I lift my head to the sound of a keyboard clicking. He’s sitting in a chair beside the window, dressed in dark jeans and a black T-shirt, his bare feet propped on the sill. His expression is pensive, his gaze intent on his laptop screen. Through the window, past parks and the Potomac, the National Cathedral is nestled into a backdrop of greenery, just visible through an early morning fog.
A contented smile tugs at my lips. I can’t help but appreciate the visual and entertain a little fantasy that this is normal. A lazy morning at our place. This could have been us…
Despite how he left me so utterly heartbroken, I haven’t been able to give up the dream we once shared. Having him back in my life, being reunited with the physical man, only reminds me how he’s always personified everything attractive to me. Somehow it’s all been amplified in the six years we’ve spent apart. His confident stride. His penetrating stare. The masculine yet graceful lines of his body, as if he’d been carved into being.
I imagine a sculptor chiseling away, revealing the man Tristan was meant to be from the block of stone that held him. Maybe there was more yet to reveal. Maybe holding on to the man he was all those years ago is hurting us both. He can never be that man again. His experiences the past six years have fed the darkness in him, but they’ve also led him back to me. I can’t acknowledge one circumstance without the other. I have to learn to accept this reality.
He doesn’t seem to notice my appraisal of him until the sheets whisper with my movement. He turns his head, his serious expression softening.
“Morning, stranger,” I say, still groggy from sleep.
His eyes take a quick pass over my supine position before locking with mine. “Morning,” he says quietly.
I regret that he barely touched me last night. Moments after I nestled against his side, he fell into a deep sleep. One that, mercifully, wasn’t marred with nightmares like the one I’d witnessed at Mateus’s. I followed him down, needing to rest my soul as much as my body in those quiet hours. Having Tristan with me again does something to my soul. No matter what we’re facing, being in his presence again puts things right.
“You should get ready. We have a date.”
I smile at the prospect of finally leaving Brienne’s apartment. A date with Tristan sounds promising too. “I thought you’d never ask. Where are we going?”
“I made contact with your father. Anonymously of course. Said I had a tip for him and needed to meet.”
I sit up. My heart picks up speed again as if there’s another blaring siren coming my way.
“Are you sure we should do that?”
“It should be fine. I’ll be there.”
I nod and brace myself for what’s to come. Except I never really know. With Tristan, I dive in headfirst and contemplate the risks afterward. I wasn’t so different before, but now our snap decisions tip the scales between life or death. Every move matters.
Antsy to see my father, I shower and dress in record time. I emerge to find Brienne and Tristan in the living room, a tense silence filling the space.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Tristan answers. “You ready to go?”
Brienne rolls her eyes and heads down the hallway. “See you guys later.”
“What was that about?” I ask as we leave the apartment.
“Nothing.”
Tristan’s curt reply closes the subject, though I intend to press Brienne on it the next chance I get.
A sharp wind whips through the ground-floor breezeway as we make our way to the street. Tristan’s car is a new, sporty BMW, a nice improvement from my last ride.
“How do you know Makanga, anyway?”
“We’ve done business before. Not in DC.” Tristan merges with the street traffic and drives us toward a park on the outskirts of town where my father will be waiting for me.
A pang of anxiety hits me about our impending rendezvous, so I attempt to distract myself.
“Is he a friend?”
“No friends, remember,” he says without emotion. “But he’s reliable most of the time.”
“You didn’t want to tell him my name.”
“That’s because I don’t trust anyone.” He turns left, his wrist resting casually on the wheel as if he’s made this drive a thousand times.
“You don’t trust him, but you expected me to feel good about staying with him for an unforeseen amount of time?”
He lifts an eyebrow and glances at me before returning his attention to the road. “You trying to pick a fight over this?”
“No,” I say quietly and look out the window. I don’t know why I’m pressing the issue, except that there’s still so much I don’t know.
“I didn’t trust Mateus either,” he says, “but I let him get you out of there. I did what I had to do. When you’re on the run and living off the grid, the rules are different, Isabel. Every bond can be broken. Family, friends, lovers. It doesn’t matter. We do what we need to survive.”
Something cold wraps around my heart with his words. I’m not Tristan’s friend. I’m barely his lover. And no matter what I am to him, everything is conditional.
Every bond can be broken.
Tristan parks on the street and surveys the area. It’s noon. Despite the chill, a few people are bundled up on benches, eating their lunches. Others run along the path that follows the river. No one seems suspicious.
Then I see my father. His back is to us. He’s gazing out over the choppy water, hands in his pockets.
My heart lurches. I want to run and tell him everything, but a part of me is terrified that he’ll be upset with this mess I’ve gotten myself into. I look over to Tristan, whose attention has fixed on my father as well.
“What are you going to tell him?”
Tristan slides his gaze to mine. “Nothing. He won’t know I’m here. It’s all you.”
I exhale a shaky breath. “Okay. That makes sense, I guess. What should I ask him? Anything specific?”
