by K. Ryan
"Alright," he blows out a deep breath and rubs his temples. "That's your choice. But you can't mess around. You know what he's capable of and you know what he can do. Don't give him the opportunity to act on those threats."
I guess if there's one thing we agree on, it's that.
Sensing his time with us has run its course, he nods once more. "Good luck. I know I haven't done anything to earn the right to be there for you now, but if you ever need anything, you know you can call me. I'll help you however I can."
And with that, my dad is officially out of my life for good.
I don't know how to feel about it. Ambivalence is about as much as I can muster right now, in light of everything he's just told us and everything we've suffered tonight. I just want to curl up with Rae on my bed and forget anything else exists. I want to forget the aching hole seeping from my chest and spilling down to the floor. I want to forget that I held my brother's body in my arms tonight and felt the life literally drain out of him. Everything has to be better tomorrow because I don't see how things could possibly get any worse.
Rae is silent when I pull her into my bedroom. She's silent as we undress and pull back the covers. She's silent even when I tug her into my arms and hold her as tight as I can. Everything I'd managed to keep at bay since we got back to my apartment now threatens to break through the surface. Excruciating grief. Blinding rage. Crippling terror. They're all there, just begging to break loose and Rae's silence isn't helping matters. Now, panic leaps to the forefront, nipping right at the heels of fear and sorrow.
"Jack?" she whispers against my chest in the darkness.
I almost can't let myself respond. If I answer, I'm giving her permission, aren't I?
"Yeah?"
"We can't leave tomorrow."
She says that so simply, so easily, like we're talking about where we're going to go for breakfast tomorrow instead of gambling with fate—and probably death, too. I should've expected this. Should've known it wouldn't be this easy. Something was always bound to get in the way. I know that now.
"Rae, I—"
"Just listen, okay?" she waits long enough to make sure I'm willing to give her the floor here. I'm not, but I don't see what choice I have. She's always been the brains of this operation and I've always, for the most part, followed her lead. Unfortunately, I have a feeling this time isn't going to be any different.
"What are we doing?" she shakes her head and all I can do is just hold her closer. "We're really just going to drop everything and run because he says so?"
"Rae, I don't see any other options. I don't care what he said he'd do to me. I'm not putting you at risk and I'm not giving him the opportunity to hurt you. He did it once, Rae, and he'll do it again. He basically told you he'll kill you if you don't leave the city tomorrow. There's no arguing with that."
"Maybe," she sighs and I feel it too. I feel what's about to happen and I can't do anything to stop it. "But we're just supposed to run and let him get away with murdering Brennan right in front of us? And what happens to Sean? We disappear and he rots in prison? We can't leave him, Jack. We've already lost one brother tonight...we can't let him win. He murdered Brennan. He planned it and ordered it like he was some kind of animal. He doesn't get to just go about his life like it never happened. He has to pay."
Part of me wants to just get out of bed so I don't have to listen to this. The other part of me knows that fierce, stubborn look in her eye, the same look I've seen time and time again that tells me she's not backing down, she's not giving up. It's why I fell in love with her, among other things, and even though I'm scared shitless right now, I can't help but admire her for it too. In the face of everything—Brennan, my dad, Moretti—she still won't go down without a fight.
Heaven help me, but I'm going with her.
"He thinks he won," she soldiers on, her voice stronger, harder, and more confident than before, "so we still have one more card left to play. Even if it—"
"Don't say it," I shudder against her.
As if her not saying the words out loud will change anything.
"He won't see it coming," she pushes past all the ugly, all the risk, and chooses instead to focus on this one last Hail Mary.
Suddenly, she tugs herself out of my arms and tosses my T-shirt at me as she yanks a pair of yoga pants back on.
"What are we doin', Rae?"
She barely pauses long enough to reply: "We're going to talk to my sister."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rae
The early morning light peeks in through the blinds and my eyes shoot wide open. Awareness crackles through my body as each limb goes on alert, ready and willing for the day that's yet to come. Still, I lean into the warm body I'm pressed up against and close my eyes, giving myself one more moment of peace before all hell breaks loose.
