Page 93 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
With a little sigh, I wipe away my tears and begin focusing on the dishes that have piled up on the counter.
The water runs hot between my fingers, but my skin has gone cold.
I stare through the window above the sink, where a single strand of ivy coils against the glass like it is trying to reach something. I know that feeling.
I know what it is to ache like that, to want what you should not, what the world insists you have no right to want. What your heart cannot forget, even when it tries.
Enzo.
His name is the one thing I never say aloud, not even when I am alone.
But tonight, the silence in the house carries his shadow in it, and I cannot keep pretending I don't still feel him in the places I thought I had long since scrubbed clean.
I dry my hands slowly and walk into the small living room.
Gabriel is already asleep, curled on the couch beneath the faded plaid blanket I brought with me from Palermo, his arms wrapped around the same stuffed dog he has refused to let go of since he was four.
His chest rises and falls in that soft, rhythmic way only children manage. He trusts the world to hold him. He still believes I can protect him from anything.
I wish I still could.
I sink to the floor beside him, my arms curled around my knees, and for a long time, I do not move.
The apartment is still.
A coloring book lies open on the coffee table, a cup of milk going warm beside it. The scent of chocolate and eggs from the brownies still lingers in the air, sweetening the quiet, masking the undercurrent of panic that simmers low in my spine.
I tilt my head back against the couch cushions and close my eyes.
I can see Enzo as clearly as if he were standing in front of me. That impossible stillness he carries like armor. The way his eyes narrow just before he laughs. How his voice roughens when he says my name, as if the word itself catches in his throat and refuses to come out clean.
I remember the way his hand fit at the back of my neck, fingers curling like he wanted to keep me close forever and was always bracing for the moment he would have to let go.
I should not have left without telling him.
But I had to.
There was no other way to protect Gabriel, to protect the one good thing left in me.
And I told myself, over and over again, that Enzo would understand one day.
That if he ever truly loved me, he would know.
But five years is a long time.
And maybe he gave up on me long before I ever ran.
A sound escapes me, soft and broken, not quite a sob but close enough.
I press my hands to my face.
My shoulders tremble as I try to pull myself back together, but the edges are coming loose again.
It is not just the danger.
It is not just the man I saw in the market, or the possibility that Luca might already know.
It is everything.
