Page 44 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
I move past iron benches and marble statues, through the clipped perfection of hedgerows and out toward the vineyard that sprawls behind the estate like a forgotten promise.
My thoughts spiral.
What should I tell my parents?
That I spent the night at the home of our family's greatest rival?
That I slept in the arms of the man who once served as a blade in the dark for their enemies?
That my body now remembers the shape of his hands more clearly than it remembers fear?
I close my eyes, pressing my fingers to my temples.
I don't know how to go back.
Not really. Not after this.
The girl who left last night, dressed in borrowed elegance and trembling with secrets, is not the same one who now walks through enemy grounds wearing a man's shirt and the memory of his mouth on her skin.
A breeze moves through the trees, and I pause beneath one of the gnarled olive branches, letting the hush of it cool the heat behind my ribs.
My legs ache.
My body is heavy with exhaustion.
And still he does not come.
I lower myself onto the edge of a stone wall, folding my arms around my knees.
It is the first time I have sat without pretense, without posture, without fear of how I look.
My phone buzzes again.
I ignore it.
My heart is too tired to care what waits beyond the screen.
And then I hear his voice.
"Are you planning to hide out here forever?"
I lift my head.
Enzo stands several paces away, hands in his pockets, his black shirt rolled at the sleeves.
His hair is tousled, like he's run his hands through it one too many times.
There is something, something lighter than his usual gravity, but still anchored in that quiet, calculating stillness he wears like a second skin.
"I wasn't hiding," I murmur. "I was waiting."
He studies me for a moment, then tilts his head. "Would you like to go out? There's a place I go to when the city feels too loud."
I stare at him, caught off guard by the simplicity of the question. "You want to take me out?"
He shrugs one shoulder, almost casual.
"Unless you prefer the estate kitchen again. They make decent sandwiches."
