3 Days/ The Double Life

Episode 4: Morning In Florence.

I woke up warm.

That was wrong. My apartment in Florence was always cold in the morning. The heater was broken, the windows rattled, and the thin blanket I bought at the market did nothing.

But I was warm. Too warm. Something heavy was draped over me, and something heavier was wrapped around my waist.

Then I remembered. Black coat. Floor mattress. 2:14 AM. Don't let go.

Venerio.

I opened my eyes. My tiny kitchen was filled with early morning light, the kind that makes Florence look like gold. Dust motes in the air. Dead basil on the balcony, somehow still alive for one more day.

And Venerio Octavian, heir to the most dangerous family in Australia, was asleep behind me.

His arm was still locked around my waist, under the hoodie — his hoodie — his hand flat against my stomach. His face was buried in my hair. He was breathing deep, slow, even. Actually asleep. Not that light, half-awake sleep he used to do in college when he was worried about exams. Real sleep.

He looked younger like this. The cold, sharp lines of the Octavian heir were gone. In this light, he was just Ver again. Twenty-four, tired, with a cut on his lip from biting it.

I shouldn't have moved. I should have let him sleep. He told his chief he hadn't slept in seven days. I knew that feeling. The feeling of hunting something and finally catching it.

But my bladder betrayed me.

I shifted, just an inch, trying to slide out from under his arm.

His grip tightened instantly. Even asleep.

"No," he mumbled into my hair, voice thick and hoarse. Not awake. Just instinct. "Stay."

A shiver went through me that had nothing to do with cold.

"Ver... I need to—"

"Five more minutes," he grumbled, pulling me back, even closer. His leg threw itself over mine, trapping me completely. Possessive, even in sleep. Especially in sleep.

I laughed despite myself. A small, quiet laugh I hadn't heard from myself in two years.

"You're going to make me have an accident on your coat."

That woke him up.

His eyes snapped open. For a second, pure panic — that heir panic, the kind where you check for exits, for weapons. Then he saw me, in his arms, in his hoodie, in Florence, and his entire body relaxed. His eyes softened in a way that would have terrified his men back in Sydney.

He didn't let go. He just stared at me like he was trying to memorize me again.

"Morning," he whispered.

"Morning," I whispered back.

We stayed like that for a second too long. Too close. His lips were inches from mine. Two years. Two years since I kissed him goodbye while he was sleeping and left cash for rent like a coward.

I panicked and scrambled up. The black coat fell off me.

"Uhm... I... coffee? I make terrible coffee, but..."

He sat up too, mattress creaking. He looked around my tiny apartment — the cracked tiles, the two plates, the basil I kept killing, the knife still under my pillow that he had obviously seen and chosen to ignore.

"It's perfect," he said.

"It's a dump."

"It's perfect because you're here."

He stood up. He was still in his shirt from last night, wrinkled, sleeves rolled up, that sword tattoo on his forearm catching the light. In my tiny kitchen, he looked too big, too expensive, too dangerous.

He walked to my kitchenette — two steps, that's how small it was — and picked up my dead basil.

"You still kill everything you touch," he said, but he was smiling. That soft smile I remembered.

"I told you in college I'd have a balcony full of flowers in Florence."

"And I told you I'd buy you a flower shop so you could kill them professionally."

He put the basil down and turned to me. And just like that, the air changed again.

"Lauren."

"Yeah?"

"The contract. The one for my head. Who gave it to you?"

My blood froze. Just like that, we were back in the real world. Not college lovers in Florence. Assassin and heir.

I swallowed. "I can't tell you. If I tell you, they'll—"

"They'll what? Come after your sister?" His eyes were sharp again. The heir was back. "You think I didn't know? I had my men pull your file the second night you didn't come back. Nancy Lauren, ghost assassin, one dependent sister, medical debt. Broker in Sydney. Contract issued six days ago. Half a million."

He knew. He already knew everything.

"Why didn't you tell me you were an assassin?" he asked, and his voice was quiet again, but hurt. So hurt.

"Why didn't you tell me you were Octavian?" I shot back, tears springing up. "You let me leave you cash for rent! You let me think you were a broke law student!"

He flinched. Actually flinched.

"I was scared," he admitted. "I was scared if you knew what my family was, what I was going to become, you would run. So I hid it. Like you hid your knives."

We stared at each other across my tiny kitchen, two liars who had loved each other for four years without ever telling the truth.

Then he crossed the distance in one step and cupped my face in both hands. His hands were warm.

"Listen to me. I erased the contract. My father thinks the heir job failed because the assassin got scared. The Syndicate thinks Octavian paid them off. Your sister's debt is paid. It's done."

"What... what did you do?"

"What I should have done two years ago," he said. "I chose you. Over the family. Over everything."

He leaned in, his forehead against mine.

"So now, Nancy Lauren, ex-ghost assassin with a dead basil plant, will you have terrible coffee with me in this dump? And then will you let me buy you new basil so you can kill it again tomorrow?"

I laughed, crying at the same time.

And in that tiny, cold apartment in Florence, with the morning light turning everything gold and his coat still warm from his body on my bed, I said yes.

"Uhm... yes."

His favorite sound. He kissed me then. Soft, slow, like we had all the time in the world. Like we had more than 3 days.