“Never,” Merc resists.
“Then, let me at least call Evan,” I try.
“Leigha,” he says, rolling his eyes and running a hand through that mane of dark brown hair.
But Merc’s tone holds an unspoken warning.
“I figured it was worth a shot. You never did tell me where we’re going,” I shrug.
“Monaco,” Merc tells me.
“Monaco?” I ask.
“Monaco,” he repeats.
“I’ll tell you more when you don’t have a concussion,” Merc adds, grinning again.
My mind wanders to Evan, and what he could be doing at this moment. I do my absolute best to try to picture him in bed with Vic and chase away the need to call him, but I can’t exactly get the image right. There’s no doubt in my mind that Evan is committed to me, and that is what worries me at this exact moment.
What is he going to do?
I know that Evan has grown up a lot, but my irrational mind goes to him signing up with the RAF again because he thinks I’m dead.
Didn’t he already try to run and go that route before?
What’s going to stop him from doing it again?
Does he think I’m dead?
“He won’t believe you’re dead,” Merc reads my mind.
I look at him in shock.
“We may not have worked it all out, but I can still read your face,” Merc explains with a laugh.
“I wear my emotions,” I sigh.
“Did you and Evan make up at least? Because I’m not looking forward to this if you guys didn’t settle everything,” Merc tells me.
“We…” I pause.
I’m not one hundred percent sure where Evan and I stand, but I know we want to be together, make this work.
“We want to make it work, but with Vic and the baby, I don’t know how this is going to go,” I explain to Merc honestly.
“It’ll work,” he replies.
“How can you be sure of that?” I snap at him.
He’s so goddamned smug, sitting there, giving me that look.
“Because, it’s you, and it’s Evan,” he says.
“What the fuck does that even mean?” I ask, feeling kind of angry with him for saying that.
For no reason. Maybe it’s the concussion.
“It means, and wipe that look off your damn face Leigha, that you two have always managed to work through everything, I don’t see this being any different,” Merc tells me honestly.
“What makes you say that?” I ask urging Merc to give me something more.
He looks uncomfortable for a second.
“You went running to him first back in the day, and you always go running back to him, no matter what,” Merc mutters.
I open my mouth to tell him that’s not exactly true.
But isn’t it?
“Thought so,” Merc says, slightly triumphant.
When my mouth opens again, nothing comes out.
“It’s not true,” I say in a low voice.
“The only time you two stayed away from each other was when he was with Vic,” Merc rationalizes.
Not even then, I remember. My mind drifts back to that night, where Evan was so upset it physically hurt me. I didn’t want him to be upset about Vic. I wanted him to see what was right in front of him, and I wanted it so much that when the first vodka-fueled kiss happened, I couldn’t help myself.
I’ve always wanted Evan for myself, I think. Evan feels the same. Now he knows what he is to me.
What did I do about that?
Oh yeah, I ended our freaking marriage!
For valid reasons, I think to myself, trying to shut up that insistent little voice - the one that always rears its ugly head, and chastises my decisions, after the fact.
Then, I have a dark thought that chills me to the bone.
21
Evan
January 21, 2019
My hangover pounds on my head like a dozen tiny hammers.
I groan loudly, putting my pillow over my head. I can’t escape this. I vow, yet again, to give up that foul liquid. When I crack an eye open, the sunlight streams through the window and makes me instantly squeeze my eyes shut again.
“You’re awake,” Vic’s voice floats over me.
I open one eye slightly to peer in the direction from whence her voice emanated. Vic is sitting in a chair a few feet away, nursing Ethan. I shut my eyes again.
“Don’t ever, and I mean ever, try to drink yourself to death again, Evan! I mean it! I will personally kill you, bring you back to life, and kill you again! You have a son now, a person who depends on you! And, I will not have you fuck up his life because you crawled into a bottle,” Vic scolds me.
Her voice shakes with worry, and guilt overwhelms me. I fight the fuzzy feeling in my head. When I try to sit up, I realize I’m still very drunk. The room threatens to spin, to remind me of who is boss.
Whiskey. Whiskey is the boss.
I groan, more loudly, and fall back into the covers.
For a while, it’s all I can do.
“Don’t give me that,” Vic snaps at me loudly.
“Sorry,” I apologize.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Evan! You have a son! He’s going to depend on you for the rest of his life, and you’re ready to throw it away! Over a woman!” Vic growls.
My head continues to pound like a row of obscenely loud drummers. How am I drunk and hungover at the same time?
Jesus Fucking Christ!
“She’s not just a woman,” I try to explain.
Vic’s eyes narrow.
Shit.
Oops.
Fucked that right up, now, didn’t I?
Vic finishes nursing Ethan and puts him down in the bassinet.
“I get it, Evan! I get it! You never loved me the way you love Leigha, and you fucking rub it in my fucking face every damned time you get into your cups! This is ridiculous to me! I let your father convince me to come back, with our son, for you! I had a baby! With you! What do I get in return for my troubles? Nothing!” Vic rages at me.
