6. Bianca
Chapter 6
Bianca
“ I ’m sorry, who did you kill?” Michael asks.
“What’s the name of the crime boss the sheriff mentioned?” Silas asks, releasing my hand. I hate that he let me go. His touch kept me grounded as I mull over the fact that the very thing I’ve been afraid of is happening right before my eyes.
Why are they coming for me now?
Elijah opens the folder and checks it. “Lucian Culvers. That guy was bad news. I remember hearing about him back when the military was looking for intel on his overseas operations.”
The name is acid to my ears, searing me from the inside.
“What’s going on here?” Lance asks, looking from me to Silas. I keep waiting for Silas to start spilling my secrets, but even after everything, he’s waiting for me to confess. For me to speak the truths I’ve been running from for decades.
I would love to keep the secrets longer. Forever, really. But if the fight is here and my entire team is involved, I can’t keep them in the dark. Even if it means they send me packing. Which they honestly should do. If I’m here, I’ll only bring danger to their doorsteps.
“Lucian Culvers was my father.” Just speaking the words makes my stomach burn. I want to vomit, scream, cry, and run away. But I can’t do any of it. I won’t do it. Not anymore.
“This guy?” Elijah asks, tapping the folder. “This guy who ran drugs, money, guns, and people all over the world? The same Culvers who took out nearly an entire team of Navy SEALs sent to stop him?”
“Yes,” I reply, unwilling to look at Silas.
“The same one who held you captive?” Lance asks Silas.
A muscle in his jaw tightens. “One and the same,” Silas replies.
Lance leans back against a desk and crosses his arms. “Rescuing Michael was not the first time you two had met.”
It’s not a question, and even though we didn’t outright deny it, our secret still counts as a lie. “No, it wasn’t. I first met Silas when he rescued me from a death sentence at my father’s camp in the jungles of Cambodia.”
“I’m sorry— what ?” Michael demands, his temper flaring.
“Michael,” Lance starts.
“No, don’t Michael me. They lied. I want the whole truth. All of it. Now. What does your dad have to do with our dead guy, and why are they here now?”
“On my seventeenth birthday, my father discovered that my mother was planning to run away with me. He killed her for it, and I witnessed the whole thing. As soon as I could, I stole money and ran, then paid someone to erase me from existence and turn me into Bianca Theodore.”
There’s so much more to the story that I’m leaving out. Darkness that I can’t bear to speak out loud. Not ever. It will suffocate me if I let it, and speaking it aloud will surely release pain I’ve kept buried for as long as possible.
Elijah clicks away on his keyboard, then turns to me. “Props to whoever did the wipe and identity setup. It’s solid.”
“Of course you’re giving her a compliment right now.” Michael rolls his eyes.
“I’m merely mentioning that the check is solid. I didn’t catch anything when I looked into her before we hired her.”
“The military didn’t catch anything either when she joined,” Michael reminds him.
Elijah shrugs. Everyone in this room knows he’s more thorough than even the United States military when it comes to background checks. Elijah can find a speck of dust in a digital haystack.
Lance remains silent. I meet his gaze. Will he fire me? Throw me out of here without another look? He’s a man of God. Honest to his soul. What will he do with someone like me, who’s been lying about who she is for years?
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I’m so sorry I kept it a secret. I just—I didn’t think it would be an issue.”
“What do you mean, you killed him?” Michael asks. “Can we get back to that?”
I close my eyes momentarily, memories of my abduction and the botched surgery rushing back. “I was grabbed from a military base in Afghanistan,” I tell them. “Taken by someone my father paid. They knocked me out and flew me to his secret camp in Cambodia because he was dying and needed surgery to remove a blockage in his gut. There were complications, and I didn’t save him. I could have. And I chose not to.”
Beside me, Silas remains silent. He’s heard this before. Then, we’d both been staring down the barrel of weapons as we knelt on the soft, jungle dirt. But one glance at him and I see it’s not any easier to digest this time around.
Michael studies me. “So you didn’t actively murder someone, you just refused medical care.”
“I could have saved him,” I insist, not wanting Michael to soften what I did. “I was good at what I did. But I saw an opportunity to rid the world of a monster, and I took it.” The room is silent, no one wanting to say what’s on their mind. I can feel the disappointment. The anger. The repulsion. It’s the same way it felt when Silas found out the truth. That the man who’d killed his friends and tortured him was the same man I used to call my dad. The same one who used to tuck me in at night. Who cradled me when I’d been an infant.
Tears burn in my eyes, but I struggle to keep them hidden. “Look, I’ll leave. They’ll follow.” I start toward the door.
“No.” A single word spoken by a man shouldn’t hold such power. But when spoken by Silas Williamson, and directed at me, it does.
I stop moving and turn to face the room.
“You’ve been running your entire life. They’re here now. And they’ll come after all of us simply because we associated with you. It would be foolish to think that leaving will draw them away from here. They’ll just assume we know where you are and use us to find you.”
“But you won’t know where I’m going.”
“You and I both know that won’t stop them from trying to figure it out.”
Torture. He’s talking about torture. Bile burns my throat.
I think about everyone here that I’ve come to care for. Lance and his wife, Eliza, Michael and his wife, Reyna, Elijah and his wife, Andie, Lilly, Alex, Pastor Redding, Kyra…Silas and Eloise. The list goes on and on. Would running really put them in more danger?
