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STEFI

I get two hours of restless, dream-filled sleep before it’s time to wake up. All morning, I sit at the table and work my boring customer service job, ignoring Lynda’s passive-aggressive digs with an equanimity that drives her insane.

And while I work, I think about Joao.

I’m still reeling from seeing him yesterday. For more than seven years, I’ve believed he was gone, and I’m still struggling to absorb that he’s alive. The deepest, truest wish of my heart has come true, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I shouldn’t have talked to him this morning. I was rattled seeing him again and shaken by the messages he left me in our chat room. It was a mistake, and I knew it, but the moment he said, ‘I want to hear your voice, little fox,’ I started dialing.

I could never resist Joao. Not the first time he kissed me, not when I was eighteen and he proposed with a twist tie, not when we impulsively got married on a weekend trip to Copenhagen.

Then there’s Henrik Bach’s death. With everything else that’s been going on, I’ve barely processed that the man I’ve dreamed about killing all my life is now forever beyond my reach.

I haven’t felt this dangerously off-balance since Puerto Vallarta.

Stop thinking about Joao. There’s a more immediate threat you need to address.

I almost got killed yesterday. When Marcus told me Varek Zaworski was leaving his village to meet a business associate in Switzerland, I’d been unbelievably careless, and instantly accepted the job. I hadn’t stopped to think that it might be a trap, and I sure as hell skipped doing any due diligence of my own. I should have double-checked Marcus’s intel with my own contacts, but I didn’t. I hadn’t even asked him who wanted the bounty hunter dead.

I deserved to be killed.

Had it not been for my husband, I would have been.

If Joao is to be believed, Andrei Sidorov, head of the Sidorov Bratva, sent a half dozen people to take me out in Zurich.

Something’s been bothering me ever since Joao let that tidbit drop. Somehow, Sidorov figured out that he could reach me through Marcus O’Shea. But how? When I killed Sidorov’s father-in-law, I used a different identity, not Nina Lalami.

So how did Sidorov connect me to Marcus O’Shea?

That’s not the only problem. Joao said he had a file on me. It doesn’t have the most accurate intel in the world—I haven’t killed seventy-three people, for starters—but at least two of the targets are right. Sidorov’s father-in-law was in Joao’s file, and so was Reyhan Benita.

How are these people gathering intel on me? What am I doing wrong? I’ve done my best to kill my targets in different ways. Some I’ve poisoned, some I’ve stabbed under the cover of a bar fight, and some I’ve shot in their homes.

Have I revealed something about myself in my approach? Do I have a ‘tell’?

It’s not you, you idiot. It’s your targets.

Shit. I swear out loud, cursing my stupidity and my hubris. Of course, they found me. Every single person I’ve killed has been a part of Henrik Bach’s network. As soon as Sidorov figured that out, he could predict what target to dangle in front of me.

Varek Zaworski was the perfect bait.

For a moment, I allow myself to despair. With Henrik’s death, I have just three targets left on my list, but I can’t fight this war on two fronts. I can’t take down Bach’s network and avoid Andrei Sidorov’s killers. I’m as helpless as I was eight years ago when I faked my own death and disappeared.

Maybe I should take Joao up on his offer of safety and go to Venice.

No. I shake my head violently. Going to Venice with Joao would mean that I’m trading one enemy for another. Taking refuge in Moretti’s city isn’t safety—it’s surrender, and I will never do it. Never.

I only have Joao’s word that Andrei Sidorov is after me. I don’t think he’d lie to me, but what if he’s wrong? What if it’s Antonio Moretti who’s figured out that I’m killing Bach’s known associates? What if he’s using Joao to find me, and this is all a ploy to kill me before I can succeed in killing him?

Another wave of despair overtakes me. I love Joao. I’ve always loved him, but there are too many secrets between us and too many powerful forces intent on keeping us apart. First Bach, now Moretti. Even if Joao could forgive me for disappearing, even if somehow, what happened in Istanbul doesn’t wreck him, there’s still the fact that his boss is one of my three remaining targets.

The entire fucking city of Venice loves its self-proclaimed king. Even his enemies agree that he’s much better than his predecessor. And Joao works for him. I could show him everything I have—the financial records, the shell companies, the trail of money that connects his boss to Henrik Bach—but what if it isn’t enough? What happens if he doesn’t believe me? What if he refuses to see that his friend isn’t who he thinks he is?

Bach trained us to be lone killers, but Joao and I were always two halves of a magnet. When we got married in Copenhagen—when Joao promised to love and cherish me forever —it was the happiest day of my life. His love was the salve to my heart that I didn’t know I needed.