“I deserve that, but I can’t help the way I feel,” I try to say it, so it sounds like an adult thing to say, but it seems petulant.
Truth is: I’m pissed.
For several reasons…
“Do you think I wanted things to turn out like this?” I growl back at her.
“You do whatever you want, Evan! Your number one is you. It always was, and always will be! Did you even think about me when you were running around the world falling in love with someone else?” Vic asks.
Her voice is so even and level I’m afraid for a moment.
“Vic,” I say.
“You knew, you knew that our relationship had its - flaws. Do you want to be with someone if-” I start.
“No!” Vic cuts me off.
“I want you to act, for two seconds, like you care that I’m the mother of your son! Or that you care about Ethan at all!” she shouts.
“Of course, I care about you both! Damn it, woman! Just because we’re not together, does not mean I do not care about you! I might not be in love with you, but I do care for you and our son. Even though it’s not like it was, you both are a part of me,” I tell her honestly.
Vic sits down in the chair, silent. I want to ask her what she’s thinking, but I’m afraid of the ramifications.
Coward.
“Not enough,” Vic says.
“It’s not enough. We’re not enough. I know, I know, that you’re going to go chasing after Leigha on some stupid quest. Again!” Vic is blunt with me.
I open my mouth to protest for a moment and recognize that if I do, that would be a lie.
“What?” Vic spits out.
“Nothing,” I sigh.
“What?” she says, exasperated.
“You can’t just expect me to sit here and do nothing while Olivia is doing god knows what to Leigha,” I tell her.
“You don’t even know that Olivia has Leigha! Beside
s, what about us? What about me? What about Ethan? What happens to us if something happens to you?” Vic asks.
I want to tell her the truth: that I don’t care if something happens to me, as long as Leigha is alright. It would be impossible for me to go on if I let something happened to Leigha.
“You’ll be taken care of, regardless of if something happens to me or not,” I tell Vic.
“Honestly, it bothers me that you’re more worried about yourself,” I add.
“I’m worried about you, you dumb fucker!” Vic yells at me, enraged.
This is more like the Vic I used to know.
“We have a baby together, Evan! That means you’re no longer entitled to do whatever you want, and consequences be damned. You have a responsibility! You’re responsible for me, and most of all, to your son!” Vic screams.
She’s furious. I want to hide because she’s right.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
“I want you to promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid. Send Aidan, send Lucius or even your goddamn sister, but I don’t want you running around the world looking for another woman only to wind up dead,” Vic answers.
This is the one thing I don’t want to give her. But I can feel the guilt. I feel it from getting Vic pregnant, and even then, wanting nothing to do with her in spite of our previous relationship.
Does that make me a bad person?
Even if I didn’t know?
Vic stares me down for the longest time until I cave.
“Fine. Fuck it. I’ll send Lucius,” I tell her.
“Promise me, Evan,” Vic says.
I sigh heavily to let her know that this isn’t what I want.
“I promise,” I say, regretfully.
“That better not have been a lie, you ass!” Vic says.
Then, she slams the door as she leaves.
Miraculously, Ethan doesn’t make a peep.
“We’re in the dark, as far as Olivia is concerned,” Lucius reports back.
He and Aidan went out and asked some questions about their contacts when I request that he go after Olivia. What they found was vague but not entirely worthless. Someone was moving Noah around.
And, Leigha and Merc were last seen fleeing the site of the van crash.
“Without Merc’s help, we’ve been virtually in the dark,” Lucius says.
“There’s no way we could snag her, even if we had all the help in the world. We need Merc’s intel, and he’s as good as… well, he might as well be dead for all that’s worth,” Lucius tells me.
“He’s supposed to be dead,” I reply dryly.
“Well, what if he is? Then, that horse is shot in the foot,” Aidan adds to the conversation.
I don’t want to think about Merc being dead. It’s very well a possibility that we would never hear a thing about it.
“Are you suggesting, that we run on the assumption that Merc is dead?” I ask.
“What choice do we have?” Aidan is just as blunt as ever.
“He’s right,” Lucius says.
“What do you think?” I ask Levi.
Levi mulls over this for a moment, and I think to myself that if anyone is going to be the voice of reason in the lack of my father’s presence, it’s going to be him. He has to see it my way. Levi sits there, a younger version of Noah Stone, pondering the possibilities and weighing the odds.
Then, he speaks.
“Well, if Merc died in that fire it’s very well possible that MI6 has casually covered up his death,” he states, calmly.
He’s pretty unflappable, like our father.
Levi looks at Aidan.
“In which case, someone who isn’t willing to help us has taken his place. Would you agree?” Levi asks.
The other two nod and I find myself nodding as well.
Levi continues.
“That being said, he probably worked with a partner of some sort at some time. My intuition is that if we can figure out who that person was, we’ll find out if Merc is dead or not,” Levi says.
He still hasn’t said that Merc could be alive. All he said was that any partner of Merc’s would be the best route to determining that fact.
What about Leigha, then?
“Fuck,” I swear under my breath.
