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Ifeel the dream slipping from me, and I don’t want it to. I want to stay there with Luka. Surrounded by bombs or not, I want his arms around me and his scent in my nose. I want to feel his heart beating under my cheek. I squeeze my eyes closed, desperate to stay there, but no matter how hard I fight, it is gone.
When I finally give up and open my eyes, the room is pitch black and it takes me a moment to adjust. I move to stretch and realize there is a blanket laying on top of me.
Suddenly, I remember Luka appearing in my dream. His smell and his warmth. The kiss on my forehead.
I sit up and look around the room, but I’m alone. He isn’t there with me. But I know he was.
No one—not help or soldiers—has access to the mansion this late in the evening. If anyone came inside, it would have been Luka. Which means he covered me up. Which means…something. On some level, he still cares.
I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders and lay back down on the sofa. I try to close my eyes again and slip into the dream, but the only images my mind will conjure are of Cal’s blackened, grotesque hands and bloody mouth and Samuel’s smiling face moments before the explosion.
20
Luka
Midnight shrouds the house in darkness, but I’ve seen it enough in the daylight to know my way around. I’ve been to the house three times before, scoping out my entrances and exits, and preparing my attack. This is usually something I’d bring back-up for, but I want to do it alone. I’ve been doing a lot of jobs alone in the last two weeks. It is more dangerous that way, but the danger appeals to me. The adrenaline allows me to feel something else other than regret. It helps me focus on the present rather than the dangerous landmine of my memories.
In the two weeks since Eve agreed to carry my child, I’ve seen her only to fuck. I thought it would be better that way—easier to hate her if I never talked to her. But it is almost worse. The easy smiles she used to give me, the snarky comebacks, and sultry stares are all gone. But her body isn’t. She still smells the same. She still feels the same under my fingers, and my heart still jackhammers against my chest whenever she gets too close. In a lot of ways, being with her without actuallybeingwith her is so much worse.
In the moments when I can’t help but think about her, I liken our predicament to dying of thirst and being handed a water bottle with a locked lid. What you desire is so close you can almost taste it.Almost.
I push thoughts of Eve away and crouch down as I round the front corner of the house. Patrick O’Neill is in his office in the back of the house, which makes my job easier. I can unlock the back door—I already grabbed the spare key from their kitchen and hid it underneath a potted plant on the back porch—tip toe down the short hallway, and be on top of him before he even realizes I’m there.
Patrick has a wife and a baby. I’ve seen them coming and going during my surveillance, and they seem happy enough from the outside, though I don’t know how real it all is. I don’t really care. All I can think about when I see them together is Eve. Our wedding. Our two-week marriage that has already failed and crumbled. I wonder if her marriage to the gunrunner would have been more successful.
If Eve can be believed, it seems like she broke off the engagement, though she has proven she can’t be believed. Not after the way she played me for the sake of her family. My fists clench at my sides, and I do my best to push the memories away and stay calm.
Using my hands will help. Staying active. Eve likes to cook; I like to kill my enemies. Everyone has their thing. Patrick O’Neill is the next Irishman on my list. He has done more than his fair share of contract work with the Irish, and if anyone would know the name of the gunrunner, it would be him. I’ve considered just asking Eve for her help, but I don’t want her to know any more about my family’s plan than she has to. I can’t trust her.
I told my father we needed to destroy the Irish from within. That we needed to take out their top guys one by one and weaken them, and he agreed. But it was all just so I could reach the gunrunner. So I could look in the face of the man who was engaged to Eve and kill him for…I’m not really sure what. For supplying Volkov enemies with weapons. For being with Eve. For telling people about what it was like to sleep with her.
I unlock the door silently, pushing it into the dark house. Patrick’s office is close enough to the back door that the light spills into the hallway, allowing me to navigate the narrow space. When I reach the doorway to his office, he is sitting in front of his computer screen and doesn’t see me. I creep across the floor, avoiding the squeaky spots I found on an earlier trip, until I’m standing right behind him. When I pull the blade out and press it to his neck, he stiffens but doesn’t scream.
“Tell me what you know about the attack at the Volkov-Furino wedding a few weeks ago,” I whisper, pushing the blade even harder against his neck. A drop of blood blooms and spills onto the blade.
“Don’t kill me,” he whimpers, sounding pathetic. “Don’t kill me here. My wife and kid are upstairs. I don’t want them to find me dead. Don’t kill me here.”
“Tell me what I want to know, and I won’t kill you.” Lies, of course, but I don’t want to leave empty-handed. I want to kill him and walk away with a valuable piece of information I can take to my father. Otherwise, these solo missions will end, and I’ll be forced to spend the night in the mansion again, with Eve only a few doors down. So, I need to keep him calm and get what I came for.
“I don’t know anything,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I deal with some financials for the Irish, but they don’t tell me their plans. They don’t consult me on anything. I didn’t even know about it until after it happened.”
I pull the blade away from his neck, and Patrick relaxes. Then, I swing it around and plunge it into his side.
He cries out, but doesn’t scream, and I’m oddly impressed.
“Tell me the truth,” I say, wiping the blade on his shirt as I drag it up his body and back to his neck.
“I am,” he insists through ragged breaths. “I don’t know anything.”
“What about Eve Furino?” I ask.
“What about her?” There is genuine confusion in his voice.
“She was engaged to one of your men, right?”
He lowers his hands and turns to try and look at my face. I press my knife against his neck and dodge out of sight.
