by Abbi Cook
“Don’t say that,” I say between gritted teeth, hating her words.
“If you won’t listen to the truth, then what are we?”
No answer will make the both of us happy, so I stop her insistence on talking about truth with a kiss I’ve wanted from her for hours. I crave the feeling of her lips on mine, the taste of her tongue as it slides over mine, teasing me with a fantasy of what more I want from her.
She’s mine, no matter what some stupid marriage license says or what everyone in suburbia thinks. I feel it in her kiss. She knows it too.
What she doesn’t know is how much I’m hers.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alexei
A noise near the kitchen window breaks her spell over me, and I instinctively reach behind me for my gun. Natalie stumbles away from me, and a second later I realize it was nothing but a squirrel outside. Turning back to face her, I see the horror on her face and follow her eyes to the weapon in my hand.
“Why do you have a gun?” she asks, shaking her head in disbelief.
I can’t help but smile at how ridiculous that question sounds considering what I am. Stuffing it in the back of my pants, I answer, “Occupational hazard.”
“What does that mean? What do you do that requires you to have a gun?”
Making my way toward her, I wave away her questions. “I don’t want to talk about that part of my life right now. What I want to talk about is you and me.”
“More lies! I can’t do this anymore. You lie to me. I lie to everyone else, including my husband. You need to go right now, Alexei. Now.”
I reach out for her, but she backs away from me until she runs into the wall. “I want you to go. I’m tired of living all these lies. I can’t see you ever again.”
Stopping in front of her, I run my finger along her arm. “You don’t love him, Natalie. At least be honest with yourself.”
She watches where I touch her and sighs. “Maybe I don’t know what love is.”
“I can tell you what love is. It’s feeling like you can’t breathe unless that other person is nearby. Then it’s feeling like you can’t breathe when they’re right next to you. It’s wanting someone to be happy and trying to figure out how to do that when every instinct in you says to do something else.”
“Is that how you feel about me? You have to fight your instinct to hurt me? Is that what you mean?”
I slide my hand down her neck and watch her eyes close. “I want to protect you, little bird. If you were my wife, there’s no way I would toss you to the wolves at those country club events, letting you fight through boring conversations and cruel socialites just to get a moment’s peace. I would be the force behind you instead of some absentee husband who doesn’t care as long as you don’t say the wrong thing to embarrass me.”
“This isn’t love,” she says in a shaky voice. “It’s lust or infatuation. Not love.”
Tightening my hold on her throat, I press a soft kiss onto her lips. “What does it matter what we call it? Love. Lust. It doesn’t matter. Admit it. When I touch you like this, you finally feel like you’ve always wished you would but never did before.”
“Even if I admit that, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why? Because you’re married? He doesn’t love you, Natalie.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she sobs, “I can’t divorce him. You don’t understand. I have nothing if we divorce. It’s not even a possibility. My family would never allow it.”
None of this matters one fucking damn to me. For every excuse, I simply shake my head. “You can live with me. You’ll be safe at my house.”
She looks at me with pure confusion. “I’m safe here in my house. He may not love me anymore, but I’m not in danger.”
The moment of truth has come, and I don’t have any choice now. I have to tell her.
I draw my hand back and touch the ends of her dark brown hair, focusing on the difference in color next to her yellow dress as I say the words I must. “Your husband is cheating on you with another woman. You can’t give him what he wants, so he’s found someone who can. She’s nothing compared to you, except in that one area that means the most to him.”
Natalie’s eyes open wide in horror at what I tell her as she fights back tears. “A child? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You know I’m right, don’t you?”
“How do you know this? You said you didn’t know Adam.”
I have to tell her the truth about what I am. I’ve never hated who I am more than at this moment. Brushing my finger along her lower lip, I look into those beautiful blue eyes and silently apologize for hurting her.
“You asked why I have a gun. Because I’m a hit man. Your husband hired me to kill you so he can marry someone else. He paid me two hundred thousand to get rid of you.”
The shock registers in every inch of her tender being. Shaking her head in disbelief, she pushes me away and I don’t stop her this time.
“I don’t believe you. Why would you say things like that?”
Pulling my phone out, I tap a few times to find the side chick’s photo. “Do you want to see her? She’s not much, but she seems enough for him.”
Natalie pushes her hands out to force my phone away and turns her head. “Stop! Don’t do this! Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because you deserve the truth. You aren’t safe here, little bird. He wants to be rid of you. He’s a fool, but I can’t help that. I can help you, though.”
Hurt flashes in her eyes as tears roll down her cheeks. “I never want to see you again! Everything between us has been a lie. Leave me alone!”
Her anger explodes out of her, and she rushes me to hurt me like I’ve hurt her. The first slap hits my cheek, and I don’t stop her. I don’t even stop her when she begins to punch my chest. It doesn’t physically hurt, so at least I can give her this.
