Page 81 of Hannah and the Hitman

She frowned. “There’s a difference?”

“He fixes problems and I make them go away.”

She opened her mouth to say something but closed it. Her brain was working on what I said.

“Reggiano’s only one of our clients,” I added.

“They hire you to kill people and Dax to fix things.” She simplified it down to one sentence.

“Bad people,” I clarified, making sure she was well-aware there was a difference. “Only very bad people. I do research and make sure the world is better with them dead.”

“And dinner the other night? You didn’t have a stomachache?”

Shit. I was fucked no matter how I answered.

“The target was eating at the restaurant. I had to finish him there before he went to the ball game. It was my last and only chance.”

“Finish him,” she repeated, making me sound so callous about taking a life.

“He was an arms dealer, Hannah. He sold weapons to other bad people in bad places who kill innocent people.”

She was quiet as she thought about that. My words, to me, justified my actions. But I’d pretty much grown up to think in black and white.

“So you did it… in the bathroom?”

I nodded.

“How?”

“You want to know how I killed him?”

She nodded.

I didn’t want to tell her, to have her know the extent ofthe things I’ve done, but I couldn’t lie to her, or lie by omission. I needed to know she was with me because of exactly who I was. “I broke his neck.”

“I didn’t hear about a murder on the news.”

“I broke the water line beneath the sink so the floor was wet. I hit his head against the floor so it made it look like he slipped and hurt himself.”

“That’s not very realistic,” she replied. “I mean, Mrs. Metcalf is more of a mystery book reader than I am, but I think a detective would see through it.”

My lips twitched. She wasn’t running. Instead, she was making a joke. “Probably. But when the detective found out the guy was a well-known, very notorious and very bad weapons dealer, they’d have to hand off the case to the FBI and they wouldn’t look into it further. They’d know it was a hit and not care.”

“He was a weapons dealer?” She swallowed hard.

“Yes. The last job I did was to kill a trafficker. He sold women into sexual slavery. The guy before that doped racehorses. Mistreated them. Real bad. I don’t do anything random or unintentional. I like to think of their deaths as penance for the far worse things they’ve done to others.”

“You get away with it?” She rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

I ran a hand down her back and cupped her bare ass. “Gorgeous, I always get away with it.”

She looked unsure. We’d both shared big things. BIG. I didn’t know which was more nuts, finding out the woman I was in love with had superpowers or if she learned the guy–I hoped–she loved killed people for a living.

“I’m a bad guy, Hannah, but I’m agoodbad guy. I really need you to see that.”

She looked down, absently touched my tattoos again. “I almost died, Jack. I was actually dying. Staying alive is all I’ve thought about these past few months. I know firsthand how weak we can be.”

“You arenotweak,” I said, my words threaded with steel. Because I was the one who was afraid. “You are so fucking brave.”