Page 110 of The Wolves Come at Night
“When?”
“Now. As soon as possible. Book the flights, and I’ll call my maid of honor.”
“What about Macallan? Your new job?”
“Oh, that’s not happening. In the end, I came to my senses. I have another idea.”
“Metro?”
“Nope. I’m done with that.”
“FBI?”
“Definitely not.” She laughed.
“Then what?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Which should be in about five hours. I love you, Baldwin. Let’s go get married.”
“It would be my honor,” he said, voice deep and rumbling, that tone that made her body tense in delicious anticipation. “I love you, Taylor. I’ll see you soon.”
She thumbed the Off button, then dialed a number she’d never dialed before. A woman answered, voice clipped and assured.
“Sky? This is Taylor Jackson.”
“Well hey, Taylor. What can I do for you?”
“You mentioned a job when we spoke last. I thought we could talk.”
Twenty minutes later, with meetings planned with Sky and her aunt Joy upon returning from her honeymoon, Taylor hung up and held the phone lightly, amazed at the peace stealing through her. She hadn’t lied when she told Angelie she wasn’t suited for her line of work. What she was good at, damn good, was investigating crimes. If she couldn’t do it for the police anymore, and wouldn’t do it for the spy world, it was time to do it for herself.
Her phone chirped with a text, and she looked down to see Marcus’s name on the screen.
I know you’re out of touch, but if you get near a TV? We got him.
There was a television embedded in the wall across the fuselage, and she turned it on. It was set to a twenty-four-hour cable news network, and the screen had a breaking-news alert Chyron spinning.
Music Man Serial Killer Apprehended
She turned up the volume, smiling.
Epilogue
The graves of the men who’ve wronged her are hidden deep in the forest, where they will never be found.
She walks there sometimes, just to reassure herself. Walks over their bones, each step a reminder of how they’d nearly bested her.
The château is finished now, the renovations years in the making helped along by a massive influx of cash. It’s easier to restore a château when you aren’t piecemealing it back together but instead can afford to have every decent craftsman in the area throw their backs into it.
She doesn’t know if she will be able to live here, so near the ghosts of her family. She has decided that she no longer wants to be sad. She wants to find a way to live a life. To move into the world without looking over her shoulder. No one knows where she is, but people talk. The rich-widow cover will only work for so long before someone from her old world gets suspicious.
If they’re looking for her.
The few remaining, the ones she trusts, swear no one is. That she’s in the clear.
But they, too, are in hiding. They, too, look over their shoulders.
This world, this château, these grounds, this restoration drawing to its conclusion, this is the life she’s chosen, though she never expected to live to see it to fruition.
But she has eliminated all of her enemies. And now, as she walks over their bones, she wondered if maybe, there is a chance for her, after all.
She owes her life to a woman half a world away. An enemy who became, in many ways, a friend.
The sun moves lower in the pink sky, and the fields of lavender beyond the edge of the forest wave it goodbye.
“C’est impossible.”
The assassin straightens her shoulders with a sigh and leaves the forest of the dead.
She cannot afford friends.
