Wicked as Lies

by Shayla Black

  Son of a bitch.

  He released Cash and approached Tessa. “Why?”

  She gripped her purse tighter and picked up her laptop, clutching it against her chest as if it would somehow protect her from his anger. “Because he’s my daughter’s father, and I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  Because he meant nothing to her anymore. He’d been carrying this blazing torch for her for months…and she’d already snuffed out her flame for him and moved the fuck on.

  Still, he couldn’t let it go. Zy leaned into her personal space, so close he could see the glossy pout of her bottom lip and smell a hint of her perfume. He almost tasted the minty tea she’d been drinking earlier. Goddamn it, she was right in front of him, and he wanted to touch her so fucking badly that he hadn’t thought about anyone else in months. He sometimes woke in a sweat at night, craving her with an ache he was beginning to fear he’d never sate.

  And she was living with the ex who’d gotten her pregnant and left.

  Well, fuck.

  Zy tugged his keys out of his pocket. “You’re right. You don’t owe me a damn thing. You two lovebirds have a great weekend. I’m out.”

  Trees walked in the middle of the deplaning crowd toward the baggage claim. Zy knew his buddy instantly because he stood a head taller than everyone else. He also looked stressed, exhausted, and a terrible shade of green.

  His escape in Mexico must have been more harrowing than the bosses had led the rest of the team to believe.

  “Hey, man.” Zy gave him a bro-hug, fucking relieved to have his buddy back. “You made it.”

  “It was close.” Trees slung his duffel on his shoulder. “But yeah. Then I spent a worthless day at the hospital being poked and pumped full of fluids after puking up whatever drugs they slipped me at the restaurant. And Walker is still back there, suffering. I should never have left him.”

  Trees was as loyal as he was towering. It was one of the reasons Zy had clashed with his buddy in the first place. Where he came from, it was every man for himself. He hadn’t understood Trees’s steadfast nature until basic had almost ended. And thank God they’d formed a bond then, or he would never have survived the hell they’d endured next.

  “If you hadn’t, you and One-Mile would both be prisoners, and we would have no clue where to find either of you.”

  “I tell myself that…but all I can see is Walker in my rearview mirror being held down by thugs as they slammed his head into the asphalt.”

  Zy tried not to grimace. With every hour that ticked by, it seemed less likely that they’d ever find the snarky sniper alive. But they had to look. And they had to hope. If they didn’t, Trees was so distraught he might lose his shit. “Sorry. It’s been all hands on deck since we heard what happened.”

  “Still nothing?”

  “Nope. This all your luggage?” Zy gestured to the duffel.

  “Yeah.” Trees scowled his way as they headed to the parking lot in the waning afternoon sun. “You look about as shitty as I feel. What’s wrong?”

  Jesus, Zy didn’t want to talk about it. Hell, he didn’t even want to think about it. And he felt like a stupid shit for caring. While One-Mile was either dead or dying, Zy had been fixated on the fact Tessa was making the biggest mistake of her life—and stabbing him in the heart.

  Fuck it. He was done. What had his brother always said? Bros before hos. Yeah. Trees would never betray him.

  But Trees worried about him. He was a caring motherfucker and he’d just keep badgering until Zy spilled. “Tessa and her ex are back together. Apparently, she let him move in with her a couple weeks ago.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” Zy tugged the keys from his pocket as they headed out the double doors and toward the parking lot. “I went to your place and grabbed your truck. I didn’t know if you’d be in any shape to ride on the back of my bike, so—”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Give you a ride home.”

  Trees waved him away. “Fuck that. I mean about Tessa?”

  “There’s nothing to do.”

  “You love that woman. Fight for her.”

  “I can’t be the only one willing to fight.”

  Trees’s face softened. “I think she loves you, too.”

  “Well, shacking up with her ex isn’t the way to show me. I get that I acted like a douche when she signed her contract, but—”

  “Yeah, you did. You arranged a hookup with another woman.”

  “I didn’t follow through.”

