Then New Orleans
THEN: NEW ORLEANS
“We’re not doing this,” I snap at Scarlett.
I said the same to Merrick when I arrived in New Orleans and discovered the last person I wanted to be partnered with waiting in my suite. To make matters worse, he also informed me on that angry call that Scarlett and I would be completely on our own. The more people involved in an operation, the higher likelihood of mistakes, and there’s no room for a misstep on this one.
But Merrick wouldn’t budge and hung up on me with a chilling warning to follow orders or else.
“You know why we’re here,” she fires back. “My father wants a deal at all costs and you’re the one they want. We need leverage.”
“You can’t blackmail the RLC!” I cry. “Your father has no idea who the hell he’s dealing with or what he’s doing when it comes to the RLC. He never has. This isn’t some amateur operation he can manipulate at will.”
“He already has. We got this far, haven’t we?”
“No, Scarlett! I got us this far. Me! Mostly because I’ve gone against orders and did the opposite of whatever idiotic instructions I was given. Your plan will backfire. You have to trust me on this.”
Her eyes narrow on me as she crosses her arms. “What makes you the expert anyway? You’re only in this line of work because my father caught you stealing drug money from him. You’re lucky he chose to take you under his wing instead of burying you beneath a parking lot!”
I grunt in frustration and start toward the bedroom to get changed. This bullshit is exactly why I work alone. My story is too complicated to incorporate others into the narrative. The fact that Scarlett could even say that to me proves she knows nothing.
Fuck McArthur for being too stupid to see how his vanity and ego are thwarting his own objectives.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Scarlett calls out, stopping my retreat. “Since the Miami operation to get this meeting, you’ve done everything you can to keep us apart. Why? It would have been a lot easier if you’d just talked to me about what happened instead of making me chase you to New Orleans.”
I turn back to her in disbelief. “Is that why you’re here? You conned your daddy into risking everything over some petty crush?”
Her venomous eyes slap me from across the room.
“How dare you,” she seethes out. “My father sent me here because he doesn’t trust you, Shaw. No one does. You’re good at what you do, but we all know there’s something off about you.”
My pulse beats wildly as I fight to keep my expression neutral. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? What am I talking about? I wish I knew. Everything about you is calculated. Everything you say. Everything you do. You think I’m the petty one for chasing you? At least I’m doing it because I want something, because you make me burn and fucking feel something I can’t control. What about you? Do you even feel? Is any relationship real? You’re callous and untouchable. You’re the kind of a guy who could wreck a person. Would you? Would you wreck a person just because you could, Roman Shaw?”
I have no idea how to respond as her bitter words hang between us. She’s completely wrong and completely right at the same time. I am calculated. I don’t feel. Not one of my relationships is real, but not for the reasons she thinks.
My callousness isn’t the result of a cold, lifeless heart. What she sees—what they all see—is the protective shell around a heart that beats and bleeds too much for the life it’s been given.
She’s allowed to feel. And anyone who’s allowed to feel could never understand someone like me.
“I’m getting ready for dinner,” I say in a cool tone. “We’re not doing your plan, Scarlett. I don’t care what you were told. You follow my lead tonight, or you can stay in the room.”
I feel her furious gaze on my back as I stalk toward the bedroom.
My head. Fuck, my chest.
Everything is blurry and throbbing as I blink awake. Crusted fabric beneath me supports and refutes the idea that I’m in a bed.
Where the hell am I? What’s going on?
I turn my stiff neck to the left to find a sleeping stranger beside me. Two, actually.
My attempt to push up is cut off by a sharp burst of pain. Everything hurts, but it’s my head and right shoulder that are causing the most problems. I glance down and nearly vomit at the ugly gash, still oozing blood, just below my collarbone.
What the fuck?
I gingerly touch the damaged area and stare at the dark red evidence on my fingers. Evidence of what ? What the hell happened last night? Who are these people?
I squint back at the bodies to my left and notice it’s a man and a woman, both in their late forties or early fifties. Rings on their fingers make me think they’re married, but then, I don’t trust any conclusions right now. Not when hours of my life are missing.
I scour my head for hazy memories, anything to make sense of this. I remember arguing with Scarlett in our suite. Meeting our contacts for dinner. Flirting, schmoozing, all the things I’ve done countless times in countless ways with countless marks. But this one was different.
This one ended up with me in bed with two strangers and what looks like a stab wound.
I’m considering waking them to find out who they are and if they know what happened, when I realize I’m naked. We all are.
Nausea erupts in my stomach.
I wrestle out of the bloody sheets and limp to the ensuite bathroom just in time to be sick. The pain in my shoulder is nothing compared to the pain behind my ribs when the reality of my situation sets in. Another surge of sickness ruptures from my stomach, and I cough into the toilet.
I’m still there when the main door to the suite crashes open in the distance.
I turn my haunted stare toward the sound, relieved—and terrified—to see Merrick.
He stops cold, his gaze moving from me to the bed and back. I swear something flashes in his eyes before he secures the emotion behind the stoic mask he always wears.
“Don’t say anything,” he warns in a low voice.
I’d laugh if I was able, but I can’t move. I can’t get my body to do anything. I’m too weak to get up, too weak to argue. Too weak to face the trauma of whatever the hell happened last night.
