Page 20 of The Forbidden Secret

I didn’t even pay attention to the gurgling man as he died, with those words turning over in my mind. As I tried and failed to understand what they meant.

Chapter Seven

Evelina Bianchi

The silence between us was slightly uncomfortable as we found another place to stay—another of the seemingly endless safe houses he had under his belt. He seemed to hum with energy after questioning the two men and showing me the side of him that I knew he wanted to keep concealed.

Did he think I would turn him away after seeing what he was capable of?

He pulled into a small subdivision of townhouses and parked the car before looking over at me and releasing a long, suffering sigh.

“What?” I asked.

He only shook his head as he stepped out of the car, walked around it, and opened my door. I followed him into the townhouse, and the moment the door closed, he paused.

“Why?”

“Why what?” He looked me up and down with a look that relayed his question wordlessly.Why did I run? “I—I thought itwould be okay. I thought I’d be able to make it to the airport and get out of here without anyone finding me.”

“It was a stupid risk to take.”

It had been, I realized. I should have put together all the pieces and realized that more risk was involved than I had expected. I should have assumed that someone was watching Maggie, especially when she admitted that she had been followed. In public, Maggie was my only connection, and it wouldn’t have been hard to connect her to me.

Beatrice, though, had been born in a small clinic in the city under a false name.

She had never had any legal documentation that connected us—only documentation that connected her to my alias.

It gave me at least a bit of comfort, but I knew I needed to figure out what to do about this as quickly as possible.

“It was stupid of you.”

He sounded so defeated but not unhinged like he had been when questioning and murdering those men. It felt surreal to see two different sides of him. I couldn’t understand how the two parts pieced together.

“I know.”

He walked out of the room, and my shoulders hunched as I expected him to close the door and lock me out. Healwayslocked me out. I supposed it was because I meant nothing to him. I was a job for him. I was nothing more, and I couldn’t expect that to change when he made his detachment clear enough.

He peeked his head out through a door across the small townhouse. “Come here,” he insisted, crooking a finger toward me. He disappeared back into the room before I could say anything in response, so I did as he asked. I moved forward and bit my lip before I peeked into a large bathroom.

A first aid box sat open on the sink as he sifted through it and pulled out a few things.

“What are you doing?”

“Sit down. Let me clean up your hand.”

I raised my hand between us. “It’s fine. Just a little skinned.”

He left no room for negotiation as he gestured to a small stool. I sighed and sat, watching as he unwrapped a bandage and then opened the cap to a spray. I had so many things I wanted to say, but as the silence continued and he worked on my hand, his fingers deft and nimble across my skin, it became more difficult to fill the silence with noise.

Finally, I forced out something. “You were different.”

His cool blue eyes met mine, and he nodded once before continuing.

“Why are you like that?”

“It’s what people expect.”

“But why do people expect you to act that way? You didn’t seem angry. You seemed completely unhinged. It was… unsettling.”

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