Of course, I’ll want to just blurt out what the past week has been like, but I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to see him again. This meeting isn’t about sentiment. I came here to find out the truth, and my father might be the only person who can get us closer to it.
“You should ask if he has enemies, people who would want to hurt you to get to him. He might be working on something that’s gone sideways and implicated him in a more personal way.”
I mentally log the request. Morgan Foster hasn’t gotten to where he’s at by betraying confidences or clearances. He never discussed his work at home. I’m not sure he would even if he could. He’s always been private. But I’ve got to try.
“What about the notebook? The one you told me to give him if you didn’t find me at the church that night?”
Tristan goes still. “I’d like that back if you don’t mind.”
“What is it?”
He sweeps his gaze across the park once more. “You should tell your father the truth. You may not get it from him, but at this point, there’s nothing to lose by him knowing what’s happened. The more information he has, the more he’ll know what to look for if he actually plans to help us.”
“Then why can’t he see the notebook now?”
He turns to me, his expression hardened. “Because as long as I’m breathing, it’s my business, not his. It’s insurance. Something I thought might help you if Crow managed to kill me.”
“Who’s Crow?”
His lips tighten into a grim line. “He’s a pain in my ass. Another contractor.”
“He’s an assassin. He kills people for a living.”
His silence answers for him.
“Do you know a lot of people like him?”
“Some,” he says. “Mostly others in the organization. Jay calls us Company Eleven. Sometimes our paths crossed.”
“How does it work?”
He juts his chin toward my father’s stoic figure in the distance. “He’s waiting for you.”
“I’m waiting too. Tell me.” I fold my arms over my chest.
Tristan thrums his fingers on the steering wheel. “After I got settled in Rio, I got my first message from Jay. We communicate through a protected chat. It’s always the same thing. She sends me a file on the hit. Name, location, optimal time to execute, and any pertinent details or hindrances I should know before going in. If I ever feel like I need to know more, I have to dig for it myself, which I’ve gotten pretty good at. I figure out all the logistics on my own—travel, surveillance, bribes—and report back when it’s done. She wires the funds by the time I land back home. The fee plus incidentals.”
I study his stolid features, as disbelieving as ever that this was his existence. His normal. “Just like that.”
He hesitates a beat. “Just like that.”
“How much would you have gotten paid to kill me?”
My father’s begun to pace a short path, back and forth, looking between the gray sky and the pavement. Still, I wait for Tristan’s answer.
“Thirty thousand dollars,” he says without making eye contact.
I’m not sure why I wanted to know, but now that I do, the reality of it hits me in an odd way. Someone was willing to pay thirty thousand dollars to make sure I died.
Thirty thousand dollars is the price of someone’s life, regardless of what they’ve done or not done, regardless of who they’ll leave behind…
The truth is crushing, but I find myself seeking more of it. More of the painful, terrible truth.
I close my hand around the door handle. “Where will you be?”
He finally meets my eyes. “I’ll be right here watching you the whole time.”
I leave the vehicle and walk toward my father. Within seconds, I’m within earshot, but I can’t bring myself to call out to him. I don’t have to. He turns, and recognition lights up his eyes. He takes a few large strides toward me.
Wordlessly, he pulls me into a crushing embrace.
I can feel his heart hammering. The strength of his embrace is home—the safe place I was so determined to run from once upon a time. I exhale a shaky breath as we break away, blinking away the emotion burning behind my eyes.
He holds me by the shoulders, seeming to do the same. “What happened? Why didn’t you come straight home? I don’t think I’ve slept since the police told us you were missing. I know your mother hasn’t.”
“It’s a long story. It had to be this way. I’m sorry.”
Every worry line in his face is more pronounced than ever. “We should have never let you go there.”
I close my eyes with a sigh. My parents argued with me endlessly about going to Rio. But they’d argued against me being with Tristan too. They argued about the hour-long bus ride into Baltimore. Every nagging objection was a strip of rope around my freedom until I was ready to snap.
“Nothing could have made me stay,” I finally say. “Not after Tristan.”
He can’t mask his grimace. “For Christ’s sake, Isabel. You need to let him go. All he ever brought you was heartache. Let him go.” He shakes me slightly with that last demand.
As if any amount of time or manner of well-meaning advice could change my heart.
“He found me.” My admission is nearly carried away by the breeze.
He freezes. “Tristan?”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
He takes a step back, breaking contact. Several seconds pass as he seems to absorb this new information.
“Why would I?”
“He’s different, Dad. He’s in trouble, and so am I.”
He searches my gaze, his posture rigid. “What kind of trouble?”
“He…” I swallow hard. This is the moment I’ve dreaded. Admitting the awful truth of what’s come to pass. Tristan’s role in it is salt on the wound. “He was hired to kill me.”
My father pales. “Are you serious?”
Something seems to click, an unspoken understanding that things are more dire than he realized.
“Once he found out who I was, we took off. He got me out of Brazil. I used a fake passport to get home, but he’s worried they’re not going to give up that easily. We need to find out who’s behind all this.”
He flickers his gaze to mine. “Are you sure this isn’t some game?”