And if leaving will cause pain, then what does staying risk? Either way, it seems I’m risking nothing short of everything.
“If your fa—Culvers is dead,” Michael starts, “then who’s coming after you now?”
“My uncle, River, would have taken over the organization after the death of Lucian,” I reply. “He’s not quite as bloodthirsty, though just as dangerous. Even more so, maybe, because he’s less predictable.”
“Why would they be coming after you now?”
“They want me dead. My father’s group has their own brand of justice they like to dole out. I’ve been running ever since I was pulled out of that jungle.”
“Why didn’t you change your name after the rescue?” Elijah asks. “You clearly had someone who could do it for you, why not do it and disappear?”
Because Silas wouldn’t be able to find me. It’s not like I can speak that truth out loud, though. Silas made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me, but I always hoped that maybe if he changed his mind— “I was attached to the name,” I reply. “And I thought they would be so busy with the organization falling apart around them that they wouldn’t be focused on me.”
“Well, you were wrong,” Michael says. “And now they’ve come to Hope Springs.”
“I know. Sorry doesn’t cut it, I know that, but I never would have come here if I thought the danger was still relevant.”
His gaze darkens. “You’re the daughter of one of the most dangerous men the United States has ever seen, and—to top it off—you let him die on an operating table. Why would you think the danger would ever disappear?”
It’s a fair question, and one I can’t blame Michael for asking. Everyone he loves lives here in Hope Springs. His wife, parents, sister, nephew, friends—they all reside in this town. If anyone were to threaten these people I care about, I would fight to the death for them.
It makes me despise myself a bit more. And I didn’t think that was possible.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Michael sighs. “The danger isn’t the problem. We’ve all faced down our fair share of enemies. It’s the hidden truths I have a problem with.”
“Same,” Elijah adds.
Lance remains quiet. I’m not sure how, but his silence is even more deafening than Michael’s harsh words.
“Lance, if you want me gone, just say the word. I’ll go.”
His gaze flicks from me to Silas, then back to me. “No. You’re our family now, Bianca. And you’ve saved our lives before. Now it’s our turn. But we need complete honesty from here on out. No more secrets.”
No more secrets. “I carry so many of those, I’m not even sure where to start unraveling them,” I reply truthfully.
Lance nods in understanding. “Start with any known names of those who may be on your uncle’s payroll.”
By the time I’ve finished listing out the names of everyone I remember from my father’s organization, I’m beyond exhausted. Silas and Michael left shortly after I started listing names, leaving Lance to take notes and Elijah to work on running backgrounds.
They were still working when I left, and even though I would love a hot shower and to crawl into bed, going home to a massive hole in the roof of my house is far too depressing for me.
I tell myself that’s why I’m standing outside the church just past nightfall.
But even I know it’s another lie. The truth is, after a day of ripping open old wounds, I’m desperate for answers. And I’m not sure I can get them anywhere else.
In fact, I know I can’t get them anywhere else.
The front door opens and Pastor Redding steps out. He starts to lock up behind him, then seems shocked when he catches sight of me standing on the front steps. “Bianca, this is a great surprise.”
“How do you know?”
He shoves his keys back into his pocket. “How do I know what?”
“That God is up there. That He’s listening? That He cares? How do you know any of that is the truth?” My chest is heavy, the questions suffocating me.
Pastor Redding smiles softly at me and opens the door, then gestures for me to step inside. “Come on in, child, let’s talk.”
I should walk away. Leave him here in the church and head home. But I can’t ignore the feeling in my chest that tells me to take a step forward. Then another, and another, until I’m walking into the sanctuary.
Straight ahead is a cross. And the moment my gaze lands on it, the tears spill from my eyes as exhaustion nearly takes me to my knees. “I’m so tired,” I tell him. “I’m so tired of all of it.”
“Then come and find rest.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and guides me toward a pew in the back where we both sit.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper between the tears. “It’s all just so heavy. Life. Pain. Why is living so hard?”
“Don’t apologize,” he replies. “Not to me. Take all the time you need.”
“All my life I was told I was strong. My mother told me that all growing up. That I was stronger than I ever knew. That I could carry anything if only I put my faith where it belongs. She was a believer, yet she married a monster.”
“Sometimes people make bad decisions,” Pastor Redding replies.
“She had to have known who he was before she married him. And then he—” I close my eyes. “My father was a terrible man, Pastor. He did awful things, and I was so blinded by the money he had, by the material possessions he granted me, that I didn’t even bother to try and see through it.”
“But you see through it now.”
“I’ve seen it for a long time,” I admit. I turn to him, tears still blurring my vision. “I’ve been reading a Bible on my tablet. Searching for answers. But I don’t feel Him. Why can’t I feel God?”
“The fact that you’re trying to feel Him tells me you do. Your heart is burdened with the weight of your past. If you want to truly move into your new life, then you have to accept your Savior, ask for forgiveness, and let the past go.”
“Forgiveness.” I shake my head. “I’m not deserving. You have no idea the things I’ve seen. The poison in my blood.”
“None of us are deserving,” he tells me. “Jesus didn’t die for us because we were worthy. He died for us out of love.”
“Love is another fallacy in my world, Pastor.”
“It’s not a fallacy in anyone’s world,” he replies. “You just need to open your heart to receive it.”