by Katie Knight
Bastards.
“Are you so sure about that?” Lake continued, sounding different than he’d ever heard her. Harder. More brittle. She chuckled again, the sound unpleasant. “Listen, I’m glad you finally showed up again.”
Again? He struggled to remember, and his whirling thoughts finally settled on the attack outside the condo, and the one outside the event. It must be the same men. The same men sent by Dowd and Associates. His heart rate kicked up another notch. Why had she said it like that? Was she trying to give him clues? Or was he fooling himself?
“Now I can drop the act,” she said. “Thank God. Talk about a shitty job, pretending to like this asshole. I thought his brother was bad, but Drake’s ten times worse. Selfish, lazy, and stupid. A dipshit trifecta.”
This got a snort from their attackers and the tension in the air eased. The thug nearest Drake in his limited line of sight shuffled his feet and the sound of a gun being holstered followed.
“So, about the money.” The toe of Lake’s high-heeled pump tapped against the ground. “Don’t look so surprised, guys. I know that’s what you want and that’s why you need me. You didn’t mean to kill Devon, did you? I’m guessing you just wanted to scare him—but he was too dumb to wear a seatbelt, so when he crashed, the airbag snapped his neck. There’s one problem solved because he can’t make trouble for you anymore, but then you panicked when you realized you had no way to get the money without him. Don’t worry—I can access all those accounts and withdraw the funds. I’m happy to cooperate too, for a price.”
“Lady, we ain’t about to negotiate here. We’ve got orders from our boss to take this guy out and bring you back with us.”
“Yeah, but what if you don’t kill him after all.” The thugs started to protest, but Lake stopped them. “No. Hear me out. I know this man has been a thorn in your side. Believe me, he’s been a problem for me, too. I just wanted a second to myself so I could try to reach out, come to some kind of accord with your boss, but I couldn’t shake the bastard, no matter how hard I tried. But killing him—it’s not the answer. Murder is messy. And two brothers from the same family dying so close together will draw a huge amount of publicity—and law enforcement scrutiny—that I’m sure your boss would like to avoid. So, why not keep this one alive and use him as patsy?”
“Huh?” one of the men said.
“Keep Drake Shepperton alive and we pin all the crimes on him. Makes perfect sense. That way, we can take not only your boss’s money back, but empty the foundation accounts completely.” Her toe stopped tapping and she moved closer to the man standing on Drake’s left. “It’s perfect and gives you all a tidy little profit on the side. Your boss doesn’t have to know. What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” another man said, his voice deeper than the others. “Why should we trust you?”
“Because my real name is Lake Turner and my parents were Ruben and Madelyn Turner. Ring a bell?”
Drake squeezed his eyes shut, trying to place those names. They sounded familiar but he couldn’t get his mind to work properly at the moment. Luckily, the goon squad above him supplied the answer.
“Holy shit!” the first thug said. “You’re the Turners’ daughter?”
“None other.”
“Damn,” thug two responded. “I remember when they got convicted. They were fucking legends in the trade. Conned more people out of their life savings than everyone else on the West Coast combined.”
“Yep. And they taught me everything they knew before being locked away,” Lake said, her words a bit too bright and full of hollow pride to Drake’s ears. He’d known she’d been hiding something from him and now there it was. Fuck. Anger and betrayal welled up inside him and shook his steely conviction that Lake was on his side. If she’d lied to him about this, why not about the money too?
As if confirming his suspicions, she said, “I’ve been fooling him for weeks. Idiot doesn’t know the first thing about laundering money or accounting. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s looking for, and he’s so worried about making the company look bad that he’s been afraid to ask anyone to do any digging for him. So easy to misdirect his investigation. Like stealing from a baby. But it makes it all the easier to blame all this on him. He’ll protest his innocence, of course, but who’ll believe him? His family’s cunning ways will bite him in the ass.” Her tone turned pleading again. “C’mon, guys. Seriously. Don’t turn down this opportunity. I can clear out the money tonight since everyone’s gone, then manipulate the records to make it look like Drake was behind it all. You can even take me with you when you leave, as collateral for your boss to make sure I don’t double-cross you. Maybe the cops will pin that on Shepperton too, blame him for my disappearance and send him to jail not only for embezzling the money but for kidnapping and murder too!” She laughed again and Drake winced, the shrill sound like nails on a chalkboard. “Hilarious, right?”
