Page 28 of Watch Me Burn

AARON

T he box sits like a bomb in my passenger seat, daring me to touch it.

Another gift. Matte black box. Silver ribbon. That same psychotic precision that’s been unraveling me for months.

I haven’t opened it, but halfway through the drive home, I considered going off the nearest bridge with the damn thing still strapped in beside me.

After what happened between us the other night, I thought we were done with this bullshit.

But apparently not.

Another package from the woman who’s now living in my house. Sleeping in my bed. Breathing my air. Infiltrating every corner of the life I spent years building from nothing.

If this contains what I think it does, after everything we’ve been through, I’m not sure how much more of this psychological warfare I can handle.

As if marrying into her family wasn’t enough.

Now she’s here.

In my space. In my head.

Normally, I keep a lid on my anger.

Not tonight.

Sixty-four floors in the elevator. Not enough time to cool off, but plenty of time to plan exactly what I’m going to say when I confront her. The box feels heavy in my hand, weighted with malice. Like physical proof of her latest betrayal.

We had a deal, goddammit. We would be partners in name only. No more games. No more mind-fuck packages delivered to my car.

The elevator doors slide open with a soft chime.

I step into my penthouse already burning with rage.

“Caterina!”

I know she’s here. I can sense her presence like a disturbance in the air.

“Caterina! Where the hell are you?”

I storm through the kitchen only to find it empty. The living room sits in perfect silence. Her bedroom door hangs slightly open, lights off, bed untouched. The adjoining bathroom is equally still.

Of course she’s gone. Always just far enough to stay ahead. Predictable in her unpredictability.

I pause in the hallway, forcing myself to take one slow breath.

That’s when I hear it.

The soft, steady sound of running water. Coming from my bathroom.

Something inside me snaps completely.

I march across the penthouse, slam through my bedroom door, and head straight toward the source of that sound.

“What the fuck do you think you’re?—”

The words die in my throat like they’ve been strangled.

Caterina stands at my sink, dripping wet from head to toe. The mirror’s completely fogged, steam thick in the air. A towel dangles forgotten from her hand. Water slides over her bare skin in slow, hypnotic trails—down the elegant slope of her spine, across her breasts, over the curve of her hips.

Fucking hell.

Just like that, my carefully controlled anger derails completely.

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror with that infuriating calm she always maintains.

“Ever heard of knocking?” she asks, dragging the towel through her hair without bothering to cover herself.

I force my gaze up to her face, jaw clenched so tight it hurts. Heat crawls up my neck like fire, completely unwanted.

“What the hell are you doing in my bathroom?”

“Taking a shower.” She shrugs, and that simple movement, bare shoulders glistening with water, draws my attention before I can stop myself.

“What’s wrong with the guest bathroom?”

“Nothing. I just prefer this one. Better water pressure.”

The water pressure is above grade in every bathroom of this house.

My jaw grinds. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.

“I don’t give a shit about your preferences.” I hold up the black box between us like evidence in a trial. “Explain this.”

Confusion flashes across her features, chased immediately by alarm, then that familiar mask of ice drops into place.

“What is that?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. You left it in my car.” I shove it toward her. “Open it.”

She raises one eyebrow, completely unfazed, one hand resting casually on her bare hip. “I don’t need to open it. It’s not from me.”

Still completely naked. No shame, no urgency to cover herself. Still fucking weaponizing it.

I grab her robe off the hook and throw it at her chest.

“Put this on.”

She moves with deliberate slowness, slipping into the robe like she’s humoring a child, tying the belt with lazy precision. “You have plenty of enemies, Aaron. Don’t flatter yourself thinking I’m your only source of danger.”

“Right.” I laugh sarcastically. “Because someone else just happened to send a threatening package in the exact same style you use.”

“It wasn’t me.” Her voice doesn’t rise even a decibel. “And I can prove it.”

“This should be interesting.”

She brushes past me toward the bedroom, and I catch the scent of my soap rising from her skin like a taunt designed specifically to mess with my head.

She grabs her phone from the nightstand, fingers moving with clinical efficiency.

Pulls up some kind of app. Surveillance footage fills the screen—her walking through what looks like a farmers market, then entering an upscale spa.

Clear timestamps align perfectly with the hours I spent trapped in back-to-back meetings.

“You can also check the footage from your parking garage. I can’t be in two places at once, despite what you might think about my abilities.”

I snatch the phone from her hand, studying the footage. It rolls seamlessly. My building, my office parking lot, her timeline syncing perfectly with mine down to the minute.

Either she’s telling the truth, or she’s the most sophisticated liar I’ve ever encountered.

“Open it,” I snap, holding the box out again.

“I already told you, this isn’t mine.” She studies it more carefully now, like she’s seeing it for the first time. “It’s too simple. Not my style.”

“It looks exactly like every other package you sent me.”

Her arms cross slowly, and I catch that flicker of genuine irritation behind her eyes. “What would I possibly gain from this now? We’re living together. If I wanted to terrorize you, I’d have more creative options.”

And that’s what’s eating me. That’s what I thought too, the second I saw the damn thing sitting in my car. Whoever sent it wants to crack this foundation before it even sets.

