Chapter 5 Lily
LILY
The door muffles the men’s agitated voices, but even if they were screaming at each other next to me, I wouldn’t be able to understand them.
There’s a throbbing pain in my head and as I try to calm down, black spots cloud the edges of my vision.
It’s like I’m breathing in smoke, gasping for air that won’t come.
Somewhere on the way down to my lungs, it disappears. Right through the gaping hole in my chest that ripped open when I stepped foot in my house hours ago.
The last thing I see before I can no longer hold my head up is a man scrambling to pick the keys up from the table.
It’s the nice one, thank God.
Hastily, he removes the handcuffs.
“Shit,” he mutters to himself after pressing two fingers against the inside of my wrist. “You need to calm down for me, please.”
“Can’t—“ I croak. “Can’t breathe.”
“Just focus on my voice.” He takes my hand in his, crouching down next to me. “Breathe in.”
When I stop, he squeezes my hand.
“In,” he repeats, but I’m still convinced my windpipe is leaking.
“Now hold your breath.” He counts down from four and as he notices me struggling at two, he strokes over my hand with his thumb.
“And out,” he says, counting down again.
By the fifth time we’re doing this, I no longer feel like I’m close to dying.
“Better?” he asks, and I nod weakly. “Most people need at least eight rounds, so—congratulations, I guess.” With a smile on his face, he hands me a paper tissue, and I try to ignore the feeling spreading in my stomach.
“Could you please tell me why I am here? Where am I anyway?”
“Military base,” he says, avoiding my first question.
“I swear I don’t know anything. Why would I lie?”
“To cover your husband.” He pulls out a chair and sits down, his knees almost touching mine.
With a huff, I think back to how Brady helped me when a man he brought into our house put his disgusting hands on me.
“I’m not.” My stuffy nose makes me sound ridiculous. “At least tell me what you’re accusing me of.”
“No need to get snappy,” he says, grinning at me. He’s not openly unhinged like the other one, but I feel like he isn’t harmless either. Just in a totally different way. “Do you know any of the men who had been in your house today?”
“No,” I answer truthfully, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Does the name Randy Banks ring any bells?”
“No. I’ve never seen these men before. They are not the type of guys Brady hangs out with. He works as an IT guy for the government. His most dangerous hobby is fantasy football. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
I force out the last few words, breathing too fast again. Before it can get worse, the man takes my hand and pulls me to my feet.
“It’s okay,” he mumbles. “I believe you.”
He leads me through the narrow corridor until we arrive in front of a cell, and it takes a while before he lets go of my hand to open the door.
“You need to stay here while I try to sort this out, sorry. But I promise it won’t take long.”
I’m shivering, and the man seems to notice. Because when I sit down on the thing they call a bed, he disappears and comes back with an emergency blanket. He drapes it over my shoulders and his hands linger a second longer than necessary before he goes back to the door.
“You still didn’t tell me why you brought me here.”
“Give me a few hours.”
With nothing to check the time, the few hours feel like half a day. When my racing thoughts finally stop and I drift off, the beeping keypad rips me out of my light sleep.
“Again?” I ask while rubbing my hands over my face. It’s still sticky with blood where the tears weren’t enough to wash it away, and I wrinkle my nose in disgust.
“Thought you’d be a little happier upon seeing me,” the man from earlier says and his shoulders drop. “I’m not here to interrogate you.”
He sits down across from me, right on the cold, disgusting floor, and the well-raised part of me wants to scoot over and tell him to sit on the uncomfortable bed instead.
A strand of dark blond hair falls over his face and I’m so focused on looking at him I somehow miss the small bag he’s holding out to me.
“Here,” he says, opening it when I don’t acknowledge it. It’s filled with various kinds of snacks and sweets, and after a minute of consideration—and a loud growl from my stomach—I reach for some brownies.
I stopped buying stuff like this for myself. Too expensive, and Brady’s repeated remarks about my non-existent self-control around desserts did the rest. But I think I deserve some chocolate after escaping death.
When he sees what I’ve picked, the man leans back with a grin.
“Thanks—“ I say as I open the wrapper.
“Max.”
I wait for him to look somewhere else before I take a bite and he busies himself by rummaging through the bag until he hears me crumple up the empty package.
“I figured you’d feel uncomfortable, you know, because of the blood,” he says, pointing at my face. “I would have gotten you some wet wipes, but Lieutenant Ryves hoards them like they are worth their weight in gold. Got a washcloth, though,” he says with a chuckle.
He gets up and my entire body tenses, causing him to stop in his tracks.
“You can do it yourself.” He shrugs, putting his hands in the pockets of his pants. “Just thought it’s easier if I helped you. Cosmetic mirrors aren’t too easy to find around here.”
“It’s fine,” I say, scooting over until there’s enough space between us on the bed.
I just hope I don’t have any chocolate on my face. Blood is embarrassing enough.
Max pulls a thermos bottle and a washcloth out of the bag, wetting it before he cleans my bloodstained hands.
Unnervingly gentle. I want to thank him once he’s done, but the words are stuck in my throat as he softly grips my chin and turns my face.
For the entire time he scrubs my face, I hold my breath and when he’s finally done, I feel lightheaded.
