Chapter 16 Liam
She sat curled into the corner of my couch like she was trying to take up as little space as possible, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them.
The last time she'd stood in this apartment, she'd been laughing, half-drunk on wine and victory, daring me to catch up to her wager.
Tonight there was no laughter in her at all, just a tight, watchful stillness.
“How exactly were you able to afford this place?” she asked as she rubbed her arms. It struck me as a ploy to get her mind off whatever was going on. “You never told me.”
“I got the family a security contract with…” I paused to think. The Masked Brotherhood was, first and foremost, a secret society. If I wasn’t careful, I risked Roxy asking more questions. Dangerous questions. “With a fraternity of sorts. For businessmen. It’s been pretty lucrative.”
I poured her a glass of water because it gave my hands something to do besides reach for her, and set it down on the coffee table.
She didn't touch it. I started pacing instead, rehearsing the words in my head for the third time, trying to find an order that wouldn't break her, or me, or whatever fragile thing was rebuilding itself between us one bad night at a time.
"Okay." I stopped in front of the window, the river glittering black and gold behind me, and made myself turn around and face her instead of the glass. "I need to tell you something really important. So I need you to just sit down and listen."
"I am sitting."
Right. Of course she was. I dragged a hand through my hair, feeling nineteen years old again, standing in front of a bonfire trying to find the nerve to talk to the prettiest girl I'd ever seen.
"First of all, you're being followed." I made myself say it plainly because she deserved that, even if the rest of what I had to tell her would come out in careful, measured pieces.
"One of my guys tracked down a man who's been hired to tail you.
Someone paid him to locate you, and then to watch you.
We don't know by who yet." I hesitated on the next part, already bracing for what it would cost me.
"Does the name Lance mean anything to you? "
Nothing moved behind her eyes. No recognition, no flicker of memory. Just confusion, and then, a half-second later, something sharper replacing it as the rest of my sentence caught up with her.
"No," she said slowly. Then, "Wait. You've been checking up on me?"
There it was. I'd known it was coming, had known it the second the words left my mouth, and still I wasn't ready for how much it stung to watch her expression shift from fear to that old, familiar wariness, the one she used to wear every time I came home late smelling like other men's cigarettes and unfinished business.
"That's not—" I stopped myself before I could dig the hole any deeper. "Look. The important thing is that we figured it out. That there's someone else out there with eyes on you, and it's not me."
"That's not actually the important thing to me right now, Liam."
"I know." I held both hands up, a small surrender, because she wasn't wrong and I wasn't about to insult her by pretending otherwise. "I know, and we're gonna have that fight, I promise you. Just not tonight. Please."
I watched her decide whether to let it go, watched three years of hard-won independence war with whatever was left of the woman who used to give me the benefit of the doubt even when I hadn't earned it. She was quiet a moment too long, and I found myself holding my breath.
"Fine," she said at last. "Later. What else."
There's something else. I'd been dreading this part since the second she said the casino's name over the phone, some cold certainty already gathering in my gut before I'd even confirmed it.
I crossed the room and sat down across from her, close enough that our knees nearly brushed, elbows braced on my thighs because I needed something solid to hold onto while I said the next part. "That casino in AC. The one that folded. Was it the Silver Anchor?"
Her whole face changed. "How did you know that?"
The thought arrived a half-second before I said it aloud, heavy and useless. "I was afraid you'd say that." I rubbed a hand over my jaw, unable to quite look at her, ashamed in a way I couldn't fully explain yet, not even to myself. "My da was an early investor in that so-called project."
I watched it hit her. The color drained slightly from her face as she put together, piece by piece, exactly how much bigger this was than either of us had understood an hour ago.
"You're telling me," she said slowly, "that the Murphys had money in the Silver Anchor. The whole time I worked there."
"A small stake. Silent partner stuff, years back. But my da sold his shares years ago, way before you left—" The words tasted like ash. "I didn't even think about it until tonight. Christ, Roxy, I didn't even put it together that you'd worked there specifically until you said the name just now."
It was the truth, and it still felt like a confession. What kind of husband did that make me, then or now.
I could see her working through it in real time, the way she used to work through a bar tab in her head, quick and sharp, always faster at the math than I gave her credit for.
"That doesn't make sense," she murmured, mostly to herself.
"If someone's suddenly paying a private investigator to track down a bartender who used to work there—"
She stopped. I watched the exact moment the full picture locked into place behind her eyes, and my stomach dropped in anticipation of what she'd ask next.
"You think it's connected," she said. "The person following me. Whatever happened with my apartment."
I didn't answer. I didn't trust myself to shape the silence into anything except what it was, which was confirmation.
"Liam."
"I don't know yet." That much, at least, was true, even if it wasn't the whole truth.
Even if some ugly, half-formed shape was already taking root in the back of my mind.
"I don't have the whole picture. I have that Lance guy's name, and I have you in front of me.
That's it. That's all I've got right now. "
"That's not all you've got. You've got this.
" She leaned forward, and for one unguarded second she looked at me the way she used to, back before the running and the leaving and all the years in between.
Then, she reached under the couch to pull out her purse, unzipped with a manila folder tucked inside.
She pulled it out and held it out to me. “Do you want to have a look?”
I took it and paged through the contents carefully. Everything was perfectly boring and ordinary, at first glance. There were a few pay stubs, paid out to Roxy Murphy. A faded receipt from a restaurant supplier. Several balance sheets.
“None of this makes sense without context,” I said, snapping the folder shut. “But I think my da might be able to make some sense of this.”
Roxy stared up at me through her eyelashes, a look that used to bring me to my knees when I was younger. “Do you think someone in your family is connected?”
I thought about every Sunday dinner I'd sat through my whole life, watching various male cousins get passed over for the flashier jobs, and I felt something cold and unwelcome settle into my chest. It wasn't proof, but dread.
"I don't know yet," I said again, and hated how easily the half-truth came, how practiced I'd apparently gotten at giving her just enough to satisfy the question without giving her everything.
"But I'm going to find out. And until I do, you're staying here, where I can actually keep you safe instead of finding out after the fact that someone's already been through your things. "
She studied me for a long moment, and I made myself hold her gaze even though every instinct told me to look away before she could read exactly how much I was still keeping from her.
"Fine," she said finally. "Tonight. But you owe me the truth, Liam. All of it. The second you actually have it."
"I know."
I meant it when I said it. I wanted, badly, to believe I'd actually follow through. That the second Sean confirmed what I already suspected, I'd sit her down and lay it all bare, consequences be damned.
But some old, familiar part of me, the part that was accustomed to making the decisions, was already quietly building the case for waiting just a little longer.
I told myself it was for her sake.