Natasha either.
I tapped the button to end the recording just before her lips locked onto him because she was stumbling back. He’d pushedher away. Needed to cut another second off the tail end of the video. No biggie.
It didn’t have to be true. It just had to look bad, especially for a father who’d take one scandal as an excuse to eliminate Lachlan.Vassili, you will do my job if our naive girl doesn’t break up with him.
I clicked open my contacts and hovered over her number.
No.
The pictures had to circulate. They couldn’t come from me.
I’d leak them to the best outlets in LA. Grab a couple of dollars. Then I’d call her. Play the concerned soldier. The old friend. The one who saw the real Lachlan. Unfaithful. And hopefully … unworthy of her.
22
LACHLAN
Montanaand I had returned to the Airbnb, dirt-smudged and tired to the bone from digging graves in heat-baked soil, wordless. He’d gone his way. I’d gone mine. I showered, scrubbed blood and desert sand off my skin. My mind looped the fight. When I strolled downstairs to the kitchen, I didn’t know what I was after. Water? Because the dinner we never had bubbled my stomach.
When I saw the box of empty black lawn bags on the tile floor—the same ones we’d used to wrap the bodies—I froze. My bubbling stomach flopped. Turned over. I’d stashed those under the sink. Had I forgotten to shove them farther inside? Or was I just seeing them again everywhere now?
I couldn’t remember.
Not that it mattered.
At some point, Montana had grunted his way onto the stool beside me at the island and popped open two beers. One for him. One for me. He didn’t speak, just slid the bottle across the counter.
Bubbles climbed the deep amber liquid, turning into foam. Cold. Comforting. I should take a pull. Couldn’t lift the bottle.
My mind remained in the desert, in the dust, under the stars where I’d left two bodies. The second man had been unconscious before the third ghost vanished like smoke.You killed a man, Lach.
The first died when he hit his head. The second? My hands trembled as I lifted the bottle. I managed one shallow sip, but the liquid coated my tongue like guilt. A loud snap echoed in my mind. Before cracking his neck, I’d asked him questions while Montana held him down. He’d claimed not to know anything. I didn’t believe him.
Frustration flared.
And I reacted.
Too fast.
Too hard.
Too final. The MacKenzie way.
Montana’s voice cut through the haze. “Lach?”
I muttered, tone low, hoarse. “The third one was trained.”
“Bruh, I get that.” He roughed a hand over his face.
In one blink, I saw the dirt again. I closed my eyes hard. Opened them.
“We gotta figure this out, bruh.”
“I know. Guy Two. He didn’t have an accent.” I finally took a swig of beer.
“Russian accent?” Montana asked.
Nodding, I dragged a hand through my damp fauxhawk, jaw clenched. “You think Natasha’s father wants me dead, that bad?”
