by Krista Holt
“This can’t be undone. I hope you know that,” I whisper.
His lips split in an ugly grin. “You’re too stubborn for your own good. But if I find out you lied to me, I will kill him. Or maybe Becca.”
My blood turns to ice. She has nothing to do with this, and I don’t want her to get hurt. “I didn’t lie. Everything I told you was true.”
“I sure hope so.”
They try to rouse Scott. He comes to after a few pointed nudges from tasseled loafers. They prop him back up in the chair, blood dripping from his face. One eye is swollen shut, and his lip is torn.
“You two are free to go,” Nic says, drawing my attention back to him. He calmly pulls the cuffs of his white shirt farther down his wrists. “One of my men,” he waves his hand at the guy behind me, “will drop you off at the nearest metro station. It should go without saying that our little meeting stays between us. If you talk to the cops, you talk to your boss, you so much as type an email about this—you’ll be seeing me again. And I can assure you, I won’t be the pleasure I have been this time. Not even your pretty little face will save you, Reagan.”
“I hate you.” The words fall from my lips as I meet his gaze.
“You’re assuming I care.” He leans over the table. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t hesitate, just looks me right in the eye and seals his fate. “You were nothing more to me than an avenue to get what I needed.”
CHAPTER 38
They drop us off at the Capitol Heights metro station. Shoving my purse, heels, and our phones into our hands before giving us one last warning. “Don’t talk to anyone.”
We stand there numbly as they drive off in a van with missing license plates. A sniffle escapes me, as I try to hold back my tears. I want to cry. I want to break down, but I can’t, not right now. We can’t attract attention. The last thing we need is someone calling the police.
One glance at Scott and I wonder if that’s even possible. His face is bloody and bruised, his lip split and bleeding, and if the soreness in my face is any indication, there’s a bruise forming on my cheek.
I find a scarf in my purse and hand it to Scott. He gingerly presses it against his face, trying to slow the bleeding. He winces in pain, and suddenly, the throbbing in my face doesn’t hurt so much.
“We should go,” I say softly.
Scott mutters something unintelligible before pulling the scarf from his face to fold it strategically, hiding some of the blood. The station manager looks at us suspiciously but doesn’t come out of her barricaded office. After several minutes, the train arrives. We choose a car near the end, and it looks like we’ll be alone until a college student slips inside at the last minute. Scott’s gaze jumps from the student to me.
I shake my head. “Don’t say a word. He’s capable of anything.”
We travel in silence for a few stations. Several more stops come and go before we sit alone in the car.
“You need a doctor,” I say.
“I’ll manage.” He dabs at the cut on his lip.
“Scott, we need to go to the hospital.”
He laughs, but it turns into a groan. He braces his hand against his ribs, grimacing. “If I thought I was dying, we’d go. But I’ve had it worse than this. I’ll be fine.” He takes a shallow breath, wincing in pain. “We need to tell Cameron.”
“Scott . . .” I turn around quickly, checking for anyone or anything that might be listening even though I know we’re alone. Nic obviously has his methods. I’d been followed for over a year without noticing. “I’m serious. Don’t do anything. We’ll talk tomorrow. Someone is probably watching us.”
Scott stays quiet, occasionally moving the scarf on his face. My stop comes up and we stand.
“Don’t do anything until we talk about it tomorrow.” I grab my purse.
He reluctantly agrees, and we exit the train. Outside the metro station, Scott flags down a cab.
“You okay from here?” He leans against the open door.
“Yes. I’m just a block away. It’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod quickly.
“Okay.” He climbs inside and I shove the door closed.
The cab drives away and I wrap my coat around me, covering up any blood on my dress. I walk as quickly as I can toward my apartment. My heart hammers in my chest, and my breathing becomes quick and shallow. I’m so close.
I hide my face behind my coat as I pass the doorman. I’m so close to falling apart. The wait for the elevator is excruciatingly long. Five more seconds, Reagan. Five seconds. A sob of relief rises out of my mouth when the doors finally open to my floor. I careen around the corner, running headlong to our door.
