One Second After Another (The After Another Trilogy Book 3)

by Bethany-Kris

Dark eyes of a five-and-a-half-year-old lifted to meet hers when he asked, “Then why did you leave?” Cross tipped his chin higher, that sharp gaze of his looking Penny up and down without pause. Considering, she knew. Considering her. Waiting to find her lie. Like maybe he could sense it before it even passed her lips. Could he? “I’m little, even though I don’t like it, but they know I’m not little, too, in some ways. So they’re careful when they talk. But they still do or I still hear it. You were with my parents for more than a year. You said you loved me—they loved you, I know. And then you left. Why?”

  If only Penny dared to close her eyes, she imagined that she could pretend this was a conversation between two adults. Certainly not one between a grown woman and a five-year-old boy. It was a strange thing to hear wisdom in the voice of a child. She had to wonder if that was how people felt talking to her as a child that had seen and knew things that were far beyond her comprehension.

  “That’s not an easy answer,” Penny replied in a whisper.

  “The truth is always easy,” Cross replied, folding his leather-clad arms over his small chest. There was something to be said about being stared down by a child. Especially when it felt like that child was also judging you. “Because people lie—all the time. Everyone does it. But they always have to think about it, make sure it sounds right ... it’s a choice to lie. Like Uncle Luca says, shit’s a process.”

  Penny coughed out a laugh alongside muttering, “He says what?”

  Cross rolled his eyes. “He says a lot of stuff. That one is right, though. The truth just is. Telling it sometimes hurts, or changes things, but it is still the truth. Right?”

  “You see things in a very black and white way, don’t you?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Is it easier that way?” she asked. “Easier to understand why you get to be this way ... and everyone else is the way they are, too?”

  Honestly curious, she waited for his reply.

  The little boy blinked, surprise darting over his young face for a split second. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Penny shoved her hands into the pockets of her black windbreaker, telling him, “Maybe because they don’t know how—they can’t understand anyway.”

  “Maybe. And it’s not easy. It just is.”

  Penny didn’t point out how he said the same thing about the truth. Whether he knew it or not, yes, he did deal with his strange uniqueness in a yes or no, black or white manner because it was easier for him than delving deeper.

  It showed his youth. Possibly one of the few things that did. What he lacked in actual age and experience, he simplified things down to just being.

  Cross lifted his brow and smiled, a flash of arrogance showing in the action that almost had her laughing when he added, “But you still didn’t tell me why, and I didn’t forget.”

  Smart kid.

  In a lot of damn ways.

  “Because I had to,” she said, knowing all too well it wouldn’t satisfy him, but it also wasn’t a lie. “I left because I had to.”

  “That’s ...” Cross’s brow furrowed. “Well, why?”

  “Because it was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do.”

  “Do what, though?”

  “Leave,” she replied.

  Cross let out a huff, gaze narrowing in on her again with a new gleam. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Penny grinned. “Yeah?”

  “Saying the truth.”

  “But?”

  “Without details,” he said, defeated.

  She only shrugged.

  Fair was fair.

  Her godson might have card tricks of his own—although being able to read people at his age was way more amazing than just a card trick—but she had a few, too.

  Cross shook his head. “Uncle Luca told them you were different.”

  That made her pause.

  All over.

  Penny turned to stone at just the mere mention of Luca. She had been content to come back to this place, say goodbye and hope, and then leave it all behind if that’s what came of her choices. She’d forced herself to stop thinking about the people she kept leaving behind, too. Sacrifices had to be made, after all.

  That didn’t stop it from hurting.

  Cross observed her in silent stillness, waiting for a reply from her that wouldn’t come. It couldn’t. “He likes you a lot, too.”

  Penny’s throat flexed when she managed to ask, “What?”

  “Uncle Luca. When people miss things—things that mean something—their eyes change. More distant. Like they’re looking at something far away. Something I can’t see. You did what he did when he told them he found you. But you did it now because I talked about him. See, same thing.”

  This kid was ... something else.

  She also couldn’t afford to stand there and keep talking to him even though every single molecule in her being wanted to do exactly that. He was amazing. It took a single conversation with the kid to realize just how much she had missed out on where he was concerned.

  “I really should go,” Penny said, moving a step deeper into the forest. The same way she had come.

  The shout from behind her made her next step hesitate.

  “Cross! Get back to the house, son! Time to eat!”

  Penny’s head snapped to the side, gaze darting over her shoulder through the trees to find the form of a man coming to stand on the rear porch of the three-level home. Like his son, she hadn’t laid eyes on Nazio in as many years.

  Not much had changed.

  He was older, yes, but his playful grin as he called for his child still felt like a welcomed sight to her.

  “Cross!” he called again.

  The little boy just a few feet away looked her way with a shrug. “You’re gonna leave now, huh?”

  “I have to.”

  He nodded once. “Yeah, you keep doing that to people, I guess. Leaving.”

  Penny blinked away the veil of tears that shrouded her vision. “I don’t want to, though.”

