All are dead ends, and before the sun starts to rise, I sneak back into bed without Declan noticing.
I manage to get a couple hours of sleep, and when I wake, Declan has already had breakfast delivered. The smell of his coffee and fresh baked croissants fill the air, and before I’m fully awake, he pours me a cup of steaming water and hands me a tea bag.
“Thanks.”
While we sit in bed, Declan reads the newspaper and I watch as bister ribbons through the translucent water in my tea cup. Sleep still fogs my head as I continue to dunk the tea bag up and down until the water turns to a delicate amber, infused with aromatic herbs that help wake me up.
“He’s in the paper,” Declan murmurs.
“Who?”
He hands the Chicago Tribune to me, and there he is—Callum. He stands in his prison-issued orange jumpsuit with the headline “Player in Gun Trafficking Ring Indicted.”
I look to Declan as he takes a sip of his coffee, and he says, “You know it’s only a matter of time until we’re getting wrapped up in this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our involvement. You were married to Bennett, ran in the same circle as Richard, and spent time with my father. That, along with the kidnapping and murder, we’ll both be forced to testify,” he tells me before tossing the sheets off him and getting out of bed in haste. “This is the last thing I need, that man tarnishing my name,” he bites.
He’s pissed about the attention this will draw to him and his company.
“Declan,” I call out in a panic, my heart beginning to race when it suddenly hits me. “What about me?”
He turns to look at me, becoming aware when he sees the anxiety in my eyes.
“They’ll dig into my history and Nina only goes back so far. They’ll know I’m a fraud,” I blurt out in a pitchy voice. “I’ll be charged with identity theft and embezzlement, along with any other crime they can pin on me.”
“Fuck,” he grits under his breath.
I guess it was inevitable that my con would eventually catch up with me. My mind goes into overdrive, thinking about how I could possibly finagle my way out of this, how I could possibly explain this away, but I can’t hone in on anything.
“What do we do?”
“I’ll put a call in to my attorney,” he tells me. “I don’t want you to worry; we have time. It could take up to a year for this to even go to trial.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
I slip out of bed and walk over to him. “It’s you that tells me that I shouldn’t hide from the things that hurt me.”
“He doesn’t hurt me,” he immediately defends, but I call his bluff, saying, “He didn’t even try to stop the murder of your mom. He stepped aside and just let it happen. So don’t tell me that doesn’t hurt you, Declan. I know it does.” I reach out to him and place my hand over his heart. “You and I share the same soft spot, the same wound—the death of a parent.”
He covers my hand with his, and it’s full of tension, squeezing me much too hard.
He’s in pain.
Her bones are fragile in my grip as I fight against the agony that marks my soul in wounds that refuse to heal.
And she’s right.
My mum has always been the weak link in my armor. She’s the softest part of my heart and anything that comes close to touching it pains me. But that pain is tainted by the fury I hold for my dad now that I know the part he played.
I look down into Elizabeth’s eyes and see the sorrow in them. She’s called me on my shit, so there’s only one option unless I want her to see me as a hypocrite.
“Let’s go to New York then.”
“You’re going to see him?” she asks in surprise.
“Yes. And then I’m done with him.”
I leave Elizabeth to drink her tea while I make the call to arrange the flight, and I’m told that we can make it out later tonight. When I return to the bedroom, I see her with that damn notepad. She thinks she’s being sneaky and that I don’t notice when she leaves my bed at night, but I do. The moment I lose the heat of her body, I wake up. I’ve chosen not to say anything and to give her the time she feels she needs.
Truth be told, Lachlan and I are hitting roadblock after roadblock. This man clearly doesn’t want to be found, but one way or another, I will find him—for her.
She sets the notepad and pencil on the bedside table when she sees me.
“The plane will be ready at seven.”
I sit and wait, looking around the white cinderblock room filled with the city’s disgraced and their loved ones. Guards stand and watch the interactions, making sure the rules that were explained in detail are being abided by.
The metal door in the corner of the room opens, and this time it’s my father who walks through. Donned in orange, he’s escorted into the room, and the guard that’s with him removes the shackles as my father’s eyes find mine.
He’s expressionless.
Once freed from the chains, he makes his way across the room. He looks hard, unshaven, and thinned out.