Chapter 28
Nina looked at the man she never thought she’d meet.
He was tall, so she didn’t get her stature from him, with thick gray hair.
He wore dress pants, a button-down shirt, and a long navy woolen overcoat.
Everything about him looked expensive, like he’d dressed for a boardroom instead of a home invasion.
“Classy” would have been the first word she used for him. On the heels of that came “asshole.”
Suddenly all the longing she’d had for this man wasn’t there anymore. She’d spent years building him up in her mind into someone worth missing, and it had taken him all of ten seconds to burn that down.
He’d lied to her mother, and now he’d come after her, and for what?
“What is it you actually want from me, Mr. Falcon?” Nina said in a cold voice. “Because you and your—whatever they are,” she said, waving toward Amber and Kurt, “have inconvenienced me a lot.”
“I regret Amber’s decision to set fire to your house, Christina—”
“My name is Nina.”
His smile was gentle, but she wasn’t buying it. She just bet he used that charm on anyone in his way, softening them up right before he took whatever he’d come for. “Nina, then. You’ll have to forgive me, as I’ve always thought of you as Christina.”
“You didn’t think about me,” she scoffed.
“I did, actually, but that’s not important right now.”
“It’s never going to be important. Now tell me what you want so you can take it and leave, and I never have to see you or your two lying cohorts again,” Nina said.
They were in the living area, and her back was toward the kitchen and rear door, which she’d just come through. Could she make a run for it? She measured the distance in her head—six steps, maybe seven—but Kurt still had that gun in his hand, so for now she’d wait and take her chance when it came.
“I’m your father, Nina. Surely you can spare me some of your time?”
He made it sound like it was her fault she didn’t know him. Like she was the one who’d been put in prison, leaving a wife with a three-year-old to care for while in shock over the fact that her husband was a criminal.
“So what? Merry fucking Christmas to me, my father has finally made contact?” she snapped. “Don’t make this more than it is, Mr. Falcon. You sent these two”—she pointed to Amber and Kurt—“to get what you wanted from me.”
“They came into my house, violating my privacy and possessions, and when that and the fire didn’t yield any results, you came yourself.”
The flash of anger in his eyes was only small, but Nina saw it, a flicker there and gone, like he’d tried to catch himself before it could show. Good to know he could be rattled. She filed that away.
“I apologize for their tactics, and I did not order them to take those actions.”
“Right, and of course I believe you,” Nina drawled. “Now tell me what you want, and then you can get out of my town and take your friends with you.” Nina raised her middle finger at Amber.
“Amber is your aunt, and Kurt is your cousin,” Falcon said, his tone now matching hers, flat and hard.
“Aww, now isn’t this sweet. A real family reunion at gunpoint,” Nina added, pointing at the weapon still in Kurt’s hands, her tone mocking. She wanted him to see she wasn’t afraid, even if her heart was slamming hard enough that she could feel it in her throat.
“Control your emotions,” her mother used to say to her. “You have big feelings, Nina, and nothing good will come from letting them control you.”
I hear you, Mom. I’m trying.
How long would it take Finch to calm down enough to come looking for her? She hadn’t been gone long, but he’d want her where he could see her, even if he was angry with her.
“You’re certainly more like me than your mother,” her father said, and there was something almost like pride in his voice, which made her stomach turn. “Perhaps there is hope for us and a future together?”
“No, there isn’t. I want nothing to do with you after you leave here.”
“She’s a fiery one, like I told you,” Amber said.
“And you’re a lying, cheating bitch,” Nina replied, not missing a beat.
Amber’s usually friendly face turned red with anger, her jaw tightening like she wanted to say something back but didn’t dare. Not with her brother standing right there.
“Now, what do you want?”
“A white framed print of your hand and foot prints as a baby. It’s only small, but your mother wouldn’t have left it in the house when she ran away from me,” Falcon said, and for just a moment, his voice lost its polish.
There was something underneath it that almost sounded like grief, though Nina wasn’t about to let herself believe that.
“My mother. Your wife, do you mean? Who you lied to and betrayed?” Nina looked at the three people who shared her blood and felt nothing but disgust. Not one drop of the longing she used to carry around like a stone in her pocket. Just disgust.
