my visual sweep of the place and finding nothing. “Hey, you want to get into this bottle of wine?”
I held up the expensive bottle in my hand, and she took it and wandered over to the kitchen area to pour us a couple of glasses. We left the bottle to aerate for a few minutes and leaned in silence up against the counters. I knew what Lily was thinking, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid her questions much longer.
“Sabrina, are you going to tell me what’s going on here?” she asked softly. She caught my hand in hers and looked up at me intently. “Because… Anthony said you were here because it was the safest place you could be. What are you trying to keep safe from? Who’s after you?”
Before I knew it, a tear had welled up in my eye and dripped, fat and wet, down my cheek. Sabrina squeezed my hand comfortingly, but I knew she was expecting an answer. I knew I owed her one, too - she had come all the way out here to be by my side right now, and she needed to know what she was getting into by doing that. I took a deep breath, dashed away the tear of my cheek, and began.
And once all that stuff started, it was hard to get it to stop. I told her everything. From my date with Anthony to that awful message to fleeing the city and taking up residence at any number of his hideouts. I told her about Anthony too - that he had been a hitman and I wasn’t sure if he was still in that line of business or not. She stayed quiet as I blurted it all out, occasionally reaching over to swill the wine lightly in the glass. When I was done, she took her first sip, letting the wine sit in her mouth for a moment as she savored the taste.
“That’s really good wine,” she remarked. “Really good.”
I took a shaky sip from my glass and peered at her over the top of it.
“If you want to go, I’ll totally understand,” I mumbled. “I don’t think anyone’s enti
rely safe around the two of us at the moment.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she shot back emphatically. “Wild horses, and all that. If you’re in danger, then I’m in danger too.”
“You’re so pigheaded,” I laughed. God, it felt good to laugh - to let go of all the tension and suffering I’d been struggling with the last few days and give myself over to something altogether better.
“I am,” she agreed with a shrug. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at her gratefully. “That means so much to me.”
“Anthony said we’d be fine here though, right?” She glanced over her shoulder as she headed to the couch.
“I don’t think anyone else knows about this place,” I explained. “Not that I’m aware of, at least.”
“Huh, well, then I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t get quite drunk on all the expensive wine I’m guessing he has down in his basement,” she pointed out. “If you’re into that kind of thing.”
“Do you even know me at all?” I replied playfully and threw back the entire glass in my hand in one theatrical gulp. “Let’s get drunk.”
I leaned my head on her shoulder for a moment, the two of us staring out across the sea outside, and I felt at peace for the first time in a while. Finally, things were going my way.
Chapter Twenty
I was surprised at how easily Sabrina’s friend said yes to coming along. I mean, if she even knew a quarter of the truth, wouldn’t she be scared off? I couldn’t imagine any other plain old citizen who wouldn’t balk at the idea of hiding out in a potentially deadly situation just because her friend was in it too. But then, if she was a friend of Sabrina’s, she probably wasn’t too different from her, and from that, I could assume that she was brave, headstrong, and completely level-headed.
Lily hadn’t asked me any questions as we’d made our way back from the city - she was probably saving them all up for when she could get Sabrina alone. I wanted everything Lily heard to come from her, not me. After all, it was Sabrina who was bringing her into this situation, and it was her responsibility to let her know what was going on. As we made our way back to the house, however, I snuck a look at her out of the corner of my eye, and I could have sworn that she looked a little excited. There was that glint of a thrill in her eye, and I occasionally caught her sneaking a look at me. I wondered if she knew what I was, what I did, if Sabrina had told her, and whether she’d be as calm as she was if she had. I drove quickly, knowing that I didn’t have a whole lot of time before Leo would expect the hit to be complete. I didn’t want to end up late because I was playing taxi to one of Sabrina’s friends as that’s how questions would start to get asked and then I was probably fucked.
I couldn’t get what Leo had said that morning out of my head. I just couldn’t. I knew it was likely nothing more than bravado. Hell, I was almost certain that was what it was. But fucking Christ, he knew how to get me feeling on edge. I wanted to throw up when I considered the thought of him knowing about everything that was going on. If he found out about Sabrina and me, we were both dead, along with anyone else who got involved. That included her friend Lily, maybe her family, and definitely anyone working at her restaurant. A wave of panic hit me, and I did my best to quell it. I needed to keep myself pulled together for this - Leo had texted me a location, and the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself once I was there.
