How the Hitman Stole Christmas

That’s why she’s able to sit here tonight having a genuinely good time with the man who abducted her only two days ago. Even after I’ve given her glimpses into the darkness that is my life when I’m not on vacation.

I’ve only told her stories, though. What if it’s different when that darkness isn’t just theoretical? I believe she could probably accept me if I put that life behind me, if the version of me she gets in Stillwater could be the version she got all the time.

But it’s not.

Stillwater Jasper is only here for the holidays.

I think back to what I was doing right before I spotted her on the side of that road, how I wondered even that night how lucky she would consider herself if she’d been there with me, if she’d seen what I had to do.

Will she still look at me the way she does now when she’s forced to confront the reality of my life? Because I know it’ll happen eventually.

One night we’ll be out on the town, her enjoying the side of me she likes, me enjoying that she brings that out in me, and something will go wrong. My work life will collide with my personal life like it has for so many men before me. Men who fool themselves that they can have the best of both worlds, they can keep things separate, keep their loved ones safe despite the monstrous acts we commit when they’re not looking, the dangerous enemies we make along the way.

Some men in this line of work do manage to live both lives. They have enough money and power to keep their loved ones safe, their lives separated, but I’m not one of those men.

I don’t live in the castle; I only work for the king.

If I take Autumn home with me, what then? It’s my job to protect her, but I have a real job, too. I can’t be there with her every moment of every day, and I don’t have the funds or the clout to secure protection for her like Mateo does for his loved ones.

I suppose I could ask Adrian about it, but I have a feeling I already know the answer.

I’m not high enough on the food chain to afford two lives. I only get one.

Before Autumn came into my life, I wasn’t a bit conflicted about the path I’d chosen. Maybe I’d lost sight of certain things, but I didn’t even notice. It’s not that the lifestyle was easy, but I got used to it. The darkness became my home, people I worked with took the place of my family, and I knew a certain amount of loneliness would always come with it when the day was over and I went home alone, but I accepted that. I knew that was the way it had to be.

I was always aware of the danger breathing down my neck every time my back was turned. I felt that constant tension every day, even with nothing but my own life to lose.

If I take Autumn home with me, I will have something else to lose.

Something beautiful, something valuable, something that deserves all the best things life has to offer.

Autumn is special. Women like her don’t come around every day. When they do, they deserve the fairy tale.

And guys like me? We don’t get happy endings.Chapter EighteenAutumnAfter dinner at Leo’s, we make a few more stops to pick up last-minute Christmas gifts. I know Jasper said we had plenty, and he’s not wrong—the list of people at Brady’s house was far longer than Jasper’s, so we do have more gifts to spread around—but I like Jasper’s family, and it feels wrong that I didn’t pick anything out specifically for them.

We stop at an independent book shop and get a few books for Amira. We hit the local mercantile and snag a beautiful beaded bracelet for Nora, and a handcrafted leather bag for Tarek. That gift was more expensive, but it was a really nice camera bag. I figured a serious photographer needs a seriously awesome bag to tote around his tools in.

We haven’t spent as much time with Jasper’s mom and stepfather, but the mercantile had a nice, framed piece of Minnesota Twins-themed art, so I grabbed that for Tom. There’s so much baseball paraphernalia around the house, I figured that would fit right into his collection.

Audra, I’m conflicted about. I’ve been perfectly nice to her, of course, but I still have a bit of a bias against her, knowing she wasn’t there for Jasper when he was a little boy. I do think Nora must be right, she must have mellowed, because she doesn’t seem all that bad now, but I still find myself keeping her at a distance emotionally, and I think because of that… I just don’t know what to get her.