Page 63 of Torn By Fate

I had watched them bleed out on concrete and felt nothing but the cold satisfaction of a job completed. But the sight of my wife, bruised, trembling, her eyes wide with a terror I had never seen in them before—that undid something in me.

I leaned back in the chair, and my eyes closed for half a second before I opened them again to stare at Serafina’s sleeping form.

Rocco had handled the body.

I called him to Lisbon six days ago, a decision driven by an instinct I couldn’t quite understand. The third assassin was different from the others. Smarter, more patient, operating with a discipline that had unnerved me.

I knew I might need backup. I knew if something went wrong, I couldn’t afford to be the one dealing with the aftermath while Serafina needed me.

I wished my instinct had been wrong, but unfortunately, I was right.

Rocco had taken one look at the lifeless body, then at Serafina huddled against the wall, and said nothing.

That was Rocco.

He didn’t ask questions that didn’t need asking. He didn’t offer senseless comfort.

He simply moved the body and arranged the new hotel while I took care of my wife. The cleanup had been thorough because Rocco has always been thorough in everything he did.

Serafina hadn’t let me near her at first.

She sat in the corner of the small bathroom for the first hour, her back against the tile, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at nothing. I remained on the floor across from her, close enough to reach her but far enough that she didn’t feel cornered.

It took three hours… for her to let me touch her.

Three hours of sitting on that bathroom floor as I watched my wife fall apart without me being able to do anything about it.

But Serafina was strong in ways I could never understand. The silent kind of strength that no one really saw unless you paid careful attention.

I watched her fall apart and then reassemble herself in fragments, each piece more fragile than the last. But she did it; she held herself together on her own until she was ready for me.

When she finally reached for me, her trembling hand extending across the wet tiles, I wrapped my fingers around hers. I took her hand in mine, because I had been desperate to touch her, to feel her skin against mine, to hold her.

I needed it.

I had needed it more than I could have known, more than I could ever understand.

When she finally let me, I carried her from that hell, wrapped in a blanket and cradled in my arms. I took her to the car and then to this hotel suite, where I would keep her safe.

Serafina stirred.

Her breathing changed first, becoming shallower, more erratic. Her fingers twitched against the duvet as a low, pained whimper escaped her.

I straightened in the chair, my body going still as I recognized the threat. Not her, never her. The threat lived inside her now, and I couldn’t fight it for her.

Her head turned on the pillow, left and right, the movement restless and agitated. Her brow furrowed even as she remained asleep, her lips parting, and the sound that came out was thin and reedy, the ghost of a scream.

“Serafina.” I said her name quietly, not wanting to startle her but needing her to hear my voice.

She didn’t wake.

Her thrashing started small, a twitch in her shoulders and knees, before her whole body seized. Her back arched off the mattress, her hands clawing at the emptiness in front of her face.

Her mouth opened with a soundless scream.

“Serafina.” I leaned forward, my hand hovering above her shoulder.

I didn’t touch her. I remembered what had happened the last time I reached for her—the way she had flinched, a full-body recoil.