Young Truths (Young Series) (45 page)

“A legend?” I repeat incredulously. “Frank, you tried to have competitors killed off. The only legend you would have been was one of cell block six’s legendary soap droppers. How could you have possibly thought, even for a second, that I would have put up with that sort of bullshit?”

“Yeah, I worked that out for myself,” he says dismissively. “You ruined my good name.” I roll my eyes. “So of course you had to be removed from the picture. The only thing I regret was not factoring in your penchant for using human shields.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He goes on like he didn’t hear me. “If I’d thought it through a bit more, I would have just set that fucking bomb up at your house and been done with it. Oh well. Lessons learned.”

And that’s another theory confirmed. Frank was responsible for my near death six years ago, the one that nearly caused me to lose my arm. “You fucking asshole,” I growl. “You killed people that day.
Good
people.”

“It happens.” He shrugs. “I’m all about fixing my mistakes these days
, though. The real problem is that you have this way of living through whatever I manage to setup. The plane, though...” He grins suddenly, looking proud of himself. “That was one of my best. I think my favorite part of the whole thing was getting to spend so much up close and personal time with Samantha. Couple more weeks and I might have gotten even closer.”

Clenching my fists so tightly I break the skin of my hands with my fingernails, I fight
the urge to not knock him on his ass and beat the shit out of him. “That’s the plan, was it?” I ask, surprised at my calmness. “Get me out of the picture, steal my girl when she’s vulnerable... then what? What the fuck would you have gotten out of it?”

“Her,” he says simply. “Well, that and the knowledge that what was once yours was now mine. Oh, I was looking forward to seeing what was under all those low-cut sweaters she wore. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to throw her on my desk and—”

Before he can even finish his sentence, I launch myself at him, throwing both of us to the ground. My fist connects hard with his face and I feel something crack beneath my knuckles. His surprise is momentary; after a few more well-placed punches, he strikes out, hitting me in the throat and knocks me off him. Vaguely, I see blood running down the side of his mouth, but when he kicks me in the ribs, I can’t do anything but grunt in pain. While my breathing recovers, he drags me across the room, apparently stronger than he seems, and when I summon enough strength to climb to my feet, I realize he’s handcuffed me to a metal pole. He touches a finger to his face, sees the blood, and scowls, once again kicking out at me, hitting the same spot as before. I see stars.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he mutters, “but it seems I don’t have another choice, do I? Sit tight,
Matt. You’re going to be here awhile.”

With that, he leaves through the door that leads into the main area of the shop. It takes a few minutes for the pain to recede so I can think clearly, but the only thought in my head is that I’ve really fucked up this time. Nobody knows I’m here and by the time someone realizes, I could be long dead. Samantha won’t ever know what happened to me. The thought of her mourning my death, my actual death as opposed to what happened after the plane crash, breaks my heart. I can’t leave her alone, not with two children who
need me. There’s got to be some way out of here.

I search around me for anything that might help me pick the lock in the handcuffs. The only thing I can come up with is the plastic end of my
shoelace. The aglet cracks when I try shoving it into the lock and I bite my lip against a curse, nervously darting my eyes towards the door through which Frank disappeared. I’m incredibly annoyed at the FBI and their thoroughness at cleaning up a crime scene. There’s not even a paperclip for me to use. As I consider breaking my hand to try and pull it free, my watch catches my attention. Behind the face, a tiny blue light glows and I know exactly what the cause is.

“Samantha, you are brilliant,” I breathe to myself, staring at my watch in hope. I don’t know how long the GPS chip has been active; hopefully, it’s been long enough that she’s summoned up a rescue team and—

“Matt!”

My eyes close and I slump against the pole at the sound of my wife’s voice.

“Oh God,” she breathes, rushing to my side and dropping to her knees. “You’re hurt...”

Opening my eyes again, I look over at her, drinking in the sight of her face while my emotions war between elation that she found me and annoyance that she’s here at all. “What are you doing here?” I whisper. “Where’s Marcus?”

