“Great, thanks, good to know.”
“Because if you got killed, your little girl wouldn’t have been born.” A smile flicks across his lips. “Any chance of that coffee?”
I turn away from him and start making it. He looks at the photos stuck on the fridge. “She’s gorgeous,” he says. “Looks just like you.”
“You think?”
“Same eyes, same chin. Bet she’s a handful.”
“Can be, sometimes.” I check myself. I’m not getting into this kind of conversation with him. I know where it’ll lead. I pour out the coffee and pass him a mug.
As he takes it, his fingers brush mine and I get the same feeling I did when he kissed me. A hunger for more. “I can’t have you in her life,” I say as he takes a sip. “I left my family so they couldn’t hurt me anymore. The mafia is bad news. You’re bad news. I can’t have her brought up thinking what you do is normal. I’m sorry.”
“I am too. But it’s too late to dwell on that. I’ll make you a deal. Hear me out. Will you do that?”
“I’ll do that.”
We walk back through to the lounge, resuming our seats. “We work out who wants you dead and take them out. After that, we go our separate ways. Never see each other again. How does that sound?”
“Why would you even suggest that? I don’t want anyone killed.”
“Because you think this is a wholesome world where heroes save princesses and monsters get arrested and locked up. The world isn’t like that, Clarissa.”
“You think I don’t know that? I grew up in a mafia family. I know the shit that goes down out there in the city. I just want nothing to do with it.”
“Well, it wants to do things to you whether or not you like it. You’re in danger. You want Sophie to be brought up by me? You want her to be an orphan?”
“Don’t say that.” Tears form in the corners of my eyes. I wipe them away. I will not cry in front of him. I will not show him weakness.
“This is how it is.” He sets his coffee down, grabbing the paperwork from my dad’s box. “We go through this until she wakes up. Then you take her to Meghan’s place for the night. By tomorrow I’ll have a target and I’ll take them out. Then you’ll be safe.”
“What happens to you if you don’t do the job you were given? I mean, you were sent to kill me. What happens when your bosses find out you didn’t do it?”
“They try to kill me. Hence me disappearing so it can’t happen.”
“You disappear?”
“I’ve got an escape plan. Been working on it for years.”
“And what’s stopping someone else from coming to finish the job you refused to do?”
“One man provided the contract. I take them out and the contract is gone. You’ll be safe.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it’s always one man and I’ve taken out enough in the past to know how it works.”
“Your bosses don’t care that you do that?”
“They tell me to do it. I just do what I’m told.”
“Again, what a noble man you are. Killing because other people tell you to do it.”
“I do it because…” He falls silent.
“Because why?”
“Never mind.” He dumps the first batch of papers on my lap. “See if you can spot anything in that lot.”