Page 47 of Cruel Kiss

He turns his eyes up to me. They're grayer than they are blue today, but no less piercing. As always, I feel like he can see right through me. Not just my clothes—which are hiding some very perky and incriminating details if he did in fact have that Superman power—but also to the heart of me, the unsettling feelings I can't quite shake.

We're gonna get there eventually anyway, so I decide to beat him to the punch.

"I keep thinking about her offer."

He waits patiently for me to continue.

"It just sounded so simple," I sigh. "I go in, we have a nice little conversation over coffee, and then I get her guarantee that my kids are safe. As their mother, isn't that what I should be prioritizing?"

"That depends. Do you believe her?"

"I don't know. That's the problem." I fold my arms on the table. "Everything about her felt true. But everything about you felt true, too, and look how that turned out."

He could get angry at that, but he doesn't. He just nods, like it's fair, because it is.

"If I take the deal," I go on, "I'm safe. Legally, I mean. The kids are safe from being tangled up in it. But she wants me to giveyouup to get it. That's what she's actually offering."

"I'm aware of the costs."

"And if I don't take it, I'm here. With you. Behind a fricking vault door, with armed boogeymen in dark coats prowling around my neighborhood while we all pretend life is normal as we wait for Lev to send somebodyelseup my stairs." I shake my head. "Neither one of these is a good option, Ronan. As far as I can tell, thereisno good option. There's just less bad and more bad, and I can't tell which is which anymore."

Ronan is contemplative. His eyes float over me, to the darkness outside the window.

And then, strangely, they lower to the papers pinned beneath his fingertips. Something about the way he looks at them triggers my attention. There's a cover sheet on top, so I can't tell what they are. But they've got Ronan's full focus.

"What's that?" I ask.

No answer.

"Hey. Ronan. Yoohoo. What's in the folder?"

He heaves a tortured exhale. Then he slides the packet across the table.

I lift the cover sheet and see, stamped in big, bold letters across the top…

BRADSHAW DIVORCE: FINALIZED

It's my divorce.

The final one, signed and sealed with a judge's signature that means my union to Todd Abraham Bradshaw is officially null and void.

I keep reading, like I'm hunting for a punchline that'll be buried somewhere halfway down the page. The legalese is dense—hereby dissolved, whereas the parties, in consideration of,blah-bedy-blah—but I get the gist. It's over. One illegible chicken scratch signature, and that chapter of my life is done.

"Huh," I say. "So that's that."

But wait.

Something else catches my attention.

A date.

I have to read it three times over and do some very embarrassing math before I realize what it implies.

"This is from last week."

Ronan nods. "Yes."

I look up at him. "You've had this for a week?"