Page 76 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
But inside me, alarms are sounding like war drums.
It has been five years.
I have changed my name.
My hair is longer.
I walk differently.
I speak with a lilt borrowed from the women who raise goats in the hills and wear woven sandals.
But the Salvatore family and their men never forget a face. And I would be a fool to believe I am entirely forgotten.
Gabriel leans into me again, licking cheese from his fingers. "Mama," he says softly, "why are you holding my hand so tight?"
I hadn't noticed. My grip has gone white-knuckled around his wrist.
I force a smile. "Just don't want you running off, sweetheart. This place is busy."
The man hasn't moved.
He is still by the wine stand, but he is not shopping. He is scanning, watching. I need to go.
I reach into the bag and pull out a cloth napkin, wrap the remaining food, and tuck it all away with a calm I do not feel.
My heart is a thunderclap against my ribs.
Not now. Not here.
Not with Gabriel so close I can feel the heat of his breath.
I stand, slow and smooth, and lift the bag to my shoulder.
"Time to go home, little love."
11
ENZO
Idon't need a mirror to know I look like hell.
I see it in the way the guards shift when I pass, in the low silence that trails behind me like something old and familiar.
The kind of silence that says I'm not in the mood for conversation, the kind that makes smart men pick a different hallway.
My boots echo along the eastern wing of the estate, slow and steady, and every step seems to stir what I have been trying all morning to bury.
The snitch's voice has not left me.
That last sentence, a broken whisper hanging just above the blood pooling on the floor, loops through my skull like a curse.
Someone in the family knows where she is.
Not someone from the outside, not a rival, not a passerby.
No, someone inside. Someone who eats at our table, who toasts with our wine, who swears on their mother's grave that loyalty is thicker than guilt.
And I am supposed to keep walking like none of this matters.