My hands are shaking so hard, I can’t unlock it. The key won’t slide in. Come on. Come on. Come on. A tear rolls down my cheek as I try again. It goes in this time. The door flies open and I fall inside, slamming it closed behind me. I grasp the dead bolt and slide it across its track. Only then do my legs give out.
I slide down the door, landing in a pile on the floor. My breathing grows erratic as the magnitude of what happened swamps me again. A sobs breaks loose, and I gulp for air as tears stream down my face.
“Becca?” I call out. “Are you home?”
It’s completely silent. She isn’t here.
Another sob compresses my chest and I gasp, sucking in air. I’m losing it. I clasp a hand over my mouth and scream into it. Every scream I couldn’t muster during the ordeal. Every scream for the violence I saw. I scream until the screams turn to sobs.
I was wrong.
He had lied. He hid himself, who he truly was. I had fallen in love with a lie. A horrible, monstrous lie. My chest aches with the magnitude of his betrayal. My stupidity. The sheer terror of the predicament I am now fully embroiled in.
My Blackberry chimes, and I freeze. My brain jumps through all sorts of horrible possibilities. I want to flinch. Run and hide. Then rationale takes over. It’s just a phone.
I crawl over the floor toward my handbag. Dumping its entire contents onto the floor, I shift through the mess, shoving aside my personal cell before I find the Blackberry. With shaking fingers, I open an email from Scott.
Are you safe?
I type a reply and press send.
Yes. You?
It pings a second later.
Yes. But if you have a visitor, call the police. Don’t hesitate.
His implication is clear—if Nic shows up. My hands shake harder, and I drop the Blackberry to the floor. I double-check the door, locking, unlocking, and re-locking it to be sure. It’s still not enough.
I grab my phones and retreat to my room. After locking that door, I shove a chair under the handle. Slowly, I back away from it until my back hits the dresser. I reach out to steady myself, catching my reflection in the mirror.
It doesn’t bother to buffer or shield my emotions. Scott’s blood marks the front of my coat. A fine spray covers my face. I rub my cheek and the blood smears, streaking my skin.
The bruise on my cheek is darkening. The deep blue mark on my neck from his hand stands out vividly against my white skin. My hair is wild, with large pieces hanging out of place. I look battered.
A sob escapes me and I try to force it back, clamping a hand over my mouth as my knees give out and I drop to the floor. I was wrong. I was so completely wrong about him.
I was warned not to trust him. They told me what he was capable of. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. How could I when Nic had held me so gently, loved me so tenderly? I was sure they were wrong about him. I was going to prove them wrong. It was the whole reason I went along with Simmons’s stupid plan. His plan to have me spy on Nic.
My phone rings. I almost drop it, afraid of the noise. But the number on the screen is one I know by heart. Special Agent Jack Simmons. FBI.
“S-Simmons?” I stutter.
“Where were you?” he yells at me angrily. “We were supposed to meet three hours ago. I waited as long as I could .
. .” I stop listening to him, unable to handle one more thing.
“Simmons,” I scream.
He stops speaking instantly. “What’s wrong, Reagan?”
“It’s Nic. It’s Nic,” I sob. “He just . . .” I gasp for air. I can’t even think of how to phrase it. “He just . . . kidnapped us.”
“He what?” he shouts.
“We were leaving the W, and they just appeared out of nowhere, took us off the curb. They beat my co-worker,” I try to explain, even though nothing makes sense anymore. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I thought I knew him. I was wrong,” I cry. “I was so wrong.”
“Listen, I’m on my way to you. Hold tight. I’ll be there in twenty minutes—”
“No,” I shout. “He said he’d hurt us if we said anything. I think he would. I’ve never seen him like this. I hardly recognized him, Simmons.” I didn’t know that man. The one who stood by while someone hurt me. That wasn’t the Nic I knew. “Don’t come. There’s probably someone watching my apartment.”
