by Maddie Wade
“Right you guys get back to your families. I am going to get a shower and sort my shit out and then I’ll be over. I need some Mateo time.” She rounded the table and reached out to her brother and sister, pulling them in for a hug. “Love you guys so much,” she said through a throat clogged with emotion.
“Love you too Bratfink,” Dane said as he mussed her already messy hair up.
Lizzie kissed her cheek and hugged her extra hard as she left.
After they had left Lucy went and showered, and used the time to sort through her thoughts. She had instantly thought the worst about Lizzie and the vibe she was getting from Dane and Lizzie was that there was definitely a lot more at work here than the obvious cheating scenario.
Jace had never given her a reason to believe that he didn’t want to be with her and in all the time she had known him he had never lied to her or shown any hint of duplicitous behaviour. Maybe she should insist he tell her the truth, no matter how painful it might be for them both. She knew she could deal with truth, what she couldn’t do was make sense of the shit her head made up for lack of knowledge.
Deciding she had a plan, she finished blow-drying her hair and applied a light layer of make-up to her ravaged face and hoped her dad wouldn’t notice. She refused to think about Megan, shutting down any thoughts of that part of it, her emotions were too close the surface and her feelings too mixed up.
Today was Boxing Day, and she would spend it with her family. Lucy’s tummy did a little hiccup at the irony of that because Megan was her family too, it just seemed too surreal to think she was out there somewhere.
Chapter Four
This had been the right thing to do. Spending the day with her family felt right and as Lucy lay on the floor playing with Matteo and his new Scalextric she felt more than ready to face whatever Jace had to say.
When she had arrived at Dane and Lauren’s place her dad had handed her an Irish coffee and an enveloping hug that had grounded her and bolstered her like nothing else did. All her life she had been a daddy’s girl, whether by design or default she didn’t know. He had always sensed when something was up, and she had felt him watching her carefully as the day wore on.
He had cornered her in the kitchen after a massive lunch of cold meats, cheeses, bread, salads, and sherry trifle. “What’s going on Princess?” He’d inquired with a studious look at her still slightly red-rimmed eyes.
“Nothing Dad just a misunderstanding with Jace and me.” She had looked away as she hadn’t wanted him to see the pain that she struggled to hide in her eyes.
How could she tell him the daughter that he still believed dead was possibly carrying her boyfriend’s baby? It fucked with her head, what would it do to her dad?
They had all agreed that until Megan was safe he shouldn’t know anything. Why get his hopes up when in such a dangerous situation where anything could happen, and he could end up mourning her again.
“Well, you should talk it out. That boy loves you and a love like that is once in a lifetime. You take it from me.” Her father had no idea how his words slayed her and yet at the same time made her want to fight for them. The more she thought about it, the more she believed that this was something other than what it seemed.
“I will Dad. I’m going to go see him tonight.”
“Good girl. You always were my bravest child.” He said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her hair. Lucy fought back the tears that suddenly flooded her eyes at the emotion those words made her feel. Family really was everything to her. It was a shame she hadn’t learned that lesson before, while her mum was still here.
“Hey, I just realised I haven’t seen Drew. Is he here?” She asked looking around as if he might suddenly appear. At that moment, Lauren walked into the room and Lucy took a moment to admire her quickly expanding waistline and the glow from her soon to be sister-in-law.
“He went to see a friend for a few hours, but he should be back soon,” Lauren interjected.
“Do we mean a friend or a friend?” Lucy asked giving air quotes.
“By the stupid grin he has been wearing for the last week I would say friend as in of the female variety.”
“Well good for him,” Lucy said smiling, “that boy needs some fun.”
“He does, but he needs to be careful, not all women are sweet like us,” Lauren said in half jest, causing Lucy to laugh. “What?” Lauren queried.
“You look like you might rip out the heart of whoever might decide not to play nice with poor Drew.”
“I do not!” Lauren defended laughingly and threw the tea towel at Lucy.
