Game of Lies

by Amanda K. Byrne

  I go right.

  “She’s heading to the fifth floor to intercept our father. Says she’ll try and get the meds from him while she’s at it.” He hands the phone to me, and I shove it into my pocket.

  Someone steps into our path, and I run into the back of the chair, jostling Nick in the process. He swears, and I straighten, going ramrod stiff when I see who it is. “Mr. Kosta.”

  Andreas ignores me and frowns at his son. “Dominic. I asked you to wait.”

  Nick barks out a bitter laugh. “If I waited, you would have squirreled me out some side entrance and Cass would have been wondering where the hell I was.”

  “Someone would have ensured she arrived home safely.”

  Oh, well that’s nice. A man in pink scrubs gives us the side-eye as he edges around us. “Mr. Kosta, I’m sure you have your reasons for not wanting me around your son at the moment, but it might be better if we discussed them somewhere else. People are starting to notice, and Nick does need to get out of the hospital before we get Simon in trouble.”

  He says nothing, only arches a brow and dips his head once before heading toward the front entrance. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to answer. “Lia?”

  “Where are you?” She’s out of breath. “Where’s my dad? No one’s up here.”

  “Andreas caught us on the way to the exit. Here, talk to your brother.” I pass him my phone and resume pushing his wheelchair. Andreas waits at the edge of the main atrium, gesturing for us to proceed through the front doors.

  I roll Nick’s chair off to the side, out of the flow of traffic. He’s still talking to his sister, though his side of the conversation is one-word answers and the occasional affirmative noise. “Mr. Kosta, may I speak with you for a moment?”

  “You can call me Andreas, Cassidy. I don’t mind.” But he stays where he is, some distance from Nick, allowing us a bit of privacy.

  A gust of wind blows through the circular drive, and goose bumps spring up on my bare arms. “Is there a problem?”

  “A problem?”

  “A problem with me,” I clarify. “Nick has turned down two offers of help from family members tonight. Constantine offered to drive us home after the surgery, and he refused. It doesn’t seem like he wants to go with you tonight, yet you were going to send me home alone. To me, those are indications of a problem. If I’m in the middle of it, I need to know what it is.”

  Andreas studies me in the dim light, his careful, detached scrutiny annoying. I fight the urge to cross my arms over my chest and wait.

  “You have proven reckless and selfish. This is a danger to the family. More, you have abused my son’s trust and dragged him into a personal vendetta.”

  “There was no dragging,” I say mildly. “I left Nick. He chose to help. I realize I took advantage of his resources, and for that, I apologize. But your son has been a great help to me, in more ways than one.”

  What would have happened to me if he hadn’t been there, night after night? If he hadn’t fought to keep me tied to him in some small way?

  “Besides,” I add, “Isaiah is dead. My ‘vendetta,’ as you put it, is over.”

  “Dad.”

  In concert, Andreas and I look over at Nick sitting in his wheelchair. Nick’s face is cool and blank. “Stop. You’re wasting your time.”

  Andreas’s footsteps echo off the pavement as he makes his way to Nick’s side. “You would endanger the family for her?”

  “She’s not endangering anyone.”

  Andreas points to Nick’s leg. “A lie.”

  “An accident,” Nick counters, and I want to slink back inside, find another exit and a way back to my apartment. I know there’s an ongoing disagreement between Nick and his father about how large the family’s gotten and what should be done about it. From the weariness in Nick’s voice, it sounds like that tension’s increased drastically. I don’t want to be the breaking point.

  I straighten my shoulders and walk to Nick’s other side. I’m not about to let his father scare me off, either. “I can call us a cab.”

  “Let it go, Dad.” Nick cuts his father off before he can speak. “You really want to talk about this, we can do it later.”

  Andreas looks me up and down, and I stiffen. “Don’t,” I say quietly. “I’m not leaving him, and don’t force him to do anything.”

  “Cass!”

  I crane my neck around and spot Lia exiting the main doors, her cheeks flushed. “You couldn’t have stayed in one place?” She hurries over and gives me a quick hug. “Everything all right?” she murmurs.

