My lips twitched. “I don’t like any of those other ideas. My family’s legacy won’t end with a defeat.” It would end one day with my death, but I wasn’t about to let it end with a failure and a lot of casualties. The outcome of a potential war with the Desaltis was impossible to guess, and I suspected Romeo would call his allies and more assassins, so we could be at war for months, if not years. And the cops wouldn’t be happy about the whole thing, so they’d get in our way more than usual.

“We can steal a car and have it ready for you near the club. If there’s any sign of trouble or if you or I spot anything unusual, just run. Even an assassin wouldn’t shoot at you or try to hurt you before getting really close to you or he’d risk losing you in the crowd, so you’d have to keep your eyes open and make sure you stay somewhere where you can easily get out. Have your weapons ready too.”

I debated what to do. It wasn’t that bad of a plan, really. I could’ve come up with something similar myself, but I wasn’t sure if Romeo would fall for it. But then again, he wasn’t going to walk into a trap of any kind easily, and he might think I was just some silly and scared girl who didn’t know what she was doing. “So if I manage not to get killed and you sneak onto the roof without being seen, you’ll take out Romeo and then we’ll run so his men don’t get any ideas?”

He nodded. “But if you don’t trust me, I understand.”

My eyes lifted to his. “But I do trust you.” And I wasn’t lying. Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, but when I was with him, I didn’t feel like I was in any danger.

His lips parted in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected me to say that at all. “So what are you going to do?”

“We’ll try out your plan.” A smile spread across my lips, and I hoped I wasn’t wrong about this... and about James. Because if it turned out that he was playing me, I wouldn’t just end up with a broken heart; I’d lose my life too.

Chapter 26

I WAS GETTING SERIOUSLY tired of constantly moving around the city and sleeping in weird places—one of them was actually someone’s old and abandoned apartment that James and I had broken into. The assassins had either been called off or they hadn’t been successful at finding us in such a big city, and I suspected it was the latter.