Page 160 of The Exit Strategy

I’m careful. Forensically careful. I don’t editorialize. I remove all emotion. I don’t call Natalie a thief. I don’t mention the blackmail because the blackmail isn’t my evidence to deploy—it’s Cole’s. And whatever happens to me, I won’t be the one who took that from him. But Natalie has made a career at the expense of my heart, and she’s a threat I’ll readily disarm.

I think about Cole. About his decision to choose Natalie all those years ago. Then I think about tonight, and how he chose her again right in front of me.

I hit send.

The screen loads.

Message Sent.

I stare at the confirmation. I wait for satisfaction, for the rush of it, theI got you,the thing that always lights up my nervous system when I retaliate.

It doesn’t come.

What comes instead is the quiet dropping of my stomach. The overwhelming sense of loss. The total and complete destruction of my heart.

I close my laptop and rest my hands on the lid.

I committed revenge against someone who truly deserves it, but it isn’t delivering the payoff I expected.

It’s just made me tired.

So. Damn. Tired.

But I don’t sleep. I sit, folding in on myself, staring out my dark windows, unable to formulate my next steps.

For the second time in a matter of months, I’m well and truly lost, adrift, alone in a sadness I thought I’d already outrun.

Headlights cut through my space at 2:11 a.m. I don’t movefrom my spot on the couch, but I see the sleek sedan anyway.

Cole exits alone. His bowtie is gone. His jacket is off. He’s carrying something in his hand.

An award?

I hope he won.

He turns and looks straight up at my window.

He knows I’m sitting here. He can’t see me, but he knows. That connection that ties us together is frayed but not severed. Not yet.

He doesn’t cross the driveway.

He doesn’t call out.

His broad shoulders are drawn. There’s a sadness to him that I never thought he’d show.

Then he sits down on his porch step. The one that’s always one below my spot.

And he doesn’t leave.

He’s keeping his promise. He’s not coming after me—but he’s waiting.

Time moves slowly in sadness.

The clock slides into 2:45, then 4:40, and I realize with a stupid, flooding sensation that he’s going to sit there all night.

He’s keeping his promise as literally as he can.

Goddamn him.