by McLean, Jay
All of it.
But they weren’t there for the drugs.
They weren’t even there for me.
Then the questions began…
A hand circles my wrists, tugging gently, bringing me back to the present. I open my eyes. Brent’s standing in front of me, his tone dripping with concern. “It’s okay,” he assures me. “Let’s get you out of here, okay?”
Nate stands behind him, his eyes locked on mine. “Bailey,” he breathes out. My name is both a prayer and a curse when he says it. The corners of his lips pull down when he tilts his head, assessing me.
I tug my hand out of Brent’s grasp. “Take me home,” I demand, but he knows it as much as I do. I don’t have a home. I haven’t had one since I was seven years old—since I lay under a tree surrounded by fall leaves waiting for the only person who loved me to return.
She never came back for me.
Neither did Nate.
“Do you want to drive?” Brent asks, dangling the car keys in front of me as we stand by a black SUV in the parking garage.
I cross my arms. “You know I don’t drive.”
He shrugs. “It’s like muscle memory. Like riding a bike. Once you know how to do it, you never forget.”
He does this sometimes, tries to inconspicuously pull information from me about my past, about who I am. He thinks that I lost some of my memory or that I choose not to remember my old life. I wish that were true, that I could somehow wipe my existence, but I remember everything. I just choose not to tell them every detail.
Brent cracks a smile. “It was worth a try.”
Nate stands beside him, watching our interaction as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. I hate that I know this—that my attention keeps getting drawn to him the way it does. I hate even more that Brent’s so damn kind he offered to give Nate a ride back to wherever he came from.
They didn’t tell me they brought him here. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come. I wasn’t ready to see him, wasn’t prepared for the warring emotions that instantly filled me. And now he won’t stop looking at me. Staring at me.
Brent opens the back door for me, and I make quick work of getting in and settling in my seat. The quicker Nate can’t look at me, the quicker I’ll be able to breathe again. A moment later, the back door opens again—the other side—and Nate starts to slide in. “You’re in the front seat,” I tell him, ignoring the sadness in his eyes at my words.
Fuck him.
I stare ahead, the weight in my chest lifted when the car door slams, and he reappears in the seat in front of me. He can’t look at me from there, and I refuse to look at the back of his head. Refuse to acknowledge his existence in my life. Something I’d been trying to do since I saw him standing in the doorway of his home, my hand pressed to the glass of the back window of a car with tears streaking down my cheeks, my throat aching with the force of my screams.
My cries.
All for him.
Chapter 13
According to the conversation happening in the front seats, Nate lost his patience with Agent Perceval after I’d stormed out of the office. Nate demanded to know what they wanted with him, and Perceval only continued to ask who I was to him. When Nate asked for his phone back, Perceval refused. And that’s when the first punch was thrown.
For a long time, I believed I knew who Nathaniel DeLuca was, but I was delusional. I only knew the version of him that came home at night and created a fake life, fake love, in the four walls of that basement. I didn’t know who he was outside, what he did for “work.” I mean, not really. And he just proved that the version of him I’d created in my mind was a lie.
He’s a hothead with enough rage to beat up an FBI agent. Over a phone. Clearly, he doesn’t value his freedom as much as any normal, sane person does. If only he knew what it was like to live for years without it…
* * *
Brent drops Nate off at a spot I don’t recognize and then takes me to my complex and walks me to my door. Or at least I assume that’s what he’s doing, until he enters the apartment as if he owns it, which technically, he kind of does.
I slump down on the couch, exhausted from my lack of sleep. I’d spent years sleeping on the cold concrete floor; you’d think a bed would be like sleeping on clouds. It’s not.
“You okay, Bailey?” Brent asks, handing me a glass filled with warm water. When he’d found me, he’d done the same thing, only the water was cold, and it hurt to swallow. From then on, it’s always been warm, just like his touch when he lifts my chin with his finger. His blue eyes meet mine, so different to the man who’d just set my heart racing. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him, taking the water and downing it in two gulps. With a heavy sigh, he sits down beside me. I ask, “Is Perceval going to tell him?”
He shifts, and I know he’s facing me. “About you?”
I keep my gaze down. “I guess.”
His exhale is a burst of hot air against my cheek. He’s too close. Not close enough. “We don’t know much about you, though, do we?”
I shrug, moving a few inches away. “Is he going to tell him about… about…”
“About how we found you?”
My nod is slow, and I blink back the heat behind my eyes, push down the knot in my throat.
I will not cry.
I will not show my weakness.
“You knew who he was when we offered you this deal, didn’t you?”
I close my eyes, keep the tears at bay, and nod again.
“Who is he to you?”
“He’s...” I don’t even know how to answer.
“Did he hurt you?”
His question rolls around in my mind, a tumbleweed amidst a tornado. I face him completely, my abandoned heart making my vision clear. “Yes.”
“Physically?”
“No,” I’m quick to respond. “He would never.”
