He leaned forward a fraction so that his nose trailed against mine. “You’re wrong.”
It was all anger and loathing, and then he was pushing away from the wall and folding his arms across his chest.
“We’re right back to having one outcome. One that you’ve decided on. And I can’t fucking keep you.”
The grief in his last words nearly swallowed me whole.
“I thought you were pulling away,” he continued. “I thought Diggs and Kieran and everything from last night scared you, and you were thinking about bailing on us. But I thought you would have changed your mind when we woke up or—fuck, that I’d at least have a chance to change it. I didn’t know I was going to wake up to an empty room and find you at the door with Lexi and a goddamn bag.”
He left without another word, and I knew it was for the best because I was so damn close to breaking.
To telling him that I loved him.
That the only outcome I wanted was one where we were together.
I’d known the minute I saw Conor’s fist raised and Kieran’s knife pressed to Conor’s stomach that this was what I needed to do for Conor—for all of them. I couldn’t go back on that.
I finally made my way over to where Lexi was on the sofa bed, lying on her stomach with her feet in the air, smiling at whatever show she was watching as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
And I was glad for it.
I wanted her to be happy and carefree.
I didn’t want her weighed down with what was happening.
I sat beside her and gripped one of her tiny hands in mine.
“I love you, Momma.”
My mouth twitched into a grin. “I love you too, sweet girl. Why don’t you tell me about the house from your dreams again?”
I listened to her recount all the details of her house until a knock on the suite’s door sent a shock of fear through me and had me scrambling to sitting.
Lexi rolled to her side to look up at me. “Were your dreams really scary, or only a little scary?”
“I wasn’t dreaming,” I said on a strained breath as I glanced toward the door. “I wasn’t asleep.”
Lexi had been telling me about the really, really big white and pink flowers out front just before the knock sounded.
I was positive.
But Kieran, Conor, and a hotel staff member were bringing in trays of food and coffee into the kitchen where Maverick and Einstein were sitting, working, and the show on the television wasn’t what had been playing when I’d sat next to Lexi.
Assuring me I had, in fact, fallen asleep.
In that moment, I felt like I’d made a crucial mistake in allowing myself to.
Because something about the entire scene felt wrong. Thick, inky tendrils of fear were snaking through my body.
It was a fear I knew.
It was paralyzing and suffocating, and it always, always came when I was running out of time before Zachary decided he was done letting me hide.
All I could do was sit there and watch in dread, unable to catch my breath.
Lexi reached for my hand and whispered, “You feel it too?”
“What?” The word came out on a breath, and though I tried to look at her, I couldn’t take my eyes off the kitchen area.
“Someone’s coming.”
I struggled to pull her closer to my side, my movements slow and heavy.
Run.
Run, we need to run.
I slid one of my legs off the sofa bed, looking from the group in the kitchen to the suite door, which was propped open by the door guard.
“Lex—”
“Momma, his smile.”
Her words sent fingers as cold as death down my spine, and I shifted my stare back to the hotel worker just as he slanted his head in our direction.
And then he smiled.
Slow.
Knowing.
Cruel . . . so damn cruel.
Conor’s name was on the tip of my tongue.
My constricted lungs prepared to scream.
My arm tensed protectively around Lexi, shielding her from whatever might happen, ready to flee with her.
But I never got a chance . . .
Within a second, Kieran turned, arm swinging toward the man as though he were going to backhand him—only to miss. Then a river of blood started streaming from the man’s throat, and he began choking and swaying.
Kieran grabbed the man’s hair, keeping him still, and spoke words too low for me to hear.
But I’d seen that look.
I’d been on the receiving end of it.
It was harsh and terrifying and made a person feel as if they were staring Death in the face.
For some reason, I couldn’t process that the man was.
That I was watching a man die.
But I couldn’t look away.
Even after Kieran stopped speaking.
Even after he let the man fall to the floor.
Even when Conor began searching the man.
He’s dead. There’s a dead man on the floor. He’s dead.
Why can’t I look away?
I jumped and sucked in a sharp breath when Jess appeared beside me, her hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she said before I’d even calmed.
“He’s coming.”
Her head shook as understanding filled her features. “You should take Lexi to another room.”
“I can—you don’t understand. He’s coming.” My voice trembled with fear as old memories haunted me.
“You’re going to be fine.”
“I can feel it.” In my head, it was as if I’d screamed the words, when, in reality, they were nothing more than a strangled, whispered claim.
I saw the moment her thoughts changed.
When she stopped thinking I was only rattled over what had just happened and truly believed—knew—that Zachary was coming.
Her eyes trailed toward the kitchen before she shifted her head that way. “We won’t let anything happen to you,” she said softly and then turned and made her way over to Kieran.
For the first time, I wasn’t comforted by Jess’s words.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think they would try, it was that I was understanding more and more that Zachary would never let me just walk away. And regardless of their presence, he could still get to me.