  “He’s okay,” I whisper back. “Just needs to get home.”

  “Sure thing.” She wraps her fingers around the handles and pushes Nick toward the curb. “Coming?” she calls back.

  I smother a grin. Hard to believe anyone could bully this mafia princess. I offer a stiff nod to Andreas and follow Lia to her car.

  The two of us manage to get Nick into the back seat, and I climb into the front passenger seat over his protests. “You need the space for your leg. Uh-uh, no arguing,” I say when he opens his mouth. “Where are we going? Back to my apartment?”

  “East Temple. Near the railroad tracks.” He tips his head back and shuts his eyes, and I tug my seat belt into place.

  Lia waits until the hospital is in her rearview to start on the questions. “The truth, Cass. Are you really okay?”

  Fatigue swamps me, and all of a sudden I’m barely holding it together. “No. Isaiah’s dead. Tris killed him. Tris is dead, too, and your dad’s going to have a hell of a mess on his hands.” I give her a rundown of the night’s events with the sensation that it all happened ages ago. I glance at the dashboard clock. Almost three AM. Well, that explains the exhaustion.

  “I don’t know how Nick’s going to get the pills he needs.” I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip. “Simon’s too much of a rule abider to hand them over, and Andreas isn’t about to.”

  “You mean the pills that Simon happily passed over to me? They’re in my purse. Go on and get them out. You can get crutches at any drug store.” She flicks on her turn signal and smoothly changes lanes, roaring through a yellow light.

  “I’m not bleeding anymore, Liana. You can slow down.”

  Lia flips off her brother and grips the wheel once more. “Shut up. You need to rest. The sooner you get home, the sooner you can do that.”

  Nick grumbles and goes quiet, and when I peer into the backseat, he’s in the same position he was when we left the hospital. Lia’s bag is at my feet. I pick it up and set it on my lap. I find the pill bottles and squint at the labels, trying to read the directions in the passing flashes of the streetlights.

  “Give him one of each when you get him into bed,” Lia says quietly. “The first twenty-four to forty-eight hours are the critical ones. If he spikes a fever, call Simon, even if Nick tells you not to. I’ll e-mail you some instructions on how to change the dressing and keep the wound clean, though Nick’ll probably tell you what to do.”

  I stare at the bottles. “How do you know all this? I thought you and your sisters mostly stayed out of the business.” At least, that was the impression Nick gave me.

  Her mouth twists in a mocking grin. “You spend any length of time in my family, you’ll understand why. There’s no escaping it.”

  No escape. The comment had been reiterated in one fashion or another by several people. This is my life now. This blood and violence, this never-ending cycle, is my life.

  I settle deeper into my seat and clutch the bottles tighter.

  “You can relax, Cass. No one’s going to steal them from you.” Lia slows for a red light.

  “How do you know? You can make some real money peddling pharmaceuticals.” But I loosen my grip. “Are we being followed?”

  The light changes. “Don’t think so. Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t put it past your father to follow us so he can get to Nick.” With the
most immediate danger over, a new one pushes to the forefront. Someone could easily take him from me.

  She’s quiet for a few blocks. “He might,” she says at last. “Dad’s a hardass, no doubt. And like I said, he shifts into overdrive when it comes to protecting one of his kids. But he’s not unreasonable.”

  I wonder if unreasonable would be Andreas removing Nick from my presence against Nick’s will. He has to understand that doing so would only increase the friction between them.

  I hope. Nick’s stood by me even through his anger. “I can’t lose him,” I say softly.

  Lia reaches over and squeezes my hand. “You won’t.”

  Chapter 8

  It’s early. Or late, I guess. Early because it’s almost seven AM, and the sun’s rising. Late because I’m awake, and I haven’t slept.

  Nick’s sound asleep in the bed I woke in a few days ago. Fearful of injuring him further, I opted for the couch over sharing the bed with him. He didn’t protest too much, either. So I’m lying on the couch, staring at the high, narrow windows, watching the sky lighten outside. My eyes are dry and gritty, and I’ve spent the last few hours willing my body toward sleep. It’s not working.

