“I don’t think we could have done anything more stupid!”
Diana didn’t flinch at the harsh words; instead she felt her core strength take over. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips pressed together and her brows pulled down. Her words were punctuated with her own anger. “It was exactly. The right. Thing. To do.”
“How?” Will bellowed it as loud as he could. The neighbors probably heard him.
In the same second the thought passed, Diana also processed that while they might hear the yelling, they wouldn’t possibly be able to hear his words. She decided normal people yelled sometimes.
Still, she tried to keep her own voice low. “You thought someone was sneaking into the house. You took measures. I thought someone was already in the house. I took measures. We were both right. No one went crazy and no one got hurt.”
Her tone didn’t rub off on him.
“We’re idiots!” He faced her, anger vibrating outward and rolling in waves. Only some of it was directed at her. Some was directed at him. And—knowing him as well as she did, she saw it—a good part was directed at the situation that led to this and his own naïveté in believing this whole suburban thing could work out. “We stalked EACH OTHER!”
His voice hit a crescendo and before she could counter, he yelled again. “We expended energy we don’t have, for no reason!”
This he yelled directly at her as though it was her fault they had done this.
Good.
He yelled a third time. “Why the hell did you sneak in?”
Okay. That actually pissed her off. “Because you were slinking around the house!”
“I was defending because someone was already inside my HOUSE!”
“I came in like I always do!” She leaned toward him. As the smaller one, it shouldn’t have been as aggressive a move as it was. In his face now, she yelled back. “Had you been in bed, sleeping, like you were supposed to be, I wouldn’t have snuck in!”
This time she cut him off. “Why the hell did you grab a gun?”
“What!” His face was close now, too. “Maybe because the Russian mafia is after us. Maybe because the Romanian mafia is in town and probably run by your boss. Maybe because the people who want us dead have finally found us and they won’t be nice and just kill us! You should have just come in!”
He shook from the fuel of rage and waning adrenaline.
Diana regretted letting this fight get out of hand. Because now she was angry, too. This was the refrain of their marriage. In some unions, one person cheated and the other never quite got over it. In others, it was occasional but persistent undermining. In theirs, it was that Will was always willing to die for what he’d done and Diana just wasn’t. “So I should have just walked in? Even when I sensed something was off? I should have just come right in and yelled ‘Honey, I’m home!’ and taken a goddamned bullet from one of the many sources you just listed? Just so you could be finished?”
“It wasn’t anything. We’re out of shape—”
“I’m in great shape, you asshole!” She felt her temperature climb, her breathing increase, her muscles tense.
“Not like you were!”
“Neither are you!”
His face was red. His lips curled. He was no slouch, but he wasn’t in the woods practicing every day like he had once. His voice came out low and feral. “Diana, we are going to die at their hands! And it will be in the worst possible way. They owe us retribution for what we’ve done. We decimated them.”
“You think we should just put a bullet in our own heads so that they can’t do it first?” Her heart clenched at the idea that he could so casually consider checking out. After he’d lost Sam and Bethy, he’d wanted to die. She knew he’d only stayed alive for his own revenge.
“We have to get out of here, Diana.”
“We. Can’t. We’ll leave a trail to wherever we go. Our disappearance is worse than our presence. And if they follow us to the cabin, there’s nowhere else to go.”
Why didn’t he see that the only people in the house were the two of them? Given tonight’s fiasco, they must be the only two people who really had any designs on the property. No one was coming in and attacking them even though Diana was starting to consider that she might just kill him herself.
“Then you leave.” He said it calmly, as though she could simply pack a bag and go.
“You leave. They came after me. Not you.”
“Diana.” It came out in a great, heaving sigh. Now he was exhausted, angry, and exasperated with her, too.
She couldn’t leave him. She was alive because she’d found him. Because he’d found her. And he’d found a reason to stay alive. For her. For them.
Or maybe not. Maybe he was still dead inside from Sam and Bethy. Maybe he never really loved her.
