Men-of-Action-Seres-04 -Saints and Sinners

by Capri Montgomery

  “You’re alive,” Alaina’s shock registered in her voice. It wasn’t possible. He had died. He had been in that car and she saw it blow up. She saw him die. “After all this time,” she shook her head trying to clear the fog of emotions. This was her father, and he was alive. But if he had been alive all that time then where had he been, why had he let her think he was Saints and Sinners 172

  dead? If she weren’t seeing him right now, standing in front of her with a gun in his hand, she still wouldn’t believe it.

  “I needed her to pay for what she had done to me. You were just a…casualty,” he let those words flow from his lips effortlessly. “I tried to leave you out of it as much as I could. I wasn’t going to blow the car until Trey dropped you off at home. I figured, as he backed out the driveway I could do it then, but then you, you were the same perfectly dimwitted Alaina. I always loved that about you—the fact that you could forget some things and never forget others. You getting out of that car to go back for your book bag gave me the perfect opportunity. Blow the car, have two credible witnesses. It was perfect. Your tears were heart wrenching, for a moment, but then I remembered why I had done what I did. I knew there was no going back.”

  He had murdered a man. He had tried to kill her. “I take it he didn’t know what you had planned or he wouldn’t have agreed to be in that car.”

  Sean laughed. “No, he didn’t know. I made up a story about needing a few months away without being fully away. He looked so much like me with his build, height, and skin tone…we could have been twins, except for some features on his face. That’s where the good doctor came in. After he finished with him he looked exactly like me. I coached him for speech perfection, made sure his tone was correct. He had a tendency to speak like a businessman anyway, so all seemed perfect. Except for the Capri Montgomery 173

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  scar. I didn’t think anybody would really notice. Liz and I hadn’t touched each other in years. And you, well…you would have been easy to fool.” She had seen the scar, she had never noticed it before…at least she hadn’t thought she had, but she had dismissed it. “I would have asked about it eventually.”

  “I know. But what I had planned would have been done before you had a chance to ask. He thought he was picking you up from school as a test run to see if he could pull it off. I guess he did,” he laughed again.

  “Nobody noticed a thing.”

  “You did all of this to get back a Liz? You had me abducted—”

  “I made sure they didn’t hurt you. They were paid well not to hurt you. I should have known Liz would do something that would still make her look like a hero. My plan had failed too many times. My death was supposed to show her up for the bitch that she was, but it didn’t. Instead she came off looking like a hero, a mother who should be praised for getting you through tough times. Having you abducted wasn’t my first option, Alaina. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

  Tony had told me of her plans to run for president and I knew this was my way to make her tip her hand, show her cards…but that failed too. She sent the best man in for you and the tax payers didn’t care that it cost a mint to do it. Her popularity rating shot up. The only thing left, the only thing I could do, was this.”

  “Kill me? You could kill your own daughter?” Saints and Sinners 174

  “I have to. With Tony linked to this…the rumors will fly so fast that she won’t win. There’s no way she can win.” He was so sure of himself, so sure this was the only way.

  “I trusted you. I loved you. I worshiped the ground you walked on because you were my father and you couldn’t do anything half as bad as Liz. My whole life I’ve spent walking around remembering you as a good man and in reality you’re no better than she is. You hate her so much that you can’t even see you are her.” She was angry, but that wasn’t part of the pain that was ripping her apart from the inside out. Her entire life had been a lie, both of her parents were fanatically crazy selfish people, and now she knew it. All these years and now she knew the fairytale memory, the prince she thought her father was, had all been lies.

  “Don’t say that,” he refocused the gun on her, moving it higher to point at her heart.

  “You killed Troy too, didn’t you?”

  “He got too close, figured everything out. He started digging, trying to figure out why those idiot bastards that went to prison for my murder was sitting on death row when the evidence had been so shaky against them. The more he dug, the more he found…he found out I was alive. He found out I had the doctors killed to cover my tracks. He found that nurse,” he shook his head. “She didn’t know what she had, but that man of yours was sharp. He figured it out. Tony set up a fake meeting; he offered him something more than speculation to write for his story. He offered him irrefutable proof. But no, I didn’t kill him—not directly. I Capri Montgomery 175

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  only took out Trey and Doctor Robert Faulkner the senior. Tony handled everything else.”

  So that was what Troy had went to pick up, proof that he thought was going to break open the case, set two innocent—mostly innocent—men free. They were sitting on death row for a crime they didn’t commit. “How could you? Did you hate us that much? Did you hate me that much?”

  “This wasn’t about you, Alaina. He found out and he had to be shut up. He was going to tell you, and you would have advised him to do the right thing, to tell his story to the police, to the world. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “I watched you die,” she said absently. “Do you have any idea how much that hurt me? Then you took away Troy. You might not have been the person to execute that supposed accident, but you killed him. You’re responsible for all of those deaths. You’re a murderer. You destroy without mercy and you cover it with blankets of excuses that mean nothing to the people whose life you ruin.”

