Page 29 of Stalk (Assassin’s Kiss Duet #1)

Still, I can’t help but fuck with them a little. “It’s just a salad, Ren. Calm down.”

“Nuh-uh. This is the best salad I’ve ever tasted.”

With a scoff, I say, “You Americans need to gain a better taste in food.”

Ren shrugs and stuffs their mouth full of lettuce. My eyebrows raise with obvious judgment, but deep down, I’m holding back a laugh.

I clear my throat. It’s time to jump into the business side of this dinner. “Are you ready to discuss our findings?”

They smile as they swallow the food in their mouth. “You know, not everything has to be so formal. But yeah, we can dive in. So long as you promise not to keep me waiting for pizza too much longer.”

With a huff, I stand up and head back into the kitchen.

I remember to drop off a plate to Marco, and then I serve the pizza to Ren and myself.

Ren’s eyes widen in an almost cartoonish way once I set the plate in front of them.

My heart leaps a little. I physically shake my head and ignore the idiotic muscle inside of my chest.

Ren blows on the pizza, which is still steaming. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

I nod at them. “How about we start with you so I can catch up on eating?”

Ren laughs and rolls their eyes, but their happy and relaxed demeanor quickly slips away and the expression on their face becomes somber. Ren takes a long sip from their wineglass, then leans forward, placing their elbows on the table.

They sigh before speaking. “Well… Cleo and I found a lot of stuff, actually. Way more than I ever would have thought. Turns out, my mother was quite sneaky and weirdly good at hiding things.” I want to ask who Cleo is, but I don’t want to disrupt Ren’s story.

Instead, I begin eating. “We found a lot of weapons, many diaries—I didn’t even know she kept diaries—documents, an annotated Bible, family photos, you name it.

We also found her old laptop, but no charging cord. ”

I swallow a bite of salad. “Marco is good with technology. Perhaps we can let him look at the laptop and see if he can track down a charging cord? If you trust him to do so, I mean.”

Ren shrugs. “I doubt it’s that hard to find, but I’ll take the help. I’ve just started going through all of our findings. It’s all a bit overwhelming.”

I nod. “Have you found anything noteworthy yet?” I ask after swallowing a bite of pizza—cooked to perfection, as always.

They shake their head. “I decided to start out by reading the diaries. I’m halfway through the oldest one, which she wrote when I was about two or three. There’s hardly anything in it about her line of work.”

“Hmm. How many diaries are there?”

Ren looks at me, their dark eyes swirling with dark shadows of their past. “Pretty much one for every year leading up to her death.”

I stop breathing. That’s a lot to read. I assume most of it is incredibly personal, too.

I would imagine they would be extremely difficult to go through.

If my father had written in diaries, I’m not sure I could read so many so fast. “That must be hard. Are you okay?” There I go, being empathetic again.

“Yeah.” Ren gives me a weak, unconvincing half smile.

But for once, their sadness doesn’t bother me.

It’s warranted here. “I think I’ll move slowly.

Only read one or two entries a night and start going through all the other stuff we found during the day, so long as I still don’t have any assignments taking up my time. ”

“That’s a good idea.” I take a long pull of wine, then top off my glass.

Ren motions for the bottle, and I hand it over. “It’s promising though, right? Who knows what I’ll find.”

“Definitely promising,” I agree. “Any word from your boss, or is she still silent?”

Ren swallows roughly. “Totally silent.”

Questo non va bene. “I see.”

A normal boss would be checking in with Ren at the very least, I would think. There is definitely something off about her. A heavy feeling settles in between the bottom of my rib cage as I swallow more wine.

“Well. Any luck on your side?”

It’s time for me to drop the bombshell, and I’d rather not.

What I have to share is shocking, and unfortunately, I don’t have many details to give Ren.

Time to rip the Band-Aid off, I suppose.

“I couldn’t access our main database from here, so I had my sister do some research for us.

She essentially is the office manager at our company, and she’s more familiar with all of our records.

Turns out, your mother came to Italy in the early 2000’s to work with us on what we can only assume was a high-profile case. ”

Ren pales in seconds, then swallows roughly.

“Uh—why do you assume it was high-profile?” Their voice comes out almost as a squeak, and though I understand the news isn’t easy to take in, I wish Ren could be a little more steady for this.

They seem like they might fall out of their chair if I tell them any more.

My heart races, and it’s an ugly combination of nervousness and feeling deeply annoyed. Not so deep down, I’m glad Ren hasn’t made me totally soft.

Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

I shake my head to snap out of my thoughts.

“I shouldn’t give you this information, but I do not know how to explain otherwise…

” I pinch the bridge of my nose as my shoulders tense.

“When I tried to look up your mother, I found nothing, which wasn’t a shock.

However, when I reached out to my sister and asked her to look into it, she found your mother’s name attached to a case file, but the file could not be opened. ”

“What do you mean?” Ren asks, their voice strained.

“From what my sister explained to me, our files supposedly have different levels of security. Most of our past cases are available to me, but there are a select number that no one has access to. Not even my sister. She told me she was surprised that your mother’s name showed up at all.”

“So you’re saying this case—whatever it was—was so serious that your sister could only see my mother’s name attached to the file? Did any other names come up?”

“One did,” I say roughly.

“Whose?”

“My father’s.”