The Heiress and the Hitman

Chapter Eight: PILLS AND PRETTY LIES

My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped animal as Nicolai’s fingers sink even deeper into my hair. His fingers tracing lazy circles on my skin.

If I discover my pretty little wife has been lying to me...

The threat still hangs in the air between us. Dangerously real.

I force myself to breathe. He'd notice if I panicked... He could always tell when I panicked for some reason. As Hudson Holdings glamorous heiress, I'd spent years perfecting my mask. Sharpening it, using it as a weapon but he could see through it in an instant. My lies could only hold for so long before they began to crumble. I need a new plan.

“You're overthinking again,” I murmur gently, my lips mere inches away from his.

His eyes narrows slightly.

“Am I?”

“Yes.” My fingers slide from his chest to his jaw, slow and deliberate, tracing the sharp line. I could feel the heat of his skin, the tension still coiled in his muscles. “You’ve always done this,” I add quietly.

“Done what?”

“Locked yourself inside your own head..."

He studies me skeptically, “You’re saying I’ve always been like this?”

“Yes. I do not know much about you because there was nothing to know." I brush a loose strand of dark hair from his forehead, letting my fingers linger near the cut above his temple. “You’ve always been secretive.”

His eyes search my face. “And you were okay with that?”

“We both were.” I give a casual shrug.

“Our marriage was never conventional, Nicolai.”

His name still feels strange in my mouth... Too intimate.Too dangerous.

He leans back slightly, studying me with that same unsettling intensity.

“So we got married...” he said slowly, “without knowing anything about each other’s families.”

“Yes.”

“And that didn’t bother you.”

“No.”

“Why?”

I meet his piercing gaze. My voice calmer than I currently feel. “Because it was easier.”

“Easier?”

“The less we knew about each other,” I say softly, “the less complicated things became.”

He frowns slightly. That answer doesn't fully satisfy him. I can see it in the way his jaw tenses.

I trace the line of his jaw with a trembling finger. "It's alright if you don't believe me. But—Our marriage was supposed to be our only sanctuary from the world. In here we're all that matters to each other... Do you really want to tear down those walls now?" I whisper.

Nicolai flinches slightly, a flicker of genuine distress crossing his features. "I... I'm sorry. I just can't shake the feeling that there's something I’m supposed to know. Something urgent. It's like a weight in my chest"

His hand rises subconsciously to his temple again, “There’s something I’m supposed to remember,” he murmurs.

My chest tightens. “Yes,” I say quickly. “You’re supposed to remember you're injured...”

I lean closer before his thoughts can spiral further.

My fingers sliding deftly from his jaw down to his chest then even lower, slow and deliberate. It worked every time... The tension in his shoulders shifts, his attention drifting from memory to the warmth of my touch.

“You’re thinking too much,” I murmur. His storm-grey eyes darken slightly.

“Maybe.” His voice is strained.

His gaze drifts down slowly to my nightgown, his fingers curling around my face.

“You’re distracting me again...”

“Is it working?”

His mouth twitched faintly.

“Maybe.”

My heart stutters, but I don’t let it show. Instead I lean in and press my lips to the corner of his jaw. “Let me help you forget the parts that hurt..." I whisper against his skin. My hands glide down his bare chest, tracing those brutal scars. Feeling the heat of him... the steady thud of his pulse. I let my body mold to his, silk against skin, reminding him of the hunger we’ve been circling all night.

He exhales roughly. Burning hunger in his eyes, his fingers flexing at my waist. It takes the last bit of my self control to pull back. I need to remain clearheaded this time. “You’re still bleeding through the bandage,” I say, concern threading my voice. “Your head must be killing you. Let me get you something for the pain...” This was my chance! Don't f**k it up Aria.

I slip from his hold before he can protest and retrieve a small bottle from the nightstand drawer. My 'Painkillers' except they’re not. They’re my prescription sleeping tablets, the strong ones I took on most nights for the chronic insomnia that had plagued me since my father’s death. They were very effective in inducing sleep although they didn't help much for the nightmares that followed afterwards. I shake out four, double the recommended dose and press them into his palm alongside a glass of water. Two pills would knock a person out for about six hours. I didn't want to think about what four pills would do.

“Take these,” I coax, stroking his arm. “It should help with the headaches. You need rest. We both do...”

He looks at the pills, then at me. Suspicion flickers in his eyes.

I smile, small and sad. “It's alright that you still don't trust me, Nicolai. But I'd never do anything to hurt you. In here there's no danger. Just… this.” I gesture between us, then lean in and kiss him.

It's slow, deep and frustrating. I let my tongue tease his until his hand fists in my nightgown and he groans low in his throat. My mind goes blank and I struggle to remember what I'd been trying to do in the first place. I must be the worst seductress ever. I almost forgot my entire plan.