Her brow furrows. “I don’t know,” she answers, apparently confused at my question. “I didn’t call him.”

“What?” I
whisper loudly and harshly. She stumbles back, jumping to her knees. “You came here on your own? Are you insane?”

Hurt flickers across her face. “I came to find you,” she says coolly. “I didn’t know what state I would find you in and the only thing I could think of was you being killed. You can’t tell me you would have wasted time making phone calls if the roles were reversed.”

She’s got me there... “Sam, leave,” I insist, begging her to listen. “Please. Go home. Call Marcus. Call the police. Fuck, call everybody, but just
leave
.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says stubbornly, once again leaning over me. From her hair, she pulls out a bobby pin and goes to work on the lock. I stare at her incredulously when the cuff holding me to the pole
unlocks and I can pull my hand free. “Not without you.”

I couldn’t be more proud r
ight now. And a little disconcerted. “Where the hell did you learn how to do that?” I ask as she backs away slightly to give me room to stand.

She grins at me, but doesn’t answer. “Come on, let’s—”

The next thing I’m aware of is a cracking sound and Samantha dropping to the floor in front of me. Frank is standing behind her, lowering a gun. “Don’t fucking move,” he warns, cocking the gun and pointing it at me. “This is a treat.” His eyes dart towards Samantha and I can see blood pooling from the back of her head where Frank hit her with the butt of his weapon. “I wasn’t actually planning on having her join us.”

I’m too busy staring at my wife, silently begging her to be okay, and plotting the slow, painful demise of Frank Marone to hear a new set of footsteps somewhere behind Frank
. Noise and light fill the room and I fall back against the pole in reaction. Time seems to slow down as I watch in shock as Frank drops to the floor beside Samantha. The noise was a gunshot fired from behind Frank. Slowly, I look away from the Frank’s dead body and I don’t think I could be more surprised by who I see standing there if it were my own father.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” I say, my ears ringing.

“I’d be hoping for that, too, Matthew,” Mark Reilly says, lowering the gun in his hand to his side. He stares down disdainfully at Frank. “Fucking asshole.” His words are muttered more to himself as he moves towards Samantha, reaching out two fingers to her neck to check for a pulse.

“Don’t fucking touch her!” I yell, ignoring the pain in my body as I try to climb to my feet. “Get the fuck away from her.”

Reilly’s reaction is to point his gun at me, not looking away from Samantha as he does so. “Shut the fuck up and sit back down,” he says calmly. He reaches into his back pocket and removes a handkerchief, pressing it to the back of Samantha’s skull. “I should shoot him again for that. He wasn’t supposed to hurt her. But then he never did follow instructions well. Natalie can attest to that.”

“Natalie?” I ask sharply. “How the fuck do you know Natalie?”

He finally looks at me, raising an eyebrow. “And here we thought you were smart, Matthew. How have you not figured it out yet? I mean, seriously, all the hints that were just lying around, waiting for you to pick them up, and still...
nothing
. It’s kind of pathetic, don’t you think?”

I try to work out
what he might be talking about, and only one thing fits. “You’re her brother,” I whisper, closing my eyes at my own stupidity. It really is obvious in hindsight.

“Half-brother, actually,” he corrects me. “We had different dads. It’s strange, growing up resenting somebody so much, then once you reach adulthood, you realize just how much you have in common with that person. I always thought she was just an annoying kid. Which she was, but as it turns out, she’s pretty damn ambitious too.”

“Bonnie wasn’t really your aunt, was she?” I ask, feeling sick to my stomach all of a sudden.

Reilly shakes his head. “She is my aunt, actually,” he says lightly. “Sweet old thing, wasn’t she? Ne
ver even thought twice about the estranged nephew she hadn’t seen in almost thirty years coming back into her life. She made it all so easy, and when I found out just how close she was to you and Sam... Well, that was just luck.”

