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Silence hangs in the air. I want him to keep talking, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of man you push. So I wait, my hand still splayed over his scars.

“Women are my weakness,” he says, finally breaking the silence. “My blind spot.”

“Why do you think that is?”

He blows out a breath. “A military therapist informed me that I have unresolved issues from being abandoned by my mother. I don’t know that I agree with that assessment.”

He looks over at me again, and I see something softer in his eyes.

“I just like women,” he says. “I wanna save them, especially mothers. Maybe I have a superhero thing going on, I don’t know.”

“Maybe,” I say softly. “But that’s not a weakness, Julian. That’s humanity.”

He scoffs. “Not in my line of work.”

“If you didn’t have humanity, I wouldn’t be alive right now. Right?”

He doesn’t answer, but his arm wraps around me tighter. I feel like he’s telling me the truth in the way he holds me.

So I, in turn, tell himmytruth…I lift up and place my lips where my fingers were. I kiss every scar, softly, carefully. Air rushes out of him as every brush of my lips tells him it’s okay, that I see him, that he’s not a monster or weak. He’s just Julian, and that’s enough for me.

His phone buzzes on the nightstand. He reaches over and picks it up, staring at the number. I want him to silence it, but he doesn’t. As soon as he clicks to answer, I hear the hideous voice of the man who was oncemyweakness.

“Where the fuck is she?”

Julian glances at me. “What is this in reference to?”

I stifle a laugh. If there’s one thing Brett can’t stand, it’s feigned cluelessness.

“Nigga, you know exactly what this is about!” he screams. “Where the fuck is my wife?”

“The morgue, maybe? Did you check with the police?”

“You know you’re dead, right? Both of you treacherous motherfuckers are good as dead.”

Julian’s face hardens, all traces of amusement gone. “The minute you threaten my life, you become my enemy. You sure you wanna do that? Think long and hard, fuck nigga. You know I’ll find you first. I’m built for this shit.”

Brett’s quiet on the other end.

“That’s what the fuck I thought. Call my phone again and you gon’ have to get your affairs in order.”

He clicks off and tosses his phone back on the nightstand.

“Yeah. He gotta go.”

22

Julian

Sable is knocked out.

I should be, too. Long day ahead. But I’m not. My mind is racing too much.

The room is quiet except for the steady whisper of the air conditioner. My eyes are fixed to the ceiling, searching for something…sleep. Peace. Normalcy. I don’t know, but whatever it is, I’m not finding it up there.

I blow out a sigh. I feel pinned down, like the weight of the night is pressing down on my chest. And I can usually deal with that feeling just fine. The aftermath of a kill or the sting of a mission that didn’t go quite right; I’ve felt it all before and come out just fine on the other side.

But this?