“So she was found after the explosion? In the water?” I ask. I’m completely lost, but then so are they.
“Shit. Look at this.” Photos, which Liam now holds out to Nick. “From the wedding. From the boat.”
“Wait. The old man was there? Vincenzo?” Nick asks.
“Who is he?” I ask.
“Gabriel’s father,” Liam murmurs, half-distracted as he goes through page after page. “He’s been wanted in the US for decades and shouldn’t have been at the wedding, of course. But look, there he is.”
He jabs a finger against one of the photos. There’s a man with a dark mustache and goatee holding a glass of champagne in one hand. “Take away the facial hair, which was probably fake in thefirst place, and you have a man who would look just like Gabriel. This is Vincenzo. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, if it isn’t, somebody else in those photos is,” Nick mutters. “According to this report, he was slightly wounded in the explosion. One of his guys was on a small boat and retrieved him afterward. They picked Laura out of the water, too,” he concludes, whispering now.
“Reports from doctors,” Liam says, handing pages to Nick. “Confirming her amnesia.”
“So they took her back to Italy with them,” Nick muses, looking between the pages in his hand and the video on the screen. “And trained her?”
“That’s exactly what he did.” Liam sounds murderous. It’s almost chilling. It brings to mind the man I first met the night he ambushed my home. “He was going to sell her, according to this explanation, but when it was clear her memory wasn’t coming back, Vincenzo decided to shape her into who he wanted her to be.”
Liam drops the pages on the floor and turns to the window. For a long time, neither of them speaks. I get the feeling they’re trying hard to control themselves. Forcing themselves from one breath to the next. I understand the feeling. I’ve been there before.
“He turned her into an assassin,” Liam murmurs in a flat voice. “He’s been using her all this time. She’s a trained killer. My sister.”
“Laura.” Nick closes his eyes. His jaw ticks. “All this time.”
All at once he jumps up from the chair, sending it flying back on its wheels. “I’m going out there. I’m going after her.”
All I can do is gape at him before Liam shocks me by replying, “No. She’s my sister. I should be the one.”
“Wait a second.” Something tells me my voice isn’t wanted here, but I feel like I should speak up. “Maybe it’s not my place,but I think you should both think about this first. Can you confirm this is all true? What if he’s setting you up somehow?”
“What if he’s not?” Nick counters. “Look. The most recent video.” He pulls up the last one in the list of files, dated three years ago. We watch, nobody saying a word, as the girl on screen goes through a training exercise with four opponents. She’s dressed in black from head to toe, looking sleek and strong, and I can’t help but gasp when she smoothly and efficiently takes care of one man after another. I doubt she broke a sweat and I’m sure she’s not even breathing heavy by the time the fourth man hits the floor. She even flips her ponytail when it’s all over, then places her hands on her hips.
I would never say this out loud, but she’s sort of kick-ass. It’s a shame it took essentially being kidnapped and brainwashed to get her to that point.
“I need to do this,” Nick insists. There’s a wild light in his eyes. They dart over the screen, down at the pages Liam dropped, then around the room like he can’t quite settle down. “I can’t just stay here when I know she’s there.”
“I should be the one,” Liam argues. “She’s my sister.”
“I love her, too,” Nick replies. There is something so intense about the way he says it. He doesn’t yell, he’s not making threats. It’s just the quiet truth, which can be much more powerful.
“Besides,” he continues, glancing my way, “you’re needed here now. Laura—Ivy—isn’t the girl we used to know anymore. Finding her, tracking her down and getting through to her could be some dangerous shit. I’m better trained for this than you. It only makes sense that I would be the one to go.”
Now that he puts it that way, Liam is going to have to mow me down if he thinks I’ll let him trot off to Italy to find her. He’s already been through enough danger. I want him safe now. And I need him here with me.
The two of them spend a long time staring at each other, like they’re having a silent conversation the way people do when they’ve known each other for a long time. After what feels like forever, Liam sighs. “You have whatever you need,” he says, and I know that means he’s staying behind. “No limits. Money, manpower, firearms. Just say the word.”
I’m almost weak with relief when he looks at me. What would I do without him? I can’t believe I’m actually asking myself that question with my heart in my throat. I would be lost without him now, and not only because I rely so much on him day-to-day. If anything happened to him, everything of his would go to me. He’s still my husband.
None of it would mean anything, I understand now, if I lost him. He came to rescue me. Even when he knew I went behind his back and betrayed him, he came to my rescue. And now, he takes my face in his hands and blows out a deep breath. “I have things to take care of here. Like helping you find your mom.”
The world around me explodes in color and light. “We are? We’re actually going to do that?”
“I told you I would, didn’t I?” He touches his forehead to mine. “We’re going to find her. You’re going to have everything you need and everything you want and I’m going to get it for you if it’s the last thing I do.”
Nobody has ever said that to me before. Nobody has ever prioritized what I need—including me. I never had the chance.
Now? There’s this tiny voice in my head. A whisper, but it’s getting louder.
