37. Chapter 37
As Ray pointed the barrel at my forehead, I felt a sliver of my soul shatter into dust. The same thing happened when my mom died violently. It wasn't a wound that could heal. No matter how much time passed, it didn't scab over and disappear. It pulsed, a phantom limb always searching.
The ache thrummed and twisted my intestines as Jonah, and Ray drew toward the door. Beck wandered over to the bed, giving Ray's weapon a dismissive glance. He didn't gloat, like I expected. This was never a winning game for me. From the moment I stepped foot in Greenich Bay.
Beck's shoulder bumped against mine in silent comfort. He was here, as he always was. But it didn't stop the ache from spreading inside my stomach. Guilt and shame infused me. A disease that spread to my bones. His rage echoed on my skin.
I couldn't blame him.
Wasn't this always going to happen? My tongue was thick in my mouth, swollen with protestations I couldn't spit out.
They clamored around my mind instead, like pinballs.
Ray gave the gun to Jonah, opening his walk-in closet.
The towel he wore slung low on his narrow hips.
His elegant fingers dithered between a navy-blue button-up and a black one.
As if that were the most important choice right now, not the barrel trained between my eyes.
"Get dressed." Jonah tossed me my clothes.
There is a fine line between love and hate, and Jonah and Ray crossed to the other side.
My heart tore painfully under the weight of their judgment. I dragged on my clothes while Ray took his time dressing, bringing out a striped tie.
"What do you think? Does this occasion call for a tie?" He lifted it for Jonah's perusal.
Jonah flicked it a look. "Sure, if you're going to use it to strangle these two."
Beck made a show of tucking his hands behind his back, arching his eyebrow in a silent taunt. He could take them both, just like I could. Ray considered it, with a glint of something dark in his eyes.
"Wrap me up if you must, but it won't keep us down for long. Just a friendly warning."
I wanted to tell Beck to keep his mouth shut, not to make it worse, but I still couldn't speak. How had everything tumbled down so quickly? In the sauna, I felt a pressing need to reveal a partial truth. How I really felt. My skin had been bare, and urgency choked my lungs.
Now, the men I loved thought I was a traitor.
"Oh, I have actual ties for you." Ray pulled black zip ties out of another drawer with a mocking grin. "You work for The Unseen as well?"
Beck watched with a calm I couldn't replicate as Ray wrenched his arms back and restrained him. "Yes, and if I turn up dead, they'll come for me."
Sparks shot down my spine when he touched me. "Don't fight me, volpe mia."
I silently allowed him to tie my wrists together.
Beck didn't tell him how useless it was to use zip ties on us, either.
There was so much Ray didn't understand about the people we worked for.
Ray dropped my arms as if I had scalded him.
My chest rattled with the force of my heartbeat against my ribs.
Like it wanted to escape the cage I'd trapped it in, to bleed and beat in front of them until they saw I wasn't as big a liar as they thought.
"Start talking," Jonah growled, impatient. "Like what the fuck are you doing in Greenich Bay?"
Beck slid me a sidelong look, seeing how I struggled to catch my breath and manage my scrambling thoughts. I'd kept everything about my past locked down, and now the chains I'd used dragged me into the inky depths of oblivion.
"One thing you need to know about The Unseen is they're endless.
Like a web that stretches over every single criminal organization you know of.
Even insular crime organizations like Crimson Claw or the Sleepless Knights MC.
It doesn't matter if they are a little drop in the ocean of crime.
If they deal with illegal shit, The Unseen want to know about it. "
Beck paused, but the admission didn't soften the rampant tension in Jonah or Ray.
"There was an embargo in place, made by one of the higher-ups.
Nobody from The Unseen was to set foot in Greenich Bay.
No information was to be leaked out. It would have lasted until Antoni Orazio passed, but you have a mole in your city.
A man called Ellington Vizor. He is a dangerous former agent, and we've been sent to find him. "
Ray's blistering gaze passed over me, like the sight of me was too much.
"You expect me to believe that?"
Jonah was vibrating with a barely contained fury, the tendons in his arms taut as he refused to lower the gun. An hour ago, I would have been able to melt the tension, but not now.
"So you're a secret agent? You realize how absurd this sounds. Did you plant the cameras and kill the guard?"
"T-the cameras I did. We expected Ellington to infiltrate the Orazios, but the guard was not us," I stuttered.
The guard was Ellington. He's the real danger.
