Dating A Hitman (The Dating Series Book 4)

by Love, B. T.

  “Ugh,” I said repulsively as I plopped a pile of potato salad on his plate. “You’re disgusting.”

  “I’m glad you think so; maybe it will make you stay away from me.”

  I put my hand on my hip and smiled. “No, your three testicles will do that.”

  “Yeah, which was a joke, by the way. I can assure you I don’t have three testicles.”

  “Well unless you can show me proof . . .”

  The corner of his mouth pulled back with a smile. “I have no problem showing you the proof . . .”

  I wasn’t expecting that; I almost dropped the large spoon I was holding. “Well you have my number.”

  He chuckled and gave me a wink, moving further away from me down the line.

  * * *

  The sun had finally set and the backyard glowed with the light of the pool and the lit tiki torches that dotted along the length of the fence that separated us from the neighbors. The majority of the people were gone, and now it was a few small groups here and there, laughing and enjoying their beers under the stars. One of the groups was my brother, his fiancé Rebecca, Troy, and another busty woman who was obviously drooling all over him.

  I rolled my eyes at the sight and looked over at my dad and my uncle, who were talking quietly with Vladimir in the back corner of the yard. Their faces were serious and I could tell the discussion was one of importance. They seemed to all nod at the same time and then shake hands, and then Vladimir excused himself and came walking in my direction.

  When he got a close enough distance to me he smiled and stuck out his hand. “Scarlett, once again it was nice meeting you.” When I put my hand in his he bowed and brought it to his lips, kissing it gently. His eyes cut up at me. “It’s a shame you are so closely connected to your father,” he said as he lowered my hand and straightened back up. “If you weren’t I would ask you to join me for a ride around town in the back of my limousine.”

  Wow, I couldn’t believe this obviously powerful Russian man who was old enough to be my dad was flirting with me. I smiled at the gesture. “Yes, well, maybe in another life I would have accepted your offer.”

  His mouth turned in with a disheartened smile. “Yes, maybe in another life.” He bowed out gracefully and walked around me, disappearing into the house and presumably leaving the party.

  I looked over to see Troy staring right at me, his eyes ablaze from watching what had just happened. He looked away and tilted his head back, downing the rest of his bottle of beer. I focused on my dad next, only to see both him and my uncle watching me with their arms crossed in front of them, their chatter quiet and focused between them. I didn’t know why everyone seemed so upset. It wasn’t my fault the guy kissed my hand. And so what if he did? Wasn’t I supposed to be respectful of him? I didn’t know what everyone was freaking out about.

  My dad leaned into my uncle and said something in his ear. My uncle nodded and then left my dad’s side, coming over to me. As this happened I saw my dad nod at Troy, silently calling him over to him.

  “Hey sweetheart,” my uncle said as he approached. “Did you like meeting all the family today?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I loved it. Everyone was so friendly.”

  “Good,” he smiled. He crossed his arms and moved his legs apart, slowly shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. “So, your dad and I were wondering what Vladimir was talking to you about.”

  “Nothing really,” I shrugged.

  “Hmm.” His eyes darted around my face. “Nothing at all?”

  “Well, he just said something about it being a shame that I was so closely related to my dad or else he would ask me to join him for a ride in his limousine.”

  My uncle’s lips pursed as he nodded with understanding. “I see. Well, thanks for filling me in.” He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and he turned back around and went back to my dad who now had Troy at his side.

  My eyebrows knitted together as I watched them talking in a half-circle, their expressions serious. But being the good girl that I was, I stayed out of it. My dad was probably being over-protective of me; he most likely didn’t like the idea of a man his age hitting on me.

  * * *

  Scarlett,

  How’ve you been? I hope life is treating you well. I often wonder how your mom is as well. I know you are turning out to be beautiful because you look a lot like her, and she was always quite the looker. I would never admit it to anyone else, but I hit on her before your dad did. She didn’t want me though; she only had eyes for him.

  You’re turning seventeen this month. That’s a good age. You’re getting closer to being a legal adult, although I have the feeling you already act like one. That’s good though. Make sure you keep your nose clean and your head on straight.

  I love you sweetheart. You’re always in my thoughts.

  Uncle Ted

  That was very sweet of him. It was nice getting letters from so many people. I folded it up and put it on the top of a small pile I started on the floor. Up until that point I had put them back into the box after I read them; this way I kept them separated. I grabbed another one and saw that it was from my dad. This one was a little thicker and I noticed it had been opened already, but it was re-closed with scotch tape.

  Dear Scarlett,

  Today is a bad day in here. All I want to do is get out of this godforsaken place. You and your brother are growing up on the outside without me, and I can’t even be there to protect you from the people I exposed our family to.

