My eyes narrowed as dread trickled down my spine. “You’ll have to be more straight-up with me. I don’t speak doctor.”
“When she dies…” He said it softly. “…which she will… have no doubt about it… call me if you… find that that stony heart of yours actually cares about that girl upstairs. The least I can do is help you forget the pain, help you forget everything.”
My hand trembled against the glass. “Is that what you really do? Brainwash people? Break them? Make them forget?”
He inclined his dark head. “Have a good night, Sergio. And remember my promise. Sometimes pain, especially that of a broken heart, is best forgotten.”
“Thanks, but my heart’s just fine.”
His eyes said he knew otherwise.
My damn erratic heartbeat concurred.
I wanted to smash my hand into his face.
Instead, I saluted him with my middle finger and ripped his card in half.
With one last dark chuckle, he moved down the hall. Finally, the sound of the front door clicking shut gave way to absolute, blissful silence.
The exhaustion that had earlier been creeping in was gone. And in its place, extreme paranoia that Nicolai saw me better than I saw me — that he knew my secrets, he knew my fears, and in the end, he knew I’d come calling. Because the very last thing I wanted…
Was to break.
I’d already lost so much.
It seemed unfair that she’d be the final catalyst of my downfall.
Rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands, I moved away from the bar and padded down to my office.
I clicked on the lamp at my desk and went to work.
I’d just married someone who I needed to make disappear. With a sigh, I cracked my neck and placed my hands on the keyboard.
Passport first.
License second.
Marriage license third.
And I went to town. This, I could lose myself in. Numbers, I could do. Hacking was something I could probably do with my eyes closed.
I fixed, and I fixed, and I fixed.
When I was finished, I should have felt better. Instead, I felt worse, because the whole time I’d been creating a new identity for her, I’d felt, somewhere in the back of my exhausted brain, that I was simultaneously losing my own.
Who was I anymore?
What was my purpose outside of paying back my family for all my secrets? My lies?
I glanced down at the black folder Phoenix had placed on my desk a few days ago…
”Read it,” he ordered slamming it onto my desk.
”I’ll pass.” I pushed it away with one of my pens, and for a brief minute contemplated throwing it into the fire. “There’s nothing in there I don’t already know about myself.”
”Ha!” Phoenix chuckled “You have no freaking clue, Sergio. No clue.”
”Maybe I like it that way.” The black folder seemed to elevate toward me, tempting me, taunting me. “Being in the dark.”
”Trust me, you won’t. You don’t.” He nodded toward the folder. “Everyone has secrets… how do you know this isn’t so much about yours… but someone else’s entirely?”
That piqued my interest. “I thought it was my folder? The one that Luca kept on me in order to keep my balls within his grasp.”
”I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
”Phoenix.” I said his name like a curse. “How about you just tell me what’s in it so I don’t have to read.”
”It’s better it come from him.”
”He’s dead!” I yelled.
Phoenix hung his head. “I’m well aware that Luca, one of the greatest men I’ve ever known, is no longer breathing, but that doesn’t mean he still can’t reach his creepy ass hand out of the grave and give us a bit of a… surprise.”
”I freaking hate surprises,” I muttered.
Phoenix laughed. “Well put your party hat on, my friend, because it’s about to get real.”
”And it’s been what?” I leaned back in my chair. “A cakewalk all up until now? Do you even realize how many times we’ve almost gone to war with other families in the past two years? How many lives have been lost? How many lies I’ve told?” My voice was getting louder and louder. I couldn’t help myself, I was pissed. It wasn’t Phoenix’s fault. Hell, the guy had more of a reason to be pissed than I did, and there he was, passing out top-secret folders and smiling.
Jackass.
His wife probably had something to do with it; well that, and they had a baby on the way. Lucky bastard.
”Read the folder,” he said again, then tapped his knuckles against my desk. “And try to get some sleep. You look like hell.”
”You do realize I used to say the same thing to you not so long ago.”
”Karma’s a bitch.” His snarky reply as he slammed the door to my office, leaving me alone with the folder.
I reached for it, but something stopped me, something that felt a hell of a lot like fear.
Fear that Luca had known things that I’d done — things I still hadn’t ‘fessed up about.
The bodies I’d hidden for the FBI. The ones I’d hidden from them.
The people I’d killed, all because it had been my damn job.
And the families I’d destroyed all in order to save my own ass.
I knew I was a selfish bastard; I just didn’t want others to know how deep that selfishness went.
Deciding against it, I pushed away from my desk and got out of my office before I did something stupid.