Now that I’m not worried about where my next meal is coming from or whether I’ll be able to afford my apartment, I need a purpose.
I want to do normal things—go to the grocery store, walk through the park, have dinner in a restaurant. And I want to live without worrying about when the next letter will show up, if it’ll slip through the precautions that Pascal and his team have put in place, what will happen to Brooks if I don’t do what they want.
“Did Pascal find anything?” Thorn had discovered a targeted email campaign at his company and Pascal had put his team on trying to track down where they’d originated from.
“Only that they were sent from France.”
Where Jean-Michel, Brooks, Jace and Thorn all have homes and business ties.
Where the Lyon family has the same.
It seems freaking obvious, but they’re good at what they do, great at covering their tracks.
“It’s the USB,” I say.
He takes the two plates, sets them on the pair of placemats River laid out. “Baby, you need to stop beating yourself up about that. Chrissy knows and Pascal says it was clunky and wouldn’t have worked as you were instructed anyway.”
“That’s something else that bugs me.”
He snags a bottle of wine from the fridge, two glasses from the cabinet. “Why?”
“Because every other time I did a job for them, it was…” I trail off because I don’t really know what to say. Not effective, necessarily. Things went wrong and I made plenty of mistakes throughout those years on my own. Mistakes I paid for—physically and otherwise. Over time I had to learn to do reconnaissance, however effective it was. I already knew how to blend in, that part was easy since I spent my childhood trying to hide in plain sight, not wanting to face the wrath of my grandfather.
So I suppose, even though there were challenges, it always felt more put together.
I had more time. It was thought out.
I wasn’t breaking into my ex’s home with three days’ notice, infiltrating a winery event mere days after that.
And then there’s the fact that the USB wouldn’t have worked like I was told it would.
I shake my head because that matters.
And it doesn’t.
“That’s not the drive I’m talking about.” I take a breath. “I mean the one from your safe.”
His face gentles. “There was nothing on there that’s important, baby. Yes, I did what I thought was right to keep you safe over the last five years—and yeah, some of it definitely bordered on illegal and wrong?—”
He’d already told me about paying the blackmail, about signing over the business and houses to the Lyons.
“—but the companies I kept are clear of anything unlawful,” he says. “And all of that happened after my father died, so he wouldn’t have been able to document it, even if he wanted to.”
“I get that it wouldn’t hurt you today—or not much, anyway.” I nibble at the corner of my mouth. “But it could have hurt your father when he was alive…and I guess I’m thinking that ifthat’strue, it also could have hurt anyone else who was involved in his businesses at that time—especially the bad ones you distanced yourself from.”
I pause, waiting for him to say something.
But he just stares at me, his eyes gone wide.
Then he bursts to his feet.
“Time to call Pascal?” I ask.
He nods, pulls out his phone.
And makes the call.
I finish packingup the leftovers, make sure the kitties are settled in for the night, then glance down the hall.