  “Shut up,” he said it so calmly, but the timbers of his voice sent fear rocketing through her. He would kill her. He had to kill her. She was the only person left who knew he was alive—other than Tony. She figured he would probably kill him too if need be.

  “You and Liz were perfect for each other. As much as you hated her, you never realized you are her. You’re evil, vindictive, selfish…the Saints and Sinners 176

  difference is, Liz never killed anybody to get ahead. So maybe in that respect, she’s better than you.”

  “Alaina all grown up,” he took the safety off his gun. “I liked you better when you were a dimwitted kid. Your mouth now just reminds me that you are your mother’s child. With one bullet I’m going to be able to put you and the world out of its misery. You’ll die, and Tony will admit that he overheard Liz hiring a man to murder you. It’s perfect. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.” He shrugged. “Lights out, Alaina.” She heard two shots, saw her father’s body hit the floor just before hers. Events didn’t register until she saw Sully bursting through the front door. The side door window had been shot out. He had shot it out. He had shot her father, and her father had shot her.

  “Alaina,” Sully ran to her and dropped to one knee.

  “I’ve been shot again,” she moaned. “In the same arm.” The hard lines of his face told her his anger was just as high as hers, just as entrenched as hers.

  “It’s just a graze,” he pulled her up into his arms and walked into the sitting room, away from her father’s lifeless body. She imagined he was trying to mitigate the emotional nightmare she would have from seeing her father die—again—this time for real.

  “He wasn’t my father,” she said absently.

  “Alaina, he was…”

  “That’s not what I meant, Sully. I know that physically he was, but the shell of a man I saw today, the hate, the raw rage, that’s not the man I Capri Montgomery 177

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  knew as my father. I don’t know who he became, but I can’t believe that the entire ten years of my life was a lie.” She just couldn’t live with that.

  She came
from two parents who thought only of themselves. If that’s who they were, then what did that make her? She thought she had some good in her because of her father, but if he had always been this way then what good could he have passed down to her.

  “You’re nothing like them,” he said to her as if he had read her silent thoughts. “You are the woman you are because of who you choose to be everyday. You’re not them. You’re good, you’re beautiful inside and out. Don’t you dare let either of them take that away from you.” He placed his fingers on her chin and lifted her head so that their eyes could meet.

  “Do you understand me?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  She smiled. “Yes. I understand that.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I’m trying to,” she admitted. “I’m trying to believe I won’t become them.”

  “You won’t. You hate what they did too much to become them.”

  “Yeah,” she shook her head again. “You’re right. Free will and all that jazz. I’m me, my own person. And I’m nothing like either of them.”

  “Damn straight,” he admitted. “Ambulance is on its way. We’ll get that cleaned up for you.” He pointed to her arm, the same one she had been shot in before.

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  “It’s just a graze,” she shrugged. “Hardly seems worth fretting over.”

  He laughed. “You’re kidding me. I shot you and you went ballistic.”

  “I thought you were cute and I couldn’t believe you shot me while trying to rescue me. You completely broke my idea of what a rescuer would be like. Plus, it was so much fun watching you squirm every time I brought it up.”

  He shook his head. “You’re going to have to marry me for that one,” he smiled, looking deep into her eyes.

  “You want to marry me?”

  “I spent years with Kathryn before we got married, and I never felt for her what I feel for you. So yeah, I want to marry you. Will you have me as your family, Alaina?”

  Her lips turned upward. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, yes…do you think Teagan will be angry?”

  He shook his head. “It was her idea.”

  “What?”

  “Before we left that morning she kept saying how fun it would be to have you as a mother because you liked her and she liked you and I should listen to her nanna and just marry you.”

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  “My mom made the mistake of speaking in the same room as Teagan just because she thought she was napping on the couch. She said you were a good woman, and that I needed a good woman in my life.”

  “Mother and daughter know best,” she took his hand in hers.

  “I know best,” he leaned in and kissed her lips softly. “Now, I better put this gun out of my reach before those cops come bursting in here.”

  She watched him put the weapon out of his reach before returning to her side. The last thing either of them wanted was for him to get shot because the officers saw a gun in his hand.

  “How’s two months from now?”

  “Two months?” She tried to figure out what he meant.

  “For the wedding; will two months be okay?”

  “What about next month?” She didn’t need a big affair with gowns and loud music. All they needed was something small, something private where they could be surrounded by people who loved them.

  “Next month it is,” he said quickly. “And I’m not letting you out of it,” he winked.

  “I’m not trying to get out of it either. But I do have to warn you. I am the world’s worst sleeper. I have been known to kick things out of bed.”

