Page 44 of Watch Me Burn

AARON

T he café hums with late-afternoon energy: clicking keyboards, grinding espresso machines, conversation that could mask anything including flat out war. A jazz quartet plays something mellow in the corner while death could be brewing twenty feet away.

My eyes never stop moving.

We can’t afford another ambush.

The Blackbird Café on the Lower East Side isn’t where I’d expect to meet a defecting Irish enforcer, but that’s exactly why Keira chose it. Open. Public. Nowhere to hide, but anonymous enough to disappear.

Brilliantly calculated and exactly what I would’ve done.

Still, it doesn’t stop the tension coiling in my gut. Not when we’ve come this far. Not when I’ve risked everything.

Four days since I took a bullet for Caterina.

Four days since I told her the truth. That I love her, that I’d die for her, that I probably will.

Somehow, that night didn’t destroy us. It bound us.

We’ve spent every moment since in this strange, suspended calm, like the air before a bomb drops. Planning revenge and sharing a bed as if we’ve finally found home. No pretending anymore. No hatred to hide behind.

And fuck, it’s so easy with her.

Sometimes I catch myself watching her. Laughing. Moving through a room as though she owns every corner. Hair down, guard lowered. And I feel detached. Watching someone else’s life unfold. Slipping into a movie I was never cast for.

Because this can’t be my life.

Contentment while planning a war. Peace while waiting for a bullet to find my spine.

How the hell does that add up?

Where’s the panic? The edge I’ve lived on for years?

Is this what people mean when they say they’ve found it? Love?

Because, hell, I think I finally get it.

Caterina feels it too. She hums brushing her teeth. Sings off-key in the shower. Steals blankets at night and wakes up innocent. She makes a life like mine seem worth saving.

But beneath the softness, the laughter, the stillness—there’s an edge. A knowing.

We’re preparing for something we might not survive.

And if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: peace this quiet means a timer is ticking.

These types of days might be limited so I’m trying to embrace every single second with her.

Caterina sits across from me, back to the wall, hair swept into a casual knot that fools no one. She hasn’t touched her espresso. Her fingertips drum against the wooden surface, betraying tension she otherwise hides with professional ease.

“Stop fidgeting,” I murmur, watching Tristan’s live feed on my phone. “You look ready to commit murder.”

“I am.”

“We don’t want anyone else knowing that, so try to relax.”

Her mouth quirks. “Relaxation isn’t in my vocabulary.”

Twenty feet away, Tristan lounges on the terrace with the ease of a man killing time between meetings.

Navy blazer, tailored slacks, expensive watch catching sunlight—he’s playing the role perfectly.

Casual. Controlled. No one would guess he’s wired for covert ops, carrying enough tech to make the NSA jealous.

My phone buzzes.

Dominik

She’s approaching from east. No tail confirmed.

He came here without my full approval, but honestly, I can’t blame him.

After we came clean about everything—the Irish, surveillance photos, Caterina’s family, his mom—Dom insisted on being part of this. He said he wouldn’t sit back while the people who nearly took his mother continued breathing.

We argued for a long time but eventually, we came to an agreement. He’d keep his distance but stay connected. I didn’t want him anywhere near us. If I had it my way, he would be locked up in a basement right now with the key thrown away.

“She’s here,” I say under my breath.

Cat doesn’t flinch. Just a subtle shift, straightening her spine as her hand drops to the side of her chair. Not to draw. Just ready.

“I still don’t trust this,” she says, tone flat.

“You don’t have to trust it. You just have to let it happen. Keira has motive now. And we need her more than either of us wants to admit.”

She hums, sounding more like a warning than agreement.

Through the café’s front windows, Keira Lynch appears. Her limp is small but present. A hairline hitch in her stride that would go unnoticed by anyone not trained to see it. Her jaw angles to catch the afternoon light, but I still clock the makeup-covered cut curving beneath her cheekbone.

Someone tried to finish what they started.

“Fresh injuries,” Caterina notes, not bothering to lower her voice.

She’s assessing everything about Keira. Her manner of walking, slight off balance weight distribution, blazer in summer heat, faint bulge of a concealed weapon near her ribs. Knife, probably strapped inside her boot.

My wife is ready to kill if this goes sideways.

And I love her for it.

Keira approaches Tristan as though it’s any other Thursday. Calm. Collected. But even through the screen, I catch the tired drag in her posture, the quiet flicker of something haunted behind her stare.

Tristan stands to greet her.