“Reagan, you’re a confidential informant, I can take care of this. I can put you somewhere safe. He’ll never get to you.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out brittle and broken. “I might believe you, if he hadn’t just pulled me off the street. You were supposed to protect me.”
“Listen, I understand you’re afraid, but—”
“You don’t, Simmons. You don’t understand at all,” I shout. “I have a bruise in the shape of handprint around my neck. I couldn’t breath.” My throat tightens as I remember staring into that man’s eyes as he strangled me. A sob works its way up my throat. “I should have never gotten involved in this. Do you know what will happen to me if he ever finds out I’ve been informing on him? Since college!” I gasp. “He’ll kill me.”
“Reagan,” Simmons says calmly, like he’s used to dealing with hysterical people all the time. “He doesn’t know. No one knows. I’ve kept you off the books. There’s no record of you working for me. No one knows. You’re safe.”
“I’m not safe,” I cry. “I’ve never been. You need to stay away. I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”
“Take a day or two to settle down and then we’ll talk again.”
“No, I’m done, Simmons. I mean it. You said I was done. You said if I placed the listening device in his car you’d let me walk away. And I did it. I hid it under the seat the other night when he surprised me at Rayburn. I did everything you asked.”
He pauses, and there’s only the sound of my rapid breathing between us. “There’s an issue with the bug. It shut off.”
“Or he found it,” I gasp. That would explain so much. Why he acted the way he did. How he looked at me like he hated me. “Just leave me alone—don’t try to contact me anymore. I’m done.” I hang up, but he calls back immediately. I turn the phone off, and drop it in a drawer.
I should have never let Simmons and his love of country, greater-good bullshit convince me. But I was so young. So naïve. I had been studying for a social studies midterm when Simmons knocked on my dorm room door and told me the truth. The truth Nic had always skirted over with little white lies and half-truths.
Nic, the man I was already so enamored with, was the son of Adriano Selvaggio, the leader of one the notorious New York Mob families.
My jaw dropped as I leaned against my door. “What do you mean? The Mob? Is this a joke?”
Simmons tucked away the badge he’d flashed me seconds earlier. “Can I come in, Miss Cooper?”
I looked around my messy dorm room. Becca was gone, and I felt like I didn’t have any other choice. I wanted to know what he was talking about. “Sure.”
He swept inside, waited for me to sit down. “We’ve been observing you for a while, and I think you could help us.”
He’d asked me to use my relationship with Nic to collect information. Little things like when he left Stanford, where he went, who was around. Eventually that graduated to bigger things like reading his texts and checking his emails when his computer was nearby. Simmons told me the FBI would pay me back, that there was a congressman who owed them a favor. I’d have a job, a good job, after I graduated if I would just do this one little thing for them.
I hadn’t cared about the job at the time. I just wanted to prove Simmons wrong. I knew he was wrong. Nic wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a monster. Simmons had to be misinformed.
It wasn’t even hard to gather the information. Nic trusted me completely. Yes, he rarely elaborated on anything I asked him, but he didn’t cut me off from his life. I had access to everything, his time, his apartment, and his day-to-day life. And every little thing I dug up for Simmons only strengthened my resolve. Nothing I found was incriminating. It was all boring, and not important. Nic was innocent.
So, I held my hope that Simmons had the wrong man even tighter, and that’s when it got really hard to continue betraying Nic. Every glance at his phone, every email, every text sent me into a tailspin. Could I do that to him? He didn’t seem that bad. Stupid, stupid girl.
Tonight proved how gullible I was. He is that bad. And the only one deceived by his nice guy act was me.
I slowly strip off my clothes, biting my lip to stop myself from crying as I pull the ripped tights off my bloodied knees. The fresh scabs tear, and bleed again.
My nerves are still jumpy when I step into the shower. I drop my bottle of body wash and nearly have a heart attack when it clatters to the floor.
