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Cade

“You shouldn’t have returned home, princess.”

The whispered words slip from my lips like a ghost, barely audible against the low hum of the hotel’s ventilation. I lean back in the chair, my gaze falling to the black file on the desk before me, its pages neatly clipped together. I’ve memorized every line, every fact, every inch of it.

But I flip it open again.

A black-and-white photograph of a woman sits pinned to the corner of the stack. Her wide, dark eyes are full of fire. Long, dark hair tumbles around her oval face, framing her striking features. There’s something about her—a mocking defiance in the tilt of her chin—that always makes me linger.

Luna Romano. Twenty-five. Recently called back from Paris after her mother’s death. Alfred Romano’s only child.

And a complication that could blow everything to hell.

Shelooks much better suited to Parisian luxury. There, she was safe and oblivious, playing at attending business school while developing her adult dating app.

But no, she had to uproot her life in France and return home. Unfortunately, she’s arrived in time to watch her father die, and possibly get caught in the crossfire herself.

With a twist of my wrist, I flick the file aside and let it spin across the desk. It stops next to the small, rolled-up piece of bleached leather.

My kill list.

I reach for the slim gold bars at the ends and snap them open, the old material cracking like dry bones. The list I made two decades ago, scrawled in blood-red ink, stares back at me—a promise of vengeance fulfilled.

I trace the dozens of crossed-out names, all the way to those waiting their turn at the bottom until I reach the name I’ve postponed—until now.

Alfred Romano.

Romano has just bumped himself higher up the list again with his latest sick move: brokering a marriage between his fifteen-year-old niece and a Russian mob boss.

The girl is fucking fifteen. And Romano wants to sell her to a middle-aged bastard who probably hasn’t seen a conscience since he left the womb.

My finger trails across the scroll, settling on the groom-to-be. Another one who should’ve been dead a long time ago.

“Never hesitate to take a shot, Caden.”

Uninvited, my stepfather’s voice slithers through my mind, whiskey-soaked and bitter—a ghost, like the rest, that refuses to stay buried.

The memory of my response curls the edges of my lips.

“What's the hurry, jackass? Both hunter and prey end up dead sooner or later.”

I can still taste the blood from the punch he landed after that reply. But it was worth it.

Pushing the thought back into its dark place, I pick up the tungsten beads around my neck and let them slide through my fingers until I reach the crucifix at the end. I press it to my lips, the ritual familiar and grounding.

Already, I’m anticipating tonight’s kill. It should be quick and clean. And then it’ll be Romano’s turn.

“Pretty? You still there?”

My partner crackles through my earbuds, jarring me from my thoughts. I’d almost forgotten I was on a call with him.

Derek ‘Scar’ Sullivan is my voice of reason, the force of gravity that keeps me from unraveling.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Agent Hawkins called today. He named your next hit.”