“What the hell?” My heart pounds mercilessly in my chest.

Sal has turned around, his eyes locking on me. His expression hardens and he starts running toward the house. I let out a little shriek of fear and bolt from the window, tripping over a box of tools and skidding across the floor. My eyes dart around, desperately searching for a place to hide. Where the hell do I go? What do I do? There’s nowhere to hide where he won’t find me!

And besides, why am I even bothering to hide?

Didn’t Sal make it abundantly clear that he would protect me? Keep me safe from harm? Doesn’t that include keeping me safe from himself?

The back door opens with a click and Sal comes lumbering in, snowflakes scattered over his clothing and his dark hair. I make a reflexive move as though to try and dart away from him, but I stop myself. Something in his expression stops me in my tracks. The look on his face is one of mingled worry and… hurt, perhaps? Like it causes him physical pain to see me backing away from him. Like it’s breaking his heart that I’m frightened of him.

But that’s the thing. I’m not frightened of him. I know I should be. Every shred of logic in my brain urges me to listen to it, to abide the rules. I just caught Sal doing something blatantly horrific, didn’t I? Wasn’t that a body he was destroying? Evidence? Evidence of some hideous, gritty crime that should shake me to my core?

In place of fear, I’m... intrigued. Drawn to him by the same magnetic force that has sparked between us since the first time we set eyes on each other. That little voice in the dark corner of my mind whispers again: I trust him. He won’t hurt me. Whoever it was that crossed him so violently as to deserve death must have earned it, because Sal is not a cruel man. A dangerous man, sure. A mysterious, dark figure whose past is shrouded in shadow, whose intentions and motivations are hidden from me? Yes. All of this is true.

And yet, I can’t drag myself away from him. At my own peril, I walk toward him. Toward the darkness that threatens to swallow me whole. I step up to face the shadows with my heart open and my eyes watching, yearning to understand.

“I don’t want to lie to you,” Sal says gravely.

“Then don’t,” I reply defiantly, refusing to break eye contact. To his credit, he doesn’t even try to look away. He doesn’t shy away from the inevitable questions. He knows full well he’s been caught and there’s no going back, no ducking out of this. Not now. Not with me.

“What you just saw… I never wanted you to see any of that,” he begins, haltingly.

“Well, I could have assumed that,” I respond, folding my arms over my chest. “I knew you were dangerous from the moment I saw you. I tried to deny it to myself, but I know it’s true. You wouldn’t tell me who you are, what you do. You’re not a builder. You’re not a cop. So what are you, Sal? Who the hell are you?”

He sighs. “Your first impression was correct. I am dangerous. But not to you. Never to you. Eva, you have to understand that I would never hurt you. I couldn’t.”

“Answer the question,” I press him, refusing to concede an inch.

His jaw tightens as he looks down at me, those dark eyes shining. “There is a reason I so quickly surmised the contents of that email your brother sent.”

“Explain,” I prompt.

“I have dealt with many men who wanted the same thing Blake Brighton asks for in that letter. I have carried out such orders myself,” he says slowly. At first, I’m confused.

Frowning, I ask, “What do you mean? What orders?”

“Eva, your brother wants you dead. Normally, when someone wants someone else dead, they turn to someone like me for help,” Sal explains, his tone flat and unaffected.

My heart skips a beat.

“What are you talking about?” I mutter, shaking my head in disbelief. “You can’t be— you don’t mean that—”

“Yes. Whatever you’re thinking, it is probably true,” he says softly.

I scoff, looking at him sideways. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

He shakes his head slowly, not a hint of humor on his face. “No.”

“You’re not really a—a hit man, right? Is that what you’re called? That’s not possible. That’s not a real thing,” I ramble, falling into denial. “There’s no way.”

“There is a way. It’s true. You guessed correctly,” he answers coolly.

“So your job is to kill people like me for a living?” I ask flat out.

Again, a flicker of pain crosses his face. “No. Not people like you. Bad people.”

“Bad people,” I repeat, still in shock. “I think normally we rely on the criminal justice system to punish the bad people, Sal.”

He takes a step forward. “The system fails. Justice is not always served.”

“Yeah, so the proper answer is to take matters into your own hands? Really?” I ask venomously. “That’s fucked up, Sal.”

“I admitted that I’m a dangerous man. What I do for a living— what I used to do— is dangerous. Most would probably consider it immoral, I suppose.”

“You suppose? Sal, you’re a contract killer! The guy who kidnapped me, the guy Blake hired, he didn’t even kill me! Is that why you’re here? To finish the job?” I burst out.

Sal steps up and grasps my shoulders in his huge hands. I don’t shy away, standing my ground as I gaze up at him. I know I’m doing it again: being too defensive. Too sharp. But Sal doesn’t turn away from me. He stays. Despite my cruel words. Despite everything, he is patient.

