Page 145 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
There is, of course, a soft silence in the aftermath, with his cock still inside me as I lie in the bed, his arms wrapped around my waist and chest. "I'm leaving tomorrow," he says eventually.
It's expected, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. "Okay."
"Aria—"
I simply shake my head. "No, I'm okay. Don't worry about it."
"I promise." His voice drops to a whisper now, and he kisses my shoulder. "That once this job ends, you and I and Gabriel—it will be different."
Unsure of what he is alluding to, and heart full of fear as to how this job will end, I press my body back against him, moving in silence until he is hard once more.
Then, I turn, and we fuck once more, then again, until the hazy drive of a sex-filled sleep takes us both under.
27
ENZO
Early next morning, I shut the bedroom door behind me with a quiet finality, and I leave without turning back.
Aria is still asleep, tangled in sheets that hold the warmth of everything we did not say. I do not kiss her forehead or trace her collarbone with my fingertips. I do not whisper a promise into her skin. I have no right to make one. Not until this is finished.
Shadows remain wrapped around the estate when I pass through the gates, the last remnants of moonlight caught in the wrought iron. A car waits at the bottom of the drive, engine idling, headlights dimmed.
The driver says nothing. He knows better. We do not speak during the ride. The world outside the window is quiet, a still-life of olive groves and early mist, the kind of silence that feels like a held breath before a storm. My phone stays in my pocket.
Luca has given me the location, the contact, the target.
Everything else is instinct.
Notes of caffeine and perfume linger all over the airport. It's too bright in some places, too dim in others. Security waves me through a side gate, no pat-down, no passport.
The Salvatore seal does not ask. It commands.
A woman in a dark skirt hands me a boarding slip with no name on it. She looks at me once, her eyes sharp behind lashes that are too long, and then she disappears into the crowd like she was never there.
The jet waits at the end of the private tarmac, a sleek black thing with windows like closed eyes. The pilot nods when he sees me, as if I've come back from the dead instead of heading toward another death.
I sink into the expensive stillness that only money knows how to buy, buckling myself into the leather seat. I carry nothing that matters.
This mission mandates light travel, so I have brought with me only one change of clothes. Two weapons. And a picture of my wife and son to remind me of what lies at the end of this.
We lift off smoothly, but halfway through the flight, turbulence catches us, not harsh enough to knock my drink over, but potent enough that the seatbelt signs flash back on.
I don't mind it.
The sky was never meant to be gentle.
I rest my head back and close my eyes, letting the shuddering motion lull me into that strange space between sleep and readiness, where the body rests and the mind sharpens.
Corsica appears beneath us like an old photograph, sun-washed and jagged. From the sky, the island is a fist of stone rising from blue. Rocky cliffs dive into waves that do not break so much as hiss. The pilot loops once before descending, and I catch a glimpse of the coastline—terracotta roofs, narrow roads carved into hillsides, vineyards etched into the land like scripture. It is beautiful. Wild. The kind of place where history never dies, it just burrows deeper into the stone.
We land on a private airstrip ten kilometers from Bastia, near the eastern shoreline. The car is waiting, matte black and low tothe ground. No insignia, but I recognize the driver by the tattoo on his hand, a faint trace of the Salvatore cross inked into his knuckles. He does not open the door for me. He knows I don't need him to.
The drive winds through the countryside. Cypress trees lean against the hills like sentinels. Towns blur past, quiet and sleepy, all shuttered cafés and worn statues of men who once thought they ruled the world.
Corsica wears its silence differently than Italy.
Less like a secret, more like a dare. The driver says nothing, only glances at me once through the rearview mirror, his expression unreadable.