  “Cross Nazio Donati—time to eat, kiddo!”

  As if on cue, Cross’s stomach growled. He didn’t even look sheepish about it.

  “The interlude—the part of the song that repeats, right?” he asked her.

  She smiled. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Mine feels like a hug.”

  Penny stilled.

  He couldn’t know that ...

  It wasn’t possible.

  “It does,” he said again. “It feels like a hug when I hear it. I feel the same. Light at first. But then it tightens, muffles. Like arms wrapping around me, bringing me closer, getting warmer and tighter.”

  “I composed a lullaby for you. That’s all.”

  Cross kicked at the dirt when his father called his name again. “Yeah, but with a hug. Right?”

  “The way I thought a hug should feel. If someone made one with music. If I could hug you through mine.”

  Not that she ever told anyone that fact.

  “Okay.” Cross turned back toward the house. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Cross, are you in those damn woods again?”

  Penny sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Nazio strolling down the steps of the porch and heading their way. Toward the woods.

  “I have to—”

  Penny didn’t even get to finish her sentence before the boy had turned back around. He darted for her, his small arms wrapping around her middle. The hug was light at first, and then it tightened with warmth.

  “Please don’t tell them you saw me,” she whispered, hugging the boy back. “I only want to help them, okay?”

  If she could have stayed right there in that moment with a piece of her past cementing her between then and now, she would have. Forever.

  “I won’t tell.” Cross peered up at her when he took a step back and let her go, asking, “You’ll come back, won’t you?”

  She cho
se not to lie.

  “I’m sure gonna try.”

  7.

  Penny

  ALLEGRA was being smart.

  Too smart, really.

  Penny didn’t think for a minute that anything the woman did was just because. Every decision Allegra made had a purpose. From staying out of the spotlight for many years to announcing a marriage to a man who was a public figure. All of it did something for Allegra at the end of the day. It served her needs.

  Hunting her when she was underground had been difficult—and the focus for Penny had always been taking out other Elite members until it was time to go after the ones sitting at the very top. However, it hadn’t been entirely impossible.

  Allegra’s newest hat trick, the marriage to the New Jersey senator, made everything harder. Or at the very least, it made Penny’s job difficult. That job being to kill her. Well, it wasn’t hard to do that, per se. The difficulty came from the fact there was no clean way out. The woman was surrounded at all angles by people protecting her.

  But Allegra wanted attention, right? Why else would she decide to marry a man that she knew would cause her face to be splashed across the papers and evening news reports?

  Oh, yes.

  Because she stupidly thought that would also protect her. That there was no way anyone would come after her because it wouldn’t be a clean hit with all the cameras watching. How would someone get away without scrutiny after it was all said and done?

  Allegra made shit hard.

  Penny decided to ... help.

  “Jocelyn,” Penny greeted, taking a seat at the two-chair table in a quiet cafe in downtown Manhattan. She wouldn’t usually travel so deep into the city—but especially not where there were so many suits around. Something about it made her uncomfortable in a way she didn’t care to explore, but sometimes, it couldn’t be helped.

  The journalist sitting on the other side of the table glanced up with wide eyes at the sight of Penny. Her hair was the color of wind-swept wheat, tied back into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. The way she tried to fix the waistband of her pencil skirt and then her black heels, one of which she beat rhythmically against the table leg, spoke to her nervousness at simply having Penny nearby.

  She should be nervous. All of this was dangerous.

  “What are you doing here?” Jocelyn demanded, her brown eyes darting from Penny to the windows that overlooked the bustling street outside. No one was paying them any mind, but that didn’t stop the woman’s paranoia from showing itself. Penny expected that. “You told me—”

  “Everything is fine. I wasn’t followed. No one even knows where I am.”

  The reassurance didn’t stop Jocelyn from swallowing hard enough for Penny to hear it across the table. The woman drummed her manicured nails to the table, the white tips reminding Penny of the first time she approached the journalist at her favorite nail salon with a story for an article—and proof on hand—that she wouldn’t be able to refuse.

  She hadn’t.

  Two days ago, the article published on the third page of the Times newspaper detailing the crimes Allegra’s last husband—and Penny’s dead father—had been convicted of and how his wife walked away without a scratch despite the suspicions and proof of her involvement in his acts. Penny dared to use one of her phone cards and a new burner to watch the response unfold in real-time in online forums and other venues.

  If Allegra wanted attention from the media, then Penny could give it to her. It might not be the kind of attention her mother liked or wanted, but nobody said this would be fair.

  Or easy.

  Penny tried to keep it in mind.

  “Still,” Jocelyn said, the shake in her voice clear to Penny even if the woman didn’t acknowledge it, “you can’t just show up whenever. At least give me a little warning.”

  “So then I might give someone else a warning, too?”

  “What?”

  Penny lifted a brow. “Never mind.”

  Jocelyn’s gaze darted back to the windows, and then she scanned the cafe around them, obviously looking to see if someone was watching them. It was then that Penny had a realization about the woman’s paranoia.

  “You think someone is following you.”

