“What should I do?” he fretted.
“I will send Katarina here. She’ll either be with me or she won’t,” I stated flatly. “If she’s alone, tend to her and call Filippa tocheck her over. Make her feel safe here. Later, once she’s ready, get a lawyer to go over my estate with her. She’s my wife and she’ll be a very wealthy widow.”
“Massimo!” Paolo exclaimed as I made for the door.
“And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you either. I’ve left you the place on the coast. You’ve always wanted to retire to Amalfi, haven’t you? The beach house you love. It’s yours.”
Paolo stopped dead in the hall and shook his head. I took him in for the first time in a long time.
“Why are you acting like you won’t come back?” he asked.
“Because I’m a realist and I like to be prepared.” I patted the old man on the shoulder. “I know my odds. It’s not some guy who’s taken my wife hostage. It’s the head of the Stoyanov family, who lives in a castle-like compound. They’re going to be armed and they’re not afraid to kill. That’s okay. It means we can play on the same level. Getting Katarina out and safe is my only priority.”
“You should make it a priority to come home with her.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. My life had always been the expendable component. Not caring if I died had made me a lethal weapon, and caring about that now would only make me weak when I couldn’t afford to be.
“Take care of her, I’m trusting you,” I told Paolo instead, and stepped out the door.
It was dark outside, light flurries of snow whirling around the light from the lampposts. As I went for my car, a sharp whistle cut through the sleepy silence of the residential street.
I turned and saw them. Two figures in black walking toward me.
“Look who I ran into.” Vittorio smiled and elbowed Elio in the side lightly.
Our former commander eyed me up and down. I’d only just seen him a couple of months ago, when I’d gotten mixed up in hisbusiness. I didn’t know what to make of the fact that he’d come here for me. Vittorio, either.
“We just need Filippa here, and it’s a reunion,” Elio murmured, and stared up at the townhouse behind me. “This your place?”
I nodded. “I’d give you the tour, but we have places to be.”
“Later then,” Elio agreed, and then caught my eye. “After.”
It sat unspoken between us that there might not be an after. The idea of that had never bothered me before, but now something festered in the pit of my stomach. A thrill of nerves I never usually felt. A fear of losing something before I’d ever really gotten the chance to have it.
“I can’t take you, Vittorio. I can’t make you break your vows?—”
“I’ve already broken them. Who do you think sent you to Hallow Hall in the first place?” Vittorio’s voice was pained and heavy.
I stared at him in shock. “You took out the hit on Vargas?”
Vittorio nodded. “Once I suspected what was going on with him, I had to find a way to end it. I needed someone good, someone who would make sure that whole place was shut down as soon as he got to know the real deal. I needed you. There aren’t many killers for hire with a conscience.”
A raw laugh left me. “What about your worries about my immortal soul?”
Vittorio hung his head. “Forgive me. I needed?—”
“A monster? A condemned man?” I asked.
He shook his head, guilt written across his face.
I patted his shoulder. “It’s okay. I understand. I wouldn’t change it, not a single moment... because you brought me to her. Thank you. I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”
Vittorio blinked, his eyes teary, then he cleared his throat. “Okay, well then, good. No more arguing about me tagging along, okay?”
“Enough chitchat. Let’s gear up. I don’t think a rosary or holy water is going to cut it,” Elio announced. “You got a gun for the good father, Lucciano?”
It was a bizarre thing to see these two men, whom I’d once risked life and death with, standing there on this quiet, ordinary street. Suddenly, I was glad not to be alone. Glad to be someone valued by these two men, men better than I’d ever be. It was humbling. It made me feel things I had no experience with.