1

  At the cabin, Daros had said he'd start with a simple question. Well, it might be a simple question for him, but not for her. Who was she running from? She took a while to answer. She got up to get the lasagna, tore open the packaging, and arranged the contents in a baking dish. Without turning around, she closed the oven lid and heard him add:

  "Listen, Greta, I just need to know what I'm facing here."

  I know, of course. It's just that... I'm thinking about how to start. It's a long story. Want another beer?"

  He nodded before continuing.

  "Take all the time you want. We're still safe."

  Still. The man never let his guard down. She handed the beer to him and opened hers. She looked at the ceiling as if she could find in the wooden beams the inspiration and strength to speak.

  "I was running from the life I had with my husband. Valério Galvani was his name."

  "Was?"

  Greta licked her lips hearing the correction. She shook her head, agreeing.

  "Is. It's his name. Was... Is a literature professor at the same university where I taught English. I used the past tense for myself too, see? It's just that... None of this is present anymore."

  She continued saying the two met when she was still a student, still his student. Like many other young women in the literature course, she wanted to be a writer. Valério thought she had talent, a lot of talent. The professor was kind, attentive, funny. The two had many coffees after class to discuss her ideas, her writings, her stories. Valério helped her in other subjects too whenever he could.

  Greta ended up being selected as a teaching assistant for an English literature professor. On one hand, that took her away from the practice of writing. On the other, it brought her closer to Valério, whom she began to encounter daily in the hallways. It didn't take long for him to ask her out, and even less time for her to accept.

  "Were all the professors like that?" Daros interrupted.

  "Like what?"

  "Predators."

  Greta didn't answer. But she'd thought the same thing in recent years. Valério hadn't been her first man, but he'd been the most mature. So the simple fact that he didn't rush to leave after sex impressed her quite a bit. The relationship remained discreet until her graduation. And months later came the wedding.

  Things were going well, as almost always in the first years of a union. The only issue in the way were the children he wanted, but she didn't. At first she thought she simply didn't have maternal instinct. Much later, she discovered the reason was different. Day after day, the discomfort with physical contact with Valério increased. She didn't find it too strange. She'd heard dozens of women saying a couple's sex life gradually dwindles until it disappears completely. Friendship and companionship remain, and for most that's enough. Either way, her husband had been understanding, at least at first.

  One day he announced that his sperm test results weren't promising. With an air of regret, Valério pointed out the irony of the situation. He of all people, who dreamed of fatherhood, fell on biology's blacklist. Shaking his head, resigned, he said Greta could stop taking the pill. And she stopped, only to discover she was pregnant six months later. At the time, she didn't suspect her husband's test. The pregnancy wasn't good news, especially not when she'd been selected for a master's program in England.

  The process of considering options lasted less than she expected. She lost the baby at the end of the second month. First, she blamed her own indecision for the child's death. Maybe the fetus had felt the mother's hesitation and understood it as rejection. But that would be unfair, because only she knew how real the grief felt was. The lack of planning didn't prevent the love for the tiny bean germinating inside her from growing day by day, minute by minute.

  But the guilt remained. Upon perceiving the hesitation, the baby might have given up on her. There was no other explanation.

  She shared the theory with the couple's doctor, who shook his head, dismissing the idea, and held her hand affectionately. The professional added that losing the baby in the first trimester of pregnancy was almost the rule, not the exception. Greta argued that what wasn't common was for men with a low sperm count to get lucky a second time. The doctor frowned, saying he didn't know Valério had done any test in that regard. Upon noticing the shock on the woman's face, he hastened to add that it was perfectly possible the test had been done at another clinic.

  Greta's heart didn't believe that, swelling in her chest. She maintained a mask of indifference on her face, but what before were cracks in their life together began to transform into a crater.

  Before she just didn't feel connected to Valério. After the incident, she began to wonder who he was. A liar, of course, but more than that, someone who saw her as an object without will of her own. If he wanted a child, he'd do what he had to do for that, including lying to her. The pain she felt for the loss of the child might be a side effect for him, but it was heartrending for her. And to think that everything could have been avoided if...

  At this point, Greta interrupted the account. She was looking at the floor. She couldn't have seen Daros even if she wanted to. The cloud of tears covered anything. If she could look at him, however, she would have seen a different man, without the habitual expression of indifference. She would have seen compassion on his face, accompanied by poorly disguised anger.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She'd never told any of that to anyone. Nor had she dared to write about it. Sharing a tragic story has the power to eternalize it. Greta didn't want to eternalize the pain. Saying all that out loud broke a barrier inside her, a tall, solid wall she'd worked hard to erect over time, stone by stone.

  In the following years, she forced herself not to think about it. She also forced herself to ignore the nights he spent away from home. She considered the betrayals a blessing. Each new lover was a guarantee that that man would stay away from her and her bed. And the fact that he kept accumulating positions at the university kept him vain enough to seek new admirers.

  Greta suddenly stood up. She told a very quiet Daros that she needed to get her beach cover-up. She'd forgotten it at the lagoon. She left the empty glass on the threshold and burst through the cabin door without looking back. She plunged into the woods ignoring the branches that scratched her skin, caught on her swimsuit for a moment, or pulled her hair.