If he takes Moretti’s side against mine, it will wreck me. I will fracture into a thousand broken pieces.

I managed to claw my way out of a prison my mind had built for me once, but it took everything I had to rescue myself. I don’t think I have what it takes to do it again.

It’s one in the afternoon, and Charlie still hasn’t come back home. She left two hours ago to go shopping. “I might check out the youth center, too,” she said as she left. “Maybe meet some people my own age. No offense, Stefi.”

It’s the first time she’s shown any interest in making friends, and I should be ecstatic that she’s acting like a typical teenager, but I’m twitchy. If Sidorov or someone else wants to get a hold of me, Charlie is a great way in. She’s an innocent teenager who’s done nothing to deserve the things that have happened to her. If she were in danger, I’d sacrifice myself in a heartbeat to keep her safe.

This is why it’s a bad idea to get attached.

I push my worries aside and do my job on autopilot, sipping my apple tea and glancing at the clock every minute or two. Ten minutes go by, then twenty. It’s almost two when I hear footsteps come up the stairs and a key scrape in the lock.

My hand closes on the knife taped under the table.

Charlie opens the door. “You wouldn’t believe what the butcher was charging for lamb,” she says indignantly. “It’s robbery, I tell you.” She puts her bags of groceries down on the table and registers that I’m on my work laptop. “Lynda still bitching at you?”

“Always. You were gone a while.” I don’t want her to think I was worrying, so I phrase that as casually as I can.

“Yeah, I stopped by the youth center and got to chatting with the people in charge. They have a track there.” She looks a little wistful. “I used to love to run. I’ve been thinking of starting again.”

“Ah.” That’s a good sign. Charlie is reasserting who she is, an important step toward recovery from what her stepfather did to her. “That’s a good idea. You should buy proper running shoes. I’ll give you some money.”

She frowns. “I can’t keep taking your money.”

“Yes, you can,” I reply. “Pignotti had a bounty on his head. If you really think about it, that’s your money, not mine.”

The expression on Charlie’s face tells me she’s not buying it. “You’re the one who killed him, not me. You’ve earned that money.” She starts to put away the groceries. “I’m thinking about getting a job. There was a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window of the grocery store. They don’t pay much, but the proprietor, Madame Allard, seems very kind.”

I glance up at her. “You know money isn’t an issue, right? You don’t need to work at the grocery store. I will pay for you to go to culinary school if that’s what you want, so don’t make any hasty decisions, okay?”

I’ve accumulated a little nest egg. I’m not a millionaire or anything, but it’s enough to put Charlie through school. It’ll leave me tight for a while, but I’ll figure it out. I’m used to it.

“Okay,” Charlie replies. “I promise. I’ll think about it.”

She sounds like she means it. Good. I don’t push anymore; she needs to get there on her own, so I change the subject. “What did you buy?”

“Lamb sausage, cauliflower, some parsley. I thought I’d roast the cauliflower and use the sausage in a pasta sauce.”

“You don’t have to cook all of our meals. I can make dinner if you’d like.”

She gives me a withering look. “Stefi, no offense, but you cannot cook.”

“None taken.” Food has always been fuel, something that provides me with enough calories for me to function. It’s never been something to be savored.

Except when I was with Joao. We’d seize moments away from Bach and spend hours eating bread and cheese, drinking cheap wine, and talking about everything under the sun. And even though it was just bread and cheese, it tasted better than anything I’d ever eaten.

Sudden, unexpected footsteps come up the stairs, and I frown. This doesn’t sound like Monsieur Didier, the piano professor who lives across the hallway, and it isn’t one of his young students—they typically skip up the stairs in an excess of energy.

No, this is someone heavier than our skinny French neighbor. A man, just one, and he’s not making any effort to conceal his presence.

“Are you expecting someone?” I demand.

Charlie shakes her head in reply.

“Did you give anyone this address?”

“No, of course not,” she says. “I swear I didn’t.”

The man knocks, and Charlie looks at me, her eyes wide and scared. “What should I do?”

I grab the knife from under the table.

“Answer it,” I say tensely. I incline my head toward my bedroom. “I’ll be right behind the door.”

The knock sounds once again, polite yet insistent. “One moment,” Charlie says, her voice shaking a little.

“I’m right here,” I mouth to her, grabbing my laptop and disappearing into my bedroom, out of sight of the front door.

She moves to open it. “Oui?” she asks. “Est-ce que je peux vous aider?”

“Bonjour,” Joao says in fluent, unaccented French. “You must be Charlotte. I’m looking for Stefania.”

Shit, shit, shit. How did he find me?

“My name is Joao Carvalho,” he continues. “I’m her husband.”