Finally, I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly to me. “Don’t do this, little bird. I’ll take care of you. Just come with me.”
She stills in my hold and looks up at me. “When we first met on the road, it wasn’t a coincidence, was it?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“And in Georgetown when you happened to see me on the street?”
“No.”
“You were stalking me the whole time?”
I hesitate to admit the entire truth, but I can’t give her any less now. “I didn’t lie when I said I wanted you from the moment I saw you. It’s just that the first time I saw you wasn’t on the side of the road that day. It was the day your husband hired me to kill you.”
Her frown as I explain myself cuts like a knife to my chest. “So was it all just about sleeping with me before you killed me?”
We’ve traveled down this road this far. I can’t stop telling her the truth now. “It was in the beginning, but it quickly turned into something else.”
“When?”
“The day at my house. The day I stopped.”
“So you took pity on me and then decided to seduce me anyway? It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? I’ve been just a pawn you planned to sleep with and then kill.”
“No. I can’t explain why I started to fall in love with you, but I did.”
Natalie hangs her head. “This isn’t love.”
I slide my hands up to cradle her face and tilt her head back so she has to face me. “Then what is it? Because I can’t stop thinking about you. I miss you when you’re not near me. I worry about you being here with him. I’m still not sure he didn’t flatten your tire, and he’s drugging you by putting something in your drinks. You didn’t know that, did you? He admitted it to me. Sounded like he’s been doing it for a long time. Is that love?”
“I can’t listen to this anymore.”
“Then listen to this. He paid me two hundred grand to kill you, so you’re in danger here. He’s already impatient about why I haven’t done my job yet. He wants you gone, one way or another. Come with me. You can stay at my house. You�
�ll be safe.”
“How can I ever trust you again? Safe with you? You’re the man hired to kill me.”
“By your husband, little bird. And he’s tried before.”
She shakes her head loose from my hold. “I don’t believe that.”
“Your accident a few months ago. That wasn’t an accident. He paid someone to do that. They just didn’t do a good job.”
I see by the look of recognition in her eyes that she’s not as surprised as she should be by that. Still, she doesn’t want to accept the truth.
“Where would my husband, a real estate developer, meet a hit man? I don’t believe any of this.”
“That church he belongs to. The Church of Genesis. My father was a member and your husband remembered he used to help out husbands with problem wives they wanted gone.”
Now she knows I’m telling the truth. I see in her expression that she’s heard something before about that, and her silence proves it.
“Come with me.”
My phone rings, and as much as I don’t want to answer it, I can’t take the chance that we’re about to be interrupted by her husband. I fish it out of my pocket and see it’s Samson.
“What?”
“Someone’s here. I saw someone coming around the back of the house.”
“Anchoff?”
“No. Someone else. I’ve never seen him here before, boss.”
Stuffing my phone back into my pants, I press a kiss to Natalie’s forehead. “We have to go now, little bird. I love you and I promise you’ll be safe, but we need to leave now.”
“What? What do you mean leave?” she says in a trembling voice.
I begin to tell her I won’t let anyone hurt her, but the sound of the French doors opening stops me cold. Natalie’s eyes fill with fear, and I pull my gun. Spinning around, I take aim.
“Alexei!”
Glancing back, I see Samson coming through the side door, and I flash him a look that tells him to get her out of there.
Then the sound of a gun explodes in my ears and all hell breaks loose. The next sound I hear chills me to the bone.
Behind me, Natalie falls to the floor. I look down and can’t see those beautiful blue eyes I love anymore.
And then all I can hear is the sound of my heart pounding in my ears as I watch for her to breathe.
“Who the fuck is that?” Samson barks as he marches toward the back of the house.
I crouch down beside Natalie and scan her body for any sign of a gunshot wound. When I see none, relief washes over me. She simply fainted.
“Another guy her husband hired, I’m guessing. Probably someone from that church. Recognize him?” I ask Samson.
He shakes his head after looking down at the man. “No. Whoever he is, he’s dead.”
“Get him out of here now! I’ll take Natalie. Meet me back at the house after you’re finished with him.”
With a nod, he sets about getting rid of another hitman Adam Anchoff hired to kill his wife. I turn my attention to her and see her begin to come around.
“I need you to get up, Natalie. We have to go now.”
Tears fill her eyes, but she doesn’t cry. I help her up, and she immediately backs away from me. She fears me now.
Shaking her head, she says, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
I point toward where the dead body of a man lay until a few seconds ago. “Your husband hired him to do the job when I didn’t do it fast enough. You’re in danger here, little bird.”
“The only person I’m in danger from is you, Alexei. I want you to leave me alone. I never want to see you again!”
When she runs out of the room and up the stairs, I don’t chase after her. I can take her from this house, but she isn’t ready yet. I’ll have Samson stay here to watch over her and keep her safe until it’s time.
She will leave this place, and she’ll leave it with me.
It’s just a matter of when.
