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Cameron slouched back onto the sofa. The look of confusion on her face was a welcome change from the fear that had been there moments before. “Then why are you helping me?”

“I told you. To keep you safe.” I headed to the fireplace to add more timber.

“Yeah, you keep saying that. But you’re a hitman. It’s not like you’re some moral pillar of society. Did you change your mind and decide killing is wrong?”

“Hardly.”

“I don’t get it then. What’s in this for you? I don’t have much money to pay for your help.” She froze. “Wait, are you going to sell me? Is that what this is? You’ll let me go, but only once I’ve been auctioned to the highest bidder?”

I spun to face her. “No! That’s not what this is. I’m a hitman, not a goddamn sex trafficker.”

“You murder people for a living. It’s not a stretch to think you’d sell someone like cattle.”

It didn’t surprise me she thought I was a piece of shit, but her accusation got under my skin.

“I’ll tell you what’s in it for me. The risk of being on the FBI’s most wanted list if they somehow find out who I am and what I’ve done, and facing the wrath of Franky Russo if he discovers I’ve screwed him over.” I took measured steps toward her. “Bringing you here has complicated my life more than you’ll ever know, and if there were any other way to keep your ungrateful ass alive, I’d have jumped all over it.”

Her upturned eyes never left mine, even when I stopped right in front of her.

I continued. “I don’t enjoy keeping company, especially the kind that tries to knock me unconscious and break my shit. So, if you think I’ve got something to gain by having you here in my home, disrupting my life and wrecking my peace, you’re seriously fucking mistaken.”

Cameron blinked a bunch of times and opened her mouth like she might argue the point, but then thought better of it.

I hadn’t meant to raise my voice, but I was exhausted from not having slept since the night before and the long days of stakeout. And she had a talent for pushing my buttons. Not that I could blame her. I deserved her suspicion, even if I was trying to do the right thing. In any case, Cameron reminded me how terrible I was with civilians and why it was better if I stayed away from them.

She plucked lint from the blanket. “Why didn’t you do it then? The hit?”

“Do you deserve to have a contract on your head?”

Her eyes cut to mine, chin angled low. “No.”

“Well then, I guess I’m not a complete asshole after all.” I rubbed my brow and sighed. “When I was first offered your hit, I accepted it. I assumed you were a guy and deserved to be put down if you’d been mixing with Franky. When I found out you were a woman, I wondered if Franky had made a mistake. He’d never asked me to do that before. I questioned it and he told me there was no error, that you were innocent and if I didn’t do the job, then he’d get someone else to do it.”

Her grip tightened on the blanket.

“I don’t want to freak you out any more than you already are, but the guy next in line is a sadistic bastard who would’ve enjoyed getting his hands on you.”

I let that sink in.

Cameron looked up at me. “You could’ve turned it down and moved on with your life. Why go to so much effort to help someone you don’t even know?”

As the silence stretched, I faced the window and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I guess it seemed like the right thing to do. If I stood by and did nothing, I’d be as evil as them.”

I wished I had a better answer, for her and for myself, but I couldn’t explain why I’d set these actions in motion.

Was I doing the right thing? I wanted to help her, but I could’ve hired a private security agency to handle it. Instead, I’d opted to make sure the job was done right by doing it myself. Would I have made the same decision if I weren’t attracted to her? I didn’t think so, and I sure as shit couldn’t explain that to her without inviting more fury. And now that she was demanding answers, I wondered if I’d fucked up bringing her here. It was too late to dwell on that.

Cameron sat in silence but appeared no happier about her presence here than when she first arrived.

I turned to face her, thankful that she’d run out of questions for now. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Then we can cover up those cuts.”

She nodded.

“Can you walk?” I offered her my hand.

She looked at it like it might burn her and instead used the sofa for leverage while clutching the blanket around her waist. “I’m fine.”

I headed for the hallway leading to the back of the house. “Bathroom’s this way.”