“It’s not safe for her out there,” Samara argues, her face twisted up in exasperation. “Acacia could be surveying the area.”

The two of them have been arguing for damn near an hour. When Helena stormed out the door, she was distraught, practically sobbing with Castor running after her. He got a verbal beating from Samara when his fist drove a hole into the mahogany coffee table. He’s a foot taller than her and yet, she’s squaring up with him, toe-to-toe like a fucking tower over him that he can’t move. I can’t either.

“I’m going to find her.” Castor bolts past the both of us, charging for the door.

“No, you’re not.” I slam my hand on the door, forcing it shut. “She asked for space, so give her space.” Castor’s eyes zero in on me, his hand still on the doorknob, a silent command to back down, but I don’t. Not this time.

A few silent seconds pass before he backs down, burning a glare into me that I answer with my own.

“Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you two?” I snap. “She finally gets a moment to breathe and the first thing you tell her is that you used to fuck her dad?”

“That’s not what I said!” Samara shouts.

“You might as well have!” I turn to Castor. “You weren’t helping either, Silas. You have a degree in sociology and somehow manage to act like the stupidest motherfucker I’ve ever met.” I throw my fist against the door and it rattles from the force. “This is why we were supposed to wait until after we killed Bane and Alastor to talk about her dad. We can’t have her freaking out, and you ganged up on her!”

Castor scoffs. “That’s a lot coming from the man who dressed up as her dead dad to begin with. Don’t talk about me being insensitive. This was your idea.”

“Don’t you dare pin this on me!”

“Will you two shut up? This isn’t helping!” Samara steps between the two of us, forcing us apart. “Arik is right. This wasn’t the time or place to tell her about John. We need to keep working and get our heads straight. You said that you found a missionary group that Acacia ran, right?”

I hold Castor’s stare for a moment. That urge is festering in my gut, bubbling up where my blade is sheathed at my side. I hate being told what to do, even more so when I know I’m right.

I groan, breaking away.

Shit.

This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. We need to focus on finding Alastor, but instead, we’re bickering over who gets to go after her. We can’t keep hiding things from her. She knows, and we can’t cage her anymore. That part is done.

Castor huffs, turning back to Samara with a nod.

“Yeah. It was called Ascension.”

Samara pulls out her laptop, typing furiously.

“Alright, if they’re posing as a non-profit, that could open some doors.” She says.

“Try to secure a connection into Ft Grove,” Castor rounds the table, pointing at the screen. “We might be able to find a backdoor, clear some of their sponsors.”

“Someone needs to go find Helena,” I interject.

Their heads pop up, like they’d forgotten that Helena is wandering alone.

“I thought you said she needed space,” Castor challenges.

I frown.

“Space, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be alone. We need to make sure she’s safe.”

“Go,” Samara says, “We’ll work from here.”

I grip the brass knob, a feeling of unease settling over me that I force back down as I disappear down the hills.

The city is awash with tourists, it’s almost as insufferable as our stay in Budapest. I’ve no idea what their obsession is with cities and money. I wasn’t fond of the mine falling on top of us, but being stuck in a city of fifty thousand people can’t be that much safer than Austria.

At least there’s access to deodorant here.

It’s amusing, almost, that Samara chose a place by the water. She’s more afraid of it than Castor is of tight spaces, and she chose a cozy mansion on a cliff as her hideaway. God forbid an earthquake shakes her home and she’ll have a whole new reason to fear the water.

Still, I keep to the sidelines as I move throughout the streets below. My eyes move swiftly through the crowds of people, but contractors are a lot harder to spot with so many people. Maybe that’s why Castor likes cities so much. It’s easier to hide in a crowd than it is in the wild. In theory, at least. Castor tends to tower over most people, and I can spot that discount faux hawk across the courtyard.

I flatten myself to a wall when a group of girls sweeps by me, phones in hand, snapping pictures of everything in sight before rounding a fountain for a group photo. I fight the urge to roll my eyes and keep moving, but then I see Helena, just behind the group of giggling girls, sitting quietly at a bench that overlooks the bay.

I watch her for a moment. Her breaths are deep sighs, her shoulders hunched beneath the cardigan draped over her. She’s not relaxed, but she’s not upset either. She’s caught in a limbo, watching the people pass her by like she desperately wants to be a part of them.

It’s contagious and it settles in my chest like a rock stuck under my ribcage. Whatever is left of my heart is aching, and I have no fucking clue what to do to help. I want to, oddly enough, but I’m not sure how. I’m not good at those kinds of words. I’m much better at threatening people.

Sorry I dressed up like your dead dad and kidnapped you…and then tortured you for six weeks. I killed Bane for you, if that helps…well, yeah I know he was also like a father to you, but he was actually the bad guy, and I saved you from that fire…that I may have trapped you inside of by accident.

Fucking hell, I want to cut out my tongue. At least then, I wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of trying to talk.

I round the fountain slowly. She doesn’t move, doesn’t even turn her head. That’s dangerous in this kind of work. She has no idea I’m here. My hand runs over the hilt of my blade and a smile breaks out over my face along with an idea.

