“I’ve never—” My breath hitched, and I reached for my throat. Despite my best intentions not to, I looked at him. “I’ve never seen anything. I’ve never heard anything. None of this sounds like something Zachary would do. Or Jason or Garret.”
He offered me a sad smile. “I haven’t even told you what they’ve done.”
“But they have files. They have—God. How could I not have known that he was into anything?”
“It is called Tennessee Gentlemen, so we’re guessing women don’t know, but it’s just a guess. That’s only based on the facts that none of the wives have ever been linked to any of the businesses—illegal or otherwise.”
“I should’ve known. Vero even knew . . .”
“I don’t think she was meant to. Fuck, she didn’t even want us knowing.” He ran a hand over his beard, seeming to think about his next words carefully before saying, “We’re assuming Veronica lied to us about who she was because she knew we would stumble onto all of this. We received a frantic email from her parents saying their daughter needed immediate help or she would be killed.”
My heart wrenched so painfully that it stole my next breath.
I rubbed at my chest, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong.
“Veronica arrived just after us that next morning, no car, no bag, nothing, and she was adamant that they needed to run as far as possible but wouldn’t tell us why. Jess overheard her telling her mom about how she thought he had only been cheating on her, that she hadn’t realized what all he was into. But when Jess asked, Veronica stayed silent. When Einstein searched, there was nothing that hinted at even a boyfriend.”
“Wait . . . you put me through tests, questioned me endlessly, and held off coming here for weeks, but you helped Vero without any information at all?”
Not that I wasn’t thankful.
If she had truly been in danger, I wanted her safe.
I just didn’t understand the double standard.
“It isn’t hard to get a sense for who needs our help and what type of help they need,” he said smoothly. “Those who genuinely fear for their lives, we offer them new ones. Veronica and her parents were clearly afraid for her life, and her parents were fleeing with her, whether we helped them or not. They also lived about twenty minutes from us, so it was easy to get to them and actually see for ourselves. You, however, gave us nothing but red flags.”
I wanted to laugh, only there was nothing funny about this at all.
Of course, I had. Everything had been a fabrication to lure ARCK in.
Every word had been from Zachary’s mind. Lies piled on top of lies to fuel the ones he’d been feeding me.
“Your name, and all variations of it for anyone around your age, brought up nothing in any of Einstein’s searches,” Conor continued. “When you emailed, it was always at the exact same time and from different accounts, which you always deactivated directly after. Granted, you said you’d witnessed a crime, but that was weeks in. You said you were afraid for you and your daughter, but that was after you questioned us and had already set off a shit ton of warning bells with Einstein.”
Everything Zachary had done, everything he’d been so sure was necessary to catch ARCK’s interest, had only raised suspicion.
After a moment, I wondered if that had been his intent. If he’d known exactly what he had been doing all along.
If, instead of going to find Vero, he’d kept everyone perfectly in place.
Lexi and me trapped . . . scared.
The members of ARCK right where he wanted them so he could get Einstein.
One giant game, and I’d helped him execute it.
I felt sick.
“Right,” I whispered, the word thick with my loathing and disgust.
“The only reason you get to know any of this is because we’re hoping you can help link together something that might be missing. For some reason, you knew about Veronica and had a skewed understanding of it. If you know the truth, I’m hoping it’ll help with our trust issues.” He lowered his voice so it was soft and gentle. “But this goes both ways. You need to let me in too, and there are obviously things you know that we don’t.”
“I don’t know anything helpful,” I said after a minute.
“You knew about Veronica,” he shot back immediately.
My eyelids slowly slipped shut.
“How you knew and what you knew would be helpful.”
When I finally opened my eyes, Conor was staring at me pleadingly. “But, apparently, everything I knew was false,” I whispered.
“Sutton.”
“I thought she was gone,” I said quickly. “They made it seem as if she disappeared. Jason made it seem as if she’d disappeared.”
“Then how did you know to contact us?”
I swallowed back the plan and the lies and how Zachary had pretended to be me, and struggled to search for any form of the truth I could give him . . . and found none. “Someone knew,” I finally said. “Where I’m from, things like that don’t stay quiet. Gossip moves quicker than wildfire.”
Conor murmured a curse and pulled out his phone, sending off a quick text. “That changes things.”
“What things?” For some inane reason, I was worried he was going to abandon us.
“We need to make sure she and her parents are okay. We also need to know why you’re running.” He studied me for a moment and then lifted a hand. “For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. I can’t figure you out. I’m not even sure you are running, Sutton.”
He was right, of course. Not that I hadn’t wanted to leave Zachary for years, but leaving someone like him wasn’t exactly simple.
Some relationships are arranged and kept for appearances.
Some marriages solidify family alliances or business relationships.
Mine was one of those.
It linked prominent families together. It fueled businesses.
Besides, if I’d left, I would’ve had nowhere to go. There would’ve been no security for Lexi, and I knew . . . God, I knew Zachary would’ve taken her from me even though he wanted nothing to do with her.
