Chapter Twenty
It had been a long time since I’d met anyone in a back alley. The beginning of my life seemed to be one big conglomeration of back alley meetings and dark deals. But in recent years, I’d managed to avoid them altogether.
There was a certain blissful freedom that came with not having to meet strangers or assholes near reeking dumpsters and rat-infested backstreets. Not only physically, but emotionally as well. I didn’t even know anyone that wanted to meet in an alley in Frisco. They were people that spent their lives in the light, totally out in the open. I wanted to go back to that place, to that town, to the part of my life where I didn’t have to hide.
However, here I stood. Waiting on another seedy criminal, surrounded by the wet brick walls of two surrounding buildings and the stench of the nearest dumpster.
God, I hated these places. And this one in particular had a certain level of disgusting that made me want to hurry home and take a shower.
To be honest, I wanted to hurry home. That was where Juliet was. That was where Sayer was. That was where the people I loved were. That was where I belonged.
It was a small miracle that I had managed to convince Sayer to stay home during this exchange. He had been adamant that he would accompany me to deal with Atticus, but Atticus had been equally resolute that Sayer wasn’t invited.
Sayer was a traitor according to Atticus and the entire brotherhood, and no longer invited to brotherhood affairs. If Sayer showed up with me, Atticus would shoot us both. If Sayer showed up in the vicinity, Atticus would shoot me first and Sayer second. Then he’d hammered his point home by reminding Sayer of what it was like to be an orphan… and did we really want to make Juliet one?
Sayer had reluctantly stayed with Juliet and sent Cage and Gus in his place. They flanked me as we waited for Atticus to arrive. I knew both of them were carrying guns and were trained how to use them, but the weapons didn’t make me any less nervous.
Atticus never needed a weapon to hurt me before.
He’d threatened everything in my life using nothing but his bare hands.
That led me to the second risk I faced—killing him before it was time.
If he happened to show up to our meeting alone and unarmed, this would turn into the perfect opportunity to take him out, but that wasn’t going to happen. We had to bide our time, trust the Irish and wait for the perfect opportunity, the one that wouldn’t fail.
We couldn’t afford to fail.
“Are you going to be okay?” Gus asked when Atticus appeared at the end of the alley.
No. I wasn’t going to be okay. I was the farthest thing from okay. This man, aside from being an aggressive bully my entire life, had taken my daughter. Kidnapped her. And held her against her will. My hands shook, and my stomach twisted into a tight ball. I wanted to puke. I also wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until his head popped off. Most of all, I wanted Sayer. I wanted him here with me, holding my hand, promising vengeance and righteous retribution. But I couldn’t say that to Gus, so instead, I turned the question on him. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’d be better if you let me shoot the bastard.”
Cage made a tutting sound like a mother hen. “Game faces, ladies and gentlemen. I’m assuming these are our guests.”
I hugged the FBI file to my chest and waited for Atticus to approach us. Nerves mingled with fury, zinging through my blood. My vision darkened at the edges as I struggled to hone my anger into useful fuel.
As we’d anticipated, Atticus brought an entire brigade with him. Three men on each side, weapons glinting from where they pulled back their coats. The moonlight winked against their shiny barrels and I shrunk deeper into the alley.
“Easy now,” Cage soothed as if I were a spooked horse.
“Well, well, well,” Atticus crooned from five feet away. “The prodigal daughter returns.”
That was it. The final straw. His corny power play was too much for me to handle. Somebody give me their gun, I was going to shoot this moron right now.
“Look at you, Caro,” he continued. “Still as obedient as ever. What a good little soldier you are.”
“I heard an interesting rumor about you today,” I countered, hating how his insult seemed to land right in the center of my chest.
Atticus narrowed his eyes and glared at me. “I’m sure your FBI buddy knows lots of interesting things about me. I have to be honest though, I’m surprised to see you here. I was sure Payne’s blue balls for you are making him insane. I didn’t think he’d let you go once he got his hands on you.”
“He’s not after me.”
Atticus smirked. “He’s not after me either.”
