"You're not scared of me?"
"I'm terrified of you." She says it matter-of-factly. "But I'm more terrified of being without you. Of facing the world alone with Elena. Of men like Draco finding us when we have no one to protect us."
"You're choosing me out of fear? Out of necessity."
"No." She leans forward, looking me dead in the eyes. "I'm choosing you because despite everything you're remembering, despite the violence and the darkness—you came back that day when you saw Draco's car. You could have kept walking. Could have let him take us. Could have saved yourself. But you didn't."
"That doesn't make me good."
"Maybe not. But it makes you mine." She touches my face. "The man you were—the enforcer, the killer—he's not the man I know. The man I know makes breakfast for a three-year-old. Works construction to put food on our table. Wipes down cars to protect us from consequences. That's who you are now."
I want to believe her. Want to believe that I can be someone other than the weapon in my memories.
"There's something else," I say. "Something I realized this morning."
"What?"
"The memories are accelerating. More each day. More vivid." I take a breath. "I think soon I'm going to remember everything. My real name. Who I worked for. Where I came from. And when I do..."
"When you do, we'll deal with it." She says it with such certainty. "Together."
"What if the people I worked for are looking for me? What if they're dangerous?"
"Then we'll run."
"What if I remember and want to go back? Want to reclaim whatever life I had?"
She hesitates at that. I see the fear flicker across her face. But when she speaks, her voice is steady.
"Then I'll let you go. Because I won't keep you somewhere you don't want to be." She pauses. "But I don't think you will. I don't think you want that life back."
"How do you know?"
"Because if you did, you'd already be looking for it. You'd be trying to remember. Trying to find out who you are." She touches my face. "Instead, you're here. Working construction. Playing house with me and Elena. Building something new. That's not the behavior of a man who wants his old life back."
She's right. I know she's right.
"The memories are getting clearer," I tell her. "Every day, more comes back. Soon it won't just be fragments. It'll be everything. My name. My past. Everything."
"And you're scared."
"Terrified." The admission costs me. "Because what if whoever I worked for comes looking? What if they find us? What if I was involved in something so bad that there's no escaping it?"
"Then we deal with it. Together." She stands, pulling me up with her. "But right now, we need to focus on the immediate problem. The car. The body. What do we do?"
I shift into the mode that feels increasingly familiar. Strategic. Calculating.
"We do nothing," I say. "We stay calm. Continue our normal routine. The identification will take time. Even if they trace the car to Draco, there's no evidence we were involved. The crash could easily be an accident—drunk driving, mechanical failure, anything."
"But his people—"
"His people will investigate, yes. But they'll start in Rome. With his known associates. His enemies. They'll assume it was someone from his world." I'm thinking it through as I speak, and I realize I know exactly how this kind of investigation works. "By the time they even think to look here—if they ever do—the trail will be cold. We'll be just another dead end."
"You sound very sure."
"I am." And I am. Because some part of me has seen how these things play out. "We're safe, Isabella. For now."
"For now," she echoes. "But not forever."
