The Hitman's Secret Love Child: Second Chance Romance

by Terry Towers

  The knocking persisted, loud, hard knocks. Knocks that no doubt were being made by a man’s fist. Despite my anxiety over who might be on the other side of the door, I rushed the last several feet, scared the banging might wake Austin.

  Peering out of the peephole I gasped when I caught a glimpse of the man on the other side of the door. It was Constantine. Quickly, I backed away from the peephole. Like it would matter. Rationally, I knew he couldn’t see me. But still…

  What in the hell was he doing here?

  I crinkled up my nose as I inched my way back to the door and continued to peer at him through the peephole. How in the hell did he know where to find me?

  “This is important, Robyn. Let me in. We need to talk.” The pounding on the door persisted.

  Talk? What could we need to talk about? I gasped. What if he knew about Austin? Who could have possibly told him? I looked over my shoulder in the direction of Austin’s bedroom.

  “Robyn, open up.”

  His voice brought my attention back to the door. Austin was a sound sleeper, who rarely if ever woke in the middle of the night. As long as we were quiet Constantine wouldn’t even need to know about Austin. I’d let him in, hear him out and send him on his way. Chances were he just wanted to reminisce. Besides, if he was anything like he’d been when we were younger he wasn’t about to give up until I opened the door and gave him what he wanted.

  I was surprised to see my hands trembling as I undid the chain and deadbolt, unlocking the door. Grabbing the door handle, I took a deep breath in and slowly released it. The plan had been to never see Constantine again, but I should have known one day this moment would arrive. God, a confrontation with Constantine was the last thing I needed in my life right now.

  Opening the door, I forced a smile onto my face as I stared up at him. “Constantine. What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” he stated matter-of-factly as he brushed past me and into my apartment uninvited.

  “Whoa, excuse me, but I don’t recall inviting you in,” I said, planting a hand on my hip and glaring at him, leaving the door wide open for him to walk his ass back out into the hallway. How dare he! We had something back when we were teenagers, but that was over now!

  “I invited myself,” he stated over his shoulder as he entered the living room, taking a seat on the far end of the sofa. “Sit down. We need to talk.”

  I hesitated at the door, not sure what to do. Should I demand he leave or find out what was so important that he felt the need to track me down and barge into my home? Gazing into his eyes, I saw a look of urgency. This wasn’t a pop-in hello, it seemed like he had something he really wanted to say. Whatever brought him here was important.

  “Okay.” Not ready to close the door yet, I decided to ask my questions from the open doorway. “How did you find out where I live?” I let out a little nervous laugh. “Did you follow me home or something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  My brow creased as I stared at him. “What do you mean by not exactly?”

  “I was given your address a few days ago.”

  I searched my brain, attempting to figure out who might have given him my address. There were very few people who knew where I lived, none of whom Constantine would know; I’d completely broken ties with everyone from our past a long time ago. The only people would be my parents, but they sold their home and moved to California several years ago. Not that I’d had much communication with my parents anyhow, I hadn’t for many years – Constantine wasn’t the only one I lost when I left New York, with a baby beginning to grow in my belly.

  “By your husband.”

  My heart sank into my stomach and I suddenly felt ill. “Ohmygod!”

  Chapter 4

  Constantine

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have stormed into her home like I had, but had I stood there playing twenty questions with her, we’d be here all night and time was of the essence. I had five days left to complete the objective. For all I knew, Gabriel had hired a second hitman. Not exactly likely or probable, but possible.

  I wasn’t willing to take that risk.

  That being said, perhaps over the years she’d become as crooked as he was and she was getting what was coming to her. I’d make that decision after having a talk with her. Hopefully I could still read her as well as I could back when we were teenagers.

  You didn’t see her taking off on you coming, a voice in the back of my head chimed in. My jaw clenched as I thought about it. No goodbye, no nothing, she just took off. I’d spent months, nay years, wondering what happened and why she’d done what she had. I had thought we were in love…

  “My husband… Ummm.” She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, still standing by the open doorway. She let out a loud puff of air and bowed her head. “Yeah.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “This doesn’t make sense.” Raking a hand through her hair, she closed the door, walked across the room and stood at the end of the sofa. “We haven’t seen each other for six years; how do you know about that?”

