The emails had been between me and one of the ARCK members, except it was the first I was seeing it.
One where Zachary, who was posing as me, started the process of luring the members of ARCK to Brentwood by asking for their help. In return, the member asked questions and details about my life, which Zachary hardly gave up.
From the signature in the emails, the member went by Einstein.
I wasn’t sure if I was impressed by the member’s confidence or annoyed by it.
Knowing who these ARCK people really were and what they did, I was firmly siding on annoyed.
Just as I was annoyed with the last response.
We help those who genuinely need it.
Upon investigation, we’ve found there is no Sutton Larson in existence.
I’m not sure how you found out about us, whoever you are, but please do not contact us again unless you truly have need for us.
I didn’t understand it.
How could there not be any record of me?
Or was this part of their lying to make me wonder? If it was, I was fairly certain they had succeeded, because that one line hadn’t left my mind in the last month while I’d waited, as Zachary had ordered, for his word.
I began tapping out the response I’d been instructed to send this morning, and then because I couldn’t help myself, I snuck in the question I’d been dying to ask.
Please. We do need help. Genuine help, as you call it.
I’m afraid. Afraid for my daughter’s life and my own.
I don’t understand what you mean. Existence? I am Sutton Larson. Sutton Larson is me.
I’ll find a way to get you a copy of my ID if that will prove it to you. But we need help. We need to get away, and I don’t know if I can do that by myself.
I’m afraid they’re watching us closely . . . if you understand what I mean.
That was why it took so long for me to reach out to you again.
We will be here as long as we can wait.
If you don’t come for us, I’ll write to you when I can. Please don’t contact me. Just come.
I attached the address of the disgusting motel we were in and then hurried to send off the message when the clock read two minutes before noon. Once the email went through, I deactivated the email account and shut down the computer, just as Zachary instructed me to do.
I nervously glanced over to where my daughter sat on her bed watching me, and forced a smile. “All done.”
She nodded, the movement nothing more than a slight bobbing of her head. “How long are we going to be here?”
Emotion clogged my throat as I searched for the answer that would make her happy.
Make her smile again.
But I didn’t have one.
“I don’t know, baby,” I replied honestly. “As long as it takes.”
A sliver of unease tightened around my heart and stole my next breath because, for the first time, I truly dreaded what would happen at the end of all this.
Sutton
I sank down onto the chaise next to Lexi, and she sighed. “What’s wrong, sweet girl?”
She pursed her lips but didn’t look up from the tablet. “So now we’re doing the Suite Hop?”
I glanced around the new suite, which was nearly identical to the one we had been in yesterday, only with a slightly flipped layout, and held back an echoing sigh. “Better than the Motel Hop.”
When I’d woken this morning, Conor had explained that it would be easier to stay in the same location and switch rooms since it was so vast.
I’d agreed, only because we were already here.
Plus, I loved this resort.
We’d moved to a new suite on a new floor under a new name, making sure the room we were leaving was still booked for another day in case anyone was watching the comings and goings other than Einstein.
Once we were settled, Conor had made himself scarce—as seemed to be his new normal. Apart from when he’d taught me how to defend myself, he’d been slowly distancing himself from me since breakfast the day before.
Physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
By last night, he was harsh and agitated, and that was when he spoke to me at all.
Lexi giggled but didn’t respond for a few moments as she chose the correct word on her tablet. “When do we get to go home?”
After making sure Conor was nowhere around, I asked, “You want to go home? With Daddy?”
I didn’t have to wait for her response to know the answer.
A darkness passed over her face.
Her tiny body tensed.
“I don’t like that house, Momma.”
Considering that was my dream house and I’d carefully picked out everything I wanted in it, I tried not to take offense since this was a six-year-old. “Oh yeah? Wanna tell me why?”
Lexi looked at me before tucking her chin against her chest. “It has a bad smile like Daddy.”
I tried to laugh to cover the way chills crept over my body. “Houses have smiles?”
“If you look real hard, you’ll see it.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my hand over her arm, as if that would help put warmth into my own body. “You know, I don’t understand smiles. You said Mr. Conor had Prince Charming’s smile, but you still seem pretty unsure of him.”
Her cheeks blazed red, and somehow, impossibly, she tucked her chin even lower.
“Oh, I see. So that’s why we don’t talk to him?” My lips slowly curled up. I dug my fingers into her side and relished in the laugh that burst from her. “The giant isn’t so scary anymore?”
Instead of a response, I got a slight jerk of her shoulders.
“We aren’t giving Momma the silent treatment.” I snuggled down so I was at her level and grabbed the tablet from her hands. “If you don’t want to go to our house, tell me where you want to go.”
Her wide, hazel eyes blinked up at me. “The house in my dreams.”
“Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
I laid there, my heart full and a smile on my lips as she launched into an extremely detailed description of a house she’d dreamed up.
