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“I killed two men on my first mission. One was a traitor who sold secrets to the Chinese. The second guy was his bodyguard, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was on my second mission here in Italy when I got stopped by the police and they found guns in my car. And here I am.”
Dario frowned. “MI6 knows you’re here?”
“The guy who hired me does.”
“And he didn’t do anything to get you out?”
“That was part of the deal: plausible deniability. If I got caught, I was on my own.”
“And you held up your end of the bargain,” Dario said in amazement.
“I knew the rules when I took the mission. And I keep my word.” I leaned forward. “What I just told you about MI6 has to stay between you and me. You can tell anybody you want about Special Forces, but my involvement with MI6 has to remain a secret.”
Dario nodded. “I swear on my father’s life that I will never tell anyone without your permission.”
“Your father’s life?” I asked, confused.
“In the Cosa Nostra, when we make a promise, we swear on things that are holy to us. There is nothing more precious to me than my father’s life. I will never tell anyone, I promise you.”
I nodded, deeply touched. “Thank you.”
Dario looked at me searchingly. “Why are you telling me all of this? You didn’t need to, and yet you did.”
He was repeating what I’d asked him just a few minutes earlier.
“You were honest with me,” I replied. “About everything. I figured it was only right for me to be honest with you.”
He nodded like he approved. “So you have some familiarity with the role I’m offering you.”
“Yes… but it’s not the same thing.”
“How is it not the same thing?”
“I only agreed to the deal with MI6 because I was going to kill traitors and rogue arms dealers.”
Dario looked unconvinced. “No… you agreed to it because you wanted to be with the woman you loved. The rest was merely justification so you could sleep better at night.”
That made me angry. “No – ”
Dario barely suppressed a smile as he said, “A perceptive man once said to me, ‘You can lie to yourself, but don’t try to get me to swallow your bullshit.’ I ask you the same courtesy.”
I glared at him –
And then burst out laughing.
He’d nailed me.
“Yes, okay,” I admitted. “I agreed to work for them because I wanted to be with the woman I loved… and the rest was just to make it easier for me to stomach.”
“That I can understand. By the way, doing something for the woman you love is a very good reason – one of the best. Maybe the best. But I think you left something out about why you told me all of this.”
“And what’s that?”
“I think you wanted to let me down gently.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I think you were trying to tell me that when you get out of here, you’ll have no need of my offer because you’ll be going back to Rachel.”
