Page 15 of The Hitman's Prince

Jacob

It took three days for Vince Angelini to wake up. Another week to be released from the hospital, and two weeks after that to show up again at the steps of Saint Mary’s. He followed me inside, knelt in front of the candle stand, and made the sign of a cross after lighting two small votives. He reached into his pocket with a grimace and produced a hundred dollar bill, which he shoved into the offering slot.

“Two?” I asked, quietly watching him struggle to his feet.

“One for my father and one for me,” he said.

“You look very much alive,” I told him.

He turned toward me fully, his form still broad, even though he’d lost considerable weight in the past month.

“Thanks to you, it seems.”

“Divine timing, I imagine.”

Vince walked past me, taking a seat in a pew situatedtoward the middle of the church. I took the seat behind him, as I found most people, even out of the confessional, wanted some sense of privacy when speaking to a priest.

Though…I was hardly that.

My own secrets aside, I was hardly the reason for Vince Angelini sitting in front of me in a pew instead of a casket. I hadn’t stopped thinking about the fiery-haired stranger who’d stripped himself half-naked to stop the bleeding. The paramedics told me on the way to the hospital it was my quick thinking that had probably saved Vince’s life. It was clear someone had told him the same. Unfortunate that it hadn’t beenmythinking at all. I’d been at the altar on my knees, my cock in hand while I jerked off looking at the delicate way someone had painted the drips of blood on the ribcage of the body of Christ, making sure to finish myself off before acknowledging the desperate screams for help from the street.

“How much did you see that night?” Vince asked, and I focused on the dark hairs at the base of his neck instead of the location of my very favorite sins.

“Not much,” I said truthfully.

He rolled his neck to the side, groaned, then stopped. “I don’t remember anything,” he said.

“That’s probably better.”

“It’s likely a trauma response.”

I chuckled, shifting my weight uncomfortably in the pew. “Do you want to talk about that?”

“Therapizing now?” he asked.

“The church is a safe space for speaking things weotherwise wouldn’t,” I answered. “For thinking thoughts that have no place beyond these doors.”

“Someone tried to kill me on your front steps, Father. Just beyond those doors.” Vince made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “That doesn’t feel very safe.”

“Please. It’s Jacob,” I said, my own name rough in my mouth.

“That doesn’t feel very safe, Father Jacob.”

“And yet here you sit,” I said simply, “very much alive.”

“Rightly so,” he agreed, then he went still and silent.

I forced my attention away from Vince’s shoulders, looking up at the altar, the pulpit, the ridiculous ornateness of it all. A church was a stupid place to come for protection, but I’d had no say in the matter and neither had Vince.

After a long while, he stood, smoothing his hands down the front of his slacks, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt before stepping into the aisle. I didn’t get up and I didn’tlookup because the weight of his stare on me was more of a burden than any of my own secrets had ever been.

“I owe you a life,” he said.

“I don’t want one.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want.” One last adjustment of his clothes and he shook it all out. “It’s what you get.”

“How about dinner?” I finally looked upat him, the collar around my throat tighter than a hand. Dinner and the backseat of a car, or an alleyway, or a bathroom.