Page 60 of The Marriage Debt

“Were you ever going to tell me you were supposed to kill me?” My voice doesn’t shake, but it’s not strong either. It’s tired. All the fight drained out of it hours ago.

He holds the folder like it’s something personal, something breakable. He doesn’t try to deny it. “No.”

I don’t look away from him. “Why didn’t you?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says it in that low, unhurried way he says everything that matters. “Because I saw you. And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t do it.”

I watch his nostrils flare, then his Adam's apple bob. I swear I see his lip quiver. He reaches for me. I want to pull away, to run or scream, but the sincerity in his eyes is so intense. "I couldn't do it, Lila."

When he pulls me against his chest, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. He couldn't do it? What does that mean, and why? Why couldn’t he?

30

MATEO

Ilet Lila walk away without saying anything. What can I say? I know what she must think of me, the monster I am. Nothing we've shared together, nothing I've done for her matters in light of what she's found.

I was hired to kill her. Emilio Costa put a bounty on her head and my father signed off on it.Keep her away from Anton and the family will have less drama. They wanted her dead, and all I could think of was my own mother and what they did to her. How they hurt her. I wouldn't let this innocent woman be a victim too.

I'm glad I didn't pull that trigger, but I didn’t bury the evidence, either. Don't ask me why I couldn't throw it out—maybe because she was my one failure. Or maybe because every time I looked at that picture, I'd feel human. It tethered me to normalcy, made me feel like I was more than a killing machine, that I did have a conscience.

Pressure pulses behind my eyes. I rub the bridge of my nose. I can't let Lila think I'm that man, the one who will drop an innocent, sinless person simply because I was paid to. I got us into this situation because I'm not that person. Because I saw my brother's widow about to be cornered and caged and I acted, not out of spite or malice or a need to control my nephew, but out of compassion. I saved her once, and it's proof that I'm human. Letting her die now would only prove that I've been kidding myself.

I take the stairs two at a time, rising to head to my bedroom. When I reach the hallway, I know before I even open the door that she’s packing. A sliver of anger creeps up my spine, but I try to squash it before it makes me enraged. I know it's a defense mechanism. I don't have control of something I want control of, and I can't pretend I can control her.

The bag on the bed is halfway zipped, her movements clipped and controlled. She doesn’t look surprised to see me in the doorway—doesn’t pause, doesn’t flinch. She glances up at me and keeps folding clothes with clinical precision, like she’s done this before.

“I’m taking Lev,” she says, voice flat. “We’re going somewhere safe.”

“Safe where?” I ask. My tone stays level, but I already know I won’t like the answer.

“Not to my mother,” she says. “Not to anyone you know. You won’t be able to track us.”

She looks at me then—really looks. There’s no fire in her eyes, no anger. Just distance. That’s worse. She’s already gone. Her body just hasn’t caught up yet.

“If you leave,” I say carefully, “I can’t protect you.”

Her hands still for half a second. “I don’t trust you.” Her head drops, like she can't even look at me. The words hit like a slow crack through ice, splintering everything underneath.

I want to argue. I want to tell her that she’s wrong, that I’ve spent months protecting her, that I’ve killed for her, that I’ve rebuilt an entire security perimeter around her. But I know none of it matters. She saw the truth buried in my desk, and no amount of bloodshed in her name will erase the fact that once—on paper—I was supposed to be her end. I have been the enemy, much the same way the Bianchis are now. She feels safer trying to defend herself.

So I don’t say a word.

I nod once and step back, giving her space. If I were the man she thinks I am, I’d stop her. Lock the door. Call Rafe. Turn this into a standoff. But I’m not. And if I try to keep her here, then maybe I become the monster she’s convinced I’ve always been.

She zips the bag, lifts it without help, and brushes past me like I’m just furniture. Her shoulder grazes mine, and it’s the only thing she gives me.

I should grab her wrist, tell her Lev stays, but what sort of message would that send? Of course I want her here. Of course I am screaming inside for her not to leave, not to take the only family I've ever truly had. But I watch her walk out, hear her call to Lev. I hear the patter of his feet, the confusion in his voice, the whine when he realizes they're leaving. His soft tears destroy me, and still I stay planted there.

My hand hovers over my phone, poised to send a message to Rafe to have them followed until they truly are safe. I know Lila. She could probably get away with vanishing into thin air and truly hiding, but that actually terrifies me. The one thing I'm scared of and it isn't death—it's never seeing her or Lev again. I send the message, but I know what she'll think, how she'll feel when she knows I'm having her followed.

When she’s gone, I stand alone in the doorway, staring at the dent in the mattress where her bag was sitting.

I didn’t kill her. I could’ve. I was supposed to. I didn’t pull the trigger because I saw Lila and I saw everything I swore I’d never become. I couldn’t kill her. Not for the money. Not for the politics. Not even for my father.

And I couldn’t do it to Anton. He loved her, even if he never said it right. She carried his son. That alone should’ve been enough to spare her. I don’t know how close I came to doing it, but I know the exact second I decided I wouldn’t.

And now she’s walking away because I didn’t tell her. Because I let the truth rot in a drawer, thinking silence was safer. Maybe it was. Until it wasn’t.

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