  “Sit down, Robyn. Like I said, we need to talk.”

  She planted a hand on her hip and glared at me. “Running into me this afternoon wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  I sighed, grasping the back of my neck and giving it a squeeze. The muscles were insanely tight; I needed a deep-tissue massage. “No, it wasn’t.” I motioned to the sofa. “Sit down.” She was making me nervous standing over me like she was.

  “Have you been stalking me?” She refused to sit.

  I shot up off of the sofa so quickly she yelped and took a step back. Grabbing her by the upper arms, I spun her around and forced her to sit down on the sofa. “Sit and I’ll explain. Even after all these years, you know, you still have an issue with doing as told.”

  “How dare you come into my home –”

  Leaning down, I placed my hand over her mouth. “Just shut it for a minute. I didn’t come here for my health. I want to see you just about as much as I’m sure you want to see me.” God, this woman! Why did everything have to be so damned hard with her? I’d spent so much time over the past years obsessing over all her good qualities, I’d forgotten the few traits that used to annoy the living bejesus out of me.

  Her brow furrowed, the wind seemingly deflated from her sails.

  “Nod your head if you understand me.”

  She hesitated a moment, anger flaring up into those bright green eyes of hers, and then nodded. Robyn was a natural redhead and she had the stereotypical temper of one.

  “Good, now we’re getting somewhere.” Giving her a nod, I sat back down on the other end of the sofa. “So, I’ve got some questions for you and I’m sure that you have just as many if not more for me.”

  She didn’t answer. I took her non-verbal response as agreeance. “Okay. Good.” I ran my hand through my hair and took a minute to gather my thoughts. On my way here I had a whole speech prepared along with a list of questions. Everything I’d formulated in my mind dissipated as I looked at her. All anger had disappeared from her expression and now all I saw was fear as the color drained from her complexion.

  She gave me a moment before speaking. “What’s going on here, Constantine? You’re working for Gabriel, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Her voice cracked as she spoke and her body began to tremble. “Why are you working for him?”

  She looked so small and fragile. All I wanted to do was pull her into my arms, stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be okay, like I had done so many times in the past. But I had no idea if it was going to be okay. I needed to know what she knew and what she was planning on telling the FBI. She may have told them already – though I didn’t think so.

  “Okay, I’ll give you answers, but I need honesty from you first.”

  “Umm. Okay.” She placed her hands in her lap and laced her fingers, but kept fidgeting, looking
up at me with confusion and suspicion. “What do you want to know?”

  “What is going on with you and Gabriel?”

  She frowned. “Nothing. I mean… We were married.”

  I cocked a brow up at her. “So you’re divorced?”

  “Not exactly. I left him close to two months ago; I’m working on getting a divorce. I filed and he, of course, contested the divorce. I’m sure he’s contesting the divorce just to make my life a living hell, as if he hadn’t done enough already. Now, I’m going to have to fight a legal battle I can’t afford to fight and he knows it. I’m not asking for anything from him other than my freedom. He can get the best of lawyers. I can get legal aid… Maybe… I’m working on getting legal aid now. I just want to be free. I should have left a long time ago, hell, I should never have gotten together with him in the first place. But hindsight is 20/20, right?”

  My heart sank, just a little. I don’t know why, we hadn’t been together for a long time, but it did. Robyn – married. If I were to dive deeply into why I was unsettled about it, it might be because there had been a point in my life where I’d considered making Robyn my wife. The thought that another man had what I’d wanted and never got filled me with both remorse and rage. She was supposed to be mine. Why would she marry a man like him when I’d given her all of who I was? I’d risked everything to start a life with her, all those years ago. It didn’t make sense.