“Where is the picture?” Kurt demanded, stepping forward, lifting the gun slightly like he thought that might help him get an answer faster.
“I don’t know,” Nina said, holding his gaze steadily. “I’ve seen nothing like that. Mom must have thrown it out.”
“No, she would have kept it,” Dale Falcon insisted. “Your mother was very attached to it.”
“Did you ever love her?” The words were out before she could stop them, and she hated herself a little for asking. Hated that some small, stubborn part of her still wanted to know.
“Of course I loved her. I wouldn’t have married her if I hadn’t, and if someone hadn’t betrayed me, we’d probably still be married and Shirley still unaware of what I do.”
Do.
“Putting millions of dollars of drugs on the streets for kids to take and die, do you mean?”
His mouth tightened. “If I didn’t do it, someone else would.”
She actually laughed at that. “I bet that helps you sleep at night.”
“You know nothing about my life, Nina. You don’t know what it cost me to build what I have or what I’ve done to protect the people who matter to me.”
“The people who matter to you,” she repeated. “Is that why Amber torched my house? Because I matter to you?”
He didn’t answer that, and the silence told her more than any excuse could have. She didn’t matter to him.
“Where is the picture!” Dale Falcon was out of patience, it seemed, raising his voice for the first time, and Nina caught the way Amber and Kurt both went still when he did, like they knew that tone and to be careful around it.
“Not here, so your family’s attempts to destroy my home were for nothing. The other place it could be is with the furniture in storage. I haven’t been there in a while.”
No one would be there now, so she could take them there and away from Lyntacky.
Away from anyone else who might get caught up in whatever this turned into.
She thought of the neighbors with their new baby two doors down and others on her street, who would thankfully all now be at the tree lighting.
She needed to get these villains out of town before that finished.
Finch would come for her. She just had to buy some time.
“Take us there,” her father demanded.
“Please,” Nina said, holding his eyes.
“Now,” he added, like the word hadn’t even registered.
It was dark outside, so no one could see them as they left the house if they were looking. They headed to the car Kurt had been driving. The night air was icy enough to slice through a person, and Nina was glad of her scarf and gloves.
“Hello, Nina and friends!” She found Jonathan and Caleb jogging by, breath fogging in the streetlight, but they didn’t stop, just lifted their hands in greeting and carried on past, thankfully.
Nina forced her face into a normal expression that wouldn’t make them turn around and felt Amber’s hand close briefly around her elbow, a warning disguised as a touch.
“Get in the back and put your head down between your knees,” Kurt said, climbing into the driver’s side. Amber sat with her, and Dale Falcon settled into the passenger seat.
“Are you sure he’s your son? Because he’s a real asshole. Oh wait, but then, so are you,” she said to Amber.
“I did what I had to,” the woman said, and there was something almost like an apology buried in the words, though Nina refused to acknowledge it as one.
“Is my daddy holding all the purse strings?”
No one answered Nina’s question, and soon they were heading out of town, the streetlights thinning behind them until there was only the dark road ahead and the four of them inside the car.
Nina kept her head down like they’d told her and gave directions, watching the floor mat between her knees, running through everything she knew about the Murrays’ farm and how far it actually was from anywhere Finch might think to look.
She had time. That was the one thing she was sure of. Whatever else happened tonight, she still had time to think her way out of this. Nina also didn’t imagine her father wanted her dead, but then, she didn’t really know him, so there was that to consider too.
Her mother slid into her head then. The woman who’d raised her alone in a house with the porch light always left on if she was out late and who’d never once mentioned this man’s name.
Nina understood now, in a way she never had before, exactly how much her mother must have done to keep them safe. Running from a powerful man like Dale Falcon couldn’t have been easy and took courage, but she’d done that. Covered her tracks and changed their names for freedom.
Kurt took a turn too fast, and Amber’s shoulder pressed into Nina’s.
She used the moment to steady her breathing, counting the seconds the way she’d taught herself to do back when the big feelings threatened to spill over into something she couldn’t control.
In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Whatever happened, she’d deal with it, and Finch would come for her—she knew that.
The man she’d just hurt, but cared deeply for would find her, and then she’d apologize and tell him that maybe, just maybe, he was her future.