Page 54 of The Hitman

“You don’t have to lie,” I tell her.

When she turns to me, her face is as bright as her voice. “I’m not lying. My cousin took a trip to Rome and said her day trip to Naples was her favorite part.”

“Your cousin should travel more,” I say flatly.

“I'll make sure to tell her that,” she says. “We can go to Naples.”

I shake my head. “Whoever was looking for me in San Marco will definitely be looking for me there.” I know it’s the right thing to say, and staying put is the right thing to do, but I can’t help but conjure an image of Zahra naked in my bed, her curly hair fanning out on my best sheets, and my entire apartment smelling like her perfume and cunt. “We can’t,” I say, more to convince myself than to reiterate the point.

“You said you were your father’s son,” she says gently.

I flinch at the words. “I am.”

“Are you sure?”

“Unfortunately.”

“How do you know?”

I shake my head. “Come. I’ll make you dinner.” I want to change the subject. I want her to keep looking at me like she had this morning in the piazza, with her eyes shuttered in lust, her mouth parted because of mine, and her legs locked around me to keep me as close as possible.

Her small hand covers my forearm and squeezes. “You said you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“I don’t lie.”

“But you do know how to evade the truth.”

I turn to her and flinch again, but this time at the earnestness in her eyes. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe judgment, but that’s not what I see there. All I see is warmth and empathy. I hate it because I don’t deserve it.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I deserve good things.”

“Define good things,” she says.

The comment shocks me, and I huff a pained laugh, which makes her smile. “I’m not a good man,” I remind her.

“Yes, I haven’t forgotten that. Believe me. But even bad men deserve to be understood. At least that’s what every Hollywood movie for the past thirty years has told me.” She smiles tentatively as she speaks, and I can’t help but laugh again. “Tell me what you meant. Tell me how you’re like your father. I know I don’t have the right to ask. And of all the things you haven’t told me, this seems like the strangest to want to know. It’s just that I spent nearly a decade with a man who described himself as his father’s son in every interview he ever gave, even though his father is a good, hardworking, faithful man. So what I’m asking, Giulio, is for you to tell me exactly how you’re like your father, because sometimes the stories we tell ourselves aren’t true.”

She sounds naïve but also worldly. I can’t fathom how she can manage the two together; how she doesn’t have an ounce of bitterness in her voice after what she’s been through. And above all, I can’t imagine why she’s wasting her time trying to understand a monster like me. But in the end, it’s the way she says my name that makes me tell her. It’s the way her voice dips to a whisper, almost as if my name could ever be precious, that makes me tell her an abbreviated version of my childhood.

We’re sitting in the car in silence again. It’s heavier than before, because everything I’ve told Zahra is heavy, even though I do my best to skip over the worst parts. She keeps her hand wrapped around my forearm as I speak, squeezing here and there, when my voice gets rough. Her other hand sometimes brushes along my jaw comfortingly. It’s hard to crave her and want to push her away at the same time, but I manage those conflicting emotions quite well.

She clears her throat gently before speaking. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I still don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“How you’re like your father.”

“I’ve just told you.”

“So, you have a history of domestic violence?”

I flinch. “Of course not.”

“Have you isolated a former girlfriend in the countryside, without a car, or money for them to live their lives?”

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