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“Well, that’s hard if you don’t have a heart to love with,” I hiss.

“You sell yourself short, my friend. I have seen your love for many things.”

But no one has ever loved me back. So how can I know what love is or if I’ve ever truly felt it? I was told I couldn’t...

I groan, distracted, worried that I won’t be able to do my job. In five minutes, I meet Therese LaFontaine. While I was pacing this afternoon, trying to work up my courage to back out or go through with this, I searched Therese LaFontaine Delgado. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

She was a beauty queen who’d married well. Pretty, a not-quite-perfect smile, naturally blonde hair with highlights that changed depending on the pictures I saw—darker brown in the winter, almost white in the summer.

I’m glad this will be my last mission. Guarding a beautiful woman, pretending to be her lover or even her husband— I look heavenward.

Why, God? Why give me one more reminder of what I could never have?

I try to think generous thoughts. She needs help. That’s what I do. What I was made for. I try to remind myself that she did the right thing, that she came to us for help—well, indirectly.

But going from Rome, Paris, and London to little Pine Ridge? Going from wining and dining to hiding out and helping with plumbing? Then, in a week or two, she’d be going undercover for the rest of her life? Therese would probably be miserable for the duration of our time together. I could already hear her petulant tones in my head, babbling about the unfairness of having to give up her Porsche and diamond-studded life to find a job in middle-of-nowhere Florida or Kansas just because her husband was evil.

You’d whine, too, Reg.

You’re already whining. You’re also being a pessimist. It works wonders for not getting attached to people. Maybe the stuff you’re whining about is your own fault.

I force myself to forget the way her smiling pictures on my laptop screen seemed truly sweet and adoring when she looked up at Matteo. They had the gall to have pictures on their social media, like normal people. I don’t blame her, I blame Matteo. She believed nothing was wrong. It’s Matteo who earns my anger. He must be truly overconfident and truly evil, so sure he’d never get caught, so sure he could pull off these sacrifices right under her nose...

I’m suddenly furious on her behalf. Evil bastard.

And I’m mad at her, too, even though I shouldn’t be.

Girl had to be an idiot.

Or trusting. Loving?

Remember when you thought love could be like that for you? Remember when you thought maybe it could happen? That one day you’d meet a person who could give and give, andfinally give you a piece of her heart—and you’d finally be able to give it back?

That somewhere out there, someone existed who could just love you for you?

It was after the war ended. Little families were clinging together. Men who were maimed and wounded, men who were whole and healthy, it didn’t matter. They were getting a chance to live again, to have a life that so many others had stolen away.

I was a hero, wasn’t I? I’d done my part. It could happen for me, too.

Right?

Wrong.

Why am I thinking about this?

You’ve played all kinds of roles over the years. You can play house for a couple of weeks.

“There.” Jakob taps my elbow, and I jump.

“Where is she?” I don’t see the blonde beauty.

“Not her. There. Those two men.” He sniffs, and I see a flash of red in his eyes. “Humans. They don’t smell of magic—but they do smell of sulfur dioxide and solvent. Dangerous men.”

I turn and follow his gaze.

The second I see the two men, something in me wakes up.Enemy.

The two men wear baseball caps and thick jackets, even though it’s warm for September. They lean against a small gray Toyota that needs a wash, eyes unwavering from the airport’s entrance.