Chapter 31

  The Vatican’s New Haven field office looked like an insurance agency that had died ten years ago—beige walls, crucifix nailed too straight, fluorescent lights buzzing like an insect plague. They didn’t ask me to wait outside. Richard wanted me there. “If they want to bury me, they can do it with a witness,” he’d said.

  So I sat in the corner chair while Richard stood before Monsignor Ferraro—a man with silver hair, eyes like a ledger, and the bland confidence of someone who thought eternity bent to his signature. Two black-suited handlers flanked him, hands close to their jackets.

  “Richard,” Ferraro said, his tone as smooth as incense smoke. “Effective immediately, your commission is terminated. Irreconcilable differences in mission objectives.”

  Richard didn’t move. “Say it. You mean I refused to kill the Phoenix Queen. And I chose her.” His chin tilted toward me.

  Ferraro’s gaze cut to me like a scalpel. “She has compromised you. She has compromised the mission. You’ve risked centuries of order for… sentiment.”

  One of the suits added, “She can be neutralized.”

  My breath froze. Richard’s didn’t. He leaned across the desk, hands flat, voice iron. “Try. Touch her, and you won’t leave this building alive.”

  The suit’s jaw tightened, hand twitching toward his lapel. Richard didn’t blink.

  “I’m not bargaining,” he said. “I’m informing you. If you move against me—or her—you trigger my failsafes. Secured records. Names, dates, operations. Every atrocity you’ve scrubbed from history, every miracle you buried in shadows. Copied. Sealed. Waiting. The moment I fall, those files go to every government, every intelligence service, every church and council on earth.”

  The room went very still.

  Ferraro’s fingers tapped the desk, deliberate. “You would blackmail the Holy See?”

  “I’m not blackmailing,” Richard said, voice low. “I’m balancing the scales. I walk away with my standing, my fortune, my clearances intact. Or you pay the price.”

  The second suit leaned forward. “You’re bluffing. No one man could—”

  Richard’s gaze snapped to him, and the air seemed to tilt. “Eight centuries of service. Eight centuries of keeping your secrets. Do you really think I didn’t learn a few things?” His mouth curved without humor. “Tell me—what exactly does one do when they’re unemployed?”

  Silence stretched. I could hear the fluorescent hum, the quick breaths of men who thought themselves untouchable.

  Ferraro finally exhaled. “Very well. You will leave with what you claim. But hear me, Richard—you are no longer one of us. You stand outside the shield of Rome.”

  Richard straightened, smoothing his coat with soldier-precise calm. “I haven’t stood inside it for a very long time.”

  He turned to me then, extending his hand. I took it without hesitation, and we walked out together, past the buzzing lights and dead beige walls, into cold New Haven air that smelled cleaner than any absolution.

  My voice shook, but I managed, “You had all that hanging over them this whole time?”

  His mouth curved—half grim, half triumphant. “You don’t serve eight centuries without keeping receipts.”

  Snow was falling by the time we left New Haven, soft flakes dissolving against the Range Rover’s windshield. The city lights faded fast, replaced by long stretches of highway that gleamed with salt and slush.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Tudor was a lump of fur in my lap, tail flicking against the gearshift every time Richard changed. He’d tolerated the ride with his usual scowling dignity, glaring out the window like he’d personally judged the highway and found it beneath him.

  Richard drove in silence at first, hands steady on the wheel, the faint glow of the dash painting his face in cold light. I could still feel the Vatican’s shadow clinging to him, the tension coiled in his shoulders.

  I reached into the bag between us, pulled out a candy bar I’d panic-bought at a gas station. “Dinner of champions,” I said, breaking it in half.

  One corner of his mouth lifted as he took his piece. “Eight centuries of service, and this is how I’m rewarded.”

  “You’re unemployed now,” I reminded him. “Welcome to the real world.”

  “Perhaps I should seek new employment,” he said, deadpan. “Candy might hire me as her official taste tester.”

  I snorted. “You’d break your vows faster than you think. Her croissants are basically sinful.”

