CHAPTER 22
Kian
This is bullshit.
It’s frustrating that it took place on a special occasion for Samia and me. Specifically, taking place in front of my wife.
I’ve told Samia a lot about my work life, but I’ve kept the shady stuff from her. Now, she’s seen it personally in real-time, and I’ve played that look of fear on her face over my mind for the last few hours.
This isn’t my first foray with Detective fucking Massa and her enormous balls. She talks a big game does the detective. Massa thinks she’s superior, but she has never successfully infiltrated my organization, which bothers her.
Ethan handles the legal speaking during my interview. Turns out, I didn’t do what she’s accusing me of. I’ve never dealt with the Albanians and never will. The whispers she’s paying for in the underground market? Useless. This latest arrest is still just as frustrating. Tonight, specifically.
“This is looking like straight-up harassment, Detective Massa. You’ve questioned my client for hours, questions he’s answered, I might add, and you’ve produced no evidence of these so-called trumped-up accusations.” Ethan speaks in his lawyer tone. Putting my shark of a friend on retainer has been the best business decision ever. He takes no prisoners in his path. “I wonder if Mayor Meyerson knows where his tax dollars are going while you’re pulling innocent citizens out of their homes.”
“I can ask him at the next gala.” I pipe in, wearing a smirk. I consistently donate a large sum to that fool, but it’s justified since Ethan employs him to handle legal obstacles. The smirk on Massa’s face fades, making me question if she’s scared of losing her cherished badge. I’m not about to sit back and let her wreck my fucking life. I’ll demolish hers without a second thought if it comes to it.
“We have a few more questions for you,” she declares.
And so it goes.
For hours and hours.
Carter was told what was going on and has it handled at the warehouse. A spot that would never be associated with me by the police because I used a different identity. Once Ethan informed him, I was confident that Carter would contact all my dependable contacts. I wanted a name before the night was over. If someone messed with my empire, I’d crush theirs first.
Those who attempted to attack a MacNamara only ended up regretting it for the rest of their lives.
* * *
Samia
“I want to see my husband right now. He’s been here half the night.”
Ethan told me Kian was okay and that I should go home. There is no way I’m leaving without seeing him.
While I have always been the introverted type, my anger and courage grow as time passes without seeing Kian. I’ll probably end up in a holding cell for all the trouble I’ve been causing.
“As I told you, lady…” the officer behind the counter states, and I interrupt by holding up a hand.
“It’s not lady. I’m Mrs. MacNamara. And as I told you, I’m not moving until I see my husband.”
The middle-aged guy seems annoyed with me bugging him, but I don’t care what he thinks about my manners. I was on the verge of threatening to sue his whole family when someone yelled out my name. Ethan breezes through a keypad-protected door, clutching a briefcase, as I spin around.
“Where is he?”
“It’s being handled, Samia. You should wait at home.”
“What do you mean it’s being handled? He’s been here for hours.”
“And is likely to be here a few more. Do you still have his phone?”
“Yes.”
Kian’s lawyer puts his arm around my shoulder and ushers me away from the information desk, giving us a small amount of privacy from prying ears. “Hand it over.” I do, and he slips it into his inside pocket.
“Is he okay?”
Ethan nods. “Of course. We’re old hats at this shit, babe. Massa is pissed off she can’t find anything to make stick. He’ll be home with you soon.”
I gnaw my lower lip with my teeth, the dread I’ve carried for hours still gathering momentum in my chest. I won’t stop worrying until I see Kian again.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s what he pays me the big bucks for. Don’t worry. Now go home, yeah? I had a crew clean up, so there’s nothing to do but wait. He’ll go feral if he knows you’re out here.” When I hesitate, he goes on. “Seriously, Samia, you can do nothing for Kian here. I’ll bring him back to you as soon as I can.”
Knowing I had no choice but to wait, I reluctantly entered the car Ethan called for me. I’m so tired that I can’t even find the energy to shower or lie in bed. I drift in and out of a light sleep until I hear the keypad unlock the door sometime later, followed by my husband’s calm tones with Ethan.
The relief stings my eyes and weakens my bones. He’s home, and my heart burns so hot with relief I could have levitated off the cushions. I never expected the sight of my husband being handcuffed and taken away to have such an impact on me. But it sure aligned my feelings. And my feelings, heart, and soul are screaming to go to him.
