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tossing the phone on the bed a second later. I pull a clear bottle out of my pocket. Inside is a most useful liquid for a man in my line of work. The liquid destroys all evidence of DNA with just a simple misting and wipe-down, or I could use bottle number two and simply replace my DNA with another’s. Either way, this hit will never be traced back to me.
    After spraying down everything —including the body and the broken glass—I exit the room.
    *
    I return to the States on a Wednesday morning, the red-eye flight getting me back in time to open shop for Everly’s visit. I look forward to it even more than usual, since this will be her first visit to my shop in months.
    Since my trip to the hospital, Everly and I have grown a bit closer, despite my resistance. The woman is, for lack of a better word, determined to be in my life.
    The day I was discharged, she’d shown up with a spectacularly gaudy Get Well Soon balloon and offered to drive me home. Thankfully, and yet completely regrettably, my cousin, Benjamin Romanov, had arrived that morning to oversee my rehabilitation.
    Something I appreciated, yet despised. A small part of me had hoped that the Bratva would forget about the man known as Roman Smith. That perhaps getting shot was divine intervention and I could be free to pursue Everly.
    In the following months, I had to close my shop while I recuperated, watched for signs of Petrov’s return, and had the entire place cleaned of the forensics powder the police had left behind. Though every Wednesday, I would sit on a bench in a small park by my shop and wait for Everly. Always, I would stay by her side while she read from one of the books I delivered to her.
    I’m a glutton for punishment, I suppose, but in those quiet moments, I felt at peace with the world. I had the most lovely, most beautiful woman within arm’s reach, and I soaked her presence in. She didn’t try to force me to talk to her, though she did her best to get me to open up.
    “What’s your favorite book?” she asks, setting her latest Zoe Ambrose novel down.
    “The kind that makes me the most money,” I say, breaking off a piece of bread and throwing it to the birds in the park.
    She rolls her eyes, and I bite back a grin. “Seriously, Roman. Tell me.”
    “Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince ,” I say softly. “My mother read it to me as a child before bedtime.”
    She doesn’t make one of her gentle jokes at this. Instead, she inches closer to me, so close that our thighs are touching. “That’s a sweet memory to share with me.”
    It’s a true memory. I pick up her book and examine it. “While you are reading a very raunchy scene.”
    Blushing, she laughs. “It’s not raunchy. It’s romantic.”
    We both grow quiet, and I hand the book back to her. Romantic. I can’t offer her straight-up fucking, much less romance.
    “Fantasy is good,” I murmur, and she beams at me.
    “Thanks for not making fun of what I read.” Her hand reaches for mine, but I move it out of the way. She makes a little face, then goes back to her reading.
    The moment has passed, but I can’t help wondering what it would have been like to give in.
    A gust of sharp wind brings me back to the present, and I blink.
    For reasons known only to God, Everly sees something in me. Something she wants to touch and hold. I feel the same way about her. When I see Everly, all I see is pure goodness and beauty.
    Yet, each time I look at my hands, at the tattoos that are inked so deeply into my skin I’ll never be able to remove them, I see blood. My fingers may as well be twisted and charred, oozing with blood, with the sins that I committed in the name of ridding the world of scum.
    And not for the first time, I wonder what Everly would do if I confessed the truth.
    “Exactly the same.” The redhaired woman’s words slither into my head.
    A plaintive meow breaks through my clouded head, and I turn to find a small cat sitting by the back door. Its fur is an odd