Because there’s only one man I know who would word it exactly like that.
Blunt. Cold. Efficient.
Like there’s no room for emotion.
Like emotion never wrecked us both.
I force myself to move again, crossing the street with the crowd, every instinct screaming at me to change direction, vanish, disappear into another country before sunrise.
That’s what I should do.
That’s what the old me would do.
But the old me didn’t spend eight years clawing her way out of a grave someone else dug.
The old me didn’t find out the people signing patriot speeches with one hand were funding slaughter with the other.
And the old me definitely didn’t have Ethan Cross’s ghost suddenly texting her from the dark.
I cut through an alley, check my corners, switch pace, double back once.
No tail.
Good.
Or bad.
With men like the ones chasing me, no tail usually means the kill shot comes first.
By the time I reach the bridge, the sky is still black, the river below it smooth and dark as oil.
No movement.
No obvious surveillance.
Too clean.
I hate too clean.
I step onto the bridge anyway.
Halfway across, a figure steps from the shadows.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Still as stone.
For one insane second my body forgets the years and remembers everything else.
His hands on my body.
His mouth against mine.
The sound of his voice in the dark, telling me to stay down while gunfire tore through concrete.
Ethan.
