Page 24 of The Don's Deadly Assassin

It’s a feeling I can’t shake and have no intention of ignoring.

"Camela," I whisper into the night, her name a promise that lingers on my lips. "I will find you again."

Determined, I pull out my phone..

"Giovanni!" I call up my housekeeper, waking him from his sleep.

“Boss,” he sounds groggy. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m sorry for waking you,” I frown, chiding myself for my selfishness. “But we need to plan a party again, this time in the garden. I need you to deliver a personal invitation to Miss Camela Giannelli before you send one to anyone else. Are we clear?”

"Of course, sir," he replies, taking note of my request. "Will there be anything else?"

“That’s all for now. Get some rest.”

The minute my call ends, I let my imagination run wild. If she does show up for this next party, then perhaps the next invitation she’d receive could be for just two.

I’m thrilled at the prospect of seeing her again, of spending time alone with her. My thoughts become distracted images, igniting a fire within me that I haven’t felt in a long time.

It takes everything in me not to find her address at this very moment and to go hunt her down myself.

I finally find my way to bed, my mind consumed with images of her and me in my garden.

Chapter 8

Camela

I sit alone in my darkened, safe house, with just three candles for company. There’s no electricity here and no running water. No plants, no pets and no neighbors: this way, I can pass this cottage off as abandoned.

After what happened this morning, I couldn’t go back to my apartment. Vincenzo managed to track me down.

Not himself, but there was an invitation with his name on an envelope placed inside my letterbox. That was enough to make me run.

Vincenzo should be dead. That was my mission – one I had accepted without question, like so many times before. But something has changed, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

I turn over the invitation, gently feeling over the embossed script. I should feel nothing but neutrality for this man. He is, after all, just a little pawn on the Handler’s chessboard.

A chicken to be butchered in the cage. Yet my heart flutters wildly with each caress of his name.

"Stupid," I mutter under my breath, crumpling the invitation into a ball before tossing it onto the table. But the minute I do, a stab of pain goes through me.

I grab the paperback, trying to smooth it out. But the creases remain, and I feel like I’ve ruined something important.

What the hell is wrong with me? I can't afford distractions, and I'm not in my line of work. The Snake would never let such childish emotions cloud his judgment.

We both absolved the same training under the Handler's watchful eye. I always thought myself to be better, but now I wonder if I’ve been lying to myself all along.

Overwhelmed, I pull out the emotion wheel from one of the Handler’s old training manuals. It seemed ridiculous at the time, but now I find myself studying it intently, desperate for insight.

"Anger, fear, sadness, melancholy, desire..." I read as I trace along the various sections. None of them seem to capture the essence of what's tearing me apart.

Not that I have words for emotions. I’ve never really had them, but I've never mind exploring them.

I was trained as a machine.

My eyes land on the section labeled 'love', and I shiver involuntarily.

"Love? No, that's impossible," the word sounds silly, even to my own ears. "I don't love him. I can't."

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