I pull the blade out of its sheath, fumbling the sharpened white edge with my hands. She still hasn’t moved, her eyes trained on the waves like she’s hypnotized by it.

I chuckle to myself and then throw it at her head. She whips around not even a second later, catching the blade by the hilt, her hazel eyes staring wildly at me.

I offer her a smirk and an approving nod. “You’re getting better.”

Her face falls when she sees me, and she sits back down.

“What are you doing here?”

I shrug, leaning against the bench.

“Samara was worried about you. Thought it would be a bad idea if she went out. ‘Sorry I mentioned your dead dad. Want some dinner?’”

She laughs, the sound swelling in my chest and rattling the weight that resides there. I don’t think I’ve heard her laugh until now. Not like that, at least. It’s shy of something genuine, but there’s something there, a sliver of actual joy—something that makes me want to make her laugh again and again until I can hear what she really sounds like when she’s happy.

But then her smile fades and she turns back, staring at the waves as they crash against the shoreline.

My hand hovers above her shoulder, but I hesitate. Would that be wrong? Does she want to be touched? Did I go too far by following her?

I should’ve let Silas come instead.

“I wasn’t going to go far,” she says, cutting through the silence. Her hands find their way to the dog tags around her neck, turning them over in her hands. “I just wanted to breathe something besides death.”

Say something nice. She’s wanting empathy. Be tactful.

“I don’t really care why you left. I just couldn’t stand listening to those two idiots argue.”

Bravo. You’re a fucking idiot.

“Are those his?” I say, trying to switch subjects.

She nods, letting them fall against her chest. “I thought it would help.”

We sit in awkward silence for a minute, letting the people pass us by. I fumble with my baron, watching the lines of silver glint in the bright sun.

“My grandfather carved that knife when I was a kid.” I flatten the knife against my hand, showing her. “He said hunting with a gun was too easy, if you’re going to take a life, it needed to be intimate. Earned. I took a bear that found me in the woods. It’s the only keepsake I have.”

Her eyes move from the knife to me, her eyes full of unanswered questions that form another flutter in my chest.

“Why did you come back?” she asks.

Because I’m in love with you and I thought I fucking died when your heart stopped beating, and I’d gladly get on my knees and beg for you to love me back if I felt I deserved it.

“You were under Samara’s protection. It was my job.”

She nods, that single motion like a knife straight to my chest.

“I couldn’t get to the door until the fire burned through the ropes.” Her eyes flick up to mine. “You could’ve left me there to die.”

God, I want to kiss her. She smells like Samara’s garden, like lilac and rosemary that fills me like a drug. I want to take her out of Italy, away from this hell, but I can’t. She’s my hell. She is my own devil telling me to kiss her and tell her that I’d rather burn with her than let her die in that fire.

“That’s too easy, doll,” I say with a smirk. “You don’t deserve easy.”

“Always the sadist,” she scoffs. “Wanted to make me suffer by staying alive?”

“Exactly.”

She laughs again, and this time, it’s more carefree. It’s not quite there yet, but every smile on her face is worth it to me. If I’m the one that broke her, then I’m the one that gets to put her back together. Castor and I are the only ones allowed to see her smile.

Her smile vanishes when she catches sight of two men behind us. Police officers, standing against the wall, their eyes locked on us.

I look back at her, my brows pushed together. They’re not contractors. Why is she watching them like that? She’s going to get us in trouble. Then I see her gripping my knife tight in her hand and the officers start approaching.

Great.

“Hey, take it easy.” I place my hand over hers, forcing her to stand down. She looks to me, her shoulders relaxing when she sees the resolve on my face.

I move outward towards the police, meeting out of the way of the crowds.

“Sì, i coltelli sono vietati,” one officer says.

I blink. Fuck, I haven’t spoken Italian in years. I only recognize the word for knife when the other officer gestures towards Helena and my knife she has in a death grip.

I sigh in frustration. I really don’t want to have to fight the police over a knife. I have more important things to do than being on the most wanted list in another country.

Where’s Castor when you need him?

Years of Italian and blurring in my head as I try to string together enough words to tell them I’m sorry, and hopefully not end up in handcuffs.

“Uh….Sì, signore. Mi dispiace,” I say, rubbing the base of my neck. “è mio. Era di mio nonno.”

They give me a skeptical look, and I can only hope I told them that the knife was a gift from my grandfather and not that I was somehow insulting them by mistake.

They look me over, their eyes narrowed at me before they give me a curt nod. “Mettila via.”

I don’t know what they said, but I’m sure ‘fuck you’ is evident is every language regardless of the words they actually use. I calmly stride away from the two officers, Helena staring at me with a wide look.

“Were you speaking Italian?” She says with a tone of astonishment.

I pluck the knife from her hands.

“You against the police with a knife, hmm? This is why you need to be monitored.” I tuck it back into its sheath, catching another small glance of the police watching me before they continue down the street.

“They could’ve been with Acacia.” She frowns, pouting in a way that almost makes me laugh.

“You know, ignorance is about as bad as paranoia. Not everyone is an enemy.” I take her by the arm, quickly leading her in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you on a walk,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think the police liked your staredown.” I nudge her outward onto the street, a playful grin on my face. “Come on. I have something to show you.”