Page 38 of Beautiful Liar

“Secret.”

“Yeah. I’m his secret.” I left out dirty secret. “Who are you?”

He pointed at himself. “Luca Mancini.”

“No, that’s just a name. Who areyou?” My dad used to say that names had to be earned. I’d just been Oma until I earned my name. We didn’t choose our name at birth. Thereason why some of my brothers carried monikers. Some of the best assassins, mobsters, superheroes carried monikers. A different name to identify them. Who was Luca Mancini wearing the face paint?

“I am La Santa Muerte,” he said and pointed at my chest where I had my tattoo of la Santa Muerte. “Death. I am half of a whole. Empty inside. Crying blood no one sees.”

“Like a martyr?”

He chuckled, gave me a look that called me crazy and when he realized I wasn’t joking with my question, he started to laugh. A creepy laugh that belonged to a child. For a moment he looked like a child. The hard lines on his face disappeared, his eyes were beautiful and full of mirth. I preferred the laughing Luca than the one with no affect. He stopped laughing and licked his lips, cleaning some of the paint there. Then he sat gingerly at the edge of the cliff, legs dangling over. I scooted a little bit closer, but nowhere near the edge. I couldn’t even look over it.

“You’re afraid.”

“Of heights, yeah.”

“Why?”

“There’s no coming back from falling.”

He considered my answer. “Do you like it?”

“Like what?”

“Being afraid.”

“No.”

“You’re not afraid of Kieran?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You seem confused.”

That smile appeared on his face again. The bursting orange light of the sun made the shadows on his face lookdeeper, made him look haunted. “You confuse me.”

“Why do I confuse you?”

Luca’s eyes followed every inch of my face. Slowly. I felt as if he were dissecting me with his eyes. The child version of him gone. In its place remained the hunter. “He says you deserve it.”

“Who?”

He cocked his head. A tell that he was trying to figure me out. “Alessandro said you are a loose end and for that you must die.”

I couldn’t move. Afraid if I got to my feet, he’d push me over the cliff. Afraid if I ran, he’d hunt me down. My heart sped too fast in my chest. “I don’t know anyone named Alessandro.” The truth within the lie.

I watched as he slowly climbed to his feet. Not a care that he stood so close to the edge of the cliff. I could kick him over, end him, save myself from whatever fucked up reason he had for ending me. But I did nothing. I wasn’t a killer.

He crouched next to me, close enough for me to see the crack in the paint. The pink of his lips. The swirls in his eyes. He ran two fingers down the center of his forehead, his nose, his chin, then ran those same fingers down the center of my face. Once he was done, his eyes trailed what I’m sure was the paint left behind. “Enzo,” he said. “Alessandro Mancini is Enzo.”

A siren blasted in the distance. Luca acted as if he didn’t hear it. Didn’t move away from me. Mancini. Enzo was related to Luca in some way. And I was the loose end he’d been sent to kill. “Are you going to kill me?”

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