  The laugh that escaped him was softer than the one in the Vatican office, but it lingered. The tension in the car eased.

  We talked the way you only can on long winter drives—half serious, half ridiculous. About the worst motels we’d ever stayed in, about Richard’s bafflement with drive-through windows, about whether Tudor could be trained as a guard cat. Each mile loosened the weight on my chest.

  By the time we crossed into Vermont, the world felt gentler. The Range Rover’s headlights carved a path through snow-lined backroads, the pines bowing under their frosted crowns. Tudor shifted to the dashboard, curling up like he’d been king of it all along.

  And then St. Johnsbury appeared, tucked into its valley, windows glowing like lanterns. When Richard pulled up outside my walk-up, the second-floor curtains were drawn, and the warm smell of bread drifted down the stairs.

  Before we reached the landing, the door opened. Candy stood there in her apron, cheeks flushed from the oven. She didn’t say a word at first—just held up a basket of pastries in one hand, a steaming pot of tea in the other.

  “Welcome home,” she said simply. Her eyes flicked to Richard, lingering for a moment, reading the set of his jaw, the faint exhaustion in his posture. “Rough day at the office?”

  Richard froze just long enough to let me know the barb landed. Then he managed a faint smile. “You could say that.”

  Candy’s mouth curved—warm, knowing, and maddeningly unbothered. “Tea’s on. Pastries too. You can tell me the rest when you’re ready.”

  Behind her, the hallway was crowded. Mrs. Vickers leaned on her doorframe in a burgundy peignoir, martini in hand, lipstick smudged like she’d been kissing ghosts. She winked at Richard with the slow precision of a sniper.

  “Well, look at this,” she purred. “Our very own knight in shining Armani. You come back here, sweetheart, I’ll show you what a real crusade looks like.”

  Richard’s ears actually turned pink. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

  Mr. Durney muttered something about “shadows thickening again” as he shuffled his mail. The young couple from the third floor peeked down, eyes wide, pretending they weren’t eavesdropping.

  For once, it didn’t feel nosy. It felt like a welcome. A strange, messy, neighborly chorus of we’ve got you.

  It hit me harder than I expected, like the word home itself had been waiting for me all along.

  Later that night,after we’d all caught up over stew and fresh baked bread, the apartment glowed with a fire in the grate and the faint aroma of cinnamon from Candy’s pastries. The neighbors had drifted back to their own lives, Candy’s goodnight hug still lingering, and for the first time ever, we were alone.

  Richard sat on the couch, jacket off, sleeves rolled up. The shadows in his face had softened, no Vatican weight pressing on his shoulders, no centuries demanding he prove his worth. Just him, in my living room, looking impossibly at ease.

  I curled beside him, legs tucked under me, trying not to notice how close our hands rested on the blanket. My heart was doing its own frantic drum solo.

  For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The fireglowed. Tudor stretched across the rug like a conquering general.

  Richard finally turned toward me, eyes steady, voice low. “Thank you. For staying with me through this.”

  I smiled, nervous and aching all at once. “Where else would I be?”

  His hand lifted, brushing a stray piece of hair from my cheek. The touch was careful, reverent. Centuries of vows balanced on the edge of a single breath.

  I leaned in. His lips were right there, close enough to feel the warmth, to taste the anticipation of something that had been building across lifetimes—

  —and Tudor launched himself onto the couch, skidded between us, and promptly vomited in my lap.

  “Are you kidding me?” I yelped, half horrified, half laughing.

  Richard’s laugh came first as a chuckle, then rolled into something deeper, unguarded, boyish. He doubled over, shoulders shaking, the sound filling the whole room. It was the first time I’d ever heard him laugh like that, and it made my chest ache in the best possible way.

  I shoved Tudor off my lap, glaring at him. “Guess some things never change.”

  Richard leaned back, still grinning, eyes bright. “Let’s hope so.”

  And for the first time in days, it felt like we were allowed to be exactly who we were— messy, human, and almost perfect.