“I… I took as many of those jobs as I could and built a name for myself, earned some respect. I learned everything I could about their structure, how similar they were to a large corporation. I learned who was in charge of what. I learned who wasn’t happy with the way the Picollis ran things. I learned who could be bought off, if it came to it. It was going to take me years to do what I needed to do, and then I literally won the lottery. It fast-forwarded my plans by a decade, maybe two. In a single day and night of the most brutal shit you can imagine, I seized most of their cash, killed their key men, paid off the rest, assured the police and politicians that the same arrangements they made with the Picollis were still good with me, and I took their place so they could never come back.”
“Jace… you have no idea what this is like, how crazy this is for me. I can’t force myself to stop loving you, I tried to just turn it off but it wouldn’t. I don’t understand how this can work!”
That force around her was weakening. Maybe just being this close, our love was overpowering it. I edged a little closer, just about tearing myself apart from the inside with the need to hold her.
“On my way over here, when I was trying to think of what to say, I tried to remember the first person I killed, to see if I could remember what it felt like, maybe something like what you were going through. I figured out that the first thing I killed was a part of myself. I didn’t have any room in my life for weakness, for sentimentality. All that was left after that was pain and so much fucking anger, but being with you was the first time I felt anything like peace. Can I tell you something, Kendall?”
Her barrier weakened further, and she looked up at me with hope. Those eyes, oh man, those eyes.
“One thing I do remember about that car ride with my parents was when they looked back at me. They had love in their eyes. I didn’t see that look again for over twenty years until you had it. You still have it, Kendall. You’re the love of my life, and I need you.”
I could see the turmoil in her eyes and the quiver in her lip. She held herself all the more tightly, but that barrier came down. Painfully slowly, she shuffled forward and closed the last remaining distance between us, leaning into me and looking even more timid than the day we met.
My own hands were shaking when I brought them up to embrace her, I was half-scared that she might disappear in a puff of smoke when I did. Her body was real, warm, and reassuringly familiar when my palms slid across her back and I held her tight against me.
After a few moments, she held me too and I buried my fingertips in her hair, stroking her cheek with my thumb before kissing the top of her head. Gently rocking from side to side, I almost felt myself melting into her.
“Can we run away?” she asked.
“If I do, then they’ll take over the city again. I won’t let that happen.”
“Will it ever be over?” she asked.
“They’ll never give up until I kill them all.”
“How do you know?”
“I wouldn’t. This is who I am, Kendall. I love you, can you stay with me and make all of this mean something more than revenge?”
“I love you too, Jace. I… I’ll stand by you.”
Never in all my life had more powerful words been spoken to me. With Kendall at my side, I could take on the world, keep stamping on the Picollis until their lights went out completely.
I wished I could have stayed in that moment forever. Instead, I heard engines and wheels on the gravel track and I had to let go of her to rush back to the window.
Black car after black car was pulling up. My security was scrambling to get to defensible positions, but I didn’t have enough men. The Picollis had followed me.
“Boss!” one of my men called from outside.
“What’s happening, Jace?”
I pulled Kendall to the ground, away from the windows, as the first shots started ringing out. Soon there were a lot more bullets coming in than going out.
“The Picollis. Here.”
Reaching inside my jacket, I handed Kendall my gun. She held it with a look on her face like it was a live snake.
“I don’t know-” she began.
“Listen to me! The safety is off, all you need to do is point the gun and pull the trigger. I want you to find somewhere to hide. Don’t come out no matter what! You understand? The walls of this cabin are good and thick, you stay away from the windows and you’ll be OK. If somebody gets in and finds you, shoot them in the face.”
“I can’t-”
“You can.”
“If I’ve got your gun, what do you have?”
The nearest window to us shattered, razor-sharp shards of glass falling to the floor a few feet away. I looked over the fireplace at the baseball bat with a lightning symbol burned into it.