Exposed

by Brighton Walsh

  At that moment, I’d hated Genevieve. I’d hated the girl I’d transformed into, because in a few short months, I’d gotten complacent. I’d allowed myself to get comfortable in the lies I told, in the life I supposedly led. And I was going to pay for my oversight.

  As I’d been contemplating what I could use as a weapon to get away, another girl who’d been browsing next to me had walked out with her purchases in hand, hooked an arm through the man’s, and headed across the street.

  I’d stared out the window, my eyes trained to where they’d disappeared, shaken to my very core.

  After that, I’d enrolled in every self-defense class I could find. I’d taken up kickboxing. I’d religiously carried mace with me wherever I went, no matter how innocuous. I’d made sure to take stock of my surroundings, to be aware of every nuance of a place, of the people around me … to be two steps ahead of everyone else.

  Because despite all my precautions when I left Chicago, all the tales I wove of another life—a false life—I’d known all along this day would come.

  I just never thought I’d have Riley on my side while I fought.

  Thinking about how close I’d come to having to fend off Frankie by myself sent a shudder through me. Even though I’d gotten out of his grasp once before and I’d kept up on my self-defense, was diligent in taking as many classes as my schedule allowed, I wasn’t sure how I would’ve stood up against him now, especially in a surprise attack. Riley hadn’t even really been trying to restrain me, and he’d had me pressed against the wall in less than a minute. It made me realize that all the training I’d done hadn’t been enough. Not against the people I was running from.

  The little sleep I’d gotten since Eric had left for London combined with my last twenty-four hours and the fact that I hadn’t been able to sleep today meant I was a zombie, but I didn’t see how rest was possibly on the horizon for me. Not with what we were facing.

  I stepped around Riley and into the space that was going to be our home for the next who knew how long, glancing around as I shrugged out of my coat. It was clear a guy lived here normally, the furnishings minimal, decorations obsolete. It was a cool space, though, the walls exposed brick broken up only by huge, arching windows, the beams and ductwork visible in the open ceiling. It was one giant room, like a studio apartment, though a bit larger. Pillars broke up the space, separating the rooms as much as they could.

  There was a queen bed in the back right corner, no headboard, just the mattress and box spring on a bed frame. A simple gray comforter covered it, two pillows tossed haphazardly toward the top of the bed by the wall. A dresser made out of worn wood stood next to it, one of the drawers off its track leaving a gaping hole at the top, and another drawer missing completely. A battered TV tray was on the other side of the bed, providing a makeshift nightstand, a digital clock atop it.

  The living area was just to the right of the front door, the compact space housing a faded green couch that had seen better days, its back to the bed that sat directly behind it. A TV was stationed on a stand against the wall in front of the couch, just to the right of the front door.

  On the left side of the loft was a small L-shaped kitchen, and a door leading to what I assumed was the bathroom was just beyond it.

  Riley closed the door to the apartment behind us, locking the dead bolt and hooking up the chain. “Home sweet home,” he said as he walked in, tossing a bag and his jacket on the couch before making a sweep of the place. I knew he was probably checking to make sure the space was clear—a habit Gage had ingrained in him long ago. Seeing him do it now brought back so many memories of when he used to do it when we’d been younger.

  After every job, his was the place we’d seek refuge in. We’d go to get cleaned up, and then to fumble in the dark, getting lost in each other for a while, both high on the adrenaline of the chase … of the fight.

  I’d gone there at other times, too, when the things I’d been running from had nothing to do with Max or the crew. Riley had always been my home when I’d needed a reprieve from my life, though he’d never known why. And through it all, through every time I’d gone to him and every time I hadn’t needed to because he’d already been there, he’d been looking out for me, protecting me.

  Too bad he couldn’t protect me from everything.

  RILEY

  The apartment Gage had set us up in wasn’t as small as I pictured from his description, but it was wide-open. That actually worked better for me—less places to hide, less space to comb to make sure we were alone. The bathroom was the only room in the whole place that offered any kind of privacy, which was going to be real fucking interesting, to say the least.

