Three Alpha Romeo

The statement was short and simple. To the point. But his voice was tinged was anger instead of sorrow. Bitterness, where grief should be.

“Marcus,” I said, daring to reach up and caress his face. He flinched at first. But slowly, gingerly, I was able to guide his bearded chin… until his eyes finally met mine. “Please. Tell me what happened.”

I sat down beside him on the bed. In the dim light filtering in from the window’s edge, I could see the beginnings of tears at the corners of his eyes.

“They came in the middle of night,” he said. “While we were asleep. It’s what I would’ve done, of course. I should’ve expected it… but I was arrogant. Foolish and overconfident. And I hadn’t expected anything.”

His irises were all glassed over now. They had a strange, far-away look to them. With my hand over his I said absolutely nothing.

“I took two of them before they reached us,” he said. “A third in the back, on the way out. But there were five. Five of them, all armed. Night gear. Pistols with suppressors.”

He was recalling it all mechanically. Remembering it second by second, frame by frame. It was like I wasn’t there. Like he was a recorder, and I’d merely hit the PLAY button on this horrific memory.

“It was a miracle I woke up at all,” Marcus went on. “But

one of them slipped up. One of them knocked over a photograph, in a glass frame. The first photograph we’d ever had taken, of the two of us together…”

He winced, and I squeezed his hand. A tear streaked down one cheek.

“I was powerless to do anything. Before it was even over, she was already gone.”

Now I was crying too, right along with him. Dabbing my eyes with the back of one hand.

“They came for me,” said Marcus. His teeth were clenched now, his voice low and gravelly. “They came for me and they got her instead. For no reason. For no fucking reason other than—”

“Hey…” I broke in. He was shaking now. Shaking and clenching the bed and crying openly. “Marcus, this wasn’t your fault…”

“Oh no?” His eyes suddenly had life in them again. His head snapped grimly in my direction. “Whose fault was it then?”

“How could you blame yourself for any of this!” I cried. “Kyrkos is evil! He’s the one responsible for this, not you! It was Kyrkos, or Indigo, or probably both, acting in each other’s best interests.”

“You don’t understand…”

“But I do understand!” I practically shouted. “I lost my father to this bullshit, Marcus! He died the same way, doing the same thing. Only he was taken out after he’d outlived his usefulness, rather than—”

“Andrea, I worked for Kyrkos!”

My body froze, stiffening instantly. So did Marcus’s. For a few seconds, it was like time had stopped.

“I worked for Kyrkos,” he repeated, this time more gently and coherently than before. His chest heaved a long, shuddering breath. “I worked for him and Indigo. I did terrible things. Awful things.” He stopped for a second, swallowing hard. “And I was trying to quit. Trying to get away, so I could make a life outside of all this. For me. For Haley…”

“Did you know my father?”

Marcus fell so silent, so quickly, I felt the hairs prickling up along the back of my neck.

“Marcus!” I shouted, in tears. “Did you know my—”

“Benjamin,” he said loudly. “Benjamin Martensson.”

He stood up abruptly, hanging his head in shame. I watched as he took three steps forward, then placed his forehead against the bedroom wall.

“Yes, Andrea,” he breathed, in a long, drawn-out sigh. “I knew your father.”

Thirty-Two

MARCUS

She looked lost. That was the best way to describe it. Lost and hurt and alone, sitting there crying on the edge of the bed.