Page 30 of Stalk (Assassin’s Kiss Duet #1)

Ren

M y father’s.

What the?—

I was already hyper aware of my body before Mattia dropped this bomb on me, but now everything is intensified.

My breathing is too loud, my lungs are too heavy, my joints feel as though they’ve been locked in place; rusty.

Somehow, I manage to state the obvious. “Our parents knew each other.” I force my eyes to meet his.

Mattia nods once, his lips downturned. “Yes.”

I stare at him, and he stares right back.

Those dark, irresistibly piercing eyes that keep me awake at night.

For a split second, they almost look like they’re filled with empathy.

For once, I don’t look away. I expect him to say something, but he doesn’t.

He just leans back in his chair, slowly twirling his empty wineglass by its stem.

Somehow, after what feels like many minutes, my joints unlock. Somehow, my jaw relaxes and I can breathe again.

He must notice the change in my body language, too. “There you go,” he says, voice deep.

“What?”

Mattia smiles, and my heart stops beating. I swear it does. “The color had drained from your face. You look much more like you now.”

I laugh weakly before taking the last sip of my wine. “That wasn’t a lot of information. But somehow, it felt like a bomb went off.”

“I understand. I was shocked, too.”

“So, apparently, our companies have collaborated in the past,” I say, trying to wrap my head around it all. “Is it a coincidence that we’ve found ourselves working with each other now, even though we’re flying under the radar?”

Mattia shrugs, which surprises me. I always expect that he will be calculated and sure each time he responds. “I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t. We have to keep researching. That’s the best we can do right now.”

I nod in agreement, though I’d very much like a break from all of the ghosts I’m unboxing at home.

“Keep going through what you found at your house as much as you can, and let me know if you find anything on your father. I think that’s where I need to look next on my end of things,” Mattia says matter-of-factly.

We don’t talk much more about our parents or our work after that.

I offer to help Mattia clear the table and do dishes, and he begrudgingly agrees.

Cannella dances around our feet as we move around and clean up.

As Mattia begins rinsing off the dishes, I don’t miss how he occasionally throws Cannella scraps from our plates.

The urge to throw a shit-eating grin at him is overwhelming, but I keep it to myself.

Once the dishes are loaded, the table is cleared, and the leftovers are boxed up—most going into the fridge aside from a to-go box for me—I figure I’ve invaded on Mattia’s and Marco’s lives enough for one evening.

“I should probably be getting home. Thank you for dinner and for all of your help, it’s?—”

Mattia holds up his hand and rolls his eyes. “Stop. You’re welcome. I’ll go get Marco.”

But just as Mattia turns to leave the kitchen, my phone dings loudly. My phone is always on silent mode. There’s only one contact that is set to emergency bypass like that (aside from Cleo, whose notifications sound like piano keys).

Catherine fucking Burdick.

I drop my phone down to the vinyl flooring before I can even read what she’s sent to me.

“Ren? What is it?”

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. My surroundings grow fuzzy.

“Ren?”

When I don’t answer, I hear Mattia bend down and grab my phone from the floor with a sigh. He puts the phone on the island next to me, then his hands grab a hold of my shoulders. He’s looking at me, but the kitchen looks distorted, like it’s melting in front of me.

Luckily, it doesn’t take him long to put two and two together. “Catherine?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

Mattia’s hands still grip my shoulders, grounding me as much as he can. Still, I feel myself pulling away. My demons begin creeping up from wherever they hide, invading my body and soul more and more as each second ticks by.

“You need to see what she wants, Ren.”

But I can’t move.

“Do you… want me to read it for you?”

Please do. Please don’t.

“Okay… I’m going to read it.” Mattia grabs my phone from the countertop and then turns it to face me so he can unlock it via face ID. His features are fuzzy out of the corner of my eye. I stare at the refrigerator behind him. “She says she’s meeting you at your place tomorrow morning. At nine.”

My world rumbles and shakes. Colors merge into other colors and my cheeks become damp with unwanted tears. The next thing I know, I reach out and find Mattia’s hand, the one that’s still holding my phone. I take it from him and shove it in my back pocket, then stumble toward the foyer.

“Ren!” Mattia shouts.

I almost collapse, but I keep going. I almost make it to the blurry door when I feel his arms grab me from behind. He twirls me around to face him, and the feeling in my fingertips, my cheeks, my tongue goes numb.

I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to see me like this!

“You need to calm down before you leave,” he says.

Mattia places a hand over my racing heart.

His other hand caresses the side of my neck, as if he’s my lover.

Or a friend of mine. But he’s not. He’s not.

His touch burns my flesh. “Let me at least get Marco to take you home. You can’t risk leaving and being seen?—”

Instead of listening to him, I do what I do best.

I run .

I don’t hear the door close behind me, if it closes at all.

I don’t look back to check if he’s running after me or not.

Mattia can chase me if he wants—that’s the least of my worries.

It’s not like I didn’t know this was coming; Catherine demanding I come back.

Still, the visceral reaction that began at my gut and has quickly spread to my chest, my temples, the meat of my shoulders, the base of my throat leaves me ill. Vulnerable.

Running helps ease all of that discomfort.

As my feet hit the pavement with urgency, my sense of flight taking over completely, my muscles tense and strain.

I run past passersby who cuss me out, past restaurants closing up shop for the night, past trash cans, and homeless people asleep on benches.

I run until I end up at the destination I wasn’t aware I was moving toward.

Cleo’s apartment looms above me, dauntingly high in the night sky. My heart feels like a hasty knock against a front door within my chest. A bead of sweat runs from my temple, down the slope of my cheek, and down to the sidewalk below.

Despite my calves which ache in silent protest, I walk toward the front doors and buzz up to Cleo’s apartment.

