Relentless

by Vanessa Dare

  My top priority was to protect Anna. My instincts to do so, regardless of that unseen portion of the iceberg, was overwhelming. Some guy had hurt her. I was going to find him and kill him. Like a fucking caveman, I’d rip him limb from limb.

  She ran her finger over the condensation on her glass. She’d heard me. I couldn’t tell if she was ignoring me or thinking. I’d hoped for the latter. My impatience had me repeating myself, although this time not as gently.

  “God dammit, Anna.” I ran my hands through my hair. It was that or reach over and strangle her. “You think I’m going find out you killed someone and just let it go? Tell me what happened.”

  She looked up at me, glanced at my sister, then shared. “Fine. For the record, I didn’t kill Bobby Lane.” Anna pulled her shoulders back, clasped my hand in her lap, stared me dead in the eye. I, of course, noticed how her breasts thrust out with her actions. It wasn’t the best time to notice this, but hell, I was a man and I wasn’t dead. “I don’t work for that guy, Carmichael, whoever he is. Nor Moretti. I really did get the wrong rental car.”

  “Go on,” I urged, thinking about the statistics behind her getting that specific car from an idiot valet. What were the chances? A billion to one?

  She looked down at her lap for a moment. “I did kill someone a long time ago, but it was self-defense. His name was David.”

  “Since he’s dead, I can safely say he’s not the man your friend is marrying, right?

  “No. This was his brother,” Anna replied. “I know it’s confusing.”

  “Wait,” Carrie cut it. We both turned to look at her. “Something you said earlier doesn’t make sense and I should have picked up on it before now.” She pointed to Anna. “How can this woman be your friend if you’ve never met? If she doesn’t even know who you are?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I turned to Anna.

  She put her fingers over her lips for a moment, as if afraid the words would fall out. “I’ve kept all this to myself since I was eighteen. This isn’t easy to do.” She took a swig of her soda, placed the glass back on the table. She ran her hand through her hair and I noticed it shake. She gave the impression of cool and collected, just like at the police station, but now that I knew her better, I recognized when she was struggling. “She’s not a friend, she’s…God, um…okay. She’s my half-sister. I’ve never met her before because I was twelve when she was born and I was living in Switzerland at the time. The guy she’s marrying is my ex-husband. The man I killed…was my brother-in-law.”

  I just sat there and stared at Anna, processing her words. Carrie was, too. For once, my sister was surprisingly quiet. “You killed your brother-in-law,” I said, breaking it down.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Your ex-husband is engaged to your half-sister.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your half-sister doesn’t know you exist because you were in Switzerland when she was born.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anna Scott isn’t your real name, is it?”

  Her eyes widened at my question and she pinched her lips together into a thin line. Shit. I’d pushed her too far. She wasn’t going to answer.

  Surprisingly, she shook her head.

  “I figured as much. You told me you’d hurt someone, but you have no record. You said last night you went to military school. Anna Scott didn’t go to military school.”

  “Oh? How do you know that?” she asked, arching a brow.

  Crap. I was in trouble here. It was my turn to stall for time with my drink, taking a big, long swig.

  “I did some research for him,” Carrie piped up as I was putting the can down.

  Thankfully, she covered for me, because I hadn’t thought of an answer. If I told Anna about Peters—a police officer—digging into her past, I’d either have to tell her I was a cop, or she’d think I had Moretti doing it for me. Either way, I couldn’t tell her.

  “You have to admit, the evidence against you was pretty damning,” Carrie added. “Dead body in the trunk of your car, showing up at that night club of Nick’s, military school, gun knowledge.” She ticked each one off on her fingers. “Yeah, Nick filled me in on everything,” she added when Anna looked at her questioningly.

  “What’s your real name, Anna?” I asked.

  With this question, she paused, looked at me. Really looked at me. This was the Big One. She was giving up her well-controlled life once she answered. I’d know her real name, could look into her past. It would all be out there. She swallowed, cleared her throat. “My real name is Olivia Edwards.”