Wow. I couldn’t believe he was flaunting his immunity in front of all his guys. They would turn on him in half a second if they knew he was not only working with another family, but also the FBI. None of these guys could even hope for a plea deal after the DA got a catch like Atticus.
“You know, that’s one thing I never did.” I glanced around at the men with Atticus. I recognized a few of them, but I had never really known them when I was part of the bratva. They had been involved in other ventures. Like murdering. And running drugs. And illegal women. Jobs I wanted nothing to do with.
“What’s that?” Atticus asked.
“Snitched to the feds.”
His lip curled back, baring his teeth to me. “Careful, Valero. I don’t have patience for self-righteous whores.” I crushed the urge to snap his neck even though it went against everything in me. I wanted to end this fool, gut him from throat to balls.
“Call me a whore one more time…” I dared him.
He winked at me, then moved his attention to Gus. “Hey there, little brother. It’s been a while.”
Gus shrugged. “Has it? I hadn’t noticed.”
Atticus stilled, his expression frozen, plastic. “You have a responsibility, Augustus. You have a job. You should try doing it once in a while. Remind us why we need you around. Remind us why we shouldn’t consider you a traitor too.”
Gus was a stone pillar next to me, totally still and unmoving. I felt that shift in him again, the one that whispered how similar to Atticus he could be if he didn’t restrain the psycho that was buried deep within him. He couldn’t bring himself to respond to Atticus, and I instinctively knew it was as a kindness to me. He couldn’t trust his words or his actions. He chose silence so I could finish what I came here to do.
I tapped the file in my arms. It was still damp from the sprinklers, but most of the information had been saved. We’d heard on the news that the fed headquarters were still trying to recover from the fluke in the system that accidentally set the sprinklers off and caused total mayhem for their office building today. It would be a very costly and totally inconvenient recovery.
Poor guys.
“I have your proof,” I told Atticus.
“What’s that?”
“The file on the pakhan. Everything Mason Payne compiled over the years.”
Atticus blinked at me, unimpressed. “Is that going to get them out of jail?”
My poker face held, despite my irritation, frustration and absolute panic. “No, obviously not. It’s a sign of good faith. I’m working on getting them what they need.”
“Work faster,” he ordered.
“Don’t be a dick,” Gus snarled. “She’s not a genie. There’s more to getting three mafia kings out of prison than snapping her fingers.”
Atticus kept his attention on me as if Gus hadn’t spoken at all. “The clock is ticking, Caro. The bosses want out. I would make sure that happens sooner than later.”
Cage stepped forward, introducing himself to the conversation. “And if it happens later rather than sooner?”
Atticus smiled, keeping his eyes on me. “Who’s this, Caro? Hired help?”
“A friend.”
He raised his hand and two more thugs came from around the corner dragging a bound and gagged man in between them.
It had been five years. Time and his current circumstances had not been kind to him. He had aged like a president. In other words, quickly. My first instinct was to run to him to make sure he was okay, check his wounds, assess how much weight he’d lost from not eating—but I couldn’t let them see that I cared.
Because I didn’t. Not anymore. Not after he’d sided with the bratva instead of with me. Not after he’d let his bosses threaten me and the life of my daughter. Not after he’d been a part of her kidnapping.
Although I doubted how involved he’d been in that now that I saw him like this, as their prisoner.
Even I couldn’t lie that well. For some, stupid reason, I did care about my dad. I hated seeing him like this. It hurt to see him so miserable, so weak. I’d spent a lifetime doing things I didn’t want to do in an effort to save him. Today was no different.
“I realize this is painfully cliché”—Atticus waved his hand like a gameshow host— “but I wanted to remind you that you have other family besides your kid, Valero. And he’s made a lot of enemies since you’ve been gone. And by enemies, I mean he owes everybody in town huge fucking sums of money.” My mouth dried up as I met my dad’s eyes from across the alley. He looked completely defeated. My heart hurt at the sight of him so thin and ragged. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and take him home with me. I wanted to make sure he had a good meal, a long bath and a night without living in fear. “The pakhan want his hands.” Atticus had crossed his arms and lowered his chin. “And I’m inclined to give them to them.”