  “Why is he contesting it?” Could Gabriel not know anything at all about Robyn’s visits to the FBI and he was simply wanting her killed because if he couldn’t have her no one else could?

  “Because Gabriel never loses.”

  “And?”

  “And I left him.” She groaned out loud, flopping back onto the sofa and closing her eyes.

  I waited, watching her ample breasts heave up and down, while allowing her to gather her thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, they were lined with unfallen tears. “He warned me when I left. He told me that no woman ever leaves him unless he decides it’s time for them to go – especially his wife. He said that if I left him that I’d regret it and that I’d come running back to him with my tail between my legs.”

  Leaning forward, bracing my elbows on my knees, I eyed her carefully. “What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t fucking know Constantine, Gabriel is capable of just about anything! He’s not the man I thought he was when we first met, but I’ve learned the truth over the past year or so. But he hasn’t done anything yet, aside from contest the divorce. It’s been eerily quiet. Maybe he figured I wasn’t worth the fight or already found my replacement, at least I’m hoping that’s the case. Why are you here asking all these questions? And why would Gabriel give one of his employees my address? I don’t understand why you’re here.”

  Jesus, how was I going to tell her there was a hit on her life and I was the one who was contracted to perform it? I inhaled deeply and slowly released my breath, taking the time to gather my thoughts. “Like I said, I’m not exactly one of his employees. I’m more of a freelancer.”

  She frowned, eyeing me with suspicion as she leaned forward and grabbed an opened wine cooler from the coffee table, taking a long drink and guzzling down half of the bottle. Setting the bottle back down she stared at me a moment. “Why did he send you here?”

  Until I knew the exact situation I wasn’t going to tell her the truth. Not yet. “He sent me hoping I could talk you into going back to him.” I was taking a chance by saying this, but the Robyn I once knew was very pigheaded and stubborn. Once she’d set her mind on something there was no changing it. In this situation I could tell she was done with him. The determination was in her eyes told all, so him sending me here to her wouldn’t change her staying away at all.

  She laughed out loud. “Are you fucking serious? You’re some messenger boy for Gabriel?” Standing, she shook her head. “That’s rich, sending my old boyfriend to convince me to go back to him. Really fucking rich.” She grabbed the bottle and drank down the remainder of the contents. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. When I get back I’ll expect you to be gone and you can tell Gabriel to go fuck himself. I want my divorce and I never want to see or speak to him again.”

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  She didn’t wait for a reply. She walked across the room and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  A moment after the door to the bathroom closed, I heard another creak open on the other side of the room. Startled, my head whipped around and my hand reached under my suit jacket, halfway expecting to see someone pop out of the room to take me out.

  But that wasn’t the case. Instead, I watched as a little boy I assumed to be four or five came strolling out, wiping his eyes with his balled fists and wearing Pokémon pajamas featuring Pikachu on the chest. When he lowered his fists he looked straight at me. “Who are you?”

  The little boy looked oddly familiar. It wasn’t because he resembled Robyn, he didn’t – not in the least. So who in the hell was this little boy? “I’m Constantine, a friend of Robyn’s.”

  “You mean my mom? Robyn’s my mommy’s name.”

  Ohhh. Robyn had a child. Maybe that was the reason Gabriel was after her, she had his child. I did some quick math in my head. No, the little boy couldn’t have been Gabriel’s, they’d only been together for a couple of years from my understanding. The boy paused a moment and then came over to the sofa, hopping onto it next to me. “I’m supposed to be in bed right now.”

  “That so?” I asked and watched as his lips spread into a brilliant smile.

  “Yup, but I’m not.”

  “Yeah. I noticed that.”

  “Mommy doesn’t know, but I get up a lot at night and play video games when she sleeps.”

  “You don’t say.”

  He nodded, wiggling on the sofa with gleeful excitement. “Wanna hear something cool?”

  “Ummm.” My smile widened. “Ahh, sure.”

  He lowered his voice. “We have to be quiet though, so Mommy won’t know I’m up.”

  I did as told and lowered my voice as well. “Okay. Roger that.”

