It was good. It was fast. It was hard.
He held on to my hips as I rode him, my dress bunched at the waist, feeling like I defiled the last stupid thing that tied me to the Reynolds name as I fucked the man I fought to keep alive, to keep safe from my father’s greed.
Suddenly, Matt’s hands left my hips, tangling in my hair, pulling my head down to his, our mouths connecting with a kiss, so that when I came, the words “I love you,” were lost somewhere between our lips.
Chapter Nineteen
Initial reports indicate that the explosion in Kate Reynolds’s apartment was the result of faulty wiring and not foul play. Luckily, no one was injured. While we’re relieved to hear that Kate is okay, rumor has it that the police would still like to speak with her. But where is she?
—Capital Confessions blog
Kate
We woke the next morning, our limbs tangled together, our hands and lips following. If not for the gun on the nightstand, we could have been a normal couple.
We stayed in bed for a little longer than we probably should have, as though we both wanted to cling to the remnants of our time together last night rather than facing all that had happened before. But eventually we couldn’t stall anymore, and we both got out of bed, showering and dressing quickly. I put the blue and white dress on again, doing the best I could with the meager toiletries.
I called in sick to work, leaving a message on my boss’s answering machine explaining that there had been a problem in my apartment and I needed the day off. It seemed stupid to worry about work now, but Matt suggested I cover all bases. I called Blair and Jackie, asking them to meet us at our hotel. I’d talked to both of them last night; they’d been frantic after reading about the explosion on Capital Confessions. I’d tried to keep Blair and Gray from coming down to D.C., figuring they’d had enough work absences due to my drama lately, but Blair had insisted. She’d promised to bring me some clothes to wear so I wouldn’t look ridiculous swimming in Matt’s shorts and T-shirt when the dress finally ran out of uses.
“You ready for this?” Matt asked, squeezing my shoulder.
“Do I have a choice? We’re here whether we want to be or not.”
“I know. Just remember that they love you; they’re worried about you. They just want to help. It’ll be okay.”
“I know. I just don’t want them to get hurt. This thing is already such a mess; I couldn’t live with myself if I put my sisters in danger.”
“They’ll be okay. No one ever needs to know they’re involved. I promise.”
I smiled despite the stress raging through my body, remembering how many times he’d promised me something, how many times I’d leaned on him throughout my life. When we were younger, he’d been my support, but while I’d loved him and tried to be everything I could to him, I realized that he had always been too old, too experienced, and I’d still been figuring out who I was. We hadn’t been equals; we’d been friends, but I’d always needed him in a way that he hadn’t needed me. But now, with the time that had passed between us, with the lives we’d lived in the interim, we’d become a team in a way we’d never been before. I liked knowing that it wasn’t just him taking care of me anymore, that we could take care of each other.
“I love you,” I whispered.
He smiled, his eyes going all melty and soft. “I love you, too.”
I’d never get tired of hearing that, never take for granted the fact that we’d found each other.
A knock sounded at the door. I tensed.
Matt released me with a reassuring squeeze, striding over and checking the peephole, his body poised for battle, gun in hand.
“It’s them.”
He opened the door and Blair and Jackie crossed over the threshold, Will and Gray in tow, worry etched all over their faces.
“How are you?” Blair asked, enfolding me in a tight hug, the familiar scent of Chanel wafting over me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “For the most part, yeah.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “I can’t believe he would do this.”
“He’s pretty pissed at me. He drew a line in the sand, and I chose the other side.”
Blair’s gaze connected with Jackie. “Yeah, us too. We’re here for whatever you need.” She gestured to where Gray stood carrying two enormous suitcases. “We brought you clothes and some other stuff I thought you might want. And I wrote down anything I could remember from our childhood, anything that might help pinpoint his whereabouts in the past.”
“Thank you.”
“And I brought files,” Jackie announced, sliding in between Blair and me and giving me a quick hug. She waved a flash drive in the air in one hand and a file folder in another. “This is everything I’ve collected on him over the years—clippings, some of my old Capital Confessions posts.” She grinned. “I even got Mitch to spill some dirt.”
Mitch Anders had not only managed Will’s state senate campaign, but also my father’s campaigns in the early years.
“And yes, I realize this looks a little stalkerish,” Jackie continued, “but if you’re going to go to war, you have to be prepared.”
The expression on her face was bloodthirsty at best, and whatever guilt I’d felt at involving her abated a bit at the steely glint in her eyes.
Gray and Will came over, giving me hugs before exchanging some kind of man-greeting with Matt, which seemed to consist of communicating a lot without saying anything at all. I figured they were just as worried about all of this, their connection to my sisters thrusting them into a world I wasn’t sure you could be equipped to deal with if you hadn’t grown up in it. Will came from a background similar to ours, but his family genuinely seemed nice and supportive. We were something else entirely.
Matt stepped away from the group and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, holding me against him tightly. “Thank you guys for coming to help. We really appreciate it. We couldn’t do this without you.”