“Now, now girls. Drew is a big boy and can look after himself,” said Colin. Hooking an arm over them he steered them towards the living room where Lizzie and Dane were playing Jenga with Matteo.
Dane looked up, and his eyes automatically went to Lauren making Lucy smile, but also making the pang in her chest throb. She wondered if she and Jace would ever have that.
Lauren went and folded herself into Dane’s lap, and Lucy scooted in close to Lizzie throwing her legs over her sister as she had as a kid.
“Who we gossiping about now?” Dane asked.
“We aren’t gossiping.” Lucy denied, “We were just talking about Drew and his friend.” She said, again doing the universal sign for air quotes.
“Oh, who is it this week?” Dane asked nonchalantly as he stroked his hand absently over Lauren’s tummy. Lauren turned to him, “What do you mean this week?”
“Well he might be quiet, but that boy has form. He has a new text from a different girl at least once a day.”
“Why didn’t I know this?” Lauren asked sitting up in Danes lap and looking slightly miffed.
“Because honey, it’s the bro code and we don’t talk about it with girls.” As he said it, he gently trapped her hands from the slap she might give him and laughed as he buried his head in her shoulder. As predicted, Lauren squinted in outrage and pinched him on the side.
“Ouch, that hurt,” Dane, exclaimed still laughing.
“Good, now spill it buster.” She then whispered in his ear and whatever it was did the trick because he fessed up.
“Drew has been sowing his oats for a while now. He keeps it clean, though, and I had a word with him about doing things right and not hurting anyone.”
Lucy rolled her eyes as she and Lizzie shared a look. Lizzie was rubbing her feet as she had when Lucy was a child. It was comforting and familiar and made her feel content.
Drew came home an hour later and stopped when everyone, including Colin, gave him a big grin.
“What?”
“Nothing,” everyone chorused, and then they all cracked up laughing, even Matteo who had no idea what they were all laughing about.
They spent the rest of the day eating leftover turkey and drinking Advocaat snowballs.
Lucy sat up and tucked her feet under her bum; her side leaning on the arm of the sofa, she stroked’ Mateo’s soft dark hair. He was lying with his head on her leg and his feet across his mum. They were all watching Harry Potter. Dane and Lauren were cwtched into the armchair together, with her sat on his lap, her head on his shoulder.
Drew was sitting on the floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him and a bottle of Hobgoblin in his hand. Her dad was snoozing in the chair his arms crossed over his ever so slightly rounded belly.
Her mind drifted to Jace, and she wondered what he was doing and if he was okay. She felt a pain in her chest when she thought about what she had heard. Although she now knew it wasn’t Lizzie and God, would she ever forgive herself for ever thinking it? It still didn’t take away from the fact he had slept with Megan though.
The pain intensified as she thought about someone else touching him and kissing him and doing all the things she wanted to do with her Jace. But that was the problem, he wasn’t her Jace, never had been and maybe never would be.
What she couldn’t understand was why after everything he had said, he would do that.
He’d said he had wanted for them to be together for years, so why at the first chance he got did he sleep with Megan? Mateo fidgeted on her leg as she stopped stroking his hair. He loved having his hair stroked, it had always relaxed him, even as a baby.
Kissing his head, she rose, “I’m getting a drink baby boy cuddle up to mummy.” Lizzie looked at her with a question in her big brown eyes.
“You okay sweetie?”
“Yeah, just need some air and a refill,” she lifted her glass and squeezed Lizzie’s hand as she went by. She had done enough to upset Lizzie; the last thing she wanted was her worrying about her.
Walking through the beautiful kitchen, Lucy grabbed her black Under Armour jacket and her phone from the hook by the back door and stepped out into the cool air of the back patio area. It was so beautiful with a light dusting of snow on the ground from earlier that afternoon, and the sky was clear and dark all the stars twinkling and bright. It was the sort of night that people wrote about or was shown in the movies.
Sitting on the bench that ran along the low herb garden Lauren had planted, she took out her phone. Her fingers were cold, but she didn’t care. Lucy flicked to the photo album on her phone and started going through the pictures there.