Jack is already awake. I can feel his stuttered breathing like he's struggling to stay calm, struggling with what we have planned. I bet he didn't sleep at all last night.
When we got back from my sister's apartment—actually going there seemed like the lesser of the two evils since all our phones are probably tapped by now—and laid down the foundation our plans, Jack held me the rest of the night and didn't let go. He knows, just as well as I do, that my plan could easily blow up in all our faces.
It's genius, but it's also unbelievably stupid.
He's having a hard time reconciling why I would take this kind of suicidal risk when the mayor's given us an out and I get that. If I were him, I'd want to grab me and run, too. Running just isn't an option. It never really was. The moment I saw my brother crumble to the ground in a pool of his own blood, I think I knew deep down that I wasn't going anywhere. And hearing Roark Callahan describe all the ways the mayor has ruined the lives of those around him, the threats he's made, the people he's hurt, the people he's murdered...it gave me a crazy, careless, and completely foolhardy idea.
After years of studying him, searching for an opportunity to get his attention, to earn his love, it's all boiled down to this moment. Maybe we were always headed this way; I just never knew it until now and I know that only one of us will come out of that room in tact.
It all comes down to opportunity, Jack told me once. You have to know what your opponent's weaknesses are before you ever step inside the ring and then you have to use those weaknesses against him.
Today, my weakness becomes my strength.
Today, his weakness becomes my strength.
Jack's arms tighten around me like he can hear my thoughts and his lips brush my hair as if he's trying to coax me into staying in bed just a little bit longer.
"We should get going," I murmur.
"It's still kinda dark outside," he whispers hoarsely in my ear. "That means it's not morning yet. So that means I get to keep you here for awhile."
His bare skin muffles my laugh. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm pretty sure it's morning. You know what that means."
"No," he huffs. "I don't."
"Come on, Jack," I tell him as I pull out of his arms and slide out of his bed. "We have to get going."
"You don't have to do this, you know," he whispers into the air. "We could just leave like we'd planned before. It would take us ten minutes to pack and we'd be out of here. There's no shame in that, Rae."
"I know," I answer simply. "But we can't do that. You know that."
He pushes his head back against his pillow in a fleeting moment of agony and squeezes his eyes shut. I know the only reason he's even going along with this in the first place is because he knows there's nothing he can say or do that will stop me. "Well," he told me last night after I explained my plan, "there's no way you're getting anywhere near him without me."
I love him for that.
When the chips are down and with the odds stacked against us, he isn't running. He's here, he's with me, and he's not leaving me to face the mayor on my own, all the while putting himself at risk, too. If that's not love then I don't know what is.
>
Once we're dressed and ready to go, we eat breakfast and drink our coffee in silence. Like this is just any normal day in our lives together. Like our brother isn't sitting in a morgue after being murdered in cold blood. Like our entire world could be on the verge of ending. Like this might not be the last morning we get to share.
I glance at him across his tiny table and tears suddenly prick my eyes, threatening to seize hold of the control I'd had over my emotions. If these last few days are all I get with him, they've been a dream. A wonderful, stolen dream. It's not fair, but it has to be enough. I can't let myself plan for tomorrow because today might be all I have. It might be all we ever have.
I have to just focus on the present, on what I can control. I can't think about the fact that I'm essentially risking the safety of all the people I love—Jack, Lucy, Bennett, and Sean—by playing this game. They're willing to play along, in spite of the risk, and they're trusting me to succeed. Out of all the times in my life where I'd been cheated, lied to, and stolen from, this is the one time I can't lose.
"Hey," Jack calls out to me as he shoves out of his chair. He pulls me to my feet and grips both my hands with an iron-clad grasp. "You remember this?" He gestures with his head toward the thin rope tattooed around his right wrist. "You remember what it means?"
