Page 5 of The Forbidden Secret

She scowled, her eyes narrowing. “If you were hired, that means you’re being paid. I’m sure you don’t need my validation alongside your paycheck.”

“I don’t remember you being so feisty the last time we met,” I said before thinking better of the words.

Jaimie met my eyes through the mirror, questions lacing her gaze. We had worked numerous jobs together—enough that I could read the expressions on her face as well as I could with a close family member.

Evelina clenched her jaw and turned her head, dismissing me entirely. I ran my tongue over my teeth at the sheer audacity she had in making that gesture.

“I suppose youwerefeisty,” I recalled. “But not during our enticing conversations.”

She whipped her head back toward me. “You expect me to grovel at your feet after you lied to me and ghosted me. Is Zeke even your real name? Or did you invent that the same way you invented everything else I thought I knew about you?”

I didn’t allow my face or body language to give anything away. I did not want to leave her. Hell, I had spent months trying to wash the taste of her away, but nothing did the trick. That was the problem. That kind of connection—especially with someone in my occupation—was lethal.

“I’ve never had a one-night stand who expected more from me than the one night,” I mused, clicking my tongue, shrugging my shoulders, and crossing an ankle over a knee. “Maybe I hadn’t made myself clear.”

The fire in her gaze was undimming as she stared at me. I could see that she wanted to say so much more, but she didn’t allow a single other word to slip until she took a few long breaths and nodded.

“My mistake.”

She turned her head and looked out the window, leaving meentirelyunfulfilled with this conversation.

I had wronged her, after all. I had set the perfect trap for a woman meant to be my target.

“Can I ask who hired you to get me out of there?” she asked, not bothering to look at me.

“Giovanni Rissi,” I told her.

“What do you do for him?”

I contemplated her question for one second before answering honestly. “I’m a… mercenary.”

She finally gave me a dull, unamused look. “So, an assassin?” The question took me aback. “I grew up with a mob boss as a father, as I’m sure you know. I’m not oblivious to all the terminology of this trade.”

I nodded. “Clearly.”

“Was it a coincidence that we met a year ago?”

I wouldn’t lie to her. “No, it wasn’t.”

* * * *

I pushed through the door of the townhouse and gestured for Evelina to go through the door first. She did just that wordlessly as she looked around.

“So… is this your place?” she finally asked.

I shook my head no before beginning my rounds. I went to each window and door, securing all the locks and closing the blinds.

“Then where are we?” she asked.

I released a long exhale. “How much do you know about your situation?”

“Zeke, I was loaded into a car and kept in a cell for weeks. I only learned that I would be sold after a week of persistently asking the guards for any information. I don’t know to whom, other than his name. I don’t know why. I don’t know where you come into play in any of this. I knownothing.”

Fucking phenomenal.

“You were going to be sold in black market human trafficking. Giovanni Rissis hired me as a favor to Aria Rissi.”

She crossed her arms. “Okay, so this isn’t your apartment then?”

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