Page 125 of Lady and the Hitman
Then I slid the drive into my bag.
“I’ll watch it,” I said.
He nodded.
I stood.
He followed.
No one in the bar said anything. But I knew we’d been seen. Catalogued. Noted.
Outside, the sun was setting. The light hit his face just right, catching the edge of an old scar I’d never noticed before—just beneath his ear, nearly hidden by the curve of his jaw.
“How’d you get that?” I asked.
He glanced over. “Which one?”
“That one.”
He paused. “I took a job in Ukraine. Long time ago.”
I swallowed. “Was it dangerous?”
“They all are.”
“But you keep doing them.”
He nodded. “Until there’s a reason not to.”
The implication hit me square in the chest.
I was that reason.
Or I could be.
If I was willing to let him in.
I let the silence settle for a moment, then asked, “What would you do if you stopped?”
He tilted his head slightly, studying me. “Stopped killing people?”
I gave him a look. “Yeah. That part.”
He smirked, but his tone was thoughtful. “I always wanted to try sculpting. Not just hobby-level. Real work. Stone. Metal. Let my hands make something that lasts.”
“Huh.”
“I want to push it. Weld. Cast. Carve.” His fingers skimmed my wrist, his thumb brushing the inside like he was tracing blueprints only he could see. “There’s something honest about it. Something permanent.”
I smiled. “So, you’re telling me we’d trade body armor for bronze and call it even?”
He laughed softly. “Something like that.”
But he wasn’t joking—not entirely.
We walked toward his car. I didn’t ask where we were going next.
But I did ask something else.
