Last Hit (Hitman #1)(26)
Author: Jessica Clare

D8Z: I’m glad. I like the thought of being so irresistible.

I curl up on my bed and slide under the covers with my phone, feeling languid and peaceful. If Nick can’t be here, the phone is my connection to him. If I can’t be under the covers with him, I’ll be under the covers with the phone.

Nick: Ah, Daisy. You are too good for one such as me. Why you even speak to me, I do not know. I do not deserve such a gift.

D8Z: Silly man. I like this relationship, Nick. I like you, and I like that you let me control things. You let me steer. It makes me feel strong. Unafraid. That is the best feeling in the world.

Nick: You wish to be driving us, kotyonok? I will let you drive the Ducati the next time I see you. Would you like that?

D8Z: I…don’t know how to drive.

I’m ashamed to admit it. It’s one of the things my father never let me learn because he wouldn’t leave the house to show me, and going to a driver’s education class would have meant interacting with a class full of others, and the thought was anathema to my agoraphobic father. I think, also, it was part of his way of keeping me trapped at his side. I’m excited by just the prospect of exchanging my state-issued identification card for a real driver’s license. It is a skill I lack, and one I haven’t had the courage to admit to Regan yet because I’m afraid she might laugh at me for being so backwards.

Nick: Then I will show you, little flower. And then you will drive me everywhere, da?

I smile at my phone.

D8Z: Da. ?

NIKOLAI

"So, dasha, you don’t know how to drive. This is easy." I point out the pedals. "The big one is stop and the little long one is go. Press both softly at first, until it feels right to you."

"All my firsts are with you," she says, giving me a sly little grin.

I like that. My c*ck likes it too, and I want to pull her hand over to touch my hardness, but I think it is too soon for that. She is not a whore to be ordered about. She likes to be in charge, and I am happy to wait for her direction, but eventually I will show her how much pleasure she brings to me. "No one else would treasure you like I."

"No one?" She arches her brow now.

It is not arrogance that drives me, but possessiveness. I am afraid she wouldn’t like either so I simply shrug.

"What if someone else would…" She pauses and thinks for a moment. My frame tenses up, but she says, "Teach me to drive?"

"Nyet, I would not like that."

"What would’ve happened if one of my customers had touched me? You seem upset when you come to the station."

"I would have killed him."

"Ha. Ha." She sounds out each syllable so that it is not a laugh but a mocking sound. "No, seriously."

I look at her steadily. No, I think, no joke. I would cut off the hand of a man who touches you. I’d start by sawing off each finger slowly, because death ends the suffering. He’d need to suffer. When her eyes dim and her countenance takes on a worried look, I say, "Kidding."

Only I think we both know I am not.

She turns to start the car.

"Push in the brake, then press the button. Wait for the engine to engage."

She follows my instructions.

"Ease up on the brake."

The car jerks forward as she releases the brake—too swiftly—and then engages it in a rush. We both jerk forward.

"Sorry, sorry," she rushes to apologize.

"It is nothing. Just, gently."

The second time, it is smoother, and she begins to make big circles around the empty parking lot. We practice braking, turning and accelerating slowly, and then more swiftly. In no time she is maneuvering the rental with ease. Perhaps another time we will try the bike. I wonder what else I can teach her—what other firsts I can show her.

My time with her might end swiftly, but I want her to remember me. The more firsts I experience with her, the longer I will be imprinted in her mind. Enough firsts and she will never forget me.

Time passes quickly, and we stop only because I hear her stomach grumble. She protests when I pay for her meal, but I ignore her protests.

"What else do you want to learn?" I ask as we gulp down sandwiches. Daisy wants to return to the vehicle, and I want to make Daisy happy.

She shrugs and beams a happy smile at me. "God, everything."

A thought strikes me. A woman alone in the city should be a woman armed. I will teach Daisy to shoot a gun. It is one area in which I have extensive expertise. "Let’s go to the country," I say. "You can drive out there on the long roads and practice at a faster speed."

Daisy beams at me. This is a good idea, I can tell. Better than a picnic. I will tell Daniel next time we talk that his skills with women are outdated.

I lead Daisy to the passenger side of the car. "When we get away from traffic, you can take over."

Inside the car and on our way west of the city, I broach the topic. "Perhaps another time, I could teach you to handle a firearm. I am worried about you alone at night at the gas station."

Daisy laughs at this suggestion. "I actually know how to shoot a gun already."

I shoot her a look of surprise. This is not the response I expected. It is not that I’ve never seen a woman handle a weapon. There are women who do the work I do, and there are women in the Bratva, mostly those who trade in sexual favors, but plenty can handle a knife with ease and guns are plentiful.

"My dad taught me." Daisy is subdued. Her eyes go distant, sad.

