Chapter Fifty
“Where are you?” Piper’s voice comes through the line, utterly annoyed. “I have plans, and I’m late.” She volunteered to watch the girls while I picked Brian up from the airport, and for a couple hours after that—but it’s approaching ten at night, well into date time.
“We…” I look over at Brian on the gurney, his eyes squeezed shut, face flushed with pain. And he doesn’t even know I’m an assassin yet. “We’re in the emergency room.”
That’s kind of true. We’re in a room. This was an emergency.
“What?” Piper barks. “What happened? Why am I just now finding out?”
There is no appropriate explanation for There’s a bullet in his shoulder, but I try. “He hurt his arm.”
The line is quiet for a beat. “His arm.”
“Mm-hmm.” I pick at the pilling on my new yoga pants. “Very painful.”
She snorts. “Serves him right.”
“Piper—”
“Just get home, okay?”
We disconnect, and I look up to see the doctor—Linda, I think Brian called her—shaking her head, pulling away from him as she looks down at something—the bullet, probably—in a metal cup.
“You were lucky,” she chides. “I told you, you have little ones now, you have to think of them before you get caught up in shenanigans. You could have died, do you understand that? Here, let me get you some antibiotics…”
I find myself wondering when he last saw Linda, and more importantly, why.
She disappears again, and I brace myself for his questioning. But it doesn’t come. He just sits, his eyes screwed shut, focused on breathing.
“She’s right,” he says. “I should have been more careful.”
“He kidnapped you. It’s not your fault.”
“No, but…” Brian’s eyes flick open, their dark brown depths full of—something. I don’t know what. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.”
He’s holding something back. Which, of course he is.
We both have been pretending to be people we’re not.
But he came clean, at least about the FBI thing.
I still have plenty of questions though, starting with Who were those people you introduced as your parents?
and ending with Who was the woman at the frat party?
I watch him, wondering what else he has to tell me.
“Here you are.” Linda procures a bottle of pills—antibiotics—and puts it in Brian’s palm.
“I’d give you more pain medicine, but I think maybe it’s good for you to feel the burn a little.
” She smiles, and it’s not kind. “Change the bandage every three days. Signs of infection, call me.” She pivots her gaze to me.
“You don’t have a bullet in you, do you? ”
I shake my head no and she nods, satisfied. “Very good. Shoo, everyone out. I have the new Unsolved Mysteries to watch.”
We make our way into the hall, and Brian focuses on breathing evenly as we head for the elevator.
“What about you?” he asks once we’re safely back in the van. “Where did you learn to shoot a gun and track a killer and—” He waves a hand, indicating, I assume, all the rest of it. “CIA? Homeland?”
I grip the steering wheel, hesitating to answer. Brian’s presuming I’m friend instead of foe. He always assumes the best about people. I start up the van, pull away from where I parallel parked, and direct the vehicle back toward home. He’ll find out soon enough.
“Why did you decide to work in the FBI?” I ask instead of answering him.
He sighs, adjusts how he’s sitting, winces as the seat belt brushes against the gauzy bandage Linda applied.
“I wanted to right the wrongs in the world. Try to, at least.” He inhales, looks off into the distance, and adds, “There are too many victims in this world. Too many people hurt by the actions of others.”
I try to decipher his words, or rather, the meaning behind them. But I suppose that sounds like him. Always trying to make the world a better place.
“So all the travel you do—it’s for them?”
He gives one precise nod. “Yes. Tracking various…persons of interest.”
I swallow. “And who’s the woman?”
“The woman?”
“She changed in the car from a suit to a cocktail dress when you were in Austin.”
He looks over, wide-eyed. “You were following me?”
I can’t help the tiny smile that comes to my lips. The way he stares at me like he’s just realized he’s not the only one who has certain skills, as if what happened in the storage unit hadn’t fully convinced him.
But regardless of him being FBI, I have my limits, my boundaries of what I will tolerate. And him sleeping with another woman isn’t one of them. “Who is she?” I repeat.
He huffs out a dismayed breath. “A coworker,” he says. “We work certain assignments together.”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“Of course not.” His indignant tone makes me believe him.
“And who was the woman you wandered off with at the party in San Diego?”
Now he stares at me, stunned into silence. “Have you been following me everywhere, Nadia?”
I shake my head. “Answer my questions. Then you can ask your own.”
“She was an informant. I’m assuming you saw me tuck her into a car—it was to get her somewhere safe. That’s all. I would never…” His voice tapers off into silence, perhaps not wanting to put words to my suspicions.
“And that night—did you have someone in your hotel room with you?” Or was Ian lying?
“Of course not.” He sounds offended, and suddenly, I can see it—Ian spinning the bit of truth I witnessed into a whole story I’d of course buy, because I’d already seen Brian leave with the college woman. The effect? Me, upset. Me, willing to kill him. Which was exactly what Ian wanted.
Brian sounds like he’s being honest. And that’s the most important piece—that he wasn’t trafficking people.
Also, he wasn’t cheating on me. I let the first thread of relief wind through me.
Maybe, somehow, things will be okay. I don’t know if he’ll accept me, but maybe there is some sort of path forward…
“One more question. The people you introduced me to as your parents.”
“FBI agents, acting like my parents.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lie to you. But I had no choice.” He pauses, thinks for a moment. “Wait, is that why you shot at me? Because you thought I was sleeping around? With those women?”
