A Necessary Deception

by Lucy Farago

  Twenty-seven years? Her father worked for the Russian mob?

  “Why would I double-cross you now?”

  Had he been the reason she and Monty had had to run for their lives?

  “Someone tipped off the feds. We lost valuable property when they shut her down.”

  Taylor’s stomach roiled. Those girls weren’t property. What a sick fuck.

  “I may have to recoup some of that with your daughter,” he taunted her father. “Right after I sample the goods myself.”

  Her dad lunged for Daniel, grabbing him by the shirt collar just as a meaty hand clamped down on her shoulder, shoving her back into the chair. What had she expected? To take Daniel on herself? The goon dug his fat fingers into her flesh, and she couldn’t help crying out in pain. Both men swiveled their heads in her direction. Her father’s expression turned murderous, while Daniel simply laughed as cold metal poked her temple. With sad resignation, her father unclenched his fists and Daniel took a step back, straightening his rumpled shirt.

  They were using her to get him to comply. How long had this been going on? She’d thought her mother’s death had changed him. But he’d been doing their bidding long before that. Had she known?

  “You hurt her and you get nothing.”

  “I’ll kill you both and I get everything. Raphael will make an excellent CEO.”

  He had to mean Raphael Dodd. She knew very little about EM Enterprises, but Raphael’s appointment to vice president had made the papers. She rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans, careful not to move her head.

  “You really think I’m that stupid? Kill me and a very detailed account of what I’ve been doing and who I’ve been doing it for goes to the feds.”

  “How about her?” Daniel nodded toward her.

  “Kill her,” he said with a sneer, “and the same thing happens. I’m not afraid of going to jail. You hurt her and your leverage over me is gone.”

  She’d told Monty she was good at reading people. She hadn’t been bragging. Years of associating with liars, people pretending to be her friends, made her acutely aware of bullshitters. But she’d been reading her father wrong.

  “Who said anything about killing her?”

  She had to swallow hard to tamp down the sickening need to empty her stomach of its contents.

  Her father’s expression faltered for a fraction of a second before he slipped his mask back on. “I’ve made you millions. You want to risk that?”

  “You risked that by refusing to cooperate. What’s a little terrorism compared to all the racketeering? Your hands are dirty.”

  “It wasn’t like I had a choice. And agreeing to let you bomb one of my casinos isn’t the same as laundering money.”

  Bomb a casino? Thousands of people were in her father’s casinos at any given time. Not to mention the hotel. An explosion could kill more victims than 9-11. But security was tight, cameras everywhere.

  “I suggest you rethink your decision,” Daniel said. “Or you’ll wish I did to her what I did to your wife.”

  “Was it you?” Her father’s rage exploded before Taylor’s brain registered what he’d accused Daniel of. “Did you kill her?”

  “The kill was sweet,” Daniel said, tormenting him. “But not as sweet as her.”

  Every bone in her body tensed as her father charged Daniel and they went flying through a hanging plastic sheet, ripping it from its nails. The man holding the gun to her head toppled to the ground at the same time a loud pop rang in her ears. She stared at him, thinking he’d jump up. When he didn’t, she nudged him with her foot. He rolled onto his back, and she nearly gagged. A black, bloody hole had replaced his eye socket. Blood trickled down his cheek and over his eyeball, now hanging by a thread. Someone was shooting at them? She scrambled out of the chair, but her feet caught his legs and she tripped, landing half-on, half-off the man. On her hands and knees, she dragged herself off his corpse, never more grateful than when she was a safe distance away.

  The slaps of flesh hitting flesh drew her attention to the two men wrestling in the next room. She was relieved to see her father holding his own, matching Daniel blow for blow even in their awkward knot of limbs and arms. She scanned the area for something she could use to help, then remembered the gun still in the dead man’s hand. Pushing down her revulsion at touching him, she crawled closer and pulled it from his fingers. A loud buzzing noise snapped her neck around. Daniel, now on his feet, stalked her father, taunting him with broad, arched sweeps of a power saw. He really was one sick fuck. Her father grabbed a two-by-four to defend himself, but when Daniel swung, he sheared the wood in half.