I was also a little panicked about the thought of pulling a trigger on someone again. Not worried about getting caught or screwing it up - I knew all my instincts were still in place, and there was no reason to think that I had lost my touch over the years. But the thought of killing someone for cash again, carrying out a hit shrouded by darkness in the middle of the night… it was unsettling, to say the least. Last time, I had been able to decant the job onto Saffron and avoid actually committing a murder, but there would be no getting around it tonight. I had to do this. I had to kill someone. Someone who, from what Leo had told me, was a lot like me. I shivered as I wondered how close I had come to being in his position, how close I would come again.
But he was like me - he had killed before, and he knew this was a danger that came with the job. He knew that if he fucked up, he was in for the chop. Just as I had done, just as we all did. I wondered what his motive was for working with Leo on the inside - undercover cop, maybe, or a private detective for some grieving family trying to figure out why their beloved member had been dealt with? I guessed I would never know. I could ask Leo, but that would probably just arouse his suspicions even further, and that was the last thing I wanted. I needed to slide firmly under the radar for the foreseeable future and hope that he didn’t pay too much attention to me. The beach house would help with that, of course, but I needed to be the best hitman he ever worked with to prove that I truly was on his side. And that meant killing again, no matter how much the thought of it struck fear into my soul.
I felt as though I had spent the last few years recuperating from the horror of everything that I’d done in my line of work. I had put time and effort into rebuilding what little was left of my compassion and decency. Hell, Sabrina alone proved that. There was no way I would have intervened with what was happening and then gone on to check on her afterward back in the day - and here I was, potentially about to throw it all away in order to keep my cover. It was for a worthy cause, but did that matter? Would I find myself slipping back into the person I used to be, the person I had tried my hardest to distance myself from in the last few years? I thought about the barrage of weapons in the back of the car and wondered which one I’d use. Whichever one gave me the most distance - whichever one meant that I didn’t have to look at the body, to see what I’d done to this man who was really no different from me.
I pulled the car to a stop, and before long spotted another vehicle parked up just across from me. I peered over to see if anyone was inside. It seemed odd and out of place here, considering how remote and out-of-the-way this alley was. I could see someone else inside - not only that, but he was looking back at me. I tensed immediately, wishing I had one of my guns in the glove box, and feeling in my pocket for the flick knife I kept in there at all times. I wrapped my fingers around it as a tall man I didn’t recognize got out of the car and swept over to mine in a few long strides. He knocked on the window, and I rolled it down carefully.
“You with Leo?” the man asked bluntly, and I managed a nod, relief flooding my system.
“I’m with Leo,” I agreed, releasing the knife and holding out my hand. We shook through the window.
“I’m Anthony.”
“Taylor,” he shot back distractedly. “Can I get in?”
“Sure.” I unlocked the door for the passenger side, and he slid in next to me. He glanced over in my direction, and it was as if something had clicked in his brain. I immediately felt myself tense up again, my body tightening with panic as I tried to figure out what in the name of Christ was actually going on.
“When did you get assigned to this?” I demanded. “Leo told me he wouldn’t need anyone babysitting me today.”
“Earlier this afternoon,” he shot back, on the defensive. “We’re heading to a new location, and I know it better than you do.”
“I’ve taken three years off, I’ve had plenty of time to get to know this city,” I grumbled.
“It’s the three years off he’s worried about,” Taylor replied coolly, and I shut up.
“Okay, so where are we going, then?”
“A Chinese restaurant, over on Fifth.”
“I think I know the one,” I replied, feeling a little disrespected. No, a lot disrespected. Why would Leo bother sending someone out when he knew I could take care of this by myself? It didn’t make any sense.
As we drove, a small shadow of doubt began to creep over my brain. Leo had said he wanted to take down a hitman who was only working with them to exploit them. Sure, he’d given me a picture and everything, but who was I to say who that pictu
re was actually of? Maybe Leo had been laying things out for me right from the start, and I had just been too pig-headed to notice it. I peered at Taylor from the corner of my eye - I didn’t recognize him. It would make sense, if Leo did intend to take me out, to send someone who didn’t know me, who had no attachment to me. That way, emotions weren’t going to get in the way at the last minute. I didn’t want to come out and say that things were beginning to add up because at the moment I was just jamming a couple of puzzle pieces together and wondering if they fit, but something was going on. There was never any harm being on my guard, and I intended to stay that way until this hit was done and I was back in bed with Sabrina. I focused in on that thought, trying to keep the image in my mind as I made my way across town. If I could just tell myself that I was going to get back to her, nothing else mattered.
“We’re here.” Taylor cut across my thoughts and pointed to a restaurant across the street. It was bright with lights and busy with people as it would be on a weekend evening. I caught a whiff of the food smell floating over the place, and my mouth started watering. I wondered how quickly I’d be kicked off the case if I wandered in to pick up some potstickers and dumplings.
PREGNANT FOR A PRICE Page 60