My attention returns to my wife and I’m comforted when I can see her body moving
, albeit unsteadily, as she breathes. She’s alive. Thank God. “You were supposed to be her friend,” I accuse in a low tone. “She trusted you.”

“That was the point,” Reilly goes on, darting a fond glance at Samantha. “I have to say I wasn’t all that pleased when Frank and Natalie decided they wanted me to get close to her. I thought she was going to be this brainless twit that I’d have to work to be friendly towards. She is truly amazing, though; sweet and smart and funny... Oh
, and so fucking sexy. I wanted her from the moment I set eyes on her. Problem was she was so blinded by you she wouldn’t even let me in. Not really. And trust me, Matt, if I’d put even a minimal amount of effort into it, it would have been a matter of minutes before she was screaming my name.”

Rage. Beyond anything I’ve ever felt. If I wasn’t so concerned about what he might do to her with me out of the way, I’d take him to the ground right now. But there is no way I’m leaving him alone with her. Not even for a second. “What’s the point?” I ask, trying to steady my anger. “Why go through all this trouble? What could be so fucking important?”

“Well, at first it was a matter of Natalie wanting access to some of your projects or contracts or whatever the fuck it is that you do. I’m still not entirely certain what that is, by the way. And she’d been so close right up until the point someone slipped up and got themselves spotted by your security team. Damian was a good kid, but not really the brightest bulb in the bunch. He got himself pretty close to Samantha in Nebraska, though, and then you showed up and all your attention was on her. Natalie decided it would be better if you were out of the picture entirely. You can’t imagine how easy it was to convince Leo to go along with the plan. I don’t know what you did to him, but he hated you something fierce.”

Bile rises in my throat at the mention of Leo and his betrayal. For months, I thought it had all been rather straightforward—Leo working with Natalie and Frank on whatever plan they ca
me up with—but now everything seems so intricately weaved. Wracking my brain, I try to remember whether Leo and Reilly were ever in the same place together when I was present. I don’t think they were, but obviously Leo’s surprise when I told him about the doctor and his sudden friendship with Samantha was faked. Of course he would have been aware of Reilly long before I ever mentioned him. And then I recall what else happened in that hospital while I was in Germany fighting for my innocence.

“Natalie didn’t sneak in
to the hospital,” I say quietly. “You let her through.”

Reilly looks pleased. “I wondered how long it’d take you to work that out.
That
was a fun night. The best part about it was that it cemented my chances of being in Samantha’s life—I came charging in at the right moment, had Natalie kicked out of the hospital, and that was all it took to gain Samantha’s trust. To be honest, I never met a more naïve person in my life. It was sweet, though, the way she opened up to me that night and in the days following. She never even suspected me.”

“You used her,” I say in disgust. “She was hurt and scared and vulnerable, and you manipulated her.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t say it like you’ve never done it,” he says coolly. “You’ve been manipulating her since the day you met her, maybe not for the same reasons I was doing it, but there really isn’t much difference between the two scenarios. She should have left you dozens of times, but you always had a way of convincing her to stay. How does that make you any better than me?”

The disturbing part of this discussion is how I can’t seem to refute his accusation. He’s right; I’ve been bending Samantha to do the things I want her to do since the day we met at the diner. She wanted me to stay away; I kept coming back. She didn’t want to have coffee with me; I convinced her to do so. Everything from her very first visit to New York to last week’s dinner...

But it is different, I say to myself, watching Samantha’s raspy breathing. The things I do are done out of love, not the desire to hurt her.
Never
to hurt her. The same can’t be said for Reilly. And if she ever expressed displeasure over anything, I’d accept that, and she and I would come up with an alternative. Together. From the very beginning, Reilly was lying to her, gaining her trust, trying to get her away from me. For what? It’s not as though his feelings for her were in any way real. Unless the plan was to simply leave me in devastation of losing the most important person in my life, I can’t work out why they would involve Samantha.