Lies That Bind

by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

  “Wha—what did you give him?” My voice shook.

  “I work mostly with Benzos and mix in some alcohol to get the job done. Makes ’em look like they partied too hard. But when I heard of the guy’s stamina, I threw in a little Oxy, just to be sure.” Another day at the pharmacy.

  Paolo was an assassin.

  Cross sent us here.

  Everyone tried to talk me out of coming—Keira, Charlotte, Marcus. Why didn’t I listen to them?

  “If that wasn’t Antonio Rey,” Paolo asked, “who was it?”

  “His brother,” I whispered, barely able to hear my voice as one terrifying word echoed in my head: overdose, overdose, overdose… I had to tell the medics what he took.

  “So he is a Rey? Gracias a Dios.” Paolo sounded relieved, like he’d done his job well after all. His face pointed to the stars, long dark hair fanned on the damp grass.

  Then he had the nerve to smile. Mission accomplished.

  The fire burning in my gut suddenly sizzled across my skin, sweat popping like grease on a skillet.

  I slid my feet back into my black high heels, eyes narrowed to slits. If he was after Antonio, that eliminated the Reys from the suspect pool. “Was it Randolph Urban?” I gritted my teeth, not wanting to say the next words. “The Phoenixes?”

  “The Phoenixes?” He lifted his head. “I thought they were dead.”

  Yeah, so did I. An odd sense of relief washed through me as I realized my parents hadn’t ordered a hit on my boyfriend. It was amazing what I considered good news these days. But that still didn’t answer my question.

  “Who. Was it?” I spat for the last time.

  “Allen Cross.” He said it like the man asked to borrow his lawn mower.

  Then Paolo closed his eyes and stretched back. Discussion over, time for me to run along. He knew I had bigger problems sprawled on a dance floor choking on his tongue. And I did.

  Only I couldn’t move.

  Allen Cross ordered a hit on Antonio? Allen Cross tried to kill one of us? Allen Cross hired an assassin? A hit man so incompetent that he almost killed Marcus by accident?

  Suddenly, the blare of a siren rang out, an ambulance, drawing nearer as if pulling in front of the mansion. Marcus! They’re here! I have to help him! Where is he? How is he?

  I turned toward the sound, but my eyes caught on Paolo once more, outstretched on the dewy grass, resting rather peacefully, as if he no longer feared me, as if he knew I had somewhere more important to be and he was positive he’d get away with all of this.

  The corners of my mouth twisted up slightly as I stared at him, so confident, so cocky.

  Then I padded over to his long body, lifted my high-heeled foot, and stomped down with all my might.

  Right on Paolo’s crotch.

  …

  I’d never been in an ambulance before. The sirens were deafening from inside the van, adding to the noise already crowding my head as I squeezed Marcus’s limp hand. I’d told the doctors that Marcus was suffering from an overdose of alcohol, Benzos (commonly known as Valium), and Oxy (or OxyContin, a painkiller as strong as heroin). They immediately started treatment.

  We arrived at the ER, and a tube was inserted down his throat, pumping “activated charcoal” that the doctors said would stop the toxins from speeding through his system. IV fluids were administered through the veins in his arms. His breathing got so shallow at one point that they debated putting him on a ventilator, but thankfully after an hour of observation, his vitals improved. But he wasn’t awake. The doctors didn’t know when he’d come around, but they were no longer saying “if,” which at least pulled my heart rate back down from panic levels. Still, the best-case scenario was that Marcus might open his eyes sometime tomorrow.

  “He was lucky,” they said. They’d gotten to him in time. They knew what he was on. They were able to treat him. Usually, with these types of overdoses, the doctors were too late.

  I sat by his bed, his hand feeling cold and fragile, machines humming around us. The Brazilian hospital—bleached, boxy, and buzzing with fluorescent lights—looked like any other hospital in America. Only the signs were in Portuguese. Since he was eighteen years old, there was no legal requirement to call his parents. Thank God. But that left me alone, in Rio, dealing with what happened to him, to us.

