Page 71 of The Hitman

“Yes.”

I can see all the damage that word does to her; all the hurt and frustration she feels is written on her face. I can see it, but I can’t fix it. She shakes her head and turns toward the train. I can’t fix it, but I can give her a proper goodbye.

I grab her by the elbow and pull her toward me. I wrap my arm around her waist and dig my fingers into her soft, curly hair. She tips her head back and offers her mouth to me without hesitation, even now. I dip my head and kiss her the way I wanted to kiss her the first day I saw her by the pool and every day since. I part her lips with mine and slip my tongue into her mouth. Her tongue meets mine immediately. Our mouths move together perfectly, pressing and slicking and biting. She moans into my mouth, and I moan in return.

We don’t have time for this kiss to last as long as I would like it, because as long as I would like is forever. So I press my lips against hers and let our tongues tangle, hoping that she understands all the things I can’t say.

We kiss until the conductor yells that her train is set to depart.

I don’t linger when we pull away from one another. I can’t. If I do, I might never let her leave. I rush her to the closest car and usher her inside.

And instead of going to her seat, she stands at the door until it slides closed, looking at me with wet, sad eyes. I stay with her until the train begins to move away.

I’m not a man who has regrets, plural, just the one.

22Giulio

Alfonsoand I are a well-oiled machine.

We’ve buried the bodies, disposed of the vehicles, and caught a flight back to Naples by nightfall. I shouldn’t, but I track the passage of time by the distance between Zahra and me. By the time we land in Naples, I’ve Googled the exact number of miles between San Marco and Naples and New York. Now I know. I wish I didn’t.

I want to go back to my apartment, shower, and then crawl into bed for the next five days, maybe two weeks, but my schedule isn’t my own. We go straight from the airport to Salvo’s restaurant. Usually, we use the back door, but since technically we haven’t done anything wrong — we’ve just been on holiday — we walk through the front door like regular people. Besides, the police know that Alfonso and I are Salvo’s associates. What they think our association means, I don’t know. All I know is that they can’t prove it in court.

“Benvenuto a casa,” Salvo says warmly as we walk into the restaurant.

He turns to the waitress — she’s new, I can’t remember her name — and sends her off into the kitchen. I’m not hungry, but sometimes Salvo is like my nona, obsessed with feeding everyone in the room. He ushers us to a small booth at the back of the restaurant. Salvo has the restaurant swept for bugs daily, sometimes multiple times a day, and every time we meet in the main dining room, he moves us around. We never sit in the same place to talk business two times in a row. And we never talk business outright.

“How were your holidays?” he asks casually.

“Hot. Boring,” Alfonso says. “Loud.”

Salvo shrugs. “I’ve always hated the sea.” He turns to me. “And yours?”

Alfonso snickers, and Salvo’s eyes shift from me to Alfonso and back. His eyebrows lift with interest.

“Tiring. I’m exhausted.”

Alfonso bursts into laughter.

Salvo leans back in his chair and crosses his legs. “There’s a story here.”

“Si. Una storia d’amore,” Alfonso says, giggling like a child.

I roll my eyes.

“I love love stories,” Salvo says. I want to roll my eyes again, but he says those words so earnestly that I believe him.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’ve never said anything like that to Salvo before. He’s my boss, and technically, I can’t keep secrets from him. I’ve never needed to keep a secret from him before now, but I don’t want to share even the memory of Zahra.

“Did it get in the way?” he asks me.

It takes me a few seconds to crawl out of the sadness and grief I’m trying to ignore before I can realize what he’s asking. “No.”

The thing I think but refuse to admit to myself is that I think it would be impossible for Zahra to get in the way. I think it’s possible that she and I could have made something work. If I were a romantic, or at least just slightly less damaged, I imagine that I might have been able to turn this realization into a last-minute flight to Milan and make promises to her that I shouldn’t. But I’m not, and thankfully, Salvo doesn’t push me.

“What did we find out about my wife’s family?” he asks.

I’m happy to be on more solid ground. I take the lead in telling him what we’ve learned. “I ran into some Neccis while I was away. It was surprising because I was certain that that branch of Flavia’s family didn’t go any farther north than Rome.”

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