Notyouwill.
Yet somehow, she got the feeling that was the point.
He wasn’t asking her to remember lines.
He was telling her something.
And that something wasn’t good.
“Why are you saying this to me Isaac?”
“Because you will go on living, honey.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re not going anywhere.”
She pushed against his chest, then.
But he was holding her weirdly tight.
Much too tight, for him.
“You know I am. You heard what I promised the people who still worry that you’ll talk, who still think it was you who shot him, not me, not an accident. Who think me being with you is a reason to silence you forever. And once I do what I have to do to them, it’s unlikely I’ll be coming back.”
“Then I’ll stop you. You know I’ll stop you.”
“No you won’t,” he said.
Though, still, she didn’t expect him to do anything. She didn’t for a second imagine that he’d tighten his hold—not enough to hurt, but enough to tell her exactly what he was doing. He was cutting off the circulation, from her throat to her neck. Just a little, but a little did something very particular, she knew. It put you to sleep.
Holy fuck, he was putting her to sleep.
Isaac, she tried to scream, hands scrabbling at his grip.
But it was too late. It was too late.
Oh god, it was already too late.
* * *
She waited for three days, in his apartment. Three days of frantic calls to Letty, to make sure she stayed safe at Tate’s parents’ house. Three days of being sure this Smith character was going to bust in at any moment, and kill her. But mostly, three days of knowing Isaac was probably dead. If things had gone in his favor, he would have returned straight away. He would have called her and said he was fine. He would have let her know somehow, that everything was okay.
Yet still, she tried to keep hoping. She scanned the news, looking for hints of what he might have done and who he might have done it to. She searched his name, and the name of the man he’d mentioned.SmithandIsaac Morales, she tried, then only later realized that neither were probably accurate.
Smith was too simple for someone who ran some kind of crime empire.
And Isaac Morales was likely an alias. It had to be, really. How could he have given her his actual one, given the life he led? She could have blurted it to the wrong person, and then he would have been fucked.
But god, it made her furious to realize it.
It made her root through his cupboards and throw things off his shelves, sure that she was doing it to find something. Some hint of the real him, some answer to all the questions she still had, some sign that he was really a bad guy. He had lied for his own ends, she told herself. He had made it all up, just to get what he wanted.
Though even as she did it, she knew she was being a fool.
She knew before she even found the book, nestled between encyclopedias.
It was copy ofGreen Eggs and Ham, of all things, obviously loved and near falling apart. And there, in the corner of the inside flap, was a scrawled message.
To Isaac, she read.All my love, mom.
