Page 93 of The Hitman's Prince

“Can I light you a fire?”

Vince flashed me a tired smile, and nodded.

We climbed the stairs to the second floor with slowand heavy steps, and instead of sitting behind the desk, he sank down on the rug in front of the fireplace, letting out a long and weary sigh. We both drank our coffee while I busied myself with the gas valves. After finishing his drink, Vince flopped onto his back, threading his fingers together in the middle of his chest and staring up at the ceiling. I stoked the fire to life, then crawled to the center of the room and lay down beside him, mimicking the positioning.

“Is it time now?” he asked, referring to the confession I’d tried to give him back at the church. I didn’t want it to be time. For some reason, confessing at the church on the bed where I’d bandaged Jacob’s back for the first time felt easier than doing it in the safety of our home. My skin prickled with anticipation, and my stomach twisted into a knot, doing everything it could to keep my last meal down. Whatever my last meal had been.

“You tell me.”

He took a deep breath, shifting his head toward me in interest, but not enough to bring me into his line of sight. “I think so, yes.”

My mouth tasted of bile. It wasn’t lost on me that Vince and I were in the same space as equals for the confession I’d wanted to give him since the night he’d killed his father. I belonged at his feet, of that there was no doubt. I’d taunted him then, demanded he forced my obedience. Begged it of him, and now here we were. Shoulder to shoulder, staring toward the same future.

“He saved my life once,” I whispered, the memoryfuzzy around the edges for how old it was. “I’d been orphaned, was very close to being trafficked. Your father found me and took me under his wing.”

“He groomed you,” Vince interrupted.

“He took things from me and gave me others. His welcome was not without restrictions or limits, though. And that night you found me,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’d been tied there alone for two days, maybe more. I lost count, I think.”

Vince made a very unhappy sound, but didn’t interrupt me.

“Your father…he…he often took liberties.”

“I take liberties.”

“Igiveyou liberties,” I said, louder than I meant to, forceful. It was important to me Vince know that for all the ways he was like Ricardo, he wasn’t the same at all.

“Rightly so, pet,” he said softly.

“He’d been rougher than usual with his body, with mine, but he had also cut me.” The memory burned sharp, like the scars on my chest and my ribs were fresh and new again. “For fun at first, just to watch me bleed. It made me nauseous, and so he did it more.”

“He was a piece of shit.”

“He wasn’t himself,” I said. “I’m not apologizing for him or justifying it, but…he was distracted and worried, I think.”

“About killing you with his carelessness?” Vince’s tone was low and dangerous, like if his father wasn’t already dead, he would be before sunrise.

“About losing his own life. He did a lot of things to me, Vince. I need you to understand.”

“I would kill him all over again if I could.” He groaned, distaste obvious. “How do you…how do we…”

“He took the things I liked and he used them against me, he made them ugly. You could never.”

“I could,” he argued.

“No, Sir. Respectfully, you could not.” That seemed to stop him in his tracks. “Anyway, that night in question, that was the night he told me what to do if he were to ever get killed. He said two million dollars if anyone shot him and I said what if they use a knife.”

Vince made an amused sound in the back of his throat.

“He told me to skin them alive. Made me promise,” I repeated the command, every muscle tense at the rest of the memory. I slid my hand down to my ribs, pressing into a particularly deep scar. “He demonstrated how to do it.”

“Jesus Christ, Orion.”

“The pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt before and I fucking came from it. He took that as approval and did more. These marks…” I trailed off, tracing my fingers over the lines on my ribs and my stomach, my chest.

“I passed out, I think, because the next thing I remember was waking up covered in piss and cum and tears and God knows what else, and then you were there.”

“Orion.” Vince pushed himself into a seated position, taking me with him. He held me gently in his arms, theway he’d handle Caspian of maybe even Jacob and the feel of it made my skin crawl, but I could never shake him off. Iwouldnever.