Page 378 of Lars

“Everything we both know you did.”

I attempted to hang on to the last shred of my self-respect. “Why? You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

That was when Rachel pressed her gun into my crotch.

“You can die,” she said, “or you can die a few minutes after I shoot your cock off.”

“ALRIGHT! W-what do you want to know?!”

“You had me kill Solner,” Lars said, “but you told Rachel I was working for the Chinese.”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Out of curiosity, was he really working for the Chinese – or did you actually have me kill somebody who was helping MI6?”

“He was a Chinese asset! He wasn’t working for us, I swear!”

“So you lied to me,” Rachel snarled.

I turned my face to her and tried appealing to whatever tender feelings she might still harbor for me. “Darling, please – ”

I guess she didn’t harbor any because she punched me in the nose.

“GOD DAMMIT!” I howled.

“Then you had me arrested in Lake Como,” Lars said.

“Yes,” I said, wincing against the pain. I could feel blood trickling down the lower half of my face.

“What I don’t get is when I tried to call her, it said her number had changed – ”

“But I didn’t change my number,” Rachel finished.

My situation was hopeless.

These two psychopaths were going to kill me – that much was clear –

Why bother trying to appease them?

So I laughed. Laughed with all the contempt and hatred I felt for both of them.

“All I did was reroute any calls from Italy to her mobile number. I included the Netherlands – your friend in Amsterdam – just to be safe. You think that was difficult? It was fucking child’s play.”

Rachel frowned. “You couldn’t do it – you have no idea how to do something like that!”

“I had one of the techs do it for me!” I said, then laughed. “I told him I was trying to intercept a terrorist’s phone calls!”

“All so you could have her,” Lars said contemptuously, like I was the world’s biggest fool.

“What was the alternative?” I snarled. “Watch some Neanderthal fuck her?”

Maybe it was the pain –

Maybe it was the humiliation –

Maybe it was that I still loved her, deep down, despite her treachery –

But I snapped.

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