Tristan’s voice is like cold velvet—rich with texture, void of feeling. I’m a trembling mess, but his eyes are calm.

He’s bigger than I remember. His clothes hint at the solid muscular frame beneath. He’s changed, but I’d know him anywhere. Those piercing eyes, opalescent blue orbs that I could stare into for the rest of my life. His hair is the same dark brown, short and unstyled. Stubble lines his jaw, making the ridges of his full lips stand out. Worry lines crease his forehead and the edges of his eyes.

We’ve grown. We’re not the same.

A thousand thoughts blur together as I convince myself he’s not a dream. No longer just a memory.

He’s Tristan Stone. The love of my life.

He takes a step back, and the separation borders on painful.

Instinct drives me next. My fingers become ten tiny magnets. I reach for him, drawn to his flesh, determined to prove he’s not an apparition. Before I can make contact, he takes my wrists in a firm grasp, holding them immobile in the horrible empty space between us. Those few inches are made up of years of missing him. Of not knowing if he was alive or dead.

“You’re looking at me like you hardly know me.” I choke on the last word because every emotion is tearing its way up my throat.

His expression never changes. He’s unreadable. “I know who you are, Isabel.”

I let go of the fight in my muscles, feeling foolish and broken all over again. He doesn’t love me anymore. I’m so far in the past, how could he have possibly hung on to those feelings like I have?

“We should go,” he says, releasing his hold on me.

I drop my hands to my sides, confused and reeling from everything that’s happening between us. True enough, this alley isn’t the safest place for a reunion.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Your place. I’m parked nearby. I’ll drive us.”

I swallow my doubts and follow him down the alley to the congested street. He tugs me behind him until we get to his car. He opens the passenger door and shuts it after me without ceremony.

Seconds later, Tristan is whipping through the streets. I can’t imagine the reason for his urgency.

“How long have you been in Rio?”

“A while.” He glances into the rearview mirror, seeming distracted.

I nod and try to ignore the sting of his tone. I remember a gentler Tristan. Always tuned in to my feelings and needs. The man I met in the street is frighteningly intense and completely unreadable.

He stops at the end of my street, puts the car in park, and turns to me.

“How do you know where I live?” My heart starts racing again at this new revelation.

“There’s no time to talk. Not here. I need you to pack a bag for a few days away,” he says.

“A few days? I can’t just leave with you. I have a job.” I can no longer hide the panic in my voice.

He stares at me silently for a moment and then speaks slowly and calmly. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I have a friend outside the city. We’ll stay with him, and I can explain everything there.”

I blink slowly, trying to process his proposal. “Then we’ll come back?”

He nods wordlessly. I don’t completely believe him, but I’m not willing to let him disappear again so soon.

“I need to call work.”

He opens his palm. “Give me your phone.”

I reach into my purse and hand it to him, expecting him to make a call with it. Instead he puts it into his coat pocket.

“You have five minutes. You can make your calls on the road.”

My throat tightens, and my eyes burn with fresh tears. “Tristan…you’re scaring me.”

“Five minutes.” His voice is clipped. “Go now.”

I reach for the car door, feeling numb but propelled forward by Tristan’s inexplicable urgency. He pulls out his phone, and I step out just as he begins to speak into it.

“Mateus. I need a favor.”

I hurry to my apartment. My hands are shaking as I turn the key in the lock. I rush up the stairs and pull a backpack out of my closet. I glance at the clock, and the urge to cry is almost too strong to resist.

What the fuck am I doing? Tristan just crash-landed back into my world. After the most agonizing goodbye of my life when he joined the army all those years ago. After one last heartbreaking letter saying we were over. After years of nothing but silence and heartache.

He’s a stranger, yet he never could be. Not after everything we went through together. And now we’re thousands of miles from a home we once knew, and I’m agreeing to leave with him. It’s only a few days, but this is insane.

I keep moving through my doubt as I stuff clothes into the bag. A few toiletries. I kneel to the floor and open the lockbox under my bed. I empty it of my passport and some cash and put both into the backpack.

