Page 43 of One Second After Another

Low blow.

So fucking low it hurt.

Penny’s chin quivered with the emotions that she tried to clench between her teeth. It didn’t work. She was all too aware that every second she was away from her gun was one that was lost forever. She would never get it back.

Not that it mattered.

It was already too late.

“You don’t get to do that,” she told him, wishing so badly that her fingers didn’t itch with the desire to stroke the lines of his face with her fingertips. Carved from stone and handed to her like God had taken time on this man just for her ... Luca didn’t know the power he possessed over Penny. A part of her hoped he never would. “You don’t get to tell me you’re not going to stop me, but in the next breath try to manipulate me into—”

“Actually, I’m just thinking like you. Because I had to do that for a while to figure out what I missed here. I think I went insane for a little bit. It’s hard to be the monster you must see in the mirror when you’ve always been just human, sweetheart.”

Why?

Why did he have to do that?

She was the reflection of her mother. She could have been Allegra had she just ... been worthy, right? All of that left her cold and sick.

“I missed the mark,” she whispered. “Didn’t have a clear shot.”

Luca swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Someone is still going to die tonight.”

“But not like this,” he returned.

No.

Because while he had been right about a lot of things, he was also wrong about one. She would have taken the chance to kill Allegra from the roof even if the cost was her life. It would have been worth it.

The only thing Penny cared to ask in that moment was, “What are you driving?”

His answer made her smile.

“An old favorite I keep in storage just for city driving when I need it—my Ducati.”

Perfect.

• • •

THE ONLY SOUND IN THE dark alley was the constant drip-drip-drip of water falling from the eaves of two buildings. Penny wasn’t opposed to rain on a job—sometimes, it even worked in her favor when the danger didn’t scare her in the first place. The noise helped to muffle Luca’s question that came behind the black visor of his helmet.

He only had one.

She made him wear it.

Penny should be seen, anyway.

“How do you want me to do—”

“Just drive,” she told him.

Staring at her through the visor from over his shoulder, she wondered if he was looking at the gun in her hand while she worked the silencer into the barrel, or her. Calm and focused, gaze on her work as she spoke softly. Unfeeling about what might happen next.

It’s who she was.

Now.