Page 114 of Enemy of My Enemy

“Jack,” he whispered to the hum of the car. “Would you have married me?”

Scott reached over and pressed the lid closed, tangling his fingers around Ethan’s and holding their hands in a tight fist around the box. Ethan let the car’s rumbling push and pull his limp body.

His mind played over all the different ways he’d imagined asking Jack to marry him. Each was a stake through the heart, but he kept going, examining everything he’d dreamed, everything he’d imagined.

He had to remember. He had to keep everything real, hold on like it was something that had existed. Something that meant everything to him, instead of the nothing he’d been left with, the emptiness that had flooded his heart.

He felt lost in a surreal painting, as if the sparkling sunshine and spring colors were bleeding around him, melting from the world like the slide of his soul, descending into numbness and nothing. The car accelerated and an oak smeared to gray, leaving a puddle of green blood on the concrete. Flowers wept and the black asphalt beneath their tires seemed to wail, a constant shriek as they rolled ever onward.

Maybe he was just losing it. Maybe heartbreak was what would kill him in the end, wreck his world until he just couldn’t take it any longer.

They pulled into Scott’s driveway almost an hour later. Scott whispered to Daniels, and then Daniels drove off while Ethan followed Scott into his house.

“Liz and Stacy aren’t home. Stacy took Liz to her mother’s house for… a while.” Scott rubbed his eyes. “Thought you should have some peace and quiet until—”

Ethan blocked out Scott’s last words. He couldn’t go there, not yet. “Liz graduates this year, right?” Once, Ethan had been like an uncle to Liz, going over almost every other week. Now he wondered if she was graduating high school this year or next.

“Yeah.” Scott sighed. “She’s refusing to go to college though.” Scowling, he jerked his head to a pair of double doors to the left of the front door. “In there.”

Scott’s study, done in oak hardwood and dark brown leather, greeted them. Ethan tossed his duffel down at the foot of the leather couch and collapsed in the center.

“I couldn’t take you to your place.” Scott headed to the back wall, opening cupboards. “It’s locked up, and the media will be camping at your condo after this anyway. Hopefully they stay the hell away from here.” He trudged back with two tumblers and a bottle of whiskey and set them down on the low table in front of the couch. He popped the seal and poured four fingers in each glass, sliding one to Ethan before he sat beside him with a groan.

“You told me it would end like this,” Ethan said softly. He cradled the tumbler in his hands, rolling the glass back and forth in his palms.

“No. I said he wouldn’t want to take the chance. But then he did, and it was good. Goddamn, you guys were real good. I liked seeing you happy.” His mouth pursed as he shook his head. “Whoever could have thoughtthisbullshit would happen?” Scott gulped down the whiskey.

“I was always afraid he’d leave me for a woman one day. My biggest fucking fear.”

“He wouldn’t have left you foranywoman.” Scott smiled sadly, agonizingly. “Except for this one.”

Ethan pressed his lips together, his chin resting on his chest as he felt the shape of Scott’s words, felt their impact shatter within his frozen heart. Only this one woman. Only this one, who had been buried and mourned for and was out of Jack’s life.

And now not.

“This.” He pointed to nothing, squinting. “This is why I never, ever wanted a relationship. I never wanted to fall in love.” He threw the glass back, swallowing everything in one gulp. “It’s the being ripped out of love that will kill you.”

Scott slid the bottle of whiskey toward him and downed the rest of his tumbler as well.

A couple of hours later, Daniels walked through the front door loaded down with shopping bags. Scott was passed out cold on the couch, his cheek on Ethan’s shoulder.

Ethan stared at the two rings in the palm of his hand, silent tears cascading rivers of salt down his cheeks.

* * *

Chapter 39

Moscow

The Kremlin

Madigan toasted Moroshkin,crystal tumblers of the finest Russian vodka clinking against one another beneath a gold-gilt chandelier in the president’s suite.

“General.” Madigan dipped his head, smiling at Moroshkin. “Welcome home.”

Moroshkin beamed. His mustache gave a happy twitch as he settled back. “We did it. Russia is mine.”

“And now it’s time formyplans to unfold.” Madigan held Moroshkin’s gaze as he slowly drained his vodka, never blinking. “In return for my help in getting you here.”