“Get in the back room. Now!” Paul shoved us toward the bedroom just as the front lock clicked and the door burst open.
Two heavy-set men in dark jackets stepped into the apartment, the lead man holding a suppressed firearm.
“Well, look at that,” he sneered, catching sight of Paul before he could lock the door. “The ghost of the harbor. We thought you were fish food, Paul.”
A scuffle broke out in the living room. Furniture overturned; glass shattered. Diane screamed and tried to bolt out to help him, but I grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back into the closet.
“If we stay here, we all die!” I whispered, my mind racing.
I looked at the window leading to the fire escape, then at Diane, and finally at a heavy brass lamp on the nightstand. I grabbed the lamp, stepped out of the closet, and walked back into the living room.
Paul was pinned against the wall, the gunman’s weapon pressed against his throat. The second man was searching the drawers for the cash and passports.
Without hesitating, I brought the brass lamp down on the second man’s head with every ounce of rage and grief I had been storing for a year. He collapsed instantly.
The distraction gave Paul enough time to drive his elbow into the gunman’s ribs, sending the weapon clattering across the floor. Diane rushed out and kicked the gun under the sofa, while Paul tackled the man, knocking him unconscious with a heavy blow to the jaw.
Silence returned to the apartment, broken only by our heavy breathing.
Paul stood over the unconscious men, looking between me and Diane. “Maya… come with us. We can fix this. We can disappear together.”
I looked at him—the man I had worshipped, who had chosen to betray me to ‘save’ me. I looked at Diane, who couldn’t even meet my gaze.
“No,” I said firmly, stepping back toward the open hallway door. “You two built this trap together. You can live in it.”
“Maya, please—” Diane began.
“If I come with you, I’m running from your ghosts for the rest of my life,” I said, picking up Diane’s dropped passport from the table and tossing it onto the sofa. “You gave me a year to mourn you, Paul. I already buried you once. Today, I’m burying both of you.”
I walked out of the apartment, down the stairs, and into the cool midnight air.
As I got into my car and drove away into the quiet city, I didn’t look in the rearview mirror. For the first time in a year, the air in my lungs felt entirely my own.
