Constant (The Confidence Game Book 1)

by Rachel Higginson

  By the time I got to work, I was already a tangle of nerves and trepidation. What was Sayer going to do now? Would he tell Maggie all my secrets? Or worse? Were Roman, Aleksander and Dymetrus going to be waiting for me?

  I had to figure this out. I had to devise a freaking game plan.

  Maggie was in her usual spot in the office when I arrived, thumbing through a book. She didn’t even look up when I walked in. Seeing her leaned over the counter, glasses perched on her nose was so familiar that my heart hurt. This woman had somehow become such a big part of my life even though I’d made a concerted effort to keep her out of it.

  I was supposed to be hard. And callous. And totally willing to give up every comfort to keep Juliet safe. And I was… kind of. But the thought of leaving Maggie or having her find out my dirty secrets killed me. I felt the same about Jesse.

  Yes, I had bigger things to worry about than their good opinions, but the thought of them thinking badly of me still stung.

  I wasn’t the criminal to them. They didn’t use me for my skills or my connections or what I could get them. They genuinely liked me.

  I didn’t want to lose that.

  Or them.

  “Must be a good one,” I said to Maggie when she still hadn’t looked up at me. “Let me guess, the duchess is destitute so she agrees to marry the wealthy duke that doesn’t want to settle down, but needs a wife to give him a legitimate heir?”

  She still didn’t look up. “That was last week’s. This duke is enamored with the idiot. He’s totally in love with her and she has no idea.”

  “Well, then he’s not doing a very good job of showing his affection.”

  “Pride,” Maggie murmured. “He’s an arrogant asshole.”

  I laughed. “Aren’t they all?”

  She sighed wistfully. Maggie’s romances were the one thing that could distract her from work. She was all slave driving workaholic until she started a regency romance. Then she would lock herself in her office for days at a time while I took care of business for her.

  I didn’t mind. She needed more breaks. If she wanted to get lost in her romances occasionally, more power to her.

  “I need to run into town,” she told me. “I have to go to the bank and the hardware store and meet with my accountant.”

  “And probably take a long lunch so you can finish that book.”

  She tapped the book on the counter. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “Go for it,” I encouraged. “I’ve got things here. Just be back by three-thirty so I can grab Jules.”

  “You sure? Cabin eleven came in this morning to complain about his wake-up call? He said he never got it.”

  I busied myself with restacking the outgoing mail. “That’s weird, when I called this morning nobody answered. He must have slept through it.”

  “You didn’t put him on the automated system?”

  “I will today. He wants a personal call every morning, but that is too far above and beyond the call of duty.”

  She grabbed her jacket from the office and stopped by the counter to pick up her book again. “Honey, is everything all right between you two?”

  A cold splash of panic trickled through me, but I kept my expression curious when I asked, “What do you mean?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I mean, there’s a hell of a lot of something going on between you two and I can’t decide if you’re welcoming it or running from it.”

  Unexpected laughter bubbled out of me. Did I sound crazy? I was running from it. I was running as fast as I could from it. But to Maggie, I added a shrug and said, “Can’t a girl do a little of both?”

  Her eyes narrowed. I’d executed my lie perfectly. There had been no quaver in my voice or nervous glancing around. I had delivered my lie with every ounce of confidence I possessed.

  She still didn’t believe me.

  “All right, darlin’, if you say so.”

  “Have fun in town,” I teased her. “Enjoy your duke.”

  She paused at the door, halfway inside and halfway outside. Shooting me a wink I was not expecting she said, “You too.” Then she was gone and I was left foundering and furious and trying not to text her a hundred messages correcting her.

  By the time Gus pulled into the parking lot out front, I wasn’t even surprised.

  Let me clarify, I wasn’t surprised to see him. I was a little concerned to see that he drove a red Subaru Forester and not a black Mercedes sedan.

  “Cabin eleven,” I told him as soon as the office door jingled. “Here’s a map.” I pushed the directions across the counter that I had hastily prepared for him.

  His eyebrows jumped to his hairline. “Huh?”

  “Sayer’s cabin,” I said slower, “is number eleven. This map will show you how to get there.”

  He matched my tone and speed. “I already know where Sayer is staying. So I don’t need a map.”

  Oh.

  “Well, why are you here?”

  His top lip curled. “Do you mind telling me what I ever did to you? Fuck, Caroline. We used to be friends. Now the stick up your ass is so big, I can’t even get a hello out of you.”

  I blinked at him. “You’re not here to rekindle our friendship, Gus. I’m not an idiot.”

  He made a sound in the back of his throat. “You are, in fact, an idiot. But that’s a different discussion.” He walked over to the counter, setting his hands carefully on top of it. “We should talk for real.” He glanced over his shoulder.

  I was torn between interrogating him and covering my ears with my hands and running away before he could say anything else. The old Caro jerked to life inside me. This was my opportunity. Gus had never been a good liar. It was why he’d moved to technologies when we were kids, and later accounting. Sayer was a locked box and a master manipulator. I couldn’t trust anything he said. But I might be able to get something out of Gus.

  “All right, Augustus, let’s talk. Have you been following me around town?”

