Chapter 37 The Perfect Day
Alessia didn’t leave her room for the rest of the day.
She sat on the edge of her bed, the photograph lying in front of her, her laptop open to documents she shouldn’t even be looking at. Her mind spun with revelations that felt like they were tearing her apart from the inside out.
Everyone had lied.
The FBI. The Council. Her grandmother.
The only question left was what she was going to do about it.
Night fell. The penthouse grew quiet.
Around midnight, a soft knock.
“Alessia,” Liam’s voice, low and careful. “Please. Let me in.”
She hesitated. Considered shutting the door, keeping the distance. But she was exhausted—so tired of facing the weight of everything alone.
She opened it.
He stood there, still fully dressed, concern etched into his face. “You’ve been in here for ten hours,” he said quietly. “No food. No water. Just… silence.”
“I’m processing,” she whispered.
“I know.” He stepped closer. “But you don’t have to process alone. Whatever that photograph means, whatever you discovered—”
“I can’t tell you,” she cut him off, almost harshly. “Not yet. It’s complicated. Dangerous. I don’t even understand it all myself.”
He studied her face, then nodded slowly. “Okay. But… can I do something for you?”
“Like what?”
“Get you out of here. Away from the city. Away from the Council, the families, all of it.” He gestured vaguely at the penthouse. “Just for a day. One day where we’re not heirs or spouses or targets. Just… two people.”
Her throat tightened. “We can’t just leave.”
“Yes, we can.” His eyes were intense. “No guards. No trackers. We take my car. We drive. Twenty-four hours. The families think we’re consolidating power after Cormac’s death. The Council thinks we’re being good soldiers. Nobody will question it.”
“Liam—”
“Please.” Raw. Vulnerable. “We both need this. A break from the war. Just one day.”
She looked at him—this man who had become more than he should have. More than she had any right to need. Who offered her an escape she didn’t think she deserved.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Relief softened his expression. “Pack light. We leave at dawn.”
They left at 5 a.m., before the city had stirred.
Liam drove a normal sedan—not the usual armored SUV with guards and weapons. Just a car.
Alessia sat in the passenger seat, watching Manhattan shrink behind them.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Somewhere quiet.” His hand found hers across the console. “Somewhere nobody knows us.”
They drove north, past suburbs and small towns, until the buildings gave way to trees and open sky.
Two hours later, they stopped at a roadside diner.
The kind with checkered floors and vinyl booths, a waitress calling everyone “hon.”
No one knew who they were. No stares. No whispers. Just two people eating breakfast.
“What do you want?” Liam asked, scanning the laminated menu.
“Everything,” Alessia said, surprising herself. “Pancakes. Eggs. Bacon. Coffee. All of it.”
He laughed, a real laugh that touched his eyes. “Someone’s hungry.”
“I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours.”
“I noticed.” He flagged down the waitress, placed the order, then leaned back. “How are you feeling? Really?”
“Overwhelmed. Confused. Angry.” She traced the table with her finger. “But right now? In this moment… better.”
“Good.”
When the food arrived—mountains of it—they ate in a rare, comfortable silence, watching life go on around them. Couples, families, strangers just existing. No violence. No schemes. No danger.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like,” Alessia asked quietly, “to be… normal?”
“Every day,” he admitted. “But then I remember—I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“Me neither.”
They left a generous tip, climbed back into the car, and drove on.
An hour later, they stumbled upon a small-town fair.
“Oh,” Alessia said, staring at the Ferris wheel, the smell of fried dough and cotton candy. “Can we—”
“Yes,” Liam cut in before she could finish, smiling.
Hand in hand, they wandered through the fair. Liam won her a stuffed bear at the ring toss—six tries and twenty dollars later—but the grin on his face made it worth every coin.
Her laugh came easily, naturally, the kind that surprised her.
“Your prize, my lady.”
“It’s hideous,” she said, grinning.
“It’s perfect.”
They rode the Ferris wheel. At the top, Alessia looked out at the countryside stretching to the horizon.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt this… light,” she admitted.
Liam’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “Me neither.”
They ate funnel cake, watched children play games, listened to a local band play covers of old songs.
For a few hours, they forgot.
Forgot who they were. What they’d done. What awaited them back in the city.
They were just Liam and Alessia. Two people falling into something impossible and dangerous.
As the sun dipped, they found a small motel on the outskirts of town.
“One night,” he said.
“Just one night,” she agreed.
The room was modest. Queen bed, faded furniture, a TV that probably worked on luck.
It was perfect.
Once the door closed, the air shifted. No pretense. No performance. Just them.
“Alessia,” Liam said quietly, “if you want to stop—if this is too much—”
She kissed him.
Not calculated. Not strategic. Real.
His hands cupped her face, the kiss deepening, urgent, raw, desperate.
They moved to the bed, shedding clothes and armor and lies, until all that remained was skin, truth, and need.
They made love deliberately, memorizing each other, choosing each other in a world that demanded they be weapons.
Afterwards, tangled together, Alessia’s head on his chest, his fingers tracing idle patterns on her shoulder.
“What if we just kept driving?” she whispered.
Liam froze. “What?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, voice small. “When we’re supposed to go back. What if we didn’t? What if we just… disappeared? Started over somewhere nobody knows us?”
He stared at the ceiling. Silence stretched between them.
“We can’t,” he said finally, voice thick with regret.
“Why not?”
“Siobhan is still there. My father. Your father. The families. The Council.” His eyes darkened. “If we run, they become targets. Leverage. And if we don’t come back—”
“They die,” she finished.
“Yes.”
She lay back down, chest tight, knowing he was right.
They couldn’t escape. Couldn’t outrun everything they were. Bound by blood, oaths, and the weight of what they’d already done.
“I wish we could,” he murmured, pulling her closer. “I wish I could take you somewhere safe. Somewhere none of this exists.”
“Me too.”
They lay in darkness, holding each other like it was survival.
“Tomorrow, we go back,” he said. “Everything gets complicated again.”
“I know.”
“But tonight—just tonight—we get this.”
“This,” she echoed.
This fragile, impossible connection they’d carved out in a world built to destroy them.
“I’m falling for you,” Liam admitted, voice barely audible. “I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s dangerous. Stupid.
Probably going to destroy us both. But I am.”
Alessia’s throat tightened. “Liam—”
“You don’t have to say it back. I needed you to know.
Before we go back. Before everything falls apart.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m falling for you, Alessia. And I can’t stop.”
Tears burned her eyes. Because she felt it too. Because it would destroy them.
Because he didn’t know who she really was. What she was sent to do. The lies she still carried.
And when he found out—when the truth came out—this moment, this perfect day, would turn into betrayal.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
For everything I’m going to do to you. For every lie I’ve told. For being a weapon aimed at your heart.
“For nothing,” she lied. “Just… I’m sorry.”
He held her tighter. Neither slept. Both aware that tomorrow would tear everything apart.
But tonight, in a cheap motel room in a town nobody cared about, they had each other.
And for now… that was enough.