I rode in my rental car with Murphy while he drove; Conner drove an old pickup trailing behind us. We were dropping the rental back off at the farm house where I first spent the night when I got in to town, not giving my father's employee's any reason to come looking for it and finding the MacManus brother's. Murphy was awkwardly quite the bulk of the drive; I just figured he was still pissed at Conner for yesterday. Finally, he spoke, "You don't have to go, ya' know."

"No, I really think I do." I insisted.

"And where will you go, what will you do?" He argued.

"First I need to stop off and see an old friend in Paris. He'll be able to help me make all the arrangements I need to disappear completely. He specializes in that sort of thing, helping people end one life and start a new one."

"And how do you know him?"

"My family has a contract with him. There has been more than a few occasions when a target went through him and we had a difficult time locating them. He tells us if they've "relocated", as he calls it, and gives us everything we need to know on how to find them."

"He sells out his customers and you think you can trust him?"

"The difference is, those people were our targets and we were looking for them. No one will be looking for me, not without reason. Besides, I know I can trust him just fine."

"And how is that?"

"He was my fiancé'."

"Was?" Murphy seemed intrigued now.

"It ended about a year ago."

"Why?"

"We had been seeing each other for about two years, we kept it a secret because I wasn't sure how my father would react. He asked me to marry him and we made the decision to tell my father. My father insisted to me it was a terrible idea, although he never told me he disapproved. He simply told me I was too young, and at the peak of my career and was disappointed in me for being more concerned with things such as love. So I ended it, because killing people was more important to me than the man I loved."

Silence fell between us again, but only for a moment before Murphy spoke up, "Will you stay with him?"

"No. It would be far too risky. Besides, I doubt he'd even ask me to."

"Would you say yes if he did?"

"I don't know." I answered bluntly.

"But I'm asking and you're saying no."

"Because you're not asking, you're suggesting."

"Then consider this me, formally asking you, to stay." I looked over at Murphy, and he glanced at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. "I mean, you're not going anywhere until that leg is healed up better anyway, so you could at least think about it for a while. So will you, think about it that is?"

"Why?" I asked him without hesitation. "Why do you want me to stay?"

"I don't know, honestly. There's just something about the idea that feels right to me. Like, it's what you're supposed to do."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do Murphy."

After we got to the farm house I didn't take anything from it, I figured if anything were missing it'd seem suspicious. Murphy and I piled into the pickup with Conner, I say in the center and we rode pretty much in silence. We stopped by a general goods store so I could pick up some shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and an extra few sets of clothes.

I offered to make the boys dinner that night when we got back to their farm house. I made them one of my favorite classic Russian, beet soup with pumpernickel bread. "My mother used to make this for me," I told them as they hovered me in the kitchen, "On summer nights when I was younger after I was out all day playing. Then she'd give me a bubble bath and let me sleep with her in her when my father was out of town. I always loved the smell of the shampoo, and when I slept with her I could always smell it after she'd take her nightly shower." After we ate, they cleaned up the kitchen while I took a shower. We spent the rest of the night drinking and playing various card games. Again, Murphy was the first pass out.

Conner and I sat on the couch, our wounded legs propped up on the coffee table and we shared a bottle of whiskey. We didn't really talk once Murphy passed out in the armchair, just silently handed the bottle off back and forth and took swigs. But Conner, like his brother, had a habit of breaking silences. "What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know yet." I answered simply as I handed him the whiskey bottle. "Murphy wants me to stay."

"Of course he does." Conner sort of chuckled under his breath.

"And why do you say that?"

"No reason." He insisted, and I let it go. "Do you want to stay?"

"I don't think it'd be a smart decision given the circumstances."

"That's not what I asked you."

"But that's the answer I gave you." I looked at him, he looked at me. "It doesn't really matter what I want, it's about what's best." He didn't argue, only gave me a look of understanding as he tried to pass me the whiskey. I shook my head and stood up, "No thank you. I think I'm going to head to bed. Goodnight Conner."

"Val," I heard Conner say my name as I shuffled across the hardwood floors over to the bedroom door. I looked back at him as he stood up from the couch, taking a quick swig of the whiskey, "You know you could, stay here I mean, if you really wanted to."

I couldn't help but smile at him and nod, "I know Conner."

He smiled back, "Goodnight Val." And sat back down on the couch as I went to bed for the night.