I stepped onto the terrace, the view featuring the River Thames and almost every skyscraper in London. In fact, the image of Charlotte in her thick wool sweater, sitting with her laptop on an outdoor sofa with blue-gray cushions coordinating with the British sky was so picture perfect that #nofilter was practically spelled out in the clouds. She was surrounded by professionally tended gardens, an enclosed glass porch, and a fully stocked bar with marble counters.
“You’re back!” she cheered, jumping up to greet me. Behind her was St. Paul’s Cathedral, where Princess Diana was married.
“I am.” I glanced around the rooftop. “Where’s Keira?”
“Enjoying the steam shower.” Charlotte grinned.
“She’s not staying here now, is she?” I asked, concerned life had changed in the twenty-four hours I’d been gone. My sister and I insisted on rooming at a hotel. We said it was because we didn’t want to inconvenience Julian, but really, we wanted our own space. And we suspected Charlotte and Julian wanted theirs as well.
“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “No one’s staying here.”
“Oh, really?” I raised an eyebrow. “No one?”
She instantly blushed.
Charlotte had rented a flat in London, though I doubted she’d seen much of it. She and Julian were joined at the computer. Not only did they track down Keira and me in Amsterdam, after we were living under assumed names provided by the CIA, but they also found Antonio. They kept pretending that their relationship was purely professional, and they thought that since they didn’t hold hands around us, we wouldn’t notice the little smiles they gave one another, the longing looks, nor the time I caught them walking out of Julian’s bedroom while he was tucking in his uncharacteristically wrinkled dress shirt. They’d make terrible spies. But we let them pretend. They seemed to be enjoying their “secret,” and I recognized that a lot of their reservations might involve me.
My father ruined Julian’s life by helping to orchestrate the fake terror plot that halted his journalistic career and made him a national laughingstock. In return, Julian wanted to use me to expose what my father did to him. It took some effort to trust our benefactor, but now I really did believe Julian wanted to help my sister and me. In a way, we were warped kindred spirits. Julian’s father, media mogul Phillip Stone, worked with Department D for decades, and he didn’t lift a finger when Julian was targeted by his enemies. Just like my parents didn’t help me when Keira was kidnapped, assuming they weren’t dead. Still, it was odd to think of him being with Charlotte. After Keira disappeared, Charlotte became my family, my person. I owed her a lot.
Charlotte’s fingers flicked over her keyboard, then she lifted her skinny silver laptop from the outdoor sofa and looked at me with eyes tight with worry.
“What is it?” I asked, body tensing.
“It’s not bad. Exactly,” she reassured me, swiping her finger over the mouse pad. “I got something weird yesterday. I haven’t shown it to anyone.”
Not even Julian? Now, I really was worried.
She showed me her screen, and displayed was a photo of me—with Randolph Urban.
I was about six months old, wearing a pink eyelet dress and a white crochet hat with a rosy flower. I was sitting on his lap. He was smiling, his beard so bushy and white he looked like Santa Claus after a South Beach diet. My tiny fist was reaching for his beard in an adorably sweet gesture, so perfect, the image could have been a Christmas ad for Macy’s in the underworld. “Yes, Anastasia, there is a spy ring…”
“Where did you get this?” I asked, eyes wide.
“My inbox. It showed up yesterday morning from a junk account. I’m trying to trace it, but so far nothing.” She shrugged. “I think we know who it’s from.”
Urban sent me a baby photo? Why? To manipulate me? To pull at my heartstrings? What did he think I would do? Run off and find him? Oh, Dad! Forget all about that whole kidnapping thing! I hardly noticed my sister was missing! Let’s make another Christmas card together! XOXO!
“Why would he do this?” I asked, almost rhetorically.
“Because you’re his only living child.” She tilted her head.
Urban’s daughter died not long after giving birth to Sophia. That was why his granddaughter became his universe. Sophia was all he had. Until now.