Please be home. Please be home.

Seconds tick by with no response. I squat on the ground in defeat, not moving out of the way of the doors. My heart doesn’t slow. My body begins to move inside of itself. Suffocating me.

And then— “Ren?”

My eyes squeeze painfully shut. A sob I didn’t know I was holding back detonates and escapes from my chest. Cleo’s arms circle around me as my tears fall.

“Oh, honey. Okay. Shh, shh. It’s okay. Stand up,” she says softly. “Let’s get you inside.”

The next morning, I wake up on Cleo’s couch, instead of in my bed. My alarm screams at me from my phone atop a nearby coffee table. I begrudgingly roll on my side and reach for it, then push the stop button with much more force than is required.

It feels like I’ve been beaten to a pulp.

Each time I blink, it feels like there is a ton of weight on my thin eyelids.

My throat is raw and dry from when Cleo finally rescued me last night and I immediately ran into her bathroom to throw up the delicious dinner Mattia made for me. My back is stiff and my legs are sore.

I knew Catherine wouldn’t just let me go like an unwanted, forgotten ghost. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was dragged back to her circle of hell. Yet, as usual, my mind wasn’t in control of my body, and my body fully rejected my reality.

I have an hour before I have to go home. That thought alone gets my heart rate up. With an overly dramatic groan, I sit up and stretch my arms out, then check my phone.

Seven missed calls from Mattia and several text messages.

I drop the phone in my lap and rub my eyes.

I hate that I ran away from him last night.

I hate that I don’t have it in me to call or text him back—partly because I’m emotionally exhausted and partly because I’m fucking embarrassed.

Especially after he tried to help me. That’s all he’s done.

Callous as he may seem on the outside, I know he cares in his own way.

I’ll text him back later. If I have it in me.

I hear Cleo’s bedroom door open and the shuffling of feet. “Good morning, psycho,” she sing-songs.

A smile takes over my face. “I’m not even going to fight you on that one.”

She snorts. “Coffee?”

“Always.”

I make it back home twenty minutes before Catherine is expected to arrive.

She’s never held a meeting with me at my house before.

The mix up in our usual routine combined with the spell of silence she cast upon me up until last night leaves me nauseous and fatigued.

However, being back at home, in my own space, settles something inside of me.

At least here, the atmosphere is less cold than in her office.

Until she arrives, that is. Because as soon as I’ve made two cups of coffee, she rings the doorbell, almost as if she can sense I’m ready for her intrusion. As I walk to the door, icy goosebumps ripple down the length of my spine.

I don’t want this to last any longer than absolutely necessary, though. So I rip off the Band-Aid. I don’t allow myself a moment to catch my breath before I swing open the door.

And there she is. Lips pursed, makeup flawless. Her icy blond hair is picture perfect, not a single hair out of place. Behind her pointed sunglasses, I can feel her treacherous blue eyes staring into my soul.

“Good morning,” I say as calmly as I can with a woman like Catherine staring me down.

She nods at me and walks in. I softly close the door behind her as she taps away in her heels, presumably making her way toward the smell of coffee.

“You haven’t changed a thing since your mother passed,” Catherine notes coolly before disappearing into the kitchen.

I pick up my pace to join her at the kitchenette, where our mugs sit. “N-no. I guess I could do that. Maybe I should.”

She ignores me. She pushes her sunglasses atop her head and takes a sip of her black coffee without a single grimace despite how hot it is. I blow into my mug and wait for whatever bombshell she’s about to drop on me.

“I’m sure you have enjoyed your break. But now it’s time to jump back in, and I have a case that is more suitable for you than any of my other workers.” Her eyes meet mine and every cell in my body freezes. “What? You aren’t going to ask what it is?”

I swallow roughly. “What is it? Or, I guess I should ask who.”

“His name is Anthony Ellington. All the info on him has already been uploaded into your work drive, of course.” Catherine takes another sip of scorching liquid.

“He’s a high profile case. He’s been in the drug industry here in D.C.

for over a decade. Unlike most of your other assignments, I would consider Anthony quite the risky assignment. ”

I don’t breathe.

“He’s known for selling products, of course, but not on the streets. He mostly sells to big-time buyers. Rich buyers. But he also has a reputation of violence. It’s not a peaceful profession, I’m afraid.”

It doesn’t go past me how she almost sounds amused by this.

“Anyway, I believe the easiest way to complete this hit is for someone to get Anthony’s guard down. Make him a bit vulnerable.”

“Why do you thin–?”

“He’s gay,” she says, cutting me off mid-question. “Since most of my workers are women and you are the only gay man I have on my team, it seems you’re the only one suitable for this.”

I cringe. It’s not like I’m not used to being called a man. Most people call me that. But I’ve gotten used to Cleo, and hell, even Mattia, using my preferred pronouns that being called a man leaves me feeling foreign in my own body. I recoil again once I register what Catherine is insinuating.

“You want me to… seduce him?” I ask. I grip my mug with both hands, the warmth spreading to my palms and rooting me in place.

“I believe that would be the easiest way.”

“What if I’m not his type? Or?—”

Catherine stands up abruptly. “Look at the file. You are definitely his type.” She looks down at me with an ugly smirk, then puts her sunglasses back on. “Report back to me when all is said and done, of course.”

“Okay,” I concede. It’s not like I can fight her. I’ve never been able to.

“Oh, and Ren?” she calls from the archway that leads back into the hall.

“Yes?”

She stares at me over her shoulder for what I’d consider a little too long before responding. “Make sure you really do your homework on how to seduce this man. I know the art of seduction is not an area of expertise for you.”

With that, she leaves me alone in my kitchen, face red and heart pounding.