Three Alpha Romeo

Her face twisted. “That’s not a game,” Andrea said somberly. “That’s just a sick man getting off on—”

“Oh but it was a game,” I corrected her. “Because as much as I could lose, I could also win too. Because if I guessed — and guessed correctly — that the gun was loaded? I could blow him away. I could blow him away and I could take everything in his desk, and that would be that.” I paused for a moment. “But if I guessed wrong…”

The beautiful blonde sitting before me gasped.

“And… did you?”

This part I remembered like it was yesterday. Frame by frame. Millisecond by millisecond. The hefting of the pistol, the feel of the textured polymer grip. The weight of it as I brought it up and up… slowly… until it was level with my head….

Thirty point four ounces. That’s the weight of a Sig Sauer P220 pistol.

The look of surprise and terror on Galleti’s face as I smiled grimly… and turned the barrel on him.

The weight of an empty P220, that is.

I remember him rolling back in his chair. Reaching desperately for the top drawer of his desk, where he kept a second weapon…

The explosion of red as I pulled the trigger.

Months and years of practice — hundreds of hours of hefting that model at home, over and over again. Training my brain to make that infinitesimal, less than a quarter-of-an-ounce distinction, between loaded and unloaded…

“You killed him,” Andrea breathed, reading my face. “You won the Game.”

I swallowed hard. My Adam’s apple felt like it was pushing through sand.

“You killed Galleti… and you were punished for it.”

I let out a long breath. Slowly, I nodded.

“They came for me,” I said glumly. “They came for me even though I’d won fair and square. Galleti had seen me as a threat. A tool that had gone blunt, or outlived its usefulness. So yes, even though I’d won, Indigo didn’t see things that cut and dry. They saw me as brash. Arrogant. And Kyrkos was furious he’d just lost his second in command.”

I sat down beside her again. This time our arms went around each other.

“When they took Haley, I was crushed. Wholly destroyed. I went into hiding, knowing they’d never stop. Knowing that until I got Kyrkos, my life was forfeit.”

I took her face in my hands. She was so beautiful! So goddamn perfect with those stunning blue eyes. Those full, kissable lips. Those round cheeks…

I’d seen the face a thousand times in my dreams. Haley’s face, yes, but the faces of the others too. The escorts I’d ordered in the years that followed, to try and fill the void in my heart. Women I’d embraced temporarily to fulfill my more physical and emotional needs, as I had with Andrea, in that bedchamber on Rhodes…

But now…

Now this wasn’t so temporary. Not to me. This woman, this creature who’d been through all the same things I had. Who knew the pain and sorrow of deep, unending loss…

“I understand.”

The words were heartfelt. Deep-seeded. Real.

They made me want to crush her against me and hold her forever.

“I’m… I’m sorry this happened to us. The both of us…”

Her face moved inexorably closer. Her mouth brushed mine. We were looking through each other’s eyes now. Beyond the pain and the anguish, past the survivor’s guilt and the nagging, ceaseless remorse.

Our arms drew each other in. Our lips crashed together with unstoppable force.

Then there was only the warmth of our bodies against the cool, crisp sheets.

Thirty-Three