Authors: Wendy Byrne
"Wait a minute. What do you mean? You must have had family somewhere—aunts, uncles, grandparents."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. My parents had isolated themselves in order to fly under the radar. They wanted to live a life that kept us safe. We had no one to help us. We were street urchins, living by the pickpocketing skills we'd learned along the way and a whole lot of luck. Until it ran out."
"And the devil came calling."
"By the name of Petrovich." That fateful day played like a bad record in his head. Could he have persevered, gotten a job, and kept his family intact? He'd never know now. "I sought him out. I couldn't handle the responsibility or the worry any longer. Sabrina got sick, and I thought she might die. It was probably just a virus, but she was shaking and hot with fever, and it scared the hell out of me. She was a kid, and I had to do what I could to make her better. I couldn't let her death fall on my shoulders."
The blackness that had surrounded his decision shimmied through. Jake's questioning expression. Sabrina's pale skin. The tremors that tore through her little body until he thought she'd hurt herself. A wandering band of gypsies had given him a salve to help her, but that hadn't worked. If he went to a hospital, he didn't know what might happen to them as a family. He'd heard stories. If the authorities intervened, they wouldn't necessarily keep the three of them together.
He didn't know what to do and was scared to death. The idea that she might die hit hard that last day. She had trouble waking up, and even as young as he was, he knew she needed a doctor. He thought about stealing something from a pharmacy, but how would he know what to give her or how much? She needed an antibiotic to get rid of whatever had invaded her system. Had she not gotten sick, he always wondered if he would have been able to make the leap to go to Petrovich. Would he have done it anyway, but her illness caused it to happen sooner than anticipated?
"You did what you had to do. There's no shame in that." She slid her hand along his until she tucked it inside his and squeezed. "Tell me about it. What was it like living there?"
"At first, it was good." And it was. After worrying about everything for so long, it felt like he could let go of that guard that he'd built along the way. The selfish part of him was relieved to be a kid again. "We were all so very young. He gave us our meals, made sure we got an education, and we were warm and had a roof over our heads. But as we got older, it became clear he wanted something in return. Something I should have known was inevitable, given his history with my parents. It was subtle at first. But then it became clear there was no going back." Did he really expect it would be forgotten? Never. But he had held out hope for the longest time.
"He wanted you to kill people?" Her voice squeaked at the end. Disgust played across her face. He regretted his decision to tell her, even while unburdening himself felt cathartic.
He'd started this conversation. Now he had to finish it. "He said we needed to protect ourselves. He trained us in weaponry, self-defense, including Krav Maga and other martial arts, safecracking, B&E—you name it, we learned it. He kept saying how gifted we were. How we must have come from talented parents, even while he would give me this look that made me know somehow he'd been the one to train and then kill my parents." Even now, he could see the man's snarky grin. Bile surfaced inside his throat as the memories became fresh again.
"What you mean?" She sucked in her bottom lip and worried it.
"He never flat out said, 'Kill this person.' He would say this person is bad. They've done this and that. They've hurt other people. They need to be punished. And for a long time, we believed him. When I started to question, he upped the ante." Brainwashing at its finest. He'd made them want to do his bidding. Both Sabrina and Jake nodded in agreement every time Petrovich spoke. They had no clue of the depths of the man's evil.
"How?"
"He would say they are going to hurt Jake or Sabrina if you don't stop them. He'd make stuff up, like this person was watching Sabrina, and he was fearful of what might happen to her. That kind of thing. It took me a while to figure out he'd been creating that sense of paranoia in me until I felt like I had no choice but to act on it."
"What happened to make you recognize he was lying to you?"
"In some ways, I knew it all along. Unlike my siblings, I knew what our parents had been. And I also knew my own part in the web of deceit."
"Do they now know what your parents did?"
"They might have their suspicions, but it's something we've chosen not to talk about. It's like if we block it out of our mind, it will no longer be a part of our past. Somehow it keeps resurfacing. Sabrina killed a man, Ambassador Quarto, who was also part of Petrovich's team. Cleo, Herr Ricker's daughter, tried to kill Jake. Now it's me tangled up in the past."
