“Why do you sit on the bench? You’re not close to the group. You don’t seem to want to be part of it.”
“I do. It’s why I’m there.”
“But you keep your distance.”
He noticed she started to play with her hands. Ruin had an overwhelming urge to touch her. To calm her.
“I … it has always been easier for me to sit in the back. I’m not great with conversation, and I only joined a shorttime ago. I … I … don’t make friends easily.”She looked down at the floor and then tilted her head back to look at him. “That’s why I sit in the back, but it is progress.”
“What does your boyfriend say about this?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“You don’t?” He knew all of this already, but he wanted to keep her talking.
Her death would be swift and quick. She wouldn’t feel a thing.
“No, I’ve never had a boyfriend.”
He reached for the gun at the base of his back, and stopped.
You don’t want to killher.
“Never had a boyfriend?”
Callie covered her cheeks, which he noticed had started to take on a pretty blush. “No, no, I haven’t.” She shook herself and looked around where they stood. “I don’t think there’s any coffee here. It’s time for us to go.”
She made a couple of steps and he reached outand grabbed her. He could snap her neck. It would be so easy. He’d killed men with stronger, thicker-looking necks.
“Why haven’t you had a boyfriend?” he asked.
Callie hesitated and glanced down atwhere he held onto her arm, before lifting her gaze up to his. He wouldn’t let her go. He had no desire to. She was so beautiful.What did you do to get on the kill list?
“You want to know why I’ve never had a boyfriend? Is that normal?”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Callie.”
“No, I’m not. I’m frumpy and ugly, and I’m boring.”
He shook his head and closed the distance between them. Hearing those words from her sweet lips were like poison to his.
Not today.Ruin wasn’t going to kill her today.
“Who said that kind of shit?”
“I’ve been told it many times,” Callie said. “I don’t date. Idon’t go out. I … I work and I knit. Occasionally I read a book or watch a movie.” She nibbled her lip. “But that’s all.”
Ruin stared at her with only onequestion in his mind. He didn’t know if he should ask it or not.
“Callie, are you a virgin?” he asked.
She jerked her head up, her eyes wide.
He had his answer.Callie was a virgin. Fuck him. There was no way he could kill her, not right now. Not at this very moment. She had never experienced the pleasure of being with a man.
Does it even matter?
No, it didn’t matter to him. He’d never asked other men and women if they had fucked their way through life. Callie was different. From the moment Dante had told him to execute her, everything had been different. He’d seen many photographs of people he had to kill, and he didn’t need an explanation. He did it. And he got paid to do it. He was good at what he did. He made mistakes disappear. Problems fade. And he was a wealthy man because of it, but taking out Callie, he just couldn’t do it.