“Listen, Bailey,” he starts, his tone soft.
I can’t help but smile at him. The good cop, bad cop cliché is real when it comes to him and Perceval, but knowing their stories, I understand why, especially with this case.
“I’m not sure I need to know the history between you and this DeLuca guy, and if it’s something you want to keep to yourself, that’s fine. But I need to know that you’re going to be safe when he’s around. Physically and otherwise. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“You understand what it is we’re doing here, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say again, louder this time.
“And you understand how important this is, especially to Perceval.”
My gaze lowers. “I know.”
“It’s just… you’ve been through so much already, and if this—your past with DeLuca or your future with this Parker guy, or whatever it is that’s going to happen—if you think it’s going to be too much to handle and you need to tap out, I completely understand.”
“Tap out?” I ask, my head tilted as I look him in the eyes.
“If you need to back out,” he offers with a smile, “I’ll find another way.”
“I want to be part of this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I tell him, lifting my chin in defiance. “I want to help take them down. All of them.”
Chapter 14
“I’m fine,” I say for the fifth time while Ashton’s arms squeeze tighter around me.
“I was worried,” she mutters—her words muffled by my chest. She hasn’t let go of me since I walked into the salon. I’d wanted it to be a simple phone call, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Not for her. So now I’m here. Physically, at least. But my mind—my mind is still trapped in that office with Bailey’s words ringing in my ear. “I’m no one,” she’d said. “Especially to him.” Of all the bullshit lies I was born to be burdened with, that’s the biggest one of them all.
Ashton rears back but doesn’t release me. “So, what did they want?
”
And that’s a question I’m still trying to figure out. “I don’t know,” I say through a sigh, stepping back to give us distance. Her gaze drops, and I know I’ve hurt her again, but if she knew what was on my mind, she’d be grateful I’ve put an end to this charade. “I just came by to let you know I’m good, but…”
Her eyes are on mine again, unblinking. “But what?”
“But… I have to go.”
“Again?”
“Look…” I run a hand through my hair, tug at the ends. “We’re in the middle of something right now, and I don’t quite know what it is yet. So, I’m going to be in and out a lot and… that’s really all I know for now. But I’ll be back tonight.”
She tugs at my shirt. “Lo prometti?”
I crack a smile. “Lo prometto.”
“What do we know?” I ask Tiny.
When I finally made it back to the house, I walked in on the girl sitting on the couch, Tiny standing over her. Literally. He didn’t move, not even when I asked him what was up.
He said, so simply, “I didn’t let her out of my sight, Boss.”
I’ve seen many sides to Tiny in the years we’ve been living in each other’s pockets. When we were working together, he was impenetrable. A force so fierce he couldn’t be broken. His job was to protect me, and he made sure everyone was aware of that. But when it was just the two of us—when we sat back after a hard day’s work with a beer in our hands, I saw signs of the real Tiny or a version of him that he’d likely be if our lives didn’t revolve around danger almost twenty-four-seven. But even in those moments, he was always alert. Always looking at the door, always watching my back to make sure that I’d come out of every situation alive, even if he didn’t. And our plan, the plan, was proof that he’d give up his life for me. For my family. For our honor.
The one thing I’d never seen from Tiny was guilt. Even after he’d taken someone’s life, there was nothing there but that vigilant mask. Now though, I see it, and a crack forms in my armor. “Why does she look so scared?” I ask, jerking my head toward the girl as we stand in the kitchen, far enough that she can’t hear us but close enough that I can still watch her. “Did you make a move on her?” I try to joke.
He rolls his eyes, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “No,” he answers, looking back at her. “You think I should?”
“And scare her more?”
Shaking his head, he takes a step closer, his voice quiet. “She says some guys brought her here.”
“What guys?”
He shrugs. “She doesn’t know their names. They just told her to collect the packages without showing her face, and then they’d come back for her. She wasn’t to leave until they gave her the word. They never came back, so…”
“So… what?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “That’s all she’s willing to tell me, nothing about her life before that. She kind of just… shuts down.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not helping us any.”
“I tried everything, Boss—”
“I know, it’s—”
“But she gets these eyes.”
“Eyes?” I ask incredulously.
“You know, like, scared lady eyes.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You know, like—like Bailey when we first—”
I clear my throat, stop him there. “I saw her today.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“And I meant it yesterday as much as I mean it today.”
“You saw her today too?”
I nod.
“Where?”
My lips thin to a line.
Tiny shakes his head. “Where the hell have you been? Is Ashton—”
“She’s fine,” I cut in, focus on the unmoving random girl. “She called because some FBI agent was waiting at the salon to see me.”
“Feds?” he almost shouts. “The fucking feds are up in our shit now?”
My eyes snap to his. “Keep your fucking voice down.”
“DEA?”
“No, I don’t know. But they have Bailey.”
“What?”
I nod.
“Did you talk to her?”
“No.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, try to ease the tension building there. “She talked to me, though.”