  I roll onto my side and shut my eyes. If I can sleep, I don’t have to remember what happened last night. If I can sleep, I can forget my life’s a total mess. I pull the blanket higher up over my head to block out the light.

  The dreams are fragments at first. Blips and snapshots of the face-off with Isaiah. Tris’s gun goes off, Nick falls to the ground, and that’s when it gets really weird. Nick’s flat on his back, not propped up like he’s supposed to be. There’s blood everywhere, not just on his leg. Searching for the wounds, I run my hands over his chest. His skin is riddled with them. Blood flows thick and almost black.

  He grabs my wrist, smearing blood on my skin. Bubbles of it slip out between his lips. “It’s time,” he rasps. “You need to stop.” The light goes out of his eyes as red slicks over his face, and it morphs into Isaiah’s. He laughs. It’s a frightening sound, scraping over already raw nerves and fraying them even more.

  “Poor little assassin,” he says with a chuckle. His face is coated in slippery dark red, dripping into his mouth as he laughs. “You’ll lose everything.” The hand holding my wrist turns skeletal, bones rotting and turning gray, then black, spreading through the rest of his body. “Everything.”

  I shoot out of sleep with a scream lodged in my throat, panic clawing at my chest. A dream. Only a dream. Something straight out of a cheesy horror movie.

  I fall off the couch, blanket tangled around my legs. I yank it away and run out of the room. Nick. Nick is alive. He was alive when we came home. I helped him up the stairs myself. I gave him pills from the bottles that Simon provided. I have to go to the drug store later and get Nick some crutches.

  A vise closes over my throat. I throw open the bedroom door. The sheets are rumpled, Nick a lump in the center of the bed. The sight of him doesn’t magically allow me to breathe. Gasping and panting, I dart across the floor and climb up on the bed.

  He makes a snuffling noise and shoves weakly at the comforter around his head. “Cass?” he mumbles.

  Relief doesn’t come. I still can’t breathe. He’s alive and awake, but it’s not enough. I grope under the covers for his hand, sit up, and focus on a point on the wall. Air goes in. Air goes out. Nick is fine. I am fine. Nick’s hand is warm and solid in mine, his fingers curling around my palm. Air goes in. Air goes out. The vise opens a few inches, and I draw in a breath, the tightness in my lungs dissipating.

  I resettle myself on the bed as Nick pushes back the covers with his free hand, exposing his broad shoulders. “Nightmare?” he asks. I nod, and he squeezes my hand once, then releases it. The loss burns. I make a fist to keep from reaching for him again. The last twenty-four hours haven’t erased the pain we’ve caused each other. It only put it on hold. I’m still the girl who assumed he’d be there to clean up my mess. He’s still the guy who thought drugging me was the best way to get me to cooperate.

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  I meet his eyes; the spark I saw flicker out is bright and steady. “You died. We were in the backyard, and the bullet didn’t hit you in the leg. You were full of holes. There was blood everywhere. You…told me to stop. Then your face changed, and you were Isaiah. He laughed and said I’d lose everything. The whole getup was something straight out of a zombie film. One of those super gory ones.” I rub a hand over my face. “He didn’t have to do anything, and he still won.”

  Nick shifts around and pushes himself into a sitting position, the blankets falling to his waist. My bloody handprint is gone, leaving unblemished skin behind. “He didn’t win. He’s dead.”

  I shake my head and crawl off the other side of the bed. “No. He did win. He might be dead, but I didn’t get a chance to do what I’d set out to do.” I push my hair out of my face. “Do you want some help downstairs? I’ll make breakfast before I get your crutches.”

  “Cass.”

  I hate that tone. That calm, commanding, brook-no-arguments tone. It’s so damn reasonable. There is nothing reasonable about this.

  “You’re letting him win.”

