Buried Lies (Hidden Truths)

by Brittney Sahin

  She moved toward me with slow steps, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that strained in just the right way over her breasts. “I know I shouldn’t be here, but you wouldn’t return my messages, and I really need to talk to you.” She pressed a hand to her chest and released a breath.

  I reached for the gun and began to load the ammo in the clip. Her eyes lingered over my weapon, and I wondered if it frightened her.

  “I need you to meet with Declan tomorrow,” she said in a low voice.

  “I told you no.”

  “He’s going to fire me if you don’t show.” Her voice was laced with desperation.

  “He can’t fire you because of that.” Earmuffs on and safety off, I raised my gun and aimed at the target of bin Laden. I should’ve offered her earmuffs, but I was too angry to give a damn.

  The bullet pierced the target in the chest, and I lowered the gun and glanced over my shoulder at her.

  She stepped up to me with her hands on her hips.

  “What?” I let the earmuffs drop to my neck as I trained my eyes on hers.

  “Tell me what to shoot. If I get it, then you’ll come tomorrow.”

  Was she out of her mind?

  “Come on. I know you love to gamble.”

  All the times we’d been to Atlantic City . . . I tried not to smile. “Sorry. No deal.” I turned back, but her hand on my shoulder held me fast.

  “I can’t lose this job, Connor. Please.” She leaned closer, her perfume suffocating me.

  “Just make something up.” She’d always been good at lying. Why stop?

  I raised my arm to shoot.

  The slug tore at the paper, off to the side of the target’s head.

  Shit. I never missed.

  “I’ll escort you out. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Connor.”

  “What?” I shouted, immediately regretting the vile tone of my voice. But damn, I hated her—well, I was trying to. But my restraint was weakening . . . and I couldn’t stand feeling weak.

  “Just show up tomorrow. You don’t have to do the deal, but he thinks I’m the reason you left Vegas. If he blames me, I’m done.”

  “You are the reason I left.” I set the gun down and pressed my palms against the table, leaning forward a little, trying to maintain self-control.

  “Could you stop being so stubborn?”

  “Could you stop being so beautiful?” I snapped back without checking the filter on my mouth first.

  Her eyes widened, but I rubbed a hand over my face in one quick movement and shook off the irritation that was at its peak. “Fine. Shoot the target between the eyes, and I’ll go tomorrow. Miss, and I never have to see you again.”

  It was the easiest solution to my problem—she’d never make it.

  She grabbed the 9mm and studied me over her right shoulder. “A little space, please.”

  I held up my hands and took a few steps back. Now all I could focus on was her trim waist, which led to her hips and her perfect, heart-shaped ass.

  When the bullet whistled free from the gun, my gaze drifted to the target and my mouth dropped open. Not just a little open—jaw to the floor.

  It couldn’t just be luck. No one picks up a 9mm one day and makes such a flawless shot. Hell, she hadn’t even flinched. “What in the hell is going on?”

  She set the gun down and shrugged. “I told you I took self-defense lessons, didn’t I?”

  To say I was turned on was an understatement, and I sure as hell hoped she didn’t glance down at my jeans.

  “What time is the meeting?” I asked with defeat.

  “Just come to the club tomorrow night. The later, the better.”

  “Fine.”

  “Thank you.” She lifted her fingers to her collarbone. “Have dinner with me? You can call it a business dinner if you want.”

  My gaze dipped to her long fingers. For a brief moment, I wished it was my hand so close to her heart.

  “Why?”

  “I—”

  “Is that sushi bar we used to go to on Wall Street still open?” No. What was I thinking?

  A long pause, and rasp to her voice, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s find out.” I had no idea what had possessed me to agree. I motioned for her to exit and I walked behind her, trying my best not to check her out as she moved.

  “Thank you again for tomorrow,” she said before moving through the doors of the elevator. Her cheeks reddened. Perhaps she remembered our elevator kiss, just as I had.

  “I can’t make any promises that I’ll do business with him, but I’ll show. A bet is a bet.” We walked to the parking garage, and she stopped in front of a red Audi.

  “A company car,” she said after she noticed me eyeing the car. It was a high-priced ride for a personal assistant.

  “I’m pretty sure we only offer Fords at our office.”

  Olivia smirked. “You think you’ll keep referring to the company as yours? Is it growing on you?” She opened her car door.

  “No. I’m much better at dodging bullets,” I said.

  ***

  Olivia

  I had a job to do, but I had to keep reminding myself that my past with Connor couldn’t interfere with the end goal.

  But Connor was innocent. He had to be. His father, on the other hand, was a bastard. Would he have been in business with Declan, though? Edward Matthews may have been a world class jerk, but was he a criminal?

  Snagging a spot in front of the restaurant was pure luck, especially at this time of day. The place was still open after all these years, and part of me was disappointed. I didn’t want to get close to Connor for the sake of my job. That wasn’t who I wanted to be.

  I tapped my fingers on my steering wheel, waiting for Connor to appear. My heart skipped into my throat at the sight of him. Nothing was sexier to me than a man in well-worn jeans, and God did Connor know how to wear them.