So many memories mostly happy, Dane and Lauren at Hay Bluff, her dad at the BBQ at home, a burnt sausage held between tongs and a laugh on his face. Mateo at Easter with his haul of eggs. Daniel and Claire with Paige at last year’s Halloween party.
Her heart stuttered, and her hand clenched around the phone at the next picture. It was her and Jace last New Year’s Eve. She had been wearing a gold off the shoulder, slouch jumper dress. Her hair pinned messily on top of her head. There had been a party put on by Zack and Jace had come with Dane. Everyone had teased them about being a couple.
In the picture, she and Jace were seated together on a small chaise lounge in the reception of the Green Dragon Hotel. She had taken a selfie on one of those selfie sticks. They were laughing at something; she couldn’t remember what now, probably something random. They had the same silly sense of humour. Their heads were close together, hands and knees touching as they smiled into the screen.
She swallowed as the tears came to her eyes and she blinked hard to beat them back. They looked so happy. She wondered if they would ever have that again. That easy camaraderie. Closing the picture app on her phone, she rubbed her freezing hands together and looked back towards the house.
One thing she did know, she needed answers. She wasn’t stupid or wet behind the ears. The life she had led before Zack recruited her had hardened her in some ways, but in others, it had made her fiercely protective of those she cared about and she knew that.
She wondered what her family would think if they ever found out about the other life she had led. Dane, she knew would freak out. It didn’t matter how big or capable she was she was still his baby sister, and he would always want to protect her. There were some things though that he couldn’t protect her from.
The people from her past were deadly, and she didn’t really want to get involved with them again. If her connection to them though could help find Megan, Smithy and the others, and put a stop to The Divine Watchers, then she would do it. She had resisted reaching out to them up until now, despite the dire situation with Noah. She really hadn’t wanted to open herself or her family up to that part of her life again, but maybe it was time to get in touch with her old boss and see if she could help.
The need to know what had happened to Jace and Smithy was like a driving force. All of a sudden she felt compelled to end this. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t believe that Jace had willingly seduced Megan while he was a prisoner of The Divine Watchers. It wasn’t his style. Some might think her stupid or gullible for not wanting to believe the worst of Jace, but she didn’t care. Until she knew the whole story, she would give him the benefit of the doubt.
Her thoughts turned to Megan, and she wondered at the woman she had become. Being with her dad today had made her realise that although he lived a full life and loved them all, he still had a hole where her mother and Megan should have been.
She wanted nothing more than to fill that void for him and bring Megan home. Maybe then, some of the guilt would ease up. Yes, that’s what she would do. She would use her old life to give her dad his daughter back. She just had to find a way to do it without Dane losing his mind.
Pulling up her contacts, she shot off a text to Zack to meet herASAP. A couple of minutes later she got a reply. He would meet her at his house in the morning. That was good enough. Tonight, she would go home and see if she could make contact with her old boss through the old methods they had used. Fingers crossed it was still worked.
Lucy rose realising her bum had gone numb. She stamped her feet to get some blood moving to her cold butt, but turned sharply when she heard a noise out towards the fields that bordered Dane’s property. Her hand automatically going to her waist for a gun that wasn’t there.
It had started to snow again, and it made her visibility blurry. She scanned the area looking for any sign of movement and saw nothing. The landscape was still, she tried to quiet her breathing so that she could hear anything that might be out there. The silence in the air that always came from snow falling made it feel like everything was frozen in time. She was about to go and check it out when a fox streaked across the lawn and into the field on the other side.
Lucy let out a breath and relaxed her stance. It was just a fox. This Divine Watchers shit was making everyone edgy. Laughing to herself, she went in to say her goodbyes to her family. She was buzzed now and eager to get started on her mission. She needed to find out the truth about Jace and reunite her dad with his lost daughter.