  I’d been expecting a minimized version of a standard bathroom based on the rest of the apartment, but everything in here was full size. A vanity sat adjacent to the bathtub and shower, a door to the left of it opening to reveal a small closet filled with towels and sheets just shoved inside. The guy who lived here did laundry like I did, apparently.

  When I was satisfied the place was clear, I went back out and found Evie sitting on the couch, her shoulders straight and tense, nearly up to her ears. Her hands were pressed together and hidden between her knees, her eyes focused on the black TV screen.

  Even after all these hours of being with her, it was still surreal to look at her. To look over at her and see so much of the girl I’d thought was dead only twenty-four hours ago. Even more bizarre was to look at her and see a girl I didn’t know at all. Her long hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, and she looked tired—exhausted, really—the bruises under her eyes more noticeable than they’d been earlier. “You didn’t sleep today, did you?” I asked.

  My voice startled her, and she jumped, glancing up at me. She shook her head, tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. “Not much.”

  “That makes two of us.” I tipped my chin toward the bed right behind where she was sitting. “You can take the bed. I’ll crash on the couch.”

  “Riley…” Her voice was hesitant and weary, and I knew what was coming before she said another word. “We should talk. Before you get too far into this, you need to know the whole story.”

  “I’m not sure now’s a good time.”

  “Then when is? Because I don’t see how this is gonna end anytime soon, and more than that, I don’t see how this is gonna end without a bloody fight before it’s all said and done. You deserve to know what you’re getting into. What you’ve already gotten yourself into.”

  I blew out a breath and closed my eyes, tugging at my hair. She was right—so was Gage. But I also knew that hearing this, whatever she was about to tell me, wasn’t going to be easy. If it’d made her run in the first place, it was some serious shit, because Evie Masterson didn’t run from anything.

  Knowing when to concede, I nodded and dropped next to her on the couch, leaning back into the corner, and glanced over to her, waiting for her to start.

  Finally, she took a deep breath. “Earlier … back at my house, that wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen Frankie.”

  Furrowing my brow, I stared at her, wondering what she meant. Frankie had come into the crew right around the time Evie had … Well, died wasn’t really apt anymore, but that had been when he’d started running jobs for Max, shortly after everyone had been informed of her death. “How did you see him before that? You run into him somewhere or something?”

  She wrung her hands in her lap, picked at her fingernails—something that was so Evie, it took me aback. Blowing out a breath, she brushed her hair back from her face, tucked some escaped strands behind her ear, and said, “The last time I saw him, before earlier at my house, was the night he tried to kill me.”

  Chapter Nine

  EVIE

  Silence descended around us after those few words left my lips. Riley’s eyes were narrowed, his jaw clenched hard, every muscle in his body taut, like he was ready to pounce or flee at any moment.

  Finally, his voice rough and scratchy, he said,
“I’m going to need more information than that, Evie.”

  It was still odd to hear my name from his lips—hear my name from anyone—having been so long since I’d been called that. Gage and Aaron had always been diligent to use Genevieve anytime we’d had to speak over the years, making sure we’d lived up to every bit of the elaborate hoax we’d all created.

  I took a deep breath and nodded, then twisted my body on the couch to face him, tucking my left leg under me. I rested my hands in my lap, fidgeting as I picked at my nails. “Do you remember me mentioning an accountant back then? Ned Richards? Who was supposedly skimming from Max?”

  “Yeah.” Riley’s jaw clenched hard, his nostrils flaring. “We were told he grabbed the gun off one of the guys on the boat and opened fire. Story was that you were shot in the chest twice and fell overboard.”

  I shook my head, heat blooming in my cheeks at how easily my life had been swept under the rug for them. To maintain compliance in the ranks of the crew, Max wouldn’t have told everyone the truth. Not the actual truth that I knew, or the lies disguised as truth that Frankie had no doubt told him. And the reason I knew Frankie had told Max some distorted version of the truth was that if Frankie had copped to me escaping, he’d be dead right now.

