by Nana Malone
"Oh, yeah? Were you thinking about me last night when you climbed all over Jax? Rubbing yourself all over him like an animal in heat?"
Her mouth went slack for this imperceptible moment that seemed to last. In that second, I could see her for what she really was. I could see what everyone had been telling me my whole life. "Look I was just testing him, okay? Congratulations, he's all about you. I thought maybe he was, you know, in it for the win, the lay."
"The lay?"
"Come on, look at him. A guy like that, as good looking as he is, there is no way he can't be a player. But he turned me down, so he's certainly into you."
"You can't even hear yourself, can you? You have been selfish your whole life."
"How was I selfish? Your dad died, and I begged my parents to take you in. Begged them."
"Yeah, you begged them so you would have someone else to take the brunt of their abuse. You were luckily ignored. I didn't even see it. I thought you were doing me a favor. I thought you loved me."
She sighed and reached for my hair, fingering it between her thumb and forefinger. "Honey, I do love you. You have to understand, I just wanted what was best for you."
I glanced down at her hand and then back at her eyes behind the shades of her sunglasses. I wished I could see them. I wished she could see mine to see I was deadly serious. "I'm done Willa. I'm done with your bullshit. I'll help you with this because of Mayzie. Because I love that little girl. But when this is over, you and I are done. Forever."
"You wouldn't. I need you in my life."
"You have only ever needed me in your life to make you feel better about yourself. You’re a poor friend. You only ever cared about yourself. It's time I did the same."
Willa got up and stomped back inside the room. But I wasn’t done with her yet, so I followed and continued questioning her. “What was your end game, Willa?”
She shifted on the couch. "You have to hear me out, okay? I mean, you act like you've never been through this. Things just snowball out of control. I didn't know all of this was going to end up like this, okay?"
"I swear to God, it's like I'm dealing with a five-year-old. How is it that the baby is more responsible than you are?"
"That's low, okay? I mean, I messed up. I've made some bad choices. But as soon as we figure out who’s coming after us, we can go back to normal."
"Well, what is normal exactly? I really need to understand your vision here.”
"I don't know. Mayzie and I go about our normal day. No one is after us."
"Mayzie and you?" I was nowhere in Willa’s picture.
"Well, I mean, you and I are in each other's lives again, which is great. Awesome. In fact, I love it. But it's not like you're her mom."
"Except that you left her to me."
She pulled back and blinked several times. "But I mean, I'm back."
"So you thought, what? You would leave her to me, I would be responsible for her and clean up your mess and then you would just go back to your life?"
"Well, okay. I didn't really think it through that far. But I am Mayzie's mother."
"You are, but I've been looking after her for over a month now. Where were you?"
"It was supposed to be temporary."
"When she was sick, who held her? When she was scared, who found her favorite toy and made it dance?"
Willa frowned. "I did all that stuff."
"No, I did."
"I mean, look, you and muscles out there are playing pretend, okay? It's not real. Sure, great boning, and you have this awesome baby to play house with. But the real truth is I'm back and I don't need you anymore. Once this is all settled, I'm going back to my life with my baby."
"So you put my whole life in upheaval, and you just expect me to go back to normal?"
"Of course. I mean, you have your boy toy out there. I'm sure you guys will still shag. I mean, you're probably shagging because of the intense connection thing with Mayzie, but at least you got some great orgasms. Then you can settle down with someone normal."
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, c’mon. No way a guy like that settles down. Guys like that are fun in the sack, but then you’ve gotta throw them back when you’ve used them up good. They are incapable of normal everyday life. Trust me, I know.”
"I'm not even sure we were ever friends."
She blinked wide hazel eyes at me. "You don't mean that.”
"Oh, I think I do. Willa, you don't think twice about people that you hurt. You have no qualms about ripping through people's lives at all. It's exhausting being your friend. I am physically exhausted."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt this strongly about it."
"I do. That little girl, she's become my whole world for the last few weeks, and you walked away from her."
"For her safety."
"I know why you did it. I still don't think it was the right move. Not once have you ever mentioned going to the police or doing the right thing."
"See, that's your problem. Judging. Still judging. I won't make the same decisions that you do. I'm a different person."
"Yeah you're a different person. But you still look out for number one first, don’t you?"
Fourteen
Neela…
I felt like I was in a pressure cooker.
Jax had Mayzie at the pool. She was blissfully being a baby and happy to be with her favorite person in the world.
Neither one of them seemed too keen on being around Willa.
I, on the other hand, needed my life back. I called home to check on things. I made sure to use the exact protocols Ariel had showed me to use the sat phone.
Bex answered right away. "Hey, boss lady. How are things going with Mr. Man?"
She couldn’t see me, but I flushed. "Mr. Man is good. Fine. Whatever. But I'm not calling to talk about him. I'm calling to talk about everything else. How is everything?"
Bex made her, ‘hell yes!' squeal. "You boned? Praise be!"
God, I equal parts loved her and wanted to throttle her. "Work, okay? Where are we?"
Bex put the phone on speaker. "Adam, you're up."
I could hear the rolling of their chairs, and Adam cleared his throat. "What's up, boss lady?"
