Chapter Seven
Evelina Bianchi
The silence between us was slightly uncomfortable as we found another place to stay—another of the seemingly endless safe houses he had under his belt. He seemed to hum with energy after questioning the two men and showing me the side of him that I knew he wanted to keep concealed.
Did he think I would turn him away after seeing what he was capable of?
He pulled into a small subdivision of townhouses and parked the car before looking over at me and releasing a long, suffering sigh.
“What?” I asked.
He only shook his head as he stepped out of the car, walked around it, and opened my door. I followed him into the townhouse, and the moment the door closed, he paused.
“Why?”
“Why what?” He looked me up and down with a look that relayed his question wordlessly. Why did I run ? “I—I thought it would be okay. I thought I’d be able to make it to the airport and get out of here without anyone finding me.”
“It was a stupid risk to take.”
It had been, I realized. I should have put together all the pieces and realized that more risk was involved than I had expected. I should have assumed that someone was watching Maggie, especially when she admitted that she had been followed. In public, Maggie was my only connection, and it wouldn’t have been hard to connect her to me.
Beatrice, though, had been born in a small clinic in the city under a false name.
She had never had any legal documentation that connected us—only documentation that connected her to my alias.
It gave me at least a bit of comfort, but I knew I needed to figure out what to do about this as quickly as possible.
“It was stupid of you.”
He sounded so defeated but not unhinged like he had been when questioning and murdering those men. It felt surreal to see two different sides of him. I couldn’t understand how the two parts pieced together.
“I know.”
He walked out of the room, and my shoulders hunched as I expected him to close the door and lock me out. He always locked me out. I supposed it was because I meant nothing to him. I was a job for him. I was nothing more, and I couldn’t expect that to change when he made his detachment clear enough.
He peeked his head out through a door across the small townhouse. “Come here,” he insisted, crooking a finger toward me. He disappeared back into the room before I could say anything in response, so I did as he asked. I moved forward and bit my lip before I peeked into a large bathroom.
A first aid box sat open on the sink as he sifted through it and pulled out a few things.
“What are you doing?”
“Sit down. Let me clean up your hand.”
I raised my hand between us. “It’s fine. Just a little skinned.”
He left no room for negotiation as he gestured to a small stool. I sighed and sat, watching as he unwrapped a bandage and then opened the cap to a spray. I had so many things I wanted to say, but as the silence continued and he worked on my hand, his fingers deft and nimble across my skin, it became more difficult to fill the silence with noise.
Finally, I forced out something. “You were different.”
His cool blue eyes met mine, and he nodded once before continuing.
“Why are you like that?”
“It’s what people expect.”
“But why do people expect you to act that way? You didn’t seem angry. You seemed completely unhinged. It was… unsettling.”
“It’s the mask I have to wear while I’m… working. It’s the reason so many people come to me for jobs. “They know about my…” He paused as if considering his words carefully. “…past. I don’t let emotions interfere, but today… today was different. Evelina, I wanted to kill them on the spot for touching you. My job is to make sure nobody touches you, and when they did…”
He shook his head.
It was his job. Always just his job.
“I don’t want to be someone’s job. Especially when you refuse to open up about anything. I don’t know who I’m with, and I don’t understand any of your motivations for the things you do or the person you are. You say that you’re not interested in art, yet you bought all of my work. You claim you’re not interested in me, but you have flirted with me so many times that—”
“I never claimed I wasn’t interested in you.”
I paused, staring at him as he focused on my hand and dabbed antibiotic ointment on it. It was a fair assumption after everything he had said and the clear disconnect between us. The forced disconnect.
“Could you elaborate?” I asked.
“I don’t lack interest in you, Evelina. I don’t have sex with women I’m uninterested in. I told you I’m not interested in a relationship or commitment. I didn’t lie to you.”
“I don’t understand why ,” I nearly shouted, pulling my hand from his grasp. “You won’t tell me anything. You won’t explain the reason for any of your actions. There has to be a reason because I don’t believe for a damn second that you are as ruthless and unhinged as you acted with those guys.”
I stood to walk out of the room. I was done with his antics and lack of regard for anything other than his damn job. I had been drawn to him because of how complex he had seemed. I could see all the layers of him, some hidden beneath the surface so deep that I knew I would never unravel him wholly.
But I couldn’t understand.
It drove me to madness, not having a reason for his behavior.
As I took one step into the hallway, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me backward so swiftly that I nearly lost my balance. But he was there. He seemed to always be there. He pulled me into his chest, and the cool wall pressed into my back as I tilted my chin up and met his flaming eyes. So many things were indecipherable there, and I couldn’t unravel a single one of them.