I nod. His caim tattoo is a symbol of sanctuary and protection. A reminder that you're safe and that you're loved.
"The Irish, back when they were still called Celts, used to perform the caim prayer all the time," Jack informs me hoarsely. His eyes water, but the strength in them prevails. "Any time a soldier would leave for battle, they performed this prayer around every single one of them. They did it at weddings, too. Whenever this prayer was performed at the altar, the bride would stand on the left and the groom on the right, so the groom's right hand would be free to grab his sword if he needed to defend his bride. It's meant to cast a ring of protection around the person or the couple, so that no evil and no darkness can get in their way."
He kisses the side of my head and points his right index finger down to my feet, moving slowly around me in a clockwise circle as he whispers, "Circle her, Lord. Keep protection near and danger afar. Circle her, Lord. Keep light near and darkness afar. Circle her, Lord. Keep peace within and evil without. Circle her, Lord. Keep hope within and doubt without."
When he completes the circle, standing in front of me now with cloudy grey eyes, he leans closer so his lips can brush mine.
"I love you," he murmurs against my lips.
I'm protected. I'm safe. I'm loved. I'm ready.
MY SISTER SITS to my left, Jack hovers closely to my right, and Bennett lingers somewhere behind me. We've sat here at Lucy's kitchen table for the last ten minutes, impatiently waiting for our imminent arrival. Finally, with five minutes to spare, Jack brings my hand up to his mouth and brushes his lips on my knuckles.
"Almost time," he tells us with a tight nod. "I better get out of here."
He rises from his seat, carefully pushing his chair back in so it doesn't look like someone's been sitting there and retreats to Lucy's bedroom to take his place. Bennett follows his lead and I can hear brief, muffled deep voices coming from the bedroom until there's just silence.
Lucy nods to me, her chin lifted high in resilient defiance. Her tears are long-dried, having cried most of the night—first, they were tears of agony and sorrow when she learned her dad was really the one responsible for my attack all those years ago. Then those tears turned into ones of sympathy for me, my mom, and all the people who'd gotten hurt along the way. Finally, her tears morphed into silver-tinged drops of anger, sharp and furious.
They're gone now. All that's left is her fierce determination to help me. To end this with me. To seek justice with me.
Not even a minute later, the doorbell rings.
Lucy rises from her seat to answer the door, just like we planned, and gestures for the mayor to come inside.
Thank you so much for coming, Daddy," she coos to him in that little baby voice she's honed so well. "My landlord isn't returning my calls and—"
"We'll get this straightened out," he tells her as he clears the doorway. "I won't tolerate you living in this apartment any longer if they refuse to repair the damage."
Just as he gets a good look inside the kitchen, he stops short.
It's a shrewd move in luring the mayor to Lucy's apartment. It's an even shrewder move to basically use my sister as a human shield, but it's the only move I have.
"Luciana is the reason I've decided to spare your life," he'd told me last night and so he won't hurt me in front of her—I'm sure of that. He'd admitted as much as well as a whole slew of other things last night, too. Everything hinges now on being able to continue that trend.
I roll my shoulders back, loose and ready. Wait for the right moment. A hesitation. An opening. Something. Whatever you have to do to outsmart him.
"What are you doing here?" he bites out and glances incredulously at Lucy, who's resumed her place next to me.
I stand up straight and shift my weight from side to side. My bad knee aches, almost as if it can sense the imminent danger and the potential disaster, but I ignore the pain. I've done it for so long it's just habit now. Besides, the mayor is never going to see me in pain again.
"It hasn't been 24 hours yet," I start softly. This is part of the plan, too—reminding him that he thinks he's won. That he holds all the cards and the upper-hand.
His shark-like black eyes shift to my sister and back to me again, slow realization flickering across his face. She knows. He has to see that. He has to see the defiance in her eyes and the disappointment on her face. That's all part of the plan too.
