It’s the strangest thing. All these years, I wanted to make up for what happened to her. Now I’m going to get my chance at last. My job isn’t predicting behavior but it does depend on it. Funny, I never would have guessed it would end up like this.
“The Don has the details of where your parents are buried,” I say as I realize I’m getting lost in my thoughts. “I’ll get that information out of him before he dies, I swear it to you.”
“There was me thinking you didn’t like the cussing. What’s the plan then?”
“I’m thinking we tell Walter that we’ve got the negative and the necklace and that we’re willing to hand them over in person as long as the Don brings Imelda to the meet. We wait for him to come. Take him out.” I don’t tell her the important part. That I’m going to sacrifice myself in this. Kill the Don, get killed by his personal bodyguards. Leave her the only survivor with the knowledge and evidence to take Blizzard down for good.
“That’s your plan?” she asks.
“You have a problem?” Shit, has she worked out what I’m going to do when I get close to Umberto?
“What if the Don doesn’t come? What if he sends an army to come and get the stuff instead?”
“I take them all out.”
“I’ve no doubt you’re good at your job but even you have your limits.” She shakes her head. “I have a better idea.”
And that’s it. This, right here, as she explains her plan to me, is the moment I realize I love her.
All because she’s come up with a plan that never even occurred to me. The more I think about what she says, the more right she sounds. If we pull it off, it’ll be a miracle but it’ll also solve every single one of our problems. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to have our happy ending after all.
Get it wrong and this time tomorrow, I’ll be dead and the Don will be tossing Chloe alive into a freshly dug grave.
I lean forward and kiss her. “What was that for?” she asks.
“In case we never get a chance again.”
“I have faith in you.” She smiles, stroking my arm. “You can do anything.”
I hope she’s right. Otherwise, we’re both dead.
32
CHLOE
* * *
Ifinally get to call Maisie. It’s good to hear her voice, a flash of normality in a world turned utterly upside down.
What does it say that I’ve fallen in love with the worst possible choice in the entire world? I’d have been better off with Jeb and his notebook or Andrew and his lies. Hell, I’d have been best off sticking with Old Faithful and never leaving the house.
I couldn’t confront him about his revelations. Despite everything he told me, I couldn’t tell him to go fuck himself for a couple of reasons.
One, he’s clearly my best shot at staying alive since the shit hit the fan. Two, I can tell how much pain he’s in. It explains that agony behind his eyes, the way he fought himself every time he spoke to me when he first came to Shallow Falls. He’s been carrying this pain for decades. A memory of what he almost did, of what he failed to do.
He couldn’t protect me back then. He did his best but I’ve done the math. He was a kid himself. Just a teenager who’d had a shitty upbringing and was willing to sacrifice his own happiness to make sure his sister was safe. A Valjean for the modern era. Just a much more dangerous one.
I saw the weight lifting from him as he talked, the way he grew lighter from getting everything off his chest. I know there’s something else he’s keeping from me, some pain even deeper than all this he’s been going through already. I’m not going to push him, not now. It’ll come out sooner or later, I’m sure of it.
When did I work out I loved him? Before or after he’d said he was sent to kill me? I think it was before but maybe all this is just Stockholm Syndrome. Time will tell, I guess.
The priority right now isn’t working out what’s going on with us. We can look at that if we’re still alive in a couple of days. Do the whole, is this a relationship thing?
He didn’t get my parents killed. That much is obvious. Despite how he blames himself for what happened. He clearly did the best he could under impossible circumstances.
Now he’s got a chance to make everything right. Take out the man who ordered the hit. The Don. A figure I’ve never met yet one I feel I’d know at once if I saw him.
I look out at Enzo when Maisie answers the phone. He’s swinging an ax over by the woodshed, sending one log flying after another, splitting them down the middle with pinpoint accuracy. He’s got his top off and is coated with sweat. He looks a lot like he’s trying to forget everything he told me, and lose himself in physical exhaustion.