Chapter 77

77

Eva

It's clear this is not Jonathan's first time lying to the cops. He knows all the little tricks.

He thanks them profusely. He compliments them. He asks about their weapons. He is in awe of them.

"It must be so hard to be a cop!" he says in perfectly fluent French.

"Any idea what these men wanted?" an officer asks Mas. Mas is even better with cops. They like him immediately because he was in the army.

"My guess is drugs," Mas tells them. Four men, four handguns and two assault rifles, just to get high. The sad thing is, it's believable.

"You handled yourself very well," another officer says.

"I did what I had to do," Mas says. The cops love that, because it's practically a cop mantra. Mas has been sitting in a chair, being examined by a medical team, but now he stands. "If everything is in order for now, I need to get back to my wife."

"You had some officers deployed to your residence—is that correct?" the shorter officer says.

"Yes," Mas says.

"Why?"

Mas looks at Jonathan. "I told him to," Jonathan says. "His wife is pregnant, and we just wanted her to feel safe."

"All right," the officer says.

"Anything else?" Mas says.

"Not at the moment," he says. "Go see your wife. I'm sure she is very worried."

"Thank you," Mas says.

Outside, the cab is waiting to take us to Mas's apartment. I have to admit, it's nice to know that we don't have to face this alone.

—

Mas's wife, Giselle, is more furious than worried. She meets us at the door to their extremely chic, extremely large apartment in Pigalle.

"What were you fucking thinking?" she asks Mas as we filter through the door. She says "fucking" in English, but the rest is in French. "You send the police here. You tell me nothing. And now you tell me that four people tried to kill you? Why you? What makes you so special?" Mas is too overwhelmed to answer, so she rounds on Jonathan. "And you . I'm sure this has something to do with you," she says in English.

Mas opens his mouth, but Jonathan speaks first. "I'm an assassin. Was."

This stops her in her tracks. "What?"

"Sorry—that's the glamorous way of putting it," he says. "I was a contract killer. I killed people for money."

She hits Mas on the shoulder. "And you never told me this?"

"I never invited him over for dinner either," Mas says. "We were estranged."

She looks between them. "I think I liked that better. What changed?"

"I quit," Jonathan says. "Mas was trying to help me get out. I'm sorry. I didn't think—"

"You enlisted my husband to help you get out of the contract-killing business, and you didn't think it would be dangerous?"

"I have a fairly warped sense of danger," he admits.

"And what about you?" Giselle turns to me and I automatically cringe. Not because I'm afraid of her but because I want her to like me.

"Also a contract killer. Currently in the process of transitioning to a new field."

"My god." She shakes her head in annoyance.

We are all crammed into the hallway with the door closed. It's all very awkward. Giselle glares at Mas until finally she relents and embraces him. The anger leaves her face for a moment, and I can see the fear.

"You smell like blood," she tells him.

"I'm sorry," he says.

She holds his face in her hands and stares persistently at him, as if to assure herself that he's still there. Then she pulls away and gestures us into the apartment. "This is ridiculous," she says. "We can't just stand in the hallway."

We follow her into a sitting room with hand-painted wallpaper and tufted chairs.

"Your apartment is beautiful," I say.

"Thank you. I designed it myself." She offers me half a smile at full warmth, and I imagine a world in which I come here again. Every Sunday for brunch. I imagine us as friends. Family, even.

Giselle takes a seat. We all follow her lead except Jonathan, who stays perched by the door, watching.

"Who exactly is trying to kill you?" Giselle asks me.

"That's where it gets a little unclear," I say. "It's a forum on the dark web. People post jobs with money attached. Enterprising techies engage people like us to commit murder for money."

"It's just like you always say, my love," Mas tells her. "The internet is destroying society."

"What is the forum called?" Giselle asks.

"Hire-a-Hitman," I say. "I know—it's cringey."

"Get my laptop," she tells Mas.

Mas jumps up to fetch it. "Giselle is the head of cybersecurity for the EU. If anyone can find this thing, she can. She's kind of a genius." He hands her the laptop.

"Kind of?" She makes a face. "Now"—she looks from me to Jonathan—"tell me everything you know about this forum, and I bet you I'll find it. Then we'll see who is ‘kind of.'?"

—

Six hours later, I'm still sitting next to Giselle while she types furiously. Mas and Jonathan have left to make more coffee. They've been gone awhile. I hope they're talking.

Jonathan has been distant since last night. It's weird how you can feel someone has left you even when you're still with them. They're just gone, even when they're right there. For the first time I think that even if we do get out of this, we might not stay together. We might just go our separate ways.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Giselle asks, fingers flying.

"Anything." If this goes right, I might owe her my life.

And I like her. She's smart and she's funny. In another life, we might have been friends. We might have been the wives of two brothers.

"Why do you do this?" she asks. "I mean, why did you?"

I open my mouth, ready to tell her the same old story. Childhood trauma. Buried in chaos. Because I was good at it. Because I didn't feel like I belonged. Because I didn't think I had a choice. "Because I was afraid," I say instead. "All the time." I exhale. "Plus, it was pretty badass."

She shakes her head, but a smile tickles her lips.