“Want to know the full truth?” Stacey’s question yanks me from my spiral of betrayal and hurt. “Come sit down, and I’ll tell you.”
Something snaps inside me—some last thread of restraint that’s been holding me together.
“I alreadyknowthe truth!” I stride towards her in quick, aggressive steps and slam my palm on the table right in front of her. “Youkilled my father and lied that Rafael did. I trusted you. I believed every word that came out of your mouth.” My voice breaks on the last words, and I’m horrified when my eyes start stinging, throat closing up tight. No. Not now, not here. Not in front of her. She doesn’t deserve to see me break down, doesn’t deserve to see my tears.
“So you know what Tomassi was doing during all those years we thought he was dead. I was equally shocked when I saw him there, and my finger slipped on the trigger.”
Finger slipped. Like it was an accident. Like she didn’t deliberately aim and fire.
“I don’t believe you.” I glare into her eyes, my rage a living thing inside me. “Every time you open your mouth, it’s just more lies spilling out. You’ve never been honest with me a day in your life. Yes, my dad was involved in those unspeakable things, but what about you? You didn’t have to lie about who killed him.”
And I’m not convinced she didn’t know my dad was alive before she shot him. She not only lied about who killed him, she also lied that he was in witness protection. Some witness protection that turned out to be. I scoff.
“I did it for you!” She’s on her feet now, spittle flying. “You had a bright, promising future. Finding out what your father was involved in would have destroyed you, so I kept quiet. And I knew that despite your protests to the contrary, you weredeveloping feelings for that bastard Rafael. I couldn’t let you end up as some criminal’s trophy wife, so I told you he did it. It was all for you! Fat lot of good that did. Look at you now—Mrs. Moretti, after everything I sacrificed for you.”
My chin snaps up so fast it’s a miracle I don’t get whiplash. I’m not ashamed of my husband. Not for one second. “After all the lies, you mean. You’re sick in the head. You need help.”
I start walking away, but something makes me stop and turn back one more time.
“And by the way, someone in the bureau has been trying to kill me. That better not be you, or I’ll make you regret the day you ever met me.” I mean every word with every fiber of my being, and she must see it in my eyes because her face goes pale. But I don’t wait for her response—she’ll only lie anyway.
This time when I stride towards the entrance, the agent by the door steps aside. I slip on my helmet, straddle my bike, and tear out of that parking lot in a cloud of dust and fury, making a beeline straight home.
The first sign that something is catastrophically wrong hits me at the abandoned entrance to the underground lot. I drive down the ramp and park my bike next to Rafael’s Rolls, my heart already hammering against my ribs. Pulling off my helmet, my eyes immediately go to the elevator.
Blood. A pool of it by the entrance, and drag marks stretching across the concrete before disappearing—probably when they tossed the bodies into vehicles.
My legs feel like water as I slide off the bike and march towards the elevator. The interior is just as bloody, and my foot bounces anxiously as I ride up.
The doors open to an empty foyer dotted with more blood. Fuck, what did they do? Storm in with gun blazing? That goes against every agency protocol in the book.
“Hello?! Rafael? Enzo?” I call out as I rush into the living area.
“They’re gone.” An Italian man slips out from behind the staircase, brown eyes wide. He looks vaguely familiar—I’ve seen him around a couple of times. What was his name again?
“Pierceson?”
“Pierre, ma’am.” He approaches slowly, cradling a blood-soaked arm against his chest.
I stare at his injury. He needs medical attention before he bleeds out, but first... “Tell me everything that happened here.”
And he does. Every horrifying detail.
He describes the sudden appearance of over a dozen armed men in civilian clothes, and how he and the others initially thought it was an ambush from the Russians or some other enemy until badges and a warrant got flashed in their faces.
They still refused to cooperate, and that’s when everything went to hell. The agents whipped out their guns and opened fire without warning.
They shot back in self-defense, and a full-scale gunfight erupted before one of the agents fired into the ceiling and shouted that they’d add ‘resisting arrest’ to the charges if the shooting didn’t stop immediately. Only then did they become somewhat cooperative, allowing the agents to storm inside and tear the place apart.
By the time Rafael and Enzo returned, the damage was done. They were arrested along with the other men, and only Pierre got spared because he’d passed out on the floor from blood loss. And when he regained consciousness, everyone was gone.
My hands ball into fists at my sides as the full picture crystallizes. Being called to that restaurant with Katie and Stacey was nothing but a distraction. If I had been home, Stacey’s agents never would have dared pull this stunt, because they had absolutely no legal grounds to fire the first shot at suspects. The way they conducted these arrests was completely unethical and illegal.
Stacey must have thought she’d be able to manipulate me back to her side before the dust settled. That was the only reason she’d have risked such a reckless plan. Because no way in hell will Rafael and the guys stay in custody with everything I now know.
“Do we have everything that happened on record?” I ask Pierre.
“We should.” He immediately starts walking towards the elevator, but I stop him.