Quickly, I scrub and then get out, drying myself off in a hurry, not wanting to be naked and vulnerable one second longer than necessary. I grab some sweats and an old sweater and pull them on. I drag out the first aid kit I’d used to patch up Nic, clean the scrapes on my knees. And then—BOOM.
Wind rushes against the window, sounding like a fist on a door. I loose my footing and land on my butt. I swear I stop breathing until rain pelts the glass as well. A shaky breath leaves me. It’s just the weather.
I’m losing my mind.
Forcing back a cry, I pull myself off of the floor. I turn off the lights, climb into my bed and I close my eyes. The relief lasts only a second, and then the night starts repeating itself, vividly, against my closed eyelids. The van. The tape over my mouth. The hood. The hand around my throat. Not being able to breath. I can’t breathe.
I scramble upright, peering into the darkness of my room. I’m safe. No one else is in here, but his presence is felt. Shifting shadows appear more ominous. I jump at every noise, every creak of the floorboards adjusting to the cold, every gust of wind hitting my window.
“No one’s here. It’s fine. You’re safe,” I say aloud, rocking against my headboard. It doesn’t matter, though, I can’t sleep. I watch the clock, counting the minutes until the sun rises, as if that’ll somehow keep me safe.
CHAPTER 39
The sun is barely over the horizon as I drag myself through my morning routine. I dress in all black: pants, sweater, and a scarf. It’s like a funeral for my old life, the one before him. I pull my hair back into a severe ponytail and then step into some flats. In case I need to run from someone.
I unstick the chair from underneath the doorknob and slowly open the door. Everything appears normal. The only sign of my panic last night is the up-ended purse on the hardwood floor.
As I bend down to pick up the contents, the skin on my knees tears back open. Wincing, I stuff everything back into the leather bag and stand, silently running through an inventory check. I have my phones, a coat that doesn’t have bloodstains, but my nerve to face the day is missing. The hours I spent flinching at imaginary demons in the dark made it flee.
The truth is, I’m scared.
I stop at the mirror hung by the front door, and raising my hand, I lightly touch the bruise on my face. Makeup covers it well, but it still hurts. Taking a deep breath, I push into the bruise, embracing the pain. I tug at the scarf wrapped around my neck, pulling it far enough away from the skin to reveal the tinges of black and blue circling my ne
ck.
My phone beeps, and I jump, even though it’s only a text alerting me that my cab has arrived. It’s not Nic. It’s not Simmons. There’s no danger. Pull it together, Reagan. With my coat on and purse in hand, I leave the apartment, locking the door behind me.
At the office, I stare at my computer screen. The news page refreshes itself every few minutes, but nothing penetrates my fog. The office slowly comes to life around me, and I don’t even bother trying to work. My personal cell chimes with a text from Becca. I read it, but don’t reply.
“Is that him?” Scott asks from behind me. My hand flies to my throat, and I barely stop myself from screaming.
“Damn it, Scott.” I swallow hard. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
“Sorry.”
I shake my head, turning to him. “No, it wasn’t Nic. It’s my roommate.”
His face is worse than it was last night. Dark bruises and a swollen lower lip mar his features. I did this. I did this to him by letting Nic in. I’m to blame.
“I’m so sorry, Scott.”
“Come on,” he says, walking away from me. I get up and follow him into the congressman’s office, ignoring April’s worried expression.
Scott closes the heavy door behind us. He motions for me to take a seat as he scrounges in the congressman’s freezer for some ice. “He hasn’t called, hasn’t shown up at your apartment, nothing?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
“Maybe he’ll let you be if we keep quiet.” He holds the makeshift ice pack to his face.
“Maybe.”
“We have to tell Cameron.” He sits on the edge of the couch. “For the sake of the investigation, if nothing else.”
“Yes. We do.”
“I’ll call him.” He pulls his Blackberry out and scrolls through it, but then he stops and sets it on his knee. “I have to say this.” He looks over at me. “What were you thinking? Did you know who he was?”
I take a deep breath, preparing myself to tell him the truth, but he keeps going.