  I know I tell you repeatedly in these letters that I’m sorry for what had happened to you that night, but I need to make sure that you really know that. I need your forgiveness, and that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get, mainly because your mom won’t let us talk. Do you know what the last memory I have of you is? It was when I cradled you in my arms while you almost bled to death on the restaurant’s floor. The police took me away after that, and that was the last time I ever saw you. Once you recovered your mom took you and left us, never revealing where you were. I felt a renewed energy after we had found an address for her but when we all wrote you all our letters came back to us. We still write you though, because we hope that one day you will see our letters, or maybe your mother will have a change of heart.

  I’ll never forgive myself for allowing my family to be present in the building while I conducted business in the back. You didn’t even do anything to Jimmy but he thought he would seek his revenge on me by hurting you and your brother. He was a bad guy, a very bad guy. Not only did he almost kill my daughter and wound my son, but he also broke my family apart. He robbed me of my chance to watch you grow. You’re sixteen years old and I have no idea what you are like, and it’s all his fault. No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you be in the same building with that man. But there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. I want you to know that I know a man on the outside who took care of that scumbag. We got our revenge on him baby, and you don’t have to worry about him anymore.

  I stopped reading and looked up from the letter. Was Jimmy Rolofo dead? Did my dad hire someone to take care of him? That couldn’t be true, because it would have been on the news. It was such a huge event when it all happened, that any new evidence or situation that surfaced about the case would have made major headlines. Maybe taking care of him meant teaching him a lesson, maybe beating him up or breaking his legs or something. I focused back on the letter to see what else he would reveal.

  Today I lost my temper and punched a guy in the face. He was talking about me in a bad way, saying I was no good at my job. I’ve always been good at my job, even on the inside. And I’m still a good dad on the inside, too. I write Eli all the time and he comes and visits me here. He’s a good kid. Your uncle is taking care of him too, teaching him how to be a man on the outside in the ways I can’t right now. Soon enough though I’ll be there for him. And once I get out and settled on the outside I’ll start searching for you too. We’ll see though, I’m
not too sure if you want to be found. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries with you. Who knows what your mom has been filling your head with all of these years. Hopefully you’ll decide for yourself what type of person I am. I wish you had more memories to go on, though. You left me when you were too young. I fear that you don’t even remember me at all.

  My dad went to jail for a month when I was a kid. It devastated me. When he got out I didn’t leave his side for three weeks straight because I was afraid he would leave again. I even slept at the end of my parent’s bed. I wonder if you were devastated when you realized you would never see me again. I imagine you were, because I was a good dad to you. You were my little sidekick, always following me around and making me drawings with your crayons. My favorite color was red and you knew that, so you always drew me pictures with a red crayon. One of my favorites is one you did of me holding you and your brother’s hand. You didn’t even draw your mother in the picture, and I remember it made me laugh. I asked your brother to send it to me when I first got here, and I’ve kept it this whole time. I’m going to enclose it with this letter. At first I didn’t think it was a good idea to do that but I know this letter will be sent back to me anyway. When it comes back I’ll probably fish it out and hang it on my wall. It helps me get by in this place.

  Anyway, be a good girl. I love you.

  Daddy

  I pulled out the last piece of paper from the short stack and stared down at the drawing I had made him. It was in red crayon like he had said, and it was him in the middle with his arms held out to his sides, holding onto Eli’s hand on his right and my hand on his left. We all had smiles, and the words my family were poorly written on the bottom. I traced my finger along the waxy drawing and smiled. I must have really loved my dad as a child.

  I kept the drawing out and folded up the letter, sticking it back in its original envelope. It made sense why the envelope was taped shut: It was returned to him in the mail and he opened it to retrieve my drawing to hang back up in his prison cell. What a sobering thought it was, and what an honor it was to play such a vital role in helping get him through those horrible days.

  Six

  The next day I was bored out of my mind. My dad was at work and my brother was who knows where doing who knows what. Eli mentioned that they had a gym in a room downstairs by the laundry room. Since I needed to wash a few things I figured it would be a good opportunity to check it out.

  I wrapped my clothes up in a dirty bath towel and carried the load down the stairs. I went back toward the kitchen and rounded the corner, noticing that I had two doors to choose from. I chose the one on the right, which just so happened to be where the exercise equipment was. It was like a mini gym, with a weight bench, a treadmill, a stair stepper, and racks of free weights that were lined up against two of the walls. In the middle of the room was one of those all-in-one machines where you could work out a whole bunch of different areas of your body. The far wall was a solid window. It didn’t have much of a view because it faced the neighbor’s fence, but it did a great job of filling the room with natural light from outside. It was a neat little gym, not too big but efficient enough to get the job done.

  I backed out and opened the other door, which was the laundry room. It was a narrow little room with a high-end washer and dryer that was nestled between built-in cabinets and a marbled counter top. I opened the washer and tossed in my clothes and then opened the cabinet to choose from the bottles of detergent.

  I heard the door to the gym room open and close. After starting the washer I went out of the laundry room and closed it behind me. I just knew Troy had to be in there. I was weighing the decision as to whether or not I should interrupt him. After all, I was supposed to leave him alone. But I mean come on, how dangerous could a garbage man be?