  Olivia Edwards. I gave her a small smile. I couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been because everything about her was one big secret. I thought I was undercover. Up until this moment, she’d been undercover, more like underground, for some reason since she was eighteen. And doing it alone with no obvious backup of any kind. I had Peters and the entire police department to back me up if things got sticky. She could probably give me a few pointers.

  “Good girl,” I murmured as I took her hand in mine, gave it a quick squeeze.

  “What else did you find out about me?” Anna asked Carrie, who shifted on the couch, a subtle squirm knowing she could easily be caught in her own lie.

  I had my head down, so I briefly glanced at my sister out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t actually have the answers. She knew just as much as I did, which was only what Anna had told us. This was the opportunity for me to come clean. Tell Anna I was a cop, that I had the police investigating her. I knew how well that would go over, and she’d most likely flee right after she kicked us out of her apartment. Literally. Then she’d disappear and I couldn’t protect her. It was a total cluster fuck. I was damned if I told her, damned if I didn’t.

  “I’d rather you tell me,” I answered, choosing the keeping-her-safe option instead of telling her the truth. “Us. Tell us everything—which I have a feeling is a lot. I want to know about what this guy David did to you.” It had to be pretty shitty if she killed him because of it. “I want to know about the guy who hurt you. I want to know it all. Over beers. I need a drink. This is too heavy for soda.”

  Carrie grinned and stood, taking her glass into the kitchen, no doubt relieved we had time to regroup. By helping me protect my source, she’d lied for me and pulled herself into this mess. She was officially an accomplice in my deception. “Definitely beer. Let’s go.”

  Anna looked surprised at the idea, but shrugged her shoulders and stood up. “If I can just find my sandals.”

  Anna

  I hadn’t heard my real name aloud in over ten years. I had it set up as a web search on my news feeds that got sent to my email, but nothing had popped up—at least as it related to me and not an Olivia Edwards from Oklahoma—in about eight years. Even the media had given up on me. It was rusty sounding, as if the name were of an old friend. Olivia Edwards. I was born Olivia, but I’d left her behind when I was just a guileless teenager, like shedding a coat after a long winter, to be Anna Scott.

  In the past week, since meeting Nick, I’d molted once again, becoming something more. Something even better than what I’d been doing—living—for a decade. I wanted Nick to be here. I wanted him to keep me safe. I wanted to know I could give some of my troubles to someone else, but it wouldn’t be easy. Old ways were hard to change. And…the and was huge…and he worked for Moretti who was ruthless enough to want me dead. Nick’s presence was proof of that.

  Nick had said he wasn’t a killer, but that didn’t mean he didn’t deal drugs, run a sex slavery ring, pimp out girls on the streets, launder money…

  I turned to look at Nick, who sat wedged in the middle of the backseat of a taxi. We were headed to some obscure Italian restaurant Carrie liked. He met my gaze, gave my hand a little squeeze. He was bad. He worked for a bad guy. I’d seen firsthand what bad guys did. Shoot people, execution style, and dump them in the trunk of a car. If I hadn’t gotten myself taken off the short list of suspects at the police station
, if I’d been officially accused of the crime, Moretti wouldn’t have come to the rescue, saying I’d had the worst case of bad luck ever. He would have let me take the fall for the crime and rot in jail. Why wouldn’t he? The only other option was that he’d put out a hit on me behind bars, so instead of a bullet to the brain, I’d have a shiv to the gut instead. Dead was dead, either way.

  The windows were down and the wind blew my hair into my face. Pushing it back, I tucked it behind my ears only to have it whip around all over again. The bother only ratcheted up my frustration.

  What was my deal falling for bad guys? Sure, most women liked the whole bad boy thing, but I doubt their definition was the same. I’d blindly fallen for Todd because he’d been the first man to pay any kind of attention on me. Sure, he’d been doting and attentive until the ring was on my finger, but that had been extremely short term until the reading of my mother’s will’s codicil on my eighteenth birthday. Nick was equally attentive, equally charming when he wanted to be, yet his past was equally sinister. What made Nick any different than Todd? Why did I flee and go into hiding for twelve years because of Todd and seemingly fall into Nick’s arms without any trepidation?

