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U.S. OPEN TENNIS CENTER.
FLUSHING, NEW YORK.
ZEDD
My ears pop from the pressure building up in my head. My frenzied mind has spent the last three days oscillating back and forth between wild fantasies of claiming Amelia Volini and killing Ralph Romero. Every time I blink I see red, my soul roiling at the deadly mix of sex and violence that’s creating a powerful potion, casting a dark spell over me.
It’s the first day of the U.S Open, and I must be nuts to be here. What the hell do I seriously expect to happen? There are only two possibilities: Either Amelia shows up or she doesn’t.
And honestly, a part of me hopes she doesn’t.
Because if I see her pretty face here in the crowd, catch a glimpse of her dynamite curves in this sea of strangers, her father a thousand miles away, no bodyguards within sight . . . fuck, I don’t know if I’ll be able to restrain that possessive beast in me from saying things I won’t be able to take back.
Doing things that can’t be undone.
Because if Amelia shows up here and gives herself to me, allows me to take her the way I’ve dreamed about for years . . . well, then she’s a dead woman on her wedding night.
I know Ralph Romero. Did a job for the Romero Family about a decade ago, before I went exclusive for the Volini Family.
Ralph Romero was a teenage asshole back then, but I know a killer when I see one. He’d take it as an insult that Anthony Volini offered him a woman who’d already been fucked by another man. It’s fucking primitive, medieval, ridiculous even. But so is the whole violence side of the Mafia world. They execute people for insults. They torture men to send messages. Hell, they even murder their own blood for ambition. Hell yeah this world is primitive and medieval.
And the dark truth is I understand it.
Maybe even love it.
Because I’m a part of this primitive, medieval world.
And there’s a primitive part of me thatneedsto be Amelia’s first,yearnsto be her only,achesto be her husband, her lover, her mate, her protector, the father of her children, the keeper of her secrets, the light of her life.
And because that can never happen, I am tormented by that medieval part of me that will never rest in peace knowing that Ralph fucking Romero gets to go to bed with Amelia every night, fill her with his filthy seed, watch his babies grow in her precious womb, spend decades watching sweet Amelia mature and blossom, getting more beautiful with each passing year, the lines of wisdom and experience marking themselves on her smooth skin, motherhood making her glow like the goddess she is.
I watch a family of four make their way past the snack counters to my left. They don’t notice me even though I’m the size of a brick wall. I adjust my sunglasses and look away, merging silently into a moving crowd heading to one of the side courts. Most of an assassin’s work is about staying invisible, a shadow in the night, a ghost in the light. I’ve perfected the art of staying hidden in plain sight, always moving slow and casual, no sudden moves that attract the eye, no unnecessary interactions that might be memorable.
Of course, the best way for nobody to remember you is if you were never there. And again I question my sanity for still being here.
I also question my motives.
Because if I really loved Amelia, I wouldn’t be here, putting her life in danger.
Which means this isn’t love, it’s obsession. Pure selfishness. A hunger to possess, to claim, to fucking own.
Of course it isn’t love, you dumb ape, I growl inwardly before stopping at the entrance to the side-court and backstepping to a spot near the concrete walls where I’m out of the way and can watch the crowd unnoticed.
But the conflict rages too hot for me to focus on the hundreds of sunglasses-covered faces beneath hats and visors of all sizes and shapes. Amelia might be smart and brave, but she’s innocent and sheltered, totally unprepared for what’s simmering in my obsessive heart, burning in my primitive brain.
If you love her, you’ll walk the fuck away now, I warn myself. Before you put both of you in danger.
Especially her.
Prove you love her by walking away, Zedd.
Something glimmers in my heart now. A flicker of warm emotion, something deep and powerful which whispers that possessing her and protecting her cannot happen at the same time, that you need to choose between the animal in you and the man in you.
The animal in me growls, but the man in me is what loves Amelia in a strangely selfless way. Loves her enough to accept that maybe there’s a different life where we’re together, that maybe this powerful attraction is just a bleed-through from some other reality where we’re together, where I can have her without destroying her.
Relief washes over me, and I gulp back the sinking dread and turn my body towards the exit.
And I see her.
