“I don’t care how he sees it.”
We stare at each other for a long moment, and I realize this is how it’s going to be. Helena will be kind but unyielding, treating me like a wayward child who needs to be guided back to the fold. And I’ll be stuck here, locked away from everything, until Victor decides I’ve learned my lesson.
“Get some rest,” Helena says finally. “I’ll bring dinner in an hour.” Then she leaves, and I hear the soft click of a lock engaging from the outside.
I walk to the balcony and look out at the ocean, watching waves crash against white sand, and try to figure out how the hell I’m going to survive this.
Two months of running, and it all ended in one night.
One night with Cassian Rourke that I can’t stop thinking about, even though I should hate him for what he is.
One night that cost me everything.
6
CASSIAN
City sirens are already closingin by the time I holster the gun.
Dmitri’s body is cooling on the pavement, blood pooling around what’s left of his head, and witnesses are scattered across the street in various states of shock. Some are recording on their phones. Others are calling 911. A few are smart enough to leave before the police arrive.
My people move in immediately. Declan appears from somewhere, on his phone, coordinating cleanup. Two more of my men start working the crowd to identify who saw what and who needs to be convinced that their memory is unreliable.
I scan the crowd, looking for Catherine. She was here. I saw her across the street right before Dmitri stepped into my path, standing on the sidewalk maybe fifty feet away.
I check the sidewalk where she was standing. Empty. There’s no sign of her in the dispersing crowd, no dark-haired woman in a mask trying to blend in.
“We need to move,” Declan says, gripping my arm. “Police are two minutes out.”
I let him pull me toward the car idling at the curb. We’re gone before the first patrol car arrives, leaving the scene to officers who will find very cooperative witnesses and absolutely no useful evidence.
By the time we’re back at the hotel, the cleanup is in motion. The responding officers are the ones we have on payroll, which is great. The security footage from surrounding buildings is being collected and destroyed. Dmitri Petrov died in a tragic gang-related incident, and by tomorrow morning, the official story will be that it was Russian infighting over territory.
There’s no mention of me or any witness willing to testify.
I pour myself a drink.
“The footage,” I say to Declan. “I want everything from that street. Every camera, every angle.”
He looks up from his phone. “We’re already pulling it to destroy?—”
“I know. But I want copies before it’s gone.”
“Why?”
“Because there was a woman there. Dark hair, mask, mid-twenties. She saw everything.”
Declan’s expression shifts. “You think she’s a problem?”
“She ran, and I want to know where she went.”
He nods and makes the call.
The footage arrives an hour later, copied to a laptop that one of my tech guys brings to the suite. I dismiss him and pull up the files myself, scanning through multiple camera angles until I find her.
There. Catherine, standing on the sidewalk across the street, frozen in place while chaos erupts around her. I can see the moment she registers what happened, the way her body goes rigid, the split second before survival instinct kicks in.
Then she runs.