Maybe she was just his best option since he’d found himself to still be breathing long after he expected to be done with it. Maybe that was the sole explanation for the drone-like job, the interaction that never penetrated the surface. Not with anyone except her. But maybe she’d been fooling herself; maybe she didn’t penetrate the surface either.
“Will, I can’t leave you. We can’t just split up and go separate ways.” Though her heart was racing to outrun the betrayal she saw sneaking up, she tried to keep her voice calm. Tried to acknowledge that if there was any responsibility for the cracks in her heart, she’d caused them herself by refusing to see what was in front of her.
His voice was as ragged as hers, “Diana—”
She didn’t want to hear it. She interrupted. “I’m your wife.”
It had been the wrong thing to do.
Will exploded. “You are not my wife! I never married you. I didn’t make those promises!”
She should have been blown backward. She should have shattered into a million pieces. But that wasn’t who she was. She combusted, too.
Her left fist connected with his nose in a shockingly satisfying crunch.
It was a cheap shot, mid-face like that, and he hadn’t seen it coming.
For a moment, she had the wifely worry of how he would go back to work with his nose like that, but then she remembered—she wasn’t his wife. So fuck him.
Her hand hurt more than she remembered it ever hurting from a hit before, but that wasn’t enough to stop her from a quick kidney strike.
Despite the sharp surprise and streaming blood on his face, he did see that one coming. Will dodged, grabbing her hand in the process, and she regretted teaching him the move. He yanked her in close, no respect for her shoulder socket, and rage burning in eyes that snapped from stormy gray to furious black with the contact of her fist.
In the moment she had taken for herself, the moment she looked into his eyes to see what was really there and not just what she wished, she didn’t learn anything. Except that he had always paid expert attention—even when he looked laid back and lazy. He’d wrapped his arm around hers, braced it straight out and in his control, exactly the way she’d taught him.
She was caught. She was trapped near him, with only her left arm free to use. On the upside, the same applied to him. The real difference was he got to choose when to let go.
Diana jammed her left knee upward between his legs, feeling the strain as he clamped his together, stopping her movement just moments shy of its goal. But she expected that. She expected him to not let her knee him in the groin, and she made it clear that she was an expert, too.
Using his legs pressed around her knee, she shoved her braced leg to the left. Without his wide stance to keep him centered, it threw him just a little off balance. Not a lot. But she didn’t need a lot. She also had her arm wrapped in his, and she used it to jerk the top half of him the other way.
He swore as he stumbled, loosening his grip on her arm. She yanked it free with a wrench of her torso and then, in an opposite motion, she yanked her knee out from between his legs. That made him stumble—and curse—just a little more. He almost lost his footing.
Almost.
She watched as he took a fraction of a second to right himself. It was all she had. He gave no warning as his hand came up, fisted tight, in a backhand strike that would have felled her had it really connected.
Diana bobbed to her left and again went after his feet. Kicking at his front foot, she watched in shock as he jumped and was completely unaffected by her swing. On the other hand, having not made the expected contact, she had a little more force than she could contain.
Now in possession of a slight advantage, Will didn’t hesitate to use it. He simultaneously grasped and wrapped up both of her arms and used his height to yank her upward a little bit and at the same time he swept her feet out—the same move she’d tried to pull on him not a full second earlier.
That was disheartening.
All of it was disheartening.
So she stopped fighting it.
Going completely limp, Diana became a dead weight in his grip. As wrapped up as he had her, he couldn’t untangle fast enough to save himself from going down with her. Letting gravity do the work for her was the easy part. She should have curved her back. Should have blown out her air. Should have cared.
But she didn’t do any of it.
She hit with a thump of her spine, followed by her head knocking against the floor at the same time their tangled legs hit. His knees took the brunt of that, but with her legs entwined with his, she was crushed by Will and the fact that he simply couldn’t prevent it.
Jerking, he unwound his arms from hers and pushed back to his knees.
