Chapter Forty
Saffi felt a strange sense of déjà vu as she sat in the hospital waiting room. The same hospital where she’d met Dimple Kapoor for the first time. It seemed fitting to be back here again. Except Andino and Taylor had been with her at the time. And now Saffi was alone.
Nobody would relay to her what Dimple’s condition was. That likely meant Dimple was in a position where she’d be unable to give consent for visitors. Knocked out, in surgery, in a coma, dead, the possibilities were endless.
Either that or Dimple didn’t want to see her.
But shooting themselves had been Dimple’s idea.
One with crime scene knowledge and the other with the ability to construct a compelling narrative.
Together, they left that trailer framed as victims. Saffi had tried to avoid all the important arteries, bones, nerves, and vessels when she’d shot Dimple in the leg, but now she second-guessed herself.
What if she’d aimed wrong? Or misremembered?
Saffi’s own injury had been entirely uncomplicated.
The bullet had grazed her arm. A few stitches and she was fine.
Apparently, Dimple had missed, which Saffi didn’t believe for a second.
No one ever played with fire and expected to come out of it unscathed.
And yet, here she was.
With her phone checked in to evidence, Saffi couldn’t monitor the situation with Hector Olsen.
She’d already given her statement to the police, but it didn’t seem that any of the news channels playing on the hospital’s TVs had picked up on it yet.
Early this morning, they’d snuck into Olsen’s trailer, which had been unnervingly close to Dimple’s, and planted the evidence.
Smeared blood, the gun. Still, a part of Saffi was worried they’d overlooked something.
She pulled on loose threads of the old scrubs she’d been given to wear. She was slowly but surely losing her mind.
Just as she’d been about to go ask the nurses, yet again, if there had been any updates, the waiting room door swung open.
She sat up abruptly, wincing when her arm protested the movement.
Part of her expected Dimple Kapoor to be standing there like a beacon, uninjured and captivating as ever.
If not her, then at least a nurse to tell Saffi she could visit her.
Instead, there was Taylor.
Saffi rose to her feet. She’d never seen him look so lost, so manic. He scanned the room before landing on her. Before she knew it, she was being pulled into a bone-crushing hug. It pulled at her stitches, but Saffi didn’t care. Taylor was warm and she’d been so, so cold until now.
When she pulled back, finally able to read every emotion on Taylor’s face, Saffi felt the urge to throw up come back in full force.
Because she hadn’t just killed Andino. She’d robbed Taylor of his other half.
She could see it in the pull of his mouth, the furrow of his brow, the tension he now carried in his shoulders that she feared would never go away.
“Are you okay?” Taylor asked. He held both of her forearms in a gentle grip. It suddenly struck her how awful it was that he was asking her that question.
“You’re shaking,” he said. Saffi looked down. As it turned out, she was. “Do you need to get looked at?”
That finally broke her from her trance. “No,” she said. “I’ve already been cleared. But Andino—”
Taylor shook his head, cutting off her words. His lips were pressed into a thin line. One push and it seemed like he’d fall apart. Saffi knew a man in need of a distraction when she saw one.
“How’s the situation with Olsen?” she asked instead.
Taylor breathed in deeply, the man’s name alone enough to bring that rare dark glint to his eyes. “He’s in custody until his trial. No bail.”
Saffi raised her brows. “How the hell did you manage that?”
“Even if his trial is in a few days, I wasn’t going to let the bastard walk free for another second,” Taylor declared. “I’ll make sure he rots for life. And then in hell afterward.”
Saffi felt sick again, Taylor’s words too similar to her father’s for her liking. If he knew what she’d done—
“Tell me something,” Taylor said, pausing to collect his thoughts. “Was it painful?”
Just like that, she was transported back into the moment. Andino choking up blood. Crumpling to the ground. It happened so quick, he hadn’t even been able to vocalize his pain.
“I don’t know,” Saffi found herself saying. Because who truly knew the pain of death until they felt it? If it was anything at all similar to the pain of causing another’s, then she feared for what was to come. “It happened faster than I could comprehend.”
“Good,” Taylor breathed in relief, but it didn’t last long. A complicated expression overtook his features as he seemed to mull something over. “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”
The question caught her so off guard, she pulled away. Taylor’s expression was grave.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” she admitted. “I didn’t even really know where I was going. I just knew Andino could be in trouble.”
“After both of you disappeared for hours, I had to find out from the police that my closest friends were shot. And that one of them is dead,” Taylor said. “How do you think that felt?”
Saffi was silent. She’d never been on this end of his anger. There was nothing she could say in the face of it that didn’t feel like a cheap mockery.
“I thought you coming back meant we could all be together again,” Taylor said.
He let go of Saffi in favor of pacing. “Don’t you think I get sick of always being in the middle?
You’re too stubborn to admit you care about us and Atlas is—was—too stubborn to admit it hurts him, but what about me?
Both of you have hurt me too! Do you even care?
Do either of you think about me at all?”
“I thought you would come,” Saffi blurted. It was a childish sentiment, but she needed him to know—of course she’d thought of him. “It felt like such a big moment, I thought you’d burst in and save us, like you always do.”
Taylor stopped pacing. Saffi braced herself, but his words were far from accusatory. “You know, before you left, Atlas and I were going to ask you to start the new business with us. To be a partner.”
Saffi froze. “What?”
When she’d heard from the other side of the world that Andino and Taylor had created an agency of their own, she hadn’t been surprised.
They’d always been Andino and Taylor—Atlas and Eli—a duo.
Saffi was the outsider. The coworker they were kind enough to indulge every once in a while.
She tried to imagine a place where Andino, Taylor, and Iyer Private Eye could exist. Even in a world where Andino lived, it felt fantastical.
But was that why there was an extra office waiting for Saffi when she came in? All set up as though they were always expecting her to come back?
“You’re not the only one who had expectations,” Taylor said. “The difference is that I was happy with what I got. I looked at you after five years and I saw that my friend—my family—was still there.” He met her gaze. “Clearly, that wasn’t enough for you.”
But wasn’t this the clearest evidence that the three of them were better off alone?
Taylor had lost Andino and then managed to get Olsen custody without bail.
He would accomplish even more without Saffi holding him back.
Without her failing to live up to his already low expectations.
The painful thought slotted into her mind so easily, she’d had to have known it all along.
Yesterday was the last time Saffi would ever speak to Andino, and this would be the last time she ever spoke to Taylor. Even in death, they were always paired.
Taylor had mentioned the kids needing a role model, but really there was no one better than him.
He was the best chance they had at a better fate.
Maybe, years in the future, Saffi would see all three of them standing side by side at an agency of their own.
Doing what Saffi, Andino, and Taylor never could.
And then she was struck by the sudden reminder that Mia Martinez was dead. Saffi had managed to doom both herself and the generation after.
Something fell atop Saffi’s cheek and when she reached up, she realized it was a tear. Her vision was blurry. Still, she could see that Taylor had turned away from her, his shoulders shaking with effort. The tears didn’t stop after that, only gaining momentum.
You always cried the hardest watching someone else trying not to.