* * *
My eyelids felt heavy when I stepped out of the humid bathroom that night. My body still had not fully caught up after those months of barely sleeping in the motels, and I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for days.
But where I expected to see my daughter, the bed was empty.
The room was dark.
There wasn’t a sound coming from the suite.
I hurried for the door, Lexi’s name on my lips, but as soon as I had it opened, a sigh of relief left me. Because she was there . . . sitting on the living room couch.
Tablet on her lap.
I kind of hated that thing. I was also thankful for it.
I was sure it made the days go by faster for her, and it helped her learn while we were locked away.
Sitting on the floor next to her, Conor was staring at something on his laptop, most likely still reading the files.
My heart took off at a thunderous pace as I studied him.
I told myself to look away, to look anywhere else but at him, but it was impossible. Just as it was becoming harder and harder to stay away from him when he was near.
I cleared my throat and prayed that the light coming from the kitchen area wasn’t enough to betray the blood heating my cheeks.
Conor pushed to his feet and snatched his laptop from the floor. “Dinner’s in the kitchen.”
My mouth was open to thank him for ordering food, for watching over us . . . to ask him what I had done to make him act this way so suddenly, but he was already gone.
I jerked when the door to his room shut.
It could’ve just been me, but it felt like he’d slammed it.
“I think that means he likes you,” Lexi said, and I dragged my attention away from the closed door to where she was sitting.
“Wha—no. He doesn’t . . . no, absolut
ely not. That would be completely inappropriate, and he knows that.” I headed toward the kitchen to see what Conor had ordered, but only got a few steps before stopping and asking, “Why do you say that?”
She rolled her eyes in a duh, Mom way. “You told me Kai liked me because he wouldn’t talk to me and pulled my ponytail. Mr. Conor doesn’t talk to you anymore and slams his door, so that means he likes you.”
“Okay, first, you’re supposed to be in bed.” I stared at her until she smiled bashfully. “Second, as I said, it would be completely inappropriate on so many levels. He’s helping us. We’re clients of his.”
Technically.
Sort of.
No one else needed to know the true details of that, including Lexi.
“Most importantly, I’m married to your father.”
Lexi didn’t respond, she only watched me until I finally headed to the kitchen.
But I didn’t pull my dinner from the microwave.
I just stood there, berating myself for the improper thoughts and feelings I’d let develop.
“I know Daddy scares you too.”
I jolted at Lexi’s soft voice.
“Jesus, Alexis.” I pressed my hand to my chest and tried to restart my heart. Not realizing for a moment what exactly she had said. “Wait . . . what?”
“I know he scares you too.”
“Why would you—” I hesitated because she wasn’t wrong.
And this sassy child saw so much more than she ever should have. Much more than I’d ever realized.
“What do you mean, Lex?”
“You never let me have sleepovers, but you let me sleep at friend’s houses or Mimi’s house, like, a lot.”
I reached for the counter and gripped it tightly, praying it would keep me standing.
“When we’re at the house, you’re happy and you talk to me. But not if Daddy’s home. Your smile goes away and you stop talking and you send me to find Nadia or to my room.”
“I love your father, Alexis.” The words were a strained whisper and tasted like the worst kind of lie.
She studied me for a while, her face pinched in concentration. “Can you be scared of someone and love them at the same time?”
No.
No.
No, tell her no.
But I felt my head dipping down in a shaky nod.
“Then don’t be married anymore.” Lexi shrugged as if it could be so easy.
“It isn’t that simple.” It was more complicated than I could even begin to comprehend.
Her body sagged in defeat. “But we don’t have to see him again, right, Momma?”
That look.
That question.
It gutted me. What kind of a mother was I?
How had I missed so many signs? How had I missed this?
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that you were scared?”
Lexi’s chin wavered, and when she spoke again, the words were soft as a breath. “To keep the bad smile hidden.”
I bent down and wrapped her up, lifting her into my arms and squeezing her close to me. “Oh, Lex, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I walked her over to the living room and sat with her still in my arms. “I’ll never make you go back to that house. You’ll never see him again. We’ll go find a new house and start over.”
“The house from my dreams?”
I leaned back and gave her a shaky smile. “I’ll do my best.”
How had this happened?
How had we come to this?
How had this all become real?
Conor
Awareness flashed across my skin.
Familiar and warning all at once.
I finished pulling on my boxer briefs, my head tilted to the side as I listened for any sounds that shouldn’t be there.
A scream rang out just as I reached for my sweats.
Lexi.
I didn’t even take the time to grab my gun, I bolted from the bedroom as my name tore from the girls I’d sworn to protect.
Sutton slammed into me with Lexi tucked close to her side and panic covering her face as she shouted things too fast for me to understand.
But just as quickly as I started pushing them behind me, I stopped.
“Are you fucking kidding?” I asked through gritted teeth.