Diana did nothing. She tried not to breathe. Tried not to think, but the thoughts came anyway. Maybe she should disappear. Go back to life on her own. She still had the bulk of her parents’ life insurance money. Will still had Sam and Bethy’s. They kept them separate, in case either was compromised. She hadn’t foreseen the day when they would simply claim “no fault” and walk away, each with what they’d brought in.
Her brain took another turn. Was this what he had felt when he’d lost Sam and Bethy? No wonder he didn’t want to suffer that again. But that didn’t lessen her suffering of it now.
“Diana.”
She didn’t answer.
“Diana.”
With the smallest of movements on her part, gravity took over and her head rolled to the side where she didn’t have to see any part of him.
“Sin.”
Fuck him. He shouldn’t call her that. It was a name from another age. The first name he’d called her.
In the periphery of the small field of vision she allowed herself, she saw him rub his hands on his pants legs, saw his head hang low in despair in contrast with his shoulders, still heaving as he sucked down extra oxygen.
“You are my wife.”
She shook her head. A tiny move. But enough.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
But you did. That thought, like the others, flitted by unbidden. And you can’t take that back.
“When I lost Sam and Bethy . . .” He sighed and she almost sat up and vomited from the feeling of dread churning in her. Instead she held still, hoping that maybe something useful would come out of this. At least eventually he might shut up and leave her alone.
He started over. “When I lost Sam and Bethy, I didn’t think I would survive it. Didn’t know I could survive it. I really thought I had lost everything I ever had and everything I would ever have of any real value. . . . But I didn’t love Sam the way I should have. I hadn’t ever lost anything before and I didn’t know how to be good to her or how to not argue over things that don’t really matter.”
He waited, as though she should say something.
If she spoke, she’d still tell him to get the hell out. So she stayed silent. It was easier to re-stitch the shell she had worn for so long when she didn’t move. Didn’t really listen. Pushed away the thought that she actually cared.
“Sin, I love you. I can’t lose you. You’re not my wife. My wife is the woman I share a home with and argue over the mortgage with. I’d say you are my home, but it’s more than that: you are the only thing on this earth that I’m alive with, that I’m alive for. . . . They tortured you when you were a child, when you had done nothing to them other than be there. At night, I have dreams where I can’t breathe. Because the worst thing I can imagine them doing to me is hurting you.”
She was starting to listen. She didn’t really want to.
“I’m afraid.”
Her ears heard him now, even if her brain still tried to refuse.
“I’m afraid you’ll die. I’m afraid it will be bad. I’m petrified that I’ll witness it, that I won’t be able to save you, that I’ll watch, helpless. And I’m just as much afraid that, after you’re gone, they’ll leave me alive. I’m afraid I won’t die. Because living with that would be a hell a thousand times worse than anything I’ve lived or seen or done.”
Maybe he was right and she wasn’t his wife and he wasn’t her husband. Maybe that was too tame a word for what they were. His hand reached out and stroked her face; she closed her eyes and let him. Without looking at him, she reached for him, finding his shoulders and squeezing as though he might disappear if she didn’t hold on tight enough.
This time flinging herself at him, she moved without the precision of a strike, without the focus behind a hit. She went to him in a freefall and knew he would catch her.
They peeled clothing and kissed fresh bruises, feeling no guilt, only the scrambling need to get closer. There was something about the feeling that death was closer than it should be, and she shed the insecurities she often carried . . . let go of the fear that one day they would be discovered . . . gave up worrying that he would push her away regardless of how much he loved her.
The threat on them was a heavy weight and required an inhuman vigilance. But in this moment, it was freeing.
She felt every touch, every whisper of fabric as he removed her clothing piece by piece. She returned each of his touches, her hands searching for the tactile sensation of him, his touch leaving tracers on her body, and his hands rougher than an accountant’s should be yet softer than a killer’s.
Her breath left her in a soft moan as he pressed into her, and at last she opened her eyes, meeting his. The storm there was gone, replaced by a brightness that foretold of things she didn’t want to hear, things she didn’t want to think about.
For a moment, she looked away, noticed the windows were open, and thought about how vulnerable they were like this. But then she decided she didn’t care. If she died here, now, she’d be okay with that.
