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I press a kiss to her forehead. The predator in me, the part I’ve kept caged for so long, stirs in anticipation. One day until I embrace what I’ve always been, until I kill for her without hesitation or regret. And God help anyone who tries to take what’s mine.
9
MOLLY
I watch Cole hunched over the communications equipment, his broad shoulders rigid with tension. His jaw is too tight, his breathing too controlled. He looks like he belongs in crises, which is probably why I want to believe him when he says we’ll survive this.
The first rays of dawn flood through the cabin’s reinforced windows, casting long shadows that seem to reach for us like fingers. This must be bad news.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice still rough with sleep.
He doesn’t turn, just motions me closer with one hand. I pad across the polished hardwood, wrapping the blanket around me. Despite the cabin’s state-of-the-art heating system, the chill of dawn seeps into my bare feet, a reminder that even luxury has its limits.
“FBI comms,” he says, voice flat and clinical. The same tone I have used in court when facts have to be colder than grief. “Someone found Agent Rivers in his car last night. Three bullets to the chest.”
The name hits me. Mike Rivers. We shared an office for two years. He has, or had, twins who just started kindergarten.
“Mike was...” My voice catches, my throat closing around his name. The taste of bile rises in my throat. ‘He was looking for me?”
Cole nods, finally turning to face me, his eyes deep with something beyond simple regret. “Alessio is systematically eliminating everyone associated with your case. It’s a message.”
I sink into the chair beside him, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. “How many others?”
“Three witnesses in protective custody. Two agents. One prosecutor who refused to take a bribe.” Cole’s voice remains steady, but his hand finds mine, squeezing gently. “The FBI officially listed you as missing, presumed dead.”
“What?” My voice sounds strange, distant. I hear myself speak but feel disconnected from the sound.
“Your credentials revoked. Apartment cleared out. Family notified of your death.” Cole keeps it brief, like he’s reading a report.
Each sentence lands like another nail in a coffin. My coffin. The death of my former life, now official. I see it all with painful clarity: my desk at the office, my small apartment with the balcony where I drank coffee every morning, my parents receiving the news with devastated faces. The life I built was tidy on paper, credentials, case law, outcomes. Nobody warns you how fast paperwork becomes a eulogy.
“There’s no going back, is there?” I whisper, already knowing the answer, tears brimming in my eyes.
Cole meets my gaze, unflinching. “No. Not to that life.” No sugar-coating, no platitudes, just truth.
A fault line fractures inside me, not breaking but shifting. Like a bone resetting after trauma. Painful, but necessary for healing.
“People are dying because of me.” My shoulders slump under the weight, and the tears start to fall. I press my palm against my sternum where the pressure builds, making it hard to breathe.
“No people are dying because of the Borsellini’s,” Cole corrects sharply. “Don’t confuse the two.”
I stand abruptly, pacing the small room, energy crackling through my limbs with nowhere to go. “I should turn myself in. Stop this bloodshed.”
Cole is on his feet in an instant, his hands gripping my shoulders. “And then what? You die, Alessio walks free, and every person he’s already killed dies for nothing.” His eyes bore into mine. “Is that what Mike would want?”
Mike, with his stupid dad jokes and pictures of his kids plastered all over his desk. The same Mike who took a bullet for a witness last year and still made his daughter’s dance recital the next day, arm in a sling and grinning through the pain.
“No,” I admit, the fight draining out of me. “He’d want justice.”
“Then we get justice,” Cole says, his voice softening just slightly. “But first, we keep you alive.”
I look up at him, really look at him, this man who’s risked everything to protect me, who operates in a world of shadows I’m only beginning to understand. The federal prosecutor I was a week ago would have built a case against him without hesitation. That woman feels like a stranger now.
The prosecutor who built cases on rules and evidence, seems naïve now. Three months of working undercover to infiltrate the Borsellini family changed me. Meeting Cole, the government’s shadowy asset with no official existence, changed me more.
“I can’t go back,” I say slowly, the realization solidifying as I speak it aloud. “But I can go forward.”
Cole’s expression changes, a flicker of surprise quickly masked. He’s always two steps ahead, always in control. But not now. Not completely.