All I want is to crawl back into that gruesome bed and return to the safety of unconsciousness. If I’m lucky, I’ll never wake up again.
But Merrick has other plans.
He grabs a blanket from a closet and moves toward me. After slinging it over my shoulders, he helps me up and catches my weight when I stumble.
“Fuck, Shaw,” he mumbles. “Let’s get you out of here. Try to keep the blanket closed so no one sees the blood.”
I nod with numb compliance, using every bit of strength I have to take a step. Then another, and another. With Merrick’s help, we make it back to the bedroom, where I almost lose the contents of my stomach again at the clear view of the strangers.
“Oh god. Are they…?” I stare in horror at their blank stares and pallid complexions. “Merrick?” There’s panic in my voice. “Did I kill them? What…? I don’t… Oh god.”
I know I’m losing control of myself, but I’m too depleted, too scared, in too much pain to trap today’s horrors inside.
“Not here,” Merrick says. His arm tightens around me, and I’m not entirely sure it’s for logistical reasons.
We remain silent as he leads me from the room and down the hall. It’s still early, so we don’t pass any witnesses before he’s unlocking the door to another suite and ushering me inside.
By the time he closes the door and helps me to the couch, I’m shaking so hard I can barely stand.
From cold? Blood loss? Terror? Trauma?
I don’t even know, but my body is not my own. My mind is completely gone as well.
Neither of us speaks as Merrick retrieves supplies from another room and returns. He sets to work on my wound, his face unreadable as he cleans the blood and evaluates the damage.
“I’ll bandage it for now, but you’ll need more treatment once we get to Philadelphia.”
“Philadelphia?” My quivering voice is barely above a whisper.
God, I’m so fucking cold.
“You’re being moved again.”
“Merrick, what happened to me? What was ? —”
He gives me a hard look. “You don’t want to know. It’s better if you don’t know.”
I shake my head, dread seeping through every pore. “Were those people dead? Who are they?”
“Shaw? No,” he warns in a harsh tone. “Just… let it go.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to let it go? And why don’t I remember anything? The last thing I remember is…”
My blood goes cold.
Scarlett. Devious eyes blasting me with a mischievous look as she handed me a glass.
“Don’t you trust me, Shaw?” Her mocking tone was a clear reference to my admonition to her in the room just hours before.
Oh god. I can’t breathe.
“She drugged me,” I breathe out.
Merrick blinks a few times as if considering his response. His gaze flickers to me before darting back to his task.
I buckle from the blow. “Scarlett did this?”
Merrick gives a curt nod. “On orders.”
“Orders from whom?!”
“Who do you think?”
I open my mouth to respond, but there are no words. None of this makes sense.
Merrick releases a frustrated sigh and adjusts to be eye level with me. “I’m going to say two things and then this never comes up again. You understand? Don’t ask questions. Don’t mention it. You pretend none of this happened. You bury this shit deep and move on. If you bring it up, I’ll deny it. So will every other person involved.”
He takes a breath and softens ever so slightly. “First, there’s a video. McArthur owns you now—mind, body, and soul. More than he already did. He set this up because he thinks you’re getting too important to his operation. He needs you and fears you at the same time. That’s a deadly combination for people like us. You get what I’m saying?”
My stomach rolls as his words sink in.
I do get it. McArthur can’t risk me running again and he also can’t waste my talent by keeping me locked up out of play. He needed insurance. Now he has it.
I shake my head, completely numb. Words fail me. In all my strategizing, all my experience, I never saw this coming. I thought… God, I’m so na?ve. I actually thought I was starting to gain his trust. I thought I had a fucking chance at surviving this.
“The second thing is even more dangerous and stays between you and me. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but…” He shakes off a thought. “Swear to me. Swear this doesn’t leave this room.”
I force a nod, unable to speak.
“Swear it, Shaw!”
“Okay. I swear.”
He runs a hand over his face, then settles his stare back on me. “They’re going to make you think you killed those people. They’re setting it up so everyone will think that, but you didn’t. The video makes it look like you did, but that’s not what happened.”
“So what really happened? Who are they? I-I want to see the video.”
He shakes his head. “No. You don’t. Trust me, kid… It’s just better if you don’t know. Those people… they’re fucking nobody, Shaw. Collateral damage. It wouldn’t be possible anyway. McArthur can’t know I told you it exists. He finds out, we’re both dead.”
I have no idea if I can trust anything Merrick is saying, but I do know he’s right. McArthur would never share his leverage if he had it. The sick feeling in my stomach is because deep down I know Merrick’s version is the most logical.
I’m screwed. Completely shattered and at McArthur’s mercy, just the way he’s wanted since the day he held a gun to my head on that bloody concrete floor.
“Was New Orleans even about the RLC? Or was it about me?” My trembling voice is barely audible.
His lips press into a thin line. After a long pause, he pushes to his feet. “I need to get back.”
My heart clenches in my chest. That’s it, then. Whatever nightmare I just went through will never be mine to own.
McArthur has even stolen my trauma from me.
Merrick rests a large hand on my good shoulder. I glance up, fighting the tears, the revulsion, the horror crushing me right now. He can’t know I’m falling apart. That I’m fucking broken .
Maybe I hide it well. Maybe a fellow soldier just takes pity on me.
I think it’s the latter when he squeezes my shoulder and says, “You’ll be okay, kid. Why don’t you take a few days off?”