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I didn’t stay long after they sedated Lilith.

Within the next week, she’d be dead.

She’d succeed at committing suicide this time—or at least, that’s what everyone would think.

My life with her was behind me now. Just another closed chapter in a book full of corpses.

I’d already started getting condolence calls from the upper ranks. The dons, the bosses. None of them blamed me.

They knew Lilith.

They’d all had to clean up one of her messes, or her brother’s. The entire Aiello bloodline had been a ticking bomb, and now it had finally gone off. No one mourned the blast.

Some of them sounded relieved.

"Shame about the girl," one of them said over the phone. "But she was always gonna end up a headline. Better her than you."

I agreed.

Politely.

The sun was rising when I pulled into the underground parking garage. The city hadn’t woken yet. I felt hungover. I took the elevator alone. I keyed Miyori ’s code into her condo door.

It was exactly how she left it. Except for the newly hung paintings.

There was the devil with broken wings. A faceless man standing at the edge of a cliff, arms outstretched, wind ripping through his coat.

She had painted me. Over and over.In different forms, but my eyes.

I stepped farther inside.

I’d always known where Miyori was, since the day after that night in the safe house. I knew when she started painting. I knew when she cut her hair. I knew she was pregnant. I left her alone because I needed time to fix my life. To cut every tie that could ruin us.

Lilith. Her father. The whole rotten legacy.

Now they were gone.

Now there was nothing standing between us.

I walked to the window. “I’m coming for you, Miyori .