Chapter 123 interrogating
Isabella POV
He took a few more bites of his food, being quiet as he considered what I said.
“If we want this to work, my family can’t be suspicious at all…” I didn’t want to get into another conversation about this relationship. It always ended the same way, making me feel depressed and hopeless.
It was best just to avoid it, especially since there was nothing we could do about it. “I need to be close. If you really don’t want to stay here, your place down the road is our only option.”
“Alright. We’ll stay there, then.”
That agreement was much easier to reach than I expected. “But I’ll have to go back to Lake from time to time.”
“And I’ll have to come back here and make it seem like it’s being inhabited.”
Dante didn’t argue with that and continued eating. He finished everything on his plate, scraping it until it was completely clean. He stared at me as he chewed and picked up his coffee mug.
I missed being the recipient of that possessive stare. It was more dominating than a hand to my neck. It claimed me more than having his dick between my legs. I’d never been afraid of his look before, but now that everything was different, that look took on a whole new meaning.
He had a tighter hold on me than before, and this time, he wouldn’t let go not that I wanted him to let me go. We’d spent the last three months getting to know each other, but that
acquaintance happened physically and emotionally.
We didn’t have long talks over coffee or discuss each other’s greatest hopes and fears. Most of the time, both of our guards were up but now that our feelings had been laid out on the table, there was no hiding anymore.
“Do you plan to assassinate people for a living forever?”
He sipped his coffee, his sculpted shoulders shifting with his movements. “What else would I do?”
“Anything that doesn’t require you to kill anyone.”
“Not interested.” He rested his elbows on the table, sipping his coffee as he stared at me.
“I’m a hitman, baby. That’s never going to change, so I suggest you let it go. That would be like me asking you to stop painting.”
“Painting is my passion, killing people is yours?” I asked incredulously.“ I get a kick out of it.”
I knew he killed people when I fell in love with him, so hearing him say he wouldn’t change shouldn’t make a difference. “You seem rich enough to retire if you wanted to.”
“I’m too young to retire, baby.”
I didn’t even know how old he was. “How old are you?”
He kept drinking his coffee. “Older than your brother by a year or so.”
“If you have the money set aside, age shouldn’t matter.”
“It’s not about the money. I enjoy my work, and I enjoy working with my boys. It’s our business, and I’m not turning my back on it for a woman.
Accept me as I am because I’m not going to change.”
I hated hearing his cold response, but I also respected him for it. He held his ground, regardless of how much he wanted to make me happy. “I just don’t understand how you can kill innocent people for money…”
“Who said they were innocent?” he countered.
“Are you saying they aren’t?”
He shook his head. “Not even close, people don’t hire men like me to kill innocent people and innocent people keep their heads down and mind their own business. They live quiet lives away from bad men like me and when I
was in France last week, I killed two brothers who were fronting a trafficking site. I was paid extra to torture them before I finally put them
down for good. They’re probably in a landfill by now…”
That made me feel better immensely. Men who captured and sold women shouldn’t be alive anyway. “And what about me?”
“What about you?” he asked. “What if someone wants to hurt you by going through me?”
Ronan captured me to hurt my brother, and he was successful. Dante eyes softened slightly.
“We do a good job of keeping ourselves
anonymous, we’re the messengers and we pull the trigger, but someone else ordered the hit.
It’s nothing personal and I would never let anything happen to you, baby. You know I’m bulletproof.” He patted his shoulder, the exact place where I shot him.
“So how does it work?” I asked. “Someone contacts you and asks for a hitman?”
“Exactly,” he said. “They contact Rex and he distributes the work between the three of us.
Each of us has different strengths, so he pairs us with the best assignments and half of the money is transferred before the kill, and the other half is after the kill.”
“And you’ve been doing this for a long time?”
He nodded. “Almost twelve years. It’s given me the kind of wealth that I should have had a long time ago. I kill the kind of men I despise, and the world is a better place. Works out for everyone.”
“So you’ve never killed an innocent person?” I asked hopefully. “The closest I’ve ever come is when I almost killed you.”
My warm skin suddenly felt cold, remembering that knife against my throat. “And now I have rather die than let anything ever happen to you. You’re my woman, and as long as I’m alive and breathing, no one will even look at you wrong. I’ll always keep you safe, even when you think I’m not watching.”
I felt his protection surround me the second he scooped me into his arms last night. I knew he’d given all of himself to me, that he would die before he let something happen to me.
There was no stronger man in the world who could look after me…besides my father but I didn’t want my father to take care of me forever. I wanted to find a man who could replace him, who could give my father peace of mind.
Dante fulfilled that wish…for the most part.
“Since we’re having this interrogation, anything else you’d like to know?”
“I’m not interrogating you.”
“Seems that way.”
“I just realized there are some things I don’t know about you. I’ve never bothered to ask.”
“You know I wouldn’t have answered you anyway,” he said quietly. “You can ask me anything you want, if I can ask questions in return.”
“That seems fair…”
He set down his mug then moved beside me against the couch. He dropped his arm behind my neck and then pulled me closer to him. He positioned one of my legs over his lap, and while the rain fell outside, he kept me warm against the cold.
“When did you know you loved me?” He stared me down as he studied my reaction. My eyes shifted down so he couldn’t read me so well. I felt embarrassed saying the truth out loud, embarrassed because I tried to lie to myself for so long…furtively. Everyone could see the truth, even my mother could see it.