The ring.
The notes.
This man.
I realized then not one of them had shown any form of surprise. No one had been shocked or even moved when Kieran turned and slit the staff member’s throat.
Jess had been near Lexi and me . . . waiting.
They’d known he was someone bad all along.
I was still dissecting that realization when Jess turned and gestured to where Lexi was—head buried in the bed. “Get her in another room.”
Numbly, I did as she said, gripping Lexi’s hand and keeping her head turned away as I tugged her across the bed, halting as that familiar ice-cold terror gripped me.
Conor was standing over the body, chest rising and falling heavily, eyes on the stack of papers in his hands.
On the back of the page there were big, bold words.
Let’s
play
a
game.
Oh God.
Once Lexi’s feet were on the floor, Conor lifted his head.
The look on his face made me want to tear out the remains of my heart.
There wasn’t anger or betrayal or pain . . . he was staring at me as if I was nothing and meant nothing to him.
Just nothing.
At least with the hurt, there was still the emotion that reminded me it had been real while it lasted.
He slammed the papers against Kieran’s chest, blinked slowly once . . . then twice as he shook his head and walked away.
And I couldn’t move.
I wanted to go after him.
I knew I needed to get Lexi away, that we needed to get away from the
room where Kieran had just killed someone.
Yet, I couldn’t move as I watched Kieran flip from one page to the next. Because I knew—I somehow knew—those papers had everything to do with me.
Just as I knew this game was meant for me.
I could practically hear Zachary calling my name down the halls of our home in that chilling, monstrous voice.
Could hear him slamming his hand against the wall, letting me know he was coming closer.
“Maverick.” Conor’s yell sent everyone except for Kieran into action.
Maverick and Einstein nearly fell out of their chairs trying to get out of them, and then they were running in the direction Conor had gone—to Diggs’s room.
I rocked forward on instinct—partly because I wanted to know what had happened and partly because it was an automatic response to Conor’s voice.
Jess started that way before hesitating and looking to Kieran and then us. But even in her hesitation, her feet continued in small steps toward the room the others had disappeared into, as if she were being pulled in three directions.
Diggs’s room.
Staying with her husband.
Or coming back to us.
And Lexi? Lexi was pulling on my hand, tugging me away from it all, softly whispering my name. The terror and alarm in that soft voice fueled my own.
I dropped in front of her when Jess started jogging toward Diggs’s room and hurried to whisper, “Go to our room and shut the door and hide. Don’t come out for anything, understand?”
“But, Momma, I feel it.” Pure fear filled her eyes. “Someone’s coming. You have to hide too. You have to get Mr. Conor and hide.”
“I will,” I assured her. “But please go, and remember not to come out until I tell you to.”
She threw her arms around my neck, squeezing me tightly for a few moments before taking off for our bedroom.
As soon as she took off, I stood and found Kieran closing in on me.
Eyes cold.
Face unreadable.
“Tell me just how deep this went.”
I blinked quickly, trying to understand. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“This plan of yours.” He flipped open the papers but didn’t look at them. “You thought we dealt in human trafficking?”
It felt like someone knocked my legs out from under me.
“That we were going to take you and your daughter and sell you off?”
My chest pitched as I struggled to suck in oxygen.
The room spun.
“You were communicating with us . . . why?” It was a demand, pure, simple, and filled with grit. “To keep us distracted while your husband moved in?”
“No,” I breathed. “I didn’t know.”
“To bring the rest of us here and into his fucked-up game?”
“It wasn’t—I didn’t know,” I cried out.
He flung the papers at me, letting them scatter and fall where they may around my feet.
Emails.
Dozens upon dozens of emails from Zachary to me, beginning after he’d moved Lexi and me into a motel.
Him telling me when to email Einstein and what to say in them, word for word.
Coaching me on what to say if Einstein forced me into another call.
How to make it convincing, to make sure ARCK would believe my story because they were smart in their game.
Telling me they would know if I was playing them, that they wouldn’t fall into the trap. And we needed to catch the people who had stolen and sold Vero.
How the FBI agents would watch over us. How we would be safe. That he would never let the ARCK people get anywhere near me.
Me. Never Lexi.
Zachary never mentioned her other than to order me to tell Einstein about her.
And not one of my responses was there that I could see.
Where I’d demanded to know why he’d taken us to a motel and had ordered the agents not to let us leave. Where I’d screamed at him for getting Lexi involved—for putting us up as bait when that had never been part of the plan. Where I’d begged and begged to know if they were closer to finding Vero. That I was afraid for our lives and couldn’t sleep. Where I’d sobbed to him because I was terrified each email I sent the ARCK people to come save us brought them closer to coming to steal us.
All things he’d never acknowledged anyway.