“You will not touch him,” I ordered. “Not his hands. Not any part of him. You need to let him go before I lose all of my patience, Atticus. I’m not messing around.”
At this, Atticus’s eyes twinkled with victory. “You know I won’t do that, Caro. Why waste your breath? Do your job and he’s all yours. God knows nobody else wants him. I would hurry if I were you. I don’t want to send him back messy.”
My stomach flipped and I nearly lost my lunch right there. “Take this then,” I growled at him, thrusting the file at him. “It’s a start.”
He sent one of his guys to retrieve the folder. I handed it over knowing Gus could access the digital files at any time online.
Atticus thumbed through the pages, assessing the finer details of Mason’s case. “I’ll pass this along,” he finally said. “It’s a start.”
“Caro?” my dad croaked and I realized he’d been staring at me since they’d lugged him into the alley. “Is that you? Is that really you?”
I met his broken, tortured gaze. “Hi, Dad.”
“You shouldn’t have come back here,” he murmured as if he couldn’t help it. His face twisted with agony. He was a broken, battered version of the man I once knew. “You should have stayed where you were. You should have stayed safe.”
“They took my daughter,” I told him gently, desperate to take away some of his burden. It didn’t seem to matter how often this man had hurt me before or how much I blamed him for forcing me into this world. He was my dad and it was killing me to see him suffering before my eyes. “I couldn’t stay home. I had to come after her.”
“I suppose she’s still little,” Dad said quietly, sniffling back emotion. “She still needs you. It’s hardest when they need you.”
I choked back a sob, realizing he was talking about himself. He had this look of despair about him that made my heart feel split in half. One side of me was convinced he deserved what he’d done to himself. He deserved this ending to his pathetic life. The other part of me hurt to see him like this. No matter how many bad feelings I had toward this man, he was still my father… the man who’d raised me. And I was a proud enough woman that I took responsibility for my decisions, my actions. I couldn’t blame him for everything.
“You going to be okay, dad?” I asked the man that had already started to chip away at my armor.
He nodded, but his chin trembled. “I’m fine, baby girl. Just got myself into another jam. That’s all.”
This was more than a jam, but he knew that already. “Yeah, well, me too.”
Atticus laughed. “Isn’t this a nice family reunion? Gus, how come you never asked how I’m doing?”
Gus made a sound in the back of his throat. “Because I could give two shits.”
All the humor drained from Atticus’s face and he spat on the ground. “The sad thing is you’d rather spend time with that traitor than with your own flesh and blood. There’s something seriously fucked up about that, Augustus.”
“There’s something seriously fucked up about you, Atticus.”
Atticus snapped. The tenuous chord he’d used to restrain his crazy unraveled and he pulled his gun on Gus. The weapon gleamed dangerously in Atticus’s steady hands.
He advanced on his brother, backing Gus into the corner. Gus was carrying his own weapon, but he hesitated to pull it with Atticus’s already aimed at his head.
Not knowing what else to do, I threw myself between them and raised my arms in surrender. I probably should have panicked or snatched Gus’s gun and used it on Atticus, but I never touched a gun unless I absolutely had to. I exacted my revenge with theft.
There was enough room for me to squeeze between the two lethal brothers. I felt Gus’s anger rolling off him. He hated Atticus more than ever, more than I remembered. His emotion was clear, loud, relaying a lifetime of built up resentment.
Atticus was a different beast though. He wasn’t as rage-filled; he was plain crazy. Atticus had an entirely different history, committing sins that were all his. His fury was as palpable, but his was born from a deep, deranged need to hurt and kill, punish and destroy.
Neither man noticed me standing in between them. They were too focused on each other, calculating how much pain they could inflict on the other.
“Let’s be reasonable,” I suggested.
Atticus didn’t drop his weapon. He kept it trained on Gus, only now my head happened to be blocking where he was pointing the gun.
“Hey, Caroline?” Cage called from close by. “How about you step out of there right about now?”
He was talking me off the ledge? Couldn’t he see the good deed I was doing? Besides, Atticus didn’t get to hurt another person I loved. And Gus didn’t get to kill Atticus. He was all mine. When the time was right.