"Who was Herr Ricker?"
"He was the last assignment we were sent on by Petrovich." He shook his head. "It was a setup from the start. He wanted us to die. Instead, Sabrina ended up killing Cleo's brother when we were trying to make it down the mountainside. We haven't talked about our past since we made our escape to America. We were able to secure visas so quickly through Jennings. He knew all about Petrovich and was trying to save as many young people from his clutches as he could." Max scoured his face with his hands as the guilt washed over him. "Maybe we should have talked about it so the secret between us was out in the open once and for all. I guess I wanted to preserve…"
"Their good memories. I totally understand." She slid her hand down his arm. "Circumstances cause people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. But it's not who you are inside here." She touched his heart. "You keep people at arm's length because you think somehow that will protect them. Maybe even protect you. You wear your fancy clothes because you think it will change who you were before. But you can't change that, Max. Your past is never who you were or who you wanted to be. It was part of your journey that can't be changed. Circumstances for the two of us weren't much different. Luckily, I had good people around me to help me bring me into adulthood, not some sicko mastermind of evil who preyed on the three kids he made orphans through some kind of Machiavellian scheme of his own to build an army of killers. Don't you see? You wouldn't be the wonderful, kind, sometimes totally obnoxious man"—she grinned—"you are without those experiences of your past—both good and bad. You need to own the Max Shaw you've become, foibles and all."
He let the words sink inside him and reconfigured the puzzle pieces that made up his screwed-up life. And somehow what she'd said made a twisted kind of sense to him. Maybe if he could convince himself she was right, he wouldn't have this burning hole the size of a truck in his gut most of the time. It couldn't be as simple as she was making it out to be. "But what I've done…it's big…my siblings were brought into a mess of my making."
"As opposed to what? Death by starvation? Or illness? Or a run-of-the-mill child molester or kidnapper? I'm not sure what you're asking from me." She ran her fingers down his cheeks before peppering them with kisses. "Do I think you're a bad guy? Absolutely not. Do I think in a time of desperation, you did some things that might be considered bad? Yes. But that's not who you are at your core, Max. Every decision you've made in your life was after you considered the consequences of not making it. And each time you chose the wise path."
The idea that she didn't think he was scum made that ache in his heart ease. A small piece of him wondered if she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear. "It's the first time I've ever told anyone the whole story. Even Jake and Sabrina."
"They need to hear the whole story, Max. Not your sanitized version of what happened. Or worse yet, avoiding the conversation altogether." When she sighed, there was a curve to her lips. "In many ways, I can relate to your predicament. I shielded Mick for way too long. As a result, he got confused about the family situation—an uncle who skirted the fence in terms of the law, parents who were burdened by having me in their teens. The home we live in now was my grandmother's house. We moved in there when I was born."
A fleeting smile graced her lips. "My grandmother was my primary caretaker, not my parents. They were kids themselves and remained kids until the day they died. My brother was six. He doesn't remember much. He sees pictures of them, but he doesn't have the necessary background to fill in between the happy family Christmas photos. And I did him a disservice by not letting him know that while my mom and dad loved him, they weren't always there. I've always kept the lie alive by saying it was an accident that killed them, when in reality they OD'd on heroin. They were clean for a couple years and then relapsed. It came back to bite me because I wasn't honest. He didn't understand why I was so crazed about underage drinking, and I told him the truth, but it came out all wrong, and he didn't believe me." She shrugged. "I guess I'm saying I've made mistakes along the way in my own parenting journey. You need to stop beating yourself up about it."
Max grinned. "Is this an 'I've been there' kind of speech?" He gave her a peck on the cheek. "I appreciate that."
