Page 23 of The Hitman's Secret Love Child

“Look.” He touched my arm and gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know this is a leap of faith, but if you don’t take it then you’ll be dead before your little deal with the feds goes through.”

“Wha–”

Placing his index finger on my lips he shook his head, stopping my denial. “I saw you with them. I know. So no sense in denying it. Let’s get out of here while I have a chance to do it as quietly as possible.”

“What do you mean by quietly?”

Constantine looked at me with a look so cold and detached that it sent a shiver down my spine. I didn’t know the man who was looking down on me right now. “So I can keep the killing to a minimum to get you out of this mess.”

“Killing…” I choked on the word. If it wasn’t completely real before, it certainly was now. The only consolation I had was that the hired killer was now on my side.

~*~TT~*~

“Is the blindfold truly necessary?” I didn’t like this. Not at all. Once I was seated in the front passenger seat of the BMW and Austin in the back, Constantine insisted on blindfolding us. Apparently it was his way or we were on our own.

“Yes, it’s for your own safely.”

“Bullshit.”

“Mom, language.”

Constantine chuckled.

I rolled my eyes from behind the blindfold. Austin was on an anti-bad language kick lately. Which was great, normally. But sometimes you just needed to spew out a string of curses without being chastised by a five-year-old.

Damn, I was cranky. I felt the need to apologize despite not saying a word to Austin in response.

“How much longer?”

“You need to take a lesson from our kid on patience.”

My heart stopped, I swear it did for a brief second as my breath hitched in my throat, waiting to see if Austin caught on to what he’d just said. Austin was extremely astute, making it difficult to get anything past him.

But no questions came from the back seat so my heart began to softly thump in my chest once more as I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d have to tell Austin and soon – Constantine would insist on it. He hadn’t yet, but he would even if his initial thought was to keep silent. Eventually living with Austin would make him demand to take over his right as his father.

“Besides, we’re almost there.”

“You said that at least twenty minutes ago.”

“Is your mom always this whiny, Austin?”

There was a moment’s hesitation before the reply came, “Sometimes.”

A roar of laughter echoed throughout the car before Constantine replied, “She could be sometimes when we were together.”

“Together?” Austin asked, with curiosity in his tone.

I looked over in the direction of Constantine even though all I could see was darkness. “We knew each other a long time ago,” I offered.

“I think you could call it more than just knew each other.”

“This isn’t really the time nor place, Constantine.” I ensured there was a hint of warning in my tone.

“You have my apologies.” Even though I couldn’t see his face I knew he was smiling. The bugger wasn’t sorry at all.

A curse was on the tip of my tongue, but for Austin’s sake I bit it back. There was a special type of embarrassment that went along with being chastised by a child barely older than a toddler.

Seconds passed, minutes, it was hard to say. One thing I did know was that I felt ridiculous. What would it hurt letting me see where we were going?

---