“It’s an Audi.”
“Newer?”
“Yeah.” I frown harder and then repeat, “Why?”
“My car is kind of a piece of crap, but that’s on purpose. I mean, it’s not so bad that it stands out, but it’s also not nice enough to stand out.”
She’s doing her best to blend. “I understand.”
“I just don’t trust it enough to get me all the way to Seattle and back.”
“You’re not going to Seattle.”
“Yes.” She sets her glass down with a decisive thud and hurries past me and up the narrow set of stairs to a loft. “I am.”
I follow her, not willing to let her out of my sight. “Elena, you can’t go to Seattle. I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but—”
“I’ll tell you,” she interrupts as she pulls a duffle bag out of her tiny closet and starts throwing things into it. “When my parents were killed, my grandmother wanted to get me the hell out of Seattle. We didn’t know which family was responsible for Mom’s and Dad’s deaths, and Gran was sure whomever it was would come for me next. Rather than let that happen, she gave me a new life, out from under my family’s thumb.
“She’s the only one who knew where I was. She said she’d bring me back when the time was right, but it’s never been right. And, frankly, I like it here. By the way, don’t call me Elena. Call me Ally.”
“No.”
She scowls at me. “Yes. I’m Ally here and have been for six years. I’ve made a life for myself, and I like it. A lot.”
“So you’re not planning to go back to Seattle for good?”
“Hell, no. You know who my family is. I’m not going back to that. But Grandma was the most important person in my life, even if I haven’t seen her in eight years.” Her chin wobbles again, but she sniffs and pulls herself together. “So, I’m going to her funeral.”
“If the family sees you, they won’t let you leave again.”
“They won’t see me.”
“Elena—”
“Ally.”
“This is crazy. I’m not taking you back there, knowing that your life could be in danger.”
To my utter shock, Elena pulls a small handgun on me and levels me with a cold look.
“Yes, you are.”
I smirk at the gun. She won’t kill me.
“You’re right,” she says as if she can read my mind. “I’m not going to kill you. But I could take out your knee, your shoulder. Your balls.”
I drop the smile and narrow my eyes at her. She’s not kidding.
I’m being held at gunpoint by the love of my life.
And she is the love of my life. Standing here, looking at her, has me aching. God, I missed her. And I’m smart enough to know that there’s so much about her I don’t know anymore. She’s not the same woman she was when she was eighteen.
But I’m going to relearn her. Because letting her out of my sight again is simply not an option.
“Let’s talk about this.”
She doesn’t blink as she cocks the gun.
I move fast and grip the wrist of her shooting hand as I pull her against me, the gun now pointed away from us.
“I’ll take you,” I say at last, my nose inches from hers. “But we do it my way, and you won’t ever pull this shit on me again. After everything you put me through, I deserve better than a gun barrel pointed at my face.”
I let her go and walk away, then turn back, soaking her in. “And we’re going to talk on the way up there.”
She lowers the gun and shoves it back into her waistband. “It’s a long drive. I figured we’d talk. I have to call my job.”
She pushes her fingers through her long, dark hair and hurries to the side of the bed to pick up a cordless phone straight from the nineties.
She dials a number and waits for someone to answer.
“Hey, Chad, it’s Ally. Is Margie in? I was hoping to catch her. She’s not? Okay. Well, I’ve had a family emergency. I need to leave for a couple of days.” Her eyes well up again, and it tears at my heart. “Yeah, a death. I know we’re already shorthanded, and I hate to do this to you. I know. Family first.”
She lowers the phone from her mouth and wipes at a tear.
“Thank you, Chad. Really. I’ll call you if I’ll be out more than two or three days. Okay. Bye.”
She hangs up, and I can’t stand it anymore. I cross to her and gently pull her to me.
Elena’s arms immediately encircle my middle, and she buries her gorgeous face in my chest, allowing herself a good cry.
I rock us back and forth, rubbing circles over her back and crooning to her.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”
She’s got a death-grip on my shirt, and her tears rip at my heart. She’s clearly hurting, and the only way to help her feel better is to drive her to Seattle.
So it looks like that’s what we’ll do.
“I wish we’d left last night,” she says from the passenger seat, staring out at the pretty Oregon scenery.
“We both needed the sleep,” I remind her. She slept hard. I offered to take the couch, but she said that was silly and offered half of the bed.
I took it.
I only touched her once when she whimpered in her sleep, and I reached over to rub her back.
Now that I’ve found her, there’s plenty of time for the rest of it. I don’t even know how she feels about seeing me again. But she didn’t turn me away, and I’ll take that as a win.
“The funeral is tomorrow at two in the afternoon,” she says. “At least, that’s what the news said.”
“I can do a search to confirm it,” I reply. “But you can’t go in there like this.”
“Of course, not. I’ll buy a wig and wear sunglasses.”
I glance at her and scowl. “You might as well wear a neon sign that says, This is Elena, hiding from all of you.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do?”
“I’ve got this.” I reach for my phone and dial my baby sister’s number.
