The others nodded, inhaling. Alonzo stopped just inside the door and allowed himself to feel. For so long there had been . . . nothing. He didn’t feel emotion. He didn’t want to feel. Until Evangeline. She’d changed his world with her sweetness and sass. With her bakery. That smile she reserved only for him. He didn’t know if she was aware she had that smile—the real thing—and she gave it to him.

Her smile was like the sun coming out on a frozen day in Russia. Beautiful. He hadn’t believed anything could melt the iceberg, but she’d done it. Evangeline. When he inhaled, he took in the scent of the bakery, but more importantly, her. And she was home to him.

He’d never had a home. He hadn’t known the meaning of the word. Not even all those years ago when his mother hid in her room to keep from getting beaten. He’d foraged for food and dodged his father’s fists and boots. Nothing had ever smelled like the bakery. Or her house. Or car. Or just plain Evangeline.

He was pretty damn certain that his feeling emotion for Evangeline didn’t bode well for her, but for him it was a kind of rebirth. He thought about her every minute of every day. He couldn’t wait to see her. He spent more time than he would ever admit looking at his phone, at the camera feed, just to see her.

“She has several customers in the store,” Timur reported. “Including the cops.”

Again? How many times a day did Brice come in to see her? If he didn’t have ice in his veins, Alonzo would have felt a rush of adrenaline. His leopard didn’t have ice. He raged and prowled and raked, furious that the three men were haunting the bakery. That was their territory. Evangeline was theirs. No matter how much Alonzo tried to reassure the cat that Brice was only after Evangeline to get to him, neither believed it. The man was too persistent. A cop. A good guy. Everything that Alonzo wasn’t and would never be. Everything Evangeline deserved and would never get.

Alonzo deliberately walked out of the kitchen as if he owned the place, as if he did it every fucking day, ignoring Timur and Gorya as they scowled at him. He was very aware of the three cops at the door, on their way out, turning to face him. He could have waited for them to leave but he didn’t. It was a dick thing to do but then, along with being a criminal, and a killer, he was discovering he could be a dick too.