“Dad, this isn’t a game. People are dead. I’ve seen things…”
I close my eyes against the terrible memories. My thoughts pivot to the men guarding the gates of Mateus’s compound. Sharp bolts of sound. Instant results. White rocks bleeding red.
When I open my eyes, his are wide with panic. “Isabel, let’s get you home. We can figure this out there.”
“Wait.” I step back. I can’t bring myself to tell him I can’t go with him. Not yet. “Who would want to hurt me? Someone wants me dead. Do you have an enemy, someone who may be trying to get to you through me?”
His brows furrow. “No. I mean…” His focus darts around as if he’s pinging between all the possibilities. “I’ve always been very careful. Hell, I don’t even wear a wedding ring so no one assumes I have a family at home. If someone intended to send a message, I’d have gotten it by now. Why anyone would want to hurt you is madness.”
Maybe so, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still running for my life from the people who turned Tristan into the killer he’s become.
“Do you have any idea what happened to Tristan after he enlisted?”
My father’s frown deepens. “If he’s in trouble, he can fend for himself. All that matters is you’re safe now. You’re home, and I can take care of the rest.”
His indifference toward Tristan riles me.
“We’re tied up in this together now. I’m not coming home until I know why he was sent for me.”
He hesitates. “He’s here with you? Where is he?”
“Close,” I say hesitantly.
He works his jaw. “Listen, he’s gotten himself mixed up with the wrong people. That’s not your fault.”
“It’s not his fault either.”
“Stop defending him, Isabel. For God’s sake, when are you ever going to get it through your head? The kid is a loser. He was on the wrong path long before he met you. I did what I could, but—”
“Stop it!”
I huff out a few shaky breaths. Familiar anxiety ripples through my limbs. Suddenly I’m eighteen again, defending myself. Defending Tristan.
I love him. They can’t keep us apart. It’s my life.
The old song weaves into this new dilemma.
My father stills, his gaze searching mine. Defiance meeting defiance. Finally he breaks his stare and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I looked him up in the database at work after he broke things off with you. You were miserable. I thought maybe I could track him down and give you some solace. He went on a few deployments overseas. His last mission in Afghanistan was a bloodbath. He got out of it alive, and then he transitioned out. I figured he’d lost a limb or something bad enough that it’d just end up breaking your heart all over again.”
A cold, sobering wind rushes between us. Gratitude and grief hold me up. An enduring sadness with what’s come to pass. Relief that Tristan’s fate wasn’t even worse.
“He lost his memory, Dad. He doesn’t remember anything before that last mission. He doesn’t remember me.”
He winces. “That can’t be true.”
“I believe him,” I say. “If I hadn’t recognized him, I think he would have killed me. Whatever they did to him, they turned him into a killer. And because he didn’t go through with it, they’re after both of us.”
“Who? Who’s they?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. Tristan has a contact in the organization. A manager, I guess. Her name is Jay. He doesn’t know much else about them other than she calls them Company Eleven. He gets dossiers on hits and is wired the money when it’s done.” I’m heartbroken all over again as I utter the words aloud. “I have a feeling he was pret
ty good at his job.”
My father rakes his fingers along the side of his short, silvering hair, betraying his anxiety. “Christ.”
My thoughts drift to the red notebook. I’d found it in my things on the flight back to DC. I’d studied the names in it, each with a number beside it. Dozens of them were scratched onto the lined pages in his script. He might call it insurance, but I’m pretty sure it’s a ledger of all the people he’s been hired to kill.
“Will you look into it more?”
“Of course. I’ll find anything I can. For now, let’s get you home. Lucia is worried sick. I haven’t seen her this way since Mariana…”
He closes his eyes, and instantly I know. If my mother thinks her daughter is dead, she’s reliving the worst kind of pain.
I take my father’s hand and squeeze it firmly. “Tell her I’m fine. I am. But I can’t come home yet. I have to lie low until we figure out what’s going on.”
His eyes go wide with panic. “Isabel, no. You have to come home.”
“If someone is still looking for me, it’s the first place they’ll go,” I say, mimicking Tristan’s warning.
“Then they don’t know who they’re dealing with.” Something about the finality in my father’s tone gives me pause. He’s gone from concerned father to something else. A man to be reckoned with.
I withdraw a piece of paper from my jacket and hand it to him. “This is the number you can reach me at. If you find anything—”
“You can rest assured I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Isabel.” He clutches the paper tightly in his hand, not speaking for a long time. “How am I supposed to let you go back to him after what you’ve just told me?”
I think through a dozen reassurances. Most he won’t believe. That Tristan would never hurt me. That he’ll keep me safe. Everything boils down to the same thing. It’s my choice. My life. My trust. My mistake.
He already knows this.
I reach for him. I’m not sure he’s ever hugged me so tightly or for so long.
“I need you to be careful, Isabel. Be smart.”
“I will,” I whisper. “I promise.”
When we pull away after several minutes, I can’t mistake the tears in his eyes.
Reborn Page 12