Valentine’s Day. The day for lovers, and I am pretty sure I killed the man Kayden called mine. “Thanks again,” I choke out, and then realize I haven’t asked about my amnesia, and he hasn’t brought it up. “Wait. Sorry, but how common is memory loss with a concussion?”

“Rare to the extent you’re experiencing it, but it happens. The important thing to know is that it’s not life threatening or debilitating.” I grimace at that, and he holds up a finger. “I saw that look. I wasn’t dismissing your problem. I was simply trying to ease your mind. And you’re already remembering small things. You’ll remember the rest.”

And I both wish for and dread that day.

His hand comes down on my shoulder, a friendly gesture that is missing all the fire of Kayden’s touch. “We’ll talk more about this when I stop by to check on you at Kayden’s place.”

I nod. “Yes. Thank you again, Nathan. I really needed help, and you were there for me.”

He smiles. “And now Kayden owes me a favor.” He glances at Kayden. “Or ten.” He lifts a hand and heads for the door. Matteo says something to Kayden in Italian and takes off after Nathan, and just like that, I’m alone with Kayden.

Desperate to get my confession over with, I rotate and say, “Kayden,” only to discover he’s already standing in front of me and I’ve just pressed our legs together. I tilt my chin up to look at him. “I . . . You . . .”

He arches a brow. “I what?”

The words don’t want to come out of my mouth. “About what happened upstairs—”

“Matteo is coming right back.” He opens the bottle and pops a pill onto his hand, holding it out to me. “You need to take this now before you end up in bed again.”

He’s right. The last thing I need right now is to turn into a mess like I was last night. I reach for the pill, my hand going to his palm, the touch electric, and his fingers close around mine. My eyes dart to his, and I try to read his still unreadable expression. I wait for him to say whatever he intends to, but he is silent. He just looks at me, his gaze probing, and I realize he’s waiting for me to say whatever I wanted to say.

“I know you’re not him,” I say, my voice hoarse, affected in a way that is all about this man and what I have yet to tell him.

The door opens behind me and Matteo enters, saying something in Italian to Kayden. Kayden responds and then refocuses on me. “Take the pill,” he orders.

Frustrated at the interruption, I pop it into my mouth, and then accept the bottle of water and chug several long swallows. Kayden takes the bottle from me and sets it on the table. “You need to hear what Matteo has to say.”

“I have to have a conversation with you first.”

“It has to wait.” He turns to his friend and orders, “Tell her what you found.”

I want to shout at him that no, no, it does not have to wait, but Matteo is quick to demand my attention. “Let’s talk about Ella,” he says as he reaches under the island and produces a file he sets in front of him.

“You mean let’s talk about me,” I correct.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s talk about you. Only you don’t exist. There is no missing ‘Ella’ that’s traveled from the United States, or anywhere else for that matter, in the past year.”

“I took your fingerprints when you were asleep,” Kayden adds.

I cut him an incredulous look. “You did what?”

“Gallo is going to be at my doorstep looking for you,” he says. “I had to know what we were dealing with.”

He’s right. I know he’s right, yet somehow those prints feel more private than the clothes he stripped off me. But I want answers, and I glance between the two men. “You ran them through the database?”

“I did,” Matteo confirms. “And there was no match.”

“That makes no sense,” I argue, convinced he’s made a mistake. “I’d have to have prints on file for a passport. How can you even run my prints? Isn’t it a government database?”

“The right hacker can get anywhere he or she wants to get,” Matteo replies. “You have no prints on file.”

My throat thickens. “Try again.”

“I always double-check myself,” Matteo adds. “You could be an Italian-American who lives here.”

“I don’t speak the language,” I argue.

“You don’t remember speaking the language,” Kayden corrects.

“I don’t speak the language,” I assure him. “I might not remember everything but I get strong feelings about things. I do not speak Italian.” I eye Matteo. “Do they fingerprint for driver’s licenses? Wouldn’t I be on file here if I lived here?”

“No fingerprints,” Kayden replies. “Just a signature.”

I look between them. “This is crazy. I have to have a passport.”

“You might have had one,” Matteo responds, “but you don’t now. You might have been erased.”

“What does that mean, ‘erased’?”

“It means,” Kayden explains, “that someone as talented as Matteo could have been hired to wipe out your records.”

“Are you telling me that even if I remember who I am, I don’t exist?”

Kayden holds up his hands. “Back up. We don’t know you were erased. We’re just talking through reasons you might think you have a passport but you don’t.”

“And if we find out who you are,” Matteo adds, “I can re-create your identity.”

I gape at him. “Re-create my identity? Forgive me if that isn’t comforting.”

Kayden rotates the bar stool around, his hands coming down on my arms. “You aren’t a stack of documents. No one can erase who you are.”

“They don’t have to. I did it for them. My fingerprints were my link to my past. My way of finding me.”

“We both know you can find you, when you’re ready.”

“I don’t have a switch the way you seem to think I do. I can’t just flip it. Why would someone wipe my identity?”

“For all any of us know, you had your identity wiped.”

My lips part in shock. “Why would I do that?” I ask, but even as the question leaves my mouth, I picture myself opening that box and revealing that gun.

He pushes off the stool, his hands settling on his hips. “You were running when I found you,” he reminds me.

“From the Italian mafia,” Matteo adds. “That’s a good reason to disappear.”

“And you colored your hair,” Kayden says. “You knew you were on the run before you lost your memory.”

Again, I see a flickering image of that box and that gun. “What now?” I ask, rotating to face the table again.

“We keep working on my plan,” Kayden says, motioning to Matteo.

Matteo responds by sliding the folder in my direction. “This is your new identity,” he announces. “It’s what Gallo will find when he pulls your fingerprints.”

“New identity,” I repeat, tension stiffening my spine. “I don’t even know my real identity.”

“That’s the point,” Kayden explains. “If you don’t have an identity, Gallo and Niccolo will keep focusing on you. We need you to become someone distinctive that shuts down all interest in you from all directions.”

It makes sense. I don’t like it, but it makes sense. “Yes. Okay.”

Kayden jumps on my acceptance, already moving ahead. “A few important details. Since you’re sure your name is Ella—”

“It is Ella,” I say, jumping on his hint of doubt. “My name is Ella.”

“Then we can be certain that anyone looking for you will be searching by the name Ella,” Matteo interjects.

“So no more Ella,” I say, knowing there is no other way. Not with a mobster after me.

“Yes and no,” Kayden confirms while Matteo announces, “Your new legal name is Rae Eleana Ward.”

Kayden’s hand comes down on my shoulder, and I look up at him as he adds, “We went with Eleana so you could use Ella as a nickname. It’s a bit of a stretch to turn your middle name into a nickname, but it’s still doable.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, my throat thick with emotion, and I’m pretty sure I just lost all objectivity with this man, who seems to have understood my need even before I did.