Chapter 13: What Cillian Knew

Cillian's POV

I sat in a rented sedan across from a Brooklyn restaurant for two hours and did not go in.

Rule three said I don't ask why, and it didn't say I couldn't park.

Fiona had texted me the address at six.

She had added, "Don't be weird," and I had been weird about it ever since.

Through the front window I could see a long table and a lot of people clapping.

I could not see Annette.

At ten forty the door banged open, and she came out alone with her coat over one arm.

Her face was the color of paper.

Dario came out behind her, hatless, with his tie loose.

"Annette!" he called.

He said all of it this time, Annette and not Nettie, which he hadn't managed in the tunnel.

She didn't turn around.

In the window behind him, Gianna stood with her hand pressed to her mouth, perfectly still.

I got out of the car.

Annette saw me at the curb, and she didn't look surprised.

She walked past me, opened the passenger door, and got in.

I drove her to the hotel without a word.

I walked her up to the sixth floor because she didn't tell me not to.

She stopped at her door with the key card in her fist.

"Say it," she said. "You've been holding it for forty minutes."

"Come back to the penthouse."

"Cillian."

"Stay."

"Rule three."

"I know the rule."

"Then you know what you just did." Her voice shook. "I said you don't ask me why I leave. I said if I go, you don't ask me to stay."

"You didn't say the second part."

"I'm saying it now."

"All right."

She stared at me.

"That's it? All right?"

"You get to change the rules," I said. "You made them."

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