  He looked at me oddly a moment. “What does roger mean?”

  “It means I understand.”

  “Uh-huh.” He shrugged. “You wanna know some cool stuff about kangaroos?”

  I laughed. “Sure, I don’t know much about kangaroos.”

  “If you hold their tail in the air, they can’t hop,” he said, his expression serious.

  “Hmmm. I didn’t know that.” I truly didn’t, but I wasn’t exactly a pro at kangaroo trivia. Gun and murder trivia, sure, but not kangaroo.

  “Yeah, and they can’t hop backwards either.” His dark blue eyes shone with excitement.

  “You don’t say.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Yup, and when they hop they always hop with both legs together.”

  “Wow.”

  “Uh-huh.” He paused a minute and stared at me. “Your name is Constantine?” He extended his little hand to me, not waiting for me to respond. “I’m Austin.”

  I looked down at his hand and then back up to his eyes, taking his hand and giving it a gentle shake. “Nice to meet you, Austin. Yes, my name is Constantine. How old are you?”

  “I’m five.” A grin spread across his lips, pride in his eyes. “Almost six.”

  “Cool. So how do you know so much about kangaroos?”

  “My mommy says we’re going to Australia one day,” he replied, bouncing a little bit on the sofa, clearly excited over the idea. “It won’t be for a while. But one day.”

  “Oh, I see. So, where’s your dad?”

  His smile faded. “My real daddy is in heaven, and I haven’t seen my other daddy in a long time.”

  In heaven? I looked closely at the child before me as I counted back the years. My eyes narrowed as I studied him. His eyes were a sapphire blue, just like mine. Could he possibly…? I shook my head. There was no way…

  But there was. The math didn
’t lie. I’d only made love to the child’s mother once, but it did only take once… “Austin, what do…”

  The sound of the toilet flushing caused Austin to leap from the sofa, a look of guilt and alarm on his face. “I gotta go, Constantine. Mommy is coming.” Without another word he raced across the room and into his bedroom, his door closing softly just as the bathroom door opened.

  Chapter 4

  Robyn

  As I dried my hands on the light blue hand towel hanging next to the sink, I growled inwardly. Constantine was still in my living room. I wanted him gone. How dare he come into my home trying to convince me to go back to that monster I was trying to rid my life of! Who in the hell did he think he was? Though if he knew all of what I’d learned about Gabriel I didn’t think he’d be so eager to send me back there – regardless of our history.

  Voices.

  My entire body froze as I heard a conversation going on in the other room, in hushed tones. Oh god! Austin! Grabbing the door handle of the bathroom door, I twisted it and flung it open. My eyes immediately went to the sofa, but the only one in the living room was Constantine.

  My eyes flew to Austin’s bedroom door. It was closed, but I knew I’d heard talking. Maybe Constantine had placed a call? I wanted to think so, but doubted it.

  “He’s gone back to bed,” Constantine said as if reading my mind, confirming my fears.

  “Oh. He…”

  “Is he mine, Robyn?”

  “I… Umm.” The back of my neck and shoulders suddenly felt insanely tight. I laced my fingers behind my neck and closing my eyes let my head fall backwards, stretching. I just wanted this day to be over. Correction, what I really wanted was for the floor to open up under my feet and swallow me whole.

  What in the hell do I do? Tell him the truth or lie through my teeth? Opening my eyes, I looked directly at Constantine. He’d be able to see through my lie if I did tell him one, I knew that without a doubt. He’d always been able to tell when I tried to fib and I doubt I’d gotten any better at the art of lying over the years. Besides, he wasn’t an idiot. He could do the math, not to mention his son was a dead ringer for him. Sure, it would have been possible I’d been cheating on him, but he’d taken my virginity and he knew it. The evidence had been on the hotel room’s white sheets the next morning. If I hadn’t been in such a worried state at this moment I would have laughed, thinking about that day and how mortified I was over the thought of the maid having to wash my bloodied sheets when she cleaned the room.