“Kayden, please.”
He turns us so that we’re facing each other and holds my hand. “I know how skilled you are. Blake Walker is a skilled ATF agent and far from a rookie, yet you made him look like one.”
“Then take me with you.”
“If you go with me, all I’ll be thinking about is your safety.”
“But you just said you know I have skills,” I argue.
“This is a man who raped you, Ella. As it is, I’m personally involved. I want to make him suffer. I want to bring someone to his house and watch him get raped. But I won’t. This isn’t about me shutting you out of any operation that ever requires a fight. This is about this fight. I need to know you’re safe. And while I told you I’m going to need some time to get over being protective, this particular case doesn’t even count in the mix of things. It’s a whole different beast. So I’m asking you to please listen to me on this, and not see it as me suffocating you, or having no faith in you, or—”
I press my lips to his, lingering there a moment as so many emotions expand between us. “I understand,” I whisper, easing back to look at him. “It’s going to be torture to wait for you, but I’ll do it.” My lashes lower and my throat thickens before I look at him again. “I’ll do it.”
“I’ll come back to you,” he promises. “But he never will. He never will.”
“I believe you,” I say, remembering my advice to myself: I have to make him stronger, not give him doubts. “You will win. I know that.”
His phone rings and he grimaces. “Bad timing.”
“No, it’s business. It’s about ending this. Take the call.”
My response pleases him. I see this in the admiration in his eyes, which in turn pleases me. It also earns me a fast, hard kiss before he grabs his phone where it rests on the bed, answering it. In the meantime, I refocus on the computer screen and tab through more footage, laughing yet again as Marabella grimaces at one of our messes. Over and over today, she’s entertained us without even knowing she’s doing so. She ignores my journal every time she sees it, passing it by to worry over some dusty or dirty spot, more interested in cleaning and cooking than my inner thoughts.
“Everything is on target on Carlo’s end,” Kayden says after his call. “He’s stirred buzz among the Paris Jackals that Alessandro stole from them and from Neuville, and our plan to have proof landing in the right hands at the right time still looks right on schedule.”
“But can he do it without making it seem like a setup?”
“I didn’t make him a Hunter for no reason, sweetheart,” he says. “The magnificence that is Carlo is in his ability to manipulate people and situations.” He glances at his shiny new Rolex, and I try not to think about that watch delivery. “It’s four o’clock. I don’t know about you, but those pancakes wore off a good hour ago.”
“I’m starving, for sure,” I say.
“We could raid the kitchen, but we’re pretty comfortable here. Why don’t I just bring us whatever I can find?”
“I’d like that,” I agree, just as eager as he is to keep our private little escape alive and well.
He kisses my forehead, a tender act I’ve come to expect and cherish from him, before he heads toward the door, effortlessly graceful and powerful. I inhale and watch him disappear into the hallway, still bothered by how I’ve felt watched there, and now I just . . . don’t. My lips thin and I turn back to the computer, but this seems almost useless. We’ve found nothing, not even an oddity in the film that might indicate a splicing. And the bathroom and closet have no cameras, so I might have torn the pages out there.
Still, this nagging feeling that something isn’t right won’t go away, and I start scanning footage again, finishing the last few screen shots we have to review, then starting all over again.
“I have something for you,” Kayden says, drawing my attention back to the door, where I find him approaching with a book in his hand.
“That doesn’t look edible.”
“Not edible,” he says, “but I do think you’ll like it.” He stops beside the bed and hands me what turns out to be a copy of the book Carrie, the same book my father had owned. “I thought it might help you remember more about your father and your past.”
“I can’t believe you have this. Thank you.”
“Kevin was a diehard King fan, and he was a big reader. He always said that a good Hunter was an educated Hunter, and that meant reading often and broadly, fiction and nonfiction.” He motions toward the door. “I’ll leave you to it and grab that food.”
“Okay,” I say, amazed at how he hits every right mark for me.
He walks away and I call out, “Kayden.”
He stops at the doorway and turns to me, arching a brow. “Really,” I say, holding up the book. “Thank you for this. It feels like a little piece of him right here in Italy.”