The thugs chuckled along with her, before the gruff one said, “You’re a cold-blooded bitch, aren’t you, lady?”
“Like parents, like daughter.” Lake shuffled her feet. “Takes a pretty ruthless person to rob senior citizens of their retirement funds, yeah? Or how about when my mom and dad ran that con in Vegas? They were headlining at the Golden Nugget at the time, doing their magic show, and fleecing the vaults at the same time. Man, those were good times. No one knew how to pull a bait and switch like the Turners.”
“Oh, yeah! I remember hearing about that one,” thug two said. “Wished I could’ve gotten a piece of that action back then, but I was just a rookie.”
“Then it’s your chance at the big time now, buddy,” Lake replied, manipulating the man to play right into her hands. She was good, Drake had to admit, even when she was bad. “What do you say? With a score this huge, you can both retire and do whatever the hell you want. No more bosses telling you what to do ever again.” She went on from there, talking about how she’d move the money, what tricks she’d use to make it look like Drake was the one responsible. The men seemed enraptured by her and her plan.
Drake drifted in and out of consciousness as the thugs murmured in low voices to each other, discussing their options, until finally one of them reached down and yanked him off the ground by one arm. Pain sliced like a scalpel though his injured head, making him groan in agony and nearly pass out completely.
“Fine, lady,” the first thug said. “We’re in. What do we need to do, besides dump this guy somewhere no one will find him for a while?”
“I need to go back up to my office and use the computer there. You can watch me, if you still don’t trust me.”
“We don’t,” the thugs said in unison. “We’re coming with you.”
“Then just leave him in the backseat of his SUV here. He’ll wake up in the morning with no idea what happened and a whole world of consequences to face.”
“Right.” The thugs opened the back door of the vehicle and tumbled Drake inside, his body ending up half on the seat and half on the floor, his face up toward the ceiling. They started to shut him inside, but Lake stopped them.
“Wait,” she said, her voice sly and suggestive. “I want one last kiss.” With a laugh, the thugs stepped back. He could sense Lake moving closer so her warmth and scent surrounded him as she leaned over him. He vaguely registered her slipping something into the pocket of his suit jacket, but he was too muddled to do anything but lie there as she kissed his lips, her own cold against his skin. Then she was gone, and back outside the car again. Just before the door closed on him, Drake heard her say. “Good. Let’s get to work then.”
The slamming of the door was followed by muffled footsteps as the trio walked away, leaving Drake behind in the darkening car. Just before the throbbing in his head pulled him under for one final time into blessed sleep, he tried to reach for his pocket, but then the world went black and his arm flopped useless at his side.
Twenty-Two
Back in her office, Lake did her best to concentrate on her computer sc
reen and not the two bulky men leaning into her personal space near each shoulder. Or the fact that the man she loved was currently lying injured in the back of a car downstairs and there was nothing she could do about it.
She hadn’t planned on using her parents’ identity to save herself and Drake, but when the men had pulled that gun on him, she’d panicked and said the first thing that came to her mind that might make them stop. Now, she prayed she’d laid enough clues out there for Drake that he’d be able to figure out what she was really up to and end all this before it was too late. She didn’t know how much he’d remember of what she’d said—honestly, she didn’t know how much he’d even been conscious to hear—but she’d also had the presence of mind to record the whole incident in the parking lot on her phone before slipping the thing into Drake’s pocket when she’d kissed him. It would be there waiting for him when he woke up.
If he woke up.
