23. Cat #3
“If the note was fake,” I continue, ignoring Max, keeping my voice steady, “and Max never wanted me gone, and this whole thing has been your plan from the beginning, what exactly was the endgame? Kill me? Make it look like an accident?”
“Something like that,” Marcella says.
“But you’d never get away with it. Max would burn down everything you’ve built.”
“He dies too, if he still refuses.” Marcella looks at him as she says it. “I waited while you searched for her. Then you blocked my number and handed my father’s men to the Romanos. I’m finished waiting for you to choose me. Tragic accident. Both of you. So sad. So convenient.”
Lucia turns on her. “That was not the agreement. Massimo leaves with me.” Sergio doesn’t answer, and for the first time her composure slips. She wanted his obedience badly enough to bring us here. She is only now noticing who holds the guns.
I take another step back. Closer to the glass doors. Closer to the pergola.
“And you thought I’d just let that happen?”
“I thought you’d be smart enough to see that you’re outnumbered and outgunned.” Marcella tilts her head. “What are you going to do, throw a tantrum?”
“Something like that.”
I’ve been edging backward through the conversation, closer to the glass doors, closer to the patio. Now I move, grabbing the nearest tiki torch from its holder and hurling it into the bar beneath the pergola.
The torch smashes against an open tin of lamp fuel behind the bar.
Flame races across the spill and catches the dry shade above it.
Glass breaks in the heat, and suddenly one side of the pergola is burning.
The heat hits my face as I stumble backward, and in the chaos, the shouting, the scrambling, I see Max moving.
His gun is in his hand now, drawn from his own holster. He fires once, twice, providing cover as he runs toward me.
“Go!” he shouts. “The trees, go!”
I run.
The woods are dark, disorienting.
I can hear shouts behind us, the crackle of flames, car doors slamming. Max grabs my hand and pulls me deeper into the trees, moving with a certainty that suggests he’s memorized the terrain.
“Call Enzo,” he says. “Tell him where we are.”
My hands are shaking as I pull out my phone. The screen glows in the darkness as I dial.
“Cat?” Enzo’s voice is sharp with alarm. “What’s happening?”
“Trap. Sergio, Lucia, Marcella. They’re here, they have men, we need-”
“Where?”
“The secondary safehouse. The one in the hills.”
I’m already scanning the tree line, already calculating, the writer’s brain that’s good at plotting suddenly very useful.
“I was already on my way after Max’s message. Keep the line open. I’ll reach you in minutes.”
“They’re coming after us.”
“Hide. Find cover and hide. I’m coming.”
I leave the call connected and tuck the phone into my coat, telling him we’re in the trees behind the house.
Max pulls me behind a massive oak, pressing us both into the shadows. His breathing is controlled, steady, but I can feel his heart pounding where our bodies touch.
“Enzo’s coming,” I whisper.
“Good. Stay here.”
“What?”
“Stay hidden. I’m going to draw them away.”
“No. No, you are not-”
“Cat.” He takes my face in his hands, his eyes fierce in the darkness. “I need you to trust me. I need you to stay here, stay quiet, stay alive. Can you do that?”
“Max, please don’t-”
He kisses me.
Not gentle, not careful. Desperate. His mouth hot on mine, his hands trembling where they hold me, everything he feels poured into a single moment of contact.
When he pulls back, his hands are still shaking where they hold my face.
“I love you,” he says. “Do you hear me? I love you. Loving you is the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re the light of my entire life.”
The words hit me like a blow. He’s never said it before, not out loud, not like this.
“Max-”
“Stay hidden. Enzo will find you.”
And then he’s gone, crashing through the trees, making all the noise in the world. Drawing every gun, every pursuer, every threat away from where I’m hiding.
I press my back against the oak and listen.
Shouts. Running footsteps. The distant sound of engines, backup arriving, maybe, or more enemies. I can’t tell anymore. Everything is chaos and darkness and the desperate hammering of my heart.
Then, closer:
“Caterina.” Marcella’s voice, sickeningly sweet, moving through the trees. “I know you’re here. Why don’t you come out? We can talk. Just us girls.”
I don’t move. Don’t breathe.
“You can’t hide forever. And your husband can’t run forever.” A pause. “He’s going to die tonight, you know. You might as well accept it.”
My hand finds a fallen branch on the ground. Heavy. Solid.
Footsteps, getting closer.
“There you are.”
I swing.
The branch connects with Marcella’s head with a sound I’ll hear in my nightmares. She drops, no cry, no resistance, just a crumple of expensive fabric hitting the forest floor.
I stand over her, breathing hard, the branch still in my grip.
Then I see her gun, tucked into a holster at her hip.
I take it.
And I go after my husband.