Then I pushed to my feet and whispered a quick goodbye to fake-Danny. I was leaving her behind on Kai’s island, where she was happy. I didn’t need to walk far to reach a tourist area, and it was a simple enough task to steal some dry clothes, shoes, and money. From there, I worked out that I was in Croatia. Pula, to be precise. So I’d been close in my guess of our location.
I used some of my stolen cash to pay for a ride into the port, then boarded the next ferry about to depart. I used my native French accent as I purchased a coffee and sandwich from the onboard cafe, and hid my distinctive hair by braiding it and tucking it under the hood of my sweatshirt.
Only when the city of Pula shrank away in the distance did I activate the tracker in my watch. Carlos could find me in Venice, because that’s where my ferry was taking me.
A small voice in the back of my mind accused me of protecting Kai by not activating the tracker right there on his island. And it was right. Part of me knew I’d made the wrong choice in leaving him alive, but I also knew it was the only way I could walk away.
I finished my food, tossing the trash away, then headed out to the bow of the ferry where there was outdoor seating. It was close to midnight, and there weren’t many people on board. I took a seat right at the front and tucked my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. Kai’s phone was still taped to my waist, and I’d keep it there until I was safely picked up.
As hard as I tried to remind myself that I was doing the right thing, that I was simply following through on my contract, I couldn’t seem to fully shake the heavy mantle of regret. But why? Kai was no innocent victim. He’d sexually assaulted me, abducted me, had me tortured , and then announced he was keeping me imprisoned for life. And to add insult to injury, he then tried to impregnate me the first time we fucked. He was far from a damn Boy Scout.
But maybe that was what I liked about him. He had done bad shit, to me and to countless others, and he owned it. He knew he was in the wrong, but he did it anyway. That spoke to some deep psychological damage that only someone as damaged as me could recognize. He didn’t know it, because he’d never met the real me, but we were a lot alike.
Cool sea air whipped up, chilling my face, and I startled when I realized I’d been crying. When the fuck had that happened?
I didn’t cry. Not authentically. The only tears I ever shed were simply to solidify a cover identity, to manipulate, and to deceive. It shocked me enough that I pulled my mind out of the self-pity party it’d been throwing, and I stood up to lean on the railing.
The ferry crossing was four hours—I’d struck it lucky to catch this one, as it only sailed once a week—so by the time I reached Venice, Carlos should already be there.
Then, when I was safely out of Kai’s reach, I would need to work out what the fuck to do next. I would turn his phone over to complete at least half of my contract. But then? Then I needed to face the very real problem of someone in the Guild, probably someone in the Circle, trying to kill me.
I spent the rest of the ferry ride thinking over my options as I paced the deck. When I stepped off the boat in the Port of Venice—evading security as I had no ID—I had made up my mind. I needed to get out of the Guild. At least for now. Just until I could do my own investigation into who wanted me dead. And why . I’d never broken any of the Guild’s rules… not that I was aware of, anyway. So what motivation was there to have me killed? And off the books too. These setups were intended to look like accidents. Like so many other Guild mercenaries had died when they got in over their heads.
It would have been stupid to just sit at the port, waiting indefinitely for my emergency contact to collect me. If Carlos had been anywhere outside of Europe, it could be a long wait. I was banking on Jude having called him to alert him that I was missing, though. She would have worked out he held my worst case scenario alarm. So rather than sit around, I headed into Venice itself. My tracker was still active in the watch, Carlos could find me within the streets of the floating city without any trouble.
As I wandered through the narrow streets of Venice, I became conscious of someone following me. Despite being pre-dawn, this was Venice, so there were still people out on the streets. It made it hard to work out if I was just being paranoid, but nope, I was definitely being tailed.
Not that it mattered. If it was a pickpocket, they wouldn’t find much on me. If it was someone wanting to harm me, I would quickly show them the error of their choice.
But the longer I walked, the more familiar my tail felt. By the time I stopped in the middle of a bridge, I was resigned to the confrontation that was brewing.
“You put a tracking device in my watch, didn’t you?” I asked in a calm voice, turning to face Kai as he approached. My chest tightened at the sight of him, guilt and regret filling my whole body at the hard look on his face. “You never trusted me.”
“I could say the same about you,” he replied, stopping a dozen feet away. I glanced to the far side of the bridge and spotted Eli lurking near the end, his gun barely even concealed.
Sadness swept through me, and I gave a bitter laugh. “Just walk away, Kai,” I implored him. “I could have killed you while you slept, but I didn’t. Don’t force my hand now.”
His lips twisted in a brittle, self-deprecating smile. “You had me fooled, Danielle. You really did. Is that even your name?”
I shook my head. “No. Danny is, though.” Why I felt the need to tell him that, I had no clue.
A silence passed between us, and the pain in his eyes made me feel sick to my stomach. Carlos had better get here soon, because if Kai pushed me…
“You know, this is called the Bridge of Sighs,” he said in a flat voice. The same voice he’d used when he told me the legend of Pania. “Because only the guilty would pass over it, on their way to incarceration. That seems strangely appropriate right now, doesn’t it?”
I gave a low chuckle. “Cute, but you’re wrong. This is the Bridge of Canonica. That ”—I pointed to the stone enclosed bridge further down the canal—“is the Bridge of Sighs, connecting the Doge’s palace to the prison. Sometimes, Malachi, a story is just a story.”
He said nothing in response to that, and I knew he—like me—was thinking of his warning about never letting Pania leave the land. Ultimately, though, it was never his choice to let me leave. It had only ever been my choice to stay as long as I did.
“How much of it all was real?” he asked softly, swiping a hand over the back of his neck. “How much of that girl I fell for was you ?”
I swallowed past the unfamiliar emotions thickening my throat and shook my head. “Very little.” But I wasn’t the only one who’d been playing a game. The fact that he’d given me a tracker, then sent his team away… it was a test. One that I’d failed, but the fact remained that I hadn’t been the only one pretending. “What about you? Was anything real for you?”
I don’t know why I even felt the need to ask. I didn’t want to hear the answer.
But his reply was hoarse and sincere, the agony creasing his brow impossible to fake. “Too much,” he admitted, sounding like I was physically tearing his heart out. “I fell for you.”
Fuck.
“No, Kai, you didn’t. You fell for a girl who never existed. Danielle was a fabrication, designed to manipulate you.” I arched a brow, hardening my face to hide my own hurt. “And it worked.”