  What was wrong with me?

  Questions. Endless questions. I trusted Nick, but why? Was it because he’d brought his sister over? Included her in his little investigation into my past? I might question whether she really was related, that they were just some Bonnie and Clyde act, but genetics like theirs couldn’t be feigned. I still couldn’t rule out who Carrie worked for. Was she Moretti’s lawyer, too?

  As I looked out the window, I considered all of this. I couldn’t have just run into a simple accountant whose biggest problem was an April fifteenth tax deadline who made my heart go pitter pat. No. I had to stumble into Nick, the mafioso underling, that night at the reception who practically made my heart stop every time he smiled.

  I internally rolled my eyes.

  The bottom line was that I needed Nick’s help to save Elizabeth. I really did. I couldn’t do it on my own, especially remaining hidden. I’d made the decision, made the deal with the devil, when I walked into Scorch that night. I knew then what Nick was, what he did for a living, and I’d been okay with it. Elizabeth was worth the complication of Nick’s background. Even now, she still was. The difference between that night and right now in the backseat of a dang taxi was that I was falling for him. I’d planned to use his help and then walk away. That hadn’t changed, except now I’d probably walk away with a broken heart.

  Our table was inside the restaurant, but next to the open windows that led to outdoor seating. Nick held out my chair, then sat next to me, Carrie across. A chunky red candle sat on top of a crisp white cloth next to the sugar packets, the scents of garlic and cheese mixed with the fresh summer air coming in through the window.

  The table was situated where we could talk about my past openly—albeit quietly. Nick hadn’t run away screaming, he hadn’t shook his head at me in disgust. Neither had Carrie. They’d had opportunity and reason.

  The fact that the two of them didn’t look at me with revulsion on their faces meant they were used to hearing people admit to heinous crimes of various kinds. We were getting drinks together, not booking photos. They wouldn’t run from little-old-me killing in self-defense. In their world, this was normal.

  Which, sitting here as the waiter dropped off a basket of bread sticks and a small plate of olive oil and herbs, it made me realize it wouldn’t be as hard as I thought unburdening my secrets. If Nick were that accountant I was supposed to fall in love with, it would be impossible. There would be judging, disgust and possibly fear at learning the truth. Nick and Carrie would probably just shrug their shoulders and say it was another day at the office. If they turned me in, they’d be exposing themselves. I was safe in the most ridiculous, backward of ways.

  “Why were you in Switzerland?” Carrie asked once the waiter left us with beers for them, Chianti for me.

  “You didn’t ask about what I did to David first thing. I’m surprised.” I shrugged, but added, “I should probably start at the beginning so it makes the most sense.”

  Nick’s leg brushed up against me beneath the table. His right hand was on top of mine, which was on my thigh. With his fingers much larger than mine, they rested directly on my skin above my knee. His warmth seeped into me and it felt reassuring. Comforting.

  I took a sip of my wine. “This isn’t easy for me, to share like this. You’re the first to know the truth.” I took another sip of wine. Maybe if I got drunk, it would numb my nerves, dull my fear of sharing.

  “You can’t stop now, love,” Nick said. “Just rip that Band-Aid off.”

  Carrie nodded.

  I looked out the window, watched people walking by, heading home from work, going to the gym. Simple life stuff. Their lives were so simple, carefree. Would I ever have that? I was stalling. God, okay. I could do this. I didn’t have a choice. With just my real name, Nick could find out everything on his own, just from his phone. Read the skewed stories the media had written. He’d learn about what happened, but it wouldn’t be the complete truth. No one knew that but me.

  Until now.

