MARCO POV
Marco has killed seven men in his life.
The first one was when he was eighteen. His father put a gun in his hand and a target on his knees and said, "Prove you're my son."
He pulled the trigger because refusing meant becoming the target himself.
None of those seven deaths haunt him the way watching Isabelle Gray hold a steak knife like it might save her does.
He sits on the couch after she goes upstairs. The furniture is government issue. Cheap. The cushions are too thin and the frame is too short for someone his height. He's spent nights in worse places. Abandoned warehouses. The trunks of cars. A shipping container once, waiting for a target who never showed.
This is different.
This is a different kind of hell because upstairs is a woman who thinks he's going to kill her, and the worst part is that she's not wrong to think it. He should kill her. That's what a good Russo would do. That's what his father expects.
Marco pulls out his burner phone. The screen glows in the darkness. He types a message to Tommy.
"I'm fucked."
The response comes back in seconds. Tommy never sleeps either.
"How fucked?"
Marco stares at the question. How does he explain this? How does he tell his oldest friend that he just made a deal with the woman he's supposed to eliminate? That he looked into her terrified eyes and couldn't do what he's been trained to do since childhood?
He doesn't answer. There's no scale for this level of fucked.
Another message from Tommy: "Did you do it?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
Marco's fingers hover over the keyboard. The honest answer is that he doesn't know. The smart answer is yes. The answer his father would demand is yes.
He types: "I don't think so."
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Tommy is choosing his words carefully because even on encrypted phones, you never know who's listening.
"Your father is going to test you. You know that."
Marco knows. His father always tests. It's how Dominic Russo built an empire. Trust no one. Test everyone. Destroy anyone who fails.
"I know."
"What's your play?"
That's the question Marco's been asking himself since he walked into this safe house and saw Isabelle's face go white with recognition. What's his play? What's his endgame? How does he keep her alive without signing his own death warrant?
"Working on it," he types back.
"Work faster. Vivian is asking questions."
Of course she is. His sister has always been hungry for his position. She's always seen his reluctance as weakness. If she finds out he's protecting Isabelle instead of eliminating her, she'll go straight to their father.
Marco puts the phone down and leans his head back against the couch.
Upstairs, he can hear Isabelle moving around. Pacing. She's probably trying to figure out if she just made the worst mistake of her life by trusting him.
She probably did.
He closes his eyes and thinks about the surveillance reports he's been reading for six months. Isabelle Gray. Twenty-six years old. Freelance accountant. Lives alone. No family. No close friends. The kind of person who could disappear and nobody would notice for weeks.
That's what made her the perfect target.
That's also what makes her different from everyone else in his world. She's alone because she chose a quiet life. Not because she burned every bridge like Marco has. Not because trust is a liability like his father taught him.
She's alone because she lost her mother and never learned how to let anyone else in.
Marco understands that more than he wants to admit.
His mother died when he was nine. Cancer. Fast and brutal. His father didn't let him cry at the funeral. Crying was weakness. Grief was weakness. Everything except violence and loyalty was weakness.
Marco learned to bury feelings so deep they stopped existing.
Except they didn't stop. They just went underground. And now they're surfacing at the worst possible time with the worst possible person.
He hears footsteps above him. Isabelle is still awake. Still pacing. Still terrified.
He should go upstairs. Tell her to get some sleep. Reassure her that tonight at least she's safe.
But that would mean breaking the promise he just made. No going into her room. No crossing boundaries. No pretending this is anything other than what it is.
A business arrangement.
A temporary truce between predator and prey.
Except it doesn't feel temporary. It feels like the moment everything changes and he can't take it back.
His phone buzzes again. Tommy.
"Your father wants a status report by morning."
Marco types back: "What should I tell him?"
"The truth. Or a version of it."
The truth is that Marco met the target and couldn't complete the assignment. The truth is that looking at Isabelle Gray made him remember every person he's killed and wonder if any of them deserved it. The truth is that he's standing at a crossroads between being his father's son and being someone he doesn't hate when he looks in the mirror.
He settles for: "Target secured. Building trust. Timeline on schedule."
It's not exactly a lie. The target is secured. He is building trust, even if it's the opposite kind of trust his father expects.
Tommy's response: "Be careful. She's not just a job anymore, is she?"
Marco stares at the message.
No. She's not.
When did that happen? When did the surveillance photos become a real person? When did the assignment become something that keeps him awake at night for reasons that have nothing to do with strategy?
He doesn't answer Tommy. Instead he gets up and moves to the kitchen. Makes coffee he doesn't want. Stares out the window at the empty street.
This is what his life has become. Guarding a woman who hates him. Lying to his father. Betraying the only family he's ever known.
For what?
For the slim possibility that he might be capable of being something other than a killer.
The coffee tastes like ash.
Around 5 AM, he hears a sound from upstairs that stops him cold.
Crying.
Quiet. Muffled. The kind of crying someone does when they've practiced hiding it.
Isabelle is breaking down in her room and trying not to let him hear.
Marco sets down his coffee cup. His hand shakes slightly. He tells himself it's the caffeine. He knows it's a lie.
He moves to the bottom of the stairs. Stops. Listens.
The crying continues. Soft. Devastating. The sound of someone who's been holding it together for six months and finally can't anymore.
Every instinct tells him to go to her. To offer comfort. To be human instead of the monster she thinks he is.
But going to her means crossing a line he can't uncross. It means admitting that this is more than a business arrangement. It means revealing that he cares about her pain, and caring is the most dangerous thing a Russo can do.
His father's voice echoes in his head: "Emotion is weakness. Attachment is death. Love is the fastest way to destroy everything you've built."
Marco has spent twenty-nine years following that advice.
Tonight, for the first time, he wonders if his father was wrong.
He sits down on the bottom step and puts his head in his hands. Listens to her cry. Hates himself for not being able to fix it. Hates himself more for wanting to.
His phone buzzes with another message from Tommy.
"Whatever you're thinking about doing, don't. It's not worth it."
But that's the problem.
Marco is starting to think she might be worth everything.
The crying stops eventually. The house falls quiet. Dawn starts creeping through the windows.
Marco stays on the stairs, caught between two worlds. The one where he's his father's weapon. And the one where he's the man protecting Isabelle Gray from everyone including himself.
He can't be both.
And choosing one means destroying the other.
His phone rings. Not the burner. His real phone. The one registered to Detective Marco Russo. The one his father calls when he wants answers.
Marco stares at the screen. Dominic Russo. Calling at 5:47 AM.
This is the test.
This is the moment where he has to decide if he can lie to his father's face.
He answers.
"I want details," his father says without preamble. "How is our problem being handled?"
Marco looks up the stairs toward Isabelle's room. Thinks about the sound of her crying. Thinks about the deal they made. Thinks about the fact that his next words will determine if they both live or die.
"It's being handled," he says.
"That's not an answer."
"She trusts me. Or she's starting to. Give me two weeks."
"Two weeks?" His father's voice goes cold. "You have four days. Then I'm sending Vivian to finish what you started."
The line goes dead.
Marco sits in the darkness and realizes that everything just changed.
Four days.
That's all the time he has to figure out how to save Isabelle and himself.
And he has absolutely no idea how to do it.