  She’d only fired a gun that one time at the range. Her aim hadn’t been that bad, but was that bad good enough when her father was that close to Daniel? But as he closed the gap between them, she didn’t see she had much of a choice. She aimed and pulled the trigger. She of course missed and dropped her arm, wishing she’d paid closer attention to the instructions instead of her idiot, drunken friends.

  With a sneer that made Freddy Krueger look cute, Daniel turned snake eyes on her. There’d be no better way to hurt her dad than to hurt her. But she wasn’t helpless. Her dad was still here. She knew that. And she still had the gun, though reality did a weird dance. She couldn’t get her arm to move fast enough, and in the time it took her to aim, Daniel was a few short feet away. And then he wasn’t. With a loud snarl, her father tackled him, catching him below his waist and sending both men sliding across the concrete floor and toward the open floor-to-ceiling window. At the same instant she blinked, her heart stopped. The extension cord on the saw snapped, flung in the air in a snakelike slither, then disappeared over the side with Daniel.

  Her breath rasped as air was forced into her lungs. The gun, now far too heavy for her arm, dropped as her entire body shook. Tears streamed down her face as she watched her father pull himself away from the open window and roll onto his back.

  He sat up. “Are you all right?” he wheezed.

  She wiped her tears. “I’m fine,” except her voice wasn’t her own, and far braver than she felt. “Better than you,” she said on a nervous laugh.

  He stood and came toward her. He’d have a nice shiner and his lip might need stitches, but to her, he’d never looked so good. But as he reached down to take her by the shoulders and help her to her feet, through his ripped shirt and her tears, she saw wires. What the hell was going on?

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stem the tears.

  “It’s okay, Taylor. You can cry.”

  “You hate crying,” she said, staring at the man she’d hated longer than she’d loved.

  “No. I hated to see you cry. It broke my heart that I couldn’t comfort you. I’m sorry, Taylor. You’ll never know how sorry I am. But it was the only way to keep you safe. I tried to go against them once and it cost me dearly.”

  “Mom?”

  He nodded. “But I couldn’t let them blow my Vegas casino. I hope you understand.”

  “Why you didn’t want to kill thousands of people? You did the right thing.” And she’d bet it had taken guts to stand up to them.

  “Yes, and it nearly got you killed. When I refused the first time, they hacked into your computers and set up the trafficking ring. That’s when I made the decision to make an anonymous call to the feds. I hadn’t realized they’d planted all that evidence. But I figured with you under investigation, Daniel wouldn’t be stupid enough to move on you.”

  “He proved you wrong.”

  “And now he’s dead. Taylor, I love you so much. I’ve always loved you.”

  The words were strange, surreal almost. Like waking from a bad dream with a major sigh of relief, knowing it wasn’t real.

  “Can I…can I hug you?”

  She laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist. But there was no time to relish how good it was to have her da
ddy back. He whipped them around, exchanging places with her just as two shots blasted her eardrums. She fell to the concrete floor on her side, cocooned in her father’s arms. Over her father’s shoulder, an FBI agent still pointed his gun. She craned her neck and saw what she feared. His eyes were closed. “Daddy?”

  And this time when she cried, she didn’t hold back.

  Chapter 25

  It was good to be rich. While it might not buy you happiness, it did buy you everything else. Monty tried really hard not to resent that.

  “I have to do this,” Taylor said for the umpteenth time.

  He knew how much this meant to her. He even understood it. But he didn’t like it. Of course, he’d never tell her that. That would paint him as the world’s biggest asshole. “I know. He’s your dad.” Monty kept telling himself it wasn’t forever. Unlike everyone else in his life, she’d come back.

  “He risked everything to save me. He put himself between me and that bullet.”

