Page 55 of Beautiful Revenge

“Of course I’m happy. But I don’t understand why you didn’t do it.You.”

He looks me right in the eye as he answers. “Because she reminded me of you.”

Something flutters in my stomach. It’s both a heavy weight and a release from the weight. Finn’s words will change us. I know it.

I just don’t know how.

“Why did she remind you of me?”

“Blonde hair. Young. Innocent. For the first time since I’ve become a hitman, I… couldn’t do my job. I couldn’t kill her. I left her there in that house with her baby none the wiser I was even there.”

“And the husband?”

“I came straight here after I left her house. But I’ll have to kill him. He’ll probably just send another hitman after his wife and child. But then again, that’s not my problem.”

“How can you say it’s not your problem? He hired you. You need to end this.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I go murder someone?”

“The man who wanted his wife and baby dead? Yes. I think you should go kill him. I have no sympathy for men who hire a hitman to do his dirty work. Who wants his wife killed for her money. A man like that can rot in hell.”

“And what about a man like me?”

“You know you’re going to hell, Finn. I don’t need to tell you that.”

He smirks. “True.” He sits down next to me and slowly, his hand reaches out to cup my face. I don’t move an inch. “I don’t know why I spared her. Why do you have this effect on me?”

“I have no idea,” I answer honestly. Finn and I are so close. He could kiss me if he wanted to.

“I went against what I normally would do. Because of you. Maybe I should kill you just for that.”

“You won’t and we both know it. It’s why you couldn’t kill Sarah Williams tonight.”

He swipes his thumb along my cheek. “I’m never kind to anyone. I either kill or fuck or… well, that’s about it. I don’t have a good moral center. Not since my dad beat it out of me.”

“But you have your mom. You told me that.”

“She’s the only one I ever show kindness to. Until… you.”

I gasp. Finn cannot speak to me this way. Full of softness, like he wants to show me tenderness. I’ve held firm in the notion that he’s evil and I need to escape him.

But if he starts showing me kindness…

If he starts sparing peoples’ lives…

Then I have no idea how to feel. It goes against the man I’ve known who kidnapped me.

“I’m shocked you’re even telling me this,” I say.”

“Me too. Trust me, princess, if anyone is shocked, it’s me. I wasn’t going to tell you the truth when I came back here. I was going to tell you I killed that woman and her baby.”

“Why?”

“So you’d be scared of me.”

“But you changed your mind. Why?”

“I have no fucking idea. I came into this room and I saw you and…” He lets my face go and stands back up. “Fuck.”

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