Page 100 of The Hitman’s Final Job

“Dad said you’re keeping secrets,” he says. “He said there are things you need to tell me yourself. So. Tell me.”

I look down at my hands and then at him.

“What I’m about to tell you,” I say, “is confidential. I mean that seriously. You may be obliged to do something about it, but I’m going to ask you not to.”

Rowan watches me steadily. “Okay.”

I take a breath.

And then I tell him. I tell him all of it.

He listens completely, without interrupting.

When I finish, the room is quiet, Rowan is staring at the ceiling.

Then he drops his gaze to me.

“You’re a hit man.”

“I was a hit man.”

He blows out a breath.

“Silas.”

“I know.”

“You’re a hit man.” Maybe he thinks saying it twice will help it land differently.

“Was.”

“I’m really proud of you.”

I didn’t think I could be caught off guard, but the praise floors me.

“I mean—not the killing people part,” he says quickly. “Obviously not that part. But the reason you did it. The people you went after. The fact that you spent ten years doing something that needed to be done and that no one else was going to do.” His eyes are soft. “And the fact you had to keep it a secret even from me. That must have been lonely.”

That also takes me by surprise. “It was at times. I have a friend in the organization. Zuza. She’s really cool. I think you’d like her.”

“She pretty?”

“Stunning. She’d also eat you alive and spit your bones out without flinching.”

“When can I meet her?”

“Never.”

He laughs but has to stop because of his wound.

“Everything I said about you being an old man—all the teasing—I take it back. You’re a fucking badass.”

“I’m retired,” I say. “As of about twenty minutes ago. Official.”

“I take back my take back. Now you’re a retired old man,” he says.

Then we’re both laughing, and the relief after interminable hours of stress has tears building behind my eyelids. Vaughn may never want to see me again, but Rowan and I are okay. It’s not a perfect ending, but it’s as good as it gets. My life has never been perfect anyway.

Well, maybe apart from the last four weeks. That was pretty perfect.