Game of Lies. Amanda K. Byrne

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СКАЧАТЬ door swings open with a loud squeak as I’m hurrying toward the stairs. Nick shuts it behind him and twists the key in the lock.

      “I told my mother I’d stop by and see her today. You said there was a key I could have?” I ask.

      “I dropped by your parents’ house and told her you would be out of touch for a few days,” he responds. “She said she was going to visit your aunt for a while and would call you when she got there.” He starts up the stairs. “Come on.”

      So Mom will talk to Nick, but not to me? The hits won’t stop coming. I follow him to the second level while trying to wrestle the hurt into place.

      He opens one of the two closed doors and waves me inside. The long, narrow room reminds me of his study and the second bedroom at the condo. A U-shaped desk sits in the near corner, three monitors cluttering its surface. When he reaches under the desk and boots up the computer, the monitors flare to life.

      I wander farther into the room. There’s not much else. A couch is pushed against the far wall, a neatly folded blanket topped with a pillow on one end. A duffle bag is tossed in the corner, the top of it zipped tight.

      Something about the blanket and the pillow throws me. I stare at them, trying to understand what they mean. He fucked up, yes, and he hurt me, but I assumed we’d still be sharing a bed, like we have all the other nights.

      I don’t want him in here. I want him next to me. I want everything to go back to the way it was. Before Turner was killed.

      The only way I’ll get that is to kill Isaiah.

      I relax my shoulders and turn around. “You’re still willing to work with me?”

      He regards me steadily, his face giving nothing away. “Have a seat.” He points to a chair beside the desk. “Yes, I’m still willing to work with you. That was what should have happened in the first place.”

      I pick up the stack of papers on the chair and sit, searching for the words to tell him why I’d done what I had. “Before,” I say quietly, slowly, “it was personal, but not…overly so, I guess. Like there was still some distance. Isaiah already admitted he underestimated me, and up until he shot Turner, I thought he’d keep doing that. After? It wasn’t enough for his men to die. I needed him to be afraid. I need him to fear me. I want him to realize that I don’t play by his rules and he made a huge mistake thinking he could get me to do things his way. If you and Constantine helped, it became too much like a business transaction.”

      I look down at the papers in my hands. “You didn’t even try, Nick. You said there was an easy way and a hard way, and the hard way was talking me out of it. If you really meant to try, you wouldn’t have gone straight for the drugs. How do you know I wouldn’t have listened?”

      He sighs. “Because you wouldn’t have, Cass. You plowed through those nine men with a singular focus. The Cass I know, the Cass I love, would have hesitated. That lack of hesitation proved I wasn’t dealing with her anymore.”

      He’s right. There was no hesitation. My timid, remorseful self is there, though, and she likes to poke her head up at the most inopportune times. “How do I know you’re not offering to help me now so you can kill Isaiah yourself?”

      “You don’t,” he says bluntly. “And I’m not going to tell you I won’t. Because if getting to Isaiah means putting yourself in danger, you won’t get anywhere near him. I’d rather have you alive and hating me than both of you in the ground. His life is not worth yours.”

      He takes the stack of papers from me and shuffles through them. He finds the one he’s looking for about halfway through the bunch. “Map of the surrounding houses.” He passes the paper to me. “Haven’t had a lot of time to run surveillance on the street, so we’ll need to do that for a few days.”

      I put my anger and hurt on ice and study the paper. A few days of inactivity could have the benefit of keeping Isaiah on edge. Given how quickly I eliminated the other men, he might be expecting me to rush at him. Sneaking up from the side has some benefits.

      The downside is this won’t be over quickly.

      “You said my mom’s leaving town?” Aunt Carol lives in Montana. Her house is near Flathead Lake, surrounded by trees. It’s quiet, peaceful, and this time of year, covered in snow. It’s also in the middle of nowhere. They could be in danger, and there’d be no one around to hear them scream.

      “Isaiah’s stretched too thin, thanks to you. Going after your mother wouldn’t be a smart move on his part. I can bring her here if you’d rather.” He slides the keyboard toward him and types in a command. I scoot the chair around and lean in.

      It’s a schedule, complete with approximate times and destinations. I reach for the mouse, brushing Nick’s hand in the process. The brief touch sparks a wave of longing, and I hold my breath, willing it to pass.

      I could touch him. Kiss him. Let him break me down and put me back together. And if I did, I’d spend more time wondering about his motives than accepting his gestures at face value, and it would destroy whatever we have left.

      It was easy to ignore his concern and affection in the first few days after Turner’s death. When I left Constantine’s for my apartment, when he started coming to me at night, little chinks began appearing in my armor. Never large enough to cause much damage, but I felt him. It didn’t take long for my brain to re-wire and accept that with Nick there I could relax, snatch those precious hours of sleep.

      “I don’t get it.” I tuck my hands in my lap. “If what I’ve done isn’t sanctioned by the organization, why didn’t you stop me sooner?”

      Nick’s gaze remains on the monitors, two new programs springing up on the remaining screens. “Partly because my father and Uncle Anton agreed something should be done about Isaiah’s men. And because if it had been one of my sisters, my mother, or you, I would have done the same thing.”

      The muscles of his jaw twitch and relax as I wait for him to continue. “There’s this rage,” he says quietly. “It’ll burn you from the inside out if you let it fester. You should have come to me first with your new plan, Cass. Not gone ahead without me and assume I’d be there to clean up your mess.”

      It doesn’t burn. It freezes. It’s this thick, heavy layer of ice that threatens to kill all the good, leaving only the bad. How does Nick know about the rage? From everything he’s told me, he’s never been in the situation I’m in. “You talk like you’ve experienced it.”

      He shakes his head. “I’ve got an imagination. And I’ve seen this before. It happens every once in a while in the family.” The look he sends me is one of quiet resignation. “Everyone has the capacity to kill. Some will never need to use it. Others will channel it in different ways, becoming soldiers, terrorists, hunters. Still more will access it in a moment of fear or anger.”

      A capacity to kill. We’ve exercised ours more than most. “There’s another category,” I say. “The hardened. The ones who kill without compunction.”

      His eyes turn to stone, and his mouth firms into a thin line. “I’m not going to let you become one of them. I’m not letting you walk away, either. We finish this together.” His gaze flits over my face, and then his eyes meet mine. He taps the monitor with the schedule like the interlude never happened. “Isaiah’s schedule, such as it is. It’s more a schedule for the house than for him personally.”

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