“You’ll never be a caveman, Elise.”
Her sweet laughter echoes in my head. I still remember how my heart stuttered when she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
Kian and Elise belong in another lifetime. A time when we went by different names and were completely different people.
The echo fades. The present snaps back into focus.
The waitress jerks, her head whipping toward the back. I frown, the earlier unease churning once more.
Lana cocks her head. Her sharp mind knows something’s off with the girl.
She says something to the server, and the girl shakes her head, eyes frantic. Lana’s frown deepens. She tucks a curl behind her ear.
My fingers twitch. I imagine that silkiness wrapped around my fingers, skimming my face—ifI went to her.
I won’t.
But in another life, she’d trail her fingers up my chest, a teasing smile on her lips.
She’d recognize me.
Not as the mobster she’s wary of, but as a boy from the past who went by another name. A boy without the ugly scar on his face and blood on his hands.
My jaw tics as I catalog her—her tan dress straining over her sensual curves, the faintest hint of cleavage playing peekaboo, her fiddling with a small puzzle box she still hasn’t managed to open yet. We’re on the third week with this one, a record for her.
It never seems enough—these twenty-eight minutes representing a number that’s haunted my darkest and happiest moments. There are always details I miss, and I absorb them like a starving man.
Ping.
Twenty minutes.
Fuck. I’m running out of time.
A memory drifts into my mind. A beautiful girl who smelled like roses. Her luminous gray eyes sparkled with mischief as she plopped down beside me in the rundown park near my home, looking completely out of place in a seedy Chicago neighborhood controlled by the Albanian mob.
After pulling my silver lighter from my pocket, I click it on and off. It belonged to my father and was the only thing that survived the night my world ended. The sound takes the edge off, but useless memories still hum beneath the surface.
A lanky man with tats on his face and a leather jacket swaggers into view, his lips curled into a sneer. My hackles rise. Lana stiffens. The server flinches when he leans down and mutters into her ear.
Then he does the unforgivable.
He touches Lana. Drags his filthy, disgusting finger over her unsullied skin.
Skin even I don’t deserve to touch because I’m dirty, depraved, and not worthy.
A growl rumbles in my chest. John clears his throat. His eyes catch mine in the rearview mirror.
“Should I—” he begins.
“No.” My voice is quiet. Cold.
Iwill handle him.
Lana balls her fists and stands, getting in his face. Her untouched water sloshes onto the table. She points to the girl, then at him, her mouth moving at breakneck speed, clearly giving him a piece of her mind.
Blistering heat rushes up my spine. Myzemëris brave—that quality’s never changed.
God, she still doesn’t know how dangerous the world is out there.