I scan the bedroom and living room briefly. Why does dropping everything and running off seem justifiable when the love of my life is idling at the end of the street, waiting to drive us into a future unknown?

All my loose plans for leaving Rio just firmed up. I can’t let Isabel out of my sight, so the only option is to bring her into my world. Doesn’t matter what she ends up seeing anyway. Her days are numbered. Hell, at this rate, mine are too.

We drive away from her neighborhood toward the condo-lined strip of Ipanema Beach. We pull into the parking lot of my building and take the elevator to the penthouse condo in silence.

She takes one step inside and freezes. “You live here?”

“I mostly work.” Not a lot of living happens inside these walls. I shut the door behind us and shift both deadbolts to the side. As if in a daze, she wanders toward the sliding doors that lead to the oceanfront balcony. I register faint regret that it’s probably the last time I’ll have this view. The waves crash silently on the beach below as I eye her warily. So far she’s gone along with everything, but I have a feeling the window of her compliance is closing.

I go to my desk and start moving through my mental checklist. I remotely back up my files and wipe the machines. I pull papers and photos pinned to the wall and stuff them into a folder.

In the bedroom, I find the lever inside the chest of drawers that rests along an accent wall. The large mirror above it angles up, and I push it open the rest of the way, revealing a hidden compartment that stores possessions I wouldn’t want anyone knowing about. I pull an array of weapons off the pegs that display them and throw them into a bag. Beside several bricks of cash in various currencies, my passports are bound with a thick rubber band to a worn red leather notebook. I collect what I need, grab clothes, and make my way back to Isabel.

Except she’s no longer there. That, and the room feels empty without her in it somehow. The folder on my desk is open, revealing pictures of her, her boyfriend, her work schedule, and a few other documents I collected.

The door is open. Fuck.

I grab the folder and my bags and say goodbye to the apartment and everything in it. In the hallway, numbers illuminate above the elevator bank. She’s on her way down. I hurry to the stairs. I won’t beat her, but she’s got nowhere to go.

Heat and ocean air hit my lungs the second I emerge from the building. I’m parked close, and Isabel’s already at the car, struggling with the door. I come from behind.

“What the hell are you doing?” I force myself to keep an even tone.

She whips around. Her eyes are wide, and her pupils are dilated. “Let me have my things.”

I open the trunk and deposit my bag. “Get in the car.”

“I’m not going with you.”

She’s practically screaming, so I take her firmly by the arm and lead her to the passenger side. She struggles, but I won’t let her go. A few more feet and we’ll be on our way without making a scene.

“Why do you have all those things about me? How could you be here, this close to me all this time? I need answers, Tristan!”

I open the door, but she fights me.

I lean her against the car and take a handful of her hair, tilting her face up to mine. Before she can say anything more, I’m kissing her. Her hands go to my shoulders, but she’s no match for my strength. I kiss her until I feel her fight go.

A small sound escapes her, disappearing in the melding of our lips. My eyes barely close, because I don’t trust her, or anyone. As her tongue seeks mine, her flavor floods my senses. Sweet and fresh. Soft surrender. She holds nothing back, so neither do I. I kiss her deeper to take in more of her essence. As I do, my eyes close.

Then she’s on the bright-white screen of my mind. The visual is overexposed, like a memory. She’s under me. Her body moves with mine. We’re fucking. I can feel her everywhere. She’s overwhelming all my senses. The fantasy takes hold and arousal prickles my skin—everywhere we touch and everywhere we don’t.

Except it all feels too real. Feels too good to be a fantasy. In seconds, my body begins to respond to the closeness of hers. Which is just fucking great.

I can already see this will be yet another distraction I can’t afford. I was hired to kill this woman. Now I’m about to kidnap her and keep her until she can tell me things I’m not yet sure I want to know. And all I can think about is getting inside her.

There’s no time for this.

