She shakes her head. “Miles Hart is a good man, Luca. He’s diligent and stubborn. He’ll look into it, and he won’t stop until he finds it.”
“It’s a risk,” I say. “They can bury it.”
“They can try,” she says. “But it’ll come out one way or another.”
A muscle ticks in my cheek. Part of me wants a clean resolution delivered in a trunk in a river. The part that loves her wants her to be able to look at herself tomorrow. Those parts are not always friends.
“You’re asking me to trust a process that just spit you out.”
“I’m asking you to let me be who I am,” she says. She steps closer, putting her hands on my arms and squeezing. “You forget, sometimes, that it was my case. I know you. I know what you’ve done. I can’t change that about you any more than you can change this about me. I’m not asking you to become someone else. But I will not become someone else either.”
The words are firm, but her eyes are begging me.
I glance away, jaw set, then back at her. “Very well.” The words are slow, chosen. “We get what we need from him. And then we turn him loose to the system you trust.”
Good,” she says, a heavy breath leaving her.
“But hear me,” I add. “If they take the information and do their job, I step back. If they do nothing, I will step in again.” I hold her eyes so she hears all of it. “I mean it.”
She takes it in, weighing whether to fight me now or later. Her shoulders settle half an inch. “Fine,” she says at last. “But we try my way first.”
“Your law,” I say.
“Thelaw,” she corrects softly.
“I don’t like it,” I say. When she stiffens, I draw her into my arms and press my forehead to hers. “But okay.”
Chapter Forty
Elena
Something wakes me.
Not a sound so much as the absence of one. The house has a distinct sound, even at night. HVAC, low lights, air moving through the vents. Now it’s wrong. Too still. I blink at the ceiling, trying to place it.
I reach sideways. Cold sheet.
“Luca?” I whisper into the dark.
No answer.
Somewhere far off, a shout rips the quiet. Another, closer. My body floods with adrenaline so fast I taste metal.
I fumble for the lamp, fingers patting along the nightstand, knock the book, the water glass, until I find the switch. I click it. Nothing. The lamp stays dark. The clock beside it is just a dark rectangle.
Power’s out.
Another bang, a familiar one. One that zipped by my cheek and slammed into a metal door. I’m out of bed before I’ve decided to move, breath sharp in my throat, grabbing for the robe tossed on the chair. I thread my arms through, tie the belt with hands that won’t stop shaking.
A whisper of motion. The door to the bedroom eases inward, slow enough to make no sound at all, and then I hear the softest click as it settles back into the jamb.
“Luca?” I call, louder. “Luca, is that—”
Silence answers. Not his footfall. Not his scent. Just the taste of dark and the prickle down my spine.
I pivot, heart pounding, and feel my way along the wall to the closet. If I can slip inside, call out, wedge the door, buy seconds. My fingers find the frame. I press the switch.
Nothing. Of course. The closet yawns black.
