“I’ll update him on the situation, then,” Blake says. “And I’ll get my men on a plane to you to cover the event. If you want to leave right after the event, we’ll take you straight to the airport.”
Chris’s lips thin, the lines of his body are tight, and I can almost feel his fear for me clawing at him, taking him to a private hell I’ll visit with him when this is over.
“Or,” Blake says, clearly uncomfortable with the silence, “they can escort you back to San Francisco.”
“When do we get an update?”
“Twelve hours.”
“We’ll let you know our plans then.”
“Understood,” Blake replies.
Chris ends the call, sucking in air and lifting his face to the ceiling. And I know what’s going on in his head. Paris is where he lost his mother and father. And it’s where street robbers killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents and he was forced to kill a teenage boy before he shot her, as well. And it’s where that same ex killed herself only weeks ago. Paris is the hotbed of his torment, yet it’s also the place that put a paintbrush in his hand and began to heal him. But he doesn’t need me to tell him I know these things. He knows I know. He knows I understand.
I stand up and walk to the easel he was working at in the center of the otherwise nearly empty room, stopping at the table next to it. I flip on the radio and find the angst-filled Hozier song he’s been listening to recently while working on one of his charity projects featuring the catacombs of Paris. The music fills the air: “Take me to church, I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies.” But there are no lies between Chris and me—and I don’t want anything else between us right now. I pull off his shirt and turn to find him standing in front of me. And when my eyes meet his, the punch of emotion I see in them weakens my knees.
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I promise, and before the words are out, his fingers are tangling roughly, erotically, in my hair and he’s dragging me against him. And when he kisses me, it’s laced with torment and pain. I just pray that the only enemies we have to face in our future, or Ella’s, are the ones inside us right now.
one
ella
Italy
Minutes after I’ve ended my call with Sara, Kayden and I are standing in the break room of the shooting range and Kayden is kissing me, drinking me in, his hands possessively on my waist and at my neck, as if he’s afraid to let me go. As if he’s afraid somehow I will be lost, and the truth is, so am I. So am I. It doesn’t matter that he is my next breath, and that I believe I am his. It matters that exposing my past might steal everything we think we are and want to be together. It matters that while reconnecting with Sara was welcome and wonderful, there was other news that came with finding her again. News that I may really be a CIA operative, as I’ve suspected, perhaps here in Italy for reasons that don’t suit The Underground—an organization where Kayden is The Hawk, the leader.
“We are not enemies,” Kayden declares, tearing his mouth from mine, repeating the words he’d spoken before the kiss as if he’s tasted the doubt on my lips, as if he’s willing me to let it go, when I have tasted it on his as well. But I have never wanted to surrender to anyone else’s will—or to anyone—more than I do to his and him, right now. But it isn’t that simple and we both know it, no matter how we might reject that fact.
“In this moment,” I say, “and in every moment since you found me in that alleyway, no. But if I am CIA—”
“You were never my enemy, Ella.” He turns over his arm, exposing the hawk tattoo on his wrist, the mark of a leader in The Underground, in his case over all of France and Italy. “This represents me having the right to make choices for my organization that will never put me at odds with you or the CIA.”
“Not by choice,” I say, my hand flattening on the hard wall of his T-shirt-covered chest, knowing everything about him is strength and power. “But sometimes you’re forced into situations.”
“That I manage, and manage well.”
“Yes,” I agree, recognizing not arrogance in his words but rather confidence and character. “I know that. I’ve seen it. And I feel it when I’m with you.”
“But you’re not convinced that doesn’t leave us at odds.”
“I want to be convinced. I do.”
He takes my hand and turns it over to reveal the newly inked hawk on my wrist, a perfect match for his except for the pink-etched wings. “This says that I will always put you first. It says you will never be my enemy.” He joins our hands and connects our wrists, our hawks. “You are a part of me now.”
“As you are of me,” I say, my voice raspy with love for this man who has seen my worst and barely knows my best, and yet I know he would die for me. That thought brings worries to mind that he doesn’t give me time to express, lacing his fingers with mine.
“Let’s get out of here.”