His mouth splits into a grin that’s going to get him killed someday. “Good girl.”
“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You call Tiernan and tell him you’ve got me with you. Put him on speaker. Now.”
Suspicion flickers, then greed burns it away. He fishes his phone out with his right hand, no weapon there, and scrolls with his thumb.
I move while he’s looking down.
Two steps, and I’m inside his reach. My left hand takes his wrist and folds it back until he screams, my right brings the gun up under his jaw, tilted to the soft skin. He grunts and drops the phone. It skitters across the floor and lights up with a name that curdles my stomach:Donal.
“Try to scream again,” I murmur, “and I’ll make sure the last sound you ever hear is your own teeth breaking.”
His breath shudders across my knuckles. “Jesus, Cat?—”
“You’re going to walk backward and open that door. Slowly. You’re going to take the stairs with me, not the elevator. Then when we reach the ground floor, keep walking. If you turn left or go for your pocket, I’ll end you, and your buddy Tiernan can fish your corpse out of the East River.”
He swallows, eyes glassy. For the first time since he walked in, he looks like a man who understands physics: a soft throat, a hard barrel, and zero margin for error.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”
“Good boy.” I ease him toward the door, gun never leaving his skin.
We hit the hallway. I shove him through the metal door of the trash room and slam it shut behind him, pulling the deadbolt closed. That should hold him for a while. My hands shake for three seconds. Then I force them to stop. My burner buzzes again.
Unknown: Ferry schedule changed. Don’t go south.
Matteo saving me or a trap. My pulse hammers.
I shoulder the duffel, holster the gun, and head for the emergency exit. With my head down, I quicken my stride as the cool spring air hits my heated skin. The city is a maze, and I’ve run it blind before. If the Rossis are hunting smoke, good. If Donal is in Manhattan, better to move before he finds his way here.
At the corner I pause and draw in the cool air, giving myself an instant to consider my choices. Matteo’s face materializes in my mind’s eye, not the exhausted, wary version I saw earlier today, but the one from that summer. The one with a soft smile and bright green eyes filled with hope.
And then I turn north.
CHAPTER 21
THE WOLF
Matteo
The afternoon sun bleeds across the towering glass of the first-floor atrium in Gemini Tower like a warning flare. I’ve been standing here, in front of the clear walls for the past half hour like a sitting duck.
Where are you, Donal? I couldn’t have made your job any easier, asshole.
Slipping my hand into my pocket, I pull out my phone. The high-tech Gemini tracker shows Cat’s burner drifting north. Relief loosens something tight in my chest.
“Good girl,” I whisper.
Finding her phone number in my slacks hours after she’d left me in that alley was a gift I never saw coming. And I can’t reflect on what it means. Not right now. Or I’ll lose sight of my objective and fuck up everything for both of us.
A voice crackles in my earbud. It’s Leo, one of the Gemini guards. He used to be my personal bodyguard as a kid. “We’ve got rooftops covered to the east and west. Two cars on the curb. You step outside, and we’re there.”
“Copy,” I murmur, then step through the revolving door and into the bright cut of afternoon.
The city noise hits: horns, heels, and a bus releasing a tired sigh. And under it, I feel the pressure. That familiar prickle along my spine that says someone is writing your obituary.
