She allows herself one steadying breath.
Never before have I been so terrified, terrified that one of us is about to die and that she will have to bear that burden for the rest of her life.
I’d rather kill myself than put that on her shoulders.
I glance around. My knife sticks out of the neck of a goon nearby. Cas’ reflexes aren’t as good as mine if I can just reach over and grab it…
“You are the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
BANG.
The sound rings in my ears as I watch Lazzaro stagger back in shock, blood oozing from his chest over his heart.
He gapes a couple of times as if trying to comprehend what’s happening. But as his lifeblood spills onto the floor, his body soon follows.
Claudio Lazzaro falls on his back, his vacant eyes staring open-mouthed at the ceiling as blood pools around him.
Cas killed him.
Cas shot him through the heart and killed him.
I’m panting hard when the ringing in my ears fades enough for me to hear again.
“Cas,” I whisper in disbelief.
There’s a clatter, the sound of her throwing the gun away.
I stand, whirling around to look at her. Her tiny frame holds the weight of what she’s just done, but her face remains unmoved.
“We’re even.”
Stunned, I watch as she reaches down the neckline of her dress and pulls out a stack of bills. She steps forward, pressing them into my chest. “This should cover the rest of the debt.”
I ignore the money and grab her hand instead. Hundred-dollar bills flutter to the ground, turning red as they land at our feet. “Please, let me explain. Let me take you back to the brownstone. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“You’re dead to me,” she repeats. Her words somehow cut even deeper than before.
I cling to her hand as I fall to my knees, not caring that I’m kneeling in a dead man’s blood. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
She pulls her arm from my grasp, and I fall onto my hands before her. It feels like my heart has been carved from my chest.
“Don’t try to find me.”
“Please,” I beg. The word spills out over and over again. The tightness in my chest suffocates me as I hyperventilate.
I can’t lose her. I can’t. How can I live with myself? How can I breathe without her? I’d do anything. Anything. Please. Don’t go. Please.
But when I finally gather my courage to look up at her again, Cassandra Bellini is nowhere to be found.
26
CASSANDRA
Everything is numb.
Everything I’ve ever felt seems like something distant and intangible. Like I’m somehow suspended underwater while life continues above me, entirely unreachable.
All I can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other. The city streets are cast in gray light as the early hours of the morning creep in.
