The Rules Series

by LaShawn Vasser

  “I knew the rest but just found out about her death being investigated in the papers. When I saw it, I sent her a copy. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I figured you knew most of it already. But, I was going to tell you everything after my plan was in motion.”

  “After? How’s that any different from what you accused me of?”

  He stilled. Finally, those beautiful blue eyes looked into mine. “I’d planned to tell you, Gina. You, on the other hand, lied to me and were never going to say anything. Intent makes all the difference.”

  He was right. I had no intention of telling him. “I know what I am Brody. Still, I don’t want you ever to see me as a monster.”

  He turned away and continued to pack. “I’ve never tried to change you or asked you to change. I knew what I was getting into. My only expectation is that we would always be honest with each other.”

  “Brody . . . I’m—”

  My words were cut off before I could finish getting them out. “Gina, don’t. You’re not ready and may never be ready to give me one hundred percent. If I thought for one minute you would, I’d stay and fight for us. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. So, we should just do this as neatly as possible.”

  His words hurt more than the gunshot wound to my shoulder. Brody had been here for me, without any ulterior motives and more than anyone else ever had. I wanted to apologize, thank him for—everything and ask him not to leave my life. The words . . . even if he hadn’t interrupted, I couldn’t form them. Not just because my pride wouldn’t allow it but because he’d been through too much dealing with me. I was wired wrong.

  Brody and Cecily needed calm and normal. I didn’t even know what that looked like to be able to copy it. And, if I were honest, I didn’t want to copy it. At times, I didn’t like who I was and what I was capable of doing, but I am who I am. Knowing that, I could only agree that we should cut ties as neatly as possible.

  Chapter 24

  The Moment of Truth

  New York

  Nina had been back for about six months. She loved this city but hated leaving her apartment these days especially at night. Ever since she’d returned from Guilin, Nina spent every waking moment looking over her shoulder. Sometimes, she wondered if being in prison would have been better. And then, she thought definitely, not. Some of the people they stole money from were shady characters, and their reach ran deep. Prison might make her an easy target. Still, if Nina’s lawyers were correct, it wasn’t a question of if she were going to prison, but for how long.

  Their plan was to fight it for as long as they could, then have her confined in some posh minimum security Federal prison for anywhere from six to fifteen years. That was their plan, but Nina had her own. She had no intention of spending one day behind bars. Besides, her immediate concern was not to get her head blown off.

  Nina always had something up her sleeve. Killing Gina was still on the table. For obvious reasons, Nina was more desperate now than ever. Gina had been right when she’d said she should have assumed her identity. That would have solved all of her problems.

  It wasn’t too hard to make her crimes disappear in China. She only had the US to worry about. Here, Nina was facing charges of identity fraud, money laundering, and a few other white collar crimes.

  She was going to fight it with every dime she had just in case her plan failed. Every dime that hadn’t been frozen. While the US and China had a large chunk of her assets, there were still a few in overseas accounts that no one knew about.

  Timing was everything. Things were too hot right now to make a move against Gina. However, closer to the trial, which was more than a year away, Nina and Jonah planned to do what they had to do.

  Nina stepped out of the elevator and into the parking garage alone not exactly alone. She kept her revolver locked and loaded. The gun range had become her home away from home.

  While Jonah stuck to her like glue, especially now that they were dating, even he couldn’t be with her one hundred percent of the time. Like now, he’d left something in the apartment and had to go back to get it. Luckily, the car was parked close to the doors, and her building was secured. Nina had told him she would pull the vehicle around to the front of the apartment building. It would just save time. Otherwise, they would be late for their dinner reservation.

  Jonah was determined to get Nina out of the house and celebrate their two-month anniversary. Lately, celebrations had been too few. Nina agreed it would be as good a time as any to celebrate. Like clockwork, when she pulled the car around, he was standing out front waiting.

  *****

  Dinner had been great. It was nice for them to get out, enjoy themselves, and not worry about all the crap that had been hovering over her. When the valet brought their car around, Jonah got in on the driver’s side, and Nina entered on the passenger’s side. They pulled off and away from the curb.

  Nina leaned back in her seat and kicked off her heels. “Thank you for convincing me to get out. This was a nice respite.”

  Jonah’s crooked smile was so sexy. “I enjoyed myself too. We need to do this more often.”

  “You don’t mind all the people staring at us?”

  “I’d stare too. You’re beautiful.”

  “Good answer, but sometimes people are staring at the infamous Jules Ming-Sherman or Nina Lee-Xiou-Manchetti, whichever name you want to use, it gets on my last nerve.”

  “It’ll die down after a little while. It already has from when we first came back.”

  “True.”

  “Do you mind if I stop and get wine? It’ll only take a minute. I’ll run in and out.”

  She was hesitant. “Sure. Why not. Get several bottles. We’re celebrating.”

  “I’ll make sure to do that. I’m going to pull up over here.”

  Nina watched intently as he got out of the car and locked the doors. It wasn’t ten minutes later that Jonah came out of the store with several bottles of wine.

