Hold On To Me

by Elisabeth Naughton

“Chemicals,” Simone repeated. “You mean poisons. Are you trying to tell me Steve was poisoned?”

  “No,” Ryan said quickly. “There’s no way to know that unless Steve’s body is exhumed and tests are run. And I’m not saying that’s the case here but, from a medical perspective, after looking at his files and everything else, I’m saying…something seems fishy to me.”

  He reached for a folder he’d set on the coffee table and handed it to her. “Steve’s attending physician was a man named Clayton Browers. He got his undergrad degree at the University of California at Berkeley, then did his post grad work at George Washington University in DC. The Cyphers don’t have a chapter at George Washington, but they do at Berkeley. They’re one of only a handful of bicoastal societies on record. Browers’s name isn’t listed on any formal charter that we could find, but associates my PI talked to claim he has the same dagger brand all Cypher members have. The fact there’s no genetic history of cancer in your husband’s family, coupled with the reality that some of his symptoms don’t match up with those we see from cancer patients, well, it has me curious.”

  Simone looked down at the folder in her hand. “This is Steve’s medical record?”

  “And the info on Browers. Nothing’s definitive, Simone. I don’t want you to get worked up. I’m just pointing out some inconsistencies and areas of caution.”

  Mitch watched the color drain from Simone’s cheeks, and an uncontrollable need to go to her, to comfort her, consumed him. But he kept his feet rooted in place, knowing if he did, she wouldn’t turn to him. And honestly…why should she? If what Ryan’s guy had uncovered was true, the Cyphers—his associates—had murdered her husband.

  His stomach rolled, a sickness that consumed him from his toes upward. He looked toward the bottle of Jamison on the counter, desperate for a glass.

  “I… I think I need a few minutes alone,” Simone said, turning for the stairs.

  Kate pushed off the couch. “Simone—”

  Simone held up her hand to keep her friend from touching her. “No, I’m okay. I just… I want to read through this. I was pretty stressed back when Steve got sick, and I didn’t pay attention to everything like I should have. I’m not saying I buy into all this, but…” She swallowed and faced Ryan once more, and even in the middle of what Mitch knew had to be the shock of her life, she pulled up that rock-solid strength she’d always had and faced it. “Thank you. For all of this. For what you’ve done. I…appreciate it. I really do.”

  She disappeared up the stairs. Above, a door closed, then silence fell over the room.

  On a sigh, Ryan turned in the middle of the living room and caught Mitch’s gaze. “Now do you see why I said you needed to tell her? It wouldn’t have come as such a shock if you’d at least prepped her a little.”

  Mitch huffed out a laugh. But the sound held no humor, just a hot burn in the center of his chest, one that ignited a firestorm that felt like it was consuming every part of him. He knew things were pretty much finished with Simone, but if he’d held out any hope he could salvage a relationship with her daughter, that was dead and gone now. As soon as Simone discovered he was a Cypher, she wouldn’t let him within fifty yards of Shannon. “Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for everything you dug up and the sensitive way in which you presented it. Ever hear the phrase, ‘if you keep digging, you’ll dig your own grave?’ Well, you just dug mine. Remind me to return the favor some time.”

  “Mitch, dammit,” Ryan sighed.

  Mitch moved out from behind the island in the kitchen. Right now he needed a shower. Needed to be alone. Needed to think.

  Ryan stepped in his path. “Hold up. I wasn’t trying to fuck things up for you.”

  Mitch clenched his jaw, and his hand flexed into a fist at his side. “Well, you did.”

  “These aren’t the kind of people you screw around with, Mitch. And contrary to what you think, I didn’t come here with all this to make things worse for you. I came because I’m worried. If they got to her husband, they can get to you, and regardless of how pissed you are at me right now, I don’t want anything to happen to you. I care about Simone, but I care about you more. You’re not just my best friend, you’re my brother, and while that might not mean much to you at the moment, it means everything to me.”