“No.” I shook my head aggressively. “He’s not my father.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way. He’s clearly reaching out.”
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” I backed away from the laptop, which now felt like a dirty bomb.
“Anastasia, the man’s gone off the grid, abandoned his home, and his company is all but destroyed, all because he found out your parents might be alive and you might be his daughter.” Charlotte green eyes gave me a severe look. “He built up a highly lucrative empire over a lifetime, and lost it because of you. And he’s still sending you baby pictures.”
My mouth clamped shut. In Venice, the CIA Director said I made Urban act erratically. It was why I thought they gave us new passports and fake names, so the government could track us, because they thought eventually not only the parents who raised me, but Urban’s biological impulses would win out. They believed his narcissistic desire to claim me as his property would supersede his self-preservation instincts. Urban would make a mistake because of me. Turned out, they were right. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. He was sending me baby pictures, at the risk of his own freedom. Meanwhile, my real mom and dad quite possibly walked out and left Keira and me to suffer in the wake of their mess without so much as a glance in return.
Of course, Urban also kidnapped my sister.
“Don’t show that to Keira,” I warned.
Last thing I needed was to remind her that I was related to the man who abducted her. I didn’t want her to question where my heart was. If anything, this was further proof that we needed to leave as soon as possible, before anyone else could twist our emotions—not Urban, not our un-dead parents, and not even Marcus or Charlotte.
“I see the gang’s all here,” said a voice with a strong British accent. Charlotte snapped her laptop shut and subtly nodded in agreement. Our secret was safe.
Julian stepped through the glass doors of his terrace with Marcus and Antonio in tow.
“I guess everyone’s met Antonio?” I nodded to Marcus’s brother, trying to sound casual as I shook off my interaction with Charlotte.
“Not yet, but welcome to the party,” Keira quipped as she joined us outside. Her hair was still wet from her shower and tied into a dripping bun at the base of her neck, recently dyed back to its natural color—a pale gingerbread, rather than Lady Gaga platinum. She said the roots were “too hard to maintain,” but really, I thought she simply wanted to erase everything connected to her time in captivity. It was what we did after our parents’ deaths—I chopped my hair while she bleached hers. Since then, I’d let mine grow back, and for a while, it felt nice to see my mother’s reflection in the mirror. Now I was itching for the scissors, for more reasons than one.
Antonio turned to Keira, and their eyes met. If I thought he was flirting with the waitress the night before, I hadn’t seen him really trying, because the look on his face right now would have made any dad reach for a shotgun.
“I’m Antonio.” He extended his hand, his gaze stripping her naked. “Mucho gusto.”
“Keira,” she replied, grasping his palm. Her posture, which seemed constantly slumped these days, instantly straightened, and her cheeks flushed.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he continued, still holding her hand.
“You, too.”
“Don’t believe it all.” He tilted his head seductively, scratching his hipster beard with his eyes brooding and his lips pouting in a way that even had me thinking he looked like a Calvin Klein ad.
Like I didn’t already have enough to deal with…
I grabbed my sister’s arm. “Eh hem,” I interrupted, breaking their eye contact. I hadn’t h
ad a chance to tell Keira that Antonio worked for Department D, and I was betting that knowledge might make him look a lot less like Johnny Depp. “The shower at the hotel doesn’t work?”
“Julian’s is bigger,” she replied, her lashes fluttering at Antonio in a way I hadn’t seen since Boston. She was even smiling. Great, the one thing that makes her happy and I’m gonna rip it away…
“Welcome to my home,” Julian said, graciously lifting a bottle of champagne from a silver ice bucket and popping the cork. Charlotte immediately began filling crystal glasses like a hostess.
“While unfortunate circumstances may have brought us together, I’m honored to be in your company,” he added as Charlotte handed us each a glass. “Welcome to London. Cheers!” He raised his flute, and everyone took a sip.
