Page 66 of Lady and the Hitman
“I know.”
“Then why are you scared?”
I paused. Because I was. And not just of him. Of what he made me feel. Of the way he peeled back every layer I’d built to survive in a world that didn’t know what to do with women like me—sharp and soft, needy and defiant.
“I don’t want to explain you,” I whispered.
“You don’t have to.”
He said it so simply. So surely. Like it could be that easy.
But nothing about this was easy.
“You’re not exactly … mainstream,” I said, trying to keep it light. “You don’t blend.”
He smirked. “I’m not trying to.”
“But in Charleston,” I pressed, “where everyone’s polite to your face and then reports you to the HOA behind your back? Where brunch is a blood sport and bumper stickers are political warfare?”
He raised a brow. “What kind of bumper stickers are we talking?”
I gave him a look. “You know.”
He leaned back. “Ah. The coexist crowd.”
“And I suppose you’re the tactical vest and Punisher skull type?”
He didn’t laugh. Didn’t deny it. Just tilted his head and studied me.
“I’ve told you, I’ve read your work, Zara.”
That caught me off guard.
“I know who you are. I know the platforms you write for, the pieces that went viral, the panels you’ve spoken on. Feminist, progressive, sharp as hell. You believe in the system, even when you say you don’t. You want to fix it.”
I blinked.
“You think I came in blind?” he added, voice lower now. “I’ve read your column on institutional corruption. Your takedown of the Florida governor. The one where you called out billionaire tech donors and their ‘libertarian cosplay’—that one was cute.”
My lips parted, speechless.
“I think the world’s a lot uglier than you want to believe,” he said evenly. “And sometimes uglier things are required to keep the worst of it at bay.”
I swallowed. “That’s a very … diplomatic way to say you believe in necessary violence.”
“I believe in balance,” he said. “And in consequences.”
“For who?”
“For people who don’t care about consequences until they’re choking on them.”
There it was.
That flash of something dark and resolute beneath the surface. A conviction forged in fire. He didn’t wear it like a badge. He didn’t posture or puff his chest. But it was there. In the way he cut his steak. In the way his jaw flexed when he talked about people getting away with things they shouldn’t.
I wondered what he’d done. What he’d seen. What kind of justice he believed in.
And whether he’d delivered it with his own two hands.