  Mitch’s jaw tightened. The red haze that had slid over his vision retreated just a touch. Just enough so he didn’t plow his fist into Ryan’s jaw. But he wasn’t ready to get all touchy feely. He was too pissed for that. “I know what kind of people they are.”

  “Then you know this isn’t a game. You’re in some serious shit here, Mitch. They’ll come after you because of her.”

  Mitch knew that better than anyone. He didn’t need Ryan reminding him of that fact. He stepped around his brother in law. “I’ll be fine.”

  “But you’re not fine,” Ryan said, looking after him as he headed for the stairs. “You haven’t been fine since you met her. What are you going to do?”

  Mitch hesitated with one foot on the bottom step. What was he going to do? At this point there was only one thing left he could do. Only doing it meant stepping back into a world he never should have been a part of.

  He pushed his feet up the stairs toward his bedroom. “I don’t know. Right now I don’t have a single fucking answer to anything.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Simone tossed the file Ryan had given her on her bed, closed the laptop on her lap, and raked her hands through her hair. She’d read the file ten times, had researched until her eyes hurt, and was still having trouble processing the information.

  Steve had been a Cypher. He wasn’t an innocent victim. He’d known what he was getting himself into. And regardless of what had happened to him, whether he’d died of cancer or something more sinister—which she still didn’t totally believe—the angry truth was that he’d known the people he associated with would never truly leave them alone. He’d known what he was dragging her and their child into the moment he’d asked her to run away with him.

  She shifted the laptop to the bed and rose, unable to sit anymore. Brushing the hair back from her face, she looked out at the darkening lake beyond her second floor window. Dusk was settling in, robbing the lake and trees and sky of color, turning everything to a drab gray chill she felt settle deep in her bones.

  She hadn’t known Steve. Not the real him. That he could have kept something so big from her wasn’t just a blow to the sternum, it was a blast to her pride and the carefully constructed life she’d built for her and Shannon. But what really stung, what truly cut through her like a hot, sharp knife was the reality that she’d given up her life for someone she hadn’t even been in love with, all while the man she did love was suffering because she couldn’t be honest about her feelings.

  Anger simmered under her skin, then turned to a bitter misery that sank into her bones when she thought of Mitch’s face the night she’d come back from DC and told him she didn’t love him. Of how angry he’d been last night, when she’d pulled away in that fire lookout after kissing him. Of the dozens of times over the last few months he’d told her he loved her, and she’d kissed him to shut him up or changed the subject entirely because she was too afraid of what might happen.

  She closed her eyes, hating the truth. Hating that she couldn’t change it. It already had happened. He was in this nightmare. And if nothing else, she knew now he wasn’t getting away from it. If these people could get to Steve in the witness protection program, they could get to Mitch through her. And if there was ever anyone she should give up her life for, who deserved that kind of sacrifice, it was him.

  One tiny burst of hope bubbled up through the murky darkness, forcing her eyes open. There was one way she could fix this. One way to make at least one small part of this right. Maybe she couldn’t protect him from what Steve had done, but pretending she didn’t care wasn’t working. There was a slim chance that if he knew how she felt, if he knew she wasn’t just trying to protect herself, that she could conv
ince him to disappear like she’d tried to get him to do after his house had been destroyed. It was a long shot, but at this point, it was the only one she had left.

  She opened the door quietly and peered out into the hall. The space was empty, but voices drifted up the stairs from the kitchen. Ryan’s, Kate’s, Kendrick’s, but no Mitch. Nerves humming, she moved quietly down the hall and stopped when she reached his bedroom door.

  He could have left, but she doubted it. Ryan wouldn’t have let him leave knowing his life could be in danger. She lifted her hand to knock, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to give him any reason to tell her to get lost, and she didn’t need anyone downstairs knowing what she was about to do.

  Her hand closed around the door handle, and she turned it. Quietly, she moved into his room and closed the door behind her.