  I’d never had a doubt there’d be a story of some sort—a spin on the truth—but I’d also never known what everyone had been told. I’d never asked Gage, not wanting those details. Not when I was trying to forget about that part of my life. Not when I was trying to start fresh as Genevieve Meyer.

  “When Frankie got me on the boat, Ned was already dead.”

  Riley froze, every inch of him going still. “He was what?”

  I nodded, swallowing. “That’s what started this whole clusterfuck. Ned…” I shook my head and glanced down at my lap, then back up at Riley. “Roughing him up had been Frankie’s first job for Max, but no one else in the crew had known about it. I’d been the only one who’d known he had been brought in. The only one who’d known he was working that job.”

  Thinking back now, I should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve realized something shady was going down—shadier than the shit we dealt with every day. Because Max only hid something if there was a reason for it. And there were quite literally a million reasons for him to hide this.

  “Ever since Max had me digging up info on Ned, getting evidence of his betrayal, of him skimming money from Max, I thought something didn’t add up. So I did what I do best—I dug some more. And I found that Ned wasn’t actually the one skimming the money from Max. Max was skimming the money from Blaine Pruitt, and Ned was helping him cover his tracks.”

  “Goddamn…”

  I nodded. Blaine was a widely known and hugely successful businessman in Chicago. As such, he made a lot of friends. Made a lot of enemies, too, and because of that, he was one of the top guys who kept Max in business.

  “Wait,” Riley said, “if Ned was covering Max’s tracks, why the shakedown? Why was Frankie hired at all?”

  “Because Blaine had somehow found out that someone was skimming from him. Max had me dig just far enough that I’d see all the transactions Ned initiated. Once I dug only that far, Max had been satisfied, told me to quit looking, that he could take that to Blaine. He’d had me get just enough evidence so he could set it up so Ned would take the fall for the whole thing.”

  Riley shook his head, his brow furrowed. “That still doesn’t explain why there was suddenly a dead guy, and it sure as hell doesn’t explain what the fuck you were doing on that boat.”

  “I knew something wasn’t adding up, so even though Max had told me to stop digging, I didn’t. I went further than he knew, and what I found proved I was right—I got the evidence showing that it was Max who was skimming from Blaine … for more than a year. I’m talking upward of a million dollars when everything was added up.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  Nodding, I continued, “I got cocky, thought I could remain unseen. Even though the evidence was in black and white right in front of me, I needed more. I needed to be certain. I didn’t know who I could go to with the information, if I’d even go to anyone. I only saw as far as the day ahead. So I found out when the shakedown was going to happen, and I followed them—”

  “Jesus Christ, Evie, you went there by yourself?” he asked, his voice bleeding with disapproval.

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s a little late for scolding now, don’t you think?”

  He took a deep breath, jaw ticcing, and ran a hand through his hair, the muscles in his biceps flexing against the harsh black line of the short sleeves of his T-shirt with each motion.

  I took his silence for acceptance and continued, “That had been Frankie’s first job. Max had pulled him into it, not wanting any of his other guys to sully it, I would guess. I don’t think he counted on Frankie getting trigger-happy and killing Ned. And he definitely didn’t count on me witnessing everything.”

  “You saw it happen? All of it?”

  I nodded and swallowed, the images of that night blinking through my mind like a flip-book, one bloody image after the other. “Yeah. I saw it, and then I ran. I couldn’t hear what they said after that, but I ran as fast as I could. Got away for a while. I was able to hide the evidence I’d found damning Max, but Frankie caught up with me shortly after that. He kidnapped me, got me out onto the boat with Ned’s dead body, and took off onto the lake.”

  “None of that explains how you got away. Or how Max ended up with your locket.”