“I was under a contract to kill you, Evelina,” he shouted down at me. I flinched at his words. “One of your father's enemies lost his children because of your father, and he contracted me to kill you and your sisters. I planned to break into your house and do the hit, even though I didn’t feel good about it. You are a mob boss’s daughter, so how innocent could you really be? I was going to do it and get the paycheck, and I didn’t feel bad about it. But when I saw you sneaking out of your window, I followed you. All the way to the art gallery.”
I gaped up at where his eyes darted back and forth wildly.
“When I told you that I have never failed a job, it was a lie. There was one that I failed, and it was this one. I failed to take you and your sisters out because when I watched you go into the gallery and check each of your paintings, I saw you. I saw an innocent woman with a passion for art, and then I looked at the paintings, and it only confirmed what I was beginning to understand. I looked at them, and I saw myself in them too. In the colors and in the way you told a story of sadness and entrapment. I have always hated art and the people who read too deep into shit, but when I looked at them, I saw myself, and I saw you.
“I went inside to look closer, and when they were auctioned, I bought them all because I couldn’t imagine someone else getting that much of a look into your life and your emotional state. I didn’t know you, but I felt like I did, and I didn’t want anyone else to see it. I wanted it all to myself.
“I felt like I needed to go through with the arrangement because I had never failed a job up until that point, but I needed time to get myself under control first. To justify it. I needed to get out of my damned emotions, so I scheduled a delivery. I picked a house that I would be able to easily clean once I did the job. There were no connections to me, and I knew it would work. I waited for you there, but the moment you walked up to the front door, wheeling in your paintings, I knew I couldn’t do it.
“But I saw the way you looked at me and bit your lip when I looked at you. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of your paint-stained hands and this little mole on your chin. Everything about you was mesmerizing, and I knew the only way I would get you out of my system was by letting us come together. So, I flirted. And I seduced. And you were just as interested as I was. And then… I let you go. I wouldn’t let my life and my job interfere in your life.”
I didn’t realize I breathed heavily, chest rising and falling quickly until he stopped talking and took in my expression. What did he expect me to say? Did he think I would cower in fear because he was meant to kill me and my family?
I wouldn’t.
I raised my hand and stroked a finger down his cheek, feeling the set of his jaw. “You’re not evil, Zeke.”
He blinked in surprise. “I took a job where I was meant to kill four innocent women for someone else’s vendetta.”
“And you didn’t follow through.”
“I would have.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” I replied, shaking my head. “There’s something inside that stops you from being truly evil. I have known a lot of people who have done a lot of bad things. And there’s something that sets you apart from all of them. There’s a line that you won’t cross.”
His eyes flashed as if what I said struck home.
As if there was something true and significant about my words.
I stared at his lips, full and partially open. The quiet that came from his lack of response allowed me to fixate on every part of my body that touched him. His hand on one of my wrists, pinning it to the wall at my side. His other hand rested on the wall beside my head.
And his entire front pressed into mine, pinning me to the wall.
I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and wound my fingers in his hair.
“I see you, Zeke.”
The words seemed to unravel some semblance of control he had been maintaining. His lips collided with mine like there was no control left in his body—like I was the only thing he could think about, and kissing me was the only way to appease those thoughts long enough to think clearly.
I understood the sentiment as the hooped lip ring scraped along my bottom lip, and we both groaned as the sensation engulfed us.
My core throbbed as his hand tightened on my wrist, the other coming behind my head and tugging my hair as he pulled me even closer. I arched into his touch, my hand winding into his shirt front between our bodies. His soft, warm tongue swept into my mouth, and I dug my fingers into his shirt and skin.
More. I wanted so much more than this.
I wound a leg around his hip, and he pushed me hard into the wall as I jumped and ground into him. Proof of his arousal stood stark between us. It pressed into me through my pants, and I moaned into his mouth at the reminder of what I could have again.
Logic and reason had nothing to do with this.
I listened only to the lust that had been growing in his presence over the past week. What else mattered, anyway?
“Jesus, Princess,” he groaned against my lips, dragging my wrist up the wall and pinning it beside my head. “Do you even know what you do to me?”
I shook my head, grinding my hips into him. The pressure of him between my legs pressed so hard into me that I cried out and pulled him closer. Could he even get closer? Probably not, but it didn’t matter. I tried anyway.
“Zeke,” I cried against his mouth.
He went still at my voice.
His tongue stopped the gentle caress of mine, and his hand immediately released my wrist as he met my eyes.
Panic sat in the blue of his irises, and he shook his head as he stepped back, taking only a moment to ensure I found proper footing.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “Everyone close to me ends up dead. It’s my job to keep you safe, and I won’t let the opposite happen.”
Just like that, despite everything he had said and admitted, he turned his back and walked away.