  It wasn’t even a question.

  Jocelyn’s stare came back to Penny in an instant, and she shook her head. “I don’t see anyone but sometimes I notice similar cars, and familiar faces I can’t place. And—”

  She stopped all at once.

  Penny couldn’t have that. “And?”

  “My door was unlocked yesterday. When I got home, I mean. I-I never ... ever ... leave it unlocked. I have a cat, I don’t want her getting out, you know? So, I leave it locked like the windows and—”

  “I get it.”

  “Is someone following me?” Jocelyn asked her.

  Penny figured ... honesty was the best policy.

  “Probably,” she replied. “Which is part of the reason I’m here. Just to tell you that your best bet is to get out of town for a while. Let things calm down—stay far away from any idea that you have a connection to me. Keep out of sight.”

  Jocelyn’s dark stare burned bright with new anger. She even dared to lean closer to Penny over top the table when she said, “You didn’t tell me this was going to happen.”

  What did she expect?

  Penny handed her the story of a lifetime with the possibility of more should things go a certain way. Beyond that, she’d explained—or tried—the darker truth surrounding the situation and how it could be potentially dangerous to publish it.

  “You didn’t ask,” Penny replied simply. “But yes, I knew it was a possibility that ... someone ... might track you after publication just to see if they could connect you to me in some real way. It’s nothing personal, just business. They want to find me. You could be a means of doing that which is why I just told you to get out of town. Everyone has sacrifices to make to get a job done, Jocelyn. Even you.”

  Even if the journalist was the sacrifice Penny made.

  So be it.

  Sometimes, it had to be done.

  Penny stood from the table, having said what she needed to, as Jocelyn asked her, “But ... what am I supposed to do now?”

  Over her shoulder, as she walked away, she said to the woman, “I told you—run.”

  THE WIND WAS WORSE next to the river. Yet, Penny didn’t move as she waited for the call to be picked up. With the phone pressed to her ear, she watched the movement on the Hudson from the safety of the shadows she had found.

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait for long.

  “Marcel speaking—”

  “Do you remember that time I overlooked your side business with that friend from Canada, so it wouldn’t get back to Dare when we were doing that job last year?” Penny asked the hacker as soon as he picked up her call. Considering he wasn’t supposed to do any side business at all outside of The League for reasons related to the entire reason for him becoming a member ... she knew that was the best place to open their conversation.

  “Penny.”

  “One and only.”

  Marcel paused just long enough to mutter, “I do remember that time, yes. One favor. That’s all you get, though.”

  “Fair enough. It’s all I really need.”

  And if Marcel was willing to do it, then that’s all Penny cared about. He would be putting a lot on the line to help her in any way—even if he didn’t realize he would be helping her against their own people—and The League wouldn’t take kindly to that. If they found out, of course.

  Computer keys clicked fast in the background. Penny wasn’t stupid—she knew what the man was doing. Or, she was pretty sure.

  “Are you trying to trace me?” she asked.

  “Trying,” he admits. “Kind of part of my job right now. No offense.”

  “Of course, but I’m using a burner, and it’ll be at the bottom of the Hudson when this conversation is over. Just in case anyone might like to retri
eve it, you know.”

  Marcel cleared his throat, saying, “Thanks for that. Makes one thing easier.”

  “No problem.”

  She knew how this game was played. Penny had been on the other side of it for a long time. Now that she was the one they were trying to find, she knew all the tricks to stay just beyond reach. As long as she didn’t fuck up. Easier said than done, honestly. One wrong step could ruin a lot for her here.

  “You know the Hudson really nails you down to—”

  “They know where I am. But I am one in millions. Good luck.”

  “Right,” Marcel said in a dark laugh. “The favor? Which I really shouldn’t be doing for you, by the way. Every active member in The League is on your file right now, Penny.”

  “Fascinating. I want a bounty put out with no name attached for who listed it. A million for a successful kill.”

  “A bounty on who?”

  For a moment, Penny hesitated.

  Not for long, though.

  “On me,” she said. “Last known location—the state of New York.”

  Marcel’s clicking on the other end of the call came to an abrupt stop. The silence raged through the telephone, and she understood why. No sane assassin put a bounty out on themselves. It was practically suicide. In fact, that was usually the only reason an assassin would do such a thing in the first place. Because there was no other choice.

  Well ... there was another reason.

  Penny found one.

  It was still suicide.

  “It’s going to be a lot harder for the right people to find me when everyone is looking for me,” she said quietly.

  Marcel let out a slow, steady breath before replying, “That’s also dangerous.”

  Yep.

  “And a risk I am willing to take.”

  It was going to make The League and The Elite’s job a lot harder to find her when they also had possibly hundreds of rogue assassins flooding New York to deal with at the same time. With everyone and anyone coming out of the woodwork to claim a million-dollar bounty on the white ghost, well ... that was an opportunity too good to pass up, she knew. A kill like her on someone’s list would make them gold in their world.

  No one would say no.

  But she had to stay alive, too.