Chapter 26

26

The restaurant is run by a married couple, Louisa and Gestalt. They welcome us and guide us to our table.

I take in our surroundings. The restaurant is very cute. In America things are made to look old. In Europe they actually are. Antique farm equipment hangs from the ceiling over our heads: wheelbarrows, scythes, troughs and rakes.

So many weapons at my disposal. Practically no witnesses. I could kill Jonathan between the first and second courses. Delaying is only going to make it harder. But I'm not supposed to kill him. That's not the job. Not yet. That's not what has gotten me here, to bigger jobs and bigger paydays and bigger sacrifices.

Sherri says it all the time: They like you. You listen. Basically, You're easy to control.

I even agreed to walk into this job unarmed. It's something I would normally never do, but Sherri told me it was for the best. "He can't suspect you're an assassin. It actually works in our favor that he already knows you. You can't be armed. In fact, it might be a good idea to play clumsy, act a bit dim." I had to draw the line at that. I refuse to play dumb, even to commit murder.

Gestalt and Louisa explain how the meal will go. Every day the menu is different. It depends on what they find in the garden, in the local market, on their travels.

"Louisa is the artist; I am her hands," Gestalt says. It's chillingly tender. Jonathan seems a little anxious about having brought me somewhere so romantic.

Gestalt and Louisa wander off to select the wine.

"I hope this is okay," Jonathan says. He's sitting across from me, beneath a scythe—I'm not kidding, so on the nose—with this heartbreakingly earnest expression. I don't get it. I don't get him. How is he lethal? Do you pity him to death?

"Totally okay," I say. "I like all the weapons—I mean, farm shit." Oops. Maybe I shouldn't talk.

The first thing Gestalt's hands bring is a bottle of Bordeaux and a plate of escargots. He leaves them on the table and proceeds to forget about us, like the best waiters.

"Have you ever had snails?" Jonathan asks.

"I know you have."

He wields the little pincher thing with predictable dexterity. "How do you know that?"

"You look like a snail person."

"What does a snail person look like?"

"Tom Ford suit. Italian shoes. Patek Philippe watch."

"God, you're right." He pops one into his mouth. "I am a snail person."

"You seem different than you were on the train."

"So do you," he points out. This surprises me.

"How?"

He draws a line over his eye. I'm wearing neon pink eye shadow.

"It's called eye shadow." I grin. I don't know what it is, but when you like someone, everything they say is ten times more charming. Funnier. Like you never laughed until now. Not that I like him. Much.

There's always a smile circling my lips when he's around. I wonder how that will work when I kill him. I wonder how I will kill him, but that's a problem for future me. Me now is on reconnaissance. Me now is looking for weaknesses, chinks in his armor.

He glances down at his snails, then up at me with hazy eyes. "I thought about you so much. I built you up in my mind. I honestly thought…" He gathers his breath. "I honestly thought if I ever saw you again I'd be disappointed. But I'm not. You're even better than I remembered."

I shake my head. "You don't know me." I'm slightly breaking character here but I can't help it. He can't just say things like that. Things that can't possibly be true. It's manipulative. It's mean. To act like you're in love with someone you don't even know.

He drops his chin. "You're right. I don't. I'm sorry."

I need to get us back on track. "And I don't know you." I need to know him better. I want to figure out if the past he shared was true. How much he can remember. "How's the family back home?"

He seems startled. "…Fine."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No." He's studying me. I don't know why. Maybe because he knows I'm quizzing him. He was on a cheap train in an ill-fitted suit and suddenly he has a driver; he's suddenly wearing Tom Ford. I'm not the only one who's been on vacation for six months. "Your snails are getting cold," he says.

I pop one into my mouth.

"I have a confession to make," he says. His eyes are on me, gauging me.

"What's that?"

"I'm not here on vacation."

I stiffen. Is he about to tell me the truth? Confess that he's an evil henchman? "Why did you lie?" I try to keep my voice first-date playful.

He leans forward even though Louisa and Gestalt haven't been seen in the vicinity in eons. "Because there are people out there who want me dead." I knew that. "I work in illegal-weapons trafficking. It's a very dangerous job."

"Oh." That would explain the suitcase. Perfectly.

I know he must be lying, but it still unnerves me a little. I've never done independent research on my marks. The system has served me. I have trusted the people around me. I trusted Andrew. I trust Sherri. But what if they're wrong? What if Jonathan's not really a villain? Or worse, what if I'm coming up with excuses not to kill him?

"I actually…" He hesitates, sitting back as if unsure. "I left a rather large suitcase of weapons I'd confiscated on that train. I don't know if you might know what happened to it?"

"No idea," I say. We're both lying to each other; it's almost like a real first date. "Why didn't you tell me this on the train?"

He shifts in his seat. He keeps looking at me. It's a consequence of our being the only two people in this restaurant. The only two people left in the world, for all I know. And suddenly, I can feel the train underneath us, feel the throb of the ground beneath the tracks, beneath the wheels. Suddenly, it's like we never left.

"I was concerned about your safety. You see…," he says. He shifts away from me, curls slightly like a snake. He's not stiff anymore. He's not nauseated or uncomfortable or sick. "The reason I didn't come back…" He's unbuttoning his shirt. Seems a little premature, but I'm comfortable on my toes. Or on my back. He tugs at the collar of his shirt until I can see it: a scar shaped like a snarl. "I'd been shot."

"Oh. That's a pretty good reason." Honestly, I feel a little annoyed with myself. I'm a trained assassin. How could I not notice that the guy I was crushing on had just been shot? In my defense, I knew he was hurt. I just didn't know how.

Even I have a few bullet fragments scattered here and there. They're like really shitty piercings.

I see all his symptoms in a new light: his stiffness, how he avoided me in the doorway. How he took a seat by the window, then disappeared to the bathroom. How he dropped Ecstasy—maybe not the best choice, but definitely self-medicating. His rules about the jacket and no touching above the waist. I thought he was sweet and sensitive; turns out, he was just shot.

"I was going to see a doctor in Paris," he continues. "People in Florence were hunting me. I couldn't risk going to a hospital there. And I couldn't get through a metal detector to take a plane."

I feel deflated. He's definitely lying. His story doesn't make sense. Why would illegal weapons that he'd confiscated have their own neat compartments in his luggage? Why would he be alone? Why would he have been shot? And what happened to the people who shot him?

I hate that he's lying to me, even though I'm lying to him, too. Even though I know strangers lie to one another all the time. It's how every relationship starts, with the presentation of the false self, the most likable version of y-o-u. The one you trade in, the one you sell.

They fall for the good guy.

Six months down the line, they're dating the antihero.

Two years in, they say "I do" to the villain.

"That's quite the story," I say. He seems to sense my disbelief. I want him to. If I am going to find his weaknesses, I'm going to need to guide him toward the truth. But I need to be patient. Careful. "So you don't really have motion sickness?"

He shakes his head. "No." I'm weirdly disappointed. His weaknesses were kind of endearing.

When I first met Jonathan on the train, I thought he was the safe bet. I thought I could take him to my hotel and have good, clean sex. That he would be a cozy little break from my high-octane life. We could lie in bed together in a postcoital glow and talk about Delaware. It would be easy. It would be breezy. I could walk away feeling accomplished because for three or four hours I'd fucked like everyone else.

Instead, there's someone treacherous sitting in the chair across from me. Someone who can flirt with a bullet in his chest.

What if it was another assassin who shot him in Florence? What if others have tried and failed? What if I'm the last resort? Or worse, expendable. Send the girl; we can afford to lose her.

It's a lot to take in.

"You still could have asked for my number," I say.

He laughs in surprise.