  “My mother died when I was six. Cancer. I don’t remember much of it, I was too little to really understand, just that it was fast. I wasn’t allowed to see her once she was in the hospital. My nanny told me she’d died, gone to heaven.” I paused, remembering that time. I fiddled with my fork. “I remember her, although not that well. Bits and pieces really. She was really nice. I remember doing fun things together, putting on her perfume and makeup before she went out to a function, watching movies together. The hugs.” I looked over at Nick. “The hugs stopped when my mother died.”

  He squeezed my hand beneath the table.

  “I never saw my father. He always worked. Always.” I swirled the wine in my glass absently. “I’m not sure what my mother saw in him, why she married him, but he wanted her for her money. I have no doubt I was a mistake.”

  Carrie and Nick were both quiet, listening closely. The restaurant was busy, a waiter carried a large tray of food past, delicious smells followed. The sound of rustic music drifted over the bustle. We ignored it.

  “For about six months, I was raised by a nanny and went to a local private school. My mother died in September, I remember because it was just a few weeks after my birthday and she had given me a pretty charm bracelet. The following April, my father remarried. A woman named Victoria. She was young, twenty-nine at the time if I remember correctly.”

  “A trophy wife?” Carrie asked.

  I shrugged. “She fit the profile. Beautiful and smart. Fake. I was really young, so I didn’t know at the time. Now that I’m older, perhaps. For a trophy wife, she had a lot of influence on my father. By June, I was packed off to a girls’ camp in Washington State for the summer. After eight weeks of camp, I was taken directly to my first boarding school.”

  “You were what…six?” Carrie wondered.

  “I was almost seven.”

  Nick shifted in his chair, said something under his breath, but I didn’t catch it. He released my hand, took a big sip of his beer, then put his arm across the back of my chair, his fingers brushing against my shoulder.

  “At first I didn’t understand where I was, or why I was there. The school said that I should be thankful for parents who cared enough to send me to the best school.”

  Carrie waved over the waiter with efficiency. “We’re going to need another round of beers. Bring another glass of Chianti as well, please.” The waiter nodded, left.

  “I hated it,” I continued. “Hated everything about it. I missed my nanny, missed my room, missed my mother. I thought if I misbehaved, they’d send me home. So I could have it all back. I got in trouble the first month. They kicked me out and sent me home. But not for long. My father found a different boarding school and I was there a year. This one had a summer program so I was a year-round student.”

  “Ho
ly shit.” Nick wasn’t happy. He put his beer down on the table a little harder than necessary.

  “What about Christmas?” Carrie interrupted.

  “I was sent home with the headmistress for the breaks. I have no doubt my father gave her nice Christmas bonuses. Let’s see, that was in Virginia, so I was nine by the time I got myself kicked out of that school, too.”

  The waiter brought the beers, the wine. Nick finished off his first and handed the empty pint glass to the waiter. He drank about a third of the next one in one gulp.

  “Switzerland?” he asked, remembering what I’d told him.

  I gave him a little smile. “Very good. Yes. Father shipped me to Switzerland next. There, to fill my time and keep from plotting ways to get kicked out, I was put in the bilingual program, so I was immersed in French for two years.” That had been miserable, I remembered, not being allowed to speak English at all. “Then he added the request of German to the mix.”

  “You said you spoke three languages, but wow,” Carrie murmured.

  “What, you thought one might be Pig Latin?” I said, although it wasn’t all that funny.

  God, my life was not very happy and I was making Carrie and Nick feel sorry for me. I could see it in the way they looked at me. I took a sip of wine. At this rate, we were all going to be plastered in an hour. “This is like a big pity party,” I laughed weakly. “I’m sorry. You really don’t need to hear this.”

  “Yes, we do,” Nick said, his voice rough, like tumbled stones.

  Carrie nodded her agreement.

  I shrugged again. “Well, I’ll move it along a little faster then. When I was twelve, I learned Victoria had a baby. Elizabeth. I was very excited to have a half-sister, thinking they’d want me to join them in their little family. I actually figured out how to buy a plane ticket back to the US, got a taxi to the airport in Geneva and to the gate before I was finally stopped. The good news of the story is that I didn’t have to study French and German anymore.”