That alone tells me this isn’t business.

He doesn’t hug her but hesitates as though the thought crosses his mind. She leans in to kiss his cheek but he pulls back, looking away.

There it is. A pained hesitation that tells me everything. She’s hurt him in the past.

Could this woman be the one that broke Tristan Barlowe’s heart?

“You look terrible,” Tristan says. Clipped concern, tight and low, as if it’s taking effort not to snap.

Not at her. For her.

Whoever put that mark on her face is on his kill list.

I’ve never heard that tone from him. Not with anyone.

Keira lets out a breath of laughter. “Wow. So good to see you too, Karev. You haven’t aged a day.”

Karev?

That catches me off guard. I’ve known Tristan for years, seen him in operations that would rattle most men’s souls. But I’ve never heard that name. Not once. It’s not just a nickname, there is so much history.

His gaze sharpens as it flicks over her face, trying to piece her back together with nothing but his stare.

“What happened? Who did this to you?” It’s clearly killing him not to reach out and touch her.

Keira brushes the edge of her jaw with two fingers. “Patrick’s new pitbull got pissy when I pulled intel off his server.”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“Don’t worry, I handled it.”

Tristan gives a single nod. “And the limp?”

“Fire escape collapsed. Twenty-foot drop to a dumpster.” She shrugs. “I stuck the landing. Mostly.”

He exhales through his nose, quiet and tight. For the first time, I see restraint on his face, as if he’s out of his element. Unsure of himself. He’s not wearing his usual strategic cool.

Beside me, Caterina watches with steadily, arms crossed with no trace of emotion on her face. She’s clocking the same thing I am.

“Keira’s been compromised longer than she’s letting on. And he knew it before she said a word,” she whispers.

My focus stays on the screen. “I want to know what happened between them.”

Keira sips her coffee, sighing as though she’s missed days of sleep. “I assume this conversation’s being recorded.”

Tristan finally smiles, but it’s brittle. “Come on, Red. Would I do you dirty?”

“You’d do whatever it takes.”

“Still wouldn’t waste a meeting without backup.”

She scans the café. No tension in her posture, no wasted movement—just looking over every reflective surface, noting exits, angles, lines of fire.

“I told you I had proof. I wasn’t bluffing.”

Her hand moves beneath the surface.

My spine straightens, and beside me, Caterina inches forward. She doesn’t reach for her blade, but I feel the spike of tension in her stillness. It’s insane how effortless it’s become to read her, without even looking.

My body knows hers.

On-screen, Keira slides a sleek black flash drive across the surface, tucked beneath a napkin. “Everything you need is on there. Files, statements, money trails, photos. It’s all there.”

Tristan’s fingers close around the drive, but his stare doesn’t leave hers.

They don’t say anything else. Not for a full three seconds.

The silence between them is deafening, making me even more desperate to learn about their past.

“What type of information is exactly on here, Keira?”

“Financial records linking the Mortelles and Doyles for the last five years. Joint acquisitions, buried investors, laundered profits. Shell corps in the Caymans, dummy accounts in Switzerland. And the trafficking pipeline—they co-manage it. Four countries deep, rerouted through legitimate businesses, ending right here in New York.”

Tristan slides the flash drive into his pocket. “And Caterina?”

“They’ve been building a case against her for months.” Keira leans forward. “Every body she’s left behind? They’re connecting them, creating a pattern of erratic, unstable behavior. Lorenzo’s been compiling a dossier. Psychological instability. Rogue behavior. The narrative is written.”

Cat’s knuckles tighten. I reach over, squeezing her knee to reassure her that I’m here.

That I will always be here.

Keira keeps going.

“They want her to look like the architect behind the entire pipeline. That it was her who used the network to settle vendettas. Mortelle will claim ignorance, disown her publicly, and hand over fabricated proof to clear his name. Then they’ll let their partners do whatever they want to her before they kill her. ”

“Fucking hell,” Tristan mutters.

“There’s more. Bank transfers from offshore accounts to charities connected to Caterina. Small amounts, perfectly spaced to appear monetary laundering. And similar transfers to subsidiaries of Jackson Development. They’ve been laying the financial groundwork since before the marriage.”

My fingers curl around the edge of the wood until it gives beneath my grip with a subtle, splintering crack.

All I can think is: What if I hadn’t stopped that bullet?

What if I’d kept my distance? Stayed cold? Let myself believe this was strategy, another transaction in a war that never ends?