  “Does Tessa know that? No, you let her think you spent all weekend fucking Madison. You screwed the pooch by hurting her first.”

  Leave it to Trees to shove the truth down his throat. “This is why, even when I’m old and wizened, I’ll be with you, surrounded by your wife, your half-dozen kids, and all your grandbabies.”

  “I wish.”

  “Seriously. Once you fall, it will last forever.” While Zy knew he’d still be thinking about that one time he’d almost gotten his shit together enough to deserve the woman he loved.

  Zy unlocked the truck, then snatched the duffel from Trees’s hand and hoisted it into the bed. “Want to grab a bite on the way back to your place?”

  “I still can’t eat much and I can’t go back to the ranch. Take me to the office.”

  “Did you leave something there?” But Zy knew better. The noble bastard wanted to help Walker.

  “Don’t play dumb. If I went home, I’d just pace the fucking floor and try to come up with a rescue plan.”

  True, but Zy hated to take his buddy back to the same office where they suspected he might be a mole. He didn’t mention that, though. Trees didn’t need more shit right now. If he knew, he’d only decide to prove the Edgington-Muñoz gang wrong by hauling ass to Mexico alone. And he’d get himself killed trying to rescue One-Mile.

  The truth was, the bosses were so frantic and fried that they were grasping at straws. Trees was just one of them, and they’d soon figure out they were wrong.

  Right?

  “Okay, but I’m starving. And if I’m stopping for me, you have to eat something.”

  “If you’ll quit nagging me to death, I’ll choke down a few bites, Mommy.”

  Zy shot him a middle finger as he slid behind the wheel of Trees’s beat-up truck and rolled out of the parking lot. As they stopped at the first light, he turned to his buddy. “So what happened out there?”

  “Shortly after we landed in Acapulco, we decided to grab an early dinner before we headed to our hotel. Along the way, we found a seafood place on the shore. There were a few tourists there. It seemed fine.” Trees paused and frowned. “Where did the bosses tell you Walker and I were going?”

  “After you’d gone, Logan pulled me aside and said you two were scheduled to be in Petalán for a little reconnaissance tomorrow night.”

  Trees breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s not you, then. Not that I thought it was, but—”

  “Did one of them tell you they thought I was a mole?”

  “Not in so many words, but they definitely think we have one in the office.”

  “Joaquin told me that today.”

  “Did he have any theories who?”

  From that question, Zy got the idea the bosses were playing one against the other, trying to get to the bottom of this mess. And Zy didn’t want anything to do with that shit. “Nope.”

  Trees shrugged. “I don’t think this mission to Mexico told them anything valuable, either. You, Josiah, and Cutter were all supposed to hear that Emilo Montilla’s wife, Valeria, the one the colonel and his former team smuggled out a while back, had given us information so we could rescue her sister, who’s still trapped. Each of you were supposed to get a different story. Wherever the shit went down, that would help pinpoint the guilty party. But we didn’t get jumped in any of the locations at the pre-scheduled times. So I don’t know what to think.”

  “Let’s get real. You know it
’s not me.”

  “Never thought that for an instant. I told Hunter that.”

  And Zy would have to figure out later why they’d sent Trees on this mission if they thought he might be the leak. “And now it doesn’t seem like either Cutter or Josiah. Neither of them is the type anyway. Cutter is totally the Boy Scout Walker always sneers at him for being. And Josiah, despite being former CIA, seems like a solid teammate all the way around.”

  “Yeah. To be honest, if anyone had asked me which of the five of us was the mole, I would have put my money on Walker.”

  “Same.”

  “If he was secretly working for the cartel, they did a really good job of beating the shit out of him and making it look good. I believed it one hundred percent.”

  Zy guessed it was possible, but Occam’s razor suggested that the simplest solution was usually the right one. If he applied that principle to this situation, One-Mile was being held against his will, and he would fucking die if they didn’t do something soon.

  “Joaquin also suggested it was possible that Montilla had the jump on our information because we’d been hacked.”

