Page 78 of The Hitman's Prince

I wasn’t sure.

Closing my eyes, I rubbed hard at them. Vince’s weak voice filled my ears, calling out for Orion…I hadn’t understood then, but I knew now. In his final moments, the man he wanted was his equal in every way. The man who was downstairs, dressed and ready to go fight while I still moped around in a bedroom that would never belong to me.

The only thing I’d wanted, for so many years, was to get close to Vince Angelini, and now I had, but at whatcost. It was a pipe dream to have ever thought I’d be able to kill him, to have ever imagined that me being the one to pull the trigger would offer him some kind of great mercy. It wasn’t anything more than a fantasy I’d built in my head to convince myself I was worth something.

“What did you think the job was, Caspian?” he asked.

I could picture him sitting in his office at the restaurant, tucked being that peeling pressboard desk that he’d inherited from his father when grandpa passed the restaurant down.

“I was supposed to kill Vince Angelini,” I said. “It would pay enough to clear the debts on the restaurant, and…”

His laughter cut me off. “And you think you’re close to killing Vince Angelini? A man so heartless he shot his own father in the face?”

I swallowed hard.

“You think you’d ever have a chance to get close enough to do it right?”

“I was close enough the first time,” I snapped.

“And you fucked it up.”

“I was doing this for you,” I reminded him. “For us.”

“Were you, Caspian?” he asked. “Were you really?”

Chapter 58

Orion

I’d finished mopping up Vince’s blood before either Caspian or Jacob showed their face on the main floor. It had dried into the wood grain on the doorframe, and scrubbing off the mess of his fingerprints was enough to send me into a near meltdown. I had to step back and dig deep, drawing on reserves of strength I hadn’t tapped into in years to get through it. The thought of losing Vince—again and maybe for real—was enough to make my stomach roil. But of the three of us left in the house, I was the only one equipped to go and get him back. Jacob could kill for fun, but Caspian couldn’t even kill for money. I was the one trained to take out threats. I was the one who should have kept Vince safe.

They were all proof of my own failures, and if I didn’t get Vince back…I wouldn’t come back either. I’d made the promise to myself as I tossed the sickly sweet-scented white towel into the trash. Throwing the last bloody rag ontop of the pile and flicking blood off my fingers, I glared up as Jacob entered the kitchen. He hadn’t showered, but he was dressed, which was an improvement from the state I’d left him and Caspian in the guest room.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, climbing onto a barstool.

I used the edge of my fingernail to pick blood off my skin. “I’m going to find Vanessa and I’m going to kill her. Then I’m going to find that Moore bastard and kill him too. Then I’m going to find Vince.”

“Thought you’d go in reverse order,” he said.

“I made the mistake of thinking the threats weren’t real before.” I used my forearm to turn off the sink, then toweled off my hands. The white terrycloth felt familiar against my palms, and I frowned at the trash can. “I got careless.”

“You did what you were told.”

“He never told me to do anything,” I snapped, throwing the towel onto the counter and shoving my hands into my pockets so I didn’t hurt him. “His father was the one who came with orders and demands. Vince…he never asked anything of me except that I keep him safe.”

“He asked you to kneel.”

“I offered that willingly.”

There’d been an expectation that I continue to serve him in the ways I’d served his father, but from the first moment, Vince was so different from Ricardo it was hard to remember my place. I’d let my heart and my owndesires cloud my vision, and in doing so, I’d lost the only man I’d ever truly wanted.

Ever truly loved.

“It wasn’t Vanessa,” Caspian blurted, feet skittering on the floor as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. His face was flushed, his feet bare. He had his cell phone clutched in his hand and it took every ounce of willpower in my body to not end him where he stood.

“Explain.”

“I…” His mouth gaped like a hooked fish, and that was when I noticed the tears streaming out of his eyes. “It was a trap from the start, but not for him. For me.”