“Hey, boys, calm down.” I tried to sound reassuring and smooth, but my voice was high-pitched and panicked. “We get it. You’re both big and bad. Gus didn’t mean it. Right, Gus? You were just kidding. Right, Gus?”
He mumbled something that sounded like sure.
Atticus stared at his brother for another minute before breaking into a smile. He dropped his weapon to his side and stepped back a few steps. He let out an entertained laugh and the guys he was with joined him. I took a much-needed full breath.
“Look at you obey her.” Atticus continued to laugh. “Does the traitor listen like this too? Do you all follow her around like stupid dogs after this bitch in heat?”
“Can we go now?” I asked, ignoring Atticus’s taunts.
He turned to face me, hatred so strong I felt his evil staring at me through his glossy eyes. “It’s never made sense to me. My brother. Sayer. The pakhan. What is so fucking special about you?”
His words sliced at something raw and exposed inside me. I wanted to bend over to protect that wounded part of me, curl into a ball and hide it from him. “Are you finished?” My words were deliberate, taking time with each syllable.
“So impatient. So confident that you’re on the right side of this war,” Atticus goaded. “What’s really amazing is that after all this time you still don’t know the truth.”
He was baiting me. I saw the hook. I knew the trick. And still, I couldn’t help but tug on the line. Just a little. I promised myself I wouldn’t get caught, that I wouldn’t be the stupid fish that bit down and trapped itself forever.
Mason’s words came back to haunt me. “Trapped in a prison of my own making…” Maybe I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I’d always choose trouble over peace.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Atticus. Are we finished here? I want to leave. Is that all right?”
He wasn’t finished driving me crazy. “The beginning, Caro. The very beginning.”
This time I couldn’t repress my eye roll. “That isn’t helping.”
“We should go, Caroline,” Gus suggested. “We’re done with this.”
I let Gus lead the way, but Atticus’s men didn’t make leaving easy. They stepped in front of us, barring the path.
Clearly I’d lost my mind, because I should have felt panic and fear and all kinds of terror. Instead, I only felt curious. I was determined to ignore Atticus though. He was trying to get in my head. He was trying to mess with me.
I hated that it was working.
“Gus knows what I’m talking about,” Atticus pushed. “He was there.”
Ignore him, I told myself.
“He’s insane,” I whispered out loud.
And he was. And he was obviously trying to rile me up.
But then Gus said, “Caro, ignore him. He’s making shit up,” in a way that made me want to do everything but ignore him.
Gus had always been a terrible liar. He didn’t have the patience for it.
“Fine,” Atticus laughed. “Don’t take my word for it. Ask Sayer.”
It was the first time he’d said Sayer’s name. It was enough to grab my attention and make me turn around. “Ask Sayer what?”
“Ask Sayer about Irish guns and the night you got brought in front of the pakhan for the first time.”
I dug in my heels, totally rocked thinking back to the night in question. Fifteen years ago, I had been a ten-year-old kid, dragged to a warehouse in the middle of the night by my dad. Stupid curiosity, dangerous shenanigans and some bad luck had led to being called up in front of the bosses for the first time.
Sayer had needed me to steal his necklace back from Atticus. I had. But in an effort to cover my tracks, I’d nicked Atticus’s wallet. He’d suspected I was up to something and made a scene. It got us both in trouble. And when I’d continued to lie to the pakhan about what I’d stolen they’d demanded I become bratva when I turned thirteen.
It was that night that had decided my entire future. That day, I was tied to Sayer, the brotherhood, and the Russian syndicate for life.
Obviously that night held a lot of significance for me, but I didn’t understand why Atticus would remember it. Or why he would bring it up now.
I decided not to engage him. I didn’t need to know. I didn’t want to know.
Contrary to what I’d decided, I heard myself ask, “What about that night?”
Atticus grinned at me. “It was a setup, Caro. The whole night. The necklace. Lifting it from me. The pakhan. Sayer set you up.”
“Caro, let’s go,” Gus insisted.