When he speaks again, his voice is incisive and accusatory, just as it should be. "I don't recall giving you permission to contact Luciana, Raena."
"She wanted to say goodbye," Lucy answers for me. "Daddy...I don't know what to say. I just wish it didn't have to come to this. I wish Rae didn't have to go, but I guess I understand."
"So you lied to me to bring me here?" he practically barks, but neither of us flinch.
"Daddy, I..." she trails off and exchanges a glance with me. "I just wanted to help my sister. I understand why she needs to leave, but she came to me and wanted to say goodbye, to explain why she was leaving me. Can't you understand that, Daddy?"
On cue, I dig into my pocket and pull out a flash drive. The mayor blinks once, then twice, before narrowing his eyes dangerously.
"I know you said your men took the flash drive we'd used before," I tell him, making sure my voice sounds as shaky and timid as it needs to be. "But I made a copy. I put it in a safety deposit box just in case."
His eyebrows leap into his forehead and I can practically hear his thoughts as he tries to piece that particular kernel of intel together: How did I miss this? How did I not know?
"It's the only other copy of all those files I have," I lie. All that practice has finally come in handy. "I thought...I thought if I gave it to you, that would—"
"You think this is some kind of insurance policy?" he snaps abruptly with an eyebrow cocked my way. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you made a copy and hid it away for safe-keeping. A wise choice, given the circumstances. Even smarter in choosing not to use it."
He's coming around because he thinks I'm playing his game and following his rules. So I dangle the bait in front of him, extending the flash drive out just enough so it's within his reach.
"I just want to know why," I whisper. "That's all I want. Just tell me why and I'm out of here. You'll never have to see me again."
His eyes narrow into tight slits as they flick to Lucy, who plays her own role. She sighs and lets disappointment cross her face, but not enough to make him believe he's lost her forever. Not enough to make him believe his back is against the wall. She's upset now because she's just learned her dad was responsible for the attack on her sister. But if he explains and if he defends himself, maybe she'll understand.
Maybe she'll forgive him.
"Why can't you just tell her, Daddy?" she murmurs, her voice hushed and somber. "Doesn't she deserve to know why she got hurt?"
He pushes out a rough, exasperated sigh and scrapes a hand over his slicked back dark hair. This is the moment that will either make or break our entire plan. He'll either give us what we need or he'll leave and we'll be back at square one—and Jack and I will be as good as dead.
When the mayor's eyes flick up to meet mine, the disgust I find in them tells me everything I need to know.
"Like I told you last night," he starts coolly. "It wasn't about you."
"What was it about then? Why did you have someone take a tire iron and smash my knee apart? That's just crazy...that you would do something like to me. I don't understand."
He never breaks eye contact with me when he speaks again. "I needed to send a message. Several members of the press and one particularly ambitious FBI agent were adamant about proving some of my business connections weren't quite legal. It was meant to send the message that we were not, in fact, partners, but enemies. Why else would they hurt a beloved member of my family like that if we were actually business partners? It just wouldn't make sense and it nipped all those rumors right in the bud."
"And I was the expendable daughter, right?" I whisper. This time, the shaking in my voice isn't so fake. "You didn't care if I got hurt or not."
"Of course I didn't," he scoffs like the suggestion of the opposite is a personal insult. "But it needed to look personal. It needed to look like the attacker was trying to teach me a lesson and send me a message."
"What about Sean though? You just let him take the fall..."
The mayor's lips spread apart in a twisted grin that makes me sick to my stomach. "Yes, I hadn't anticipated your brother would be present for that event. But he was there and it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Everyone just conveniently forgot about my other supposed connections and jumped on the juicier story."
"I know it was really Nero Gianotti who attacked me," I tell him and push down the thickness in my throat. "I saw him last week at a club and I knew it was him the second I saw him. I remembered his eyes. And you told me that night when I was in the hospital that it was Sean. You made me to tell the police I only saw one person that night—when I saw two—and you made me tell them it was Sean."
