The first time he'd kissed her, it had been strictly business. She was his mark. What he'd known about her then was this:
Each night she took approximately two minutes to fish her keys out of her purse before she opened the door to the house she shared with her father and brother because she was usually on the phone with her friend and colleague, Linda Park. She worked at the largest paper in Central City, and she'd recently gotten a promotion because of her months-long coverage of the mayor's close relationship with the city's police force. She had a schedule: a morning run before her father and brother were awake, coffee at Jitters, a solid 11 to 12 hours at work, and home in time for late night tv. She only had two credit cards to her name, both of which she had saved for emergencies, and student debt that would last her until she was well past middle age. She hadn't had a date in over a year.
Her name was Iris West.
She was the daughter of the man who had landed his father in prison, the man who had again and again kept his father from getting parole, and so was responsible for his dying in a six-by-eight foot cell, with no privacy and no dignity.
The first time he'd kissed her he'd kept his eyes open as she curled her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, and then laid her head against his chest with a sigh.
What he knew about her now was this:
She cried alone, because she didn't like when people knew that she was upset; she didn't want to be a burden. When she was genuinely excited about something, it animated her entire being—she actually clapped and jumped up and down. When she smiled, it brightened up the entire room, and it made you—made him—want to smile with her, too, made him want to give her reason to smile. When she gave herself over to him, months after he'd 'accidentally' bumped into her at the supermarket, the longest con he'd ever worked on, it overwhelmed him, because no one had ever trusted him that much, no one had ever looked at him like she did, her eyes so dark and earnest, and said "I believe in you," with so much certainty that he believed in himself, too.
He knew that she made him happy. She liked to stroke her hands through his hair when they were in bed together. When she invited him over for dinner, so he could meet her father and brother, he found he wanted to be the nice man she thought she was bringing home. He wanted to be that Barry, her Barry. When he looked across the table at her father and saw that the man didn't recognize him, that he didn't see the boy who'd begged him not to place handcuffs on his father again, that all he saw was an upstanding young man who was good enough for his daughter, it didn't feel like a victory. The hatred that had characterized every thought he'd ever had about Joe West was replaced with a kind of gratefulness to him for having such a daughter. It made him queasy. It made him angry at himself, now.
He knew his plan had worked. He knew she loved him. It pulled at an aching in him, a longing for her, even though she was right there, in his arms. He wanted her to know him—him, the real him, with the dead mother and the dead, convict father, and the life that had been bent on vengeance for so long. Could she love that? He knew he wanted to tell her things he really shouldn't, things that would let her know just how much of a bastard he was, and just how little he was worth any of her kindness or her care. She was doing exactly as he'd planned. He was the one who'd fucked up, who looked forward to hearing her voice and seeing her face and only wanted her to be happy, when the whole point had been to hurt her the way he was hurt, so her father would know that there was nothing he could do to protect those he loved, so her father could feel the same helplessness he'd had with him almost his whole life.
Now he kissed her with his eyes closed and said in his head what he didn't dare say out loud, "I love you, I love you, I love you, Iris."