  I was the reason he was here. I was so bent on going after Randolph Urban that I ignored all the warning flares. I’d blindly sent everyone into harm’s way—first, when I sent Marcus after that Dresden Kid alone; and now, when I insisted we come here even after we knew that Department D was on the attack.

  I dropped my head low, squeezing his hand tighter as more tears slid down my cheeks. A hospital was a very scary place to be by yourself. The isolation from the outside world, the focus on a singular problem, and the overwhelming sense of helplessness was enough to let the funk rain down like a monsoon. I almost wanted to let it flood me, wash me away forever, then the hospital door creaked open. A middle-aged nurse walked in, tablet in her hands.

  “He’s improving,” she said in English, checking his vitals.

  I wiped tears from my eyes. Pull it together.

  “You should go home,” she said with a gentle smile. “Get some rest. There won’t be any change until morning.”

  “What if he wakes up?” My voice cracked, and I wasn’t sure if it was from agony, exhaustion, or fear. Probably all of the above.

  “His body’s been through a lot. He won’t be awake for some time. You have until morning, maybe even lunch, at best.”

  I stared down at Marcus, crisp white sheets pulled high on his bare chest, tubes in his arms, monitors suctioned to his skin, bags of liquids dripping nearby, computers beeping and charting every inhale of breath, every beat of his heart. I didn’t want to leave him. Not like this. Not alone.

  But this wasn’t over. Paolo tried to kill him. Allen Cross tried to kill one of us. I had to warn Keira. The hospital had no cell reception, and I hadn’t felt I could leave Marcus until now. He was too unstable.

  I pulled out a burner phone from Marcus’s suit jacket, which the paramedics had removed. Once he was admitted, they handed me his personal belongings like I was his next of kin. I took them.

  “You really don’t think he’ll wake up until tomorrow?”

  She shook her head, sympathy in her stare. “There’s nothing you can do right now but let the doctors do their jobs. And pray.” It sounded like she repeated that line a lot.

  “If I leave, would you call me when he wakes up, like the second anything changes?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  I typed my number into her tablet.

  “Go home and get some sleep,” she advised.

  I nodded, knowing a peaceful night’s slumber was nowhere near my future. Then I followed her out of Marcus’s room and down the elevators.

  I exited onto the street and dialed the only number we had programmed—Charlotte.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “Are you okay?” She sounded terrified. I was only supposed to use the phone if there was an emergency, which there was.

  I told her everything, from the fight at the wedding to Marcus in the hospital. Thankfully, Antonio and my sister were safe. They’d checked in less than twenty minutes ago and were currently enjoying flutes of cava on Las Ramblas in Barcelona. She’d spoken to Keira herself, and she promised she’d let them know what happened to Marcus.

  Only I hadn’t yet told her the most mind-bending detail.

  “Charlotte,” I tried to steady my voice, my grip tightening on the phone. “Allen Cross was behind this. He ordered the hit. I need to know where he is. Right now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Allen Cross was in Rio, which I already suspected. Maybe it was the glint in Paolo’s eye, or maybe it was some innate understanding of how the business worked, but I had a feeling a hit this personal from a man that powerful wouldn’t be ordered over the phone. I was right. Cross had traveled to Brazi
l to personally oversee the murder of my boyfriend. Of course, he was aiming for Marcus’s brother, which wasn’t much better, only emphasizing that spies of a certain age should probably get out of the business. There was a reason a new James Bond was hired every few years: senile assassins tend to hit the wrong targets. And now Marcus was paying the price. (Not that I wanted Cross to succeed in killing Antonio either. I might not trust the guy, but I didn’t want him dead.)

  I stood at the base of a soaring set of ivory stairs that led to the villa where Cross was staying. He wasn’t hard to find. Charlotte was able to trace his cell phone to an exact address. He hadn’t turned it off or used a burner, which seemed like another reckless oversight for an aging spy. Or maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he was waiting for me.