  His life for his daughter’s. At close range, the odds of him surviving a bullet to his back hadn’t been good, and if the feds hadn’t shown up to take out Daniel’s man, who knows what would have happened to Taylor. Her father’s sacrifice might have been for nothing.

  “Let’s be thankful the feds were on it.”

  They’d planned the whole setup. Her father would meet with Daniel and get him to confess his plans for a terrorist attack. What they hadn’t factored in was Taylor being used as incentive to get Moore to comply. Now the man had a bullet lodged in his spine and his walking again was one big if. He’d be lucky to manage a finger twitch.

  “I still can’t believe it. All those years…lost.”

  “You’ve got your dad back. Focus on that.” Together, they watched as Ethan Moore was unloaded from the ambulance and wheeled to his private jet, where he, with Taylor by his side, would fly overseas for an experimental treatment. The odds of him walking again were slim, but at this point any movement was better than none.

  “Do you think they’ll change their mind and charge him?” She was worried she’d lose him again, this time to jail.

  “A deal is a deal.” The DA wouldn’t renege on the agreement made with Moore. He’d worn the wire and turned state’s evidence, and they’d said all racketeering charges would be dropped. “He also helped to stop a major terrorist attack on American soil.”

  “Are you sure Daniel’s boss won’t come after my father?”

  “Terrorism isn’t Krupin’s thing. It’s messy and brings far too much attention to the organization.” This wasn’t the first time he’d found himself with internal problems, and it would be interesting to see what, if anything, he’d do about it. But for now, he wouldn’t lodge a counterattack against Moore. “Your father did him a favor by exposing Daniel.” The man they now knew to be Daniel Morros was an American and the great-nephew of Hester, the woman who Taylor affectionately referred to as Bubbe D. That had been a hard pill for Taylor to swallow, and if not for reuniting with her father, Monty was certain she’d have reacted far worse.

  “I don’t know how long this will take.”

  However long she’d be gone was too long. “You take as much time as you need.” What was he supposed to say? Don’t go? Let the old man fend for himself? She’d gotten her father back. And even though it was killing him, he was truly happy for her.

  Everything seemed to happen so fast. After Carrie covered her tracks with the navy, she used the more accessible satellites and street cameras to follow the van with Taylor inside. He’d been preparing to storm the building when the feds stopped him. He’d seen the sniper take out Daniel’s man. Too bad the guy had rocks in his head and survived the first, but thankfully not the last, shot. Then there’d been the weeks she’d sat by her father’s bedside, willing him to wake up. It had broken his heart. Unfortunately, his heart wasn’t on the mend.

  “They can’t give me a time line. But as soon as he’s well enough, I’ll fly back to visit.”

  But she didn’t fly back. Weeks dragged on. And the longer she stayed away, the more he withdrew. He didn’t want to guilt her into anything. He’d tried that once and would never do it again. When Christmas came, and went, he took her calls less and less often. He reasoned he didn’t want her resenting him. Of course, she never once asked him to visit. And that gave him pause. Maybe she didn’t want to be distracted from her father. Maybe she had other reasons for not wanting him there.

  His friends had thought he could do with some unplugging. He guessed they’d been right. Carrie had turned out to be an asset. She understood the work, the high in cracking a code and, more important, the satisfaction in knowing what you created could revolutionize the world. He and Carrie were collaborating on an unhackable computer. They were still in the beginning stages, but it looked promising. Who better to stop a hacker than another hacker? That was how he kept busy. Because if he didn’t…he’d be that poor, pathetic kid from Kentucky.

  And when the days bled into one another, the weeks turning into months, he knew that if Taylor were to come back, things between them would have changed. He’d lost her, and as much as he told himself it didn’t matter, he couldn’t get himself to believe it. He’d allowed himself to trust things could be different with Taylor, that for once in his life he’d be someone’s priority. Then, after the shooting, he’d understood her father had to come first. It didn’t make it any less painful. He was such a sap.

