Page 4 of Her Vengeance

“Did he avenge your mother’s death?” she asks softly, the gears in her head turning.

“Not that I knew of before he died,” I answer, feeling the weight of this story leave my shoulders finally.

“If you want, I can look into it and see if I can find you better answers about what happened after that night,” she offers, like it’s nothing.

“I was an ivory princess who wasn’t privy to the outcome of the family business,” I utter bitterly. My entire world can be collateral damage for the family business, and yet, I get nothing. No information to better prepare myself. No extra tools or training to be ready for the next time this business comes to my doorstep. If it hadn’t been for Rome, I wouldn’t have been allowed to shoot a gun at all.

“You have more fire than you realize,” she says, pulling me back to my new room.

“Do you need something in exchange for looking into the people who attacked my mom?” I ask, knowing that nothing in this world is completely free.

“I need you to be honest with me about where you are both physically and mentally. It is my job to protect you, and that includes fromyourself,” she says, emphasizing the last part. I feel the heat creep up in my face. How the fuck did she find out about that?

“There is very little about you that I don’t know,” she answers my unspoken question. I slump against her, unsure of how to handle the demons that I fight within myself. It feels like fighting violent waves at sea. Some days it pulls me under time and time again, taking away my breath and making me wish for it all to end. After a few minutes of silence, she moves slightly.

“How can I help you get some rest tonight?” she asks me, rubbing soft soothing circles on my back. I take a deep breath and ponder both the question and every outcome. Fuck it. There’s no face to lose anymore.

“Can you stay with me tonight?” I ask, my voice so small, I am unsure if it can be heard. Every muscle in my body freezes as I wait for her to respond.

“Of course, let me grab a couple of things from the guest room,” she responds without hesitation, feeding the warmth in my chest.

5

Chapter 5

Eva

“When lines are blurred, and the water gets cloudy, sometimes you have to rely on instinct alone.”

As I walk to the guest room, my mind spins at a thousand miles an hour over every possibility. I have been drawn to her since the start. As much as I want to give in to this feeling, she is an assignment, and I need to remember that. The lines of professionalism were tossed out like last week’s leftovers when I heard her scream. The way that my stomach dropped as I raced to her room was unlike anything that I have felt before.

I shake my head, clearing the thoughts clouding my thinking as I grab my water bottle, phone, and charger before I head back in her direction. Instead of heading straight for her room, I walk back through the house, ensuring that the doors are locked one last time before I lie down with her. There is no way that I willbe the reason that her safety is compromised. As I make my way back to her bedroom door, I knock before opening it. She sits there wide-eyed as I watch her brain realize that it’s me.

“It’s okay,” I reassure her as I make my way to the other side of her bed. It takes me a moment to plug in my phone and find a place for it on the end table before my eyes find hers again.

“I heard you walk toward the front door…” she says, her voice broken and dejected. Oh. Fuck. She thought I was leaving. I climb onto the bed and pull her into my arms.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. Since I was out there already, I wanted to double-check the locks on the doors and windows to make sure you are as secure as I can make you,” I tell her the truth as I stroke her back softly. Telling me her story wasn’t easy. If there comes a day when a trauma of that magnitude is easy to tell, I fear we will have lost the ability to feel anything at all. She whimpers into my chest, and I feel it in my bones.

“I thought that I might have asked for too much,” her voice is soft and sad as she clings to me like a lifeline in the storm. I rub her back softly to reassure her as it hits me. It’s been years since I even considered being someone’s safety net, and here I am holding her like she is mine. There is no way that I can completely ignore the feeling in my chest, but I can try to slow it down and take things one step at a time.

“You are never too much,” I dismiss her fears as I pull her tighter against me. The feeling of her heart rate slowing from the initial panic in my arms is absolute bliss. I am a killer, known for my perfect executions made in stealth, not my softer side. She brings the softness to the surface that I haven’t felt since Emma. Claire tilts her head up to look at me in confusion.

“What did you just think about?” she asks me, and I freeze. How do I explain what happened to my first love to her?

“Why?’ I ask instead of answering the question. I need to understand what she saw that sparked the inquisition in the first place.

“Your heartbeat stuttered,” she answers, searching my face for anything that will help her understand. Fuck me.

“You aren’t the only one of us with memories that haunt you. My first love, who died, came to mind,” I answer her honestly, hating the way that she flinches. I can feel her forcing her breath to even out as she tries to wrangle her own emotions.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks me, soft, lacking any pressure that I would typically find when this gets brought up. That’s the million-dollar question. I ponder the option of telling her about Emma and how my heart broke into a million unrecognizable pieces when she died.

“Not tonight,” I answer honestly. She still hasn’t brought up Rome or what she felt for him. The way she is wearing a man’s shirt three sizes too big for her tells me that there is more to that story than meets the eye.

“When you’re ready, let me know. It’s not like I have people to tell your secrets to anyway,” she responds, breaking my heart for her. I wish with every fiber of my being that she was just being dramatic. However, from every record that I could dig up on her family, she has been kept locked in her tower her entire life. She was never allowed to have friends, go on dates, or even go to school. At one point, she had a private tutor who disappeared under suspicious circumstances and still has not been located.

“You tell me about your first love when you’re ready, and I’ll tell you about mine?” I ask, setting an equal trade for us to open those wounds together.