Tick, tock.
Boom.
32
Katie
Maybe I should have been concerned about the red stains on my hands as Dante filed in with their cleanup crew. I’d seen a few of them before, but they were nameless associates of our family, ones I’d probably never see again unless they proved their worth.
Had I proved my worth tonight or lost it all? And what was there to prove to a family that wasn’t mine? If Georgie was right, if he wasn’t lying, I belonged on the other side of the tracks.
My heart didn’t rush when Rome mumbled that Bastian would be furious. We stood at the elevator doors, Rome with his hat on and my hood back up for no good reason. The cleanup crew would be calling the police later tonight to have them wipe the cameras.
In this city, we were protected.
As the elevator door pinged, Rome walked in and then turned to me, black fire licking through his eyes. “Get in the elevator, Katalina.”
He’d almost told me he loved me in that car, and I’d been ready to drive off into the sunset with him. Now, could I love him knowing he’d kept it all from me?
I stepped forward, staring at my heels clicking on the marble flooring. “You called me that for how long knowing the name was Russian?”
His full lips folded into his mouth as if he held back pain. Or secrets. I wasn’t sure anymore. “It wasn’t like that. I needed to be sure.”
“Or you needed to figure out your angle. Like a kill, there always has to be a set end with you.” I threw the words out fast, ready for a reaction.
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t unleash the way I thought he would. “You’re mad. I’m tired. We just took a life. Let’s calm down and figure out how we are going to tell the family.”
“We?” I guffawed and stumbled back onto the elevator railing. “Was itwewhen you held the information hostage? When you didn’t tell me a damn thing?”
He sighed as if he was going to respond.
I didn’t let him. “No. This is on me. I’ll take the fall, and I’ll tell anyone who wants to know why I did what I did.”
“No, you won’t,” Rome whispered, but then he slammed his hand into the wall behind me, close to my face. “Don’t you understand?”
I searched his eyes and found the fear that snaked its way through me. It had crept in as Georgie said the words about my mother. It flowed through me and spread so fast that I almost choked on it.
I’d been protected because I was a part of the family.
But tonight, I’d officially become their enemy instead.
“Of course you understand,” he said, his deep vibrato rumbling over me in anguish. It warmed and chilled me to the bone all at once. He breathed me in, his body only centimeters apart from mine. “You’ve been my downfall for a long time, Kate-Bait. Now, you’re the whole family’s. What am I going to do with you?”
“It’s most likely your job to kill me.” I slid my hand to the back of his head and pulled him in to kiss me. I tasted the mouth that haunted my nightmares and filled my dreams. I wanted to feel his tongue over mine once more, to indulge in my favorite thing one last time. But then I let the anger take over; I pushed the fear down and away along with him. “I can’t kiss you right now.”
“Fair enough.” He sighed and pulled his phone out. After a minute, I heard Bastian’s muffled voice. He must have already heard the news from the crew. Rome stared at me as he said into the phone, “I didn’t have control of this situation. No one controls her.”
“I’m right here,” I mumbled but thought better of arguing with them when Rome stabbed the elevator button harder than necessary.
“We planned to eliminate him anyway . . . I know it’s not according to the appropriate plan, Bastian. You want to lock her up forever? It’s the only way to contain a feral animal.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I sighed and combed a hand through my hair as I stared at myself in the mirrored elevator walls. My waves had lost their luster and bounce. The splatters of blood over my collarbone looked decorative, like freckles that belonged there. Maybe I’d always had it in me to do what I’d done; maybe blood on my hands was in my biological makeup.
“If we want to have the whole damn family come, then we should drive out to Heathen’s. We don’t need eyes on all of us gathering in the city after what just happened,” Rome growled. “I’ll have Cole close down the place. It shouldn’t be that busy there. I’ll be at the bar in an hour.”
Rome motioned for me to step forward as the elevator doors opened into the underground parking structure. We wove through cars and shadows and then up a flight of stairs to the alley.
Rome stabbed the end button on his phone and then stalked in front of me as we approached his truck. I didn’t question how he surveyed the area, because I knew he’d been trained to. Didn’t he know I was capable of that too though? I’d looked out for myself for long enough to know where to step in the shadows, how to be quiet in them.