Chapter 24 Annie
ANNIE
The closet is dark and cramped, and I can barely breathe. My heart is hammering so hard I'm sure whoever's out there can hear it through the door. Glass crunches under heavy boots. Multiple sets of them.
“She’s not here!” someone shouts.
"Check the other rooms!"
I press my hand over my mouth to muffle my breathing. Through the slats in the closet door, I can see shadows moving toward the bedroom. Three men, maybe four, all dressed in black. One of them has a rifle.
Where is Elio?
The thought sends a spike of terror through me. The last thing I saw was his face as he pushed me into the closet and closed the door. Then there was an explosion. How long has it been since then? Two minutes? Five?
More gunshots outside, rapid and overlapping. Someone screams. I flinch hard, squeezing my eyes shut.
“No one in the bedroom!” one of the men calls out. “Let’s check—”
The explosion of gunfire cuts him off. It's so close, so loud, that I clap my hands over my ears. Through the thin walls, I hear shouting, cursing, the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
Then Elio's voice, cold and commanding: "Drop your weapons. Now."
A tense silence follows. My entire body is shaking.
"I said drop them."
The clatter of guns hitting the floor is the sweetest sound I've ever heard.
"Diego, secure them," Elio says. "Get them out of here. I want to know who sent them and how they found this location."
"On it, boss."
Heavy footsteps retreat, and I hear a door slam. The cabin goes quiet except for muffled voices coming from the front of the house.
I stay frozen in the closet, too scared to move, until the door swings open and Elio is there, his face pale, a smear of blood on his jaw.
"Annie." His voice cracks on my name. "Come here."
I practically fall into his arms. He catches me, holding me so tight I can barely breathe, but I don't care. He's alive. He's okay. That's all that matters.
"Are you hurt?" I manage to ask.
"No. I'm fine." He pulls back just enough to look me over, his hands running over my arms, my shoulders, checking for injuries. "You're okay? They didn't touch you?"
"I'm fine. I was in the closet the whole time."
His jaw clenches. "They got through the woods. Killed two of my men." The words come out hard, bitter. "This is my fault. I should have—"
"This is Desmond's fault," I interrupt. "Not yours."
But I can see he doesn't believe me. The guilt is written all over his face.
"We need to move you," he says. "This location is compromised. We need to go somewhere else.”
I bite my lip, feeling a wave of sadness at the thought of leaving this cabin. No matter how terrible the situation has been, we’ve made memories here that feel hard to let go of. "Where?"
"I’m going to take you back to my apartment in the city. It’s the last place he’ll expect you to be—he won’t think I’ll bring you back there. I’ll put as much security there as I can. You'll be safe while we track down Desmond and end this."
His apartment. In the city. Closer to Ronan, closer to everything we've been hiding from.
But I don't argue. Not after what just happened. And it makes sense. Desmond will expect another safe house, one further away, maybe. He won’t expect Elio to take me back into the heart of it all. The reverse psychology just might work.
It’s worth a try, anyway.
"Okay," I say quietly.
He keeps his arm around me as we walk through the cabin. I try not to look at the broken windows, the bullet holes in the walls, the blood on the floor near the front door. Two bodies are covered with sheets in the living room. Elio's men. My stomach turns.
This is what my life has become. Violence and death and running.
All because of Desmond Connelly.
Diego is waiting by a black SUV outside, talking into his phone in rapid Italian. When he sees us, he ends the call.
"The route is secure. I'll have men meet us at the apartment. Two cars will follow you."
Elio nods and helps me into the back seat. He slides in beside me, and Diego takes the wheel. We pull away from the safe house, leaving behind the wreckage and the bodies. My chest aches as I watch it fade away. We’ll never go back there. It feels like the beginning of the end.
I stare out the window as Boston comes into view, the familiar skyline both comforting and threatening. We're entering the city. Ronan's territory. If anyone sees me…
"No one will see you," Elio says, reading my mind. "The building has a private garage. You'll go straight up to the apartment."
I nod, but I can’t speak. My throat feels too tight.
The drive takes twenty more minutes. Elio spends most of it on the phone, issuing orders, demanding updates on the men who attacked the safe house. From what I can gather, two of them are dead, and the other two are being "questioned" by Diego's team.
I don't ask what that means. I already know—I don’t need details. No matter who they work for, the thought makes my stomach turn.