One of the pages near my feet was the last email I received a handful of days before Conor broke into my hotel room. At the bottom of the page, in Zachary’s perfectly masculine scrawl, was a handwritten note that changed everything.
She knows her place and plays her part well.
My head shook wildly as my throat grew thick with grief and regret. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” I cried out. “He told me you kidnapped and sold Vero. He said they were going to get her back—I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was near all of you in North Carolina! I thought they were looking for her. I was supposed to get some or all of you here so you could be arrested—that was all I knew.”
“We needed to know everything,” he said firmly, bringing up our conversation from earlier. “You should have told us this from the beginning.”
“All I knew were lies, it wouldn’t have changed anything,” I yelled. “I thought Conor was coming to take us, and then my world was rocked and rocked and rocked, and I went from not knowing what to believe to realizing my entire life was a lie. Everything Zachary had told me was a lie, and everything I had done inadvertently helped him get Einstein. How was I supposed to tell you that? How was I supposed to tell you that I had tricked you into coming here when it ended up being a blessing because it was the only way I could’ve ever gotten away from Zachary?”
Those cold eyes stayed narrowed on me before he simply said, “You say it.”
A disbelieving laugh tumbled from my mouth. “None of you trusted me anyway. If I had said that, I—God, I can’t begin to imagine what would’ve happened.”
He shrugged as he folded his arms across his chest and then glanced to the empty kitchen. “It would’ve looked something like this.”
With that, he turned and started toward Diggs’s room.
“Kieran, someone is coming,” I called out before he could get far.
“Is that something you know?” he asked without turning around, his tone all challenge.
“I have this feeling—I know this feeling.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected when he looked at me, but it wasn’t the hardened understanding. “Guilt. Abandonment. Regret. Yeah, we’ve all felt that at some point.” He nodded to the body lying a few feet from him. “Someone did come, if you forgot.”
“That isn’t—no. Tell Conor,” I begged when he stalked away, hurrying to follow when he didn’t stop. “Tell Conor that Lexi can feel it.”
If there were any chance of Conor believing anything, it would be Lexi’s intuition.
I stood there just outside the kitchen, wavering over what to do and where to go.
I wanted to continue following Kieran.
I wanted to go to Conor myself—God, what I wanted was to go back before I’d ever hurt him and do everything differently.
But I couldn’t do any of that. Not only was I sure I wasn’t welcome in that room but I also didn’t want to be any farther from Lexi than I was at that moment.
Because that feeling Kieran so carelessly brushed aside was growing stronger and stronger. Just as the need to take Lexi and run far from here was.
My chest rose and fell in short, sharp bursts.
My lungs weren’t pulling in the oxygen I needed.
My body felt like it was made of lead, and my legs felt boneless.
I rocked toward the room once again and swayed in my indecision, knowing with every ounce of me that if we didn’t get out then, we wouldn’t get out at all.
I turned, my movements weighed down by that crippling, consuming fear, and I stumbled into arms I knew well.
A hand slammed over my mouth, di
gging hard into my cheeks and twisting me so my back was resting against him.
Something pierced my neck, and I cried out, the sound muffled and muted by his hand.
I struggled, my mind racing, trying to grab ahold of anything Conor had taught me.
Lips met my ear. “Let’s play a game.”
Conor
“Do you feel sick?” Einstein asked. “Can you tell us exactly where you hurt?”
Diggs slanted a glare at her before letting his eyelids drift shut. “Hungry as fuck.”
“Okay, well you can’t eat right now,” she said in that matter-of-fact tone of hers, but her lips were curling into a smile again.
They had been ever since I’d called her and Maverick in there.
Diggs took quick, shallow breaths for a while before saying, “What’s the point of being laid up if I’m not getting laid?”
“I think he’s fine,” Maverick said with a roll of his eyes.
Diggs’s mouth twitched, but the action looked weak and forced. “I meant fed.”
“When more time has passed,” Einstein assured him. “When we have a better idea of what’s happening.”
A pained grunt escaped him. “If you weren’t gonna feed me when I woke up, you shoulda let me die.”
“Keep talking, I’m gonna start wondering why we didn’t,” Maverick said, the words all tease.
Diggs’s eyelids suddenly popped open, only to shut almost entirely again. “Shit. Just realized we weren’t home.” He searched the room before resting his head against the pillow with a heaved breath. “Where are Baby Mini and Baby Mama?”
The storm of emotions that ripped through me at the mention of Sutton could have brought me to my knees.
Everything thundering and clashing so powerfully that I couldn’t pinpoint one to focus on before another one took over.
And all of it fucking hurt.
I looked up when I felt eyes on me and realized everyone but Kieran was watching me expectantly.
Jess was staring at me with a somber expression as Kieran whispered to her, which he had been doing since he’d come into the room a couple minutes before.
Limit Page 33