I break the kiss and try to mentally erase the disturbing erotic image. But Isabel replaces it in the flesh, breathless, her eyes hazy. She looks how I feel. Overwhelmed. Confused. Ready to fuck.

The pulse at her neck beats rapidly. She might be turned on, but she’s scared too. And even if she thinks she knows me, she’s too smart to give me her trust. I only need a little of it to get us out of here.

I brush her hair back off her face. I’m not accustomed to charming my way to a desired end, but I manage a small reassuring smile. “I need you to trust me. Okay?”

She softens, but I keep my hold on her.

“I want to,” she utters.

It has to be enough. I don’t ask, and I don’t tell her again. I simply guide her into the car, shut the door, and move back to the driver’s seat.

As I start the ignition, I’m anything but relieved.

Two hours go by, and already the drive is too long. Isabel’s presence dominates the small space of the car and every crevice of my mind. She chews her lower lip and wrings her fingers as the city turns into jungle and the road narrows. Her fear and uncertainty don’t affect me. The longing in her eyes does. Her confusion seems laced with an affection I can’t comprehend.

She has questions, and so do I. I have no idea how I’ll answer hers. I wasn’t prepared for this. I grip the wheel and cycle through my options.

Killing her would have been so much easier. I’ve built this new life on the surety of the kill. The simplicity of it. Nothing is simple now.

I keep my eyes straight ahead. “We know each other.”

A statement. A question.

I could spend days coaxing the truth out of her, pretending to know about whatever connection we share. But if I have to kill her anyway—and despite my strong urge to fuck her, I will have to kill her—the truth can do no harm. I realize this in a moment of sudden clarity.

I brave a look in her direction. She stares back in confused silence.

“Of course we do.”

I break the stare and focus on the road. “How?”

I refuse to meet her gaze again. The late-afternoon sun is setting ahead of us, turning the sky orange and mauve above the trees as we pass through town after town.

“You know…”

I shake my head slightly. “I have gaps”—I swallow hard, pushing down the unwelcome feeling that comes with the truth—“pretty big gaps in my memory. I recognize you. I just have no idea why.”

I can feel her gaze hot on me. The air between us is thick with emotions neither of us can fully understand. I turn, and the tears in her eyes confirm the pain I’ve inflicted with this admission.

“We were in love,” she utters, almost too quietly to be heard.

I curse inwardly. Another complication I don’t need.

“When?”

“It’s been six years since you left.”

“Since I left?”

“You joined the military right out of high school. I went to college, but you never came home.”

I nod slowly. She’s an old girlfriend. From high school, for fuck’s sake. Nothing. She’s nothing. Lovesick and naïve, thanks to a narrow, privileged existence. If she were important, surely she’d have been somewhere in my memories. Somewhere in the dreams or nightmares, the smallest flashes of remembrance, the blurred darkness that is my past.

My stomach clenches. My grip tightens around the wheel. The urge to dig through those clues and learn more is dangerous. For years, I’ve existed for no other reason than to breathe, point, and shoot. Even if Jay hasn’t all but promised it, inherently, I’ve always known that reaching beyond that basic state of being is inevitably painful and likely to end in death. Not others’ for once, but mine. Yet here I am, seeking out my past. Drawn to the irresistible beacon of Isabel Foster and the things she knows about me.

“If you don’t remember me…how did you know where to find me?”

I make a turn onto a dirt road and ease off the gas. Outside of Jay and the people whose light left their eyes at my hand, very few people know exactly what I do. Mateus knows enough to be an ally. I trust him because I did him a favor once, and now he owes me about a thousand in return.

Ahead, a pristine white stucco house is set back on a large lot protected by several feet of well-kept gardens and a wrought-iron gate. I slow at the entrance and dial Mateus’s number.

He answers after the first ring. “Tristan?”

“I’m here.”

The call ends and the gates, armed by guards on either side, slowly open. I pull through and drive up the winding path to the house. Every inch closer brings an unexpected calm over my rattled nerves. A momentary reprieve is what I need, and I’ll find it here.