Page 288 of Lars

Only I knew he had admitted his love for the woman he now held in his arms.

Only I knew that he had called her the One –

And only I knew he had told me that if I had to choose, I was to save her, even if it cost him his life.

Neither Dario nor Alessandra – or anyone else besides me – had any idea how close it had been.

Just a half-second more –

If the Turk had fired his gun before I did –

But then Alessandra hugged me and broke me out of my dark reverie, and I laughed as relief washed through my body.

A lot more happened in the chaotic moments that followed.

The old servant woman trying to kill Dario…

Alessandra shooting her instead…

And the revelation that the old woman had poisoned and killed Leonardo, Dario’s father.

I beat myself up in the weeks that followed, telling myself that I should have seen the old woman’s gun.

I should have been the one to shoot her instead of making Alessandra shoulder that burden.

Dario reassured me that he didn’t care. I had succeeded in the one thing that mattered.

More than anything, one moment stood out the most starkly in my memory:

Dario grasping me by the shoulder as he said, I knew you could do it.

That’s why I entrusted it to YOU.

PART VI

138

Lars

Present Day

Ididn’t know why, but Dario’s words from the night I shot the Turk kept coming back to me:

I knew you could do it.

That’s why I entrusted it to YOU.

That was what I heard in my head as I raced onto the lawn…

As I shouldered my rifle and looked through the scope…

As I watched the assassin scale the stone wall and jump over the other side, out of sight…

And when I didn’t pull the trigger.

I knew you could do it.

That’s why I entrusted it to YOU.

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