Which meant that Alex had been unwilling to commit, that he’d been using her. It also meant that what she needed might be a romantic gesture. Something to let her know he was different.

So he’d bought a dozen roses and taken the train up to her neighborhood. Roses for the woman who had sold him out. The woman for whom he had raised a pistol, had-

Push it down. The thought came swift with force of habit.

He stood up and started down the block. Tossed the roses aside, still wrapped in plastic. There was a man sitting on a stoop, talking on a cell phone, but Mitch didn’t even look at him. Took the stairs to her apartment two at a time, the echo thundering off the hallway. He was composed of energy, toes to fingertips. He banged on her door, the sharp impact feeling right and good.

When she opened it, he watched her face. Saw it change. It looked like she was folding into herself. “Mitch.”

“You called the cops.”

“No, I-”

“Don’t lie to me!” He pushed past her, down the short hall to her living room. He heard her following, saying, “Listen, I swear-”

Mitch whirled, and she blanched.

“Do you understand what I have fucking done for you?” He stepped forward, and she retreated. Her eyes were wide, her hair loose, and she still looked beautiful to him, even now, and that stoked the rage. He had been faithful. He had waited. When she needed protecting, he had been there to do it. Not Alex. Him. And in return, she’d mouthed lines about needing space, about wanting time, strung him along with lies. Given him up to the cops, to prison.

“Mitch-”

He slapped her beautiful mouth.

Her head snapped sideways. The fleshy sound hung in the air. His palm tingled. Slowly, like she couldn’t believe it, she turned to face him. Raised her hand to her cheek. Touched it with delicate fingertips. He could see the flesh beginning to redden.

Her lip trembled like a little girl’s.

And just like that, the anger was gone. It didn’t drain away; it evaporated. And it left a terrible void. “Oh God.”

She stared. “You hit me.”

“Oh. God.” He staggered back, wanting to get away. Hit the wall by the fireplace, and felt his legs going weak. Let himself slide down it. The drywall cool through his shirt. He had that same disconnected feeling he’d had in the alley, that sense of standing outside of himself and outside of time.

The way he had raised the gun. Stared down the barrel at the man on the ground. Realized, a half second before he did it, that he was going to pull the trigger.

Half a second before he had swung at her, he had known that he would. Known it that same way. The same way…

The same way he had killed someone.

Push it down.

Jenn said again, “You hit me.”

Push it

He saw the look in the man’s eyes, the way he, too, had known what was coming. The moment fear had hit, as all that he was and all that he had was taken away.

Push

The kick of the gun in his hand. The same right hand that stung from hitting the woman he loved.

What had he become?

A dangerous man. A killer.

A monster.

Jenn said, “Get out,” but Mitch could barely hear her. His mind was filled with a static roar and a video of what had happened after he pulled the trigger. The way the man’s body had jumped as the bullet slammed into his chest. The spreading circle of red, moving slower than he would have guessed. The faint and final exhale, barely audible over the ringing in his ears.

He had killed someone.

Jesus Christ. He had killed someone.

All the waves of emotion he had been walling away crashed with tidal force. Horror and shame and guilt and especially fear. For days he had been telling himself to push it down, to lock it away. Hiding from what he had done. Bargaining with the devil, but never looking him in the eye.

But now it was right in front of him. He wasn’t the strong man he had tried to pretend he was. The cold calculator, the one who had acted like this was a game and he could play a role.

He was just Mitch. That’s all he had ever been. All he ever would be.

He buried his face in his hands and wept.

THE SHOCK HAD COME FIRST. No one had hit her, ever. This didn’t happen to her. Her cheek burned, and her brain felt scrambled. She touched her fingers to her face to check it was all still there.

When she looked at Mitch again, she saw something happening in his eyes. Something terrible. For a moment she was afraid he would hit her again, but then he staggered back as though he was the one who had been struck. Hit the wall and slid down it. His hands were shaking and his face was pale. He looked like he might vomit.

“You hit me,” she said, incredulous. The words making it real. “You hit me.”

He said something, but she didn’t hear it. “Get out.” Anger replacing fear. Ready to scream at him, to kick and slap and claw. To beat him out of her house if she had to. To fight him if he dared.

But instead of moving toward her, he collapsed. His head fell to his palms, and he made a terrible choked sound, and his chest began to heave.

He was crying.

She was surprised to feel her rage ebb. The last days had been a constant swing from one primal emotion to another-exhilaration to terror, lust to loneliness, rage to sympathy. She was wrung out, weak on her feet. Standing over the lover she hadn’t planned on taking, the man who had killed to protect her and then mistrusted and hit her, she didn’t know what to think. Where to stand.

“I didn’t call the police,” she said softly.

He didn’t respond. His tears were slowing, but he looked like a glass vase hurtling toward a marble floor.

“The detective had run the credit cards for that night. That’s why he came here.”

“What did I do?” His voice thin and aimed at his lap.

“I’ll live.”

“Not that. I mean, yes, that too.” He looked up at her. A little boy’s face tracked with tears. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. But I meant-”

“In the alley.”

He nodded.

She sighed. Lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor a few feet away. “I’ve been wondering how you were so calm.”

“I haven’t let myself think about it. Not once. I just decided that I would pretend it was something that had happened to someone else. The old Mitch. And that the new Mitch would break free from that. Rise from the ashes. And not just from that. From everything.” He wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. “I wanted to be, I don’t know… strong. Decisive. Able to take care of you. More like”-he turned away, barely whispered the words-“more like Alex.”

She didn’t respond. Wasn’t sure how much she wanted to comfort him. Or even who he was, exactly. The new Mitch, the old Mitch, the Mitch on her living-room floor. It was too much to deal with.

Finally, he said, “What did you tell the cop?”

“I told him I didn’t know anything about it.”

The words brought his head up, and he looked her in the eye. “You did that for me?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her cheek hurt, and she tasted copper from where her teeth had cut the inside of her mouth. “I was scared, I guess.”

He nodded. “Scared I understand.”

They sat on the floor, not touching, not looking at each other. She could hear the faint sounds of life going on around them, but she felt apart from it. In a bubble.

Then she heard a voice from the door.

IAN HAD BROKEN every traffic law racing from the martini bar to Jenn’s apartment. It was Saturday night, and after eleven, but even so, he made it in fifteen minutes, Davis’s calm voice ringing in his mind as the chemist explained what it was they had stolen.

When he found her front door standing open, he imagined the worst. Forced himself to keep moving anyway. “Hello?”