“I haven’t talked to you in weeks,” Amelia says rather than hello. “Where are you?”
“In my car. Hey, I have a special project for you.”
Elena grips my arm, and her eyes look panicked. She hisses, “No! Don’t drag your family into this!”
“Trust me,” I whisper.
“Who are you whispering to? What’s going on, Archer?” Lia demands.
“I have someone with me who needs a disguise.”
“Between you and Levi, I should go into the camouflage business. What do you need?”
“She can’t look anything like herself. She’s going to a place where if she’s recognized, it could mean her life.”
Lia’s quiet for a moment. “Archer, did you find Elena?”
I smile. “Yeah.”
“Oh, my God. This is so exciting. Is she with you? Can she hear me?”
“I can hear you,” Elena says softly.
“Elena! We’ve missed you so much. Don’t you worry, I’ll make you look so different, even Archer won’t recognize you.”
“I’ll always recognize her,” I say and link my hand with Elena’s, holding on even when she tries to pull away.
She won’t be pulling away from me again.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Elena says, her voice laced with urgency. “This has to be absolutely secret, Lia. Please.”
“I understand. Mum’s the word. When do you need me? I have to get some supplies. Are you still the same size?”
Elena and Lia discuss the specifics, and once I’ve hung up with my sister, Elena bites her lip, looking unsure.
“Talk to me.”
“This is a bad idea,” she says at last. “What am I doing? I’ve been safe in Bandon for years. And now you and your family know where I am, and I’m walking right into the lion’s den tomorrow. My grandmother would be so pissed.”
“You love her,” I remind her. “And you’re allowed to go to your own grandmother’s funeral. Yo
u’re allowed to grieve and be a human being, Elena. Besides, I know where you are, but my family doesn’t. And Amelia isn’t a snitch.”
“I know better than this.”
“What are you afraid of?”
She laughs, but it’s humorless. “Well, worst-case scenario? You and I are both killed.”
“That feels extreme.”
“You don’t get it. I’m the daughter of a mob boss, Archer.”
“A dead mob boss.” I glance at her and see her bite her lip again. “And I never got it because you always refused to explain it to me, E.”
“Doesn’t matter that he’s dead.” She shakes her head. “I have responsibilities that I walked away from. There will be punishment for that. Grandmother warned me.”
“Your father is dead. Who the hell would punish you?”
“Murdered,” she agrees. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I walked away from the family. That’s not okay. I knew I’d have to go back one day, I’m just not ready. And any one of them could punish me for leaving.”
I take a deep breath and decide that now’s as good a time as any to ask some hard questions.
“Anastasia told me the real reason why you broke things off.”
And learning that it was because her father had threatened my life was enough to almost destroy me.
“I wish she hadn’t done that.”
“So you’d rather I never knew the truth? That I remain clueless? I felt like a fucking fool, E.”
“I’d rather you be safe,” she stresses. “Your safety was always the goal. My father didn’t hand out idle threats, Archer. There was no way in hell I was going to allow him to harm you. So, I did what he asked.”
“And you never came to find me when he died.”
“You don’t get it.” She growls in frustration. “My father made it clear to everyone that if you came around again, looking for me, that you were to be taken care of. That directive didn’t die with him.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to make a decision for myself.”
“What would you have done?”
“Gone to him,” I reply. “Talked to him, man-to-man. Explained that I loved you and that I’d do anything to be your husband.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. You’re not from the right bloodline. You’re not who he picked out for me. And if he’d been willing to give you a chance, he would have made you become part of the family. The mob family. And that’s not okay, Archer. It would have only made things worse.”
“I lost you,” I say, frustration flowing through my veins. “It didn’t get much worse than that.”
“Losing you and the pain that came with it was nothing compared to the agony I knew I’d feel if he killed you, Archer. So, yes, I made a decision for both of us, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“No. You won’t. You won’t ever make a decision like that for me, for both of us, ever again.”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t know why you’re here. Why didn’t you just move on? Find someone else and get married. Have a dozen kids. Live your life? Because you being with me puts us both at risk.”
“I tried,” I admit. “I dated, and there was even someone who loved me enough that I considered marrying her. But it wouldn’t have been fair to her because I never would have loved her the way I loved you.”
We cross over the Oregon/Washington border, and I feel Elena stiffen beside me.
“No one’s going to hurt you, E.”
She simply shakes her head once. “They hurt me. Every day. You have no idea.”
It’s six in the morning when I pull up to my sister’s home with Elena. We spent the night in a hotel south of Seattle. Elena didn’t trust me to take her to my place, in case it was being watched, and I was inclined to agree.
“You’re here,” Lia says when she opens the door. She immediately pulls us inside, shuts and locks the door, and then tugs Elena into her arms for a long hug. “Oh, I missed you so much. We have to do all of our crying now so we don’t mess up your makeup later.”
“I missed you, too,” Elena whispers into Lia’s shoulder.
