“Why wouldn’t I be safe?” Lia asked. “I haven’t done anything. I don’t even know who these people are!”
I looked at the clock and rubbed my hands against my thighs.
“We need to move,” I said. “It’s checkout time, and I only brought us here to get us out of Trent’s line of sight. We can’t stay another night.”
“Where are we going?”
I reminded myself that she wasn’t asking me to take her to the airport, but I still decided we weren’t going anywhere near O’Hare. I didn’t want to be too far from the city—I needed to be able to get to public transportation easily and quickly.
“Another motel,” I said. “Maybe something up north. We just need to stay moving for now until I figure out how I’m going to do all this. We can talk more when we get to another location.”
“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation at all.” Lia put her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You’ve said that a lot,” she reminded me.
“I know.”
She went silent, and I went tense. I waited for her to say something—anything—to give me an idea what she was going to do. I probably should have reminded her that if she wanted me to get her a ticket back to Phoenix, I would, but I wasn’t going to make that offer again.
“Well, Mom was right.” Lia sat back and looked at me. “I had no idea who you really were.”
I looked down at my clenched hand and the veins pulsing in my arm. Everything about her posture told me she had just changed her mind. She was going to leave, and I was going to have to figure out some way to accept that and move on.
Or do something far worse.
“Do you like it?” she asked. She placed her hand on my thigh and started moving it up and down, her touch relaxing the muscles there.
“I like that,” I said, indicating her hand on my leg.
“That’s not what I meant.” Her hand stopped moving, and she started to pull it away, but I grabbed it and held it in place. My fingers stroked over hers softly.
“Do I like what, then?”
“Killing people.”
“It’s a job. I’m good at it.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
I didn’t see any point in lying to her now, so I just spit it out.
“Yeah, sometimes. Some people deserve it.”
“But not all of them?”
“Everyone’s done something wrong,” I said with a shrug.
“And they deserve to die for it?”
“I don’t really think about it much, you know?”
“No,” Lia said as she raised her eyebrows and looked at me pointedly, “I do not know.”
“People die,” I stated. “They might get a disease, or get hit by a fucking bus, or get hit by me, but they all die. Sometimes no one even gives a shit, and the kind of people I kill mostly fall into that category. I definitely don’t care if they die, so I don’t think about it much.”
Lia was silent for a long moment. I struggled with wanting to give her a little time to process all the shit I’d thrown at her. I also needed to deal with my own nervousness at being in the same location as long as we had been.
“What are you thinking?” I finally asked.
“I’m trying to figure out how you can be so nonchalant about it,” Lia said. “I don’t understand how you can reconcile what you’re doing.”
“Like I said, I don’t think about it. It’s usually from far away, and I only see my target through the scope. It’s just like playing a video game.”
“It’s not a game,” she said quietly.
“I know it isn’t.” I took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “Really, I swear we can talk more about it later, but we have to move now.”
Lia nodded and silently gathered up her belongings from the bathroom and shoved them all into the overnight bag she’d brought with her the night before. I asked the motel guy where I could get a cab, and he directed me to a convenience store a few blocks away. I bought a pack of cigarettes while Lia gave me a bit of a look.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Don’t give me that shit.”
“In light of everything else, I’ve decided not to complain about your smoking,” Lia informed me.
“I don’t usually do it.”
“You’ve had a cigarette in your hand pretty much the whole time since the last time you made that statement.”
“I’m trying to remember what it’s like.” I gave her a goofy smile, and she shook her head again.
Lia was quiet while I smoked, glared at the gang-bangers as they went in and out of the store for cheap liquor, and waited for the cab to show up.
“I was thinking I might retire,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Lia asked.
“You know—like you were saying before. You asked what we were going to do after all this. When I was in jail, I thought maybe…well, maybe I’d just see if you wanted to...um….”
Shit, I sounded like a fucking idiot.
“I was thinking maybe you and I could leave Chicago, you know—together. Go someplace where no one is likely to try to track me down. I have to take care of all this other shit first because Trent will definitely be on my ass until it’s done, but afterwards, we could just leave. I’ve got plenty of money to get us by for a while.”
“What? Someplace like that cabin where I first met you?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“And do what?”
I gave her a half smile and a raised eyebrow.
“Alternate between taking you up against a wall and taking you from behind. We could throw in a few other variations, of course. Those are just my top picks.”
She didn’t seem amused.
“I’ve missed a whole year of school tracking you down,” she said. “I still have two years left before I get my degree.”
I was struck again with how little I knew about her. I hadn’t even been aware she was in school.
“What are you studying?” I asked.
“Nursing,” Lia replied tersely. “Don’t change the subject.”
There was a sudden burst of a memory from a couple Christmases ago when Rinaldo’s wife got ticked off at him for sneaking cookies from a tray she was preparing. She had shaken her finger at him as she yelled, and all his attempts at diverting the topic had been unsuccessful.
I smiled.
“Is this funny?” Lia snapped.
“No,” I said, but I couldn’t stop the grin on my face. “Would you hit me if I said you were beautiful when you’re angry?”
“Maybe.”
“I won’t say it, then.”
“Good call.”
I leaned in to kiss her, and she let me though she didn’t open her mouth or push for more. I stopped after just a couple of light touches to her lips and then leaned back a little to look at her.
“You wouldn’t have to go to school,” I told her. “I can take care of you.”
“I want to go to school,” Lia said.
Her tone left no room for discussion even if I was a little inclined to try to persuade her to try the easy life. She would never have to work as long as she was with me, and the places we were likely to end up weren’t likely to have a lot of universities in the area.
“Can’t we work out the details later?”
“If you are saying that when all is said and done, we’re not going to stay here, and you aren’t going to continue with your current occupation, then yes, the details can wait.”
I nodded, hoping the gesture looked sincere. I wasn’t completely sure if I could live up to the whole idea—there were too many uncertainties. I didn’t even know if I’d survive this little endeavor into Greco’s organization, and even if I did, there was no way to know if Rinaldo would just let me walk away afterwards.