CORRUPT
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Natalie
The sound of the front door opening makes my heart race, and I’m frozen to the spot in the middle of my bedroom floor. I don’t know if it’s another hit man my husband has hired to kill me. Or Alexei. Or Adam arriving home expecting to see me gone from his life.
What does it say that the one I fear the least is the man who stalked me and seduced me all the while knowing his job was to kill me?
The footsteps grow closer by the second, but I can’t move. I stare at the door in dread of what I’ll see, but I’m trapped here. There is no escape.
Will this be the time that Adam succeeds in getting rid of me?
I watch the bedroom door slowly open, and with each inch my blood feels like it freezes in my veins. I don’t want to die. All I ever wanted was to be happily married to a man who loves me and protects me.
How did things go so horribly wrong?
Adam was supposed to be the perfect man for me. Older, established, and stable, he offered all the things I’ve been told all my life I should want. And I’ve been exactly what I was supposed to be. Demure, beautiful, and supportive. The perfect wife.
No, not the perfect wife. A perfect wife could give him the child he so desperately wants.
I’m not that. I’m imperfect. Flawed. Defective.
Defective and easily erased from this world, from my husband’s life.
A dearly departed first wife soon replaced by the woman he’s cheating on me with.
Finally, a figure appears in front of me, and I inhale a sharp breath at the sight of Adam walking into our bedroom. His eyes do a quick sweep of the room, his gaze coming to rest on me. I sense a hint of disappointment in those eyes that seem more hazel than usual tonight.
“Natalie, what are you doing here?” he asks as he stops dead two steps into the room.
You seem to have missed a word. Don’t you mean what are you doing up here, dear husband? One simple word absent makes that question he asked mean something so different.
Dozens of answers flood my mind, and for a long moment, I don’t know how to respond. Do I let on that I know he’s hired someone—no, two someones—to kill me? Do I want to have that discussion right here in our marital bedroom at this very moment when I’m not sure I know what will come out of my mouth once I begin speaking?
Do I show him how much I hate him with some sarcastic answer so uncharacteristic of me, the doting, devoted wife?
Or do I pretend I know nothing, as I haven’t for so long, and continue to play my role as that wife I’m expected to be by Adam, my mother, and the entire world? I’m not sure I can be that person anymore, though. Once you find out the man you married has arranged for your death so he can be with a woman who can give him the one thing you can’t, pretending to be the perfect little wife becomes difficult, to say the least.
I stand here a hunted woman staring at the man who arranged for the hunter to take my life. For hours, that fact has immobilized me, kept me a prisoner in this house. Now it makes me shake with rage, so much so that I hide my hands behind my back when I can’t stop them from trembling.
“Just straightening up. I tried something new with my hair today, but it didn’t turn out very nice, and I made quite a mess.”
God, I sound like some Stepford wife. Have I always sounded like this? I guess it’s true. Hate does change a person.
He takes a step and then another toward me and stops to examine my hair for proof of what I just said. You wonder if I’m telling the truth, dear husband of mine? I wonder the same thing about you and when you stopped being the man I thought you were when I married you.
Or maybe you never were that man.
My mistake. I won’t make it again.
“Your hair looks nice the way it is now. Whatever you did, I like it.”
His words come out like they’re being dragged from his mouth. I guess having to compliment someone you expected to find gone or at least dead in a heap on the floor is taxing.
I force
a smile and step back to increase the space between us. “Thank you, Adam.”
Other words bubble up in my mind, but I push them back into the recesses of my brain for another time. It won’t serve me at all to show my cards tonight.
Chapter Thirty
Alexei
I wait in the shadows for the precise moment to strike. I’ve hesitated too long on this job, and I can’t drag my feet any more. I kill people. That’s who I fucking am.
Even if recently it feels like that’s the last thing I want to do.
There’s too much Natalie in my head pushing out everything else lately. When I’m not worrying about her still living at that house with that fuck of a husband, I’m obsessed with seeing her again.
I swear I can’t get a moment’s peace since this woman came into my life. That needs to end right now.
She refused to go with me. She left me no choice. I had to leave her there and accept that she won’t leave him.
So she’ll leave this way.
I watch through the living room window waiting for her to come down now that he’s home. He walked upstairs, probably to their bedroom.
Fuck, even the thought of him in bed with her makes everything in me hurt like someone’s cutting tiny slices in my skin and pouring salt in the wounds. He wants her dead. She knows that, and yet she stays there.
He sure does have her trained, doesn’t he? She does exactly what he wants, and still he hires me to kill her. Fucking ingrate.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, so I take my eyes off the house for a moment and see Samson’s name on the screen. “What’s going on?”
“I was calling to ask you the same thing. You didn’t tell me it was going down tonight, so I’m here watching the house like I do every day. You’re pretty obvious, Alexei. I mean, I guess I’m looking for things, but in this neighborhood, someone staking out a place like you are isn’t exactly subtle.”