Deal

Deal
Rex sat in his room with the curtains pulled tight. The heavy fabric blocked out all the sunlight. It made the room feel like a cave where he could hide from the world and all its problems.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand. Again. The screen lit up with Dante’s name for the hundredth time that day. Rex stared at it but couldn’t make himself reach over and answer. 

He lay back on his unmade bed and stared at the ceiling. His career as a detective was finished. He knew that much for certain. After what happened at the police station, after being arrested like a common criminal, after hearing Dante confess to torture and murder, there was no way back to his old life.

He thought about running away. Perhaps leaving the country entirely. Starting over somewhere warm where nobody knew his name or his history. He could dump everything that connected him to this mess. His guilt. Dante. Everything. Just disappear and become someone completely new.

The idea was tempting. Really tempting.

But then thoughts of his parents crept into his head. He had made them a promise. Sworn to get justice for their deaths. Sworn to find the truth about who killed them and why.

And now he knew it wasn’t Dante. So who was it? How could he find out if he ran away to some beach in Mexico and spent the rest of his life pretending to be someone else?

The questions went around and around in his head until he felt dizzy.

A sudden knock on his door made him jump. 

His heart started beating faster. 

He lay perfectly still and quiet. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to see them. He wanted to stay here in his dark room and rot away from the inside.

But then he heard something that made his blood go cold. The sound of his lock turning. Someone was picking it. Or they had a key.

The door opened.

Rex sat up fast, ready to fight or run or scream. But when he saw who was standing there, all the fight went out of him.

“Cara?” he said. 

She stepped inside slowly, taking cautious steps as if she was approaching a wounded animal. 

“I was in the neighborhood,” she said soft. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

The sight of her broke something inside Rex that had been holding together by sheer will. All the confusion and anger and despair came pouring out like water from a broken dam.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me anymore,” he said. His voice was shaking. “My whole life has turned into something I don’t recognize. I’m so tired, Cara. I’m confused about everything. I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to feel.”

He put his face in his hands.

“I used to think I was one of the good guys. I used to believe in right and wrong. Now I don’t know anything.”

Without any hesitation, Cara closed the distance between them. She pulled him into a hug, one that was dangerously familiar and felt too safe.

“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered into his ear. “You just need to breathe. Take it one day at a time. Follow your heart and do what feels right. That’s all any of us can do.”

Rex clung to her like she was the only solid thing in a world that he had nowhere else to cling to.

He pulled back to look at her face. “Why are you being so kind to me? After everything that happened between us? After the horrible way I treated you?”

Cara gave him a smile that was sad and sweet at the same time. “Because I already forgave you for that. Holding onto anger doesn’t heal anybody. It just makes the hurt last longer.”

She reached up and touched his cheek gently.

“I want you to feel better about yourself, Rex. You’re not as bad a person as you think you are.”

Her words sank into him with warmth. They talked for a while longer.

Finally, she stood up to leave. “Take care of yourself, okay? And call me if you need someone to talk to.”

The door closed behind her with a soft click. Rex was alone again but something inside him had changed. The conversation he didn’t know he needed had transformed something inside of him.

He stood up in the middle of his room. He had come to a decision. He couldn’t run away. He couldn’t abandon the promise he had made to his parents. He needed justice no matter what it cost him.

And that meant working with Dante whether he liked it or not.

Like the thought had summoned him, Rex’s phone started buzzing again. Dante’s name on the screen. This time, Rex picked it up.

“Where the hell have you been?” Dante’s voice exploded through the speaker. He sounded furious and worried at the same time. “Why haven’t you been answering my calls? What are you, some kind of coward?”

Rex held the phone away from his ear until Dante stopped shouting.

“Were you planning to run away?” Dante continued. His voice was sharp but underneath it sounded a lot like fear. “Leave me? Leave everything?”

Rex felt his chest get tight. “Dante, I—”

“Is that how they trained you as a cop? To run when things get difficult?”

“No,” Rex said quiet.

“Open the door.”

Rex froze. “What?”

“Open your front door. Right now.”

Rex walked to the door, he turned the handle and pulled it open.

There was Dante. Standing right outside like he had been waiting there the whole time. His dark eyes were burning with intensity.

Without asking permission, Dante pushed past him into the apartment. His presence filled Rex with the same safety he had gotten from Cara. It was quite strange how it was basically Dante that had made him lose his mind, but now, he was bringing in the calm he needed.

“You have two choices,” Dante said. “One: you leave. Keep running away from me, from the Mandalas, from all of this mess. Go start your new life somewhere else.”

He turned to face Rex directly.

“Two: you accept me. You accept what I am and what I do. And we work together to finish what we started.”

Rex’s jaw got tight. “I don’t want to be part of your dirty business. I don’t want blood on my hands.”

Dante’s eyes got sharp. “We don’t kill people randomly, Rex. There’s always a reason. Always justice of some kind.”

Rex stared at him for a long moment. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.

“I want something in return,” he said finally.

Dante’s eyebrows came together. “What?”

“I want to know who really killed my parents. I want the truth about what happened to them and why.” Rex’s voice got stronger. “You help me find that information, and I’ll work with you.”

Dante was quiet. He studied Rex’s face like he was reading a map.

Then, slow, he nodded. “Deal.”

They reached out and shook hands. The handshake lasted longer than it needed to.

And then, like they were being pulled together by a feeling they couldn’t explain, they moved closer. Their lips met in a kiss that tasted like uncertainty.