“We should get back,” Cage echoed.
“Atticus, what are you talking about?”
His smile stretched with victory. “Sayer set you up,” he said slower. “He put you in front of the pakhan so you had no choice but to become bratva.”
“That’s impossible,” I hissed, fresh anger bubbling through me. “He was barely bratva himself.” I thought back to that night, to his brand-new tattoo. New or not, he was definitely blooded.
“It was their condition, Valero. He showed up, a street rat kid looking for a home, with information on Irish guns. The Volkov said it wasn’t enough. They wanted you too. If he wanted to be in the brotherhood, he had to give them the chance to bring you in too. Of course, he managed it much faster than even they could have predicted, but he did. He gave them the guns and that same night he managed to serve you up on a silver platter. And the whole time you thought you were doing him a favor. It’s too good. You can’t make this shit up.”
“You can,” I argued. “And you are. You’re making this up.” I looked to Gus, hoping for confirmation that his brother was as bat shit as ever. But he was staring at the ground. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Gus, tell him he’s a liar.”
“Come on, Caro,” Gus said instead. “We should get back.”
I faced Atticus again, hating him all over again. Hating his face and what he’d done to Juliet. I hated how he had my dad tied up like a prisoner. And I hated the words that he was saying. I hated everything and I wanted it to stop. “Lies,” I growled at him. “It’s all lies.”
Pity. He looked at me with pity. And that was the very last straw. I turned around and pushed through Atticus’s men, stopping to kiss my dad on the cheek. “I’m going to get you out of this,” I told him.
“I can take care of myself, sweet Caroline. You don’t need to worry about me.”
That wasn’t true. I should never have stopped worrying about him. Holy hell, what had I done?
No, the real question was, what had Sayer done?
“It will be over soon, pops. K?” I placed my hand on his cheek and watched him relax into it. My heart squeezed painfully, and my entire body trembled with emotion.
I needed to get out of here. I needed to remember how to breathe. I needed to sort through this mess and find the truth.
We were all liars. All of us.
Even Atticus.
Maybe especially Atticus.
Except there were too many accurate details.
“Ready?” Cage asked quietly.
“No,” I told him honestly.
“We should leave anyway.”
I finally nodded, letting him lead me out of the alley. It hurt like hell to leave my dad there. I wanted to believe Atticus was only keeping him as collateral, but who really knew… If my dad lost his hands to this sick game I would never forgive myself.
Cage hailed a cab and guided me into the backseat. Gus followed me while Cage took the seat in the front.
The day had exhausted me, worn me out so completely I wasn’t sure if I would ever recover. Between the FBI and coming face to face with Atticus and then finally my dad, not to mention the looming task to clear the Volkov name, I wanted to sleep for the next three years.
“Are you okay?” Gus asked quietly, reminding me of the source of my true crisis.
Sayer had set me up. All those years ago, that fateful night had been orchestrated. I felt sick to my stomach, convinced I was going to puke. “No,” I hiccupped, the sob washing through me like a flash flood.
“He was a kid too,” Gus said quietly. “He had this fucked up childhood…. He didn’t know how much you hated the brotherhood…”
“Stop,” I whispered. “Please, stop.”
“Caro…”
I turned away from Gus, staring out the window. I didn’t even know what to do with this information, how to compartmentalize it or file it away.
Sayer was the reason for everything.
I said it again in my head. Sayer was the reason for everything.
An hour ago, that sentence would have meant something entirely different—meaning love, gratitude, aching of hope and promise.
Now it meant something sinister, something destructive. Sayer was the reason for everything. He’d led me like a sheep to the slaughter, a blind mouse to the trap. I had fallen into his con without even realizing it was one.
Me, the master liar, had been duped.
God, I was such an idiot. And more than that, my soul hurt with the poison of truth.
This was why I was a liar—because the truth hurt too much. Lies were soft and gentle and meant to coddle. The truth cut like a knife, exposing every ugly reality.
I wanted my lies back.
I wanted my pretend.
“He loves you,” Gus insisted.
“No,” I hissed back. “Love is the lie. Control is the truth.”