  I turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open, only to see Troy jogging swiftly on the treadmill. His headphones were in his ears and his back was to me, so he didn’t know I had entered. I took the opportunity to admire his frame. What a strong body he had. It was so toned and muscular . . . He was the definition of powerfully sexy. His tight wife beater shirt didn’t completely cover the tattoo on his back, and it spurred me to try and figure out why he had such a strong word engraved into his skin.

  He stopped the treadmill and I stiffened as I waited for him to turn around to see me. When he did his eyes widened and he jumped with surprise. “Jesus, Scarlett!” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “You scared me.”

  I brought my hand to my mouth and chuckled behind it; it was funny to see such a manly man startle so easily. “I’m sorry,” I said honestly with a smile still in my voice. “I didn’t mean to.”

  He stepped off the treadmill and stood at the end of it. “I’m not the type of man you want to startle.”

  I nodded, trying hard to remove the smile from my face. “Yes, Sir. I’ll work on that.”

  He didn’t seem amused. His face was solid stone as he went over to the weight bench and sat down on it. “What are you doing in here?” he asked as he took the headphones out of his ears.

  “Just checking things out. I’m bored.”

  “Bored, huh?”

  “Yeah. There’s not much to do while everyone is busy during the day. I can go shopping but I don’t think I should buy anything, since I would have to take it all back on the plane with me.”

  His eyes broke away from mine to look at his shoes. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

  “Do you have any ideas that could keep me busy?”

  “I could make love to you.”

  No, he didn’t say that. But that’s what I heard him say in my mind. I could only wish he would say that.

  “What about your letters?” he asked, looking back up at me. “Those have been keeping you pretty busy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You find any good ones in there?”

  “Yeah, I’ve found a lot of them. I just found one from my dad that had a picture I drew of him and Eli in it. I couldn’t believe he kept it all these years.”

  “You’re important to him,” he said. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  I smiled and took my turn at looking down at my own shoes. “Yeah, I’m really starting to realize how important I am to everyone here.” I looked back up to see him looking at me. “To my family, I mean.”

  A few quiet seconds passed. “You’re important to me.”

  I perked up at his words. “I am?”

  “Of course you are. Your memory has been a part of my life since I was a young man.”

  I nodded, a little bummed that his sentiments toward me were gravitating back toward those of how an older brother would feel. “Well thank you.”

  He smiled a small smile and looked around the room. “If you’re bored you can always join me in here.”

  “You mean work out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know how to work out . . .”

  He laughed and stood up from the bench. “Everyone knows how to work out.”

  “Not me.”

  “You mean you never had gym class in school?”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t any good at it,” I chuckled. “I did do well on the leg press though . . .”

  He looked around the room. “No leg press here. But I can teach you some things to get you started.”

  I smiled and looked down at my clothes. “Jean capris aren’t exactly the best to wear in this situation.”

  “Ah, you’ll be fine. So, what part of your body do you feel you need to better?”

  “You’re asking me to reveal to you something about my body I feel self-conscious about?”

  “Come one, we all have something we’d change right away if we could.”

  My first thought was my five scars I would love to have vanish into thin air, but that wasn’t ever going to happen. “Um, I don’t know,” I told him. “I’d tone my butt a little, maybe my thighs.”

  He crossed his arms in front of him and smiled. “I don’t
see anything wrong with those areas.”

  “I didn’t know you were looking,” I flirted in return.

  “I don’t; I’m not allowed to.”

  “Yeah right.” My smile faded to a smaller one. “And what about you? What would you change about your body?”

  He looked down at his chest and shrugged. “I don’t know, I just want to make myself bigger all around. It’s harder without taking steroids.”

  I looked him over, being incredibly obvious in my admiration. “You’re plenty big, believe me. In fact, I . . .” I let the words trail off, realizing that I was getting ready to overstep a boundary.

  “You what?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  He dropped his arms to his sides. “What, were you going to flirt with me again? Because I’m starting to get used to it.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No. I was just going to say something that wasn’t my business, that’s all. My mom warned me about coming out here and sticking my nose in my family’s affairs.”

  He agreed with a gentle nod. “She’s right.”

  My smile faded. “Well, maybe working out isn’t such a good idea. I should probably leave you to get back to your routine.”

  “Why the sudden change?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I’m supposed to stay away from you anyway, right?”

  “Yeah, Scar, you are.”

  My face crinkled. “Scar. I don’t like to be called that. That’s what the kids called me in school because of my—”

  “I’m sorry,” he cut in quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know, it’s okay.” I gave him one last smile and then turned around, leaving the room and shutting the door behind me.

  * * *

  Troy had been gone for two days. He didn’t say much to me when he left, other than he was going to be going back and forth between his job and his own house, wherever that was. I missed him while he was gone. Even though he was just someone to flirt with, I felt really safe when he was around, almost like he was my guardian angel or something. The way he watched me . . . it was as if it was his job to make sure I was okay. So with him gone, I felt a little exposed to whatever danger lurked around from being a part of the Nicoletti family.