AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A killer.
“You… you just killed him,” I stammer, watching him search the room for something.
He sighs heavily. When he finds a bag, he picks it up and drops it on the counter, digs through it, and pulls out a shirt to wrap around his bleeding upper arm. It reminds me Richard shot him.
“Are you okay?” Worry mixed with fear keeps me frozen in place.
I don’t know him.
He groans as he tightens the shirt. “It’ll be fine. It was a clean shot.” I stare at him. What does that even mean? “Aspen, it was him or us. He was not letting us walk out of here alive.” His voice doesn’t carry an ounce of regret for what he did.
“You’re really a hitman?”
The last half-hour temporarily made me forget why we’re here to begin with. I guess getting shot and killing someone supersedes kidnapping someone and lying to them your whole life.
“So, do I call you Tobias or Rudy?” My voice drips with bitter distaste.
He blows out a ragged breath. “I’ll tell you everything. But I need to get you out of here. Just in case Richard had help.”
He digs into Richard’s pants pocket until he finds the handcuff key. When he offers his hand to help me up, I narrow my eyes. “Why should I trust you? You’re a trained killer.” I gasp at a fleeting thought and my eyes bulge out. “Did you kill the men I had affairs with?” Pushing myself up off the floor, I pin him with my stare. “Tell me that wasn’t you.”
His jaw clicks. “Aspen, those pieces of scum used you. They were a waste of skin and didn’t deserve the memories they had of you.”
“So, you decided they should die,” I scream. “Those were my mistakes and now because of you, I have to live with the guilt that they’re dead.”
With no emotion, he replies, “I didn’t kill two of them. They took their own life when given the option.”
I blink. Who is this guy? This is not the man who raised me for twenty-four years. I’m afraid to ask about the last one, but the words fall out before I can stop them. “And the third?”
He scowls, finally showing some emotion. “I would have given him the same option, but when I found out that his current mistress was sixteen, he didn’t deserve to live.”
I knock the thought out of my head that I might agree with him. No, no, I don’t. No one deserves to be murdered. “Who’s the woman in the picture?” His brows furrow, confused. “With the three of us. I thought she was my mother.”
“She was a colleague. She helped me get you out of the country.” Lies. Everything was lies.
He holds up the key, stepping in front of me. “I hate you,” I sob, lifting my hands. As soon as the cuffs are off, I rub my raw wrists.
He nods, dropping his head. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aspen
We both stare straight ahead as the car idles, the only sounds are passing vehicles on the highway. The rest stop is dimly lit, with a couple cars parked on the other end of the lot, closer to the bathrooms.
I’ve never felt so alone. Or confused. “Why?” I choke out. It’s the beginning of every question I have, but the one word alone asks it all.
His fingers grip the steering wheel, the whites of his knuckles bleed through his old tired hands. “I was hired to kill you.” I still can’t believe someone would hire someone to kill a baby. He tilts his head toward me. “I know what you’re thinking. A baby? In all the hits I’ve done, it had never been a child. But I never considered I couldn’t. My heart was already stained black.” He blows out a ragged breath. “The day it was to happen, you stared up at me with those eyes and said daddy. You held your arms out and that black heart was yours forever. I couldn’t do it.”
“Why didn’t you take me back?”
“You called me daddy. Me.” He grips his chest. “You became something that was mine. You were in danger and I couldn’t place you back in harm's way. If it wasn’t me who carried out the hit, someone else might have.”
“But you don’t know that. I wasn’t yours,” I cry out, trembling.
He drops his head. “I can’t say it enough. I’m sorry.”
“Were you ever sick?”
