Page 74 of The Hitman

Okay, I’m really worried now. Are you alive? You need to check in. WTF Zahra. This isn’t like you.

The messages go on like that for days. She even has the nerve to threaten me a bit. But the new message is so different in tone that it shocks me.

I saw on the celebrity rags that Ryan is in Italy. Are you okay? I know you always hated that I didn’t like him, and I still don’t, but if you get back with him, I promise to try and make it work. Please, just text me back.

There are tears in my eyes. I’m about to cry again, but not because of Ryan or even Giulio. Knowing that Zoe, who’s hated Ryan fiercely, would be willing to put all of that aside just to be in my life makes the guilt bubble over from terrible to unbearable. I can’t believe that I was about to marry someone who would come between us. And I can’t believe that that man has the fucking audacity to be standing in front of me trying to blackmail me into getting back together with him after cheating on me for so long.

I don’t cry, but I do laugh again. Who knew the shambles of my life were so fucking funny?

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say. When I look up at Ryan, he has a smug shit-eating grin on his face that I recognize for its honesty, if nothing else. “You’re not going to file a police report about your stolen credit cards.”

I see him relax again.

“But I’m not getting back together with you.”

“That’s not the deal I gave you.”

“Yeah, you’re not a great dealmaker, that’s why you have an agent and a team of lawyers. You should have come here with one of them. Hell, you should have come here with anyone, someone smarter than you. But you didn’t, and that was your big mistake. Remember that I always told you that you should never negotiate on your own. I meant it.

So, here’s my counteroffer. You’re not going to go to the police to report your stolen credit cards. You’re going to chalk up this honeymoon I went on without you, and all of the expenses incurred, as a kind of one-time alimony payment. It will cost you much less than marrying me only to have me divorce you and take half of everything. Maybe even more than half.

In return, I’m not going to sell my story about how Ryan Fuller, up-and-coming action movie heartthrob, fucked around on me with my best friend and a stripper who’s more famous than him. I’m not going to get onGood Morning Americaand cry my eyes out perfectly and prettily on live television, so all of your fans realize just how much of a douchebag you are.

I’m also not going to get a literary agent to shop a memoir about my life with you or actively seek a movie deal for it. I’m not going to negotiate that my contract include a clause that the film be released within weeks of your latest big budget action movie.

I’m not going to then create an entire brand as the scorned woman rising triumphantly from the clutches of a terrible man and mediocre actor. And most importantly, I’m not going to tell TMZ about all of the plastic surgery you’ve had done. I think eating a few thousand dollars for my solo honeymoon is the deal of the century. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I feel so light I’m floating.

Ryan is sweating and falls into the closest chair.

I don’t tell him that I sat in that chair and watched another man masturbate for me. That would be cruel.

I don’t know what Ryan’s thinking, and to be honest, I don’t care.

I turn back to the bedroom and snatch the hotel phone receiver from the base with a little too much force. The same clerk answers. “This is Zahra Port calling again about that car.”

“Yes, madam, I’ll call a car right away. Would you like someone to help you down with your bags?”

“Yes. Please.”

Ryan sits slumped in the middle of the sitting room as I prepare to leave.

There’s not much left to do besides grab his credit cards from the hotel safe and throw them on the coffee table in front of him.

I wait for the porter at the window, looking down on the grounds below.

I think about Giulio and his tiny swimwear and feel a tiny tug in my chest, but I ignore that. Or, at least I try to.

I fail.

* * *

I mean to catch my flight back to New York. I do. But when I look at the screen of departing flights, my eyes keep straying up to Naples. So many flights to Naples.

I should go home, call my sister, move out of Ryan’s apartment, and start over. I should find a man whodoesn’thave a gun strapped to his body all the time. But I was also supposed to marry Ryan and grow old with Trisha, but that didn’t work out, and those plans were years in the making. Giulio only bought this plane ticket this morning. Plans change.

I rush to the closest ticket counter. I keep one eye on the departures board while I wait. When I make it to the counter, I tell the agent the flight I want to board, and she frowns at me.

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