Page 103 of The Hitman's Secret Baby

---

17

ARIA

The room is dark.

Outside, the wind threads itself through the cracks of the window frame, humming low and mournful, as if it knows what is coming.

I lie awake, eyes fixed on the ceiling that I cannot see, that I can only feel above me like a weight pressing down.

Gabriel sleeps beside me, curled around the stuffed fox he never parts with, his breath warm and even against my shoulder.

In one day, I will find a way to vanish again, to erase this place from our story like the many before it.

We were never meant to stay here.

I had let the sweetness of routine soften me, the safety of silence lull me into believing in permanence. But I know better. I always have.

I shift slightly, trying not to wake him. The old floor groans under the house's bones, and I count the seconds between each sound, waiting for stillness.

My hand remains under the pillow where the knife is hidden. It has not left that spot in two years. It never will.

The moment I start to drift, there is a softthudjust outside.

Then a creak, too low for Gabriel to hear, but it cuts through me like a blade against glass.

I freeze.

My eyes dart toward the window.

Nothing. No shadows, no movement.

I hold my breath, and the silence swells around me. It is too perfect. Too whole.

And then a hand clamps over my mouth.

I jerk up, a cry crushed in my throat.

My fingers find the hilt of the knife, but the grip on me tightens.

I struggle, elbow twisting back, legs ready to kick, until a scent hits me.

Clean soap. Leather.

Something darker beneath, like storm-wet earth and memories that never died.

My body goes rigid.

I know that smell.

I know it as well as my own breath.

Enzo.

I stop fighting. My chest rises too fast, too shallow. The hand over my mouth loosens, and I gasp once, sharply.

My eyes meet his in the dark, and for a moment I wonder if this is a dream.

Or a punishment.

---