Secrets of the Harts

I'd Take It All Back Now

1 July 2010

A long time has passed since I last saw Dylan. To my surprise, I find that I always end up thinking about him. It made no sense at all because I had wanted to get away from him. It was part of our deal—I’d help him find the heir to the Mafia, he’ll help me find my mother and we’ll never have to see each other again.

I remembered asking once if Dylan knew how to use a gun. The look that he had given me told that he knew and that he had killed before. It was different for me though. I knew to operate a gun and I knew how to aim to kill but I had never killed before, not until Owen.

At the last second, Calloway hadn’t moved the trigger. It wasn’t easy for her to kill her son; no mother would do something like that because that kind of love was unconditional.

So I did it instead. My original intention had been to maim, not kill. I had wretched myself out of his grip and had turned around, aiming for his bicep with my knife but he had reacted quickly and I threw the knife without being sure of meeting my target. It had gone far off my aim and pierced his stomach instead.

Until now I don’t know how to feel about killing him. I was mixed up inside with so many different feelings about what I had done. But I did finally get my answer to my question, about if he had loved me, in the split second when he had been surprised by the attack. The answer was yes, but not enough.

It was ironic how I’d ended up killing him. I’d told Dylan that I would help him find the man but I would never help him kill.

With this thought in mind, I didn’t know how to look Calloway in the eye. I never found out how she felt about what I’d done or if she’d done everything Owen said. In any case, I hadn’t had the need to see her because the Agency had been shut down immediately after Owen’s death. Reports of how an Agent, one who was Calloway’s son, had betrayed the Agency and turned rogue, using the Agency’s very own resources didn’t reflect well on her. And so, whoever that owned the company (whether it was the government as Dylan suspected or a private candidate) stopped their funding and the Agency was no more.

Calloway had disappeared by then. And although it was clear that she hadn’t been a good mother, she had been an extremely efficient President to the Agency, so I supposed that that would be the way Agents would remember her. They would probably have to find new employment though. But not me, because I won’t go back to that life.

So now I knew what I am not. I was no longer a naive girl wrapped up in the Agency, completely clueless as to what it really was for. I was not an innocent anymore, not when I had killed before. I was not anybody’s puppet, freely manipulated in order to carry out some grand scheme. But I didn’t know what I wanted to be.

Kristen Hart would have been an excellent choice. The problem was; I didn’t know much about her either. The only things I knew was that she had a mother, Alessandra Zeta, who wanted to make amends to her for all that she has missed. She might have, could have and probably would have fallen in love with Dylan Fuller if there hadn’t been so much in their way. The fact that he had left after confirming that his father had died while in the Agency’s custody hadn’t helped matters either, because he left before she could say goodbye.

Besides, maybe she hadn’t wanted to say goodbye. And the minute I’m done, I don’t ever want to see you again. I thought I wanted that, but now I’d take it back if I could. Like I’ve said, I always think of him, even though I know that I shouldn’t.

I roused myself out of my thoughts, intent on concentrating on packing instead. I was moving to Sicily and it was going to be permanent. After all, my mother and my other family were there. I was ready to meet them and discover who Kristen Hart really is.