That didn’t mean I hadn’t fantasized of a life where I wasn’t his wife. Where I wasn’t his to control and shape and dictate. Where I didn’t live in fear of the next time he would come home, wanting to play a game.
“I am running,” I admitted softly.
I hadn’t been, but I knew what it felt like to run from Zachary, to be chased by him. Even though my feet were firmly planted on the floor, I knew deep in my gut that I was running from him.
And by some insane turn of events, Conor and Einstein and the people at ARCK had given Lexi and me this opportunity we never would’ve had before.
“It’s just that . . . the man you’re telling me about is a different monster from the one I know.”
“Both of them Zachary?” he asked in way of clarifying.
I dipped my head in a nod.
Conor blew out a slow breath, seeming to think while he did. “Okay . . . okay, all right. Do you know where he is—where he might be hiding?”
“I can’t think of anywhere he’d go.” I rubbed at my temple. “God, this doesn’t seem real to me, that he would be hiding anywhere. He works, he comes home, he has drinks and plays poker with his friends—but you already know them, apparently. We go to functions and parties. His family has a house on the lake.”
“Which lake?”
“Old Hickory.”
Conor glanced at his laptop before shaking his head. “I probably haven’t gotten to it yet.”
“I don’t understand how any of this could happen right in front of me without my noticing. Not just Zachary, but my father too. And Vero . . .” I shrugged helplessly and sagged against the cushions. “She was my best friend. She wasn’t like the stuck-up debutant bitches I grew up with or the women we had brunches with to keep appearances—”
“She wasn’t like you?”
My lips slowly parted in offense, but wh
en I looked at Conor, he was fighting a smile.
“I guess I deserved that,” I conceded. “No, Vero wasn’t like me. She was . . . Vero was real. To know she went through this kills me. When she disappeared . . .”
I wasn’t sure I could say the words because it had utterly wrecked me.
When I’d found out she had been taken from her home and sold in a sex ring, I’d grieved for weeks.
Only to find out today that it was a lie? To find out that my entire life was?
“Anyway,” I said thickly and choked out a laugh. “What kind of friend was I if she couldn’t even come to me when she thought Jason was sleeping around, or when she found out whatever else he was involved in?”
Conor didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want him to.
He just sat there for a minute, watchful as ever, before standing and bringing the laptop toward me.
“I gathered what I figured you would want to know and put it in one place. It starts with what little we had on Veronica. If you ever want to stop reading or need to take a break, I’ll understand.”
“Where are you going?”
He glanced over his shoulder and gave me another sad smile. “Just making a call.”
I watched him leave the room before focusing on the screen.
Just seeing Vero’s picture had my throat tightening and my eyes burning with unshed tears.
This day had been too much.
These months were too stressful and lacked far too much sleep.
I contemplated telling Conor I would wait to read the file until the morning when I felt more emotionally and mentally stable, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t know what hid within these pages.
Conor was back before I made it to the third page, but he didn’t sit on the couch and he didn’t say anything. He just stood against the wall with his head tilted back and arms folded over his chest.
I considered the likelihood of him being able to sleep like that for a long moment before realizing that I was watching him again.
Blowing out a heavy breath, I returned my attention to the screen and continued reading about Veronica’s life before she met Jason. Her parents’ plea to ARCK, and the little information the ARCK team had gathered during their time with them.
Then the pages shifted to the Tennessee Gentlemen and turned into something straight out of a suspense novel.
One that wasn’t my life . . . except it was, and I’d been too naïve to notice.
Murders. Weapons. Drugs. Payoffs. Sex clubs. And my husband.
My husband, my husband, my husband.
Zachary and his friends were everywhere. My friends were everywhere.
My father and father-in-law.
Other men I’d grown up knowing.
No matter how much I wanted to deny it, there was identifying information that made it impossible to refute.
There were pictures and bank statements and copies of letters and transcripts of phone calls.
When I thought about the man I knew my husband could be, I wondered if I should’ve known all along.
Sometime later, there was a knock on the door, and my blurred gaze shifted to Conor. He was completely unaffected by the idea of someone coming to the room this late at night.
When he came back, I realized why.
He was carrying a tray laden with ice cream and toppings, which he set on the couch next to me.
“I’ve heard it makes everything better.”
I looked at him, shock and awe pulsing from me, but he was walking to his spot against the wall.
As soon as he reached it, he leaned back with his eyes closed and arms folded over his chest.
I glanced at the tray and stupidly felt like crying. My mother would be so disappointed.
Blinking away the tears before they could fully form, I asked, “Did you want any?”
He cracked open an eye and then let it close again. “Have a girl call me terrifying and then poor? That’s nothing I need to recover from.” His words were all tease and matched the smile slowly forming on his face.
Shame filled me and flamed at my cheeks. “I am sorry for that.”
“Sorry you think it or sorry you said it?” The tease and smile were gone, and his stoic expression was back in place.
“Conor—”
“Eat. Read. I’ll be here.”
