I just shot a man.
The gun is still cradled in my hand, upon my lap. And I’d used it to shoot a man dead. I’d never even held a gun in all my years before Mikhail. The closest I’d come was playing light-gun games at the arcade with an ex-boyfriend!
Part of me feels like I should roll down my window and fling the gun away. Part of my feels like I should clutch it and never let go. Overall, I’m mostly surprised by how well I’m handling it.
“I shot a man dead,” I mutter aloud without realizing it.
“Not quite dead,” Mikhail says, keeping his eyes upon the road. “I took care of that for you. But you saved both our lives, Allie. That’s what matters.”
And despite the moral qualms of it all, I feel he’s right. Just like I’ve felt he’s been right about so much.
“Here,” he says, taking one hand off the wheel and fishing out a phone from his jacket. “Call your mother’s place. Tell the care worker to get your mom out of there, take her to safety. Some friend’s place, anywhere that will keep her safe for a bit longer,” he explains. And I realize he’s been true to his word about looking out for my mom.
I was right to trust him.
I know instantly that Mikhail was having someone check on her this whole time, just as he promised. Just as he told me he would. I felt like a rotten daughter for not checking in before now, but being on the run...there just hasn’t been time. To know that even through all this, he has been thinking of her, even when I got wrapped up in my own head...
Maybe that’s why I can’t stop the word ‘love’ from running through my brain.
Every time I try to tell myself that he’s just a killer, he proves me wrong. He’s something—someone—so much more. He might kill, but no one who’s innocent.
He protected me from whatever my asshole boss had planned, saved me from an even worse torture at the hands of Vasili, and now I know he was looking out for my family, too.
I quickly call my mom, each ring feeling like eternity.
Please pick up, I plead with her silently. Please, Mom, I need to hear your voice.
If something has happened to her, I’ll never forgive myself...
Her old style answering machine kicks in, some relic from the 90s that still has a novelty recording. My mom couldn’t stand to replace it, not with the sound of her and my deceased father’s voice sing-songing their way through the greeting. It makes me tear up.
“Mom, pick up,” I say, hoping she’s nearby. “Mom, are you there?”
Seconds pass, and I start to lose hope, giving Mikhail and uncertain look, and he squeezes my thigh in a comforting manner. And then I hear a click on the other end of the connection.
“Mom?”
A laughing man’s voice answers, though. “Hello? She’ll be right with you!”
Who the hell is this? Is what I want to ask. But instead, I wait for my mom. It’s only a few seconds later that her giggling voice answers. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her giggle before.
“Alicia? Honey! It’s so good to hear from you. Sorry about that, Hernando and I were salsa dancing in the kitchen!”
What has been going on since this happened and who is Hernando?
“Mom, all that is going to have to wait. For now, I need you to pack and go to a nice hotel somewhere, alright? On the Upper East Side, somewhere ritzy. I’m going to dip into my savings to treat you to a nice weekend! And you can bring... Hernando?”
“Her care worker,” Mikhail says to me softly.
Oh. Well then.
“Oh honey, that’s too much! And Hernando and I are fine right here. When are you coming home? I’m planning on making a Sunday meal this week.”
“Soon, Mom,” I say, my throat clamping up. “Just go out, enjoy the weekend. Can I talk to Hernando?”
“Fine, fine, but I have my appointment this week, remember.”
“Yea, Mom. I remember.” Since when did she remember that though?
A second later, and Hernando takes the phone from my mom and I glance at Mikhail, silently wondering how much Hernando knows about him. Probably not much.
“Hey Hernando, Mom’s going to fight me on this, but I’m going to give her a nice weekend in a ritzy hotel on the Upper East Side, okay? I want you to go with her and take care of her. Here’s my credit card info for the booking,” I say, quickly wrapping up the call. At least Hernando knows how to take orders.
And then I sit back, the phone call ringing in my head.
“She hasn’t sounded that happy since Dad died,” I say quietly. “She’s never let anyone else take care of her, only me...”
“Don’t worry,” Mikhail says, perhaps mistaking my words for worry, “Hernando is the best in his business. He can be trusted. I made sure of that before I hired him.” The stern look on his broad-jawed face tells me exactly how serious he took my mother’s care.
It takes a little longer for it to dawn on me that this is likely the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me. I could excuse his saving me for some twisted moral code, or because he has the hots for me. But taking care of my mom—something he did since he first took me captive, apparently—is something altogether different.
It shows that from that first day together, he never lied to me. He never deceived me.
He has been the man he told me he was, and for better or worse, I know that we’re in this together now. I reach out, touching the back of his hand, letting him feel the slight weight of my skin on his.
“Thank you, Mikhail,” I say, and I hope he can hear the earnestness in my tone.
He doesn’t respond immediately, just gives the slightest crook of a smile before twisting his one hand around and holding mine as he drives us along into the darkening night. We hold hands like that in quiet for a while as we drive through forested back roads away from the cities and people.
It’s the kind of scene that should send chills down a girl’s spine: driving into a dark, forested road, away from all witnesses, in the clutches of a killer.
