Page 142 of He Should Be Mine

It’s done.

I stand in the alley a moment longer, letting the silence soak in. The city feels different now. Like something’s shifted beneath the skin of it. Riccardo Ajello is gone. And for the first time in years, I don’t have to live in his shadow.

But the weight on my shoulders hasn’t lifted. It’s just… changed.

I take the elevator back up alone. My hands are raw from bleach, my knuckles sore from scrubbing. I’ve got blood under my nails and the copper sting of it in my nose. Molly didn’t flinch from it. He offered to help. Insisted, like he always does when he’s trying to prove he’s not fragile.

But heis, even if he won’t admit it.

I key into the apartment and shut the door behind me. The silence is thick. No hum of music, no TV. Just the soft hush of peace. Molly’s world now.Ourworld, if I let myself believe it.

I toe off my shoes and step down the hall.

Molly’s bedroom door is open. The fairy lights strung on the wall above his headboard are silently changing color. Whirling through their predetermined patterns.

Molly is curled in the middle of the bed, still dressed, knees tucked to his chest, on top of the covers. His lashes are dark fans on his cheeks, and he’s breathing softly.

He looks like something out of a painting. Something rare and too easily broken.

I don’t want to wake him. I should let him sleep. But my body moves anyway, pulled by instinct.

I linger in the doorway for a moment. Savoring the monumental occasion. Exulting in it. Then I take a deep breath, and I step into his room.

I’m finally free to do so. Riccardo is gone and the ever watching cameras now report to no one. Molly is mine now. And nobody can ever change that.

I sit on the edge of the bed and brush a strand of hair from his face. It’s the softest thing I’ve touched all night. Except from his lips when he asked me to kiss him.

His eyes flutter open.

For a moment he just stares at me, eyes wide, still dazed from sleep. Then he whispers, “Is it done?”

I nod.

He swallows. “Did it go okay?”

“He’s gone,” I say. “My people are professionals. No one will find him.”

His lips part like he wants to say more, but nothing comes out. He shifts on the covers, then reaches for me.

I go willingly. Lie beside him fully clothed, unbuttoned shirt sticking to my back. He presses into me like he needs the contact to stay grounded.

We both need to shower. I need to burn our clothes.

“You should sleep,” I murmur. He needs to rest, he has been through a lot. The rest of the clean up can wait.

He hums a sound that might be agreement, or might be grief.

I wrap an arm around him. He lets me.

We stay like that, tangled in quiet, in heat, in the heavy aftermath of something monstrous. I shot a man tonight. I scrubbed his blood from the walls. I dumped his body in the dark. I have not taken so many lives that murder is meaningless to me. I still remember every single one. Always will.

Now there is another name on the list. The man who was my capo. Who I swore to obey. The man Molly said was my half-brother.

That has to be a special sort of sin.

But here, right here, Molly is safe.

And so am I.