  He tugged at his stocking cap and shrugged. “I got a business to run, Caroline. I don’t have time for that.”

  “What about before you launched your bar? I mean, you knew we were here, right? That’s why you came. You came to interrupt our lives for some stupid reason. So how long did you follow us around and dig into our shit?”

  His eyes bugged. “Do you know what you did to Sayer? When you left? Do you know how much you fucked him up? Caro, he went outside of his mind. He did things that he should never have done. Made a lot of enemies. Because of you. Because you disappeared.”

  This was not where I wanted this conversation to go. “So that gives you the right to stalk me?”

  He pulled back, staring at me incredulously. “He thought someone took you. The Italians… the Ukranians… Fucking Irish retaliation or some shit. That’s the only explanation he would accept for two years. Think about that for a second. Stop thinking about yourself and put yourself in his shoes—in prison. He went fucking berserk in there. He went after each family until he’d exhausted his resources. He had me go after them on the outside. He tapped Roman’s resources all over the city. He got desperate and started trading his collection. Priceless pieces. Trophies. All of that fortune you two had amassed over the years, dwindled to what you saw in our office.”

  “Everything in your office was mine.”

  He made a face. “Exactly.”

  “You’re saying Sayer only sold his pieces? Not mine?”

  “Ding ding ding. Maybe you’re not a total idiot after all.”

  “Why would he do that, Gus? It doesn’t make any sense. That was his future. He only had to get out of prison, and he was set for life.”

  “Are you clueless? He thought someone had taken you. He was going to move fucking heaven and earth to find you.”

  “Why did he give up?” At the look Gus gave me, I rephrased the sentence. “I mean, why did he stop thinking I was taken? You said he looked for me for two years.”

  Gus looked away. His ca
sual shrug wasn’t as convincing as he probably wanted it to be. “You’ll have to ask him that question. I just know the plan switched.”

  “And you do whatever he does?”

  He pulled back, shaking his head at me. “You’ve known since we were kids that I wanted nothing to do with that hell hole. I’ve always wanted out. I finally got my chance.” His snarl was cruel, tortured and completely honest. “Sayer and I got out together. He wouldn’t have left without me. And I wouldn’t have left without him.”

  Guilt. So much of it I nearly choked on it. “Good thing you waited until he got out of prison then.”

  He made a humming noise. “Good thing.”

  We noticed Sayer at the same time, walking up the gravel drive. I only had seconds left with Gus to get what I could out of him. “Hey, answer a question for me.”

  “What?”

  “If your dad’s dead, how are you here?” His expression didn’t give anything away. “I mean, how did you get out? Don’t they need you back in DC?”

  His expression softened, turning curious and more… gentle. It was disconcerting. I immediately put my guard up.

  “Caro, the operation in DC was shut down.”

  My spinning mind screeched to a halt. The earth and time and all of space tripping over their feet, slamming to a stop right behind me. One colossal rear-end collision after another. What? What did he say?

  “Say that again?”

  “The entire upper echelon of management was arrested. Did you not see it on the news? Roman, Dymetrus, Aleksander, the two spies… all of them. It was a giant FBI takedown.”

  “H-how is that possible?”

  “There’s nothing left in DC.”

  While I stood there dumbfounded and completely upended, Sayer walked into the office. My glare turned to him. He didn’t think this was a piece of information I would want to know? He didn’t think mentioning it might have been helpful? When he was practically dry-humping me against his cabin?

  And then—and then—he had the nerve to speak.

  “Did you forget something this morning, Six?”

  My mind was too jumbled to figure out what he meant. “No?”

  “My wake-up call,” he bit out. “At seven. That’s what I’m paying for.”

  I chomped down on my bottom lip and contemplated the best way to dispose of a body. I glanced up at the security camera that focused on the front office. I couldn’t have witnesses. “Can I, uh, talk to you for a second? In the back?”

  He raised his eyebrows and I noticed he was without glasses today. I wanted to know what the deal was with them. I wanted to know if he was wearing contacts now and when he’d gotten them and how bad his eyesight was and why I even cared. Good grief.

  “Lead the way.”

  I was surprised he was so willing to follow me. Maybe he didn’t realize how murderous I was. Or maybe he thought his big, tough muscles could protect him. But he was about to find out that hell hath no fury like a woman left in the complete dark!

  Pushing open the door to Maggie’s office, I gestured for him to go walk inside. He did. I shut the door behind us and glanced around for the closest weapon.

  He took a seat on the top of Maggie’s ultra clean desk, his legs spread wide, a boyish smirk tilting that wicked mouth of his. “Got something on your mind, Six?”

  My hands were perched on my hips and my toe was tapping a hole through the floor. “The DC syndicate is shut down?”

  His head dropped back and his fists gripped the edge of the desk. I heard him growl, “Fucking, Gus,” at the ceiling.

  I didn’t know what to think of that response. But I clung to my anger and decided to push for answers until one of us broke.

  “Sayer, what the hell? You didn’t think that maybe you should have led with that when you rolled into town? You didn’t think that was maybe something I would want to know? Are you kidding me?”

  He straightened, crushing me with that furious gaze of his. I thought he was going to yell at me again, but his careful words were ice cold, not explosive. “It’s not exactly a secret. It was all over the news.”

