How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,89

waiting for my flight to begin boarding when I hear Brady’s voice.

Dread pools in the pit of my stomach at the sound of it.

I knew I’d have to see him today. I didn’t expect him to approach me before we got on the plane, but our seats are together, so I knew unless he switched seats or changed flights since we last spoke, I would have to see him.

I haven’t spent much time preparing for it, though. I’ve been too distracted with Jasper to even think about Brady.

I look up at him, but I don’t bother with a greeting. I skip straight to civil discourse between recent exes who have to see each other one last time. “I trust you had a nice Christmas.”

“No thanks to you,” he mutters, having the audacity to take a seat next to me.

I sigh heavily to let him know how happy I am with that choice, then I pull my luggage closer to me so he has more leg room.

Brady sits forward, placing his laptop bag on the ground and looking over at me. When he does, I can’t help wondering what I ever saw in him. I guess he’s handsome in a boring sort of way, but after Jasper, there’s no comparison. Brady’s like a mouthful of vanilla, and my appetite runs darker now.

I look away, grabbing my phone so I can make myself look busy. Hopefully he will take the hint and not try to talk to me.

“What about you?” he asks sharply, definitely not taking the hint. “Did you and your Christmas fling have a nice time?”

I try not to flinch, but the way he frames it makes it sound so much worse than it really was. “I had a lovely Christmas,” I answer, still with my gaze on my phone.

“Oh, wonderful,” he says, derision dripping from his tone. He doesn’t say anything else right away, but when I don’t promptly fall into line, apologizing profusely for the sin of not liking him enough to endure the miserable Christmas he invited me to, he tries again, his tone lower and sharper. “Which one was it?”

That question actually does pique my curiosity. I frown, looking over at him. “What?”

“Which Morelli did you meet? Obviously you met someone while you were supposed to be Christmas shopping for my family. He must have swept you right off your feet, huh? Which one did you dump me for? I’m curious.”

My stomach drops as soon as he utters the name Morelli. “What—what makes you think I met a Morelli?”

He smiles knowingly, like my familiarity with the name is verification of his suspicions. Which, maybe it is. I’m not from Chicago, I’ve never been here before—there’s really no reason for me to know of the Morelli family unless I had a brush with them this week.

“I’m surprised they let you go, to be honest. The reputation they have, once a member of the Morelli family sets his sights on you, they swallow you whole. Maybe he liked you enough to fuck you for a few days, but not enough to keep you around,” he says, the thought clearly amusing him.

I suck in a sharp breath, his words hitting their mark. He’s wrong about the ‘who,’ but he got that part right. “It’s really none of your business, Brady.”

“I think it is my business, Autumn,” he snaps. “You had your little boyfriend send Adrian fucking Palmetto to my doorstep. To my family’s house. Do you have any idea—?” He sits back, shaking his head like I’m too stupid to comprehend. “That was out of line. That was fucked up. He’s a killer. A fucking mobster, the right-hand-man of the most ruthless criminal in Chicago, and you send him to my mom’s door. Do you have any idea what that was like?”

My eyes widen in legitimate shock. “What are you talking about? I didn’t send anybody—” I halt, remembering that Jasper did say he sent a friend to grab my things.

I guess I hadn’t considered who his friends were, or that they might be recognizable by people not involved in their criminal underworld.

Adrian Palmetto, Brady said. I remember that name. Adrian was the name of the man Jasper told me about, the one who took his family to the restaurant that got shot up. The one whose little girl had a bullet hole shot through her dress.

He did say Adrian and Mateo were the two most recognizable Morelli men, but I didn’t think Brady would recognize them. Brady is