  “You kicked me out of the bed,” he mumbled.

  “I did not.” She emphatically denied his claim.

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  “Yes, you did. The first night. I hit the floor hard. I was surprised I didn’t wake you up.”

  “Oh,” she sighed. “Sorry. I should have warned you earlier. We can do separate beds. It’ll be safer.”

  He shook his head no. “I’ll just be sure to move the bedside table and put down an air mattress so I’ll have something comfortable to land on when you kick me out of the bed again.” Now it was her turn to laugh. She had just gone through hell and somehow it didn’t seem to matter because she was with Sully and he, he was genuinely a good man. He wasn’t perfect, nor did he try to be, but he was honest, and noble, and good. And she loved him. No matter what her parents had done she wouldn’t let them destroy who she was and who she could become.

  “One more thing,” she leaned in close to him.

  “What?”

  “I want you to give me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A little boy,” she smiled. She wanted his son, their son.

  “When I get you home I will gladly work on granting your request, Alaina James.”

  “Alaina Masterson,” she corrected him. “We might as well get used to hearing it now.” She would still have to go by James in the art world, it was after all, the name on all of her artwork, but everywhere else she was going to be Alaina Masterson.

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  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Me too. And we can name our son Windsor.” He froze. “Excuse me?”

  “Your mom told me.”

  “My mom told you…”

  “That your middle name is Windsor? Yeah. Sully Windsor Masterson. It’s sounds very classy.”

  “I hate that name. There is no way we’re naming our son Windsor.”

  “I love it, and I think we should.”

  He trembled just thinking about it. “I think we can come up with something else before you give birth.”

  She shrugged. “All right, but if we don’t…Windsor is going on his birth certificate. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he said reluctantly. She was sure, as determined as Sully was, he would work non-stop at coming up with a name for their child, one that didn’t include his middle name.

  “Windsor Masterson,” she said.

  “Please stop.” He stood and brushed his hand over his head.

  “Sully Windsor Masterson Junior.”

  “No,” he shook his head. “Please don’t even think about it.” She laughed, hard, considering the events going on in the room around her she couldn’t understand how she could laugh, but being with Saints and Sinners 182

  Sully had a tendency to make her feel as if the world around her was going to be okay. “I rather like it.”

  “I hate it,” he mumbled.

  “Well, if you feel that strongly about it I guess we’ll have to think up something else. You better hurry. The way I see it, we’ve had enough unprotected sex that I might already be pregnant. And if I’m not, every night for the rest of our lives is bound to turn up something sooner rather than later.”

  “You’re right, I’d better hurry.”

  “Are the two of you okay,” Thomas approached.

  “You finally made it.”

  “You took off in my car—without me,” he reminded him. “I would have been here already if you hadn’t done that.”

  “Yeah…sorry about that.”

  Alaina shook her head.

  “Thomas,” he said to her. “We can name him Thomas. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been able to get to you in time.”

  “Name who Thomas?” Thomas stared at her inquisitively, as if trying to determine if they were talking about what he was now thinking about.

  “Our first son.”

  “First?” Sully looked at her incredulously.

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  “Unless you’re planning to invest in several boxes of condoms I’m guessing there will be more than one child. And if we have another girl we’ll definitely have to have another boy.” Thomas laughed. “I would tell you to have fun, Sully, b
ut I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you of that.” He laughed heartedly. “I’d be honored to be the inspiration for the little tyke’s name.” Alaina shrugged. “Hey, what’s going to happen to Tony?”

  “He started singing like the proverbial canary once the cops told them they had a witness who could paint the jury a vivid picture of him as the killer of the nurse. He’s going away for a long time after this.”

  “Good,” she mumbled. “There has been too much death because of them. Too much pain and suffering.”

  “Let’s get you to the hospital,” Sully guided her out the front door and down to the ambulance that had just arrived on scene.

  Alaina Masterson, she rolled the name around in her mind. She liked the sound of that, she liked it a lot.

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  Epilogue

  "My father and Tony worked together all that time?” Sully nodded affirmatively. “Your father paid off his father’s debt, to some really heavy hitters—mafia. Tony felt obliged to be loyal to Sean.

  When he infiltrated your mother’s inner circle he rooted himself in deep.” She nodded. Apparently, Tony had spent most of his life devoted to her father. All that time Liz thought she had a loyal errand boy. “What a messed up bunch of people,” she admitted.

  “At least it’s over. They can’t hurt you anymore.” She knew that. Her father was now really dead. Tony was awaiting trial, but it was a pretty much an “in the bag” case, or so they had been told, and Liz…well, Liz would always be Liz. She was working hard trying to spin the debacle to her political advantage. She would probably win too, because that’s what Liz did. She won at all cost. So far, most of Capri Montgomery 185

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  the news articles had been sympathetic to her; and why wouldn’t they be?