"Tell me we have something on this ledger."
"We have more than something. The program finally deciphered it all. I did my own manual checks, and it took me a little longer to double-check, but Vanhorn is either a fucking genius or a complete and total nerd. The ledger is in Klingon, Romulan and Vulcan. One language for each of the key pieces of information. And then you have to use a cipher code to decipher it. It's brilliant, actually."
"Do you want to give him a job?"
"No. I'm just saying. Okay, the real deal is, you need to know that Willa wasn't just shipping the occasional item to Vanhorn, she was his partner."
The hairs at the back of my neck stood at attention. "What do you mean?"
"Look, I've got shipment dates and names. Those names don't match with any known associates of Vanhorn's. They are her artists’ names going back years."
I couldn't breathe. Oxygen was a luxury. Willa had said that she'd only gotten caught up with him a year ago. "What else did you find?"
"That's the interesting thing. It doesn't have the name of the institution or the bank, but it does have an address."
I knew where this was going. "Let me guess, the address of the gallery?"
"Bingo. He funded her from the start. The whole time before she died, she was working for him."
I swallowed the guilt. It was a need-to-know situation that Willa was still alive. I knew team Royal Elite knew, but Adam and Bex didn't need to know because that information might get them hurt. "So all along, all these years, she's been Vanhorn's money launderer?"
"Yup, that's right. And she was no dummy. When Bex and I looked further back into the gallery's history, we found that she started making deposits into a variety of accounts in Mayzie's name. Completely clean.”
<
br /> “Like what?”
“There is a college fund, all kinds of property, and several businesses all in Mayzie's name. Nothing to tie her back to it. The gallery receives money, and then it goes out again. So even if the authorities caught on, they can't freeze her accounts. Mayzie is untouchable. And get this, Mayzie has been paying taxes since the day she was born. As soon as her national number was created along with her birth certificate, she began earning money as a director of a board of trustees.”
“A little tiny mogul.”
“Exactly. That's how Willa was getting away with it. She paid her as an employee of a board of trustees of a shell company that barely exists and only on paper. Mayzie has made an incredible amount of wealth for such a young age. The baby is only a year old, and she has properties on five continents, incredible holdings, and that money is clean, clean, clean. Mayzie has been paying taxes on every dime that would be considered at all taxable. No loopholes, no fancy rigging. Willa found a way to cleanly wash her money. And I bet that she did the same for Vanhorn. Vanhorn has got three kids. How much do you want to bet that they are practically billionaires?"
I had to sit down. I eased myself onto the edge of the bed. "Jesus Christ."
"Yeah. I mean, if I was a criminal mastermind, I'd be impressed, because sure, Willa could have eventually gone to jail if she’d lived, but when she got out, she would have had access to the money, provided she had access to Mayzie."
"Okay, but she's dead, right? So no one would benefit then?"
"No, but Mayzie is well provided for."
Bex interjected. "I mean, honestly if this was a movie of the week, I'd say that Willa faked her own death, plans to come back, grab Mayzie, and get all that clean money and retire to some uninhabited island somewhere."
I swallowed hard. This was not the time to come clean about Willa still being alive. No wonder I wasn't in Willa's plans. She'd already made her own plans. She just needed me to do my part. There was one thing I didn’t understand though. "Okay, so help me understand. Why did she send me the ledger?"
"I don't know," Adam said. "It doesn't make any sense. I mean, unless it wasn't Willa who sent it to you. But again, that's ridiculous because most people would have just hired you to decode the ledger."
He had a point. I consider Bipps could be dirty, but then again, why not just hire me? He'd been Willa's attorney, so why had Willa given me the journal?
"Okay, devil's advocate. If someone was looking for information on the journal, what would they be looking for? Let's not look at who would have a motive, but let's look for what the biggest secret or biggest finding in there was."
I could hear Adam rolling around in his chair. "Okay. I found probably the biggest nugget. Vanhorn has information in there about a diamond mine. It's not where you’d think you'd find a diamond mine. This one is located in Chile."
I frowned. "Chile?"
"Yep. But his name isn’t on the deed.”
“But, I don't get it. Why is another diamond mine not in his name important?"
"It's the name that's on the deed that matters. TRICLO investing."
I frowned. "Why do I know that name?"
"They’ve been in the media lately, running a lot of ads for politicians left and right in the US at the moment, most recently for some new congressman everyone says is going to be president one day."
"So dirty Vanhorn is backing politicians."
"Oh yeah, looks that way. And more importantly, that particular bit of information could be worth not just millions but billions. Every politician being backed by TRICLO would pay out the nose. And it's got TRICLO's entire client roster listed here."
I whistled low. "Holy shit."
"Yeah. So, at the end of the day, there are a lot of people who would greatly benefit by this ledger never seeing the light of day. Whoever killed Willa was deadly dangerous. You guys watch your back."
"Yeah, I hear you. Okay. You haven't told Ariel or anyone, right?"
"Nope. Bex and I are the only ones who know."
