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Rhea sees something else first. She’s a part-time photographer, and she notices things. The bite on my neck that’s making a little line of scabs. The bruises on my throat. The puffy, pink eyes. “What happened?” she gasps, clutching her chest with one hand and reaching to cup my face with the other.

They’re natural parents. Lazarus is lucky. Their future baby is lucky.

I can’t believe I ever thought of hurting them, and that shows me how right he is.

“Lazarus has a price on his head, and I’m the hitwoman sent to collect it.” I don’t mince words as I offer up the laptop.

Rhea’s hands falter, her eyes take on a whole different look, and the conclusions she leapt to when viewing my bruises have a new meaning. “My baby!” she chokes out, falling to her knees, laptop and catalog dropping with her.

“Oh! No, I—”

Manny’s hand is on the back of my neck, picking me up like a kitten as he roars out, “What have you done to my boy?”

“Nothing!” I shriek, and my ass kisses the concrete.

“Start talking!” Rhea demands, lunging towards me.

Like I could get away.

“Pazcuso, the person who made Lazarus? He wants him returned. I’m his hired gun. Assassin. Killer. Hitwoman. Whatever,” I try to get up, and then consider what might happen if I do.

I’m going to stay on the ground. Shorter distance to fall.

“You’re what?” Manny looks at me and practically recoils, like a big lion afraid of a little half-dead mouse.

“I should say, I was those things. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I won’t hurt Lazarus. But uh... I did tell him the whole truth last night. He found out some things and put them together. He’s smart. He insults himself all the time, but Lazarus is nothing like he thinks. He’s handsome, and kind, and a good man.” My voice gets louder with every word. “He saved my life, and he didn’t have to. When he found out who I was... Uh. He was mad. You’re going to have to repair a few things in the upstairs apartment,” I conclude with a lame little gesture towards the building.

Manny and Rhea exchange a look.

“Inside?” Manny asks.

“Inside,” she nods.

They had a whole conversation in one word, and I’m jealous.

I want my other half. Someone broken and messy as me. Someone who could be healed and whole with me. Like these two.

Now probably isn’t the time for sweet, soppy deep thoughts, though, not as Manny hoists me up and carries me inside like a sack of old clothes.

Yep. This is how I die.

OR NOT.

Not unless death has a pre-game ritual of two concerned faces radiating parental concern mingled with disapproval as they stare at you while giving you a hot cup of coffee and a toaster pastry on a plate with a faded floral design.

“Start at the beginning. How did you become a... a hired gun?” Rhea picks the term she can stand the best, I guess, and her eyes keep moving from my throat to the side of my neck.

“I worked as a waitress. I was putting myself through school, but school wasn’t my thing. I would do a course here, a course there. I didn’t have a major. I didn’t have one of those homes that prioritized studying. I had a mother who wasn’t always much of a mom. She had me young, and she mainly wanted to do her own things when I got old enough to be left alone. Not knocking her parenting. That didn’t turn me into a killer. I’m just... I’m just saying, young, pretty girls can make stupid choices when they don’t have some kind of a goal. I was waitressing in a couple different places. The places with the worst clientele tipped the best, so I started taking more shifts there, to get to the bigger tippers. Mafia guys. Crime lords. I got to be ‘popular’ with a few men who regarded sex with a pretty waitress as a favorite extracurricular activity, and it paid way more than waiting tables. One of those guys was Frank Bocella, a mob boss. Do you want me to keep going?”

I don’t know how I’m going. I just keep talking. I can hear my voice, and I can hear the words as they connect the dots, paint the picture, whatever, but I don’t feel anything.

Rhea’s hand slides across the table and takes mine. “Eat something, sweetie,” she says.

Sweetie. She calls me sweetie.

I sniff in hard.

I’m not going to cry. Not right now.