  The ride back to the apartment building was smooth, uneventful. They laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. Nina couldn’t explain the relief she felt when they arrived back to the parking garage. Jonah parked the car in her designated spot.

  “I hate the anxiety that I feel every time I leave the apartment. I . . .” Nina blinked a few times. Were her eyes deceiving her? Jonah’s hands were on the steering wheel, but a bullet had just gone through his head and out the front windshield. It was interesting. The hole was small, and the glass didn’t shatter.

  It happened so fast Nina wasn’t sure if he’d known he’d been shot. She wasn’t even certain he’d been shot until his body slumped over onto the steering wheel.

  An arm reached out from the backseat of the car and snatched Nina’s purse before she had a chance to grab her gun. She knew that smell, the perfume. How had she missed it earlier? Gina.

  *****

  Gina Lee-Xiou

  The cold hard barrel of my gun bumped directly up against the back of Nina’s skull. “Did you honestly think I was going to let you get away with everything you’ve done scot-free?”

  Her voice trembled. “This isn’t China, Gina. You won’t get away with this here.”

  “Actually, I will. Your list of enemies is so long that even IF someone suspected me, a first-year law student could get me off.”

  Nina slow clapped. “You are Chang’s daughter. I’ve got to give it to you. I wasn’t expecting you to be the one.”

  “As are you. However, I should have been the first person to come to mind.”

  “How’d you get in the car?”

  “It wasn’t too hard. Technology is great, isn’t it? After I disabled the security footage at the restaurant, I didn’t even need a key to get in. When the valet parked your car in the garage, I just used a digital decoder to open the door, laid on the floor, threw a black blanket over me, and waited.”

  Nina was afraid and was desperately trying to figure a way out of this mess.

  “Something kept bot
hering me. You know how I am about loose ends, and I finally figured it out. Remember when you kept yelling at me to call him. Tell him you weren’t Jules? You wanted me to call Javier Ramirez. He was one of the clients you stole millions from. You thought I tipped him off. You weren’t worried about the feds. You were worried about him. Did you honestly believe it was smart to rip off one of the biggest drug lords in South America?”

  I could see fear and panic in her face through the review mirror. “It wasn’t me. It was Lawrence. Those accounts were already set up before I married him.”

  “Ramirez doesn’t care about that. You knew about them, and because you were so concerned with your way of life not only did you go along with his schemes but in some instances, you helped. Then, when the heat got too hot, you ran like a little bitch back to Guilin, thinking you could take everything from me—even putting Cecily in danger. Lord forbid, you try your hand at working hard to make a living.”

  “I was never really going to hurt her.”

  “You don’t think your actions hurt her?! You’re an idiot and your stupid little boy toy is an idiot too. He can’t make inquiries about me and not think it won’t get back. You could never pretend to be me. Laurette always said, there was no one like me.”

  Nina pressed her lips together.

  “I won’t live with the threat of you constantly trying to assume my identity because you screwed yours up so badly or that you would hurt Cecily to hurt me.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that. It was Jonah’s idea to assume your identity.”

  Tsk, tsk, tsk. “Always blame someone else huh? That’s your excuse? Even if I believed you, which I don’t, but even if I believed that you were willing to let bygones be bygones, and we could live our days out as sisters, the Family Council has limits, Nina. They would never have protected you from Ramirez. So, like a good sister, I convinced him to remove the bounty off of your head. Me. The sister who loved you more than her own life paid your bounty and reimbursed him for your crimes.”

  “What!? You did that for me? Why?”

  “Because I wanted the privilege of killing you myself.”

  My voice was sad, remorseful. “How could you have done this to me? To Cecily? You were my one pure love, Nina.”

  “Your one pure love? Do you know how hard it was to live up to Chang’s and Laurette’s standards? I could never do it.” Nina’s voice dripped with hate. “I could never be you!”

  “Be like me? For God’s sake, Laurette loved us both equally for who we were. And, Chang? Chang was a monster. After all these years, you let this garbage fester in your head when the Lee-Xiou sisters could have run the world.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Gina. You were their favorite. Let’s not pretend that I wouldn’t have always been the Robin to your Batman. I’m nobody’s Robin.”

  “That’s crazy talk. You were my sister, Nina. Equals. My twin. My other half. Had you come to me fifteen years ago, or even in the last year, WE could have figured out how to get you untangled from all of your messes.”

  Nina hissed. Her fear was replaced with a flash of anger. “I didn’t want your help! Don’t you understand that?”

  I saw the unbridled and naked hate in her eyes. I whispered. “When did you stop seeing me as your sister?”

  Nina seemed to ponder the question. Apparently, she’d thought about it quite a bit lately. “I honestly can’t pin that one down. It’s a shame really. Sisters are supposed to love one another, but you ruined that.”

  “Me. Okay.” I sighed. “If you don’t know that means you’ve hated me for a long time. Sad, because I loved you and Joseph used you. By helping to fake your death, it only made his path to power, easier. You put your trust in him, and he would have stopped your heart just like he planned to do with Cecily. But, you don’t care about that because you only care about yourself. My dearest sister, I hope you know he kept quiet about you as an ace up his sleeve to use against me if he ever had to. Even Joseph knew how important you were to me.

