The world narrows to her shadow fleeing down the street. My pulse is a war drum in my ears. My feet pound across the pavement. I chase like a man possessed, because I am.
She doesn’t get away this time. Not this time.
She ducks into a narrow alley, but I’m faster, fueled by guilt and rage and something I refuse to name. She’s climbing the wire fence at the end of the street when I grab her by the waist and slam her back into the brick wall. The gun clatters from her hand. She thrashes against me, completely feral, but I’ve got her pinned with my body. My fingers tear at the mask as the rage builds with each ragged breath.
I finally rip it free.
And my world fucking ends.
Golden blonde hair spills loose. Blue eyes burn up at me, wide and wild and heartbreakingly familiar. A freckle just beneath her left eye. Lips I’ve kissed a thousand times in memory.
“Kitty Cat?” Her name is nothing more than a serrated whisper.
Caitríona.MyKitty Cat.
The impact is nuclear.
Sicily.
The jetty, her laugh bubbling as I splashed her.
The taste of salt on her neck.
Her small hands clutching my shoulders as she whispered someday against my skin.
Her face when I told her I’d never leave.
Her tears the night I did.
The montage crashes through me, every memory like a blade across my chest, until I can’t breathe. Until I’m choking on the impossible truth that the ghost, the assassin, the girl I almost shot a dozen times…
Isher.
My grip trembles but I don’t let go. I can’t. I’m staring into the eyes of the only woman I’ve ever loved and all I can think to do is hold on tighter, terrified she’ll vanish again.
Her lips part. “Matteo—” The sound of my name in her voice wrecks me.
And before I can stop myself, the wrong words tumble out, cracked and raw. “She’s pregnant.”
The world tilts. She freezes, blue eyes widening, the fight draining from her limbs as if I’ve gutted her with those two words alone.
AndDiohelp me, I realize too late that maybe I have.
But I can’t stop myself now, the hurt and the anger bleed together and twist into something darker. “The woman you almost killed back there, when you were aiming at me, is fucking pregnant,” I hiss. “Her name is Rory and she’s my cousin, Alessandro’s, wife.”
She doesn’t move, just stares at me, mouth curved into a capital O.
The sound of my own voice seems unreal like it belongs to someone else. Her mouth makes that little O again, and for a heartbeat she looks like the young girl on the beach, wide-eyed and wordless, before everything snaps back hard to now.
“Fuck you,” she growls. A tear slips slow down her cheek. It glows in the streetlight like a tiny, traitorous thing.
An immediate rush of shame shoots through me. It’s so hot it makes my teeth ache. My hands are still fisted where I held the mask, knuckles white. All the anger that sent me chasing her is already curdling into something else: regret, horror, a grief so big it has no name. How could this be the same person I left with a promise I broke? How did she become the knife at my throat?
“Cat—” I start, but the name dies in my mouth when she suddenly lunges.
Her hand slams into my chest, a smack that hurts harder than any punch. She hits me again and again, each strike frantic and each one carrying the weight of words she won’t say. She’s small but fierce, nails raking my shirt and tears splattering onmy collar. Her face is windblown, raw, and there’s so much hate there. It’s years of hurt sharpened into a weapon.
“You left,” she spits between blows. “You left me. You left us. You walked away.”
