Liam
The door closes behind her and I do not move, do not breathe, do not allow myself to do anything that might betray the fact that my hands are shaking and my chest is tight and I have just made a decision that will change everything. I stand at my desk with my palms flat on the cold leather and I listen to the sound of her footsteps fading down the hallway, the soft click of the elevator doors opening and closing, the silence that settles over the floor like snow after a storm. I should not have touched her. I should have kept my distance, should have let the transaction be cold and clean and professional, the way all my transactions have been since my father died. But when her fingers brushed mine I felt something I have not felt in two years, something that feels like hunger and fear and the kind of hope that destroys men like me.
I walk to the window and look down at the city, at the cars moving through the streets like blood through veins, at the lights beginning to flicker on in the buildings below, at the small figure in a navy blue dress stepping out of the lobby and walking toward the street. I watch her until she disappears into the crowd, and I tell myself that she is just a tool, just a means to an end, just another piece on a board I have been playing for two years. But I know I am lying, because I have not watched any of Evelyn's other agents leave this building, have not thought about their faces or their voices or the way their hands felt when they touched mine.
I turn away from the window and walk back to my desk and I pick up the file she left behind, the folder with her fake name and her fake history and her real photograph, and I look at her face and I wonder what she is thinking right now. I wonder if she is thinking about her mother, about the hospital bills, about the twelve million dollars that bought her life and sold her freedom in the same transaction. I wonder if she is thinking about me, about the way I looked at her, about the way my voice dropped when I told her not to fall in love with me.
I told her that because I needed her to hear it, I needed her to understand that I am not the man she should trust, not the man she should want, not the man who will save her. I have spent two years becoming someone my father would not recognize, someone who lies and manipulates and uses people the way Evelyn uses them. I told her that because I was afraid that if she looked too close she would see the cracks in my armor, the places where the ice has thinned, the man I used to be before I learned that love is a weapon and the people who hold it never survive.
I sit down in my chair and I open the file and I look at her photograph again, and I think about the way she sat across from me with her spine straight and her chin lifted and her voice steady even when I showed her the photograph that should have broken her. She did not cry, did not beg, did not try to run or lie or bargain. She looked at me and asked what I wanted, and when I told her she said yes, and I saw something in her eyes that I have not seen in a long time, something that looks like steel and fire and the kind of strength that does not break because it has already been broken and put back together.
I close the file and put it in my drawer, next to the photograph of my father that I have not been able to look at for months, and I tell myself that this is just strategy, just another layer of the plan, just a way to keep her close and keep her loyal and keep her from doing something that will get her killed. I tell myself that the way she makes my chest tight and my hands unsteady is just a weakness I have to control, just a variable I have to account for, just another thing I have to sacrifice on the altar of the war I have been fighting since my father died.
My phone buzzes on the desk, and I look at the screen and see a message from my security team, a photograph of Zoe leaving the building, her face turned toward the camera for just a moment, her expression unreadable. I type back a message, short and cold, and I tell them to watch her, to follow her, to make sure she gets home safe and that no one else is following her. I do not tell them why, do not tell them that the thought of her walking through the city alone with Evelyn's people watching makes my stomach clench and my jaw tighten.
I am not that man anymore. I am not the man who protects, who saves, who holds people close and keeps them safe. I am the man who uses people, who sacrifices them, who watches them burn because the fire is the only thing that will light the way to the truth. But Zoe Vance is not a means to an end. She is not a piece on the board, not a sacrifice I am willing to make, not another name on the list of people I have used and discarded.
I pick up my phone and I call my contact at Westbrook Medical Centre, and I tell him to move Margaret Vance to the private wing, to start the new treatments immediately, to make sure she has everything she needs and that no one comes near her without my approval. He asks if I am sure, and I tell him I do not care about the risks, I do not care about the money, I care only about making sure that Zoe's mother is safe and that Zoe has one less thing to fear.
I hang up the phone and I stand in the dark office with the city spread out beneath me and the photograph of my father in the drawer and the photograph of Zoe in my hand, and I know that I have crossed a line I cannot cross. I have let someone in after two years of keeping everyone out, and I have made myself vulnerable to the one thing I swore I would never feel again. I look at her face and I wonder if she knows what she is doing to me, if she feels it too, if she is standing in her small apartment with the thin walls and the broken heater and thinking about the way I looked at her, the way my voice dropped when I said her name.
I put her photograph in the drawer next to my father's, and I close it, and I walk out of my office and into the empty hallway. I tell myself that tomorrow I will be the man I have been for two years, cold and controlled and untouchable, and that I will keep her at arm's length. But I know I am lying, and I know that when she walks into this building tomorrow I will look at her with her grey eyes and her steady hands and her walls as high as mine, and I will want her, and wanting her will be the only thing that feels real, the only thing that reminds me that I am still alive.