How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,11
you think that is?”
Terrible, no-good, truly rotten luck?
“Fate,” he says with a firm nod. “I think it was fate.”
He’s crazy.
Absolutely batshit crazy.
How did I not notice that before? He seemed perfectly normal, but maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.
“Have you been lying to me this whole time?” I look over at him, unable to keep the hurt from my eyes. Maybe it’s absurd to be hurt, but I feel so foolish, and if he’s malicious enough to do this to me, I can’t imagine the horrible things he must be thinking about me. He must think I was so easily duped. It never occurred to me he could be dangerous. He probably thinks I’m an idiot.
“No,” he says, looking almost surprised that I’d think that. “Everything I’ve told you about myself is true. I had to tell a couple little white lies, obviously, but I’ve been truthful overall.”
“There’s no shop.”
“There’s a shop, but we aren’t heading there,” he replies.
“You planned to… to, what? Kidnap me from the moment you stopped?”
“No,” he says simply. “I really only intended to change your tire, but I guess Fate had other plans.”
“You can’t just do whatever horrible thing you want and blame it on fate,” I tell him.
“No?” He glances over at me, his clear blue eyes glinting with amusement. “Who’s going to stop me?”
I don’t like the way he says that. I don’t know the right way to handle this situation, but I’m pretty certain that putting it in his mind that I’m against him isn’t the right way. Even if he believes I’m his victim, that would be better than him thinking of me as an opponent.
With opponents, one person has to lose for the other to win—and he clearly doesn’t plan on losing.
“Look, Jasper—if that’s even your name,” I murmur, realizing it might not be.
“It is.”
“Okay. Jasper. I like you, I think you’re—It was admirable that you stopped to help me, and you have been pleasant company. Things have gotten a little off course tonight. Obviously, neither of us intended for any of this to happen, it just sorta… did. Now, I’m not sure why you chose me to…” I trail off, frowning. To kidnap? I don’t know what to say, so I skip ahead to the most important part of my point. “But this doesn’t have to end badly for either of us.”
I search his face to gauge his reaction, but he gives away nothing. He doesn’t stop me though, so I keep going.
“I know you’re a little skeptical about my promise to keep quiet about all this, but I truly mean it. I don’t want to get you in trouble; I just want to go home. Nothing has even happened to me, really. I met a new friend and we went for a ride around the city—nothing traumatic or illegal about that.”
His eyes narrow on my face ever so slightly.
“You say you’ve been truthful with me and I’ve been truthful, too. I’m telling the truth now. I swear to God, if you’ll just stop at the next exit and let me out of the car, I’ll walk away and we can pretend this never happened.”
His gaze lingers on me for a moment, but he doesn’t say anything.
I wait with bated breath, praying he’ll see the sense in what I’m saying. I really, truly mean it. I don’t know what brand of bad man he is, but I won’t make it my business. I’ll be forever grateful that he changed his mind and let me live. I might lose sleep every night for the rest of my life imagining the next woman who isn’t so lucky, but I’ll pay that price. I’ll keep my word. I just…
I want to live to see this Christmas and the next one, too.
I want to fall in love with someone wonderful, someone who values me so much more than Brady does.
I want to put cookies and milk out for Santa every year. I want warm baby cuddles after we read The Night Before Christmas and my excited little boy or girl fights sleep because they’re just so excited. And then, after piling presents around the tree, anticipating my little one’s delight the next morning, I want to curl up in bed in the arms of the man who loves me.
I want to know what Christmas is like with a family of my own.
I’ll never get to do any of that if this madman murders me.