But after all that’s happened, my trust in him rewarded, my own abilities to defend myself—and him—proven, I feel so very calm. In control. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can trust my own judgment. My own abilities.
Mikhail pulls us off the road into an old sports field, which looks out of use.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, not quite putting all the pieces together. There’s no buildings as such, unless you count an outhouse and what looks to be a padlocked storage shed.
“We have some time to kill,” he says, opening his door and getting out. “Come with me.”
He shoots me a wry grin before getting out, and I follow. I’m still holding the gun in my lap as I climb out. It’s dark and I can’t see well, the white paint on the structures the only thing making them stand out.
The stars glow above us, just a sliver of the moon that barely lights our way as the silence of the rural area stretches out. It’s so quiet, it almost hurts after living in New York for so long. All there is around us is crickets and a bird in the distance.
Mikhail leaves my side and goes over to the storage shed, hitting a switch along the side and making lights go up around the grassy area.
For a second, I’m blinded, having to shield my eyes from the sudden light, but then I can see what I’m looking at. An abandoned baseball field, the grass grown out a bit, but still cleared enough that there doesn’t seem to be any mosquitos, the breeze keeping them at bay. A few yards away is a row of bleachers, and beyond that, simply trees.
It’s actually beautiful, for an old sports field.
Mikhail just walks towards me, my giant, mafia brute looking dashing in his shirt and jacket, while I feel a little silly in a mix of his clothes and mine.
“Take out your gun,” he says to me, and I do after a moment’s delay.
“You did very well today. Saved both our lives,” he says, resting his large hand upon my shoulder, squeezing before he guides me into the field. “But with
out training, it’s a miracle you hit anything. Especially under pressure. If we’re going to survive all of this, you’ll need more than your wits about you.”
He crouches a little behind me, his thick arms wrapped about, guiding my own slender limbs up, positioning me according to his exacting expectations.
“When you hold a gun, you have to do so like this. It’s the best way to absorb shock and make sure your aim is true,” he explains to me in that deep, husky voice of his, every word a tickle upon my eardrum.
He feels so warm and reassuring, but I understand why he wants to teach me. Because maybe he won’t always be right there to reassure me or finish the job. I’m going to need to learn to stand on my own two feet and rely on my guts and wits if I’m going to be living in his world.
If we’re to survive this night, then I need to make sure I’m ready.
I take a breath in and nod. “Where do I point?”
“See the fence at the other end of the field?” he asks, and I nod. “Aim for the white picket between the two broken ones.”
He helps me keep my stance as I aim, his breathing growing so shallow I can barely detect it anymore.
“Now, before you take a shot, you inhale… hold your breath. Don’t let your breathing interfere with your aim, or else you will miss every time,” he explains, and I nod, doing as he instructed and holding my breath.
“Now shoot.”
As the gun’s bang resounds around us, I notice I missed.
“In a fight, you won’t have time to check and see if you made a shot, and I don’t have time to teach you so you have trust in your aim. This time, I want you to take your shot and quickly pop off another round. Then another. Making sure to realign your shot each time. The kickback will ruin your aim each time you shoot, remember. Now go,” he says.
It sounds like a lot to remember, but I do my best. I inhale, letting my shoulders relax a little so that I can get a better grip. I’m scared, the loud sounds startling me each time, but it feels powerful as well. The thought that this could save my life—or Mikhail’s—is what keeps me centered.
And then I squeeze the trigger. I don’t even bother to wait this time, though. Instead, I keep staring ahead, my breath burning in my lungs as I pull it again. And again.
As I release my breath, he squeezes my shoulders reassuringly.
“Good, but don’t hold your breath for so long next time. Work on timing it better. You need oxygen in a fight to stay alert, hold your breath only as long as you need to. Now try it again,” he says, and we repeat the exercise a few times until I’m able to hit the target reliably at least once. That requires him retreating to his car to grab a couple extra clips, but he displays such impressive patience with me the whole time.
“I’m gettin’ good, right?” I say, smiling up at him as I twist at the waist. He nods right back.
“You’re a natural. But don’t get too confident. Standing there in a peaceful field and taking your time with shots is nothing like a fight. I know you can keep your cool in a crisis though, so now you’re going to practice shooting and moving. Your aim is always better up closer, and you never want to stand in one spot too long. It makes you an easy target to others. Watch me,” he says, and he pulls out his own gun.
In an impressive display I can never hope to imitate, he holds his handgun out with one hand—not two, like me—and advances on the target. His even pace takes him closer with each of three shots, and I can’t help but marvel at how each of his bullets strikes its mark. It makes my record seem trivial.
“Try it,” he encourages me, and my first attempt is a disaster. I miss all three shots again, just like starting over. And I must look a little crestfallen, because Mikhail squeezes my shoulder as he guides me back to my starting position.
“Moving and shooting is rough, don’t let it dissuade you,” he says in that deep, calming voice of his. “If you can manage to hit the target at all, you’re better than most. Now try again, and remember what I said about your breathing? Try to take your shots on those brief moments your two feet are planted and you’re still. It’s all about timing.”