“Keep it down. I don’t want you waking Samia.” He says, and that’s when I see it’s well into the next day. We’ve all been awake for a long time, and instead of flying off the couch to tackle my husband with a hug, I stay curled up with my back to the room. I don’t know why I chose not to alert Kian I’m awake.
Some sense that he might say more in front of Ethan than he would with me.
Steadying out my breathing, the boys remain in the hallway.
“You should have seen her, she was a rottweiler,” chuckles his friend. “I thought she was gonna vault over the counter and punch the desk sergeant.”
“You shouldn’t have taken her with you.”
“She insisted. And my priority was getting your ass out of jail.”
“I don’t give a shit. If it happens again, my wife is the priority. I don’t want her around all that.”
My heart soars, and I almost tell Kian I’m awake, but then Ethan speaks.
“Scared of what she might hear?”
“Shut the fuck up, man.”
“I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating because you’ll always be walking on eggshells. You ever gonna tell her?”
Tell me what?
Is it a secret?
Kian’s tone captures my focus more than his actual words. It’s as if I can feel him holding his breath. I want my husband to be open and honest with me. I’ve always yearned for a relationship as sincere as my parents, and I thought that’s what Kian and I were forming between us.
“Samia and me are good. She doesn’t need to know. It would have happened regardless; I just got us here differently.”
Their quiet conversation is so close, and I struggle to keep calm and not ask what they’re talking about.
“You’re seriously going to be okay in ten years, twenty even, knowing how you manipulated her into letting you into her life? Come on, bro, that’s some brass balls to think you can keep that big secret forever.”
“It’s not your fucking business to question my personal decisions. How is Mrs. Robinson, huh? Did she let you under her skirt yet? Or maybe her husband won’t let you.” snaps Kian, adding a darker edge to their conversation.
I’ve only caught fragments of gossip about the woman Ethan is pursuing. Shockingly, I wasn’t aware that she was married.
“This conversation has nothing to do with Genevieve, and the fact you’re bringing her into it means you’re scared, my friend.” There’s a beat of silence, and then. “You know I have the same moral compass level as you. We’re both pricks most of the time and always have been. And I didn’t persuade you to a different path when you told me what you were doing, did I? I even encouraged you because I know how you feel, and watching you mope over the woman was dragging me down. That shit is on me because if you’d seen her in that station, she was wild and ready to do damage to get to you, Kian. I think she would have gotten herself arrested because she didn’t give a shit who she had to strangle. That’s the actions of a wife who loves you. But she doesn’t know the full story, and that’s not right.”
A reservoir of emotion sluices through my veins, icing over my heartbeats as I eavesdrop, growing more confused by the second. The very suggestion Kian lied to me hurts so badly. The way the hallway is situated, the boys won’t see me as I silently swing my legs from the couch, sitting on the edge of the cushion. No longer pretending I’m asleep.
“You need to shut the fuck up. I mean it, Ethan. Samia is mine.” I recognize the sound he emits. He’s grating the words through his teeth from frustration or anger.
“Yeah, she is. But she doesn’t know how she’s yours. She doesn’t know you manipulated that whole fucking situation to get her. You used her memory loss to your advantage.”
Blood rushes through my ears, shock hits me from every angle, and it feels like icy pain pelting me. It’s as though I’m hearing alien words that make no sense as the burn of dread continues to spread through my lower abdomen, until a roiling of nausea bolts up my throat, and I have to cover my mouth to muffle a noise of distress.
“I know you don’t regret it,” Ethan says in his no-nonsense voice.
“I don’t,” Kian confirms.
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give her the truth now. That’s all I’ll say about it.”
“You’re a bleeding heart, you know that? Your old lady has made you soft.”
“She’s not fucking old, asshole.” Laughs Ethan.
“Keep telling yourself that, toy boy.”
“Okay, one more thing.”
“For fuck’s sake. You’re turning into a shrink. I know who the fuck I am, yeah? And what I did.”
“I know that, meathead. Just listen. Samia is good for you.”
“I know that.”
“Then you know how good it feels to have someone at your side, to see you, flaws and all, and have them want you anyway, even if you are the fucking devil.”
Kian chuckles. “Or, in your case, making deals with the devil.”
Ethan matches Kian’s amusement. “Because I stupidly work for assholes like you.”