Man, there’d been blood. So. Much. Blood.
Head wounds bled profusely. She knew that, rationally. But they’d hit him so hard with the butt of that gun. Every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was Drake’s face at the moment of impact. The surprise and sudden pain in his dark eyes, the way his body had slumped to the ground, lifeless at her feet. Her stomach cramped and bile burned hot at the back of her throat, but she swallowed it down hard.
The worst thing she could do in the middle of a con was lose her shit. She needed to keep it together or both she and Drake would be dead before this was over.
Her fingers shook slightly on the keyboard, bumping the wrong keys, but she corrected her mistake onscreen and kept going. Hopefully, Jameson down in accounting would be able to follow the tiny digital breadcrumbs she was leaving to track the funds she was currently rerouting out of the foundation’s accounts into an offshore bank owned by one Felix Dowd. Between that and the phone, she hoped Drake would know that she’d never actually been involved in the money laundering. Of course, he’d also know that she came from a family of cons. After lying to him about her true identity for months, she didn’t expect him to forgive her. But maybe, at least, the things she’d done would give him the truth at last and help absolve him of the crimes she was framing him for.
“Hurry up, lady,” the larger of the two thugs said. He looked maybe forty, and had a face resembling a bulldog. He also seemed to be the smarter of the two—which wasn’t saying much—and was therefore the leader. He kept glancing back at her office door where the second thug was now standing to keep an eye out on the hallway. The staff was gone, but the cleaning crew would be arriving soon for the night. “We need to get out of here.”
“I’m almost done,” she said, the clack of her typing the only other sound in the room. Her heart ached with each line she entered, wishing things between her and Drake didn’t have to end this way, wishing her life had turned out differently. Lord knew she’d tried. Tried to escape her past and her parents’ legacy, but here she was, right back where she’d started. She entered the last set of commands, then hit send before logging out of the system entirely and shutting her laptop. “Done.”
“Good.” The second thug took her arm and all but dragged her toward the door. He was shorter and stockier. Also, his nose was black and blue and he was breathing through his mouth, confirming for her that these two guys were most likely the same ones who’d attacked her and Drake in the parking lot a while back. “Let’s go.”
As they returned to the lobby and headed back outside to the thugs’ vehicle, she couldn’t help taking one final glance at Drake’s SUV, still parked where he’d left it, no sign of life inside. She said a silent goodbye, knowing that this was truly the end for them. Even if he believed in her innocence, there was no way he’d ever want her back after this. She blinked back the sting of tears, then closed off her heart, the same way she’d learned to do as a kid. Cons and emotions didn’t go together. She was on her own now. She had to make it through this, whatever it took. Not just for herself, but for her unborn twins as well. Her parents might have failed her growing up, but Lake was determined to make a better future for her babies, no matter what it took.
Twenty-Three
Drake woke the next morning with a hell of a headache and an odd crick in his neck. He squinted into the sunshine trying to blind him and wondered where his curtains had gone. It took him a moment to realize there were no curtains because he wasn’t at home. He was in the backseat of his car. He lay there a moment, his brain racing to grasp how he’d gotten there and why, but it was all a bit of a muddled mess at the present. The harder he attempted to force the memories the more nauseous he became, until he finally shut his eyes again and swallowed hard against the burning in his throat.
Eventually his stomach settled enough that he propped up on one elbow, allowing time for the dizziness to subside before sitting up all the way. Slowly, he reached back to feel the egg-sized lump on the side of his head, and a few of the pieces fell into place.
They’d been walking out to his car after work. Lake had been cold and distant with him, as usual these days. It had been late, and the lot was empty. He’d been about to tell her something and then…
Shit. His temples throbbed as if in sympathy.
Someone had bashed him on the head good. He winced, the movement in his cheek causing the dried blood there to pull against his skin. Honestly, given how long he was out, he probably had a fucking concussion. Ugh. Okay. So, he’d been knocked out and…
Lake!
