Page 43 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

“What an obedient little pet you are,” Favreau said. “Waiting for me just as I left you.”

Isabel’s throat tightened as she forced herself to look at him, not through him or past him like she wanted.

Right. At. Him.

Her fingernails bit into her palms, holding back every memory of his knife tracing her skin, his voice whispering all those vile promises. Paris felt like another lifetime.

Another woman with her name and face, but not her strength.

“Not a pet,” she said. “Not yours. Not anymore.”

The knife was warm in her palm. She raised it slowly, deliberately, so he’d understand what was coming for him.

Favreau’s lips twitched. The bastard was enjoying this.

“And what exactly do you think you’re going to do with that little knife, ma chérie ?” His voice dripped with condescension. “There are twenty men in this building who would cut you down without blinking if I gave the order.”

“Two of them are already dead. That leaves eighteen.”

He laughed. “Oh, Isabel. The only way this ends is with you kneeling at my feet as you were meant to be. You’re mine.”

Something snapped inside her.

She launched herself at Favreau, knife slashing. His dodge wasn’t quick enough. The blade caught his cheek, opening a shallow cut.

Favreau’s fingers rose to dab at the wound, his eyes lit up with a perverse sort of glee. “There she is. My feral girl. Vicious and cruel and hungry.”

“I was hungry because you starved me.” Memories flashed – days spent huddled during his punishments, her stomach cramping with hunger, waiting for the scraps he threw her way. “I was cruel because it’s all you taught me.”

“And you took to my lessons beautifully once I owned you.”

She lunged. The knife slashed across Favreau’s chest, tearing through his shirt. He grunted in surprise and stumbled. She’d never managed to catch him off guard before.

“You can collar me,” she snarled, “but you’ll never own me.”

Isabel didn’t give him time to recover. She drove him back, each strike calculated.

She didn’t need to kill him yet – just hurt him.

Mark him. Every slice was for a different memory: the broken wrist when she hadn’t stolen something fast enough, the cigarette burns when she’d refused to smile, the nights he’d watched her sleep.

And Favreau was laughing.

Goading her, taunting her, his words lost in the roar of blood in her ears. But Isabel was beyond hearing. There was only the savage song humming in her veins. The violence. The promise of retribution.

Favreau’s shoulders hit the wall, and the blade slipped beneath his ribs. Not deep enough to kill him, not yet, but enough to make him feel it. Let him experience the agony she had. Let him drown in it.

“Remember when you did this to me?” she whispered, twisting the knife until he gasped. “You said pain was the best teacher.”

“I remember everything, my Isabel. You’re magnificent.”

“ Shut up .” She pressed the knife harder.

His hand shot out, catching her wrist and yanking her. They crashed into the bedside table. A lamp smashed to the floor. Favreau used his weight to force her back onto the mattress, and when her spine hit the edge, she was that girl again – trapped under him, helpless.

“There’s no escape. Wherever you run, I’ll find you.” His fingers found her throat and squeezed. “I’ll always find you. Even in death.”

The walls of the room seemed to close in. All she could feel was the press of his body against hers. It was too much, too familiar, threatening to drag her down into the black. Her mind began to fragment, old memories clawing up from where she buried them.

And then, as if in answer to a prayer—

An explosion outside shattered the silence.

Favreau’s head jerked toward the noise, his grip slackening just enough.

Just enough.

Isabel drove her knee up between his legs. He made a strangled sound, doubling over. She didn’t hesitate – she rolled out from under him and brought her elbow down between his shoulder blades.

“That’s for every innocent you destroyed,” she snarled. “Every life you stole.”

Another blast rocked the building, closer this time. Shouts echoed in the corridor – men’s voices calling out in French and English. Something was burning; she smelled the smoke.

Favreau pushed himself up. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes – God, his eyes followed her with the same possessive gleam they always had.

“You need me,” he said. Almost tender. “Who are you without me, hmm? I made you extraordinary. You don’t have it in you to kill me. You never did.”

A third explosion rattled the windows, and dust rained from the ceiling.

“She might not have it in her,” a voice growled from the doorway. “But I fucking do.”

Callahan.

He stood there like something from her dreams – tall, dark, holding a pistol pointed at Favreau. His face was bloodied, his shirt torn at the shoulder, but his hand was steady.