"Okay. Bex, like we talked about, make a copy of that and stash it in the yoga studio, back panel behind the tampons. Make another copy, and I want you to take it to the Central Bank. You have access to my box. I want you to put a copy in there. And then Adam, I want you to wipe our hard drives. I want no evidence whatsoever that we had any access to it. If this reaches far and wide, I don't want anyone knowing that we were able to decipher it. Do you understand me?"
There was a bit of silence. "Are you sure? Because we might need it in the future."
" Just having the information will be enough. If we ever need to decipher it again, we at least know the pattern and the code. If we could destroy the original, I would. But you guys can't get access to it. I know Ariel did something with it. For all I know, it's in the palace."
I could tell Adam wanted to dig his heels in. "I mean, she's a decent hacker. That's no doubt. But I'm not bad myself. Should I break in to her systems?"
"No. And we don't want her breaking in to your systems either. Wipe our drives."
"You never let me have any fun."
"I'm serious, you guys. The information we have is dangerous. I'm the one they want, but you guys work for me. That makes you targets too. Even worse, Richard used to work with us. He doesn't have the skillset to decipher it, but he sure knows how to access our drives."
"He can't now. I've locked everything down."
"It doesn't matter. He's a weasel if you’ve ever met one. I want everything clean. Nothing ties back to us, do you understand?"
"Fine. I get it,” he grumbled.
"Bex, be careful."
"You got it." She was silent for a breath. "You're okay, right? You're safe and all that?"
"Yeah, of course." I needed to give her something though. They didn't know Willa was back. The Willa who had orchestrated this whole thing and been working for Vanhorn the whole time had pinned a target on my back deliberately. They didn't know that she was currently under the same roof as I was. "Yeah, I'm just worried about Mayzie."
"Is there a reason?" asked Bex. "I mean, she's okay, right? Hot bodyguard is protecting the both of you? Nothing is wrong?"
“Not sure yet. I'm just terrified if something happens to her it will be my fault."
"Hey, relax. Nothing is going to happen to Mayzie. Nothing is going to happen to you. Everything is going to be fine, okay? You have the best bodyguard money can buy."
"What about you guys? Is everything okay there?"
"Right as rain. Adam is super happy with Zia and Jameson and Tamsin. He's significantly less happy when it's Trace who is our bodyguard for the day. Granted, that makes me endlessly happy. Have you seen Trace? I mean, Jesus Christ. I haven't seen the abs yet, but I'm willing to bet money that they are excellent."
"They probably are if Jax is an indication."
"Yes, girl. You get you some ab viewing in there."
"That's not the point. The point is I didn't ask for any of this and my whole life is just turned upside down, and now I love these people that I never even intended to have in my life."
A beat of silence passed. "Uh-oh, did you say love?"
My stomach twisted. "You know what I mean. I didn't mean love."
"Are you sure about that?"
The problem with Bex was that she knew me too well. I was falling for Jax. I had already fallen. And while I couldn't fill Bex in on the Willa situation, I could give her this little piece of what was going on in my head. “I just... I don't know. I’ve never felt like this before. It's like when we’re in the same room we orbit around each other. I'm always aware of where he is, what he's doing, exactly where he's going to move next. And he's like that with me. I can feel his eyes on me, even now. Even though I'm pissed off at him, I can feel him watching."
"Honey, that's falling in love. That's a good thing."
It was a terrible thing. Lying came too easy to him. I wanted him too much. I knew better than to want anything that badly.
"Yeah, what kind of an idiot falls in love with her bodyguard?"
"Oh, just about every heroine in history. That's how these things go. It's the hot testosterone. Hard bodies, intense stares. It's bound to happen, or at least a really epic shagging. Ask Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, and in that British Netflix show. Sure enough, they banged. Add in intense emotional situations, and the banging is going to happen. The falling in love part, now that takes actual bonding, which you guys have done with Mayzie. You're like a little family. If you had a fight, work it out. You're the rational one, remember? I'm the one who's more likely to throw things. Talk it out. You're an excellent communicator. You always have been. You've just never been one to go after what you want. And finally, you have someone who wants what you want, so you need to go after him and hold on tight. If you don't, I will. That man has abs for days. I'm imagining, of course."
"He does."
Bex groaned. "Don't tease a girl, ahhh. But you, enjoy something in your life for once. You don't have to work all the time. You don't have to make everything perfect for everyone else. Make it perfect for you. Besides, you're not really mad at him. You’re really mad at Willa for abandoning you."
For once, I might listen to Bex. Even if I didn't know exactly how he felt, one thing I did know was that we had to work this out. Because like it or not, we were a team. And we had to figure out what we were going to do to keep Mayzie safe. I’d figure out the feelings later.
You already know how you feel.
Okay, but I wouldn't be laying everything on the table until I knew how he felt about me too.
You already know.
Jax…
Something was wrong with Neela. She was quiet and withdrawn. At first, I thought it was the fight with Willa, but it was something else. Something she wouldn't tell me about.
That morning when I'd woken at five, she was already wide awake, pacing, writing down stuff in her notebook. Me being me, I'd snuck a peek. Yes, that was an invasion of privacy, but she wasn't talking to me.