The sun was setting, streaking the skyline with blood orange bursts as the damp air grew colder. It was London in November, and we would soon need to take our little reunion inside if we didn’t want our teeth to clink louder than the glasses, but for now we enjoyed the champagne bubbling in our chilly hands. I watched as Keira and Antonio glowed with the excitement of having just met, leaning into one another and accidentally touching as they spoke. Keira tossed back her head, laughing.
The longer I wait, the worse this will be.
“Can I speak with you?” I nudged Keira’s shoulder.
“About what?” she asked, not looking away from Antonio.
“In private,” I insisted.
“After this drink.” She sipped her champagne, her entire body looking relaxed for possibly the first time since I’d rescued her in Venice.
We had to leave. Fast. Urban was sending me baby photos. Marcus was twirling my heart, and now Antonio had Keira giggling again. If we didn’t get out soon, we never would. We’d stay trapped in a spy world forever. Or worse.
“How about now?” I gripped her elbow and guided her away.
It was time we talked.
Chapter Four
“What is with you?” Keira asked, tugging her arm from my grip.
We were standing in Julian’s enclosed glass porch, with everyone still in view. Including Antonio.
“He’s a spy,” I said.
“Who?” Her face twisted.
“Antonio. He used to work for Department D. He admitted it.”
“What do you mean, used to?” She picked at my words.
I did my best to explain Antonio’s story, but I could see the doubt in her eyes.
“He wasn’t a spy? Not really.” Keira clung to what she wanted to hear, just like Marcus, just like most people. But being wrong about Antonio wouldn’t mean a bad date or unanswered texts. It was life or death.
“He worked for Department D, the people who kidnapped you.”
“But he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to me, did he?”
“No,” I admitted. Antonio had confirmed that much at the pub, and for some reason, I believed him.
“And he said he quit the second he learned about my kidnapping?”
“Well, yes,” I continued, not liking her simplistic line of questioning. He was a criminal—that meant run the other way. It didn’t matter if he had dimples.
“Then what exactly are you holding against him?” she asked. “You must not think he’s so bad if you brought him here.”
“I brought him here because of Marcus.” I pointed to the terrace.
Antonio was mussing his brother’s hair as the two of them laughed in a way that said, “I won’t let you get away with anything.” Even Marcus’s smile looked different around him, brighter, and they whispered a lot, shared a lot of looks. Maybe Marcus would be happier if I wasn’t around?
“Antonio doesn’t look so bad,” said Keira.
“Of course you’d think that.” But my irritation wasn’t really for her.
“Does it bother you that Marcus is happy?” She raised an eyebrow.
“No,” I lied.
Of course it bothered me. We’d spent countless nights lying in hotel rooms post-Venice, discussing the exact face Marcus would make when he wanted to kiss me, how exhilarated I felt when I was on the back of his motorcycle, and how my body seemed to tingle every time he got close. Now, it turned out all those smiles he gave only glimmered halfway; he had a whole different wattage reserved for his family. Maybe I did, too. Maybe I acted differently around Keira. After all, I was about to leave him. I was choosing her.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot.” The image of me sitting on Urban’s lap flashed in my brain. He was sending me baby pictures. He was reaching out. And Marcus was pulling away, toward his brother, who worked for the enemy and flirted with my sister. “It’s time. We need to leave.”
“London?” she asked.
“Everyone.”
Keira shook her head. “No, we’ve talked about this.” Actually, we argued about this. “We have the CIA; they can protect us.”
“Do you really think that’s what they’re doing?” I grunted. “They’re using us to get to Mom and Dad.”
“So you admit they’re alive?” Keira shot me a look.
My sister was 100 percent convinced our parents would return to us with arms wide open. Maybe it was because she’d been responsible for me for several years, maybe she wanted that weight off her shoulders, or maybe she just wanted all of this to mean something. If we went into hiding, then all of her suffering—months in captivity, years as my guardian, a medical career lost—was for nothing. But if the end of this damaged journey led to a parental loving embrace, then in her eyes, maybe it was worth it.
