He closes his eyes.
I look at Gunner. I nod.
Gunner moves. One hand goes to the holster at his hip, unhurried. The weapon is a Sig, matte black, nothing spectacular. He crosses the room in four steps and does what he was brought here to do, and I hold my eyes open, because that's what I owe Jimmy: not mercy, not absolution, just the honesty of witnessing what I ordered. It is quick. The movies lie about this. Death isn't theatrical. It's just a man in a chair, and then it isn't.
For a moment nobody moves.
Then Wren turns and looks at me. Her face pale, her eyes clear, and what passes between us is acknowledgment. This is my life. Our life.
"Clean it up," I tell Gunner.
He's already moving. Doesn't look at either of us. Just does the work.
I take her hand.
We go upstairs, toward the light.
In my office, the monitors dark, the files where I left them, cold coffee from this morning on the corner of the desk.
She sits on the edge of it — same place she always perches, like it's an old agreement between them. I stand near the window.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
She takes her time with it. Doesn't reach for the automatic answer.
"I'm not sure," she says. "But I'm not sorry I was there."
That's enough. More than enough.
The quiet sits between us. Then she shifts on the desk's edge.
"He was wrong, you know. About you two being the same."
I look at her.
"He stopped caring about people." Her voice is even. "You never did. That's not a small distinction."
"I could have ended up where he did."
"You didn't." She meets my eyes. "That's the only version that happened."
I hold her gaze. The accountant in me wants to argue — could have, might have, the counterfactual laid out neatly. She sees me about to do it.
"Don't," she says.
I don't.
She's right. Not because the other version wasn't possible — it was, I've always known it was — but because it didn't happen. The only ledger that matters is the one that actually exists.
After a moment she says, "What happens now? With the Zayas still out there."
"We rebuild. Strengthen what got exposed."
"And that Santiago psycho?"
There's nothing reassuring to say, and she knows it, and she's not asking for reassurance. She's asking for the truth.
"We stay alert. We don't make it easy for him."
