I nod. “Yeah, of course. I’ll meet you guys there.” I’m disgusted with how small my voice sounds.
Ale shoves the gun into one of his guards’ hands. It’s only then I realize we’re surrounded by them. A dozen Gemini men already fill the sidewalk. Ale looks like he wants to tear the city open, then he turns to the guards. “Lock down every exit. Sweep the perimeter. Nobody leaves. And find cameras, every feed, every alley, and every cab route. I want eyes everywhere.”
He meets my gaze and for one second there’s a look that strips me naked. Not just the cousin-brother look. It’s the man-protecting-his-wife look, and it hits me harder than any punch. “We have to find her.”
“We will.” I keep the rest pressed down like a hot coal. I can feel her name curling at my tongue. Cat. It’s a live grenade I refuse to throw at him. Not now. Not into that particular fury. Not when Rory’s belly might have taken the shock and the risk I can’t bear to explain.
Not to mention the fact that I never told him anything about her. I tell Alessandro everything… but never that.
Ale’s jaw ticks. “I knew we should’ve gone after that masked woman, damn it.” He spits it out like it’s a bad taste. “I’ll make it my job to find her.” The way he says it doesn’t leave room for anything else. “And when I do, Matteo, I swear to God?—”
“I know you will,” I mutter again, which is useless because he knows me like I know his hands on a gun. He doesn’t need to promise. He will find her. He will tear up the city until someone confesses and she’s nothing more than dust. That’s Ale.
He turns, pulls out his phone then calls out orders into the speaker. Then he glances back at me, and the look is differentnow: calculating, immediate. “We’re diverting all Gemini ops to this. Full priority. Jimmy will get it started. I want my best men on it, and I want them watching the docks, the tunnels, the usual shit. No corners. No compromises.”
My chest hollows. There’s a bitter noise in my throat that could be a laugh or a cry. “If I—if I can help?—”
“You will,” he snaps, softer. “You’ll use whatever you’ve got to unearth the Quinlans and their assassin. Tech. Contacts. Sniff them out or cut them off. No one gets to make a play against my family without paying in blood.” His face is a stone wall, but the ragged edge of panic around his eyes tells me how close he is to going beyond that wall.
I almost remind him about the other thing. The breach at the Velvet Vault, about the probes that have been staring at our firewalls for days, about the code that tasted suspiciously like La Spada Nera. I almost tell him that tonight’s attempt could have been them. It could all be connected, that we’re not just hunted by a single act of revenge but by a chorus of enemies.
But I don’t. I fold that thought back into the dark because to say it aloud would spread blame like blood. It could put labels on motives that would only complicate the hunt. And the truth I’m sitting on is so much worse: I know the woman. I know her laugh. I know the shape of her chin. I know the baby she once carried. To tell him would make me the person to set his fury on a woman he’ll hunt to the ends of the earth.
Ale stares at me long enough for my breath to falter. He believes me in the way only blood can make you believe small lies. “Good,” he mutters at last. “We do this clean. We do it fast, and we find her.”
“Yeah.” The word is a stone in my mouth. The guilt eats at me like acid. If Ale directs Gemini’s full weight at the hunt, Cat will have the whole family, Rossis and Valentinos and every resource behind them on her tail. Worse, she’ll have the Quinlans on herass soon too. When they hear about another failed attempt, the Irish won’t be patient.
My thoughts whirl to her again, the way she ran, the way she looked at me when the mask came off. Beyond the shock and recognition, there was something like betrayal. My hands twitch, the imagined memory of her blue eyes still a brand. I suddenly feel very small and very monstrous.
Ale’s phone buzzes, but he silences it. He takes my shoulders for a second in a a hard, brotherly grip. “We move on this. Tonight, we go to the cameras. Tomorrow, we sweep. You get me anything, any scrap, and we go. If she steps in our sight, she won’t get a second chance.”
He lets go and storms off to marshal his people. Once they’re all moving, his expression softens, and he turns toward the ambulance.
Rory’s already inside, hooked up to a dozen different monitors. When he’s seated beside her, she gives me a small smile before the paramedics pull the doors closed. The siren wails and then they’re gone, swallowed by the city like a held breath.
When the night finally settles down around me and the last of the uniforms sifts back into the dark, I just stand there with my hands empty and everything else full. Guilt corrodes every careful plan. I have no map forward that doesn’t end with someone I care about tearing someone else apart.
I’m supposed to be the one who keeps the family safe, who finds the breaches and sees around corners. Instead, I brought the danger closer. I gave my cousin a scare that could have been a death sentence for his child. And now, I’ve brought heat down on a woman who may not have the resources to fight back.
I should go to the hospital. I should sit with Rory and Ale and tell them I’m sorry for endangering them. I should tellthem everything. I should tell them the truth and take whatever comes.
But I don’t. Because there’s a secret that, once spoken, will make a monster of me in their eyes. It’s a truth that will turn vengeance into a personal vendetta and put Cat on a path she won’t survive.
So I walk away from my building and into the city lights, hollow and raw and utterly certain of nothing except this: whatever I choose next, someone will die. And that knowledge is the only thing I can’t scrub from my skin.
CHAPTER 16
PLANNING
Caitríona
I make myself small in the crook of the rooftop’s parapet, knees pulled up under my chin as I gently rock. The city breathes around me like a living thing. Below, Manhattan glows, too bright and too loud, just like Matteo’s luxury high-rise across the street, but up here the air is thin and honest. It lets the panic sit where I can see it, like something I can measure. I hate that I have to measure it. I hate that I know how to.
I should get the hell out of here. It’s only a matter of time until Matteo returns or worse, his cousin. But I can’t get my damned legs to move.
My hands are still shaking. I tuck them under my thighs and force my breath to slow and even out. The mask sits beside me like a dead thing. I’m not even sure why I went back for it. I keep wanting to pick it up, hold it to my face, and pretend the black fabric can hide what I am. But I know it can’t.
Tonight, the mask caught in Matteo’s fingers and the whole world rearranged itself around a single name.
