Page 36 of The Hitman's Prince

The church was closed up tight. I snuck around the back and confirmed even the lights in the priest’s office and apartment were off; then I sat down on the front steps with a groan.

Getting a second chance at killing Vince was not the relief the agency seemed to think it would be. It was the last thing I wanted to do, the last thing I was capable of doing, it seemed. I’d confessed my sins to the priest and he’d taken it in stride, like I’d told him I’d coveted my neighbor’s wife or something far more mundane than a capital crime. In a way, I had coveted, though. Maybe I’d missed on purpose because I didn’t really want to kill Vince. Maybe I’d missed because I wanted to be the one to save him. Maybe I wanted his gratitude, his thanks. Maybe that would have been enough to save me. Instead, that had all gone to the priest, and all I’d gotten was a chance to suck Vince’s dick in a dark alley.

I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and opened up my photo gallery, thumbing through years of stolen photos I’d taken of Vince. He’d never seen me lurking, of course. He was always too caught up with whatever he had going on. He’d never noticed me when we shared a class. He’d never even known my name. Not even a spark of recollection when I’d told it to him in the alley, not from the years we spent together in school or the night I’d cradled his lifeless body on my lap while he bled out.

It was my obsession with him that had driven me to taking the contract in the first place. Killing him was the only way to get close to him, and he’d been fucking his father’s assistant every night, and…

And…

Killing him would have been a mercy for my own heart.

Vince didn’t know who I really was. He never would.

But I was burdened with a whole fucking life of knowing him.

I meant what I said to my brother. I could make it easy for Vince. I could be gentle. I would just have to get close enough. What did the true crime documentaries always say about murder? What percent of them were acts of passion? Of scorned lovers turned too angry to control?

Dropping my head back to stare up at the stars, I played out a fantasy where Vince fucked me long and slow until we were both too tired to go on, and then after he fell asleep, sated and spent, I’d smother him with a pillow until he took his last breath. Or maybe after hepumped me full of cum, we’d get into a bath and I’d hold him under the water until the bubbles stopped floating to the surface.

Who was I kidding?

I wasn’t strong enough to do any of those things, not physically and not emotionally. I didn’twantto kill Vince Angelini. It was a necessity because I couldn’t live another day without him, and this contract was a gift. It was a chance for me to set my life on a distraction-free course for the first time since ninth grade.

Groaning, I pushed up to my feet and walked a shortcut into town, stopping at Thornhill Pub and Grub to get something to eat and drink. Maybe a meal would bring clarity about the next steps.

My brother had been trying to get a hold of me all day, but I’d ignored him. I didn’t have anything new to say from the last time we talked, and I was too tired to deal with his worry.

The pub was quiet, and I ate in relative peace. Chewing the last bite of my cheeseburger, I decided lurking around the church was not going to pay off, so I’d go see what sort of luck I had a few blocks down by Vince’s house.

It had always struck me as odd that he lived in the city, a relatively unprotected townhouse right in the middle of the action. I supposed it made sense for business. Easier to be closer to the men you were trying to manipulate. Though that seemed more his father’s speed. There had been a lot of underground rumblings since theelder Angelini had been removed from his seat, but people seemed to respect Vince enough to fall in line. There were factions who were planning their own little coups, but nothing I’d heard sounded that serious. Besides, he had his little guard dog, Orion Delmar, and now that fucking priest.

After I finished eating, I paid my tab, then shoved my hands into my pockets and set off toward Vince’s townhouse. It was well into winter, a new year barely more than a month ahead of us. Thanksgiving had gone ignored because I had nothing to be thankful for, not this contract and not this life.

My brother, maybe. But he was elsewhere.

Vince’s street was brightly lit—annoying—but I found a long shadow a few houses down and across the street to lean into. There wasn’t much to see, just a frosted glass garage that I imagined was bullet proof, a matching front door, and three floors of windows that stretched toward the sky. A light on the second floor shone out from behind the cover of heavy curtains, but I didn’t know enough about his house to know if it was his bedroom or something else. Having a bedroom that faced the street seemed unsafe, but Vince had gotten shot by a stranger in front of a church, then a month later let that same stranger suck him off a block away from the scene of the crime.

He didn’t have the strongest sense of self-preservation.

Maybe he didn’t care if he lived or died, which was thefirst spark of hope I’d had since stepping out of the shadows and raising a weapon in his direction.

It would be easier to kill him that way.

Put us both out of our misery.

Chapter 27

Vince

The priest was a work of art, with Orion’s handiwork peppered across his back like a newly discovered constellation that was yet to be mapped. Orion himself, at my feet, brought me more pleasure than I’d ever let anyone know. He was perfect, and it was too easy to forget the scar on my chest was there because of him. The guilt of it would haunt him for the rest of his life, and it may have been foolish of me, but I believed he was sincere in his regret.

My father had abused him in horrible ways, and the call on my life was what he’d been programmed to do. I could not—would not—fault him for his obedience, especially when it was the one thing I wanted most from him.

Well, one of the things. I also wanted his body. His free will.

His…

No.