His eyes found hers across the room, and for a moment, nothing else existed. Not Favreau. Not the explosions. Just them.

Then Favreau’s hand fisted in Isabel’s hair, yanking her against his chest. A blade kissed her throat.

“Lower the pistol, Agent,” Favreau hissed, his breath hot against her ear. “My hand might twitch. And that would be . . .” The knife dragged lightly over her jaw. “Such a waste of a beautiful face.”

Callahan’s aim never wavered. “Let. Her. Go.”

“Or what?” Lips brushed Isabel’s temple. Mocking. “You’ll shoot? Risk killing her to get to me? I’ve watched you with her, Agent. You won’t endanger her life.”

Isabel watched Callahan – the fury, the tension in his shoulders. But beneath it all, she saw him calculating. Measuring angles. Considering options. Trying to find a way to take the shot without harming her.

But Favreau needed to die, no matter what it cost her.

A strange peace washed over Isabel then.

The animal panic ebbed, replaced by a crystal clarity she’d felt before she jumped from a roof or scaled an impossible wall.

Isabel’s fingers found the second blade hidden at her waist – the one she’d taken from the guard outside.

Her stare held Callahan’s, willing him to understand everything she couldn’t say.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

Then she swung back her hand and plunged the knife into Favreau’s eye.

He screamed, dropping his dagger. He clawed at the weapon protruding from his socket as he stumbled backwards.

And Callahan fired.

Isabel didn’t flinch. She couldn’t look away as the bullet punched a perfect hole between Favreau’s brows, his remaining eye widening in shock.

Then Louis Favreau, the monster who had haunted Isabel’s steps for so long, collapsed. The sound his body made hitting the floor was the sweetest thing she’d heard in years.

The pistol slipped from Callahan’s fingers. He closed the distance between them, hauling her into his arms. She breathed him in, solid and warm and real.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered into her hair. “Next time, fucking warn me before you stab someone in the eye.”

“What was that outside?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest. “Sounded like the building was coming down.”

“Lady Alexandra’s diversion. Apparently, she’s been experimenting with volatile compounds in her spare time. Aristos and their boredom.”

His fingers traced her jawline, tilting her face up to his. The tenderness in his touch made her chest ache. He studied her, hunting for injuries, for trauma, for something broken.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, his thumb brushing her neck where Favreau’s blade had grazed her.

“It’s nothing. I had everything under control before you came barging in.”

“Right. My mistake. I should have let you handle the eighteen armed men and the bastard with a knife to your throat.”

“I’m glad you’re learning.”

“You need that cut looked at. And maybe a drink.”

“Or six,” she muttered.

She glanced at Favreau’s body. In death, with the blade sticking out of his eye socket and the bullet hole in his forehead, he looked smaller somehow. Less the towering monster of her nightmares and more just . . .

A man. Flesh and blood and bone, fragile as anything.

“I always thought it would be me,” she said softly. “In the end. That I’d be the one to kill him.”

“Does it bother you that it wasn’t?”

She considered it for a moment – all the times she’d imagined this exact scene. “No. I think . . . I’m glad you were here. That I didn’t have to face him alone at the end.”

His expression softened. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

But Isabel couldn’t move. Something clutched at her heart, squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. All the things she’d never dared say, all the vulnerability she’d buried – it rose up, impossible to contain another second.

“I love you.”

The words burst out of her, graceless and artless and raw as an open wound. Isabel didn’t try to take them back or soften them with excuses or explanations. Just let them stand, naked and terrifying.

Callahan went very still. “Say it again.”

Isabel fisted her hand in his shirt, tugging him down until she could feel his breath against her lips.

“I love you.” She said it against his mouth. “I’ve loved you for so long, I don’t remember what it was like before.”

His hands came up to frame her face. When he kissed her, it wasn’t gentle. It was hungry and urgent and necessary . She opened for him with a sigh. Lost herself in the slide of his lips. In their shared breathing. It was a claiming, taking everything she offered and demanding more.

When they finally broke apart, they were both panting. He dropped his brow to rest against hers.

“I have loved you,” he said, each word deliberate and rough, “since you first tried to cut my throat.”

Isabel laughed.