  The bedrooms were all similar, suites rather than simple guest rooms. Mitch’s room looked the same as hers but a little bigger—a king-size bed made of knotty pine, two matching nightstands and lamps, a dresser, and a flat-screen TV on the wall. But unlike her room, there was no half-packed suitcase, no clothes thrown across the bed, no sign he was planning to run. Like she was.

  She closed the door at her back and looked around. The lights were off, only dwindling moonlight through the sliding glass doors that faced the lake illuminating the space. The bed was untouched, the room empty.

  Her heart dropped, and she leaned back against the door, forcing back the defeat. He must have been downstairs after all. She could wait, but she didn’t know how long he’d be. And if he decided to leave before she had a chance to talk to him—

  The sliding door across the room pulled open, and a burst of cool air whoosh in just before Mitch. Darkness and the hoodie over his head made it hard to see his face, but her breath caught when she saw the way his shoulders stiffened at the sight of her.

  He tugged the hood of his sweatshirt off, turned and looked behind him, then pinned her with an irritated look, one she’d seen too many times over the last few days. “I think you have the wrong room.”

  He was still pissed. And he had every right to be. But instead of running from it, she knew it was time to face the fire.

  Hands shaking, she forced herself to step away from the door and move farther into the room. “I-I need to talk to you.”

  “No, you don’t.” He shut the slider and crossed the room, heading for the closet on the far side. “We don’t have anything left to talk about.”

  But they did. So much. She moved closer to the bed. “Mitch.” God, how did she start this? “I wasn’t honest with you. About…way too many things. I should have told you what was going on right from the start but I-I was scared. I thought that by not telling you, I was doing the right thing.”

  He huffed from inside the walk-in closet. A thump echoed, followed by fabric rustling. “Sweetheart, you don’t know what the right thing is.”

  No, she didn’t. He was right about that. But she knew this was better than what she’d done yesterday. And the day before that. “I never wanted to hurt you. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth. I’ve lived under this shadow so long, I think I forgot how to open up and really let people in. You’re the only person I let get close, and it scared me because… Because part of me was afraid something like this would happen someday. I never wanted you to get sucked into this.”

  She couldn’t see him, and she couldn’t hear him moving around in the closet anymore, but she needed him to come out and listen to her.

  “Mitch.” She sighed, feeling lost, helpless…desperate. “I didn’t lie to you because I was trying to hurt you. I lied because I was trying to protect you.”

  He emerged from the closet, barefoot, wearing only low slung faded denim jeans, dim light glinting off his muscular chest. But instead of the carefree, laid-back man she’d come to expect, this one was fire and malice and clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with her. “Why the hell do people think I need protecting? Do I have imbecile stamped on my forehead? I don’t need you or Ryan or anyone else looking out for me. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been getting along just fine by myself for thirty-six years.”

  “I know you have. That’s not what I—”

  “And I don’t need you coming in here telling me things that don’t even matter anymore.” He stalked by her, yanked open the dresser, and pulled out a gray T-shirt.

  “But it does matter.” She tore her gaze from a body she knew almost as well as her own and stepped around the bed, blocking his path to the door, just in case that was where he was headed next. “I’m trying to tell you that I was wrong. I’m trying to tell you that I know I shouldn’t have lied to you yesterday or last week, or all those months we were together. But mostly I’m trying to tell you that…”

  A lump formed in the middle of her throat, and she swallowed hard, her nerves suddenly jumping with what she was about to say. But it was time she got it out. Time she stopped hiding from it. “I’m trying to tell you that I love you. I was just too afraid before. Too afraid something bad was going to happen and that I was going to put you in danger somehow. But I was wrong. If I’d told you the truth sooner, maybe we could have avoided”—she lifted her hands and dropped them—“this. Maybe things would be different, now and you’d be somewhere safe, away from this entire mess.”