  At the end of the path, she knelt at the water's edge and covered her face with her hands. But she didn't want to cry anymore. She wanted the peace she'd felt earlier. She wanted to sink to the sandbank at the bottom and forget the world again. She wanted not to think about the first time Valério had touched her without permission, nor when he'd done much more than touch without permission. That she'd never tell Daros, never tell anyone. So she wet one foot, then the other, and began to enter the deeper part. She wanted to escape.

  She heard the water behind her opening to receive someone else. She didn't need to look back to know who it was, but she turned anyway. Daros was walking toward her, that sadness from past ages settled again in his clear eyes, ignoring the clothes getting soaked. She didn't move away. Upon reaching the point where Greta was, he began:

  "Greta..." she waited, but Daros changed his mind and stopped talking.

  A strange thought occurred to the woman. If he kept going after her, one day he'd discover who she was.

  He continued advancing slowly, not knowing what to say.

  Greta didn't know either. She felt the air grow heavy around the two of them, silencing the water around them, the distant branches vibrating from the wind's sway. Daros was part of that quietness, looking at her as if the rest of the landscape had ceased to exist. She waited until he reached the point where he couldn't advance without touching her.

  Her whole body trembled when she stood on tiptoe and touched his face, one hand resting on each cheek. Daros was a statue when she kissed his mouth, in a soft and hesitant way. The girl inside her, the one who'd fallen in love at first sight with a rebel before, feared being pushed away again. So she stopped. Everything in his immobility suggested another rejection. The man's body was rigid and his lips didn't move. Greta's heart came close to shattering. She slowly retreated, toward the center of the lagoon, embarrassed for having given in to a foolish impulse.

  Daros knew he wanted her. Since the first time he'd seen her, under the wavering lights of the gas station. The assessing air of that woman, the rigid posture of someone who'd already faced too much to retreat without a fight. His will split in two: to reciprocate the touch and to regain control over himself.

  A fraction of a second before she could turn and give up, Daros acted. He placed his hand on the back of her neck with a delicacy that defied his own strength, and with the other pulled her by the waist, leaving no room for doubt. He wasn't rejecting her. Not even close.

  He initiated a new kiss, more intense, more decided than the first. Everything about her was soft, everything activated impulses he'd imagined were under control. Since the motel he'd discovered it would be very difficult to remain contained near her. And now he didn't need to anymore.

  While returning the kiss with the same surrender, she pulled him by his wet T-shirt to draw him even closer, with an almost forgotten urgency.

  He almost let it. But he remembered why they were there: to hide Greta from the world. So he calmed her by resting his hands lightly on her shoulders. Then he announced:

  "Not here. It's not safe, someone might see us. Come. Let me take you back home."

  2

  At the roadside hotel, three firm knocks on the door announced the substitute's arrival. Pablo lowered the handle, giving way to the young man waiting in the hallway. The blue eyes might very well be a relic, a piece of the iceberg that sank the Titanic. The hired shooter's angular features suggested an unshakeable efficiency that matched his reputation. It was surprising that someone could have such a dark reputation already at that age. The reputation of not having missed a single shot. That's why Pablo expected someone older, perhaps with a graying beard. That boy didn't have a single hair on his baby-smooth face.

  The professional's arrival was clear proof that his warning about the man helping the woman had been taken seriously. But there was something else: the speed with which the commander had acted, and especially the choice of that particular executor. This bothered Pablo, though he couldn't identify exactly why.

  It was as if he was seeing only part of a bigger picture. Women fled from their partners every day. Or at least tried to. All this structure was already getting kind of disproportionate. Her husband was the department head at a university. A good job, no doubt, but nowhere near good enough to fund that fireworks festival. And all for what? To get his wife back? No, he wasn't buying that. No way.

  It wasn't the morality of the thing that bothered him. The police department routine had taught that the whole right and wrong thing is quite flexible, and generally leans toward the side that pays better. He didn't care about the reason someone wanted so badly to bring a stubborn cow like that back. He just didn't want to get into mud so stinking that, if it splattered on his ass for some reason, it wouldn't come clean.

  Under the newcomer's cold gaze, Pablo assessed the name search results. Nothing useful. Zero chance that Fabricio-something was the name the guy's mommy chose for him. The car had been returned at the company's branch in Florianópolis. Of course it was at the downtown branch. And of course it was during one of the busiest times, both inside the store and in pedestrian traffic. They could analyze the images, with the certainty of finding in them a tall white guy with his face hidden by the fucking brim of a cap.

  The search would require time they didn't have. And all this for what? To end up in another dead end architected by the stranger. If they followed the son of a bitch's footsteps, they'd end up sucked into quicksand.

  The phone rang, and Pablo moved away from the laptop to answer the call away from the window.

  "Hello."

  He listened. And his eyes widened as he listened. A change of plans.

  If the client was willing to do that, there was much more at stake than a marriage. He ended the call and looked at the assassin settled in the hotel room armchair.

  "This is where we part ways, partner. The laptop and the room are yours, with two paid nights. Check the email from time to time. Orders will arrive soon. Keep watch. You have a partner, right? A driver?"

  The man confirmed with a silent nod.

  "Ok, keep the guy informed, but the basics will do. And watch him. I think he's a rookie."

  Pablo's instructions included returning to Porto Alegre. The commander didn't think it would be possible to pull the rats from the wall where they'd hidden. So the way was to set the house on fire.