Page 56 of Protecting His Finch

I hear the doors lock.

Catherine Rossi sits in the driver’s side. She’s dressed in a fitted black pantsuit, gold earrings. Her hair is curled in waves, and her red nails have recently been repolished.

I’m memorizing every detail for reasons I can’t explain.

“Nathaniel,” she says by way of greeting.

“Catherine,” I reply.

This time, I don’t greet her with a kiss.

That seems macabre, even for me.

“Eight years of service and loyalty to this family. And now it’s come to this.” She touches the steering wheel and turns to look at me. Those blue eyes examine me, and she does a decent job of looking upset about it. “I want you to know that this isn’t how I would’ve liked this to go.”

“Whatever it takes to keep Finley safe.”

“Finley.” She sighs. “My little finch. Another mystery. We took her in. Made her family. I would have given her everything.”

“A gilded cage is still a cage,” I tell her. I’m done placating, and my voice comes out firm and hard.

“And now you’ve set her free.” She reaches across, and her fingers pet my hair. I feel the sharpness of her nails on the back of my neck. “To think,” she muses, “if only you’d killed her with her father, we wouldn’t be in this position.”

“She’s innocent in all this. She always has been.”

“Yes,” Catherine says. “Perhaps. Consider it a blessing, Nathaniel,” she adds softly. “So many of us in this profession don’t get to choose how and when we die.”

I’m resolute. I’m not backing down. But my hands won’t stop shaking. I can’t help it.

I’m about to die. And my survival instincts that have kept me alive for so many years—in the trenches in Iraq, in back-alley gunfights, and here, in the passenger seat of Catherine Rossi’s car—they’re rattling around inside of me now.

I have to brace myself. I touch my pocket.

Inside, I’ve kept the folded picture that Finley drew of me.

I have to believe that, for all the sins I’ve committed and all the blood I’ve spilled, maybe there’s some good left inside of me. If there is a God, I have to hold on to the sliver of a chance that He will see me with the same eyes as Finley did.

I hear the click behind me of Jacobi removing the safety from his gun.

“Any last words?” he asks.

“You promise she’ll be safe.” I look Catherine dead in the eyes when I say this.

“Yes,” she says. “I promise. On my life. A deal is a deal.”

I close my heart. I close my eyes. “Just make it quick,” I say, though my throat is tight and my voice hoarse.

“Il signore sia con te,” Jacobi recites.

The gun goes off.

For a minute, there’s nothing but ringing in my ears.

Every muscle in my body is pulled taut.

I can hear the wet sounds of my own breath. The loud pounding of my heartbeat.

My heartbeat.

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