Ray shook his head, as if disgusted by the answer. "I don't know why I'm bothering. You're obviously a talented liar."
The barb stung even though it was true.
"Ellington is not someone you can underestimate. He's coming for Adelaide, I know that much." The words tumbled out like rotten secrets.
My tastebuds were rank with the taste of them.
I flexed my wrists, feeling the futility of my situation.
My shoulders drooped. Ray and Jonah were immovable.
I realized too late, my tongue coated with the bitter truth.
They would never see past the taint of The Unseen.
I couldn't even tell the full truth because Ellington would know. He'd kill Jenny, Bernice, and even me.
"I wanted to tell you." My voice cracked, and a flood of desperate tears coated my cheeks.
This had been building the moment I stepped into Greenich Bay, and the only person I had to blame was myself.
"The thing is, volpe mia," Ray sneered and pulled a velvet-lined case from his drawer, "I don't believe you."
"I'm sorrier than you'll ever know for lying. But I can't regret it." I strained forward, Jonah and Ray blurred through tears. "I love all of you. Whether it came about wrong or right, that's the truth."
"Liar." Jonah curled his lip. "I bet Lara isn't even your name, is it? Boring little Lara who captivated everyone around her. Adelaide's going to peel your skin off with her nails, you know that, don't you? I'll watch it with a goddamn smile."
Tears dripped onto my shivering skin. I didn't deserve their grace or forgiveness. But I wanted it so badly. My heart squeezed and dripped blood into the cavity of my chest. When I smiled, the tang of iron rimmed my lips.
Their glares tore me apart. Pieces for them to fight over and denigrate.
Beck leaned his arm against mine, a silent support that almost made me break.
The warmth was a reminder that I wasn't alone.
Beck's steady gaze was a link between us.
But the support kick-started my heart again, and with each pump, it ached with withering effort.
"My name is Lyra."
Jonah's face twisted with such rage and anger that a shock of terror ran down my spine. I knew at that moment he had appointed himself my executioner. I shivered. Would he truly be able to steal my breath or stop the thump of my heart when he was the one who had jump-started it after so long?
Ray perched on the end of the bed, tilting his head at me with a sharp, thin smile.
"Poor Jonah. He thought you were his dream girl." His jaw tightened, and I knew what he was thinking. I did too. I made a soft noise of regret, which he brushed off as he opened the case to reveal a pocket knife.
"My papa got me this. I thought he was the biggest asshole who ever lived, but I guess you usurped him."
Ray tarred everything I'd done with my lies, and I couldn't tell him differently. Trust was a tenuous thing, and I'd torn him to shreds.
"How fun." Beck laughed under his breath. "Ask her a question for me, will you? Ask her if she's colluding with Connall."
"W-what?" I whipped my head in his direction.
"You forget who taught you, Little Liar. You might fool these two, but not me. I know you're hiding more."
I hadn't always lied with such ease. It had taken years of practice for them to roll off my tongue. It had taken even longer for my stomach not to cramp under the guilt of lies. The Unseen took my innocence, but I'd chosen them.
"Don't do this," I whispered.
Ray picked up the lamp next to his bed and smashed it against the mirror. Shards of glass rained down on us, and my arms stung as tiny pieces sliced my skin. Beck stared at me without flinching.
He was my constant. He'd pulled me from the hole in my backyard and wiped the red off my skin.
Blood seared my nostrils, stung my eyes, and haunted every scrap of sleep I managed.
Beck had been there. He held my hand. An unusual show of softness from a man hard and unmalleable.
All I knew was that his touch was the lifeline I needed.
"If you're done with your tantrum?" Beck clicked his tongue.
"Answer him," Jonah said.
"All I want is Ellington captured or dead, like you do." I tried to dodge the question.
Beck cocked his head, and a strange smile spread over his lips. A shiver ran through me, like I hadn't known him at all.
"Lies," he said.
"Why are you listening to him? He's as much a liar as I am." My voice rose.
Ray tilted his head and sighed. "That's true, and he'll be dealt with. But Beck didn't use a perfect pussy to scramble my brain. He didn't say he loved me to keep me from digging deeper. But you did."
Beck nodded, and I saw a shade of him like in the elevator, when he said he'd do anything.
My monster. But still a monster.
"You know what would really make her talk?" Beck continued to smile, like it was obvious.
"Beck," I whispered.
"Know any small, dark places you can put her?"