  When you died, my heart broke into a million pieces. After I found out about Chang’s plan to hurt the only part I had left of you, Cecily, I murdered him. He went to his grave thinking he killed you, and I put him there in part because of it.”

  “I suspected you killed Chang, but you can stop pretending it was for me.”

  “I’m willfully choosing to remember the love I had for who I believed you to be. That Nina Lee-Xiou died fifteen years ago.”

  “I guess she did.”

  “Yes, that was a time when my feelings for you weren’t tainted. I will do my best to hold on to those memories so that I don’t completely slip into the dark side of myself.”

  Nina stared straight ahead. “So, this is how it ends.”

  “I think we’ve both known for a very long time the ending to this story. Goodbye, Nina. Tell Chang I said, hello.”

  I put on my dark glasses and raised my hoodie up over my head before I got out of the car. After closing the door behind me, I turned around to observe the confused gaze of my sister. She didn’t realize bullet-proofing the car had sealed her fate. When she attempted to open the door, it was locked from the outside. In a panic, she tried furiously to open it. Her efforts would be useless.

  There was a surreal moment of clarity when she looked into my eyes. She stilled. I took the remote out of my pocket and pressed it.

  First, a small fire started under the hood of the car. I saw the moment realization hit her. It was hard watching her beat against the windows trying to get out as I stood there. It didn’t take long before the front was engulfed with smoke—then fire.

  I’d never forget her screams as I walked away.

  Chapter 25

  Brody sat down at his desk in his home office reviewing paperwork. It had taken him awhile to get back into the swing of things after he’d come home from Guilin. His CEO’s had done a great job managing his businesses while he’d been away.

  Guilin. It didn’t take much for his mind to wander into Gina Lee-Xiou territory. That woman had taken his breath away the moment he set eyes on her. He’d wondered over and over again if walking away was a mistake. In the end, Brody knew he’d done the right thing. A relationship required trust and honesty. The bottom line—he wouldn’t accept anything less. Granted, most people lied all the time. He wasn’t exempt from telling a few himself. Little white lies like this chicken is great when it was dry or lacked flavor. A small smile appeared on his face at the thought of seeing Gina in a kitchen . . . cooking. He’d never have to worry about that.

  He could accept someone saying, yes, I love whatever and hate it. His lips edged up a little wider thinking about Gina and how brutally honest she could be in areas where most folks would tell one of those little lies. However, those kinds of untruths weren’t the problem. Thinking about her was. One thought always led to another, and his mind would drift off into imagining that little dimple on the left side of her cheek. Or the way her breath would catch right before she was about to explode when they made love. Brody’s thoughts were taking him into dangerous territory. He shook his head to clear his mind.

  At the end of the day, nothing with her would have ever been easy, and he hadn’t expected it to. If easy was what he wanted Brody would have been married by now. Part of Gina’s allure was that he was sure of two things, life would have been exciting and a daily adventure.

  She was complicated, both hard and soft at the same time. The soft part, she kept hidden, and only a few people ever caught a glimpse of it. Brody knew Gina had more of a capacity to love than she gave herself credit for. He just wished she understood that she was enough, flaws and all. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t keep the people that she loved at such a distance. She would trust them with her heart.

  One thing was for sure; Gina would never achieve her wants and needs within the confines of the Family Council. Power and control wouldn’t fill that emptiness she had inside. He hoped for her sake that she figured out that the unknown
could be an exciting place to be and that she couldn’t manipulate everything around her. Brody knew feeling safe was a big motivator in why it was so important for her to run the organization. Gina equated power and control with security.

  She would be good at it that’s for sure. But, in all honesty, they probably needed her more than she needed them. Only, Gina didn’t know that.

  If she knew how special she was, maybe the people who loved her the most would be allowed within those walls that were erected to keep them out. There was no way Brody could convince her. It was something Gina would have to realize on her own.

  Brody ran his hand down the back of his head and neck. He needed to focus on what was in front of him, not Gina. That was over.

  An alert popped up on his laptop screen. Brody’s hand hovered over his mousepad. Did he want the details? Curiosity forced him to click on the headline. The article opened and took over his entire screen.

  Nina Lee-Xiou Manchetti aka Infamous Socialite Jules Ming-Sherman dies in a fiery blaze.

  He wasn’t shocked in the least.

  “Mr. Windham?”

  Brody dragged his eyes away from the article. “Hmmm . . . Yes, Anita?”

  She was a little out of breath as she rushed from the kitchen to his office. Her hands were still wet from washing dishes. She stood in the doorway drying them with a towel but wanted to tell Brody in person. “Security called. Ms. Lee-Xiou is at the gate. Should I have them let her in?”

  His head snapped back in surprise. “She’s here?”

  Anita didn’t even try to disguise her happiness. She smiled wide and lifted her hands to the heavens. “Yes, and thank god! Maybe you can fix whatever’s wrong and stop all this moping.”