I sit straighter, as I know little about Daisy’s past. I only know her present. That she is alone, poor, and with few resources and no family—or so I thought.

"What happened that he would do that?"

At first she shrugs, a French enigmatic shrug that could mean many things. "I lived on a farm. In this direction actually." She waves her hand out the windshield down the long highway road we are taking.

"Fathers teach all their daughters to shoot on a farm?" I ask. I know only a few agrarian families and, now that I think about it, they probably all can shoot a rifle.

"Varmints," she says quietly. Sensing she has something more to say, I wait and soon my patience is rewarded. "My mother was killed by a stranger. Or, at least we think it was a stranger. He’s out now. Served two years in juvie."

Out of all the stories I imagine Daisy sharing with me, none was this one. "Your mother was shot?"

My imagination gallops away from me. Was she involved in some criminal activity? Did she steal something?

"I know. It sounds unbelievable, right?" Her voice is choked up, and I want to pull over and comfort her. Instead, I can only reach out and squeeze one of her hands.

She returns my grip and holds my hand between both of hers. "My dad and I don’t know why it was her. When he got out of juvie, the murderer sought my father out and said he was next. It changed my life. My dad is afraid to leave the house. He took me out of school, and we became hermits. One day he brought me downstairs to the basement. He’d set up a seven-yard shooting range down there with a barrier made of hundreds of phone books, which I guess were destined for the recycling station. For months, I went down every night and shot a gun into the wall of phone books."

"What gun?"

"Baby Glock."

"That’s a good gun. A .38?"

She nods. "You know a lot about guns."

"I did a job once." I say vaguely. Still truthful. "I’m sorry about your mother and your father. And he only served two years?"

"He was a minor, and he pled it down to involuntary because he was high on meth," Daisy looks down, and I feel wet, hot tears splash onto our joined hands. "They were lenient, even though he took my mom away from us."

My heart aches for her. When I am done with this job for Sergei, when I bring retribution to Sergei’s house, I will return and find this man and kill him for Daisy. We may never be together again, but I will do this. I vow it silently. For now, all I can do is comfort Daisy in her time of need. I pull over onto a side road. Unbuckling my seat belt, I reach over and pull Daisy onto my lap. She hugs me, but only for a moment before she pushes back.

"Thanks. I don’t know why I got so emotional." She swipes away the tears with the back of her hands.

"There is no need for apologies. Your response is normal," I assure her, rubbing her back in steady, firm strokes.

She tilts her head and smiles at me. "Is there no emotional response that will make you uneasy?"

"None from you," I lean forward and kiss the base of her throat. Her pulse flutters in response. "I want all of your emotions." All of them. I treasure even her anger. Indifference is what I fear.

Daisy melts against my chest, and it is not sexual desire she arouses in me this time, but fierce protectiveness. I hug her and then say, "Do you want to drive now?"

She nods her head and takes the wheel.

We drive for a long time, and I tell her about my time watching the curator. Not that he had a predilection for young boys, but the art that he managed and how it spoke to me in ways that surprised me.

"I’d love to see art like that," Daisy says. "I’ve only seen pictures of it. My father regulated everything in my life, even my connection to the Internet."

I begin to understand why she is so innocent, and I fear for her.

"Do you still have a gun?"

"No, I left it at the farm."

"I will buy you one then." Tomorrow we will go and get one. Or I would get one. There were always guns on the street for purchase. The weapons I have are too big for her delicate hands.

"You can’t keep buying stuff for me," Daisy says with exasperation.

"Why not?" Harold’s girls vied for his gifts more than they wanted his attention. Even the whores were more interested in my pocketbook than the actual f**king we did. This I did not understand about Daisy. "I have money. It is of no consequence the purchase of a gun."

Daisy shakes her head. "If you have so much money, then why are you living in a dump across the street from me?"

I tell her a little truth. "I am, what you say, investigating someone."

"Oh my god, are you spying on someone? Like a guy who is cheating on his wife?" Recognition gleams in her eyes. "That’s how you started watching me, right?"

"I am observing someone. He has taken money from someone I work for. That someone would like it back."

Silence fills the car, and I wonder what it is that Daisy is processing. Does she understand the ominous tone of my words? But no, she surprises me again. "He must be an awful man, to steal money from someone."

"Da."

She flushes, but then shrugs. "I guess watching me is pretty boring compared to that."

"Never."

"Never?" She laughs. "All I do is sleep and then go to work at the gas station."

"I do not like that place," I announce. "Bad things will happen there."

She rolls her eyes at me, as this is an argument we have had before. "I told you Craig, the owner, lives right down the street."

I shift in my seat but she is not looking at me. "There are bars on the windows. That tells you it is dangerous. Safe places do not have bars."

"I need the money," she says, her chin firmly set.