  He caught sight of me and rubbed a large hand over his face, probably contemplating what in the hell he was doing with me.

  I gulped, opened my door, and closed the distance between us. “Hi.”

  “Guess it’s still here.” He swung the door open and took a step back, allowing me entrance.

  “Thanks.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and walked past him, trying to ignore the heat that radiated from his body.

  “Two,” I told the host. “A booth, if you have one.”

  “Sure,” the host responded, and we followed him to our table.

  It was a small place—nothing fancy at all. But the best food in town, in my opinion, was usually from some cheap hole-in-the-wall place. Connor and I had once made it our mission to eat at every sushi restaurant in New York. But eventually, we gave up, because none was better than this one.

  “I can’t believe you never ate sushi before me.”

  “I ate sushi.” I slid into the seat across from him.

  “California rolls don’t count. I’m talking about the kind that—”

  I rushed a hand in front of my face. “Don’t tell me. You know the rule. I’ll try anything as long as I don’t know what’s in it.”

  “When was the last time you ate sushi?”

  With you. But I didn’t want to tell him that. It would seem—strange, at the least. “I don’t know. Anyway, order for me. Okay?”

  Once the waiter appeared and Connor ordered, he leaned back in the booth and propped his elbow up on the top of the seat, stretching his arm out. It shouldn’t feel this normal, this right, to be here with him.

  My eyes closed at the familiar lyrics playing in the trendy restaurant. It was a song about being locked away, a harsh reminder that I might have to arrest Connor if he wound up making a deal with Declan.

  My stomach tightened at the thought of Connor in handcuffs.

  “Olivia? You okay?” His hand was on my shoulder. I opened my eyes, and he pulled back and slipped both hands to his lap.

  I pushed a smile to my face. “Sure,” I lied. Lying was part of my
playbook now.

  But what lies did he know about me? Had his father told him the truth? Perhaps that was why I never saw him again after—no, I couldn’t think about that.

  “What’s going on, Liv?”

  Looking up from the table, I focused on his green eyes. God, he called me Liv, didn’t he? “I’m just stressed. Work has been challenging.”

  “Tell me about Declan. Should I trust him?”

  He shouldn’t. But I kept my mouth shut and did my job. I wouldn’t entrap him, though. “Declan is a bit of an asshole, to be honest.”

  He smirked at my response, and I realized how much I missed his smile. The dark stubble on his jaw was so damn sexy, too. He really rocked the five o’clock shadow. And the full beard. Okay, so basically he looked hot all the time.

  “He’s a narcissist and womanizer. But also a savvy businessman. Remember that club we used to hang out in? The one where we met?” Pain seared my insides at the memory.

  “How could I forget?” His voice was like velvet, soft over my skin.

  I hoped to hell he couldn’t see through me right now—to see behind the mask I’d been wearing to hide the pain. “He owns the club now. Well, sort of. He co-owns it.” I had to be careful not to say too much. I was giving away information I hadn’t learned from Declan but from my undercover op.

  “Really?”

  “His influence runs deep.” Like with the Russians. “Most people who work with him make a ton of money, including your father, I assume.” Did he know anything about his father’s dealings with Declan yet? “Declan must be a good business partner if your father was working with him.” My lies made me sick.

  Connor waved his hand in front of him. “I don’t exactly trust my father’s judgment.”

  “Yeah, you and me both.” Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. His facial expression didn’t change, so perhaps I was off the hook for that one. “Has Declan told you anything—”

  “Nothing important.”

  “It sounds like you aren’t really interested in continuing business with him, regardless of me.”

  “Doubtful.” He shrugged his shoulders but kept his eyes steadied on mine. He took a shallow breath and reached for his water again. Was I making him nervous?

  “Olivia, I—” His cell rang, cutting him off. “Sorry. I have to answer this.”

  “Sure.”

  “Jake. Hey, I was just going to call you tonight. You a mind reader?” Connor’s voice was lighter now, and less gritty. He must reserve his deep, throaty voice for me—it was all wrapped up in anger with a dash of sexual tension . . . okay, maybe more than a dash. I had it bad for him, too. But wanting him was wrong on so many levels.

  “What? Okay. Sure. Call you back in twenty.” He ended the call and reached for his wallet. “I’m sorry, I have to leave. Something important has come up.” He placed forty dollars on the table and stood up. “This has been . . . well, it’s been—”

  Yeah, I had no words either. “No problem. But I’ll see you at the club tomorrow, right?”

  He took a moment to consider my words and nodded at last. “See ya.”

  I pressed my elbows to the table and covered my face with my hands, trying to fight off the heartache.

  I hadn’t cried in almost ten years, and I wouldn’t start now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Connor

  “What’s up?” I sat on the edge of my desk and held the phone tight in my hands, worry gripping my body. The last time I’d seen Jake was at our friends, Kate and Michael’s, wedding.

  “What’s going on?” his Texas accent rang clear through the phone. “I just had someone in my office asking me about you.” Jake was a high-level FBI agent. Unlike me, he used a badge to help others.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got a call from some agent in the New York office. He started asking me questions about you. He said he wanted to give me a heads up as a courtesy, because he knew we served in the Marines together.”