  “I watch the news, Sayer. I never saw anything about it.” But had I been watching the news recently? I’d kind of let that slip. I’d been busy at work. And national news wasn’t necessarily something I wanted my four-year-old to see. So maybe I’d been slipping.

  Maybe I hadn’t been quite as on top of things as I should have been.

  Sayer lifted one shoulder. “Regardless, it was there.”

  His lack of angry engagement let some of the air out of my fury. I was still pissed. And paranoid. And freaking irritated. But I was less… ragey. “So that’s how you got out? They went to prison. You got early release. And now you’re in retirement?”

  “Something like that.”

  I tapped my fingers against my hip bones, trying to decide if my next question was worth it, if I even cared. After I’d sufficiently chewed my lip and worn holes in my jeans, I huffed out a breath and gave into my curiosity. “And my dad? Was he one of the guys arrested?”

  Sayer watched me for a minute without answering. We were yin and yang, total opposites. I was nothing but nervous energy, a ball of frenetic electrons that couldn’t sit still or be still or do anything but wait in uptight anxiety.

  And he was nothing but calm. His body was relaxed on the desk, his expression reserved, thoughtful. His hands still rested on the desk, not fidgeting, not moving, not trying to convince himself he didn’t care.

  “Listen, I don’t have a lot of love for your dad,” he told me.

  “Yeah, me either.”

  “But.” I stopped wiggling and blew out a steadying breath. Sayer continued, “Before Gus and I left there were rumors that he was in debt in a big way. Severed hands kind of big way.”

  A nervous flutter circled in my hollowed belly. The bratva were brutal with people that crossed them or didn’t live up to their promises. A bookie that couldn’t settle his own debts would be high on their intolerance list.

  Which meant they would take a hand.

  Depending on how bad his debt was, they could take both.

  “So is he okay now that everyone is gone?”

  Sayer’s head bobbed back and forth. “He didn’t necessarily owe the Volkov money, Six. He had debts all over town.”

  “If he didn’t owe the pakhan money, why would they take his hands?”

  He looked away. “Shame? They’re embarrassed of him? He’d dragged their name through the dirt. I don’t know, Caroline. Why do they do anything that they do? All I heard was that they wanted their pound of flesh and planned to get it. Then… I don’t know. There was a deal or something. Leon figured out how to pay them some other way.”

  “But now he doesn’t have protection. Is that what you’re saying? The bratva is gone and my dad is on his own?”

  “The bosses were pretty much done with him before they went away. It’s possible that he hasn’t had protection for a long time.”

  There was a moment of insanity where I thought about going back to save him. Again. Just a tiny pinch in my gut that felt sorry for him because he was my family. I wondered how much he owed. Did I even have enough to cover it? Some of it? Surely I could cover some of it. Just enough to get the whole city to stop breathing down his neck.

  “Stop,” Sayer ordered.

  I looked back to him. “What?”

  “Stop trying to figure out how to rescue him. You can’t.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “Think it all the way through, Caro. You’d have to resurface. You’d have to step into the open. The bratva is spread out, but they’re not dead. And the pakhan are locked away for now, but how long will that last? Think of the consequences. You knew what you were doing when you left five years ago. He is not worth stepping out of hiding to save. You know that.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “He’s my dad.”

  “Yeah? And I was the fucking love of your life and you
didn’t save me. Don’t you dare throw this away for that piece of shit. He’s used you your entire life. You’re not going to let him use you now. Not after you got out.”

  He was right. And I hated him for it. “You should have told me sooner.”

  “Because we’re being so open and honest with each other?”

  His snide comment reminded me that I did want him to be open and honest with me. The information about the Volkov was easily searchable, so I doubted he was lying about that. But there was more I wanted to know. Was he seriously out? Or was Colorado his attempt to lie low? What did he really want here? How did I get all my stuff back? When was he going to leave?

  I decided to change tactics. Nagging him clearly wasn’t working. But there were other ways to kill a man. Like with kindness. Running a hand through my hair, I let out a puff of air. “Thanks for telling me.” I let real emotion roughen my voice and tears fill my eyes. I was a wide-eyed puppy begging for attention. “Thanks for being honest.”

  His laser eyes moved over me, taking me in, noticing every small detail. “Come here,” he demanded.

  Why was on the tip of my tongue. But contrite girls weren’t paranoid, they were compliant. I stepped toward him, slumping my shoulders and giving him the best poor me I could manage.

  He hooked his finger in the pocket of my jeans and tugged me into the space between his legs. He pulled me closer, until I was pressed against him, his inner thighs, his abdomen, the space between those two places.

  Sayer captured my gaze in his, a prisoner held hostage by the enemy. I tried to take a step back, fear nipping at my resolve to stay in character. He tugged me back against him.

  “Don’t stop now,” he murmured, his voice throaty with promise and vengeance and a dare. “You want something. Now isn’t the time to back down.”

  “I don’t,” I whispered, my voice choked with fear. “I shouldn’t have—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. What shouldn’t I have done? Any of this.

  Any of it starting with when I was a little girl before Sayer even showed up.