His pulse tripped and he turned fast to survey the inside of the vehicle. Too fast. His stomach protested and this time he couldn’t stem the tide of nausea roiling in his stomach. He barely got the door open before he retched on the pavement. Luckily, it was still early and the lot was still deserted. Once he emptied his stomach, he wiped his mouth with tissues from the car, then leaned back against the side of the vehicle. God. What a fucking disaster. With all his SEAL training and experience, he should have suspected something was up, should have realized someone was lying in wait for them, but dammit. He’d been distracted lately. Drake lowered his head and took a deep breath, willing the shakiness in his hands to stop.
He needed to figure out who it was who’d attacked him, then find Lake.
Thoughts of her made his chest ache and his heart hurt. It also caused torrent of memory fragments to slice into his mind, none of them whole enough to make sense. Pieces of conversation—her saying that being with him was all an act, her agreeing to help the thugs. But why? Why would she do that?
Groaning, he rested his sore head back against the side of the SUV and closed his eyes again, concentrating on the scattered words stuck in his brain to make sense of them. Parents. She mentioned something about her parents. The Turners. Yeah, that was it. Her real last name was Turner.
Drake blinked his eyes open, his gut dropping to his toes. Oh shit. That made so much sense now. From the beginning he’d sensed she was holding a part of herself back from him, and now he knew why. The Turners’ case had made national headlines back when they’d been convicted. They’d been ruthless thieves and had stolen from the most vulnerable in society. They’d made his own Shepperton clan look like a bunch of saints, and that was saying something. Thinking back on it, he thought he remembered something about their own daughter being the star witness against them. No wonder she’d wanted to distance herself from that past and bury it deep.
But of anyone, Drake understood what it was like to try and escape your past and your family’s legacy. Hell, that was exactly what he’d been doing when he’d joined the SEALs. He’d been upfront with Lake about it the whole time, and yet she’d still not trusted him enough to tell him the truth. That hurt worse than the lump on his head.
Cursing, he pushed off the vehicle and breathed in deep. Checking his watch, he saw it was going on seven a.m. Wherever Lake and the men who’d hit him were, they had a good twelve hour start on him. Best get back to the condo and get cleaned up before calling Agent Foster about all this. Co
mmon sense said he should probably see a doctor too, but there wasn’t time for that now. He’d walk it off and get back to work, like the true soldier he was.
He started back around the car, then stopped again as something heavy in his suit jacket pocket flapped against his thigh. He kept his phone in an interior pocket, so it wasn’t that. Frowning, Drake reached into it and pulled out Lake’s phone. Another memory flashed in his head. Her leaning into the backseat to kiss him goodbye. The smell of her perfume filled his nose once more and he braced his free hand on the SUV to keep from stumbling. Why would she leave him her phone?
After climbing in behind the wheel, he started the engine, then clicked on her phone to see that the last app used had been a recording one. The latest recording was still up on the screen. Chest tight, he pushed the play button and heard the conversation between Lake and the thugs from the night before. Clever girl. She must’ve recorded the whole thing for him, then slipped the device in his pocket as a record. He still wasn’t sure what to believe about her lying to him about her identity, but the fact she’d given him this evidence had to mean something.
He listened to her words, picking out the clues she’d dropped to him without letting the thugs know what she was doing. Telling him exactly how she planned to move the money out of the foundation’s accounts, where she planned to send it, what she’d input into the computer to make it look like Drake was responsible.
Damn. Pride swelled inside him, along with a sense of foreboding. He needed to get home and get in contact with Agent Foster, because shit was going to hit the fan and soon. He clicked off the phone and tucked it safely back in his pocket. The taped conversations should be more than enough to put the thugs and whoever hired them behind bars for a good long time, once he got it into the hands of law enforcement. First, though, he needed to get home and get cleaned up. He started to reach for his keys, but no. Driving was not in his best interest at the moment. He used the app to order an Uber instead.