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“Somebody cleared the last of Ferro’s debts nine days ago, the day after we snatched the head off.” He watches my face. “Bought the vans, the leases, all three showrooms. Through a company registered in Panama. Clean money that someone moved fast.” A beat. “Quietly. The way we’d do it.”

I stop wiping my hands.

Ferro’s is finished. Nothing left to move, no route to move it on, and the main actors who ran it are dead in this room. The name’s worth nothing now. Whoever paid off those debts bought an empty company, a few hearses, and four jobs that opened up tonight.

“Scavengers,” Rafe offers, because he can see I’ve gone somewhere. “There’s always someone to buy a dead man’s shoes.”

Maybe. Except somebody had the money sitting ready inside a day, and knew exactly what they were buying before the ash went cold. I’ve spent my whole life being the man with the money ready who knows exactly what he’s buying. So I know the look of it when it’s somebody else.

And Patrick, who had no reason left to lie, went to his grave swearing he never knew who paid him for Greg. Somebody outside Ferro had money ready a year ago too. I don’t think that’s two different people.

“Find out who,” I say. “Be careful. Don’t spook it. This isn’t worth losing men over yet.”

“And the room?”

“Matteo gets a proper burial.” I look at the other four. “The rest go through the usual doors. No names, no stones. The way they’d have done me.”

Rafe nods and goes to make the calls.

I stay a while longer, alone in a room full of caskets and the men I put in them. I finished a war tonight with my own two hands, and blame or no blame, there is not one thing I wouldn’t have done to the men who came after what’s mine. Whatever ethical line other men have, I don’t have it.

And the woman who taught me that about myself, the one who lit the match that started all of this, is probably asleep right now, or at work, oblivious to everything.

Her choice.

I could go find her before the blood dries on me. I could track her down… but the promises I made to her matter.

As weariness sets in to embrace the emptiness, I am fully aware I’d do it all again tomorrow. For her. Whether she’s with me or not.

CHAPTER 35

Manon

John's a good man. That's the whole problem with tonight, if I'm honest, there is nothing actually wrong with him. He booked a restaurant you have to call weeks ahead to get into, he pulled out my chair, asked how my day had been and then he actually listened to the answer. He's easy on the eyes, and on top of that he laughs at his own jokes in a way I'd probably find charming if I were a different woman. Or the same woman way over a year and a half ago.

I lost a patient this afternoon so it’s one of those days. A man not much older than my father. I scrubbed out, got changed, and came straight to the restaurant, because Daphne spent months pushing me to go on a date and tonight I finally let one happen, just to prove I could. I'm proving the opposite.

So here I am, on the worst night I've had in months, sitting across from someone kind yet completely wrong. The only thing I can think about is that when I used to come home like this, wrung out and silent, Laszlo would crouch down and take my shoes off without asking me a single thing. He always knew when I didn't have the words in me. He'd pour me a drink, carry me to the shower, and then he'd leave me alone until I was ready to talk. He never once made me explain myself first or went out of his way to cheer me up.

My date is telling me a story about his sister's wedding. It's a perfectly nice story. I'm nodding in all the right places but it’s all instinctual as I stopped listening a while ago. Somewhere between the wine he chose and the dessert he wants me to try, I finally understand that I've been lying to myself for a year.

Today I dragged all my feelings for Laszlo right into dinner with a good man to tell myself they were dead. Instead, they just sat there in my chest the entire night, patient, waiting for me to stop pretending.

I put my napkin on the table. I tell him I'm sorry, that I had a very bad day today and never should have come.

"It's not you, John," I say. I think he gets what I mean. He's gracious about it, which somehow makes me feel worse than if he'd been angry.

Then I'm out on the street in the cold, holding my coat closed, and get in the car. I don't drive home. I can't be on my own tonight, yet I can't sit across from one more person who isn't him, so I drive to my mother's. My mother’s different. I don't even care that my father might be there. I'll avoid him.

It's been a year. A long, miserable, exhausting year without the man I still love. No matter what I do, this is the constant in my life. I would have thought Laszlo Novak wouldn't be capable of keeping his promise to me. But he has, and every day I wish he hadn't. I'm going crazy with this grief that won't go away. After all this time, he might have moved on. Maybe he finally let me go.

I never thought that being free of him would feel like the earth crumbled beneath my feet. Maybe at first, yes, but not now. I pushed him not to contact me and got exactly what I asked for.

The more time passes, the worse it gets. I’ve had panic attacks, to the point that they interfered with my work. I’ve taken more sick days this year than ever before. I stopped sleeping properly. I lie awake and keep reliving what happened. I stopped eating like a normal person. These days I have coffee for breakfast, instant soup for dinner, and a slice of toast over the sink when my body finally complains loud enough.

The thing I can't say to anyone, including Daphne, is that I miss him like crazy. I don't miss the surveillance or the control, but God, his presence… The way he'd take care of me when I came home too tired to speak. The way he'd pick some silly fight over nothing just to watch me come back to life. I was in love with a man who had watched me like something he'd hunted all his life, and he'd finally set me loose. Half the nights this past year I've wanted to call him and scream at him to come and take it all back. Take me back.

So I did the only thing I could to stop myself from going over the edge: I ran. I took every day of leave I was owed and went on a three-week trip to Italy and France. I went to places I've wanted to visit my whole life and felt nothing. As I stood in front of the Foro Romano and the Mona Lisa, I kept waiting for something to click, to change. But I kept turning to say something to him, and he wasn't there. So I cried and cried and cried. I came home in an even worse state than when I left.