The pass itself was quick: enter the bar, spot the contact, slide into the booth, exchange the flash drive for an envelope of cash under the table.
The fallout was longer though.
"Don't open it here," the antagonist said out of the corner of their mouth. So of course the protagonist immediately ripped it open and started thumbing through the stack of bills in their lap.
The antagonist sighed and took a sip of their drink. They were drinking a wine spritzer. The protagonist had never seen them drink a wine spritzers. "You are such a child."
"Child who gets paid." Wasn't it convenient to have an excuse not to look the antagonist in the eye? "You taught me that."
"You're still mad?" the antagonist said incredulously, as if this indicated something deeply wrong with the protagonist. "I'd thought you'd have figured out by now this -" they gestured to the two of them "- wasn't personal."
The protagonist abruptly lost count. The bills crunched in their hands as their fists clenched. Gravity itself lurched - just like it had that day last spring where the antagonist had announced it was done and abruptly gone from lover to ex.
"Wasn't personal?" the protagonist said, trying to match the chill in their former partner's voice. No, not chill. Something worse. Indifference. "It felt pretty personal when you straight up shattered my heart after two years together."
"It was 18 months," the antagonist muttered into their drink, looking exhausted.
"21 months," the protagonist countered. "And three weeks, four days. You..."
Their voice failed. How could they say it? You were the center of my world. I thought I was the center of yours.
"Well, that's the other reason we're here," the antagonist said, rubbing at the bridge of their nose. "You've been looking for me. Looking into me. Stop."
"Why? Am I embarrassing you in front of all your cool friends?"
"No." The antagonist crossed their arms. "You're going to get yourself killed."
Something about the utterly detached way they said it killed the protagonist's snark in their throat. The antagonist's gaze flicked across their face and they gave a small nod. "My clients don't like loose ends or complications. I've had to put out fires on you twice. Pass you off as some crazy ex."
"I am your crazy ex," the protagonist snapped back. "Crazy for thinking something was wrong, that you might be in trouble when your whole personality shifted overnight. And not in, like, a professional shift, like when you're working a mark-"
"No," the antagonist said with another sigh. "It was exactly in a professional way."
The protagonist blinked. "What the hell does that mean?"
The antagonist stretched their hands out, forearms on the sticky bar tabletop. The protagonist didnt even have time to think before their own hands dropped the cash, snaked their way into their lover's grasp. "Honey," the antagonist said, staring deep into the protagonist's eyes. "I'm trying to tell you that you were the mark."
The protagonist stared. "What?"
They tried to pull back. The antagonist's grip on their wrists tightened. Their face smoothed back into the protective, devoted partner. But the eyes, the eyes were so empty. "It wasn't personal because you were a job," the antagonist said in awful imitation of their past self. Their kind self. Their... fake self?
"No." The protagonist yanked harder. "No! Bullshit. You didn't take anything from me!"
"No? I took you. You for... what was it? 21 months, three weeks?" The antagonist's lips curved. They traced their thumbnail across the delicate skin of the protagonist's inner wrist. "You really are incredible at what you do. A one of a kind skill set."
"No!" They were loud enough a few heads turned. They were smart enough now to clock the heads that didn't. The waitress. The bruiser at the bar. The couple at the next booth over. "We were partners!"
"On jobs I picked, where you never met the other team members?" The antagonist let go. "I secured exclusive use of your services, and I kept you off the board from any other players. Then the job ended. I cut you loose. Now you know. Is that enough closure for you to let this go?"
They asked like it was so reasonable. The antagonist had always had a way of making anything sound reasonable, sensible, the inevitable course of action. The protagonist stared at their own hands still lying on the table and tried to think.
"Why are you telling me this?" they asked.
"I told you my clients don't like loose ends-"
"Neither do you." The protagonist leaned back themselves. "Why are you warning me?"
"God, [protagonist], I'm not a killer. I don't want you dead." The antagonist shifted, hand drifting down to their pocket. "Bad for business, leaving bodies in the wake."
"You did leave a body in your wake," the protagonist said quietly.
"No." The antagonist gathered up their sunglasses, their jacket. "I left a broken heart. People recover from those everyday. You will not recover from what my clients will do if they decide you're a threat."
They stood and - to the protagonist's shock - bent to brush a kiss against their hair. The protagonist flinched.
"For what it's worth," their former partner murmured, "I had fun. Hope you did too."
And once again, they were gone, leaving the protagonist to pick up the pieces and the bill.