  Trees turned to him. “You know…maybe. On Tuesday, the day before we left, they had some guy in the office they’d borrowed from Jack Cole and Deke Trenton over at Oracle. Um…he had an unusual name. Stone, that’s it. Apparently, he’s a hacker. After a little digging, I found out he did time for it, too.” He frowned. “Anyway, Logan told me the guy had come to eradicate some virus on the server, but I could have done that, so I don’t know why he was there.”

  Zy vaguely remembered seeing Stone, but the fact they had contracted with someone else when Trees was perfectly qualified for the job seemed odd. Or said the bosses were suspicious. He wanted to get to the bottom of that shit.

  “I didn’t meet him.”

  “Might be worth a follow-up to see what Stone found.”

  “Might be.” Zy nodded. But inside he seethed. The bosses were giving everyone a different story and trying to trap someone in a lie. He was fucking done with all this game playing. As soon as they recovered One-Mile, he would let them all have it. “So what happened south of the border?”

  “They ended up jumping us in the parking lot. I’d asked Walker to hold my bag so I could tie my shoes. When I looked up, we were surrounded. I had the keys and I was close to the car. He tried to gun them down and fight them off. It was five against two, and they had surprise on their side. Walker screamed at me to go, so I did, remembering a police station I’d seen just down the street. I was praying Montilla hadn’t bought them off so I could get them to help me go back for him. I remember my vision being really blurry as I rolled into the parking lot. It was hot, and I was sick as fuck to my stomach. Sweating like mad. I almost hit another car exiting as I swerved into a parking spot. Then…I don’t remember anything until someone woke me up just before dawn. I had one foot out of the car, surrounded by my own puke. And of course One-Mile was long gone.” He sighed. “You now know what I know.”

  None of that was particularly helpful. “Who else knew the double-secret plan besides you and Walker?”

  “Hunter, since he gave us the mission. I’m assuming the other bosses.”

  Probably, but what was to say one of them wasn’t guilty and trying to deflect blame? Nothing…except Zy wasn’t buying it. They were hard-ass sons of bitches, but they weren’t the kind of warrior to sell out one of their own.

  Which left him with another dead end.

  Son of a bitch.

  “We’ll keep digging,” Zy assured. “In the meantime, we’ll beat every bush and call in every favor until we get a bead on Walker.”

  August 24

  “Thanks for dinner, babe.” Cash was still chewing his last bite as he rose from the table. “By the way, the meatloaf needs more sauce next time.”

  Why? He’d just smother it in ketchup. “Where are you going?”

  He headed for the living room. “Sorry to eat and run, but you know it’s Sunday.”

  Translation: he was ready for some football, regardless of whatever else was going on.

  “You said you’d feed Hallie.”

  He winced. “That baby spinach shit smells.”

  He’d said the same thing about the diaper pail, and Tessa understood…kind of. Parenting required adjustment. She couldn’t expect super-dad overnight—but he needed to try. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Well, since it doesn’t make you gag, you should feed her.” He pressed the remote to flip on the TV as he flopped onto the sofa.

  “If I feed her, you need to give her a bath. She’d probably enjoy spending time with you.”

  “Babe…not on Sunday. The Bengals and the Cardinals are about to kick off.”

  Since Cash had never lived in either Ohio or Arizona, and the games were still preseason, why did he care who won? And why was he prioritizing it above bonding with his daughter, which he claimed was the reason he wanted to move in with them?

  A couple of weeks into their cohabitation, and Tessa was beginning to wonder if this co-parenting arrangement would work out.

  “Want some spinach and sweet potatoes?” she asked her daughter, who still gummed some Cheerios in her high chair.

  Hallie shrieked with excitement and slammed her palms on the plastic tray, rattling the little oat circles.

  Tessa laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Could you guys keep it down? Some really good analysis here on NFL Countdown…”

  “She’s a baby, Cash. She doesn’t understand shut up.” But you should.

  Tessa kept the comment to herself so she didn’t start a fight. Instead, she unscrewed the caps from both jars and started spooning the food between her daughter’s lips while she blew raspberries.