Blair tried to smile, but I could see the tension in her eyes, fear and worry etched all over her face. “It’s what sisters do.”
Jackie nodded. “He spawned all of us, didn’t he? No way you’re going through this alone.”
God, I loved my sisters.
I felt badly about what they were going through, but I had to believe that this was just temporary. That when this ended and Matt and I left, their lives would go back to normal. They’d both fought hard to get to where they were now, and they deserved to be free of this mess.
Everyone sat down, the look on Blair’s and Will’s faces priceless. I knew Jackie and Gray came from pretty humble backgrounds, so I figured the state of the hotel room wasn’t that shocking to them. But Blair and Will had definitely never roughed it in a place like this, and despite the seriousness of everything going on around us, I had to bite back a smile.
“So what’s the plan?” Blair asked after she’d dusted off the desk chair with a notepad, taking the lead as she had so many times throughout our childhood. She wasn’t loud by nature, and frequently people assumed that meant she was shy and thought they could walk all over her, but the reality was that Blair was way bossier than I was. She was just quiet about it, whereas I wasn’t quiet about much.
“First off, I didn’t exactly tell you everything before. Here’s what’s going on.”
I went through Matt’s ambush in Afghanistan—midway through the story he squeezed my hand and I knew he appreciated me telling the story rather than making him share his loss with everyone. I explained how I’d heard our fathers talking afterward and that I’d become suspicious that our father was involved.
Matt took over for a bit and talked about his life after he left Afghanistan, giving a brief overview without sharing too many details.
Then I brought them up to speed on the packages I’d begun receiving in the mail, the information they’d contained, and my own investigation into Matt’s death and our father’s potential involvement. Blair paled when I recounted the break-in and how
Matt and I had been reunited, and as we went through the mugging and all the documents that had been lost. Matt told them about his trip back to Afghanistan and his source at Intech, explaining our suspicions about his father’s death, while I had the dubious honor of recounting my attempted larceny and subsequent showdown with our father.
We dined on a main course of death, treason, and betrayal. For dessert, we had explosives and attempted filicide.
“So now you’re up to speed,” I finished, four horrified faces staring back at me.
“What do you need?” Jackie asked.
“Proof. We need the kind of proof that can’t be swept under the rug, that he can’t evade. We have pieces, but we don’t have evidence; we don’t have anything that will tie him to the deaths and everything else. He has connections everywhere; we have to shine a light on what he’s done so that no matter who he calls in, it’s too big for even him to cover up.”
Gray frowned. “Okay, I get that, but let’s say you get proof. What’s next? Treason is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible to prove. It’s not even prosecuted often. The burden is too high and in this case, I don’t see how you’ll meet it. Are you going after a murder charge? Several murder charges? What’s your endgame here?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “I don’t know how much proof will be enough, don’t exactly know what I’m looking for, I just know we need more. We need something to tie him to this.”
“Kate and I are going to meet with my father’s former employee tonight,” Matt added. “He’s the final link that I can think of. I’m going to press him harder, see if I can get him to turn over any proof or other details he might have.”
“Is that really safe?” Blair interjected.
“It’s not ideal, but I’m not leaving her by herself. She’s safer with me than she is on her own.”
I figured no one was going to argue with that point considering he looked scary intense right now. It was interesting to see him like this, utterly consumed by the mission. I’d seen so many versions of him throughout my life, and I loved each and every one of them. We’d grown up together, and even in the time when we’d been apart, we’d still become people who complemented each other, despite how much our experiences had differed.
“So let’s say you get proof. What happens then?” Blair asked, concern in her voice.
This was the hard part.
I took a deep breath. “We have to leave. We’ve talked about it, and even if we pin this to our father, this goes deeper than him. There will still be people out there who could be after us. We wouldn’t be safe. The world thinks Matt is dead, and right now it seems like the best thing is for him to stay that way.”
Blair’s gaze met mine. “And you?”
“Even if I wasn’t involved in this, even if I could get out, do you think I’d leave him?”
A moment passed between us and I waited for the fight, for Blair to try to convince me that I was making a mistake, for her to do her big-sister thing, but instead she just nodded, her hand finding Gray’s, and I realized that somewhere along the way, even through the rough patches, our relationship had changed. I’d been afraid that I’d ruined everything between us with my involvement in Capital Confessions, but I realized now that we’d both grown up and become better versions of ourselves. Sometimes it took some shaking up to realize what mattered most and who you should cling to.
“Where will you guys go?” Jackie asked.
“It’s probably better if you don’t know,” Matt answered, exchanging another one of those looks with Will and Gray. “We can work out a system to keep in touch—burner phones or something. I’ve used them before and they can be secure.”