Diego pulls into the parking garage of Elio’s building, the building I ran to the night this all started. Elio takes me straight to the private elevator that will go up to the penthouse, ushering me inside. The doors close, sealing us in silence.
It feels strange, being back in Elio’s space. His home. He hasn’t had much of a chance to make it into one—it still largely has a hotel-like feeling, all of the decor and the furnishings done as if by an interior designer. It’s spotless and beautiful, but there isn’t much of a personal touch.
“There’s a guest bedroom on the second floor,” Elio says, leading me to the staircase and escorting me up it. “It has an attached bathroom and everything you need. Just make yourself comfortable. I’ll come check on you in a bit. I need to make some calls.”
He feels distant. Further away from me than he has before, as if he’s already starting the process of letting me go. He turns away, phone in hand, and I stand there for a moment, feeling lost and alone in this beautiful, empty apartment. Then I walk to the bedroom and close the door behind me.
—
It’s late when Elio comes to check on me, past midnight, but I can’t sleep. I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing, when the bedroom door finally opens. He looks exhausted, his shirt untucked, his hair disheveled from running his hands through it too many times.
"Sorry," he says quietly. "That took longer than I expected."
"It's fine." I stand, wrapping my arms around myself. "Did you find out anything?"
"The men who attacked the safe house were hired guns. Desmond paid them to take you, bring you to him. I’m not sure if he’s aware that I married you." His expression darkens. "We're working on finding out where he's hiding."
I swallow hard, nodding. Something has changed, I can feel it. There’s a distance between us that wasn’t there before.
"I need to go back out tomorrow," Elio says, not meeting my eyes. "I need to manage things with Ronan, and try to figure out where Desmond is hiding. You'll stay here with the security team."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know. A day, maybe two."
Something in his tone makes my chest tighten. He sounds so cold. Not at all like he was hours ago, when I was in his lap, when his hands were all over me, when we were—
"Elio—"
"We need to talk, Annie."
My stomach drops. "Okay," I say carefully, even though nothing about this feels okay.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped between his knees. I stand up, too nervous to sit, my stomach churning.
"Earlier tonight," he begins, and I already know where this is going. "We can’t keep doing this, Annie. That has to be the last time."
I feel like I’m going to be sick. “Why?” I demand, and Elio looks at me, his expression exhausted.
"Because it's only making this harder." He finally looks at me, and the pain in his eyes mirrors my own. "Every time I touch you, every time I'm with you like that, it gets harder to remember that this has to end."
"So don't let it end," I say desperately. "We can figure this out, Elio. We can tell Ronan—"
"No." The word is sharp, final. "We've been over this. We’ve talked about all the reasons. Ronan is not going to listen. Not when he finds out we’ve been lying to him. He’s going to blame me. He’s going to act rashly, and when the dust settles, I’ll be dead and your life will be ruined.
Your relationship with your brother will be ruined.
I won’t let that happen, Annie.” His jaw works.
“I left once to make sure it didn’t happen. I shouldn’t have come back.”
I stare at him, my mouth dropping open. “You don’t mean that.”
“I should mean it.” He stands abruptly, running his hands through his hair. "Don't you understand? This marriage was a mistake. A desperate solution to an impossible problem. But it was never meant to be permanent. It was never meant to be real."
"It feels real to me," I whisper.
"It's not." He says it like he's trying to convince himself as much as me. "In a few days, maybe a week, this will all be over. We'll get a divorce, you'll go back to your life, and I'll go back to mine. That's how this has to end."
"So all this meant nothing to you?" The tears are coming now, hot and angry. "I love you, Elio. Are you going to tell me that you don’t love me back?”
“Annie—”
“Say it.” I grind the words through my teeth. “Say you don’t love me.”
He looks at me helplessly. “Love isn’t enough, Annie. That’s not the world we live in—”
"It could be—"
"It's not!" The shout echoes in the quiet apartment. He takes a breath, visibly trying to calm himself. "I'm sorry. But this is how it has to be. When I leave, what we had—it's over. No more pretending this is something it's not."
The words feel like a physical blow. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces together.
"I can't believe you're doing this," I say quietly. "I can't believe you're just walking away. Again."
"I'm doing this for you. To protect you. To protect Ronan, like you wanted."