I push myself from him with shaky hands and once I pull back he swallows the pills without another word, His eyes locked onto my lips.

Desperate for a distraction, I tend to his bandage again, rewrapping it with careful fingers. The doctor had warned me strictly to never go beyond two tablets and now I saw why. Nicolai's eyelids grow heavy almost immediately.

The medication was already starting to work.

“Aria..." He slurs "You’re very good at answering questions without actually answering them,”

I smiled faintly.

“Maybe you keep asking the wrong ones.”

He watches me for another long moment.Then something in his shoulders softens and the tension slowly begins to drain from his body.

I lean down and kiss him on the cheek. Startling myself. Why did I do that?

When I pull away, his eyes look even heavier.

“You should sleep,” I whisper

His arm wraps around my waist before I can react and he pulls me down with him till I'm lying beside him

My breath hitches.

The motion was instinctive, protective... Possessive even as the drugs drag him deeper into sleep.

“Stay,” he murmurs faintly.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I lie through my teeth.

His fingers tightens slightly against my side.

“How did someone as perfect as you... fall for something like me?” he mumbles, voice already slurring at the edges, the drugs hitting fast.

Guilt slices through me. Sharp and unexpected. I shove it down hard. He’s an Assassin, Aria...The second he remembers, this tenderness would vanish. It's only an illusion. “Sleep, Nicolai. Just sleep.”

His breathing deepens, arms loosening. Within minutes he’s out. The drugs working faster than I’d hoped. I wait another full minute, counting his breaths, then carefully extricate myself from his hold. He doesn’t stir.

I stare down at him for a long moment. Even asleep he looks dangerous, like he could spring up and strike at any second. A dark thought crosses my mind suddenly.

I could end this. Right now. The gun was still downstairs. I could go get it and end it all with one shot. One bullet. One pull of the trigger.

My stomach lurches violently.

I couldn’t do it...

The image of my father from three months ago burns through my memory. The sound of the gunshot still echoing in my ears. I still couldn’t even hold a gun without shaking. Even if I could, a small, traitorous part of me recoils at the very idea of hurting Nicolai. I blame the alcohol still lingering in my system for my poor choices and terrible survival skills..

“If I ever survive this..." I mutter bitterly to myself. "I'll never touch alcohol again."

I bolt downstairs, my heart hammering, I immediately go for the knife that slid under the sofa when Nicolai first collapsed down the stairs. The hilt bears the same mysterious dagger and thorns crest as his tattoo. I’m grateful he never saw this knife. I wouldn't have been able to come up with a lie to explain this away.

Next, I grabbed his black leather jacket from where he had tossed it earlier. As I lifted it, something slipped from the inner pocket. My breath stills... It was a picture of me. Taken from across the street. But this was taken months ago, long before the attack on my father. Was I a target then too? Nothing makes sense anymore.

On the back of the photo was a six-digit number written in black ink. A code probably. A code for what? I slip the picture into the drawer as well. I shake out the Jacket and something else falls to the floor. A small silver locket.

I pick it up gingerly, the hinge clicking softly as I open it. Inside were two photographs. A little boy and a little girl. The boy had storm-grey eyes. I'd recognize those eyes anywhere... My chest tightens.The girl beside him looks younger. She has the same grey eyes but hers are bursting with life and she's smiling brightly. He did have a sister...

I turned the locket over. A name was engraved into the back... Elena.

I close it quickly and hide it with everything else. If Nicolai saw any of this, It'd trigger his memory and I'd be dead.

Panic rises within me. I turn to the security panel. There must be some way to disable the lockdown manually. I punch in my security code and there's no response. I try it multiple times...Same result. I'm locked out.

Frustrated, I looked over the panel more carefully and something catches my attention. There's a small manual switch mounted high above the panel.

My pulse spikes. A failsafe maybe? Or an Emergency override? It must do something.

I drag a tall stool across the floor and climb onto it. My fingers trembling as I stretch toward the switch. Just a little more now, I could already taste my freedom. Once I deactivate the Lockdown procedure, I’d go straight to the guards downstairs and have them arrest Nicolai and turn him over to the police. By the time he wakes, he'd be at the police station hopelessly confused.

I ignore the strange knot twisting in my stomach at the thought. Why would I care what happens to him. He's a criminal. I shove away thoughts of Nicolai and focus on the switch. I'm standing on my tiptoes now and my hand is close to reaching the switch. Almost there.

Just a little higher.

My fingertips brushes the switch.

Come on, Aria. Just reach it. Just—

“What are you doing?”

Nicolai’s voice cut through the room behind me.

An involuntarily scream escapes from my throat. My foot slips on the stool’s edge, the legs scraping violently across the floor.

For one horrifying second, the world tilts.

Then the stool kicks out from beneath me and I'm falling...