Penny blinked away the veil of tears that shrouded her vision. “I don’t want to, though.”
“Cross Nazio Donati—time to eat, kiddo!”
As if on cue, Cross’s stomach growled. He didn’t even look sheepish about it.
“The interlude—the part of the song that repeats, right?” he asked her.
She smiled. “Yeah, what about it?”
“Mine feels like a hug.”
Penny stilled.
He couldn’t know that ...
It wasn’t possible.
“It does,” he said again. “It feels like a hug when I hear it. I feel the same. Light at first. But then it tightens, muffles. Like arms wrapping around me, bringing me closer, getting warmer and tighter.”
“I composed a lullaby for you. That’s all.”
Cross kicked at the dirt when his father called his name again. “Yeah, but with a hug. Right?”
“The way I thought a hug should feel. If someone made one with music. If I could hug you through mine.”
Not that she ever told anyone that fact.
“Okay.” Cross turned back toward the house. “That’s what I thought.”
“Cross, are you in those damn woods again?”
Penny sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Nazio strolling down the steps of the porch and heading their way. Toward the woods.
“I have to—”
Penny didn’t even get to finish her sentence before the boy had turned back around. He darted for her, his small arms wrapping around her middle. The hug was light at first, and then it tightened with warmth.
“Please don’t tell them you saw me,” she whispered, hugging the boy back. “I only want to help them, okay?”
If she could have stayed right there in that moment with a piece of her past cementing her between then and now, she would have. Forever.
“I won’t tell.” Cross peered up at her when he took a step back and let her go, asking, “You’ll come back, won’t you?”
She chose not to lie.
“I’m sure gonna try.”
7.
Penny
ALLEGRA was being smart.
Too smart, really.
Penny didn’t think for a minute that anything the woman did was just because. Every decision Allegra made had a purpose. From staying out of the spotlight for many years to announcing a marriage to a man who was a public figure. All of it did something for Allegra at the end of the day. It served her needs.
Hunting her when she was underground had been difficult—and the focus for Penny had always been taking out other Elite members until it was time to go after the ones sitting at the very top. However, it hadn’t been entirely impossible.
Allegra’s newest hat trick, the marriage to the New Jersey senator, made everything harder. Or at the very least, it made Penny’s job difficult. That job being to kill her. Well, it wasn’t hard to do that, per se. The difficulty came from the fact there was no clean way out. The woman was surrounded at all angles by people protecting her.
But Allegra wanted attention, right? Why else would she decide to marry a man that she knew would cause her face to be splashed across the papers and evening news reports?
Oh, yes.
Because she stupidly thought that would also protect her. That there was no way anyone would come after her because it wouldn’t be a clean hit with all the cameras watching. How would someone get away without scrutiny after it was all said and done?
Allegra made shit hard.
Penny decided to ... help.
“Jocelyn,” Penny greeted, taking a seat at the two-chair table in a quiet cafe in downtown Manhattan. She wouldn’t usually travel so deep into the city—but especially not where there were so many suits around. Something about it made her uncomfortable in a way she didn’t care to explore, but sometimes, it couldn’t be helped.
The journalist sitting on the other side of the table glanced up with wide eyes at the sight of Penny. Her hair was the color of wind-swept wheat, tied back into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. The way she tried to fix the waistband of her pencil skirt and then her black heels, one of which she beat rhythmically against the table leg, spoke to her nervousness at simply having Penny nearby.
She should be nervous. All of this was dangerous.
“What are you doing here?” Jocelyn demanded, her brown eyes darting from Penny to the windows that overlooked the bustling street outside. No one was paying them any mind, but that didn’t stop the woman’s paranoia from showing itself. Penny expected that. “You told me—”
“Everything is fine. I wasn’t followed. No one even knows where I am.”
The reassurance didn’t stop Jocelyn from swallowing hard enough for Penny to hear it across the table. The woman drummed her manicured nails to the table, the white tips reminding Penny of the first time she approached the journalist at her favorite nail salon with a story for an article—and proof on hand—that she wouldn’t be able to refuse.
She hadn’t.
Two days ago, the article published on the third page of the Times newspaper detailing the crimes Allegra’s last husband—and Penny’s dead father—had been convicted of and how his wife walked away without a scratch despite the suspicions and proof of her involvement in his acts. Penny dared to use one of her phone cards and a new burner to watch the response unfold in real-time in online forums and other venues.
If Allegra wanted attention from the media, then Penny could give it to her. It might not be the kind of attention her mother liked or wanted, but nobody said this would be fair.
Or easy.
Penny tried to keep it in mind.
“Still,” Jocelyn said, the shake in her voice clear to Penny even if the woman didn’t acknowledge it, “you can’t just show up whenever. At least give me a little warning.”
“So then I might give someone else a warning, too?”
“What?”
Penny lifted a brow. “Never mind.”
Jocelyn’s gaze darted back to the windows, and then she scanned the cafe around them, obviously looking to see if someone was watching them. It was then that Penny had a realization about the woman’s paranoia.
“You think someone is following you.”
It wasn’t even a question.
Jocelyn’s stare came back to Penny in an instant, and she shook her head. “I don’t see anyone but sometimes I notice similar cars, and familiar faces I can’t place. And—”
She stopped all at once.
Penny couldn’t have that. “And?”
“My door was unlocked yesterday. When I got home, I mean. I-I never ... ever ... leave it unlocked. I have a cat, I don’t want her getting out, you know? So, I leave it locked like the windows and—”
“I get it.”
“Is someone following me?” Jocelyn asked her.
Penny figured ... honesty was the best policy.
“Probably,” she replied. “Which is part of the reason I’m here. Just to tell you that your best bet is to get out of town for a while. Let things calm down—stay far away from any idea that you have a connection to me. Keep out of sight.”
Jocelyn’s dark stare burned bright with new anger. She even dared to lean closer to Penny over top the table when she said, “You didn’t tell me this was going to happen.”