I didn’t share her view. Not just because I had a third parent in the equation, but because I refused to let my hopes lift any higher than the gutter. I was done being blindsided by pain. What I had right now, in front of me, was the sister the world thought was dead. I got her back. If protecting that miracle meant walking away, even from Marcus, even from our parents, I was willing to do it. I couldn’t lose her again.
“Mom and Dad are either dead or they abandoned us. I’m not sure which is worse,” I said bluntly. “But if they are alive, we don’t know how many people, how many lunatics, think we’re walking maps to their doorsteps. They’ll use us, and they’ll hurt us. Again.”
“Then we’ll stop looking for them.” She shrugged like it was easy. “Why do we need to go anywhere to do that?”
“Because everyone on that terrace is somehow connected to Department D, Marcus and Antonio especially!” I stared at the gray sky, aggravated. Did she think I wanted to do this? I was about to walk away from a guy I cared about because of our parents, because of things that they did. They committed crimes, they had an affair, and they put us in danger. All we could do now was survive. “As long as we’re linked to them, we’re not safe. Especially if Mom and Dad are alive. We have to go off the grid.”
Keira kept shaking her head, water droplets splashing from her hair onto my cheek. “You really think we can disappear and never wonder about them, never hope we bump into them, never try to find out the truth?”
“I can,” I replied honestly. I hoped I never saw any of my parents ever again. But my sister started this mess by asking these very same questions, by ordering a DNA test. Maybe this was her way of admitting she couldn’t keep her end of the bargain, even if it meant our lives. “I almost lost you, because you wanted to know the truth. And I’m not blaming you, but Keira, they’re not worth it. If Mom and Dad are alive, they left us. They hurt us. On purpose. Why should we give them a chance to hurt us anymore?”
“But what if they’re in danger? What if that’s why we haven’t heard from them?” Her voice was small.
“They were criminals. They can handle themselves.” My jaw tightened.
I couldn’t be expected to worry about the hypothetical safety of the people who did this to us. I had to worry about our own, and the longer we stayed here, the greater the odds that the next communication wouldn’t be a photo emailed to Charlotte. It might not even be f
rom Urban. Clearly, the espionage world knew how to get to us. It wasn’t safe.
“They’re still our parents,” Keira stated.
“Try telling them that.”
Her shoulders slumped at my words, all of the buzz from having spoken to a cute guy gone. She was visibly curling back into herself; it was the same hunched posture she’d sported every day since I found her in Venice, as if the weight of this situation, her entire ordeal, pressed on her every minute of every day. We had to stop this cycle of pain.
“Hey! What are you two talking about so seriously?” Marcus yelled from the terrace, smiling widely. At me.
“Sí, get out here!” Antonio waved a glass of champagne at Keira, then threatened to dump it on Marcus’s head. They chuckled, dodging one another, each hoisting a menacing glass of bubbles like mischievous boys. Like brothers.
Keira stepped toward the sliding glass doors, glancing over her shoulder. “Are you going to tell them, or should I?”
My stomach rolled. Why did I let myself get so attached? I knew it was going to end. It always did.
I followed Keira out, praying for a meteor so I could put off the conversation. Only before astrological intervention could strike, Keira lifted a silver knife and tapped it against a crystal flute. “Everyone, my sister has an announcement.”
Her hazel eyes dared me to reconsider, and she knew forcing me to face Marcus was the only way that might happen. My cheeks flamed with heat.
“Que?” Marcus looked at me.
Charlotte strolled over, ears perked.
My gaze flicked between the two of them; the thought of never seeing her or Marcus again was like being told I’d never see my feet again. I needed them. They were essential for moving forward. Charlotte’s eyes fixed on mine, and instantly she knew. Maybe she knew the second she showed me that photo.
Lies That Bind Page 4