“Eva, if I had wanted to kill you, you would already be dead,” he says calmly.

“Oh, and that’s supposed to comfort me?” I shoot back.

“No. It’s supposed to inform you,” he continues. “Listen to me, Eva. That body— that filth you saw me disposing of out there— that is the man who brought you here. He was a bad person, Eva. A very bad man. He was hired to kill you, and believe me, he would have. But only after holding you hostage and torturing you. Watching you. Probably starving you. He has a reputation. Some consider it a reputation built entirely on whispers and rumors but I know the truth. It’s all correct. He was a menace to society. He hurt people. Women, young children. He was lecherous and sadistic and he would have made you his next victim. He loved to toy with his victims before killing them. He liked to watch the joy, the humanity disappear before his very eyes, and only then would he release his victim with the gift of death.”

I’m stunned into silence by the violence of his imagery. He goes on.

“That man— Geoffrey Mink, he was called— he would have done terrible things to you, Eva. Much worse things than he had done already. Your brother hired him no doubt because he was somehow aware of Mink’s dwindling connections to the mafia.”

“The mafia?” I repeat incredulously.

“Yes,” Sal says, nodding. “That is how I knew Mink, too.”

“Because you’re…” I trail off, my stomach turning.

“Involved with the mafia, as well, yes,” he admits readily. “And that is why I am in hiding just like you are. I betrayed the men I work for. I have made some very difficult, regrettable choices in my life, but I do not regret the path that led me here to you.”

“And what path was that?” I ask, barely above a whisper.

“I used to follow orders without question. I was brought into the mafia at a young age. That’s how they prefer their men. Young, with no better prospects. I was one of them, but I rose through the ranks quickly. I did what I had to do, and I questioned it as little as I could bear. I convinced myself I was killing bad people. And for the most part, I was. Until I realized that some of the worst men, the most deserving of death, were my superiors. The very men who brought me into the fold, who taught me everything I know. They were doing terrible things.”

“Like what?” I ask, horrified.

Sal sighs. “Using drugs to convince increasingly young people to join their ranks. These recruiters for the mafia, they would prey upon high school students. Give them drugs, talk to them, pretend to listen to them and bond with them. All to trick them into trusting the mafia, thinking of us as family. Once these kids are addicted to drugs, the mafia pulls the rug out from underneath them and impresses them into service. It’s worse than blackmail. They enslave every cell in these kids’ bodies. It’s disgusting.”

“And you… did you do this, too?” I ask, afraid of the answer. But Sal gives me a pained, offended look. He takes my hands in his.

“No. I would never do that. These men were recruiting children as young as fourteen, Eva. I could never do that to a kid. It’s unforgivable. The young men were forced into service as thugs, killers. And the young girls were taken advantage of,” he explains, disgust in his voice.

“Oh my god,” I murmur.

“Yes. Once I discovered their methods, I knew what I had to do.”

“They were bad people,” I mumble.

He nods. “Very bad people.”

“You killed them,” I breathe.

“Yes. All of them. And I knew my transgression would not be forgiven. I needed someplace to run in the wake of my crime,” he says.

“So you came here.”

“I came here. I found out through some sleuthing that this place was under control of Geoffrey Mink, a man so vile that even the mafia pushed him out. And he was massively in debt. The safe house— this safe house— used to be a haven for mafiosos on the lam, but Mink was using it as a base camp for his own individual exploits. Such as you.”

“Did you really buy this place under foreclosure?”

“Yes. A few of his checks went missing, cashed, but not to the bank. He never even knew it was up for foreclosure. Every dime he had to his name would have went to keeping this place off the market.”

“And when you got here…”

“I killed Mink,” he says calmly.

“And you saved me,” I add, my heart nearly in my throat.

“Yes. I did not expect to find you here. I didn’t plan for anyone else to be involved in my plan. But I don’t regret anything I have done. And I did not lie to you when I said that I would protect you, Eva. I will protect you. From anyone who would dream of hurting you. I killed Mink and I would kill him a thousand times to protect you,” he says. “And if your brother wants to hurt you, then he is my enemy. I will stop at nothing to keep you safe. That much I promise you.”

I sit down on the dusty couch. It takes me several minutes of silence for everything to sink in, to make sense of this. But Sal stands by patiently. Waiting. Watching.

Finally, I speak.

“This is why you said it wasn’t safe for me to go to the cops.”

He nods, looking at me seriously. “I didn’t want to question why you didn’t want to go to them. I just was grateful for a small miracle. Until I could find out how to keep you safe and out of this mess.

“If I went to them, I would have told them about you. About how you saved me.”

“And by the time you made your way back here, there wouldn’t have been a trace left of me.”