Chapter Five
Jace had spent the last two days absolutely shit faced, but now it was time to get his head out of his ass and stop feeling sorry for himself. The only way to sort this shit out was to find Smithy and Megan so that he could find out if those sick fuckers had gone through with their disgusting idea to impregnate one of their lead scientists with his child.
His delicate stomach pitched and churned at the thought. His child, God he could hardly comprehend it. He wanted kids; he always had, but not like this. He wanted to be married, preferably to the mother, who in his fantasies had always been his Lucy, not as some awful experiment for a sick twisted cult.
He dragged himself slowly from his bed feeling more mentally focused than he had since before he was captured. Now he just had to get his hungover body on board. His jaw had a three-day stubble on it that he just couldn’t be arsed to shave. Scraping his hand over his face, he tried to rub the remains of a headache away.
He definitely needed a shower, though. He stunk like a brewery, the alcohol leaking out of his pores. Standing, he stretched out the kinks from his body and headed for the bathroom, his limbs loosening as he walked. Stepping into the small bathroom, he turned the shower to hot and stepped in letting the steaming water wash away the alcohol from his body.
He soaped his body and hair quickly, and his thoughts turned to Lucy, wondering if she was okay. His mind drifted to the kiss they had shared in the gym at Warrior. He could almost taste her sweet lips, and in his mind’s eye he pictured her, the sexy image of her heaving breasts and the desire that had flooded her eyes as he had backed her into the wall had him reaching for his cock that was hard and almost painful.
He hissed as his hand made contact with his cock. Stroking the length, he braced his other hand against the tile wall as the hot shower hit his back. Jace kept Lucy’s face in his head as he pictured the sultry looks she had given him at Dane and Lauren’s engagement party and the dance they had shared.
He increased the speed of his hand as he felt his orgasm boil up from his balls and zing along the base of his spine. It hit him hard, and his knees almost gave out at the intensity of it. Releasing his dick, he let the now softening member go with self-disgust. Here he was getting off on the thought of Lucy, and she was heartbroken because
she thought he had betrayed her.
He finished showering quickly and stepped out of the shower drying off swiftly. He put on jeans and a long sleeve thermal top and went to grab some fresh coffee from the coffee shop down the road from him. He needed to see Zack and get some plans made to end this shit.
~~~
Lucy had spent most of the night leaving a series of coded messages on different sites on the dark web for Roz. Every time she would leave one, she would get a message back to visit a different site. Once she had passed all the tests, she had been given a phone number.
She had called it, and the pre-recorded messages had told her to be at the entrance to the Mappa Mundi at 1pm on New Year’s Eve. The hoops she had had to jump through to get Roz to meet her hadn’t surprised her. The woman was the most suspicious person she had ever met.
She had also taught Lucy everything she knew about weapons and the secretive world of an assassin. Although Roz hated to be called an assassin as she thought of it as more public service and believed wholeheartedly in the work she did.
Lucy had been her best student and had taken to the job so well after that first mission, which was meant to be a one-time gig, that she had hired Lucy away from GCHQ. She’d been able to keep her cover though, as whomever Roz worked for had some links to the government.
Roz had been really pissed with her when Lucy left and told her if she ever contacted her, again she would kill her. Lucy just hoped that when they met Roz’s affection for Lucy won out over her anger and hurt feelings.
Lucy hoped that Roz could forgive her and understand that after what had happened she just couldn’t continue with that kind of work. She knew she was finished as soon as that bullet left the chamber and she realised they had targeted the wrong man. But it had been too late. Lucy did not miss, and she hadn’t that day either, and an innocent man had died. She still saw his face in her dreams sometimes.
Lucy jumped up from the sofa where she had taken a nap. She had an hour before she met Zack, so striding purposefully to the kitchen she put on some coffee then ran and grabbed a quick shower while it brewed. Dressed in her skinny black jeans, cream vee necked cashmere jumper, and her black over the knee stiletto boots, she poured the coffee into a travel mug, and grabbed her black leather jacket, keys and phone and headed for her Mazda.