  Carrie opened the door, light from the hallway streaming into the dimly lit control room. “Hey, I’m going down to the Strip for some lunch. I need to get out. Watching people lose their money at the tables makes my life look a whole lot better. Want to join me? I’m buying.”

  “Thanks, but I’m going to stay here until the team boards the plane.” She was going to give him crap and he braced himself.

  “They’re out of Pakistan and in Paris. I think they can manage. You need to get out of this room. See the sun. Don’t make me tell Ryan.”

  He swiveled his chair away from his computer screen and smiled at his assistant. “This isn’t the same thing.”

  “Isn’t it?” said a familiar deep voice.

  Carrie puckered her lips and her eyebrows shot up as she stepped back and allowed Ryan to pass inside. She mouthed a quick sorry and left.

  Ryan glanced around, his eyes stopping at the desk piled high with computer parts before going to the whiteboard with his and Carrie’s notes. “Any luck on the new software?”

  “Some.” His boss rarely came down to the dungeon, appropriately named because of its location, two stories down from street level. “Day off?” he said, pointing to Ryan’s jeans.

  “I’m test driving the new Maserati. Figured the Armani suit could stay on the hanger.”

  Monty snorted. “Like that’s stopped you before.” He’d seen Ryan wear a suit to the beach. He’d told everyone he’d been on his way back from a function, and whether they’d believed him or not, they’d never let him live it down.

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling up a chair and sitting “I’m trying a more relaxed approach to life.” He leaned back and propped booted feet on the edge of the less empty desk in the room. “You should try it sometime.”

  There was no point in beating around the bush. “You already heard my answer to Carrie. Want me to repeat it?” This wasn’t like the last time and he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone.

  “How is this different? Look, I could goad you with insults, tell you to grab your balls from whatever matrix you’ve wired them to. I could tell you hiding here isn’t, nor has it ever been, the best answer to your problems. Or better still, I can cut the power…and the funding to that little project.” He nodded toward the strewn components on the desk. “But I don’t want to strong-arm you into waking up and smelling the hard drive.”

  “Nice pep talk, but you’re supposed to instill confidence, not make someone fe
el incompetent.” What exactly was he trying to accomplish?

  “Do you love her?”

  If he thought he couldn’t feel any lower, Ryan had succeeded in blowing that assumption out of the water. Why was he asking? Did he want her for himself? His reaction to seeing Taylor had been awkward. He’d seemed genuinely happy, and yet Monty had never seen the unshakable Ryan Sheppard so on edge, like he wanted to be anywhere other than with Taylor.

  “She’s a fantastic girl,” Ryan said with a fondness in his eyes that made Monty’s hackles rise. “A little on the wild side, but that was mostly for show.”

  And it ticked him off that Ryan knew that about her. “Mind if I ask why you broke up?”

  “We didn’t break up.” He leaned down to pick up a fallen notepad. “She dumped my ass…right after I proposed,” he said, meeting Monty’s stunned expression.

  It took Monty a few minutes to pick his jaw up off the floor, and even then, his mouth refused to work. Why hadn’t she told him any of that?

  “Don’t worry,” Ryan said, flipping through the pages. “whatever we had was over a long time ago.”

  “She turned you down?”

  “No, she accepted.” He tossed the notepad onto Monty’s desk. “Then someone told her I was being unfaithful, and she ended it.”

  “Were you?” He leaned back in his chair, wondering if he’d misjudged his boss. He liked the ladies, but cheating never seemed to be his style.

  “No. Taylor isn’t the sort of woman you fuck around on.”

  “Who would tell her something like that?”

  “Gage Hartman. He was,” Ryan said, “my best friend.”

  “Wow, some friend.” The shit he learned down here. “Wait, didn’t she marry a guy named Gage?”

  “Same guy. He caught his fiancée coming on to me and wrongly assumed I’d encouraged it. They’d been having issues and he’d been looking for someone to blame. He and Taylor eloped a few days later.”

  “Wow,” he repeated, and he thought his life was messed up? “So, he thought marrying your ex was a good way to get even?”