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He started buying me everything—jewelry, silks, gowns.
He gave me a black credit card with a million-dollar limit.
"Mr. Thorne has never let a woman be this indulgent," his head of security, Kasper, told me while I was at the mall.
I gave him a bitter smile. "So what? I’m not the one he’s marrying."
One night, he took me to a firing range. He stood behind me, guiding my hands as I held a compact pistol.
"You need to be able to protect yourself," he said.
I was the top marksman in my class, but I missed the target intentionally, over and over. He laughed and held me closer.
"Why are you teaching me this?" I asked.
"So no one can take your life."
"And if the person taking it is you?"
He took the gun and pressed the barrel to his own heart. "Then you pull the trigger."
I stared at that spot.
I had killed him a thousand times in my dreams. But it wasn't time. Not yet.
The engagement party was the event of the decade. Fireworks lit up the sky over Viana.
I sat in my room, watching the lights. My phone buzzed.
Cyrus: They are all toasted me.
Cyrus: But I am thinking of you.
I turned the phone off. In my hand was a slip of paper with a scrawled address—an emergency extraction point from the agency.
Come back, it said. We will protect you.
I had been by his side for eight years. I watched the paper burn in the ashtray.
I was going to see this through to the end.