I almost laugh. “I didn’t shoot at you on purpose. I thought you were him. Ian. At first. When you came out into the hall. And then—things just got a little out of control.”
“Things got out of control?” he repeats, as though he can’t believe that’s my description of us nearly killing each other.
I glance sideways at him. “It was a little bit fun. Right?”
He raises one brow, a ghost of a grin floating over his lips. “You’re fucked-up.”
“So are you.”
Five minutes later, we pull up to a dark, silent house.
The sun has long gone down, and it’s past eleven by the time we ease in the door.
Bear greets us, wiggling, licking Brian’s leg, likely sensing he’s injured.
I expect Piper to storm in from the living room, but when I find her, she’s passed out on the couch.
Having worked out a tentative peace between us, Brian follows me as I drift from one room to another—placing a blanket over Piper, checking on the girls, adjusting Evie’s pillow. He kisses the girls good night, but mostly, his eyes rest heavy on me—wondering who the hell I am.
I almost take him into my office, through the hidden doorway to my hidey-hole.
But there’s too much there. Until I know how he’ll react, it’s better I keep certain things to myself.
And I’ve decided it’s best I keep the fact that Ian and I are—were—friends under wraps.
How can I possibly explain that my friend kidnapped and nearly killed him?
And that maybe, if Ian knew Brian is FBI, I could almost understand why?
We come to a stop in the kitchen, where I pull down two rocks glasses and reach for a bottle of bourbon we bought on our last trip to the beach, something local and smooth.
On the back patio, I flick on the fairy lights, light a candle, and sit in my normal chair overlooking San Antonio. Brian sits beside me, easing down into the chair carefully. He accepts a glass and, our eyes meeting, we clink.
“To being alive,” he murmurs.
I nod. We sip.
There aren’t many things in the world that inspire fear in me, but now, I’m fairly trembling. When I’ve downed half the glass, I find the words to start. “I’ve hidden who I am from you since the day we met. I never wanted you to know. It was easier, safer—for you, for the girls. Even for me.”
The gravity of his stare is palpable. If I were someone else, I might squirm. But I’m not, so I meet that gaze dead-on.
“But when you were taken, I couldn’t be just your wife, the mother of your children.
I couldn’t continue the act. I had to let myself be me—be…
” I hesitate. “Her. Or—” With a nod, I acknowledge we are not separate beings.
The monster is me, and I am the monster.
And today, she came out to play. “I had to do everything in my power to save you.” I take another sip.
Debate how much to tell him. But withholding the truth hasn’t helped us. If anything, it almost ended us.
“Someone put a hit on you.”
He doesn’t respond at first. When he does speak, it’s to ask, in a soft, deadly voice, “And how do you know that, Nadia?”
I shrug. “I kill people for a living.”
His eyebrows rise, slowly. He gulps down the rest of his drink.
“I was given a new assignment, a new person to kill. It was supposed to be a Big Job,” I tell him. “And so I followed this person, from the Pearl District to Austin. And when they got out of their fancy town car…it was you.”
When Brian finds his voice, it’s to croak out, “You’re an assassin?”
I nod. “The only events I plan are people’s deaths.”
“You were going to kill me?” The shock hasn’t left his voice.
“Well—maybe.” I harrumph. “I mean, I had to make sure you were doing bad things first. I only kill bad people. But it was impossible to figure out. And then—” I cut myself off, because to explain about Ian would be to admit that the man who nearly killed him was my friend.
And for some reason, I’m not ready to go there yet.
I’m not ready to utterly count Ian out. Maybe he thought he really was helping.
It doesn’t excuse the fact that he didn’t listen, didn’t heed my wishes. “But you weren’t.”
“How did you—when did you first—” He’s not caught up on the fact that someone wanted to kill him. It’s the whole me killing people part he’s struggling to process. His eyes are wide, his hands flexing and curling, like maybe it will help him get a grip on what I’ve just shared.
I pour us both more bourbon. “I was in high school. Piper’s college boyfriend was violent. I was pretty sure he was like me—” I make sure I’ve got his attention, then add, “In layman’s terms, I’m a psychopath. And he was too. Except I’m different.”
“Different how?”
“My gran—” I pause, try to think of how to explain that I’m pretty sure my grandmother, at a minimum, killed my abusive, controlling grandfather.
That maybe he wasn’t her first. “She helped me set some rules. I’ve always felt like there was this pressure welling up inside me.
Like a pot that will boil over, or a scream that I can’t hold back anymore.
It tells me to do horrible things so I can feel normal, because that side of me grows bigger and bigger, like I’m going to burst. And I realized that killing—it eases that.
It lets me feel okay again. Somehow, my gran knew I killed that jerk.
He was hurting Piper. He could have killed her.
So I killed him first. And it was like for the first time in years, I could breathe.
” The words tumble out. It’s more honesty than I’ve even given Ian.
“And then I realized I could make a living doing it.” I meet his eyes.
“I only take certain contracts. I only kill bad people. Which is why I waited to kill you. It’s why I followed you.
I had to be sure. Because you”—my head tilts, trying to let some of the emotion I feel on the inside come out in a way he can see—“you’re good.
And I knew that. And it didn’t feel right that you could do something so bad you deserved to die for it.
Someone must have put a hit on you because you’re in the FBI. What exactly do you do for them?”
Brian reaches for the bottle. He pours another finger or two, then stares at the amber liquid. His chest rises and falls in a sigh. “I locate, compile cases against, and bring certain people—” He looks at me. “People like you—to justice.”