  The villa was located in Lagoa, a posh section of Rio housing the city’s elite. There were hundreds of luxury residences nestled in the hills overlooking the kidney-shaped lagoon—a body of water which, according to Charlotte, was as famous for its toxicity as it was its beauty. Few fish survived in its polluted current, but wow, was it pretty. The duplicity seemed fitting. I was about to face a man who I thought was my ally, my oldest family friend, but he was really a killer who betrayed me as badly as my parents, as badly as Urban. How could he order a hit on one of us? How could I have been so wrong about him? I believed everything he said. I insisted that Marcus’s parents murdered Tyson, because Cross told me so. What else had he lied about? Were my parents really alive? Did he actually help them fake their deaths, or was he the one who tried to kill them?

  My mind was a wind tunnel tossing questions with painful debris. What if I had accepted a drink at the wedding? Would Cross have poisoned me too? Was he involved in my sister’s kidnapping? Was anything true?

  I clenched my fists, wanting to break him in ways that didn’t involve pills slipped into a drink. I wanted to watch him hurt, like I watched Marcus—no one doing the dirty work for me. Maybe I was more like my parents than I realized.

  I climbed the steep stairs to the ultra modern home, rage fueling me upward two steps at a time, coating my skin with tacky sweat from the humid South American air. The building’s pearly exterior was uplit, highlighting giant boxy balconies overlooking the turquoise water. Spotlights were triggered the moment I touched the porch, announcing my arrival, but I didn’t care. It was me against an old man who couldn’t even manage to assassinate the right person. I handled Craig Bernard; I could handle him.

  I wiped the sweat from my brow and reached for the handle to the sapphire door. It was unlocked. The door fell open, no alarm system, no deadbolt, no chain, and no sirens. It could be a set up. Cross’s phone pinged to an exact location. A smarter person would run in the opposite direction, but all I could see was Marcus’s body twitching on the ground, foaming at the mouth. Cross betrayed me, like every other adult in my life. I was tired of being played; I was tired of people around me dying. I knew where this man was, and I was not going to let him get away.

  I stepped inside.

  The floors were marble, my black high heels clinking loudly. I looked down at my flirty dress, remembering the girl who had been on a dance floor hours before, her body entangled in a boy. A boy who was now in a hospital bed.

  The great room was empty. There were white leather sofas and scarlet red pillows. There was modern art on the walls with a massive work by Mondrian. The decor was shiny, sharp, and minimalist. It reminded me of Randolph Urban’s office in Boston.

  I stopped short, noticing my surroundings once more.

  This was a safe house. Or his house. Or a Department D house.

  This place had Randolph Urban splashed all over it, down to the shiny glass dining room table and crimson leather chairs that perfectly matched his office decor.

  “H-hello,” I called, sounding like someone investigating a strange noise in the basement. They knew I was here; the spotlights eliminated any element of surprise.

  “I’m outside,” said the familiar voice.

  Allen Cross.

  My first reaction was relief. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I was glad I wasn’t standing in Randolph Urban’s home having to deal with him right now. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready to face him. But Allen Cross I could handle, he was why I was here, and he was the one I wanted to throw off a cliff into a toxic lagoon right now.

  I followed the voice out to the balcony, so large it featured a hot tub that glowed with emerald strobes that almost matched the color of Christmas lights shining about the lagoa. Christmas. I’d forgotten about the holiday. Had it passed already? Was it coming up soon? It was weird that such a joyful custom was still carrying on while I was so embroiled in torment.

  I walked out onto the terrace and spied an illuminated Christmas tree floating in the middle of the water. The fir’s lime and violet lights reflected off the still lagoon, mixing with the tangerine beams shining from the high-rise buildings—the entire spectacle was so full of modern commercialism that it would make Charlie Brown roll over in his cartoon grave. Still, it was pretty. Department D was always big on threatening lives in the most beautiful places.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Cross said, emerging from the shadows as the lights on the floating Christmas tree shifted to crimson and gold. His mouth formed a smile, greeting an old friend, never mind the boyfriend he almost murdered.

  “What is wrong with you?” I yelled, a fuse reigniting my belly. “You almost killed us! Us! Marcus! Why? What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied as he slugged brown liquor from a crystal tumbler.

  His eyes were hooded and his head was rolling unnaturally. He was drunk. Wonderful. Maybe I should top him off with a few Benzos and Oxys. Just like Marcus.