  He’s right. “Only because I don’t know what else to do. I can only tell myself so many times Isaiah’s not worth kicking myself over before it starts sounding false. And it is false.” I lift my hands, let them fall to my sides. “How am I supposed to grieve for a man I thought I’d lost years ago? No, don’t answer that.” I don’t want to know. Isaiah’s death at my hands was supposed to bring me closure; all the deaths before his were steps in the grieving process. Break off a little more of the old, still-sweet, naive Cass and replace it with something harder to kill.

  I round the end of the bed and walk to the cabinet, pull out a sweatshirt, and slip it on. “Breakfast?”

  He sighs. “Yeah. Help me to the bathroom first?”

  I leave him in the bathroom and run downstairs to start the coffee and find a skillet for scrambled eggs. While I wait for him to finish, I check my e-mail. I click on the one at the top of my inbox, a notice from UCLA. “Shit.” Classes start in a few days. I picked my classes when I stopped at the registrar’s office a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t paid my tuition bill or bought any of my books.

  “Shit what?”

  I glance up. Nick’s hanging over the railing. “Classes start in a few days. I completely forgot about it.” He turns away, and I dart to the foot of the stairs. “Stop moving. I’ll be right there.”

  “I’m not completely helpless, Cass.” Bracing himself with the railing, he hops to the head of the stairs, then turns down. Each hop tightens his mouth more. By the time he’s at the bottom, his lips have folded so far in they’ve practically disappeared.

  “Maybe this place isn’t the best for you.” I duck under his arm and take his weight, the pair of us slowly limping into the kitchen. Once he’s in a chair, I drag an empty one close so he can prop up his foot. “The lease on my old apartment is up at the end of January, but I can talk to the landlord about going month to month.” Nick could stay there while his leg heals. “If you don’t want to move back in with Constantine, that’s a better option than staying here.”

  He hisses as he adjusts his foot on the chair. “Not yet. I managed to keep this space off the family radar so far. They know about your apartment, and I wouldn’t put it past them to smuggle me out while you’re in class one day. Once we find a new apartment, we’ll move.”

  We. Before everything went sideways, Nick and I were going to move in together. We even looked at a few apartments. Now we’re sleeping in separate rooms, dancing around like we’re waiting for the other to explode. Our mutual trust is in shreds, and he’s still talking like there’s no reason to change our original plan.

  My fear of losing him is still there, but it’s muted, tempered by his presence. I identify the crawling sensation as discomfort and push it
aside. There are more urgent matters to discuss. This is the third or fourth time avoiding his family has come up in conversation. I busy myself with the coffee, going over everything in the last few days, searching for clues. I find none. All I have is this feeling his excuses are nothing more than that—excuses. I carry a mug to the table and set it in front of him, then retrieve his bottles of pills from the counter and hand them over.

  Quiet settles over the kitchen area as I prepare breakfast, my curiosity growing the longer it stretches, yet unable to find the words to ask Nick what the hell is going on. And I need to. I’ve spent too long on high alert, triple-checking every dark corner, and there’s no way I can come down without Nick telling me the truth.

  Finally the normality of the scene does me in, and I slide a plate of eggs and toast in front of Nick with a little more force than necessary. He takes the fork I hand him with a wary look. “Got something to say?”

  I thump down in the chair opposite him. “What’s going on? And please don’t try to placate me or pass it off as no big deal. You’re avoiding your family, and I’d like to know why.”

  “I’ve already explained myself, but sure, we can go over it again.” He scoops up a bite of egg and sticks it into his mouth.

  “Nick.” I sigh. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Something’s… Well, if it’s not wrong, it’s definitely not right. I can sort of buy wanting to get away from your cousin. And Lia said your dad’s worse than your mom when it comes to hovering. But it’s more than that. I wish you’d tell me what it is.”

  He chews egg, picks up a piece of toast, and crunches off the corner. “There’s been some discontent within the family.” When he doesn’t continue, I arch a brow and pick up my own piece of toast. He stabs his fork at the pile of eggs. “You know my father and uncle are unhappy with your choice to move on Isaiah’s circle without help.”