“What did she say?” he asks.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Boss…”
“Let’s just get through one thing at a time.” I have every intention of filling him in on everything that’s happened today, but not now. Not yet. “Does she have a name?”
Tiny stares at me, waiting, but I refuse to back down, refuse to let my thoughts go back there. “I’m sure she does,” he finally concedes. “She’s just not willing to tell me yet.”
I focus on the unknown girl sitting in the living room of what’s technically my house. “You think she’s going to run?”
“I don’t know.” He huffs out a breath. “But I have no fucking clue what to do with her. You got any ideas?”
I trail my eyes back to him and quirk an eyebrow.
His head moves from side to side, his glare disbelieving. “Not again.”
Chapter 15
I call Ashton on the drive home and tell her that I’ll be back in time for dinner and that Tiny’s coming. With a date. She laughs at this, and I contain mine while Tiny glares at the car speaker her laughter is coming from. When enough time passes and I tell her that I’m not kidding—or any form of it—she pulls herself together. “I’ll set the table for four.”
Then I tell Tiny, without revealing too much to our new friend in the back seat, that Ashton’s had a rough day and that we need to pretend—for one night—that everything’s fine. That we’re not currently drowning in the clusterfuck we’d somehow created. He reluctantly agrees. I turn to the girl-with-no-name. “You got it?”
She gives me a two-finger salute. “Yes, Boss.”
Tiny chuckles. “She’s kind of a smartass.”
If Ashton’s suspicious of the stranger sitting opposite her at the dinner table, she doesn’t let it show. And if she’s pretending—like we are—that she’s not at all worried about the events of the day, she’s doing a damn good job of it. So is Dana—a name the girl offered, which I’m sure is as fake as Ashton’s nails, the ones currently digging into my bicep as she laughs at the story being told about how Tiny and Dana met. At a bar, apparently, where Tiny knocked her off her feet as he was leaving and she was entering. Knocked the wind right out of her, she says, to which he replies that he literally took her breath away the moment she saw him.
If this isn’t proof that we live in a world where telling lies is easier than speaking truths—where we can accept anything that’s being fed to us as long as it fits within our perfect agendas and cookie-cutter beliefs—then I don’t know what is.
“She couldn’t keep her hands off me,” Tiny says through a chuckle.
The corners of my lips tick.
“I punched you,” Dana snorts, bringing her glass of wine to her lips.
Next to me, Ashton spits out her wine, then, red-faced with laughter, wipes at her mouth. “You punched him?” she shouts.
“It was a love tap,” Tiny chirps. “Barely felt it.”
Urged on by whiskey and wine, the conversation continues freely, openly. Ashton laughs to the point of tears—and this is what I wanted for her—to give her this moment before everything ends.
I haven’t forgotten my conversation with Tiny at the cemetery.
It’s time.
And this might be the last chance we get to do this before…
Before I set the timer on the ticking bomb.
Sit on it.
Wait for it to explode.
And Ashton?
Ashton has her own agenda.
Her own beliefs.
Her own bomb.
And her own ending.
My phone rings, a private number, and I get up and mov
e to the hallway to answer it. “Hello?”
“Nate…”
I’d never heard her voice through a phone before, but I recognize it right away. Would never mistake it. Could never forget it.
“It’s um… it’s—”
“I know who it is.” I lean back against the wall to keep me standing. “Are… are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
We’re all fine.
And we’re all fucking liars.
“How’d you get my number?”
“They’re Federal agents; they have their ways.”
I swallow my nerves. “Right.”
“Do you um… do you think we could meet up?”
I stand taller, my heart racing. “Right now?” Silence passes, and I grip the phone tighter. “Bailey?”
“No,” she finally responds. “Tomorrow?”
I’m quick to answer. “Where?”
“I’ll text you the address.”
“Okay.”
“And Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring Tiny.” She hangs up before I get a chance to reply, and then I just stand there, staring at the phone, wishing it could somehow teleport me to her or maybe go back in time to the first night. The night I’d found her, bloodied and bruised, and swear, I’d do it all differently. I’d change the paths of our futures and find a way to set her free and keep her safe and still… keep her.
“Nate?” I glance up to see Ashton at the end of the hallway, her gaze switching between my face and my phone. “That was her, wasn’t it?”
No more lies.
No more secrets.
“Yes.”
Chapter 16
Of the four apartments in the complex, two are furnished. One is ours. One is Tiny’s. He doesn’t live there; he just stays there on the nights when he needs to. Last night, he needed to. So did “Dana.”
Ashton offered to help her settle in one of the bedrooms there so that Tiny and I could talk. I clued him in on everything that happened earlier, about Lester Perceval waiting at the salon and then taking me to his office. I told him about how much they know about me, about us, and everything we’ve been doing and include that, according to them, that’s not what they’re here for. I leave out what Bailey said to me, as well as the fact that I kind of sort of maybe punched him.