  My hand went up to my clavicle, automatically searching for something that hadn’t been there in years, something I hadn’t taken off since Riley had given it to me more than a year before my disappearance. I could remember everything about that night. How he’d pulled the box from his backpack, tossing it into my lap like it wasn’t a big deal. How he’d feigned disinterest while I’d opened it, covering his nerves and uncertainty with apathy. As if I wouldn’t love anything he’d given me.

  Hearing about it now brought the same pang to my heart that was always present whenever I thought of it. It was the only gift Riley had ever given me. He’d saved for months to be able to buy it for me for my sixteenth birthday. It was a silver locket in the shape of a heart, an old-fashioned keyhole right in the center. I’d love it. Cherished it. Whenever I’d worn it, I’d felt invincible. It’d made me feel safe, just like Riley had always tried to do.

  I’d never taken it off.

  I swallowed, closing my eyes and reliving it like it had been yesterday. “Once Frankie got me out far enough onto the lake, he came over and uncuffed me from the railing, and I tried to get away. He grabbed whatever he could, but I kicked and punched. Then he got ahold of my necklace. I was struggling so hard, he ripped it right off my neck as I took off, then he pulled his gun from his jeans, and I didn’t think. I jumped.”

  “Into the lake? Holy shit, Evie, how far out were you?”

  “I could still see the lights of the city, but it didn’t matter. If I didn’t jump, Frankie would’ve killed me anyway. At least that way, I had a chance. And, as you can see, it was a chance well taken. As it was, he got a shot in. It wasn’t fatal, obviously, but he must’ve thought it was, otherwise I have no doubt he would’ve gone after me. Fortunately, it was already dark and I was easily lost to him in the water.”

  Riley was quiet for a minute, then when he spoke, his voice was rough. “Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “The bullet … Where did he shoot you?”

  I paused for a moment, then dragged the neck of my sweater down, showing the small scar on my chest near my underarm. Riley stared at it, his eyes unblinking, his entire body taut. I wanted to reach out to him, wanted to comfort him now like he’d always comforted me before.

  But it wasn’t my place anymore. If the years between us didn’t prove that, the ring on my finger certainly did.

  After what seemed like forever, he said, “How long before you contacted Gage?” His voice was hard, accusatory, his hurt
bleeding through in his tone.

  Though I’d always wondered how he would take the fact that I’d chosen to go to his brother over him, I never thought I’d get my answer. But I got it now, in the hard set of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, the stiff set of his shoulders. He was pissed. But more than that, I could see hurt in the depths of those eyes. Hurt that I’d inflicted because I’d gone to someone else. At that point in time, though, I hadn’t had a choice. And even if I had, I didn’t know that I would’ve chosen to go to Riley, if for no other reason than to protect him.

  “Not long,” I said. “I don’t remember everything that happened. I remember jumping overboard and swimming for what seemed like forever. Next thing I knew, I woke up on the shore, then I ran. I contacted Gage as soon as I could get to a phone. By that time, everyone had already heard the news about me. He gave me a place to meet him, and I went. He’d gotten a guy to patch me up, good as new.” I nearly laughed at that phrase, because that was about as far from the truth as I could get. That was the last day of my life I’d be anything resembling good. I twisted the engagement ring around my finger and stared at Riley. “That was the last day I was Evie Masterson.”

  RILEY

  Even having known Evie from before, having known how tough and unruffled she was, it was still hard to believe the petite woman sitting in front of me had gone through all that and somehow made it out on the other side.

  “So you just left everything behind.” I hated that frustration bled through in my tone, that I was letting her have a glimpse of exactly how much her leaving had hurt me. And now that I knew it truly had been her choice, it was like pouring salt into an open wound.

  “I had to, Riley. If I didn’t … if I hadn’t left, it would’ve only caused problems for everyone, you included. It was better all around that Max think I was dead.”

  “Better all around?” I couldn’t believe she was saying that. “That’s bullshit. How, exactly, was it better, Evie? I’d really love to know, because it sure as shit wasn’t better for me.”