“Same thing you got from it before. Keeping me guessing, off-balance, never sure what’s coming next.”

“If I wanted you off-balance,” she murmurs, stepping closer until I can feel heat radiating from her skin, “all I’d have to do is exist in your space. Which, in case you haven’t noticed, I already do.”

She gestures to the room around us. “Not that you’d know. You’re never here anymore. Easier to work yourself into the ground than spend an evening under the same roof as me.”

“That’s not…whatever.” I cut myself off. No point in pretending she’s wrong.

She grabs the box from my hand. “This isn’t my work. And considering everything that’s been happening lately...I think we’re being targeted by someone else entirely.”

Caterina unties the ribbon of the box methodically. I try not to notice the flush still coloring her cheeks from the steam, the way my robe clings to her damp skin like it was tailored for her.

“Shit.”

The edge in her voice makes something cold unfurl in my chest. Inside the box lies what looks like a blood-soaked Celtic knot and a stack of photographs.

Surveillance shots of Caterina and me entering and leaving my building. Her alone in the penthouse, asleep in the guest room, then later asleep in my bed alone. Me collapsed over my desk at the office. Having dinner with clients at restaurants I thought were secure.

But it’s the final photo that stops my breath completely.

Caterina in black tactical gear, twin daggers glinting in her hands, caught mid-stride between shipping containers. Her eyes are sharp, alert, head turning like she’s being hunted.

“We’re being watched,” she says quietly, lifting the last photo with two fingers, careful not to leave prints. Her hand trembles slightly, exposing a crack in her armor.

That scares me more than all the photos combined.

“The Irish?” I ask.

“Has to be. This Celtic knot is their calling card. It symbolizes eternal revenge, they use it when they want to send a message about blood feuds.”

“You think they’re trying to get to your father through us?”

“They’ve been at war with the Italian families for decades.

This isn’t new territory.” She pauses, fingers hovering over the photographs like they might bite her.

“What is new is how thoroughly they’ve studied us.

These aren’t just random surveillance shots—they’re intelligence.

They know our routines, our habits, even our most private moments. ”

“What do they want from us specifically?”

“To drive a wedge between us. Make you doubt this arrangement, make you think I’m still playing games. They want to create a crack in the Mortelle foundation deep enough to bring the whole structure down.”

Her logic should remind me of exactly who I’m dealing with—a woman raised in this world of violence and manipulation.

But I can’t stop watching the way she pieces it all together. Sharp, methodical, absolutely lethal. In another universe, I might have admired that mind. Might have even wanted to possess it.

Not in this one, though.

“I’m calling Tristan,” I mutter, pulling out my phone.

She nods silently as I step away to make the call, keeping the personal details vague. When I return, she’s still studying the box contents like they might rearrange themselves into something less threatening.

“We need to sweep this place completely,” she says without looking up. “Check for listening devices, cameras, anything they might have planted.”

“Already handled. Tristan’s sending a security team tonight.”

“Good.” A pause, then: “The break-in the other night must have been them. Testing our defenses, seeing how we’d react.”

She meets my stare without flinching. “Fuck.”

“My instincts are usually reliable when it comes to this kind of thing. I’m rarely wrong about territorial warfare.”

Of course they are. You don’t survive her kind of life with faulty radar.

This complicated, infuriating woman stands in my bedroom like she owns it. Defiance stitched into every line of her.

She looks me dead in the eye, daring me to blink at the intimacy of the moment.

Waiting for me to retreat.

And all I can process is the contradiction: the softness of her appearance right now, the vulnerable curve of her collarbone where the robe has slipped. Versus the blood-soaked assassin who’s been living in my head for months.

It only reinforces how dangerous it is to want her.

“You should stay in here tonight,” I hear myself say. “Just to be safe.”

Her smile is slow. “Concerned for my well-being, husband?”

“I’m concerned with strategy,” I snap back. “If we’re in separate rooms, it gives them opportunities we can’t afford. We’ve already handed them enough surveillance footage.”

“So now you want us close together.”

“This isn’t chivalry, Caterina. It’s tactical necessity. Don’t read anything else into it.”

There it is, that glint in her eyes that means trouble. “I love it when you say my name like that.”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious. The first time you said it with that exact tone, you wanted to strangle me with your bare hands.”

She’s not wrong about that.

And the worst part? Wanting her still feels like betraying everything I stand for. But not wanting her feels infinitely worse.

“Get dressed. We have work to do.” My voice comes out clipped, professional.

“What kind of work?”

“Finding out exactly who’s coming for us and how much time we have to prepare.” I pause in the doorway, just long enough to glance back. “Twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be ready.”

As I leave her standing there, pressure builds behind my ribs. Pretending to trust her, even temporarily, is more reckless than keeping her at arm’s length as an enemy. Because the moment I let my guard down is when she’ll decide to attack.

Every instinct screams at me to keep my distance.

To remember who she is. What she’s capable of.

But even now, I can feel it happening. This fundamental shift between us.

It’s not subtle anymore.

It’s not safe.

It’s already in motion.

The line between enemy and ally is dissolving faster than I can redraw it.

And if I lose control where Caterina Mortelle is concerned...

It won’t just cost me this game we’re playing.

It might cost me everything.