She sighed. "I'm not saying this right. I was much older than you when my parents died, and it wasn't under murderous circumstances like yours, but I know the feeling of being responsible for a sibling. I only had one, and look how I screwed that one up. And he hasn't even graduated high school yet." She gave him a tight smile. "Until all this came down with Mick, I didn't realize I was so caught up in the past, I couldn't see my way to the future. I dumped all that stuff on him as I was working my way through it. I'm hoping I can save you some of the angst I went through." She propped her legs onto the couch. "Now, let's get down to the real issue. Tell me the truth—were you afraid I was going to turn you in or something?"
"You are a police officer, so the thought crossed my mind a time or two."
"Please, I have no jurisdiction in Europe, and neither does anyone I know."
"You puff out your chest just like the big boys do…"
She glanced at her chest and smiled. "You know I'm all bluster. Just like you. So that settles that. Now who is after you and why?"
"Cleo for sure. I suspected other relatives of victims she's recruited along the way. In one of my earlier hits, I did nothing but distract a man so a sharpshooter could kill him. The sharpshooter was killed in Paris a week ago. I've been going through some of my"—he cleared his throat—"assignments. The book I kept them in I burned a long time ago. I wanted to be a different person, and holding that book kept me in the past. But I do remember circumstances, and there's no doubt they're being replicated with me."
"Wow." She brushed the hair from her face. "Okay, let's start with Cleo, then."
"She was the sister of a man who was killed on our last mission. His death was accidental, but he'd gone after Sabrina and ended up dying when he lost his grip on the side of a mountain."
"And she blames you?"
"I think she blames the world. She went after Jake, and now it's my turn, for whatever twisted reason she's concocted in her head. Who knows what she's thinking? She left this in my townhome that first night." He unfolded the note. "I suppose she left it when she had her sights set on picking me off while I was at the fundraising event. She wants to bring my family down, one way or another. And right now I'm probably the most vulnerable."
"We have to figure out a way to stop her—or them, as is more likely the case."
"My siblings are safe for now, but that can't last forever. I have to end this once and for all by getting to her. Getting to her would bring the house of cards tumbling down. It's the only way I can think of to end it."
"How do we get her out of her hidey-hole?"
"I'm going to use myself as bait. It's a surefire way to get her to show herself."
"I know you fancy yourself as an expert in this kind of thing, but how in the hell do you think you're going to pull that one off?"
"That's where you come in."
"Pardon me?" Her voice shook a little at the end.
"You're going to contact her and let her know you're on her side. That you want me dead because I'm responsible for your brother's death. She's not naïve, but I know you can sell it to her."
"You want me to set you up? Give her everything I know in terms of where you're at and then take her down."
"Yep, that's how it looks inside my head. With your expertise and my immunity to gunshots, I think we can pull this off."
"You're crazy. You know that, right?"
"I might be. But I have a secret weapon."
"What's that?"
"You. No doubt she's done her homework on you, and thanks to your display the other day, she'll believe you're out for revenge. In fact, I would venture to say she won't doubt it for even a second. Believe me—I would never risk your life for mine, if that's what you're worried about."
"Not at all. I'm worried that your scheme is sick and twisted enough to work."
"But you're going to have to put on one more display for her benefit. You're going to have to put on the show that's Oscar worthy. Do you think you can manage that?"
She smiled. "I'll do my best." She drew in a breath. "What's your plan?"
"She's got to believe you want to kill me. There can't be a hint that we're partners. You've already laid the foundation—it's been planted that you want me for yourself now that your brother is dead."
"Won't she wonder about why I left town?"
"Grief, anger, and a vendetta against me. Angie and Lucien managed to secure her phone number while they were embedded with Treno." He shrugged and smiled. "After we get things worked out, you can give her a call. You'll have to come up with a plan to bring me to her in a way that she'll find believable. And of course, collect your reward money."
"I'm hoping you're going to help me with that."
"Yep. Same high-tech stuff we used with your brother and Angie and Lucien. Nobody can detect it's not real. Even though those were Alliance people posing as paramedics, we wanted bystanders to believe the deaths were real, so it was a combination of acting and some really good magic courtesy of The Alliance."