AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you going to do it?” A sob escapes and her knees give. Stepping smartly forward, I catch her before she falls, but she struggles against me. “Don't touch me! Oh, God. Hickman, don't hurt me…” Battering at me, she shrieks. “Please don't hurt me.” Whimpering, she collapses against my chest.
Cradling her in my arms, my cheek against her head, I stroke her hair. “Shhh… Shhh… Katya, stop panicking. I'm not about to murder a helpless woman. Certainly not you.” Scooping her up off her feet, I lower her back into her armchair. Hands hugged around herself, she sobs, rocking back and forth.
Perched on the chair arm, I wait for the storm to pass.
After a minute, she shudders in a breath, swipes hands over her face, then raises swollen eyes to me. “You killed that other man, the sniper, on Leone’s order. I know you did.”
“He told you that?”
“Not in so many words, but he made it clear that he was no danger anymore and that you’d…” She waves an uncertain hand in the air.
“Katya, that sniper was a professional assassin. And he worked for the head of an organised crime family. Or thought he did anyway. He played the same game I do. I'm better at it than he was. That's all. And yes, I executed him.”
“That’s what Leone pays you for?”
“Yes, but I use my gun on other men of the same sort. Romano can't order me to murder you without telling me why. I never signed up for that. Now, tell me. What have you done that was so terrible?”
She fumbles in a pocket, then casts around, looking for something. Wordlessly, I pass her a box of tissues from the coffee table. She swipes still-wet cheeks and eyes, then blows gracelessly into one of them. Then another.
Finally, she turns swollen eyes and a red nose on me. “I'm pregnant.”
Ice cracks under my feet. “By… Romano?”
“Of course...” Anger flashes. “… Who else?”
I click my tongue. “I had to ask. You're his mistress…” The anger fades, morphing to doubt… “… Or you were…” I hover, considering… “If Romano thought you were carrying another man’s child, that would probably have been motive enough for him to order your execution.” I hesitate… “I don’t want to insult you, Katya, but again, I have to ask. Is there any possibility Romano might believe you were pregnant by another man?”
Swollen eyes shoot arrows at me. “It’s his,” she hisses, then tugs out another tissue. Blows again.
Katya sags into the armchair, forlorn. “When I told Leone I was pregnant, I’d worried he might be angry. Maybe think I’d tried to set him up. But he said he was pleased. He said everything was alright and he’d be a father to the baby.”
Tears trickle again. “I thought he loved me. He told me he would divorce Angelina and marry me.”
Face crumpling, shoulders shaking, she drops her face into her hands. “How could he do this? How could he? He said… he married Angelina for political reasons. It was a marriage of convenience. That he didn't love her.”
I lay hands on her shoulders, my touch clumsy, hesitant, but she leans in toward me, accepting the caress. “Katya, it may well have been political, but that doesn’t mean Romano can afford to upset her family. Angelina is the daughter of Giovanni de Palo. If he got wind that there was any threat to his daughter’s status as wife, Romano would have a war on his hands before he’d turned around.”
Another sob. Her head hangs. “Lies. It was all lies. He said he loved me, and I believed him.”
“Love doesn't come into it. It's a dynastic arrangement. I'm not sure if Angelina wanted to marry Romano in the first place or whether she was required to do so by her family. But whichever it was, all the wealth would channel through her children. De Palo might look the other way over Romano having a mistress. But he would never tolerate any competition to his daughter’s children. For that matter, in all probability, neither would she. And all she’d have had to do was tell her father if she suspected. If it's any consolation to you, Romano probably didn't have much choice in the matter.”
Katya tears away from me, rising from her seat like an avenging demon. “No choice?” she shrieks. “No fucking choice? There's always a choice.”
I inhale. Exhale. “Yes, there is.”
She stills, staring at me. “What are you going to do?”
I stand, rest my palms on her shoulders, look her in the face. “For the avoidance of doubt, Katya, what I’m not going to do is follow Romano’s orders. Executing pros who played the game and lost, is a far cry from murdering a pregnant woman because she's suddenly inconvenient. It’s not part of my remit.”
Her mouth works, her throat rippling, her chest rising and falling.
“Katya, truly. If I intended to kill you, you would already be dead and you would never have seen it coming. I know you’re scared, but you mustn’t be scared of me. Now, do you believe me? It’s important you believe you can trust me.”
Her breathing eases. Eventually, slow-blinking, she nods. “Yes, I believe you.”
“Good, because we need to move fast. I have to get you into safe hiding.”
Her eyes widen. “What are we going to do?”
