The Last Option
Chapter Forty-Nine: The Calm after the Storm

"How did you replace out that I would see the assassin?"

Bernard asked Scanlon, who was driving him and Anthony back to his apartment in his Mustang, once he had taken their statements about what had happened. It was dawn.

"The captain hadn't taken his eyes off you these past few months," he replied, "and although he suspected you were the one who posted the bounty, he didn't prove it until yesterday afternoon." "But how did he know it would be last night?"

"I shouldn't tell you, but he ordered to intercept any calls coming into your apartment, or at least the area where it's supposed to be. As I told you, he suspected you were the one who put up the bounty, and therefore you would be called the disposable you would have with you. He tapped the phone from which the assassin called you and heard part of what you talked to him about."

"What if I had been somewhere other than the apartment when I got the call?"

"Well, surely at this time you and your father-in-law would be dead."

Bernard had to admit that West's intervention was timely, and now he and Anthony owed him their lives.

"I hope he recovers," Bernard said, referring to the captain.

"He's out of surgery," Scanlon said, stopping in front of the building where Bernard lived. "He'll be all right."

Bernard opened the car door, ready to get out, as did Anthony, but Scanlon stopped them:

"Are you sure you want to come back here? I don't think that's a good idea. If you want, I'll send a couple of officers to stand guard outside the apartment."

"No, thank you, Detective," Bernard said." I don't think we'll be seeing that guy again."

"He was very upset with you, Bernard," Anthony said. "He may seek revenge on you. Accept the police help us."

Bernard thought about it for a moment. Since Duncan had told him that they would finish with their problem "another time", deep down he wanted him to look for him again to finish him off definitively, but he didn't think he would do it so soon, because he would know the police would be watching him.

"All right. If that's what you want."

"It's just a precaution," Scanlon said, "although if he were to show up again we could catch him."

"I don't think so," Bernard concluded. "He wouldn't be foolish enough to show up so soon."

"But you'll still have protection."

Bernard and Anthony got out of the car and Scanlon set off again. Before going to the station he would stop by to pay a visit to his boss, who must be on the mend by now.

They went upstairs to the apartment and Bernard and Anthony were having a conversation sitting on the living room furniture about the fact that they were very close to death. Or at least Anthony was.

"Did you really think about facing that guy hand-to-hand?" Anthony asked him, somewhat incredulously, when Bernard told him that he almost got into a fight with Duncan. "Either you're the bravest guy I've ever met, or the stupidest, and excuse me for saying so, son. That was a very risky move."

"I know, but that way I felt I could have some advantage. That guy must be an expert in all kinds of weapons, and due to my physical condition I thought I could defeat him. He must not be a great fighter."

"You don't know that either. Maybe he's in better shape than you think."

"Maybe. Anyway I was a little relieved when the police arrived; I wasn't feeling very well after the car crash."

They were silent for a few seconds, thinking about everything that had happened.

"For a second I was convinced that guy would shoot you," Bernard said, looking at their interlocked hands and playing with their fingers. "And that I would lose you too."

For the moment, Anthony didn't know what to say to his son-in-law. He also thought, as he held Duncan's gun to his temple that his life would end right then and there.

"I've never been so scared before, you know," he said after a while. "When you are in a war, somehow you know that you could die at any moment, and even though you feel fear, you can handle it and not feel it so much when you shoot and do what you have to do, thinking you have a chance to defeat the enemy and thus eliminate the risk of dying. But last night was different, feeling that gun in my temple made me think I was really going to die at that very moment, without being able to do anything to avoid it, and the fear escalated in me as it had never done before."

"I also felt very scared," Bernard confessed. "What that detective said is true, if West hadn't arrived at that moment, we would both be dead now."

"It's funny, but I also thought at that moment about my age, that I'm old and close to death anyway, and for an instant, in spite of the fear, I accepted it. I accepted that I was going to die."

Anthony smiled with some sadness, looking at the pictures hanging on the wall in front of him.

Bernard was about to say something to comfort him, but at that moment the apartment door opened. It was Camilla, who also had a key to the apartment.

Walking in and seeing them sitting there in the room, their expressions between sleepy and tired, she asked what had happened to them. At first Bernard thought of hiding everything from her, but later he decided to tell her, thinking he should not keep secrets from her in order to strengthen the nascent relationship between them.

Camila listened to everything in awe, and somehow a little horrified. She couldn't help feeling sad afterward at the thought that at that moment she might have been learning that Bernard was dead.

Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and that moved Bernard who went to sit next to her on the sofa. He pulled her against him and she buried her head in his chest. At one point she reached into her bag for a handkerchief to dry her tears. "I'm sorry I made you feel that way," Bernard told her. "When Anthony and I did that last night, it was to try to get it over with once and for all. To try to get some peace."

"To get what? Did you never think of me, or of little Nathan?"

"I'm really sorry, Camila."

Anthony got up from the furniture and went to the bedrooms, leaving them alone to talk better.

"I think this is becoming an obsession for you," Camila told him. "I know you want to know who ordered Nathan's murder, and to return everything that belongs to his son, but I don't think it's necessary for you to take such a risk," she looked at him with pleading eyes. Bernard pulled her back to him and hugged. "Remember you are not alone now; that you have me, that I'm in love with you, and little Nathan, who has no one. We want to be with you always, Bernard. Please, if you really love us, don't put us through the pain of losing you."

She lay against his chest again as he dried her tears with his handkerchief. For a moment Bernard regretted what he had done, and thought he should leave the whole murderer thing to the police.

He also thought he should come up with a new plan to get the boy everything that belonged to him. He had promised Nathan, and that was a promise he would not fail to keep.

"I promise I'll leave this whole matter of that murderer in the hands of the police," he told her, still hugging her. "It was all for me. For you and the baby I will not risk facing him again. I'll ask for constant surveillance in case he tries to look for me again."

"Thank you," Camila said in a whisper. "Thank you."