Her eyes felt scratchy and sore, her throat thick, chest aching.
Fuck that. She wasn’t going to cry. She’d already done so once today and once was enough. Zac had been very clear.
The asshole.
She swallowed, trying to force away the emotion clogging her throat and weighing heavy on her chest.
After she’d left Zac standing in the street, she’d gone back to her apartment and thrown herself into decoding the information she’d downloaded from Fitzgerald’s computer. That was certainly easier than thinking about what Zac had said to her, how she’d laid herself bare for him and he’d thrown it back in her face.
Love was still a new concept for her and no, she hadn’t seen much evidence of it in her life. But over the past week it had been her friends who’d given her an inkling about what it could mean. Gabriel and Honor. Alex and Katya. Love was in the way they touched each other. The way they looked at each other. The way they spoke to each other. There was just an extra quality to those interactions she’d never noticed before. A tenderness in their voices and a private, knowing look in the glances they exchanged. As if each of them knew a secret that only the other person knew and were sharing the knowledge together.
It had taken her a long time to figure out that secret for herself. But she knew what it was now. Had realized it for certain the moment Zac had pointed that gun at Fitzgerald.
She’d wondered why she hadn’t been afraid when by rights, she should have been terrified. Why in that instant what fear she’d had, had been for him.
The lack of fear for herself was her trust in him, that he would get them out of this no matter what. But the fear for him … that was love. As was the sorrow she’d felt when he’d told her about his sister. As was the safety as she’d lain in his arms.
And the pain as he’d told her he didn’t want what she wanted. That he had another punishment for her. Absence.
That was love too.
Love was for stupid people, clearly.
He’d said he’d liked being alone, that it was easier. What bullshit. He was lying to her and to himself as well. She knew fear, knew it intimately, and that’s what she’d seen in his eyes, lurking there so far down he probably didn’t even realize it.
Zac was afraid. What had happened with Fitzgerald had scared him. And she didn’t know quite what it was that had made him push her away, but she was certain it had something to do with losing his sister in the way he had. Maybe he was afraid that she’d leave him like Theresa. It was why she’d told him to trust her. Because she never would leave him.
Fuck, how weird that in the end, she’d come to understand how much she’d trusted him and yet he was the one who wouldn’t trust her.
Eva let out a breath, staring at the wall opposite, blinking back the tears in her eyes that had risen no matter how hard she’d tried to get rid of them.
No, she wasn’t going to cry. She may not have Zac, but she wasn’t alone these days. She had Alex and Gabriel, and Honor and Katya. She had them, and that was more than enough to be thankful for.
Pulling herself together, Eva turned to the door again, peering through the crack. Mercifully Honor was now sitting on the couch while Gabriel stood in front of the fire, smiling at something she’d said.
Eva pushed open the door and walked in.
Gabriel lifted his head, dark eyes catching hers, and Eva paused a moment.
“I’m sorry, Gabe,” she said. “I mean, I’m not sorry for killing him, don’t get me wrong. But I am sorry that he was your father.”
“So am I.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “And just so we’re clear, I’m glad you killed him. Saves me the bother.”
A flush of pleasure went through her. A strange and wrong emotion when it involved having killed a man, but that didn’t stop her from feeling pleased about it.
Fitzgerald had hurt too many people she cared about for her to feel even the slightest shred of remorse for him.
“Any time.” She lifted a shoulder. “And anyone else you need killed, you just let me know.”
A smile tugged the end of Gabriel’s mouth. “I think you might be the baddest of us all, Eva King.”
“Oh come on, I’m pretty badass.” Honor had picked up a cracker from the plate on the table, having loaded it up with a piece of soft brie, and now waved it for emphasis. “I rode on that bike of yours. Followed you into a dark alley at night. Etcetera.”
Gabriel grinned. “Sure, baby.”
“Hmmm. Why do I get the feeling you’re humoring me?”
“You’re both wrong,” Alex commented as he pushed the door wide, coming into the room. “Katya is the most badass of us.”