  He stared at her in the dimly lit room, his eyes narrowed, his jaw hard. Moonlight cascaded over his chiseled shoulders, highlighting muscles and planes she’d touched and licked and kissed so many times she’d lost count. But he didn’t say anything. And in the silence, her nerves ticked up even more, because this wasn’t the reaction she’d hoped for. It wasn’t even one she’d anticipated.

  “You love me,” he finally said in a low voice.

  She swallowed again, because he wasn’t stepping toward her, wasn’t reaching for her, wasn’t even trying to bridge a gap hours ago he would have attempted to bridge. “Yes.”

  “That’s rich, because you didn’t love me last night. You didn’t love me when I brought Shannon back to you, and you sure as hell didn’t love me when you came home from that trip to DC. In fact, I’m pretty sure your words were ‘I don’t love you.’ What we had wasn’t love, Simone; it was just good sex and nothing more.”

  Panic pushed in. A panic that told her she wasn’t going to be able to make this right. She took another step toward him. “That’s not true. I’ve loved you for a long time. Ever since you stood in the middle of my bedroom and announced that you wanted to buy a stupid minivan. I just…I was afraid to tell you. But I was going to. I planned to tell you the night I came back from DC, but then I got that call from Will, and I…I freaked out. All I could think about was getting Shannon somewhere safe, and I knew if I filled you in on what was happening, you would have come with us. But I didn’t want you to do that. Don’t you get it? I didn’t want you to put your life in danger because of me. So I lied. I told you I didn’t care, and I knew as soon as I got the words out they were wrong, but you were so mad and you wouldn’t listen, and then all of this happened and—”

  “Oh, so now it’s all my fault?” His eyes widened, and he pressed both hands against his bare chest, the shirt still clutched between his fingers. “That makes sense. Blame this all on me now.”

  He had every right to be angry with her, but Simone’s own temper was inching up every second he wouldn’t listen. “I’m not trying to blame you, you jerk. I’m trying to talk some sense into you. You heard everything Ryan said down there. You know what kind of people are after me. I won’t be able to handle it if something happens to you because of me. I’m asking you—I’m begging you—just please disappear for a while, until I can figure out what it is they want. You don’t have to be a part of this anymore.”

  Shock raced over his features. “You want me to run?”

  “It’s not running. It’s being smart. It’s being safe.”

  A defiant look filled his eyes. “I’m not tucking my tail and runni
ng like a coward.”

  Like you.

  She heard the words loud and clear. As loud as if he’d screamed them. Her blood ran cold, and what little hope she’d had of trying to talk some sense into him withered and died. But the anger—the resentment she’d lived with for far too long—was still there. Bubbling to the surface after everything she’d endured.

  “You don’t have a clue what it means to live for someone else, Mitch. If you did, you’d know running doesn’t always mean you’re weak. And it doesn’t make you a coward when it’s protecting the people you love.”

  She turned for the door. She was done trying to reason with him. Done feeling guilty. She couldn’t physically make him do something he didn’t want to do, and it hurt too much to sit back and watch him put his life on the line for something she could save him from. The only thing she had left to do was get to Shannon then, yes, run, at least until she could figure out what it was the Feds thought she had that was so important.

  “News flash.” His hand slapped against the door, preventing her from escaping. “Running from the man you supposedly love doesn’t make you strong, Simone.” He grasped her upper arm and jerked her around to face him. “And yes, you are a coward because even though you’re standing here professing your so-called love for me, you’re still holding back.”

  Her eyes widened. She yanked her arm from his grip. “Holding what back? I’ve told you everything.”

  “You’ve told me what you think I want to hear. Not the truth. Not what’s really eating at you.”

  Simone stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “The fact I love you isn’t enough? The fact I still love you, even after you slept with someone else hours after we broke up, isn’t enough for you?”

  “No, it’s not. If you really want me to disappear, then tell me the truth. All of it. Tell me what you’re really afraid of.”

  “I already told you,” she sputtered.

  She tried to move away, but he blocked her path. “Just say it. Say the real reason you’re always running from me, from us.”