It’s complicated, but I’m determined, and so I repeat the motions, trying to recreate the magic of watching him move. He’s a trained professional and has been doing this for...how long, exactly? I can’t expect to be as good as him in a single night, but his confidence in me is what spurs me on. If he’s an expert, and he has faith in me, then I should have faith in myself too.
Besides, I did take down the guy who was going to kill us both. I did what I had to, when push came to shove, and if I could only just trust my instincts once more...
We repeat the maneuvers again and again and again, until finally, eventually… I do it. And I literally jump for joy, wearing a grin two sizes too big for my face.
“I did it!” I squeal, and he’s grinning proudly at me, looking on with a look that’s half fatherly pride, half manly appreciation.
“Good work,” he says, swooping in and kissing me as his arm sweeps around my torso. His tongue pries past my lips as we make out in the middle of the field, until at last we break away, and I peer into his dark eyes.
“How long have you been doing this, Mikhail?” I ask a little breathlessly, my heart thumping inside my chest so hard I swear it’s about to break free.
His expression loses some of its soft warmth and goes back to its harsher, set-in-stone look.
“Shooting? Since I was a boy, when my father taught me to handle an old service rifle,” he explains to me, ever patient with me, even if he is the merciless angel of death to others. “If you mean life as a criminal, longer still.”
He hands me a clip and teaches me how to unload and load the gun.
“Did you have a hard life then?” I ask, even if part of me says it’s probably not a thing to talk about.
“My father was a criminal piece of shit from the day I was born. He only looked after me because of the benefits from the state it earned him. And then when the old government fell, he kept me around to help him rob homes, stores, and even graves,” he says, an obvious lack of love for his father in his words.
“You robbed graves?” I say, my nose crinkling at the thought. As if that’s the worst thing I know him to have done.
“Da,” he says, then instructs me to try my shooting again.
“They were ugly times. Honest working people found themselves struggling to survive for the first time in generations,” he explains to me before getting me to go through the practice routine once more. “But my father was made for such times. He had never lasted a full day in a factory or office. He knew how to make a living from chaos and despair.”
I frown a little at that thought. Making a living from chaos and despair?
“So he’s what got you into organized crime?” I ask.
“Not entirely. Now again,” he says, and I shoot once more, three more shots as I advance on the target. “I left home to get away from my father as soon as I could. Joined the army. Fought Chechens in a bombed out hole that was once their home. Saw war and ugliness that even my father couldn’t fathom,” he says, and I can see the darkness in his eyes, like tunnels into his soul gouged out by a hard life of pain. Received and given.
It all kind of falls into place. I understand, now, how he can do what he does. Why he must. I lived a pretty cushy life, all told. Sure, I struggled and felt loss. I mourned for a long time when Dad died, and then I had to start caring for Mom, and I know I’ve complained about that to anyone who’d listen. My studies in college to become a doctor, or at least a pharmacist or chemist, were hampered by my need to look after my mom and pay the bills.
But his life is like something I couldn’t even consider, and I have a newfound respect for how he did what he had to. He’s been so cold and hard throughout his entire life, betrayed by the people who were supposed to have his back.
And then I waltzed into his life; maybe that can help him?
Maybe, after all this settles dow
n, and if we survive the next few days, I could really be a person that he can come to count on and respect.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
And I did it. I managed to hit the target twice as I advanced on it, leaving the long fence with a few less picket tips.
“I-” but before I can declare my victory, he claims me in an embrace again, holding me in his arms, kissing me. He takes his time, his strong hands rubbing at my shoulders and spine until finally I melt. And only then does he relent.
“When this is done, and your life is safe from Gregorovich,” he says, peering into my eyes with those two dark tunnels into his soul, “I will marry you. And we will live in a beautiful home, with the sound of many little feet running about us. And your mother will stay in a guest suite. I will make a life with you, like I had no inkling of knowing I needed all these years.”
I can feel a sob threatening me, happy tears springing to my eyes before I blink them away. I didn’t even know I wanted a life like that, a life with a killer, a life with him.
But when he says it, I know it’s all I’ve ever wanted and never knew I did. Someone I can be totally honest with, someone who can share in all the pain and joy of life and never abandon me. Someone who can protect me and love me, no matter what happens.
And if we could survive the last couple weeks together, we can survive anything that comes our way.
His mouth presses in against mine, tender and soft, filled with such affection, and my tongue meets his in kind.
When he breaks the kiss again, his words coming out gravelly and low, I’m stunned by what he has to say.
“Man of power or simple means, I love you, will love you for all time, and I will protect you, Alicia.”
There’s no way I can hold back the tears now, so I quickly swipe under my eyes as my lips tremble. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
This murderer is in love with me.
“I’m in love with you, too,” I say back, before I can even think about it.
His chiseled face breaks with a genuine smile, unlike any I’d ever seen him bear. But the touching moment is all too short, as the sound of crunching gravel and the lights of an approaching vehicle light up the unpaved back road, and I raise my gun with a newly blossomed instinct for survival.
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 50
