Kitty Cat.
I failed not once, not twice, but three times now. In the Vault, I froze. On the rooftop, when his foot snapped through the ladder, I watched him fall and felt my heart fold in on itself instead of lining his chest with a shot. And then because I’m stupid, reckless and likely insane, I looked at him and saw everything that wasn’t a target: the boy who was my first everything, the man who kissed a future into me, and the rest of my life fell out of my hands.
And tonight, God help me, I let the shot go wide. With Matteo in my crosshairs, I froze. I couldn’t be the one to snuff out the light in those brilliant green eyes, the same eyes that once pinned me beneath them, fierce and unyielding, brimming with a storm of emotion the first time he ever claimed me as his.
My throat tightens, long-buried memories threatening to surge to the surface.
The burner phone buzzes in my pocket like a trapped insect, ripping my attention to the present. I let it whine. I don’t need to answer. Not yet. I know Da’s voice already: the cold assessment, the bitter disappointment. I can hear Donal in the background, silent and efficient, his meager belongings packed and ready. Donal doesn’t hesitate, he executes.
If Da finds out I failed tonight, then Donal is on his way. If Donal arrives, there will be no mercy for Matteo. There will be no slow, surgical hunt. There will be a single shot and a corpse, and that’s a future I can’t face. Not because I love Matteo… God, no. But because I did once. Because he was the reason I carried a life inside me. Because the idea of him dying because of me would hollow me out in a way nothing else ever could.
I have to warn Matteo, somehow. Because if I don’t kill him, then I know Donal will. And then Tiernan will come for me next, for failing.
So I do the only rational thing left: I plan my escape.
Planning calms me. It’s what Donal taught me in that damp cellar when he shoved a pistol into my hands and told me to steady my breath. Planning makes the world measurable. It turns terror into steps.
Pulling out my phone, I create a checklist.
— Muddy the trail: I need traces to lead elsewhere. Sean will be angry, possibly dangerous. He’s already close to Tiernan’s network, but he’s also the one who I can easily use as a cover story. The way he eyes me… a chill streaks up my spine. I can use a man like that: loud, visible, and easily pliable.
— Cash: In an envelope under the wobbly brick to my right. No cards. No transfers. I have Tiernan’s advance stashed plus a few thousand I found under the loose floorboard by the sink in Sean’s apartment. Enough to get a plane ticket, a room, a car, a passport courier, a quick out. Not forever, but long enough to get to a safe house.
— Passport / ID: That’s going to be the tricky part. I can call in a favor to Brian back home. Maybe he’ll have a contact here. It’s dangerous and it’ll use the bulk of my cash. But it’s the only way out that doesn’t involve Matteo or me dead.
— Travel route: I map safe routes in my head—avoid the airport if I can. Too many cameras. Too many fingerprints. A ferry to Jersey, then a bus to Newark, then a flight under another name from a smaller terminal. Or a train south to a port city and a ferry in the fog.
— Contacts: Zero secure ones in Manhattan. But maybe I can count on the kindness of strangers. I need a place that’s small and irrelevant, the ones out of public sight.
— Exit strategy: burn everything connected to me. The phone, paper trail, the mask, my clothes. Switch jackets at the corner laundromat outside of the route I came from and dump the obvious. Walk like I don’t want to be noticed. If I’m fast and precise, I can be a rumor by noon tomorrow.
It is meticulous, cold. The assassin in me calms.
But planning is not courage. Planning cannot quiet the part of me that remembers the summer and the baby and the way a promise can sound like a prophecy until someone breaks it. Planning does not stop the faltering or the guilt. Can I really run and leave Matteo to whatever hand chooses him or do I stay and let whatever comes fall on me?
I close my eyes and rewind to the alley. His fingers had closed over the mask like they were lifting a veil from a saint. The breath that left my lungs then was not fear of being seen; it was a raw, stupid, human recognition. Seeing him finally see me was a wound I didn’t know I had.
If I run, I run from that wound. If I stay, I give everything to it. Either way the rest of my life becomes someone else’s decision. Tiernan will not accept anything other than results. Donal will not be patient. My father’s pride will swallow me whole if I return without blood on my hands.
I’ll never return to Belfast, never see what’s left of my family, never see my little sister Siobhan. She’s the only one left there I care about. My sister, too soft to survive in this world.
What I don’t plan for is the face that will wake me in the dark if I do run: Matteo’s jaw clenched, eyes hollow, the lines of grief carved into him like a map. I cannot imagine that and be free.
Some small, traitorous part of me fears not for my skin but for his. That is not love. Icannotstill love him. It is a loose, raw thing that looks like the girl I used to be, soft, angry, and broken. It might have been loyalty once. It might still be something else entirely.
I sit up, my bones loud in the quiet. My hands stop shaking because the plan has steadied them for now. The list is a loop in my head. Burn the phone. Pack the cash. Arrange the passport. Take the ferry if the airport is hot. Leave at dawn or leave at midnight. The timing depends on a dozen moving parts.
Damn it, make a decision, Cat!
I can’t focus. My thoughts seem to be running in endless loops.
If I run now, I risk Donal tracing me through fury and blood. Run later and risk that the Gemini forces sweep the city and find me caged in a cheap motel with a name that isn’t mine. I could stay and try to fix what I broke. I could explain, confess, risk the family’s wrath and Tiernan’s retribution. Either way, the outcome tastes like blood.
My throat tightens so I press my fist to my mouth until the smell of my own skin steadies me. I hate myself for thinking it, but I test the last option like a dare.
What if I do turn myself in? Drop to Da’s feet and say I failed? No, it’s not viable. It would set Donal loose and leave Matteo a corpse anyway. Tiernan does not want apologies. He wants certainty and blood.
The rooftop cools as the city moves through the night. A siren wails far away and then is gone. My thoughts flicker back to the pregnant woman I almost shot… to Rory. Did her baby survive? Tears burn at the corners of my eyes, but I blink quickly shoving them back. Now is not the time.