  I scratched the back of my head and stared out the window. The sun was starting to dip out of sight behind the skyscrapers. “And?”

  “I asked him his name, and he said he couldn’t tell me anything. So, of course, I told him to go to hell.”

  What was going on?

  “I checked the system for any open investigations, but came up empty.”

  My mind scrambled and landed on the first thing that made sense. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “I was going to call you earlier. There has been some weird stuff going on since I took over my father’s company.”

  “God, I’m sorry. I meant to tell you I’m sorry about your father when I first called . . .”

  “No, it’s fine.” I pushed my fingers to my forehead. “Anyway, I was going to ask you to look into something for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “The day my father died, he went and got a safe deposit box at a bank he’d never used before. It’s shady, too. Like, I can’t open it without a key and passcode, or a court order. Why would my dad open it the day he died? And his personal driver, who’d been with my dad for just about forever, went missing right after my father passed.”

  “Really?”

  “It gets crazier.” I shook my head in disbelief. “My father’s company just developed a hand-held electromagnetic field gun.”

  Jakes gasped. “What? You can’t be serious. That’s not possible.”

  “If I hadn’t held the thing in my hand this morning, then I’d tell you it was bullshit.”

  “Wow. That’s nuts.”

  “But here’s the part I’m curious about. I met with this guy, Declan Reid. He runs Reid Enterprises, as well as several nightclubs. Declan said he had some sort of business arrangement with my father, but . . . I don’t know, I get a bad feeling about the whole thing.”

  “Hang on a sec. Let me see if I can pull something up.”

  I listened as Jake tapped at keys. “There has to be a connection between the call you got and this—right?”

  “I don’t know. There’s nothing in the system on Declan Reid, either. Of course, some investigations are sealed to avoid leaks.”

  I was on my feet, unable to shed my nervous energy. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I take it your father didn’t leave you the key and code to the safe deposit box?”

  “No, but—” I remembered the envelope my father’s lawyer had given to Mason and I. “Can you do me a favor? Can you take a look at the video footage on May sixteenth for the Capital James Bank in New York?”

  “Sure. What should I look for?”

  “Just verify my dad was there, and if you see anything out of the ordinary . . .”

  “And what was the driver’s name? I’ll try and locate him.”

  “Tyson Beckham.”

  “Want me to call Michael?”

  I thought about it for a second, but answered, “No.”

  “Oh come on. He lives for this shit.”

  “Hopefully it’s nothing. Besides, he just got back from his honeymoon. I don’t want to drag him into this.”

  “Alright. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks, man. I owe you. Ring me when you know something.” I hung up and started for the parking garage. I rushed to my Jeep and hopped inside the passenger seat. After unlocking the glove compartment, I searched for my father’s letter.

  “What the hell!” I grabbed the user’s manual and tossed it to the floor, along with a few receipts I’d stashed in there.

  Where was it?

  How could the letter be gone?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Connor

  I was wound tight, and the massive amount of caffeine I’d been consuming all day was doing nothing to help my nerves.

  Sitting inside my Jeep a block from The Phoenix, I read my brother’s message for the fifth time today. He had been unable to call me, so he emailed me. I had asked him what our father’s letter had said to h
im.

  Mason’s response was that it had basically been a one-page apology about his failure as a father, but how proud he was of him. Mason said the letter gave off the vibe that he knew his time was coming.

  He died of a heart attack, though. Nothing suspect given his prior heart problems. I scratched my jaw where the stubble was becoming itchy.

  Was I overreacting?

  No. A Fed was asking questions about me, and the letter my father gave me was now missing.

  Normally I wouldn’t be fazed by this kind of stuff. I was usually laid back when it came to high-tension situations.

  But now that it was my life, my leg was shaking and my brain sizzled.

  I still hadn’t heard back from Jake. With any luck, he’d turn up something and soon.

  I pulled my car up to the curb in front of the valet, adjusting my thin, gray tie before stepping out of my Jeep. I had decided to wear a suit tonight. Well, minus the blazer. For some reason, once I got out of the shower I went straight for the least damn comfortable thing in the closet.

  I tried to tell myself it had nothing to do with seeing Olivia.

  As I handed my keys to the valet, I paused and studied the young kid in front of me. The only time my keys had been out of sight were when they’d been with the valet at the club last time. Did one of these kids steal the letter?

  I couldn’t exactly round them up and ask them, but I’d have to look into it.

  I cursed under my breath as I made my way into the club, wishing I had opened the letter when I had the chance.

  The ideas and theories rattling around in my brain came to a screeching halt when I spotted Olivia sitting at the bar. Her body was partially turned, her profile showing.

  I stopped walking and tried to tear my gaze away from the red sleeveless dress that hugged her body. Her toned legs were crossed, and she was sporting red heels to match her dress.

  She’d worn a similar dress the night we’d celebrated New Years’ Eve in Toronto. We had been standing out in line waiting to get into an event at a club. The snow pounded us. As we hugged each other in line, trying to fight the biting wind, we promised ourselves that we’d spend our next New Years together somewhere warmer. Much warmer.