I'm waiting for Gabriel in the small yard that belongs to the block she lives in, leaning against a tree, casually, as if I was his boyfriend.

She sighs when she notices me.

"What?" I ask. "I drive faster than a cab. And I know the city better."

"Not that," she says. "You have no reason to be here, Duke."

"What the fuck? Did you mess up your calculations, or what? I can't believe it, girl. It's a first. Well, of course, I have a reason to be here!"

"But you—"

"No," I grin. "Not me."

"Oh."

I'm positive that I see the new parameters being implemented in the equations running behind her glossy, unexpressive eyes, in the form of an unbreakable chain of numbers. And then, I see her furrowing her brow when it still doesn't add up.

"Is it me, then?" she asks tentatively. "I thought you were over that stupid Gabriel phase."

"You already know that it's not you," I point out. "You just ruled that out, right?"

"What the fuck do you want then, Duke? To say goodbye?"

She looks clueless. And she probably is.

"No. I came to help you to calculate a very tricky variable. The one that falls outside your competence."

She turns her back on me and marches toward her door, looking for her keys in her bag.

"Mint gave up everything for you," I tell her, just before she opens the lock. "And now he has nothing."

She stops on her track, but she doesn't turn back to face me.

"But it doesn't matter, as he's interested in one thing only," I go on.

"What is that?"

"Your love."

She snorts and shakes her head. Not in a cute way. But, at least, she turns around. Now we look as we're about to fight. Well, it's not far from the truth, anyway. I came here to fight her on a battlefield that she rules without the slightest doubt.

"Oh, wait," I spread my hands theatrically. "He has that! So he has something, after all!"

"Stop it, Duke. I told you already that I'm not capable of a feeling that complex. It's a rare truth. So—"

"So cut the bullshit."

"How dare you call my problems bullshit?" she yells, throwing her bag on the ground.

That's good. We're getting closer to the solution of her equation.

"I'm not swallowing it," I tell her. "I want the truth."

"What truth?"

"The truth. There is only one of that."

"Well, you already know the truth, Duke. You seemed to be able to notice it without my help, fuck you. And you never failed to treat me every ounce of the weirdo I am ever since."

"That's an unimportant variable in this equation."

My answer finally does the trick, no matter how much her words make my heart ache. She loses her cool.

"Are you out of your mind?" she lashes out. "Do you think that mathematical lingo negates the facts of my life? Mint deserves someone better! It's fucking obvious without backup calculations!"

"He wouldn't agree," I point out.

"Well, he already told me that I treated people like tools. And that's exactly what I do. No one should be with me, and I should be with no one. Obviously."

"Obviously. Because they shout at you when you do something like that to them, right? And then, you break up."

"Exactly."

"Except for Mint," I remind her. "He caressed your hand and asked you to respect his boundaries."

"Yeah. Once. But I can't stop calculating. I can't stop pushing those buttons."

"And what's wrong with an adult, in full possession of his faculties, letting you do that to him?"

"Mint doesn't even want me out of his free will!" she cries. "It's not his free will. It's mine!"

"Oh, so you finally admit that you want him. Good."

"You're one of those people who can't gather the gist of a sentence for the life of them."

"Are you sure?" I can't suppress my smirk anymore. Now I know that I have a reason to be jubilant. We're done here. I won.

"I am," she answers. "And I am sure of lots of other things. Like, for example, there's an 88% chance that Mint would leave me in a month. And that would be quite unfortunate because leaving is almost like dying, and that that might also be incompatible with my existence, so I must prevent it, no matter what."

"I hate to contradict, but I'm one hundred percent sure that he wouldn't."

"Oh yeah? What the fuck do you know about numbers, exactly?"

"Nothing," I admit. "But I know everything about Mint."

"Everything is such a vague term."

"Okay, what about this? When we were members of your team, we had to answer a bazillion questions about various things, from our birth weight to our sexual orientation. And Mint couldn't answer that because he didn't know if you were a man or a woman. You were his sexual orientation."

She stares at me with her mouth agape. She's speechless, finally. Not for long, though. After a few moments, her brain reboots, and she clears her throat.

"I'm still not convinced," she says. "And I really need to go, Duke."

"Okay. But there's another thing you need to know."

"I don't have time for this."

"I promise that it's the last piece of information I force on you."

"What is it?" she sighs.

"Mint would never eavesdrop on a conversation like this of his own accord. He'd only do that if I blackmailed him into it by telling him something he can't say no to. Like, for example, that it's the only thing I'll ever ask of him in exchange for my help in the past, allowing him to leave the Agency alive."

She's fast. It takes her less than a split second to understand.

When I point at her door, with a little window on it, she hangs her head, dejectedly. I give her time to digest the situation.

"You're such a stupid noble, Duke," she says after a long pause.

"Yeah. Noblesse oblige."

"Are you really a noble?"

"Nah. My father was a fisherman."

"So my calculations weren't all messed up," she muses. "They make sense, in the end. You're not doing this for me, or you. You're doing this for Mint."

"That asshole? Never."

She rolls her eyes and picks her bag up from the ground.

"I just happen to know that Mint's always been your favorite," I tell her. "Everybody knew that. And now, you're playing favorites again."

She doesn't protest. Well, she'd protest in vain, anyway.

"But one day, you'll realize that you were wrong," I promise her. "But then, it will be too late to choose the smarter, the better, and the more handsome."

She hugs me, rolling her eyes.

I turn my back on her and walk away.

"And the suavest," I add casually, without looking back. "And the cutest. And the firmest yet gentlest. And the best endowed."

She laughs and walks to her door.

Winning never felt that hard before.