I frown at the thought.

“It would have been easier for you to kill me. No one knew I was down there.”

Salvatore shakes his head, his face wincing in pain.

“No women. No kids. I don’t have many morals, but those two things have gotten me through my life to this point. They don’t ask for the mafia’s wars.”

“Do you understand why I stayed?”

He paused, looking at me seriously, surprised by the question.

“No, Eva. I do not understand why you wouldn’t want to run all the way back to the police station, to your life, to everything that monster stole from you. I was just glad for it.”

“I went to the police before. It was... a similar situation, I guess, in some ways. But it couldn’t have been more different. It was just a date. I went back to his place, but that was when something in him changed.”

Sal’s lip twitches, knowingly.

“Yea. I got out, and he never... he didn’t really do anything. But I was scared, and I thought if he did it to me, how many other girls was he doing it to? And what did he get away with. It made me sick. So even though I was safe, and he only scared me, I went to the police. Do you know what they did?”

Sal took in a deep breath, nodding as he moved his hand to cup my jaw, staring at me seriously. “Yes, I know what the pigs did. They said it was no big deal. That you were overreacting, and that your instincts and concern was misguided.”

“Basically. They made me feel like it was all my fault, like I deserved it for going home with him. So when you saved me... I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t want to have to explain what happened, and hear all my worst thoughts put into words. I feel like an idiot being caught by... that monster,” I say, refusing to use his name. “But now I know it really wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t just some easy target. I was a paid target.”

“It was never your fault, even if you were an easy target. No one would ever want to be taken like that, do you understand?”

I stare up at him, tears flickering in my eyes. I’ve never told anyone any of this before, and to hear the fierceness in his voice makes my heart swell.

“I’m glad I stayed. It was the right choice. And I’m glad you were the one who found me.”

A faint smile flickers over Sal’s mouth.

“But if I’m going to stay safe, I need more than just you to protect me. I want to protect myself. I need to toughen up.”

“What do you need?” Sal asks dutifully.

“You have a gun, I presume?” I ask. He nods and walks into the kitchen. I get up and follow him, still slightly dazed by all this new information. He opens a drawer and takes out a gun and a cartridge of bullets, holding them up for me to see. I nod.

“Of course you do,” I murmur. “Okay. Here is what I need. Teach me how to use that.”

Sal cocks his head to one side. “Right now?”

“Yes. Right now. No time like the present.”

“Are you sure? You’ve just gotten a lot of info to process, maybe you should wait—”

“No,” I protest, stepping closer. “Sal, I need this. Please. The world is darker and scarier than even I imagined, and that’s saying something. So, yes. I need to learn how to shoot. Right now, right here. And you’re going to teach me.”

Sal sizes me up for a moment as though he expects me to take it back, but I don’t. He takes me by the hand.

“Okay. In that case, let’s step outside.”

To his credit, he jumps right into a detailed explanation of how to handle, load, point, and fire a gun. He takes me in his arms, placing his hands over mine, helping me learn to judge distance and aim. We take hours with no break. Sal explains everything in close detail, with the relaxed, determined disposition of a seasoned professional. Like he’s just explaining how to casually replace a light bulb or something. And I appreciate that. The last thing I need right now is for him to make a big deal out of this. If I am going to face up to my opponent, my own long lost half-brother, then I need to take this seriously. This is life or death, literally.

“Aim true and shoot,” Sal says softly into my ear.

My heart is pounding. I have never fired a gun in my life. Never even touched a gun or seen one in person until now. I have no idea if I can pull this off or not, but Sal seems to have full faith in my abilities. That alone is enough to give me the confidence to pull the trigger.

The gun fires, jolting my entire body as the bullet goes flying and strikes the knobbly hole of a tree. The exact part of the tree I was aiming for. I’m so elated and exhilarated by the success that I nearly drop the gun. I let out a shriek of surprise and pride and turn back to Sal, who’s grinning. He takes the gun from me and sets it down gently.

“That was fantastic,” he says. “Spot on.”

“I can’t believe I did that!” I exclaim. “I really did it!”

“You did. I’m so proud of you. I’ve never met a girl like you before, Eva. Never in my life. You’re not the scared little girl Geoffrey Mink probably thought you were. You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor. You’re a badass,” he compliments me, and I can tell every single word is purely genuine.

The thrill of firing a perfect shot, combined with the rush of wild emotions I’ve been experiencing for the past several hours bubble over and I throw my arms around Sal, jumping up into his arms. He catches me easily and kisses me, that familiar fire sparking and burning between us, threatening to consume us both if we aren’t careful.

I know I should back away from the flame, but as he kisses me deeply, his hands tangling in my hair and stroking my face, I just can’t. If I have to burn, I’ll burn.