AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eight
Vanessa
Hunter followed Vanessa back to her apartment, still reeling over the fact that she’d invited him. He was hoping to get her to open up to him, and she had, but he never imagined this. They couldn’t drive fast enough.
Inside her apartment, he sat close to her on the sofa in her living room. He had to keep looking away to avoid that same drawn-in feeling he felt before. He still didn’t think she was ready for that, but she was like a magnet to his body. He wanted to move closer, but he forced himself to stay put, reminding himself that she likely didn’t invite him back here for a booty call.
He had to act like he didn’t want her so badly. Not just for her sake, to take things slow, but he still had a job to do. Jeremy had paid him $25,000 to kill this woman. And that meant there would be only two outcomes. Either Hunter would have to kill Vanessa, or Jeremy would come and take his money back. And likely not leave either of them alive. So there was really one choice now. Protect Opal and Vanessa at all costs, knowing Jeremy had hired a hit man once to kill her. He’d do it again. And he’d already shown plenty of violence toward her in the past. Jeremy was not someone to be taken lightly. The van, too, was worrying him. There might already be someone on him, or tailing her.
“Can I ask,” she said, pouring them more wine.
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her question.
“Well, you said earlier that your old man was mean. I guess I was just wondering what you meant by that.”
“That.” He picked up his glass and took a sip, wishing she had beer instead. “Well, let’s just say that I know exactly how Opal feels.”
“Your father hit you?”
“My father, my mother, sometimes even aunts and uncles if they were around and bored. Bunch of junkies, all of them. Always high on something or drunk off their asses. I come from a long line of no-good criminals and addicts.”
“I’m sorry they were all like that.” She reached over and put her hand on his knee. The warmth ran through him at her touch.
“It’s all I ever knew. My whole life I was told I was nothing and would never be anything. They called me stupid and put me down all the time. Miracle I even made it this far. Or finished high school. They wanted me to fail. They didn’t even come to my high school graduation. Or anything at the school. They weren’t involved in my life at all, unless it was to go get them more cigarettes or make a run.”
“What sort of run?”
“Pick up drugs, drop off drugs, whatever. The riskier the exchange, the more likely I’d be the one to go. They said it was much less likely that a kid would get robbed or shot, so it was better for everyone if I went. I’ve been mugged more times than I can count, been beaten almost to death, was stabbed a few times, and was even shot once. All doing their business.”
Vanessa gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “That’s so terrible.”
He shrugged. “Eventually I got out of there. Left them to their own devices. They didn’t last long. Both died less than five years after I left home. Guess they had no one to buy food or do their dirty work anymore.”
He decided to leave out the part how when they died, he hadn’t gone to either funeral. Not because he didn’t want to. He didn’t have the choice whether or not he wanted to. At the time he was in prison, serving a ten-year sentence. He’d always been something of a protector, so when his high school girlfriend told him her father was abusing her, he took care of it like he never got to take care of his own parents. It was his first kill. He remembered how it felt. Powerful, dangerous, wrong. Might have been his only kill, except that he found out later she’d lied. The man had never touched her. That anger and deep-seated distrust flared hot in him and never cooled down. It gave him the hard edge he had now. But the protector in him wasn’t dead. Vanessa and Opal were resurrecting it. And maybe that wasn’t the only thing.
For a moment, he considered telling her all of this. But this was a first date, and she had trust issues. This wasn’t the time. Maybe someday.
Vanessa reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s just so wrong what they did to you.”
It took a second for her action and her statement to come together in his mind. “You’re crying… for me?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I hate to think of anyone going through what I went through, and what they did to you was so much worse. I wish I had the capacity to kill sometimes. It might be awful to say that, but I can’t help it. Did you ever fantasize about killing your parents?”
Hunter chuckled. If she only knew. “Only every night.”
“I guess they’re lucky that you turned out nothing like them.”
Right. Lucky that he turned to murder before drugs and wasn’t around to be able to kill them. No doubt he would have eventually if the lowlifes hadn’t done the job for him. Sometimes the desire was still there. He still had wonderful dreams where he got to kill them. Got to point a gun at their heads. Got to beat them to death. Got to cut them and torture them like they had to him.
Vanessa dabbed at her eyes again and brought him back to the present. She was crying for him. Feeling something for him, because of what he’d been through. Never had anyone cared like that for him. No one ever cared what happened to him. He was always the one brushed aside, forgotten and left behind. Never the one being listened to and cried for.
He dropped his eyes to the floor. If he had the emotional capacity, he might tear up himself.
# # #