I tried to think of something that would’ve made up for my earlier words, but nothing would.
He was right.
I was sorry that I’d said what I had.
I was embarrassed that I’d acted like my mother. Embarrassed by the way I’d assumed and judged. But I still thought it, and he knew it.
The moment I picked up the bowl of ice cream from that terrifying man who, for some unfathomable reason, was still willing to protect us, I hated myself a little bit.
I crossed my legs, brought the bowl to my chest, and then turned my attention to the screen, which was where it stayed until the early hours of the morning when I finally fell asleep.
Heart full of pain.
Full of hate.
And broken.
Zachary
“Sir?”
Garret looked toward the sound of one of his overcompensated nerds, brows lifted in question.
“Uh, no, sorry. Mr. Larson?”
I leaned forward and roughly set the tumbler of whiskey onto the table in front of me, slanting a glare in the direction of the man standing in the doorway. “Is there a reason you aren’t glued to a chair?”
The man visibly paled and forced a swallow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just that there’s a call on the burner phone.” He held up the phone in question, which was still lit with a call. “You-you left it. In the room. With us.”
“Give it to me,” I demanded, arm outstretched.
“I answered it,” he continued.
“I can fucking see that, give it to me.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mr. Larson.” He hurried to hand me the phone. Before I could take it, he said, “I’m sorry for what you’re about to hear.”
Garret’s chest shook with a harsh exhale. His attention snapped from the nerd to me and back again. “Is it Sutton?”
The nerd stepped slowly back, hands lifting at his sides. “I’m just—I’m sorry.”
Garret stood, already seething, and kicked the table, sending my drink flying across the room so hard the glass shattered. “I told you. I fucking told you what would happen to her.”
I didn’t move or flinch, just held his murderous stare and pressed the phone to my ear. “What happened?”
There was a sigh on the other end of the line before one of my hired men said, “She’s gone. Kid too.”
“Gone how.”
“Gone, gone. All their bags and everything.”
“ARCK?”
“Most likely. Talked to a guy a couple rooms away, said he woke up to a woman yelling.”
A slow grin stole across my face. “Then they’re here.”
“There’s something else,” he said cautiously. “The computer was still in the room, it was wiped clean. And, uh, her wedding ring, sir. It was on the bed.”
The grin fell away.
The room around me faded.
My blood boiled as a dark rage slid through me like flash fire, but just as quickly, it disappeared and a laugh rumbled in my chest.
She knows.
She knows it’s a game.
“Clever,” I murmured. “Wait for my call.” As soon as I ended the call, I looked to the nerd, waiting anxiously in the doorway. “Clean up the glass and get me another drink. When you’re done, get to the goddamn desk and find my wife.”
Garret hadn’t sat.
His breathing had only grown more erratic as he waited.
Once it was only us, I said, “My wife is fine. However, your concern for her gets more irritating by the day.”
“One of us has to be. You offered up Sutton as bait for ARCK. After the shit you pulled with them,
I wouldn’t be surprised if we never see her again.”
“She isn’t bait, she’s part of the plan. She’s also mine to offer.”
His eyes narrowed into slits. “We take care of our own problems. Vero was Jason’s to deal with. But if you think ARCK is going to forget what the three of you did, you’re fucking insane. They’ll use Sutton to get theirs.”
“She’s fine, she’ll be fine . . . and soon, every member of ARCK will truly understand why they shouldn’t interfere with our affairs. But not if you try to save Sutton and fuck the entire thing, which is exactly why you have been where I could watch you this entire time.”
He dragged his hands through his hair. “If something happens to her—”
“What?” The question was pure taunt and challenge. “What will you do?”
His hands lowered and a lazy smile pulled at his lips as he sat in the chair.
Calm. Calculating. The Garret I knew well.
And I had no doubts his thoughts matched my own.
“You and I both know you’ve had it coming for a long time,” he finally said, words slow, smile growing wider by the second. “The day you took her from me, I started envisioning ways to kill you. The day you let her get hurt, I’ll put you in the ground.”
I just laughed.
This constant threatening of each other’s lives would never grow old because I knew we both meant every damn word.
Just as I knew I would kill him long before he ever got the chance to kill me.
Conor
I jerked awake, already reaching for where one of my guns lay under the couch.
My movements halted as soon as I glanced and met Lexi’s hazel eyes. Narrowed into the same squint her mom had favored that first day. But behind that attitude was excitement and curiosity similar to a certain genius I knew.
“Lexi,” I said gruffly. “Told you that you’ve gotta stop doing that.”
In the three days since I’d found them in the motel, she hadn’t said a word to me, and today didn’t seem to be the day that would change.
If she didn’t have her mom’s attitude, I would’ve found these mornings a lot creepier.
I sat up and rubbed my hands over my face and then dropped my forearms to my knees before lowering my head so it was level with hers. “All right, let’s do this. I bet you breakfast that you’ll break first.” A small laugh crept up my throat. “See what I did there?”
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