Page 8 of Pietro

He's beautiful. That's the worst part.

Not handsome like Declan was handsome, all Irish charm and easy smiles. Pietro is beautiful like a blade. All sharp edges and cold precision. Tall, at least six-two, with shoulders that filled out his suit despite its rumpled state.

Dark hair, almost black, slightly too long on top where he'd run his hands through it in frustration. The kind of jawline that could cut glass, perpetually shadowed with stubble.

But it was his eyes that truly scared me. Dark brown, nearly black—windows to nothing. Empty. Dead. Until that moment when our hands touched, when something flared in those depths.

Something hungry.

The elevator reaches the lobby. I force myself to walk normally, past the security guards who eye me with renewed interest now that I'm not just another applicant.

Outside, the Chicago wind whips around the skyscrapers, cutting through my thin blazer. I make it half a block before ducking into a coffee shop, sliding into a back booth where I can finally let myself shake.

Fifty-four thousand dollars. It's enough to disappear properly. Enough to start over somewhere Declan will never find me. Six months of working for Pietro Sartori, and I'll have savings, references, a new identity firmly established.

I just have to survive those six months.

The barista calls out an order, and I jump, my nerves still raw. A man in a business suit collects his coffee, and for a second, I see Declan's face superimposed over his. I freeze

I close my eyes, force myself to breathe. Declan isn't here. He's in Boston, probably still hunting for me, but he doesn't know about Uncle Finn. Doesn't know I'd run to Chicago.

A sudden but familiar scent hits me, triggering memories from long ago.

I'm seven years old again, tucked beneath a quilt my grandmother made, listening to my mother's voice.

"One more chapter, mo stór," Mama whispers, her fingers combing through my hair.

I burrow deeper into her side, breathing in her scent. The Chanel No. 5 that Daddy bought her every Christmas. Her voice rises and falls with Mary Lennox's adventures, but I'm not really listening to the words anymore. It's the rhythm that matters, the safety of this moment.

"Your eyes are getting heavy," she says, and they are, but I fight to keep them open. These are the only times she's truly mine. When Dad's downstairs conducting business, when thehouse fills with men in dark suits who speak in low voices about territories and shipments.

"Mama, will you stay?"

"Always, my darling girl." Her lips press against my forehead. "Though you know what your father says about coddling."

I know. Connor O'Sullivan doesn't believe in soft daughters. But here, in my pink bedroom with stuffed animals standing guard, Mama creates a different world. One where little girls don't need to be tough. Where fathers don't come home with blood on their collars that the maids pretend not to see.

"Tell me about Ireland again," I whisper.

She sets the book aside, pulling me closer. "Oh, mo stór, it's green as your eyes. Rolling hills that go on forever, and the sea crashes against cliffs so high you'd think they touch the clouds. Your gran's cottage sits right on the coast, and on stormy nights, you can taste salt in the air even with the windows closed."

When I open my eyes again, I see my hands are steady. That's something, at least. They were steady when I typed that document while Pietro Sartori loomed behind me. Steady when I shook his hand.

I've traded one monster for another. But at least this monster is paying me fifty-four thousand dollars.

I gather my things, straighten my shoulders. Eight a.m. tomorrow. I can do this. I survived Declan. I can survive Pietro Sartori.

Even if those dead eyes haunt me all the way back to my apartment.

CHAPTER FOUR

NORA

The elevator doors slide open at 7:45 AM, and I step onto the thirty-fifth floor with my armor in place. Blue blazer pressed, pencil skirt hitting precisely at the knee, hair twisted into a tight bun.

Untouchable.

Nothing like the woman who shook in a coffee shop bathroom yesterday after meeting Pietro Sartori.