So she turned her focus back on him, on his hands caressing her face as he moved in her, on the tug and push inside her. She pulled him closer, eliciting a groan from him. Trying to keep her eyes on him, she fought the sensations he elicited, holding them at bay as best she could, but not very well. She came in a burst of sensation, not even knowing when he finished.
His forehead touched hers in a gesture that told it all: weariness, regret, love . . . fear that this might be the last good thing.
So she clung tightly to him and to the idea that it would all be okay. For just a few more minutes, she embraced the haziness only ever allowed with him, until the evening forced its way into her conscience. The window looked up onto a patch of pitch-colored sky. A bird called in the distance, shutting his business down for the night. A car went by on the street. The carpet felt rougher on her back than she expected it to; it nearly itched. The ceiling fan in the living room gave a slight thump with each rotation; someone had left it on too high a speed. Will—hot-blooded as ever—liked the fan on. Wanted the wind blowing. Said it was a joy after years of needing absolute silence to hear who might be coming up behind him.
He rolled to her side, punctuating the thought that the fan needed to be turned off. The years of silence were back.
Even here, naked in his arms on the floor, she’d still rather go back to before the fight and the yelling, to before she’d snuck into her own home and stalked her own husband.
His voice easily broke the fading spell. “I need you to leave. I need you to be safe or I can’t function.”
She pushed to a sitting position, her new bruises straining in protest. Lovely. “Why can’t you trust that I’ll be okay? I’m a fighter.”
He nodded. “I know that. I know it’s possible you’ll fight and you’ll win.” Will looked away from her and she wondered at the action until he spoke. “But did you fight them when you were eleven?”
Her body jerked. How could he even ask that? “Of course.”
His eyes were back to the gray of storm clouds, back to looking directly into her. “But you lost. You fought and you lost.”
“I was eleven.” How dare he? “I was small and weak and didn’t know how to fight.”
“And one man overpowered you!”
Planting her hands on the floor behind her, she pushed with the soles of her bare feet and scooted backward, an innate reaction to put space between her and the things he was saying. She jerked away in bursts of movement, her head shaking as she untangled the twisting knife of his words from the burning memories of that night, trying to push each into its proper compartment.
Will moved forward, just slightly, advancing too easily into the breach she had made. It felt as though they had used all the oxygen in the room and what was left was drifting out of her grasp. His words only made it feel more so. “What if there is more than one? What if they shoot you first and you’re wounded? What if someone gets one good strike to the back of your head and knocks you out? What if they take out your Achilles tendon?”
The oxygen was gone. She couldn’t breathe. He’d moved from hypotheticals to throwing back at her things she’d done to others. It would be the perfect revenge and made her gasp for air and hold her hand up to stop him from talking.
But he didn’t stop.
“Do you see now why I can’t have you here? I need you to leave. I need to know you are safe.” He stopped five inches from her face, his words all the force he needed.
Diana shook her head again, this time to fling the words away, or perhaps to shake the thoughts into place. But neither worked. Images and ideas swirled into a tornado, ripping away each solution she tried to grasp and hold onto. Still she knew one thing. “I can’t leave. Even if you stay . . .”
“They found you. It’s only a matter of time.”
“No.” Though she was in a position to take an extended unpaid leave, Nick and Reese would each follow up on her. They’d want to know where she was and how she was doing. It had been a mistake to make connections. Reese was sincere, only being a friend. Nick . . . who knew what Nick was? But neither would let her disappear after the shooting without some kind of accounting. And if Nick was into what they thought he was, he’d track her down. But the greater problem was that she couldn’t leave Will. “No. I won’t go.”
Will looked at her. Into her.
She saw and heard him take a deep breath and knew he was going to rip out her heart. With no outward movement, she braced for the blow. He saw it. He knew her well enough to see what no one else would. And it didn’t stop him.
“I can’t give them the opportunity to use you against me. It’s bad for both of us. If you won’t leave, then I will.”