I can’t stop crying as we get into Marco’s little corvette.

Marco takes the driver’s seat, and Antonio and Franco climb in the back with me. My dress is falling off, my hair is a mess, and I know the crying isn’t helping my appearance at all.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters any more. I’ve been selfish for too long.

Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for myself. I was a killer for hire—not for the senator, but for myself. All I cared about was my own revenge.

Now I’ve brought these beautiful, trusting men into my dark world, and they almost got killed. I have to speak up. I have to come clean, no matter what that means for me.

It’s time to grow up.

I try to wipe my face as Marco pulls out of the deserted car park. He flicks on the heat and keeps glancing at me through the rear view. Antonio and Franco are trying to soothe me and make me lie down, but I push them off.

“No. No. Boys, please—please, just be quiet. Can you hear me up there, Marco?”

“Loud and clear, honey. This car purrs nice and quiet. I can hear you fine.”

I grip Antonio and Franco’s hands.

It might be the last time I get to. I take a deep breath. Where do I begin?

“My whole life, I’ve been walking around with a black hole inside me. My mother, my poor mother…she was forced into a prostitution ring. I don’t know who my father is. I don’t know all the details as to how it all happened. All I know is she suffered. She was abused constantly. And it killed her.”

Antonio tries to put an arm around me and crush me against his chest. I want his warm comfort around me, but I can’t let him get close, or I’ll lose my nerve.

“The Senator has always been my protector. He looked after me…put me in a good school. When he started asking me to do infiltration, I was very young. The perfect spy, he said. No one would suspect a sweet young girl. As we got into darker and darker places, I only liked it more. I wanted to punish any bad guy I came across in the name of my mother.”

Gasping softly and trying to hold myself together, I realize something. The senator had to be involved in my mother’s death. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Antonio and Franco have pulled back from me, staring at me with hard eyes. Marco glances through the rear view, and he also looks tense.

Antonio still briefly holds my hand though, and I give it a squeeze.

“This was a job. Just a job. I was supposed to gather intel on all your business branches and report back to the Senator. He tried to get rid of me, just there as a loose end…I think he has a few of those right now. He’s bad, clearly, and can’t hide his awful deeds anymore. He wanted to punish me for turning on him, but he also needed me gone. I could hurt him still, I think.”

I look down into my lap, thinking of what I could do next if I was still the top badass spy I’ve always seen myself to be. Find Sammy, go after the senator.

Who would I blow the whistle to?

Sammy said to watch my back. I don’t know who’s in on it and who’s not.

I’ve never felt so lost.

“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love!”

My sobs are coming hard again, and Antonio pulls out a silk handkerchief and gives it to me. I wipe my face down, but fresh tears just keep coming.

“I didn’t think I could fall in love…but I did.”

I look between Antonio and Franco, and then I glance at the mirror to catch Marco’s eyes.

They all have the same look.

Hard, suspicious.

I’ve done it—I’m completely fucked now.

“I never considered the Senator was dirty. I never thought about my targets…until you. I fell in love. With all of you.”

I can’t look up now. My eyes are riveted on my lap. I turn and twist the silk handkerchief between my fingers.

“I told him nothing. Even when he had a gun to my head, or strapped a bomb to me, I never told him a word, do you hear me?”

The boys won’t speak. Franco is looking out the window. Marco is watching the road, glancing furiously at me through the rear view with icy eyes. Antonio just stares at me, his big eyes drinking me in like I’m one of his paintings.

As if a painting could come alive and slap him.

I’m so miserable now.

I hunch down in the seat and cry quietly to myself.

The handkerchief is ruined. So is my dress that I put on with such happy expectation.

I expected to get thrashed tonight…in a completely different manner.

Everything is fucked. It keeps getting more fucked up by the minute.

I have no hope that I’ll glory in the bodies of these beautiful men again. I can feel how they’ve closed their souls to me.

It’s clear by the fact that they’re having trouble looking at me. Just days ago, they couldn’t take their eyes off me. All my worst fears have come true.

I lost the boys. I lost them because I lied, because I’m a filthy damned liar who doesn’t know her own heart. No one would ever want me…

How could they? There’s damaged goods, then there’s me. Beyond damaged.

Trash.

Too tired to even cry, I sink back against the seat and watch the lights flickering by the windows. I wish one of them would touch me, but they don’t. The car seat is so small, it must be quite difficult, but they don’t even brush up against me.

No one wants to touch poison.