Page 89 of A Labor of Hate
So much about the timing of this assignment suddenly made sense.How we’d had a breakthrough after literalyearsofLe Chimistebeing an urban legend.A ghost in the wind.Did that mean the Lamaze classes were designed to be our opening from the start?
“So you suspected us from the start?”I gestured to my bump.“Because we’ve had to take some pretty drastic measures, which I am going to betickedabout if you knew from day one.”
He glanced at my tummy, his lips twitching like Colt’s often did when he fought a smile.“Actually, no.The possibility seemed too absurd, for one, and for two, you were incredibly convincing as a couple.It wasn’t until you came to their house for dinner and looked at each camera exactly once and never again, even by accident, that I reconsidered.Add in the way Maksim and Dante started acting toward you after the tango class, and I figured it was worth tracking down the woman from the burger place and getting her side of the story.”
I sniffed, slightly mollified.At least my diligence with this hunk of silicone hadn’t beencompletelywasted.
“I take it Charles is looking to make a deal?”Colt asked, speaking up for the first time since Gavin dropped the proverbial bomb on us.He arched a brow and freed his hand from mine to cross his arms.The wind ruffled through his hair.A distant car honked.“Regardless of whether he has been coerced, he broke the law before then, too.People have died because of what he’s made.”
I grimaced.My chest burned like I’d pressed Colt’s clothes iron against my bare skin.Dominick.He’d been a casualty of one of Charles’ first batches.
Colt sent me a look, so quick I nearly missed it, or the understanding written in the crease of his brow.“What does he offer in exchange for getting him out?
Colt hated making deals.I’d seen it countless times in interrogations.Deals were instrumental in catching the bigger fish, but he hated having to let the smaller fish swim away with only a slap on its fishy little wrist.It wasn’t just, but it was essential.A necessary evil—one he was considering doing now.It was probably delusion talking, but I hoped our discussions had influenced his decision.
He and Gavin hashed out the details.Charles, in his infinite paranoia and strategizing, had enough evidence to put awaya lotof heinous people for a very long time.It would be the biggest breakthrough of the year.The decade, even.
I fought the sting of tears, my throat tight and my shoulders lighter than they’d been in weeks.There was a third door after all.A happy ending for the targets I’d come to care about.It was such a rare, impossible thing.Nearly unheard of.But in a world riddled with darkness and depravity, occasionally the Greater Good ended up being just that.
Good.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
Lex’s FinalTop Secret Mental Log: Undercover Assignment Days 29-40:
McBride accepted the deal in negative zero-point-two seconds, surprising no one.
Vivienne yo-yoed between relief and outrage when she found out our real identities.She punched me in the arm, surprisingly strong for someone so small.Ultimately, though, relief won out, and she collapsed into a heap on the bathroom floor of the coffee shop, crying for the better life baby Matisse could have now.Even I got misty-eyed, which I promptly blamed on fake-pregnancy hormones.
Colt was understandably miffed about how I’d handled revealing our identities to Gavin.I did something I’ve slowly gotten better at since starting this assignment: I apologized.He’d admitted that he understood why I’d done it and that I couldn’t warn him at the time even if I’d tried.I’m starting to think Vivienne was right about this whole apologizing thing.Charles wasdefinitelyright about how sweet making up is.
Three days before Charles was supposed to hand off the latest cocktail to his “customers,” he and Vivienne went out to lunch at a steakhouse.Her water conveniently “broke” after they finished eating.On their way out of the restaurant, two strangers who looked exactly like Isaiah and Max conveniently distracted and distanced the bodyguards from Charles and Vivienne.In the parking lot, a car driven by a stranger who looked exactly like my squadmate Rowan conveniently kept the guards from catching up to the Gauthiers sooner.To all onlookers, it appeared as if the Gauthiers got into their car, only for it to explode seconds later with them still inside.Only a select few know that Charles and Vivienne were already en route to meet with the US Marshals by the time McBride and I, the decoys, got into the Gauthiers’ SUV.Charles and Vivienne are already elsewhere in the country with new identities and a fresh start.
“YOU KNOW” —I taped the moving box shut, grimacing at the ripping sound— “I think I’m going to miss this house.”
Colt looked up from organizing the last of the kitchen’s contents into our respective boxes and quirked an eyebrow.“Just the house?”
I blushed, hefting the box into my haphazard cluster of boxes in the living room before returning to fill another box in the kitchen.Tonight was our last night in the house before the moving truck came tomorrow.We’d go back to our real lives.Our real, separate lives, where the relationship we’d started could fizzle out or implode under the change in circumstances.Where, if it did, I’d still have to see him every day.Sit across from him and pretend I hadn’t fallen in love with him.
I waspetrified.
“I mean, I’ll miss having all this space and home-cooked meals that don’t taste like charcoal.”I sent him a coy smile.“And spending all my free time with you, too, I guess.”
He chuckled before returning to his meticulous packing.Even though we’d destroyed the listening devices after Charles and Vivienne’s great escape, when Colt broke the silence, his voice was nearly a whisper.“I’m… not sure I want to go back.Not to the way things were before.”
“Like constantly pestering and trying to one-up each other?”I teased, even while my chest ached at the reality facing us.“It’s okay to admit you didn’t hate my pranks as much as you let on.I won’t tell anyone.”
The utensils clinked together as he packed them.He sent me an unimpressed look, though his lips twitched.“That isn’t what I meant.”
“And yet, you don’t deny it.Interesting.”
“I most definitelydodeny it.You are an agent of chaos.”He smiled softly and met my eyes, his own radiating warmth.“My very own thunderstorm.”
My heartrate picked up in that pure, innocent way he managed to elicit.I unfolded another box and set to packing my DVD collection.“Do you think you’ll still like the lightning—messiness and all?When the storm follows you back to the real world?”
He studied me in that quiet, calculating way of his.I toyed with the idea of pretending I didn’t notice or maybe changing the topic.But I didn’t.I studied him in return, with all the vulnerability written in my features.No more masks with him.
As much practice as I’d gotten wearing my heart on my sleeve for him lately, as much as I knew I wanted to love him so much that I’d risk losing myself if I lost him, it didn’t make iteasy.It took effort.But if he could spontaneously cook chicken on a Tuesday simply because he knew it was my favorite, then I could take a page out of his playbook, too.I could love with intention.
