Page 27 of Untouchable

“I need a room. One room, two beds.”

He nods as he looks at the computer. “Name?”

“No name.”

The guy looks at me with furrowed brows. “I gotta put something in man.”

“Fine, put whatever you want.”

“Well, I need ID too in case you try to bail and leave damages behind. Had that happen more times than I can count.”

I slide $500 cash across the counter, more than likely over 4x what a shit hole like this charges for a night.

The guy looks conflicted for a moment before tapping away on the keyboard and pulling out a key card, sliding it over to me.

“Check out is at 11.”

I nod as I take the key. “One more thing. I need some stuff. Think you could run to the store and get them for me?”

The guy scoffs. “Dude. I am not a delivery boy.”

I reach into my pocket and hold up another $300 in my fingers. His eyes flick from me to the money a few times before he nods.

“Yeah, alright. What do you need?”

I make a quick list of some essential things we will need for the night and at least tomorrow before sliding it over to him. He nods as he pockets the list.

“I will bring it all up to your room, Mr. Smith.”

I laugh at the unoriginal surname he chose as I walk out the lobby and back to the car. Seraphina is whipping her head around wildly, eyes wide, no doubt wondering where I am and where we are. I walk over to her side and open the door.

“Come on, I got us a room.”

She looks at me for a second before nodding, not saying a word as she gets out and follows me. As we make our way up the stairs to our room, I do my best to shake the horrified look of her face out of my head, but it is like it is fucking burned into my memory. She looked at me like I was a fucking monster, which isn’t too far off I will admit, but still. I didn’t like it, not one fucking bit. And that pisses me off that after how hard I have tried, after all of these years, she still gets to me.

When I open the door to our room, I am instantly greeted with stale air and a musty smell that only comes from cheap cleaners and 40-year-old furniture. The carpet is stained, the walls have a yellow tint from past cigarette smoke and the furniture is faded and cracked. It is the last place someone would think a Mafia Princess would spend the night, which is why it is the safest.

I look back to see Seraphina’s nose wrinkled in disapproval as her eyes roam over the room. I take the moment to look at her, really look at her. It is something that I haven’t done in what feels like forever, I haven’t let myself. She is still so fucking beautiful, more so, probably. Though I wish she gained a little weight so her features weren’t so sharp. There isn’t a man alive that wouldn’t kill to be in the same room as this woman, yet here I am, desperate for all of this to be over so I can get as far away from her as possible.

When her sharp blue eyes meet mine, instead of seeing admiration or happiness like I was so accustomed to seeing for most of my life, I see disappointment and what looks like pain. I grimace and look to the side as I pull out my gun to check for how many more bullets I have. I swiped the dipshit who was hiding out in the planes gun too which was almost fully loaded so it makes up for the fact that my own only has 2 rounds left.

I can feel her heavy gaze sinking into my skin as I evaluate our situation, doing my best not to get lost in her gem-colored eyes. The feeling of her disappointment almost makes it hard to breathe, and I find myself speaking before I can even help myself.

“I never wanted you to see this side of me. I always tried to keep it hidden”

She is quiet for a few moments, maybe thinking over my words, before she responds.

“What side?”

I keep my eyes on the yellow wall next to me as I speak.

“The violent side. The side that can kill a man and not lose a wink of sleep. The side that would prefer beating the shit out of people than clocking a typical 9 to 5.”

“Why?”

I look down to her quickly, holding her stare steadily as I tell her the most honest thing that I have in over 2 years.

“Because you deserve better. Always have.”

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