“So we’ll never see each other again?” Blair asked. “This is just it?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, pain in my chest. “Maybe this will blow over. Maybe someone will nail him and everyone involved. But I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“We might be able to meet in neutral locations once this blows over,” Matt added. “We’re going to need to assume new identities. With Kate’s notoriety in D.C., coming back to town really isn’t an option anymore.” He grimaced. “And time is running out. Things are escalating dramatically with the explosion. The longer we stay in town, the more dangerous it becomes. I want to meet with this guy and then leave in the next couple of days.”
“Are you going to your father’s funeral?” Blair asked.
In all of the chaos, I hadn’t thought about the fact that his father’s funeral was today. It would be largely attended by the D.C. political elite, frequent inhabitants of the society pages, and the Forbes list. My father would be there, shaking hands. Hell, he’d probably deliver the eulogy.
Matt shook his head. “Wasn’t planning on it. Kind of hard to do when you’re dead.”
“You aren’t that recognizable with the beard.” Blair smiled. “Besides, I have a feeling you have some tricks up your sleeve when it comes to altering your appearance.”
“I said my good-byes a long time ago. There’s nothing left for me there anymore.”
“Your mother’s there.”
“I don’t exactly have anything to offer her, either. I’m not who I was and I can never be him again. She’ll be fine. She has friends, has her own life. She doesn’t need me.”
I was probably the only one who picked up on the way he ran the words together, as though he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and his family. He had so many emotions swirling around inside of him, and his parents were yet another wound that wasn’t quite patched up.
“Let’s get started,” I interjected, wanting to save Matt from having to talk about this any longer. As much as I knew he hadn’t come to any kind of resolution or peace where his family was concerned, I wasn’t sure going to his father’s funeral was the answer either.
Sometimes you had to break ties with the people who had hurt you in order to find peace. Sometimes it wasn’t the family you were born to, but the one you created that carried you through the rough patches. So I sat with the five people I considered my family and somehow, despite the chaos surrounding us, we laughed as we plotted and schemed a way out of the life I’d been born into.
Chapter Twenty
A crime wave has taken Washington D.C. by storm. We’re shocked by the rash of muggings and murders hitting D.C.’s elite. Is the heat spiking the crime wave or are there more nefarious forces at work?
Police found the body of a man …
—Capital Confessions blog
Matt
Blair’s comment about my father’s funeral stayed with me throughout most of the day as we went through the research Jackie had done, as Blair and Kate brainstormed for anything they could remember from their childhood that would help connect their father to Afghanistan, as we all attempted to figure out what our next move should be. The comment stayed with me after they left, and Kate and I dressed for the meeting, as I armed her and went over gun safety with her.
My mind should have been entirely on the task at hand, but instead it kept drifting … to memories of my childhood, the few times my father and I had bonded over one of my soccer games, the first time he’d ever taken me to his office and I’d seen where he worked and declared that one day I wanted to be just like him.
Maybe I should have gone to his funeral. I could have slipped in like I’d slipped into the house the night he was killed, could have managed a disguise. But I hadn’t. I didn’t feel like I was Matt Ryan anymore, like his life was mine. There was Kate, the thread between the two versions of us, and then just … nothing. And at the same time, miraculously, I didn’t feel lost anymore. It was as though hanging on to her was enough for now.
I didn’t know what my future entailed, didn’t know what kind of job I’d settle into, couldn’t really see beyond getting out of this mess we were in. But I was happy. I loved her. And even though our future looked nothing like the future we’d imagined when we were kids, it felt ri
ght. As though just having her by my side was enough. I wished I could have given her the things we’d once had, but even as the thought entered my mind, I remembered that this was Kate. She’d never cared about that stuff before, and somehow I couldn’t imagine her caring now.
“You’re distracted,” she murmured, no judgment in her tone, just the gentle prodding she seemed to have adopted around me.
I parked the car near the Lincoln Memorial, checking my watch. I opened my mouth to tell her that I wasn’t, but the truth came out instead.
“Yeah, I am. A bit. Sorry.”
“Was it what Blair said about your father’s funeral?”
I nodded. She knew me too well to bother pretending otherwise.
“I’m sorry about that. I think it’s the older sister thing; she doesn’t mean to pry, but she can’t help wanting to make everyone’s lives better. I wouldn’t take it personally. You’re handling this the best way you can.”
“I’m not upset with Blair; I guess I just keep wondering if she was right—if I should have gone to my father’s funeral. I don’t know. I keep thinking about how he died, how he did try to do the right thing even if his methods were wrong and it was too little too late.”
“It’s okay to mourn him, to wish things had turned out differently.”
“I guess. I just feel like I don’t really know who I am anymore, like I really did die in Afghanistan. They’re my parents, but they’re basically strangers. I feel like a completely different person. The guy I was before wouldn’t have been able to live this life.”
“Maybe you became who you needed to be in order to get through the things that happened to you.”
“Maybe.” I squeezed her hand. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We sat there for a moment, and then I checked my watch again, leaving my past where it belonged. “Ready to get some answers?”
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