Turn back time, and stop this from happening! he demanded of the universe.
Like always, the universe ignored him.
“The way you crack your jaw…” Her voice was hoarse. “The way you walk and make love and…”
Boss cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. Both Ghost and Rock looked away, unable to watch while Angel’s whole world imploded like a dying star.
“The scar on your hip where Mark’s birthmark used to be,” she continued. “I convinced myself all of it was coincidence, but this…” She shook her head. Then she firmed her jaw, looked him straight in the eye and demanded, “Who are you?”
Angel desperately racked his brain for a way to put the cat back in the bag. But the only solution he could come up with involved doubling down on his lies, convincing her she didn’t know what she was talking about.
Convincing her she’s crazy.
He looked over at his teammates, at men who worked in the dark but lived their lives in the light. Men who had dared to open the treasure chests of their hearts and show their women all the shining secrets inside. Each of them was an example of the kind of man he wanted to be. Each of their relationships was a gold standard to which he aspired, and he realized that not only was the jig up, but also that he was sort of relieved it was.
He was tired of deception. Tired of pretending he was someone he wasn’t.
As much as the truth terrified him, he could finally admit that it was time. Time to step out of the shadows and into the sun. Time to stop hiding.
“Who are you?” she demanded again.
“I think you know who I am. I think, deep in your heart, you have known who I am from the beginning.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. Tears filled her eyes.
“Sonya, please…” He softened his voice and reached for her again. Again, she wrenched her wrist from his grip. There were no words to describe how badly her rejection stung. It sliced him to the bone. Deeper. To his soul.
“M-Mark?”
He swallowed. How he’d yearned to hear her call him by his given name. Now it sounded obscene in her mouth. “Yes.”
“No.” She shook her head, her eyes wild as she tried to deny the truth. The truth that he’d lied to her. The truth that he’d left her. “No. You can’t be.”
“And yet I am.” To convince her, to squash any chance she had at hiding from reality, he added, “And after all these years, I remember everything about us, about you. I remember how your lips tasted of wine and chocolate the first time we kissed in that doorway in the rain. I remember how pale your skin looked in the moonlight that shined in through the window of your bedroom in your Montmartre flat. I remember how terrified you were the night you told me you loved me. And I remember the joy that lit your gorgeous eyes when I told you that I loved you too. Sonya…” His voice cracked, but he had to get this last bit out. It was important. Perhaps it was the most important thing he’d ever done. Ever said. “I’m so sorry. If I could go back and—”
“But I saw you die!” she cried, cutting him off. “I saw that bomber shoot you through the heart!”
“You were never meant to be there that day.”
She slapped her hands against the sides of her head as if she feared her brain might explode out of her ears. “What are you talking about?” Anguish had turned her voice into a harsh shriek that echoed shrilly across the open parking lot. “I don’t understand any of this!”
“Angel.” Boss’s expression was pained. “We have to hurry. Rusty, he needs—”
“Right.” Angel nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “You all go on. We’ll be right behind you.”
Rock and Ghost shot him commiserating looks—well, Rock did; Ghost was harder to read—before they grabbed Grafton’s elbows and frog-marched him toward the far tree line. Grafton glanced over his shoulder, an evil light shining in his eyes. He was happy to see Angel in pain.
Boss slapped him upside the head, snarling, “Turn around, you sorry piece of shit.” Then, Boss grumbled to Rock. “And you… Nice work, WikiLeaks.”
“Damn,” Rock whispered. “I had no idea. I thought…” His words trailed off as the quartet moved out of the range.
Slowly, Angel turned back to Sonya. The decimated look in her eyes was too much. He’d never been a coward before, but he was a coward then. Skirting past her, he bent and searched the pockets of Grafton’s dead driver until he found a set of car keys.
Without looking at her—unable to look at her—he said, “We should go. A man’s life is on the line and—”
She didn’t let him finish, simply stepped over the corpse and opened the car’s passenger door. He was left with no recourse but to follow suit. As they sat in silence inside the sedan, waiting to tail the BKI team to the private airstrip, he wondered if it might have been better had he never come back into her life.
Sure, she would still be mourning him. But perhaps his death was better, easier to deal with than the knowledge he’d abandoned and deceived her.