I know little about what Kian pays Ethan for, but I believe what he says. Those two have always been thick as thieves, with emphasis on the thieves if only half the rumors about them are true.
“Is that what you have with Genevieve? Someone at your side who knows who you are?”
“Her and me are complicated, but that’s what I’m working toward. I can’t accept being in a world where she’s not mine.”
“So, you get it?”
“You know I do. But basing your relationship on all the lies you’ve told isn’t where it’s at, Kian. It’s going to eat you up, eventually. Every time she smiles at you like you hung the moon, you’ll know it’s because you lied so often.”
I want to know what lies he’s told, but Ethan doesn’t give me a chance because his speech continues.
“If I were you, I’d put it all out for her, let her see your obsessed mania for what it is, how you lied about being a couple and living together. You made everyone around her believe you were together so Samia would accept it. You guys are married now, so she feels something for you. Build on that.”
Lies.
Lies.
Lies.
As Ethan unknowingly reveals my husband’s deception to my ears, I feel my world splinter open. My heart and body no longer belong to me. Like I’m on the ceiling watching it all happen, emotions bombarding me all over, darts of pain until I can’t breathe.
Lies.
Has he lied to me from the beginning?
I’m hit with a two-fist sucker punch to the stomach.
It can’t be real.
Ethan has to be joking.
As I wait, trying to remain quiet, Kian doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t even attempt to express regret for what he’s done.
My world has fallen apart within minutes, and I don’t know what to do or how to react.
Then I hear their feet moving on the tiled hallway floor, coming toward me. My eyes flare, ready to see my traitorous husband for the first time without the veneer of his lies leading me around by the fucking nose.
“I need to take a leak and then head off home. Between you and Genevieve, I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and I’m beat,” Ethan says, but then his steps suddenly stop as he sees me on the couch, looking their way.
I’m sure I look like hell because he curses under his breath as if reading the situation right. Yeah, buddy, I heard your conversation in all the terrible, heartbreaking detail.
“On second thoughts, I’ll take a piss at home.” His gaze shifts to Kian, who’s only just noticing. It takes my husband less than a second to put two and two together because his head drops before looking at me again.
“Just go,” Kian tells Ethan without turning to face his friend. “Thanks for last night.”
Whatever parting greeting Ethan gives, I don’t hear it.
I realize Kian’s silence confirms what I thought I heard.
“You were never my boyfriend,” I speak, forcing my glued tongue to give sound to the words screeching around my brain.
He was never my boyfriend. I was never his girlfriend.
And now a shiny rock sits on my finger, declaring me his wife.
“You lied to me, Kian.”
“Samia…baby.”
“All this time, when I was at my weakest, you told me lie after lie. You lied to my family, to our friends.” My voice shakes with emotion, tears threaten to fall and never to fucking stop, and I fight to hold them back. No way will I show how deeply he’s breaking my heart.
I fell in love with someone who has mastered the art of deception.
And he’s broken me open.
Everything that’s grown between us these past months is demolished on the floor, under a pile of rubble and lies. The greedy, incredibly immense love sprouting in my heart for Kian leaks out of me until my fingers clench tightly on my lap, and I see red bleeding into my vision.
I’ve never wanted to physically hurt someone until now. I want to inflict the same pain on him he’s causing me. This weighted emptiness over not knowing who this man truly is.
Who the fuck did I marry?
I don’t know his reasons.
Can there be a legitimate excuse for why he’s hurt me so badly?
But I sit as still as I am, my fingers clasped together, and I stare at Kian.
Waiting, pleading with him silently to tell me I heard it wrong. Please, tell me it’s wrong.
This stranger with oceanic eyes and an intense way of staring back at me, like he saw something I never could.
I inhale until my lungs are full, and as my voice shakes with every ounce of the pain I’m suffering, I think about all the times Kian has smiled at me. Countless times, and I know now those smiles were lies in disguise.
“You manipulated me into a relationship,” I repeat the ugly truth of what I overheard, feeling sick to my stomach with venom rushing through my veins. My mind is nothing but a smeared, chaotic mess. “I think I hate you now, Kian. And this…” I look down at the rings he tenderly placed on my finger, assumingly with love and promises, vows of honesty and fidelity and a lifetime of devotion. Now I know they were all lies, too. “These are nothing more than meaningless baubles now.”