But he was much faster than me. He tackled me near the sewer pipe and we went sprawling to the ground. I kicked and bit and spat. I ripped out his hair and yanked on his earlobes. I dug my nails into his skin and tried to drive my thumbs into his eye sockets, but he felt nothing. He wrapped his long body around me and pinned me with my face to the concrete, right next to Evelyn.
Her eyes were open. Her warm hand forced something cold into mine: her knife.
I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and blindly stabbed behind me, reaching for whatever part of Jonathan was closest. He grunted and hooked his arm around my neck. I kept stabbing, even as he tightened his grip around my windpipe.
The world darkened around me, and as my lungs fought for air, the knife clattered to the floor. Hot blood pooled beneath my cheek.
Evelyn held my hand.
20
Two Weeks Later
“You don’t have to do this.”
Evelyn stood, arms crossed, in the doorway of my bedroom as I taped my last moving box. Except for the furniture, the room was empty. It had not been mine for very long. Nevertheless, I felt like I was leaving my home behind.
“I can’t stay here,” I told Evelyn.
“Where are you going to go?”
“Priya has an extra room at her place in Oxford,” I replied. “She said I could stay there as long as I needed to.”
“You don’t have to go to Oxford.”
Since we’d returned from Chicago, Evelyn had been wise enough to keep her distance. We hadn’t talked much, except to check in on each other’s health. After the events beneath the Saint Angel, we’d both needed help. Evelyn had a concussion from Jonathan’s blow. Fortunately, she was okay after resting for a week or so. I was dealing with more emotional injuries than physical ones.
“You and I are not the same,” I said. “Even though Jonathan—”
As my throat closed up, Evelyn’s brow wrinkled with worry.
“You saved us,” she reminded me. “What you did was necessary.”
“I killed him,” I whispered.
“He would have killed you,” she said firmly. “He would have killed all of us. You stopped him from hurting more women in the future.”
In the sub-basement that day, Jonathan had lost too much blood from his knife wounds to choke me out. I’d managed to puncture his throat. As he lay bleeding, I recovered myself and ran to get help. By the time I returned with the police and paramedics, Evelyn and Marie were fully conscious, but Jonathan was nearly dead. They couldn’t revive him, and he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Some things had worked out. Detective Kate Arnold got kudos from the rest of her department for working with me to bring Jonathan down. Wolf Godfrey and Fletcher Stevens were released. Though it was my fault they’d been arrested in the first place, Wolf sent me a letter saying he understood and that he’d forgiven me for everything. Apparently, he and Fletcher left Chicago and hopped on a plane to Aruba, where they intended to stay indefinitely.
I sat on the bare mattress and tucked my head. Evelyn rested a hand on my shoulder, but I batted it away.
“Don’t,” I muttered.
She backed off. “You’re not a bad person, Jack. Don’t let yourself think that.”
Desperately needing a change of subject, I asked, “Have you heard from Marie and Angelica?”
“Angelica made it home to her boyfriend,” she replied. “Physically, she’ll be fine. Mentally, she’ll need time. And Marie—” She laughed and shook her head. “You didn’t hear this from me, but they’re on a plane to the Alps right now, getting ready to elope.”
“No way!” A genuine smile fought its way onto my face. “I’ll bet your parents loved that.”
“I think my mother is actually relieved,” Evelyn said. “She looked the most relaxed she’s ever been when Marie told her the wedding was off at the Saint Angel.”
“And Penelope?”
“Downright pissed,” Evelyn confirmed. “She tried to get her money back for the room she reserved at the hotel. Then she made a huge scene in the lobby, screaming her head off at Marie.”
“I hope Marie told her where to stick it.”
Evelyn beamed with pride. “She did. Then she and Ned walked out arm in arm.”
“I’m so happy for them,” I sighed. “They deserve this time to themselves.”
“They said we could come,” she offered tentatively. “If we wanted to meet them there.”
I avoided her probing gaze. “I’d love to say yes, but I can’t forget everything that happened.”
“Please, Jack,” Evelyn said. “I’m sorry about everything. I don’t know what else to say. But I can’t lose you, not when we’ve been through so much—”
A loud ringtone cut her off, and she quickly turned away from me to answer her phone. I bit the inside of my cheek, feeling once again that Evelyn cared more about her job than anything else.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I understand. Right, I’ll be there for debriefing tomorrow. Thank you, sir.” She hung up and returned to the room. “Sorry about that.”
“Got another target?” I asked bitterly.
“No. Actually, I quit.”
My jaw dropped. “When? Why?”
“Two weeks ago, while I was in the hospital in Chicago,” she replied. “And I did it because of you. You’re my best friend, Jack. I should have known how this was going to affect you.”
“It doesn’t change anything, Evelyn,” I said. “You can’t change the past, and it won’t stop me from leaving.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But maybe you’ll see how much I’m willing to give up to stay in your life. I care about you more than a job. Besides, despite what you might think, I’m not emotionless. Every time I completed a mission, a chunk of my soul was cut away. I wanted to get out anyway. It’s time to move on to something else.”
“When you injured your arm last year, all
