Feeling eyes on me, I turn, hoping to see him. But all I catch is the same waitress, watching me with a soft, disappointed ache in her eyes. I look away, irritation sparking through my chest.
I don’t have time for this shit. I’m not even supposed to be here.
We got a new target yesterday morning. I told Estella I’d scope out the area, make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises tomorrow. And that wasn’t a lie—not completely—since Iwillgo to the cathedral.
But first, I have a meeting.
I still can’t put into words the shock that tore through me when Jason called and told me he was here.
No warning. No plan. We weren’t supposed to meet—weren’t supposed to risk it. They were supposed to stay invisible, exactly like we agreed.
But for some fucking reason, he decided he could just hop on a plane and show up here, unannounced, as if the world wouldn’t collapse around me the second he did.
It would’ve been easier if I lived alone. If there were no eyes waiting for me at home, no voice that noticed every shift in my breathing. But I’m not alone. Estella and I are practically fused at this point.
I can’t imagine living anywhere without her now. It feels like the missing piece of me finally slid into place. Our daily conversations have become so absurdly therapeutic that I still don’t understand how I survived before them. I didn’t know I needed something like this, not until she gave it to me.
She just… gets me. In a way no one else ever has.
Sometimes we don’t speak at all. We just sit in silence, and somehow that silence fills the room instead of hollowing it. There’s no awkwardness, no judgment, no urge to escape.
It’s a quiet kind of safety. A soft, steady comfort. And I find myself terrified of losing it.
But the mission I’m hiding from her presses against me constantly, clawing up my spine, sinking sharp teeth into the back of my neck.
I know exactly how she’ll react. All I have to do is imagine myself in her place. Yes, she’ll explode. She’ll scream, she’ll rage, she’ll demand answers.
But that’s not what scares me.
It’s the silence that will follow the explosion.
The emptiness in her eyes. The disgust.
Thebetrayal.
That will carve into me deeper than the shard of glass that once pierced my chest. It will leave a scar I’ll never fucking recover from.
Estella has already given me so much of herself. She told me about her abusive father—what he did when he stumbled home, how her mother accused her of stealing him away, how she dreamed of running until her legs collapsed.
And when she opened that door, a few of my own memories barged in. Memories I didn’t ask for. Memories I thought were buried.
I remembered the days when my father beat me, locked me in a cage, insisting it was the only way I’d grow into a real man. I remembered the nights he starved me, the way he hurt my mother when she tried to protect me.
A ruthless piece of shit. A businessman obsessed with power, and we were the punching bags he unloaded on when he came back home.
I’d be lying if I said my mission hasn’t wavered because of the memories she brought back—memories that rip the foundation out from under everything I believed.
My family wasn’t perfect. They weren’t noble. They weren’t worth the loyalty I’ve been bleeding myself dry for.
And somewhere deep inside, shame burned like acid, because my mind tried to shield me from the truth, repainting the past in brighter colors, giving me a lie to hold on to.
But lies eventually rot. And mine started to stink.
Even when the thorns of the real picture began to pierce through the painted canvas of the lie I’d built, I kept pretending I didn’t feel the sting.
I couldn’t remember. I refused to remember. And if it weren’t for Estella, I would’ve walked through the rest of my life blind, content with shadows.
A sharp jingle from the cheap metal bell above the entrance slices through my thoughts. I turn my head, slow and wary, irritation sparking in my chest when I spot Jason stepping inside.
