Eve closed her eyes for a moment and looked inward and downward. In her mind, there was a big movie screen playing, and she was seated in the middle of the front row. As she watched, Joe Ledger drew his pistol, aimed it with great care at Adam, who stood with his hands raised in surrender. A cruel smile of sexual delight wormed its way onto Ledger’s mouth as he slipped his finger into the trigger guard. Adam’s mouth was open, his lips forming words, pleas … begging Ledger for mercy. But the big killer’s smile became an orgasmic cry of wet delight as he pulled the trigger and shot Adam in the mouth, blowing the top row of teeth in, ripping through tissue and bone and nerve and exiting in an explosion of blood and brains. Adam stared for a moment in disbelief and then the light—that beautiful pure and perfect light—went out of his eyes, and he collapsed back and down.

Eve closed her eyes, squeezing them shut with such intensity that it forced tears out, shedding them between her lashes.

“You got some wires connected wrong, sweetie,” murmured Adam. “I mean, you know that’s not how it happened, right?”

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” she said helplessly. “It is how it happened.”

“Okay, babe,” said Adam, “whatever you say. Whatever you want it to be. It’s all okay.”

She felt his hand touch her leg, tracing the outlines of the brace she wore over the knee Ledger had destroyed with another bullet.

“You know I’ll always be right here,” said Adam. “Right by your side.”

It took her a long time to open her eyes. The cell phone was still on the pillow. Adam was barely an outline. But he was—as he said—still there. By her side.

“You’d better make that call,” suggested Adam. “Don’t want to keep Daddy waiting.”

“He’ll be mad,” she said in a tiny voice.

“So, let him be mad. You got the right guy out of there, didn’t you?”

“I suppose…”

“Then you accomplished your mission.”

“We lost most of the team. Almost all of the Righteous are gone.”

Adam laughed. “You think Daddy cares about that stuff?”

Eve sniffed. Shrugged.

“You still came out with the right prisoner. And that other guy? Casanova? He’s dead for sure. No way he walked out of that place. Daddy’s going to be really happy with you, babe.”

“But … but … Ledger was there…,” Eve protested. “I saw him on the body cams. He got away.”

“That wasn’t your mission, Evie sweetheart,” insisted Adam.

She nodded but didn’t feel entirely convinced.