  After a few bites, Hallie barely consumed any of her food, instead pushing it against her two bottom teeth and smacking it between her lips. She definitely preferred the sweet potatoes, but even after a few extra bites of one of her favorites, the baby decided she’d rather play than eat.

  With a frustrated huff, Tessa wet a paper towel and cleaned Hallie’s grubby hands, then peeled her out of her dirty onesie. “Time for a bath, young lady.”

  Hallie squealed again as Tessa lifted her and headed for the bathroom.

  “I forgot to ask…” she said as she passed him. “Are you working tonight?”

  “Yeah. Got a new game I’m supposed to start testing. It’s going to be intense. I only have two weeks to give feedback.”

  “Okay.” Tessa shook her head as she headed to her bathroom and filled the tub.

  Honestly, she didn’t understand Cash’s job. Why would any video game company pay someone to play games that had already been released? And why would his boss insist they play at night, rather than during the day? Oh, she’d heard his explanation about the video game maker wanting to improve the multiplayer experience and that, as one of the new guys, he’d been assigned to a team based overseas, so the hours were weird. But Tessa just didn’t get it. And how was this a career? After Cash’s speech about wanting to be an adult, he’d definitely chosen a job a kid would love.

  Another clue that maybe Cash wasn’t as ready to adult as he’d claimed?

  Maybe, but at least the pay was decent enough, and he’d reliably given her money for his share of the rent and groceries on time every week. It was a start—and one of the few reasons she wasn’t raising more of a stink. The extra money was really helping.

  Bath time was one of Hallie’s favorite times of the day, so Tessa enjoyed it, too. They splashed and sang and laughed, but when the baby started rubbing at her eyes and fussing, a glance into her adjoining bedroom at the clock on her nightstand had her eyes popping. “It’s almost your bedtime. We’d better get you dressed.”

  She wrapped her damp baby back in her towel and carried her across the house, toward the nursery.

  Cash still sat on the sofa in a pair of basketball shorts and a wifebeater, scratching at places she stil
l couldn’t believe she’d ever touched, and watched the kickoff while he shot off a text to someone.

  Tessa was disappointed—but not terribly surprised—to see the dishes still on the table and the kitchen a mess. He’d vacuumed the house once since he’d moved in. Everything else that got done around here—cooking, cleaning, child care, and yard work—she’d done herself.

  Zy would have helped you a million times more and looked better doing it.

  She shoved the thought aside. Cash was here because he was the father of her daughter, not because he thoughtfully did dishes or tried to help with mowing. It didn’t matter that he didn’t compliment her cooking or that he didn’t pay much attention to her. He was here strictly as a co-parent.

  Yeah, and so far he’s not doing a great job of that.

  Still, she had to give him time to adjust. After all, she’d had nine months to get used to the notion of becoming a mother. He’d jumped in barely more than two weeks ago. Hopefully, he’d get there if she was a bit more patient.

  A few minutes later, Hallie was wearing a clean diaper and fresh pajamas. Tessa sank into the glider and started to read her baby a bedtime story. She might be a little young for this ritual, but Tessa loved to read—when she had time—and wanted her daughter to find joy in it, too.

  Just as she closed the book and tucked Hallie into her crib, Cash poked his head in the doorway. “How’s it going in here?”

  “Good.”

  “I’d offer to help, but it looks like you’re done.”

  Isn’t that convenient timing? “Well, then you can help by doing the dishes.”

  Just then, his phone dinged. He pulled it from his pocket and gave her that smile she supposed he thought was charming. “Sorry. Duty calls.”

  With a press of his thumb, he answered. “What’s up?”

  Tessa tuned him out with a sigh and started clearing the table as Cash disappeared into the backyard, his phone still pressed to his ear. Times like this, she wished she could call her mama for advice, but Tessa blinked her tears away. There was no sense in feeling sorry for herself. She’d made her bed by sharing Cash’s, then falling for Zy when she shouldn’t.