“You found out who killed your mother,” he whispers.
A sheen of tears shines against her eyes. She swallows, quiet for a beat as she seems to gather her strength.
“It was Will,” she whispers back.
Will did it.
Ari suddenly thinks of what she once told him, that she joined Grand Central in order to save her mother, because they were desperate for money. He remembers her pale, withdrawn face in the days after her mother’s accident, and how helpless he felt in his attempts to comfort her.
The things they did for the people they love. The consequences that haunt them. And yet, even now, Ari thinks back and wonders how they could have done anything differently. Had he known, how could he have refused Rudra when the man took him from India? How could Sam have saved herself and her mother, if it weren’t for the syndicates? What other options were there? What choices do you have, when you have nothing? The universe had placed them on a path that was doomed from the start, and they had simply followed it.
Until now.
“Sam,” he whispers, “you can’t do this.”
“They aren’t invincible.”
“Neither are you. They’re going to kill you.”
“I’m not going to be acting alone.”
“Do you really think the police are going to move against Grand Central?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because you helped make sure the police chief is in Lumines’s pocket.” She nods at him. “And it will be very much in Lumines’s interest to see Grand Central fall, once your mayoral candidate wins.”
He studies her gaze. “What did you give them?”
“What I could get my hands on. Enough to cut off the head. A start.”
“Sam—”
“I’m going to do it,” she whispers. “But I need your help.”
He shakes his head once. “Don’t.”
“Please, Ari.”
Now there is desperation in her voice, an urgency that tells him she has already set too much in motion. He looks at her face. She glances up at the security camera again. They must not have much time left in here. Ari can feel the risk growing with every second they speak. Sam is suggesting the impossible, but in his chest, he starts to feel the sensation that perhaps it is possible. That perhaps she has found a way for them to escape their fates, that the two of them can find a path out of this.
Sam gives him a look that reminds him of her as a young girl. She rests both hands on the chair’s armrests and leans toward him. “Ari,” she murmurs. Her voice falters for a moment before she goes on. “What you told me that night, on the beach.”
He knows she’s talking about his confession to her. That he loves her.
She swallows hard, as if she can’t bring herself to say more, and tries again.
“Ari,” she whispers, like her heart is breaking. “Ari, it’s always been you.”
An ache builds in his chest. It is his soul, trying in vain to reach her, to find some way to comfort her, to tell her that he knows, he has always known, he has waited for her all his life. And behind the grief he has caused her, behind the grief she has caused him, he sees a fragment of that girl stillintact, as beautiful as she ever was, looking back at him in a way that tells him she is really here.
She leans nearer. His lashes lower, his lips part. This close, he can sense the life in her, the million complexities that make up the living body of a human, the beating of her heart and the blood warm in her veins, the air that comes and goes, and the soul, the soul above all, powering her life from within. She is as bright as the sun.
Her lips are trembling slightly. They graze one side of his mouth with the lightest brush, like a butterfly. He barely feels her, but a shiver rips through him. He is so sensitive to her touch that it almost hurts. She lifts away, then brushes the other side of his mouth with the touch of a ghost.God. She’s real.He closes his eyes at the exquisite agony of her. She comes to rest against the top of his lips, then the bottom, her breath faint and warm against his skin. As she goes, he leans gently in the direction of her kisses. He can hardly breathe, afraid to move too much lest he breaks the moment. His entire body is on fire; he tingles at every touch.
She pauses to fix her gaze on his. Then her eyes flutter closed, and her lips are on his at last.
