Carefully, I reach over and pick up the phone, glancing at the screen. Unknown Caller. I hesitate before answering on a whim. "Yeah?"

There's a moment of silence before a vaguely familiar voice comes on, one of the guys who runs point in upstate New York. "You know that call you put out earlier?"

"Yes."

"Well, I found her," the man says. "I'm looking at the car right now."

I hesitate, glancing down at Karissa, ensuring she's still fast asleep. Just a few hours. That's all it took for her to be found. She evaded me for years, but she's not running anymore.

I killed her husband.

I took her daughter.

I knocked her feet out from under her.

"Text me the address."

"Sure thing," he says. "And, uh, about that reward…"

"The minute I get what I need, you'll get what you want. Got it?"

"Got it."

I hang up, slipping the phone back on the nightstand. I don't look at it when it beeps with a text message. I don't want to know right now. Not today. Just one more night is all I need. One more night where I can pretend I don't have to do what it is I have to do. One more night of a clear conscience. Because come sun up, when I have to face reality again, I know I'm going to have to do the one thing I promised I wouldn't do.

I have to intentionally hurt Karissa.

I have to kill her mother.

Gathering her hair, I push it away, out of her face, as I rouse her from sleep. "Karissa," I whisper, shaking her slightly as I shift around in the bed. "Wake up, sweetheart."

She stirs, opening her eyes, and blinks a few times as she looks up at me. A sleepy smile overcomes her lips, that happiness coating her face. Blissfully ignorant. I remember how that felt. I envy it, for the moment.

I want it for myself again.

"What's wrong?" she asks, her voice thick with sleep.

"Nothing," I tell her, shifting her beneath me so I can hover over her beautiful frame. "There's absolutely nothing wrong. How could there be? I have you."

I didn't think it was possible, but her radiance grows. She wraps her arms around me, pulling me to her for a kiss, as I settle between her legs. I'm hard already. Again.

I push inside of her slowly, holding her tightly as I do, listening for the sound of her breath. The gasp of pleasure washes through me and I shiver, nuzzling into her warm neck.

I don't fuck her this time.

I can't.

I don't want to.

I make love to her, pouring my soul out to her like she did for me this afternoon. I trail light kisses everywhere I can reach, whispering how much I love her, the words ghosting across her skin. My nose brushes against hers as I stare into her eyes, drinking in the innocence.

"There's something about you," I say quietly. "Something I've sought for a very long time."

Her smile wavers, her expression sobering. "I've heard those words before."

"I know you have." I'd told her this exact thing the night in her dorm room. "And now that I've found it, Karissa, I'm not sure I can let it go."

She reaches up, brushing her hands through the hair that wisps across the forehead, before she cradles my face. "Then don't."

The injury therefore that you do to a man should be such that you need not fear his revenge.

The quote from The Prince has always been one of my favorites. I've lived my life by it for as long as I can remember. It's a lesson I learned through experience, through bloodlust and bloodshed. It's a lesson that has kept me alive and led to many other deaths.

If you're going to hurt someone, make it fatal.

Don't wound. Kill.

Don't let them walk away.

It's a code those in the old country live by—you don't just kill a man, you kill his whole family. Orphaned sons grow up to be vengeful men. Widowed husbands come looking for blood eventually.

I sit in my car, once more in the small town of Dexter, just a few miles to the west of Watertown. My vintage copy of Machiavelli's book lies open in my lap as I thumb through the warped, water damaged pages in the darkness. I couldn't believe it, when I looked at my phone this morning and the familiar address of the flower shop in Watertown greeted me.

Carmela went back home, it seems.

I'm curious why, and I have a few theories: maybe because it's the only place Karissa would know to look for her mother, or maybe it's because Carmela has nowhere else to go. But I think it's more complex, like maybe she knows what's coming, and when it happens, she wants it to be on her terms.

She has the upper hand here.

Or so she thinks.

Through the woods, I can see the house. The Jeep Wagoneer was abandoned at the shop in town, the doors all locked up. I'm not sure if she went back here or not, but she's in the area somewhere, and I don't know where else she'd go at night.

She has no money.

She had no friends.

She probably wouldn't expect me to bother looking here, since I'd already cleared her out of the place.

I linger for a while, just biding my time, watching the house as my hands stroke the cover of the book. It's all quiet, and dark, appearing abandoned, and I'm close to second-guessing myself when there's movement in the yard. Shadows move, the grass disturbed, seconds before a faint bark cuts through the silence.

Killer.

I watch attentively as the front door of the house just barely cracks open and the small dog darts straight inside. I continue to stare at it, even after all is still again, contemplating where to go from here.