“Why are you so nice to me?” I ask after bringing an appropriate distance between us. ”Is this some kind of trick to get me to talk?”
“Why? You’re holding back interesting details?”
“No.”
“See, so why would this be a trick? No dark intentions, I promise.” I could swear there’s a hint of a grin dancing over his lips, but maybe I’m just paranoid. Not that surprising after the day I had.
“You still owe me an explanation.”
“I owe you an explanation?” he asks with a laugh. “Bet you wouldn’t be as demanding if Cabrera was in here with us.”
“Sorry,” I blurt out. “Was it my fault or is he always this—“
“Angry? Impatient? Slightly psychotic?” Max interrupts me. “Yeah.”
“So it wasn’t because I hit him?”
“I mean, you hitting him definitely didn’t help your case,” Max says and when he laughs, our shoulders touch.
“Tell him I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“You better tell him yourself,” Max says. And here I had hoped that my first run-in with his colleague was also the last one. “But just between us, I would have hit him, too. He’ll get over it, Lillian.”
“Lily,” I correct him out of habit. “Feels like I’m getting scolded by my mom when someone calls me Lillian.”
“Lily’s more fitting either way. Pretty name for a pretty girl.”
Wide-eyed, I stare at him.
“Too soon,” he mumbles to himself, running his fingers through his hair. “I know we already talked about it, but I need to make sure we’re on the same page. You’ve never heard your husband mention the name Randy? Maybe saw it pop up on his phone?”
Thinking back to the day he yelled at me for even touching his phone, I shake my head. The caller’s name was Archer, Asher—something like that, but definitely not Randy.
I fidget around with the hem of my dirty shirt, looking up when Max moves next to me. Moments later, he holds his sweater out to me.
“In case you want something warmer. Or less blood-stained,” he says, putting it on my lap when I refuse to take it.
“Thanks.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see how his lips twitch.
“He never introduced me to his friends,” I admit.
“Until today, I thought all of them work for the city council. And before you ask, no, I don’t know them either.
I mean, I do know one of them, Glenn. He gave me his old car, but he’s sixty and he doesn’t seem like a criminal—but hey, apparently I am terrible at judging people, so maybe he’s in the mafia,” I ramble until Max stops me.
“I wouldn’t call Randy and your husband friends. And he’s also not the best at judging people, if it makes you feel better. Cause he took a ton of money from the worst crowd he could have picked in all of California.”
With raised eyebrows, I turn to look at Max.
“Where’s all this alleged money? Because it sure as hell isn’t in our—wait, please don’t tell me this has anything to do with the bank accounts.”
“Kind of.”
“And that’s why those men showed up at our house?”
“Again, kind of,” he says. He takes my hand in his and this time, I don’t even think of pulling mine away.
“He lost a lot of money gambling, maxed out one credit card after the other. Lost, took out a loan, lost again, took another loan, struggled to pay it back…”
My stomach clenches and I regret eating the brownie.
“The guy he took money from, Randy, his gang makes most of their money with illegal sports bets. But it’s actually more of a funnel for their other business: loans. Once they found out your husband works for the government, they wanted a bit more than just their repayments.”
His words rain down on me like punches straight to the gut.
“That’s why we got involved. Too much sensitive information about city officials was at stake, no one wanted things to get ugly if data landed in the wrong hands.
And I know Logan didn’t show his best side earlier, but you should thank God for his aim.
” Absent-mindedly, Max strokes over my hand.
“I don’t want to imagine what they would have done to you if we weren’t there. ”
He’s saying it so nonchalantly, like he’s talking about the weather and not showing me what is left of the lie I called my life.
“Has he asked about me?”
Max just shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
I tried to keep the tears inside, but this confirmation was enough to make them fall. Max puts his hand on the back of my head and as he pulls me closer, my crying turns into full-blown sobbing.
“What am I going to do now?” I ask when I’ve calmed down enough to breathe a little, my voice muffled by Max’s chest. “They’ll want their money, along with stuff I can’t even give them. They know where I live—“
“Shh,” he whispers, stroking my hair. “I checked your file. Your parents live out of state, you could go there, lie low for a while until this blows over,” he suggests.
“What if they follow me? It isn’t hard to find out where my parents live, so all it would do is buy me a few more days.”
I’ve never been more thankful for my mom’s decision to drag my dad on a two month cruise. I don’t know how badly that gang needs their money back, but I doubt they’ll hijack a boat to abduct my parents just to prove a point.
Softly, Max pushes me back until he’s able to look at my face.
“We can arrange something with the local police. Tell them to drive by the house every hour or two to make sure you’re okay.”
No way.
I swallow thickly, hiding my face in my hands. As if all of this wasn’t mortifying enough, I now have to resort to arguments suitable for a five year old.
“I’m scared of being on my own. What if they send more guys to take care of the issue?”
“I could—never mind. Dumb idea,” he says.
“Yeah, because I have a ton of options right now, Max.”
From the moment he entered my cell, Max had been looking at me. But now, his gaze is fixed on the tip of his shoes.
“You could stay here with us. Only for a while, until we can get you into a witness protection program.”