Page 84 of The Company We Keep

The weight of it was so heavy in Carrow’s mind that he looked for anything else to think about.

Of course there was the penthouse to consider — the whole future of The Company to ponder over.

It wasmid-morning before Carrow registered the fact that he hadn’t changed his clothes since the day before. He was still covered in grime and grease and bloodspatter. He shuffled through the things in the safehouse closet, trying to find the least offensive garments. Everything was hopelessly strange, and he settled on soft shorts and a plain, ancient-looking t-shirt before heading to the bathroom attached to his suite.

There was something wrong with the showerhead in the old stall, and so he ran a bath.

Instantly, he was back in that bathroom with Dust in March.

The night was still fresh in his mind.

He hadn’t revisited it since the events of the day before. But now he understood — all of the pieces falling into place. Dust hadn’t been morose in the week after the bank job because Carrow had shot his Abe ally.

He had beenterrifiedthat AIIB was going to ruin his life with The Company.

It explained the next night, too. The strange questions. The suggestion that everything would be safer if Carrow could buy them new identities and a place to start over.

Those weren’t the desires of someone who planned to betray him. There was no cunning in it. That was the wish of someone who was running scared.

Dusthadwanted a life with him. It was impossible to deny it.

Carrow let his body sag into the tub. He scrubbed his skin. His chest felt hollow.

Despite everything Dust had been and every lie he had told, the things he wanted for them had been real.

That’s why I watch the sun set — that’s why I had to kiss you that first day. We are not our pasts, and we can only live in the present. The choice we make today is all that matters.

They’d only had a year together.

The grief that flooded Carrow was overwhelming, suffocating. He couldn’t keep thinking about this. Dust had been a traitor — he had lied. What good did it do to forgive him now? It was easier to hate him. Anything else was liable to destroy Carrow.

He hardened his heart and didn’t stop scrubbing until his skin was angry and raw.

Leta scrapeda meal of pasta together for dinner from the cans and boxes in the cupboard. No one had an appetite, andthe five of them sat under the dim light in the dining room, pushing the pasta and sauce around on their plates like a band of pouting children.

There was no real reason for them to spend a second night at the safehouse. Police had probably dismantled their entire garage by now, but there was no chance they’d made it into the ruined penthouse.

Maybe they should’ve returned home that night to start sorting through the wreckage. There were bodies to deal with, discrete contractors to hire. There was so goddamnedmuchto do back at the penthouse, and they had no protocol for how to deal with things when they’d been attacked in their own home. Nobody could bring themselves to talk about going back there, Carrow included.

He had spent the day alone, considering what to do. He’d come to his conclusion by noon, but couldn’t quite bring himself to form the words, to tell the others.

But there at the dinner table, he couldn’t continue to ignore the writing on the wall. He had to come clean.

“The Company is disbanding,” Carrow said, forcing finality into his voice. “I’ll pay out all of the shares of what you’ve earned with me. It’s enough for you to all start over wherever you want — buy new identities, maybe, and escape all of this. You’ll never have to work again, if you don’t want to.”

“What?”

The first protest came from Leta, who slapped her fork down onto her plate with such force that she almost upended the dish onto the table.

“You’re shitting me, Carrow,” she said, sounding furious.

“This is the end. Emerson was right — at least in that regard. We’re broken.”

“I’mnot goddamn broken,” Vashvi cut in, sounding even angrier than Leta.

“I won’t see you hurt. I’m not doing this again.”

“You’re abandoning us, then?” Wayles asked.

---