Chapter Thirty
On the way back, I stop in the ladies’ room to make sure I’m not bloody, covered in dirt, or speckled with rubble. Also, I finally get that cactus spine out of my ass. I weave a story as I walk back out to the dining area: A bride was having a panic attack. I had to talk her down—
Prior to this whole he needs to die thing, I hated lying to Brian.
And I hate that I hate it. The early days, when lies came fast and easy, when guilt simply didn’t exist, were far simpler.
The second I catch sight of him—on his own phone—my heart palpitates.
The vision of his head blowing to pieces Ian-execution-style plays on repeat in my brain, and my hand flies to my chest—No, no more panic attacks. No fucking time for them.
I smooth out my dress, take a breath, glance around. Any of these people could be hitters. Brian’s like a fish in a barrel, utterly vulnerable.
I can’t lose him.
A desperate flood of emotion smacks into me like a wave, pulling me under, pounding me with sand and leaving me bruised before I make my way to the surface again for air.
An hour ago, I was planning his death; now I can’t imagine life without him. I don’t recognize this woman. I am cold, calculated Nadia. Not an overly emotional wife on the verge of a panic attack.
Someone really wants Brian dead.
They hired me. They hired Ian. Who knows who else they put on their payroll? This isn’t how things work, not usually. I just can’t figure out why.
Brian catches sight of me and gives a big smile, a wave. He points to his phone—held up to his ear—then rolls his eyes in exasperation, as if to say he can’t help it. But it distracted him, kept him from noticing just how long I was gone. A basket of bread sits on the table but no entrées yet.
I survey the restaurant as I cross to him, noting the other patrons, the entrances, the windows.
No one and nothing is safe. As I sit down, I realize that this isn’t just a matter of sorting out what his crimes are and how I judge them—if I kill him or let Ian kill him or whatever is the right answer here—it’s also about keeping him alive long enough to get to the bottom of it.
Or what if his crime is being married to me? I hadn’t considered that. I do my best to keep my family out of my work, but it’s possible someone knows, someone figured it out. It’s also possible the agency set me up—to test my allegiance or maybe to see if I really will take on big targets.
“Sorry about that.” Brian ends his call. “Everything okay?”
Mutely, I nod. I wonder if Ian will help me—in sorting out what Brian’s done but also in keeping Brian alive.
It’s not really his sort of thing. In his eyes, people are expendable, replaceable.
What does it matter if I kill my current husband, because I can always get another one?
But I won’t be able to do this on my own, not while ferrying the girls around and with Brian’s work schedule.
God forbid he travel for work right now. That would be a death sentence.
Across the room, a plate clatters to the floor, and I jump.
“Whoa. It’s just a plate.” Brian’s hand rests on my wrist.
And it is just a plate, cheap ceramic dishware, but it’s also a restaurant with no fewer than four entrances and exits. A maze of a dining room with half walls for privacy and to control the noise. I walked right through the emergency exit—twice—and the alarm didn’t even go off.
We need to leave. I can’t keep him safe here.
“You want to get out of here?” I say it just a touch suggestively.
Brian’s eyes widen. “Huh?”
A server walks by with plates of food in her hands. Brian’s gaze follows; he’s obviously hungry. I can’t suggest we just have sex in the BMW; I’ll need more than that to tear him away.
“Let’s repeat our real first date,” I say, “minus the car crash, of course.”
“Our real first date?” His lips twist into a smirk. There’s a heat in his eyes.
I lean over the table, knowing my boobs—which really aren’t that alluring, but I know how to work what I’ve got—are spilling forward. “Yes.”
When I say our first date, Brian’s thinking of bar food and beer in a dark tavern, tucked into a booth where we talked for hours after the car accident and then, a little drunk and in the heat of the moment, fucked in a storage closet that was left unlocked.
I probably forgot to mention that part before.
But I’m thinking of a bar in a shady part of town with one entrance—the emergency exit is illegally locked because otherwise people use it to go out back and do god knows what—where it’s dark enough you’d have to be a sharpshooter with night vision to actually hit your target.
“Well,” Brian manages. “It would certainly be—memorable.” He coughs an embarrassed laugh, his cheeks flushing pink.
Jesus, Brian, how are you possibly a bad guy?
“Great.” I signal for the waiter.
When I turn back to Brian, I can’t help but wonder how the hell I’m going to keep him alive if a whole team of people like me have been promised hundreds of thousands of dollars to off him. I take a small pull from the now-warm champagne.
To think, just a week ago I was feeling bored.