Page 37 of The Hitman
I feel everything more acutely in her presence.
“I just saw you kill a man,” she says again.
“And that’s why you need to forget about me.”
She’s still looking at me as she takes another sip of her drink and swallows slowly. I watch her tongue dart from her mouth and glide over her lips as she tastes the alcohol from the rim.
I don’t groan, but I want to. I want to tell her that if she’s offering, I’ll stay here and lick the entirety of my bar and hers from her body, even if it gets me killed, but I have enough restraint to wait for whatever she has to say.
“Who are you? And don’t say “not a good man.” I got it, believe me. I want to know who you are and what you do.”
“I can’t give you any details,” I say even as I realize that I want to. For the first time in my adult life, I want to tell someone exactly who I am, where I come from and what I do; but that’s dangerous, mostly for Zahra. I keep waiting for the moment where my words sink in, and she runs away like she should, but it doesn’t come.
“What can you give me?” she says, not giving me any room to breathe. I wonder if she’s a lawyer; that would be just my luck and hilarious. Also, I don’t hate that she’s interrogating me right now. I don’t know what that says about me.
“I’m a bad man, who works for bad men, and when necessary, I kill bad men.”
She stares at me, and I recognize that her big brown eyes are curious and lit with some unknown fire as she considers my admittedly vague response.
“And that man at the vineyard was a bad man?” she asks me innocently.
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
I’m not. At least I can’t be entirely certain until I verify his identity, figure out who sent him and how they knew where I was, but I am. Contrary to popular belief, it’s a rare occurrence to run into another armed man who happens to be innocent. It’s even rarer to meet a strange man who will aim a gun at an unknown innocent woman who anyone would objectively call ‘good.’ I also want to give Zahra a sense of security. “Yes.”
There’s another moment of silence. She swallows the rest of the liquid in her glass before nodding at me and taking a deep breath. “Okay.”
I squint her in confusion. “Okay? What does that mean?”
She shrugs, and my eyebrows lift. “It means I can’t do anything about the man you killed. And I’m trusting that you’re telling me the truth and he was a bad man. Also, I’m pretty certain that I’m in shock. So…okay.”
Definitely shock. “Okay.” I don’t know what this means, and in truth, it shouldn’t mean anything, but somewhere deep in my chest, it means something. “I need to leave.”
She frowns at me. “And go where?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“What about me?”
“You’re going to stay here while I check your room and make sure that everything is okay. Before I leave, I will tell hotel security to watch out for you. And once I’m gone, you’re not going to think about me at all for the rest of your time here. You’ll be safer without me anyway. And when you go home, you’re not going to think about that stronzo either. You’re going to move on with your life and forget any of this ever happened.”
It sounds good in my head. I think it even sounds good as it comes out of my mouth. I don’t know Zahra, but I know that I will be thinking about the last thirty-six hours I’ve spent with her for much longer than I should. I’ll do the exact opposite of what I’m telling her. I’ll remember Zahra. How could I not?
“No,” she says definitively.
“Scusi?”
“No,” she says again as if that explains anything.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean just that. No.”
“What part of my plan don’t you agree with?” I ask, frustrated.
I like that she takes a moment to think about my question. She doesn’t give me a flippant answer, because this isn’t a flippant situation. She brings her glass up to her mouth and then remembers at the last minute that it’s empty. I pluck the empty glass from her hands and give her mine. She downs the rest of my drink in a single gulp. I watch her lick the liquid from her lips again and ignore the way the lower half of my body responds to the sight.