Page 124 of Dirty Hit
He lets out a laugh that’s half sob. “Newsflash. It didn’t work.”
“I noticed,” I say. “I noticed you walking away today, and it felt like getting hit blindside all over again.”
“Then why the girl?” he demands again, finally letting some heat into his voice. “Why her? Why like that?”
“Because it had to look convincing,” I say bluntly. “Because she was there, and she wanted a picture, and I needed a prop, and I thought… if you saw it, maybe you’d finally believe I’m not worth this—believe I’m not… safe.”
His mouth twists. “I already knew that, Dominic. I knew that the first time I walked in here and saw you killing someone. I knew that when you threatened me instead of letting me call the cops. I knew it when you told me you’d hurt my ex if you had to. None of that stopped me from coming back.”
“I know,” I say, thumbs brushing his cheeks, feeling the heat there. “That’s what scares me.”
“I don’t under—”
“Trying to let you go is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I sat there, with her on my lap, feeling so wrong. I touched her hip, and all I could think was it’s not your waist. I saw you watching us, and my instincts screamed to throw her off and go to you.” My voice cracks slightly. “But I didn’t. If I did, if I made youreal,I’d be putting a target on your forehead, and handing my mother the rifle.”
I watch the way he absorbs that, the muscles in his jaw working; the way his eyes flick down to my hoodie, to the faint smears I didn’t bother to scrub before coming in. When his gaze drags back up, there’s no judgment in it— just a tired, aching kind of resignation that hurts worse.
“You killed someone tonight,” he says quietly, and it’s not a question.
“Two,” I say, matching his honesty. “Maybe four before my mother leaves on Friday, because that’s what she wants. That’s the price for her staying out of my personal shit.”
He closes his eyes, exhaling a shuddering breath. “And I’m the personal shit,” he says. “I’m the thing she can’t find out about.”
“You’re the only thing that matters,” I say. He blinks, startled, and I crowd his space close enough to make sure he hears me. “Do you get that? You’re not a distraction, or a toy I got bored with. You’re the only soft fucking thing I have left, and that makes you the easiest way to hurt me. So I tried to remove you from the equation; tried to make you hate me by shoving you back into whatever safe little life you had before I walked in.”
“Safe,” he echoes, bitter. “That’s what you call it.”
“Safer than this,” I say. “Safer than kneeling on my floor while I’m fresh from a kill.”
His gaze drops to my chest, then back up. His hands, still resting on his thighs, curl into fists. “You think I can go back? You really think I can just slide back into chapel, and study groups, and fake smiles, and pretend the last few months didn’t happen? You think that’s an option for me now?”
He laughs then, short and humorless. “You broke me open. You dragged every buried thing out of me and made me look at it. You made me say it. You made me kneel for you and beg for things I didn’t even have words for. You made me feel alive andfilthy and loved and doomed, and now you expect me to just… what? Patch it over with more Bible verses and somebody else’s hands? It’s not that easy for me either, Dominic.”
Hearing him say “loved” does something catastrophic inside my chest.
I lean in, pressing my forehead to his—careful not to bump the stitches at my temple. His breath fans over my mouth, and he smells like his usual coffee and paper, and the faint spice of his body wash. Underneath that, I smell the salt of his tears, and the stress in his sweat.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words strange and heavy on my tongue. “I’m so fucking sorry I made you feel disposable. That wasn’t the point. It was supposed to be me putting myself between you and her, not me cutting you and walking away.”
He swallows. “Then stop walking,” he says, voice so soft I almost miss it.
The simplicity of it hits me harder than any of Keller’s drills. Just stop walking; as if it’s that easy for someone like me—someone wired to move, to run, to chase, to flee, to keep one step ahead of damage. As if I can plant my feet here and really stay, without the whole world shifting under us.
“I don’t know how,” I admit, because if I’m going to be honest with him, it has to be all the way. “I’ve never… stayed. Not like this. Not with anyone who wasn’t using me or being used.”
He huffs out a shaky breath that might be a laugh. “Me neither. But I’m here anyway.”
I look at him,reallylook: at the way he’s kneeling for me, even now, at the way his hands tremble, but stay on his thighs, at the way his neck is bared, cross glinting, his cuff still there after everything I did. My Little Sin, still choosing me despite everything he knows, despite everything I’ve done tonight to prove I’m still the weapon she made.
I’m covered in ghosts and the smell of death, and he still came.
“Stand up,” I say quietly.
His brows knit. “What?”
I slide my hands down to his shoulders, grip firm but gentle, then I straighten, bringing him up with me. His knees wobble as he gains his feet, like they’ve gone numb from his time on the floor. I steady him without thinking, hands on his waist, holding him upright.
“I don’t want you kneeling right now,” I say. “Not like that. Not when you’re asking me if you mattered.”