  “How could you do that? I thought you were on our side! Have you been lying to me this whole time? About everything?” Bile rose in my throat, and I fought the urge to spit, to rid myself of the deception that constantly poisoned me.

  “No, it’s not like that.” He shook his bald head, knocking back the rest of his drink in a gulp.

  “Marcus is in the hospital hooked up to machines! I watched him overdose. I watched him have a seizure. He’s still unconscious, and they don’t know when he’ll wake up, all because you were trying to kill his brother. Why?”

  Finally, Cross sighed like someone realizing the only option left was the truth. Good. “My wife is dead.”

  What?

  “What are you talking about?” I rocked on my heels as aqua and yellow lights hit Cross’s face, emanating from the Christmas tree floating in the lagoon, blinking on his wrinkled skin like our warped conversation was being held in a humid carnival.

  “There’s a lot I haven’t told you.” His eyes were bloodshot, from liquor or tears, I wasn’t sure; and that made me nervous. “Remember that Christmas, a decade ago, when you were crawling under your Christmas tree and you heard me fighting with your parents?”

  I nodded. It was the first flashback I had of him when we were reunited in Rome, but I didn’t see what that had to do with Marcus foaming at the mouth.

  “I told you that we were fighting because I wanted to leave the business, to be with my wife, and your parents refused to help.”

  “Yes. You also said you and your wife split up.”

  “We did. Eventually. I realized she would always be in danger. You never really leave a business like this. As you’ve seen, our enemies are vast and have long memories. There will always be someone who wants to kill you.” He took another sip, as if complaining about unpaid overtime at the bar with coworkers. “So I walked away from her to keep her safe. But I never stopped loving her. I never stopped looking out for her.”

  “That’s so nice of you. Now what the hell does this have to do with me?” I asked impatiently. I didn’t care about his wife. It sucked that he was grieving (weren’t we all), but my boyfriend was currently receiving fluids through a tube, and it was Cross’s fault. Did he really expect sympathy for his problems?

&nbs
p; “Someone killed my wife,” he said. “Recently. Someone from Department D.”

  …

  It was a lengthy story, and he started slurring his words before he got to the end, not that it prevented him from refilling his glass. I didn’t stop him. The more he drank, the more he talked. And Allen Cross had a lot to say.

  Turned out he had been lying to me since the moment he resurfaced at Tyson’s funeral, rescuing me from my confrontation with the Reys. But he wasn’t lying about everything. What he told me about faking my parents’ death and Marcus’s parents working for Department D, that was true. (So he claimed.) It was the motives behind his plan that he fabricated.

  Initially, he insisted he wanted to use the Dresden Kids to bring down Department D so Keira and I would be safe; in reality, he wanted revenge for his dead ex-wife. Esther had died only weeks before. Murdered. Professionally. Apparently, a hit on the spouse of a former top agent can’t be ordered by just anyone. Her death had to be orchestrated at the highest level, and given he’d been out of the business for so long, his only recent link to espionage was aiding Keira and me in Italy. Esther’s death felt like retaliation for his efforts. That meant Department D was behind it, only Cross didn’t know precisely who dialed the assassin: Randolph Urban, the Reys, or my parents.

  So he sent me to do his bidding, flitting around the world gathering evidence on Department D in the hope that someone would point a finger at exactly who was running things, who had the authority (and motivation) to order such a high-level, personal hit. Then all the evidence pointed to my parents.

  “You think my parents killed your wife?” My tone was flat, desensitized to the sociopathic accusations so regularly thrown at my mom and dad.

  “At first, it looked that way, but I wasn’t certain. Your parents and I were close. I helped them fake their deaths!” he shouted on the balcony, like he wanted the gods and everyone else to hear. It was so uncharacteristic of the unflinching man I met in Rome. It reminded me of what the CIA director had said of Randolph Urban’s actions in Venice—he was making emotional mistakes based on my parents’ betrayal. Now Cross was reacting out of grief for his ex-wife. It seemed when it came to family, evil agents were as human as the rest of us. Well, except for my parents, they seemed perfectly fine living the good life while their daughters languished.