Page 5 of The Hitman's Prince

On day eight, I walked in and he had his Sig in pieces on the desk, his fingers working carefully as he meticulously cleaned his piece. He stopped when I entered, leaning back in his chair and looking me directly in the eyes. He was too kind for a job like this. Even though he tried to present himself as being the same as his father, he didn’t have it in him.

Vince could be rough, but he wasn’t cruel.

“What was the nature of your relationship with my father?” he asked me that night, slowly sliding his gun back together and setting it in the center of his desk, barrel pointed toward me.

“What do you mean?”

He licked his lips, annoyance obvious on his face. “Were you his lover?”

That wasn’t the word I would have used to describe the nature of my relationship with Ricardo Angelini.

“I was indebted to your father,” I answered.

“An unwilling lover, then.” Vince tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, and I knew we were both thinking of that night we never spoke about.

“On occasion,” I said.

“What else?” he pressed. “When you weren’t willing or unwilling…what was the nature of it?”

“That was determined at his discretion.” Shame flooded me, and I frowned at the floor.

“He did not treat you well?”

I didn’t know how to answer that either, and my silence was answer enough.

Vince sighed heavily, resigned but not tired.

“He trusted you,” Vince said, not asking. “You were his confidant, his assistant. Were you his advisor?”

“Rarely,” I whispered.

Confidant, sometimes. Assistant, often.

Ricardo always had me handling his dirty work or delegating it out to others so his hands would stay clean. Vince had no idea the depraved things I’d done in hisfather’s name, and part of me hoped he would never find out. Not because I cared how it would cause him to see his father, but because of how it would cause him to see me.

“I would like for you to be those things to me,” he said softly, assuredly. Lifting his gun, he pointed it at me, then returned it to the holster at the small of his back. “But not under duress.”

“I understand, Sir.”

“Admittedly, Orion—” He paused, and I loved how my name sounded in his mouth. “I think we started on the wrong foot.”

“How do you figure?”

“With you on your knees.”

I blinked slowly, heat flooding my stomach at the memory of our encounter the night he killed his father.

“I…I don’t…”

“It was dubious?—"

“No.” I interrupted him before he could finish the thought. “It was not.”

“I had a gun to your head,” he reminded me.

“I’m not scared of dying, Sir,” I said. “The threat of a bullet would never be enough to force me into doing something I don’t want.”

“So you just didn’t care for my father, then?” he asked. “How could he take you unwillingly if you were not…are not…afraid to die?”