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“Carter…”
He smiled at the rising irritation. “The people I’m keeping you away from are closely related to my occupation.”
“Is that a lot of people?”
“Enough.”
“Ten…”
“Enough.”
“How many people have been a part of your magic show?”
Carter’s expression drew serious. “Are you asking me how many people I’ve killed?”
She opened her mouth to say yes but the words didn’t come. She wasn’t sure if she truly wanted the answer and once she had it, then what? Would it change the situation? Change how she looked at him, how she felt about the man who had somehow become a priority?
No.
The reality was a bit disconcerting. She should have cared, felt some type of guilt for caring about a man who lived the way Carter did.
But I don’t.
“McKenna, do you want to know?”
He would never provide the exact number of the souls lost at his hands. Carter had a mental list, a count of each life he’d taken. It was his way of never losing touch with the two versions of himself, the killer and the man who killed.
She gently shook her head and contemplated another question. Carter noticed the words dancing in her head and waited.
“Why choose magic and not something else?”
“I’m good at it and it pays well…”
It also keeps me connected to a father I loved and admired even after I learned who he truly was. A killer, just like me.
“When did you…when was the…”
“First time I killed someone?”
She nodded and Carter removed the food from his lap and shifted to the edge of the sofa. He leaned forward, lowering his elbows to his thighs and his eyes to McKenna’s.
“My father died three months before my eighteenth birthday. Two weeks later, I met a man who asked if I knew what I wanted to do with my life. He mentioned that he knew my father, that my father was someone he respected. I wasn’t sure if I should trust him but he offered me a job.”
“You took it.”
I did and recently took his life.
He smirked at the irony.
“Yes. In a twisted way I felt like I was making my father proud. He taught me to shoot a gun, use a knife, defend myself. I learned all the ways you could immobilize and kill but not once did he push me toward being a hired gun. He never even spoke about it. At least not with a focused intent. There were hidden meanings woven into the lessons I learned from him. A silent message that wasn’t just about teaching me to defend myself. He was teaching me a lifestyle, one he’d claimed for years. His words warned me away from being just like him but his actions taught me how to be just as good if not better.”
“At killing.”
Carter nodded slowly.
“It happens, Kenni. It’s also very necessary.”
“Playing God?” Her brows pinched.