“How do you propose we do that?” Aidan asks incredulously.
“I had a thought, but it is a long shot,” Levi answers.
We all stare at him.
“The footage from the fire, across the news stations. It’s possible that Merc’s partner was there, overseeing everything. If we match up that person to a death announcement, then we would know,” Levi offers.
“It’s not very good,” Aidan replies.
“No, it’s not,” Levi agrees.
“But it’s our only shot in hell, isn’t it?” I ask.
Levi nods.
“Unless someone’s got a better idea,” he adds.
There’s a resounding silence at the suggestion of another idea.
Then, Lucius brightens.
“What do we know?” he asks.
“We know that Olivia hasn’t left the country through a border, correct? What if they’re using a private company? We could always look around, find out who she uses. My guess is they’ve got a higher price than she’s paid them,” Lucius explains.
Lucius explains his friends at the Border Force were keeping an eye out for Olivia, and anything else moderately suspicious, for top dollar. It was not cheap, but he felt it was worth it.
I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s nearing three in the afternoon.
“We’ll have to continue this, later. Vic and I have to go pick up Grace at the airport,” I explain.
“Let’s hope Isaac is with her,” Aidan snickers.
That would be a trip, I think to myself.
“Maybe he’s got a better idea,” I quip back.
“I’ll get to work on those tapes,” Lucius says.
He shakes his head at the two of us, then leaves.
For some reason, I suddenly get the very sudden feeling that Lucius knew Vic was alive all along.
The bastard.
“Grace!” Vic calls in the crowded airport.
“Vic!” Grace calls back.
“Ohmygod!” she screams at the top of her lungs.
Vic runs towards her sister, and they collapse in a heap of hugging and screaming so unintelligible I can’t make out a word they’re saying. This doesn’t feel right; I should be looking for my wife.
Instead? I’m standing in the middle of a crowded airport waiting for Grace to blast me for hurting Vic.
But something else happens.
“Evan it’s so good to see you!” Grace exclaims.
She wraps her arms around me for a hug, and I’ve no choice but to hug her back.
“How are you?” Grace asks.
“How’s Ethan?” she turns to both of us.
“He’s good. Amazing really,” I answer in an attempt to contain my shock.
My mind turns back to those tabloids, and I wonder if Victoire has told Grace the truth about that little story.
“I can’t wait to see him,” Grace chatters.
“Are we ready?” I ask.
“Wait, Isaac was just grabbing the bags,” Grace announces.
Vic looks strangled for a moment, probably because I know my face has lit up.
“Isaac?” I ask.
Grace nods and presses her lips together as Vic’s face turns visibly red.
“Oh Vicky, you don’t understand, I’ll explain everything. I’m surprised Evan didn’t tell you anything,” Grace adds.
Shit.
Guilty.
“In my defense, I didn’t know they got back together,” I say.
“We didn’t just get back together. We got married again,” Grace admits.
“We’re moving to Monte Carlo in a few days, for Isaac’s job,” she adds.
“Monte Carlo!” Vic exclaims.
Gra
ce shakes her head at me.
Then Isaac, in all his glory, appears at her side.
“This place is a disaster,” he tells us.
“Heathrow always is, let’s get going then,” I tell them.
We all pile into the waiting limo, amidst a lack of paparazzi which has me suspicious. They’ve been following me around like flies, reporting that Leigha has left me. It’s much more sinister than that. I want to plaster Leigha’s picture all over the place and tell everyone she’s missing, find her immediately, but a part of me believes that Olivia will kill her if I do that. If it’s me Olivia wants, she’s sadly not going to get it.
I trust Lucius and Aidan to find Leigha, but it’s so difficult to keep my promise to Vic.
“We should go to Monte Carlo; you have to see the place we bought!” Grace tells Victoire.
“Pictures?” Vic asks. “It would be nice to go away, for a short holiday,” she adds.
Then, Vic gives me a pointed look, and I nod. I don’t want to go anywhere with these three.
But, Isaac has me mystified.
“What did you say you do again?” I ask Isaac.
Vic and Grace are too engrossed in pictures of the house to notice our conversation.
“That’s over,” Isaac says.
I know he’s referring to Michael Bishop and the Ventretti mafia.
He looks at me, as though daring me to ask again.
But I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“On to another job, then,” I say.
Isaac nods.
22
Evan
January 21, 2019
I insist that Grace and Isaac stay with us, not only because there is room, but because I would prefer to get Isaac alone as quickly as possible.
Time drags on and on as Vic introduces Isaac and Grace to our son.
I smile politely as Vic tells them that his favorite song is ‘Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.’
“Let’s have a drink,” I tell Isaac.
“Good idea, my man,” Isaac nods.
As I lead him towards the study, he laughs and shakes his head.
“You know I’m not just going to tell you what you want to know,” Isaac says, his voice cheery.
“I would expect nothing less, Isaac. But I at least need to know if my wife is alive,” I tell him.
FRACTURE: Hearts of Stone Book Six Page 12