My heart was racing.
Adrenaline was coursing through my veins.
Jess raised her hands in mock-surrender, but her smile widened. “Nice color on you, Conor.”
Kieran’s head snapped in her direction before he slanted a cold glare at me. “Look in that area again, and I’m killing him.”
She just sighed and rolled her eyes. “Get over yourself. It’s all he has on. It’s hard not to notice.”
“Did neither of you think it was a good idea to warn me you were coming?” My grip tightened on Sutton for a second before I realized I was still holding her close to my chest, shielding her from our visitors.
I didn’t let myself think about how good she felt there.
I didn’t let myself wonder why she wasn’t trying to get away from my touch.
I hurried to release her and then faced Kieran and Jess, who were talking quietly.
“Again, why wasn’t I warned?” The question was pure growl and grit.
“Is too,” Jess hissed at her husband before sending me a wry grin. “It seemed to us that you needed to talk, but in our defense, we thought you would be within sight of the door when we showed up.”
“Yeah. Talk. On the phone.” I raked my hands over my face, groaning as I did. “Stay here, I’m gonna grab clothes.” Turning to the girls, I said, “You should probably go to your room for—”
“No,” Kieran rumbled.
That was it.
One word.
But it stopped me the same way it always had.
It wouldn’t matter how long we were out of the mob or how long we were partners in a company, Kieran would always be the assassin and underboss I took orders from.
He tilted his head toward the girls standing behind me. “We need to talk to Sutton too.”
I nodded. “All right. But I need to talk to the two of you in my room before that happens.”
At his affirming grunt, I turned to Sutton and Lexi.
Lexi was huddled close to her mom’s side, eyes narrowed at the couple behind me.
Sutton was standing straight and tall, looking as though nothing could touch her, but I could see the slight tremble continuously moving through her body.
“You okay?”
Her eyes darted to mine before dropping to the floor and then bouncing back again. When she spoke, her voice was soft and laced with unease. “Who are they?”
“Kieran and his wife, Jess. I told you about them. We started and own ARCK together.”
Her chin lowered slightly, as though she were acknowledging my words before her head moved in sharp jerks. “Conor, they were just there. I never even heard the door open. How did they get the door open?”
I reached for her arm without thinking and gripped her gently, soothingly. “I know. That’s—”
“And you weren’t there.”
A choking noise sounded in my throat.
The hatred and accusation in her tone hit me, feeling as though someone had kicked my legs out at the knees.
“I don’t know why you’re avoiding me like a pariah, but you should’ve been there.”
“Sutton, I’m sorry.”
She just ripped her arm from my grasp and hurried Lexi away.
“Son of a bitch.”
“Is way too,” Jess mumbled to her husband.
I slanted a glare in their direction. “Thanks for that.”
I charged into the room and roughly pulled on a pair of sleep pants and a shirt, when I turned, I wasn’t surprised to find both of them directly behind me.
Silent as the fucking night.
They could get into anywhere, even places that seemed impossible, which explained their sudden appearance in the suite.
And I loved them like family, but in that moment, I kinda wanted to take a swing at Kieran.
From the way he was testing the weight of one of his blades, he knew it and was waiting.
“Your text was alarming,” he said in that lethal tone of his.
“Unlike you,” Jess corrected.
“Does that explain the surprise visit?” I asked on a sneer. “Again, I needed a phone call. Not a show of what you can do that would scare the shit out of them.”
“We’re here,” Kieran grunted. “So explain.”
Instead of launching into the reason behind my earlier message, I just stared at Kieran’s unapologetic expression for a few more seconds before blowing out a rough breath and shoving past them to shut my door.
Once I was facing them, I said, “I want someone else to be in charge of relocating the Larsons.”
Jess looked stunned, but Kieran was as impassive as ever.
He and Lexi should have a stare down.
“And why would that be?” Jess asked, drawing out each word.
“Because I can’t.”
Plain and simple.
“You can,” Kieran argued. “We’ve all done our share, but you’re the best at this part of the job. People like you, people trust you. Eventually, the Larsons will too.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t be the one who does this.” I drove my hands through my hair and left them there. “I can’t trust myself to be alert. To do the job the way it needs to be done. To think rationally. Put me somewhere else.”
Jess’s mouth curled into a wicked grin. She pushed Kieran with her elbow. “Told you.”
Kieran just stared at me for a long while, indecision playing in his piercing eyes. “I’m sorry, man. There’s nothing we can do. You know it as well as we do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Jess and I are needed on the ground so we can look for these guys. Einstein’s too close to this case to bring her to Tennessee. And we can’t bring Maverick, Diggs, or Dare here, none of them know the steps we go through.”
“Besides, Dare has a family to think of and Maverick needs to take care of Einstein,” Jess added.
Something somewhere inside me still pulled at that.
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