Page 7 of The Hitman

Now I want to cry again. How do I turn my tear ducts off?

Thankfully, I might be frozen in despair and wallowing, but no one else has time to be inconvenienced by me.

A man in a business suit pushes past me, barely even registering that he’s collided with a human being as he shouts at someone in Italian on his cell phone. It’s rude as fuck, but it jostles me out of my paralysis. I step out of the way and open my shoulder bag. I snatch the big glasses case from the bottom of the bag. The relief I feel when I shove my new Chanel sunglasses onto my face is palpable and pathetic.

The glasses were Shae’s idea. When I dug Ryan’s credit cards out of my bodice, she’d snatched one at random and dashed off into the airport terminal. She returned with a Chanel bag and no credit card and told me not to ask her any questions while she shoved my new glasses onto my face.

If I’d been less distraught, I’d have wondered what the hell had gotten into my cousin, but I had been distraught, and apparently, very conspicuous, so who was I to complain? And even though I have a small crumb of wonder about whatever is going on with Shae, I do have to give it to her; these big ass, expensive glasses make me feel like less like a train wreck and more like a classy train wreck. They’re cute, expensive, and cover half of my face.

And I’m not worried about Ryan. He’s rich enough not to miss the money, and knowing that he’s paid for them soothes a piece of my broken self. It’s all about the details.

I still smell, and my hair is still a mess, but at least the sunglasses let me hide my bloodshot eyes and obscure my identity. That’s all I need to give myself the courage to keep moving forward, literally.

So two claps for Shae.

Unfortunately, my luggage trolley is heavy as hell, and I can’t rush past the crowd the way I want to, but I do get past them. I wheel my bags into the terminal and spot a line of suited men holding signs. I find the sign reading “Mr. and Mrs. Fuller” and head straight for it even though I feel sick at the words.

The driver holding my sign smiles at me. “Mrs. Fuller,” he says in thickly accented English.

I burst into tears.

One step forward. Two buckets of tears dumped right on my head.

That’s the saying, right?

* * *

We chose Villa San Marco in the mountains outside of Milan because even though all of Ryan’s famous friends said the paparazzi were less ravenous in Europe, we still wanted some privacy.

The hotel sits on top of a hill just above a small village with a population so negligible that most of the guidebooks combined its figures with the three other villages nearby. The close proximity to Milan, plus the isolation and luxury amenities were part of the pitch Ryan’s business manager made while selling this place to me. It wasn’t my first choice, but as the limo winds through the village and up the mountain toward the hotel, I’m glad they pressured me into this choice. At least I can wallow in my heartbreak and humiliation in peace and style. Ryan owes me at least that.

I press my face against the passenger side back window and look down at the neat rows of the vineyard below. The driver says something to me in Italian; I assume he’s telling me that we’re almost at the hotel or that I’m smelling up the car. Both are viable possibilities, and neither really matters in this moment, so I turn to him, smile, nod, and then turn back to the view. There’s a grease smudge on the window where my face touched it.

Jesus, is this rock bottom? Because it sure feels like it.

When the car pulls into the hotel’s gravel driveway, there’s a smartly dressed man standing at the wrought iron entrance.

I press my oily face against the glass to get a look at all the small terracotta-colored buildings. They look exactly like the brochures. The villas are three stories each, reaching into the sky. Apparently, the penthouse suites can get a clear view of Duomo, and all the villas surround a main pool that looks right out of some design magazine.

There’s lush greenery everywhere, beautiful shrubs and flowers that make me think of summer and renewal even while I want to shrivel up and die. It looks like paradise, just like the brochures promised. I hope this place can accommodate me, my luggage, and the hole in my chest where my heart is a festering, dying thing.

I swipe self-consciously at my eyes. They’re mercifully still dry even though I can feel a sob lodged in my throat.

Actually, I think I might be dehydrated.

The car rolls to a gentle stop in front of the hotel. The driver pushes his door open and stands. I grab my purse and hold it close to my chest as I wait for him to open my door, but I still jump when the rear passenger door wrenches open. I think I might be more tired than I realized. All that champagne and crying during a transatlantic flight has me really fucked up, and suddenly, all I want is a bed. And a shower. And maybe some more wine.

“Siamo arrivati,” the driver says with a bright smile, offering his hand to me.

I push my sunglasses up the bridge of my sweaty nose and try to smile at him as he helps me from the car.

“Non parlo Italiano. Grazie,” I say, officially exhausting all the Italian I learned in preparation for this trip, excluding the list of food to eat that I memorized.

“Si,” the driver says. “Welcome to Villa San Marco,” he says in charmingly stilted English.

I reach into my purse and pull a hundred Euro bill from my wallet. “Thank you,” I say again.

“Grazie. Thank you,” he says with a playful tilt of his eyebrows.