After a long embrace, Lia steps back and smiles at Elena. “I always loved your eyes. The one brown and one green is so cool, but they’ll give you away in a heartbeat.”
Now, she’s all-business.
“I can’t change my eye color,” Elena says as we follow Lia through her home to her studio. “What is all of this?”
“Oh, Archer didn’t brag about his baby sister? Tsk tsk.” Lia shakes her head at me and smiles at Elena. “I do YouTube videos.”
“This looks like more than the occasional video.”
“She’s being humble,” I say. “She has five million followers on YouTube and just launched her own makeup line.”
Elena’s eyes are huge as she stares at my sister in surprise. The last time she saw Lia, my baby sister was still in high school.
“Wow. Good for you.”
“Thanks. Makeup is my jam, and we’re going to make you look not only incredible but also completely unrecognizable.”
“But how?”
“You’re going to look like a man.”
Elena and I both blink at my sister.
“There’s no way you can make her look like a dude,” I say.
“Of course, I can. I have wigs, facial hair, contact lenses to cover those amazing eyes, and I even bought her clothes. She’ll be short, but she’ll look like a guy in the next six hours.”
“Wow,” Elena says again. “Let’s do it.”
For the first time since Elena opened her door to me yesterday, she has hope in her eyes. If anyone can pull it off, it’s my sister.
“I’ll be back later to take you.”
“Where are you going?” Elena asks.
“I need to get a suit from my house, and I have a couple of errands to run.”
“You’re not going with me to the funeral.”
I shove my hands into my pockets, ready to go to battle. “Yes, I am. I told you we were doing this my way, and there’s no way I’m letting you go in there without me.”
“Then what’s the point of this disguise? If you’re with me, it’ll be a red flag. You can’t be there.”
“You’re not going in there alone.” I pace away, frustrated all over again because she’s right. If someone from her family sees me there, they’ll know she’s close by. I look at my sister and then Elena. “I don’t want you going in there alone. So, Lia goes with you.”
“Great idea,” Lia says. “I’ll put on a disguise of my own, and we’ll look like a couple. We’re about the same height. If I wear flats, we’ll totally pull it off.”
I nod, but Elena shakes her head no.
“I can’t let you do that, Lia. It’s too dangerous.”
“She goes with you, or you don’t go at all.” I cross my arms over my chest, not willing to budge on this.
Lia nods in agreement. “No one will recognize us.”
“I don’t like it,” Elena says, but then sighs in defeat when she sees the hard look on my face. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to like it. Keeping you safe is the most important thing.” I cup her cheek, wanting nothing more than to kiss her, but we’re not there yet. “I’ll be down the street from the church in my car. I won’t be far.”
“Is he always this bossy?” Elena asks Lia.
“Yeah. He’s the alpha type.”
“I’m right here.” I stare at them both, but they just smile back. “I can hear you.”
“We’d better get to work if we’re going to be ready to go on time,” Lia says, gesturing for Elena to take a seat. “Would you rather have dark or light hair?”
“Let’s go blond,” Elena says. “And maybe spiky. Can you give me tattoos?”
“Like, on your neck?”
Elena nods.
“Heck, yes. Should it be a girl’s name? That’s super classy.”
They giggle as they get down to business, act
ing as if they’ve been friends forever and saw each other just last week.
Elena always fit in well with my family. They accepted her unconditionally, and Elena spent a lot of time at our house while we were dating.
I, however, did not get the same reception from Elena’s family. In fact, I never met them. Even when we ran away to get married, I never met her parents. Elena told me about them and explained that it wouldn’t be safe if they found out about us.
I guess I just blew it off because I was in love, and I was young enough to think that love would conquer anything.
Until one day, she ghosted me. She was my wife, and she just disappeared, then called and said I wasn’t what she wanted. I was fucking devastated. Angry. Hurt. It took years for me to move on.
“What do you think?” Lia asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
After only ten minutes, Elena’s face has already changed. I barely recognize her.
“You’re a damn genius.”
My sister grins and turns back to Elena. “I know. But thanks for acknowledging it.”
Chapter 3
~Elena~
“Oh, God, why did I think I could do this?” I whisper as I drive Amelia and me into downtown Seattle where the funeral is being held. The thing about my family is, despite being kind of scary, they’re also quite famous in the Pacific Northwest, so they needed a big church to accommodate all of the people that would come to pay their respects. Which works well for me, as it’ll be easier for Lia and me to go unnoticed.
“No one is going to recognize you,” Lia assures me and shifts in the seat next to me. Frankly, I don’t recognize either of us.
I’m in a man’s suit, black with a silver tie. My hair is blond and not spiky like I originally thought. We decided to go more conservative than rebellious. But I have a full beard, both of my eyes are brown, and I have sunglasses tucked into my pocket, just in case.
Lia covered her long, blond hair with a brunette wig. We both have prosthetic noses on, giving our faces an entirely different shape.
I park a block down from St. James Cathedral in downtown Seattle. I’m not willing to admit it, but I feel better knowing that Archer’s parked not far from here.
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