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I could finish it like this.

I want him to see my face.

So I change. It hurts going back. I come up off the floor on two legs, naked, with a silver bullet in my hip and nine men’s blood on me, and I stand over him.

“Hello, Eamon.”

“Dec.” He’s trying to smile. Jesus Christ, he’s trying to fucking smile. “Declan. It’s me. We made our First Communion together. Our fathers…”

“You put my wife in a cage.”

His eyes go past me. She’s come up behind me, quiet, with her arms wrapped around herself.

And he plays his last card.

“Mrs. Greene. Zahra. Listen to me. You’re a lawyer. You’re an officer of the court. You took an oath. You can’t stand there and let him do this, it’s murder, you’re a witness. Tell him. He’ll listen to you. Tell him to call the police, I’ll confess, I’ll plead to all of it, just tell him.”

It’s quiet.

I don’t turn around. I don’t say a word. This one’s hers.

I told her once it was her courtroom and my streets, and I meant it. If she tells me to stop right now, I stop. It’ll be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ll do it.

I hear her breathe in.

“You’re right, Mr. Callaghan,” she says. Calm. “I am an officer of the court. I believe in due process. I built my whole life on it.”

“Yes. Yes, exactly, so…”

“But you shot my friends. You put me in a cage. And you laughed about my baby.”

She turns her back.

“I’m off the clock,” my wife says. And she walks away.

Eamon makes a sound. It isn’t a word.

I don’t make a speech. I let the claws come out and the teeth come down, and I lean in close, so it’s the last thing he ever sees.

It’s quick. It’s more than he deserved.

She’s waiting for me by the broken cage. Her back’s to it. She’s looking at the wall.

I don’t touch her. I’m covered in blood. I stop a few feet off.

“It’s done,” I tell her.

She turns around. She looks at me. All of me. The blood, the bullet holes, whatever’s on my face.

She walks right into my arms.

I hold her. I’ve got my face in her hair, breathing her in, vanilla and brown sugar and that tiny new sweetness, and my whole body’s shaking and I can’t stop it.

“Nothing happens to you,” I tell her. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “You hear me? Nothing. Ever again. That’s not a promise, Zahra. I’m not asking God for a favor. I’m telling you how it’s gonna be. Nobody puts a hand on you again as long as I’m breathing.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I know, baby.”

“Is it true?”