Page 39 of Heartless

“And you had your own bombshell.”

It took only a second for her to comprehend his meaning. “I can’t believe we’re back to that.”

“No, that’s not why I brought it up. It was…” He shrugged, knowing he was making a mess out of things. “I forgave you for that a long time ago. I don’t want—”

“You forgave me?” Her voice was thick with fury. “You forgave me? How very big of you, Hawke.”

“No! That’s not what I meant, Livvy. I just…” Hell, what could he say? Even today, he was gutted by what had happened. By what he’d done. It was her forgiveness he needed, not the other way around.

Her eyes dark with hurt, she said, “All right. Fine. Go ahead and blame me. I don’t care. I’m a big girl. I can take it. I was the one who went through the pain. I was the one who suffered the consequences. I lost everything that day. Nothing happened to you. You lost nothing. I don’t need, nor have I ever wanted, your forgiveness.”

He jerked back at her words. She thought he’d lost nothing? How she must have hated him. “I’m sorry, Livvy. So sorry.”

He reached out a hand to her, which she ignored. Could he blame her?

“All right.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Let’s refocus.” She held the emails up and shook them. “This wasn’t me. You knew it wasn’t me from the beginning. And you didn’t tell me. We were together for years, and you didn’t think it was important enough…or I wasn’t important enough.”

“That’s not why. I told you—”

“Yes, yes. You were handling it. Whatever. What else have you got?”

Feeling about twenty years older than he had ten minutes ago, Hawke stood and went to the desk in the corner where he’d left the intel, his leg aching with every step.

“What happened to your leg?”

He headed back to where she sat. If he’d thought she was pale earlier, it was nothing to how she looked now. There was absolutely no color in her face, and her eyes had a lost, empty look. He had promised to tell her everything, but no way in hell was he going to put that on her today.

“Banged up my knee. It’s fine.” He handed her the additional intel. “Kate’s people found this, too. There’s a bank account from the Bank of the People in the Cayman Islands created under one of your old aliases. It was opened a few days before Rio’s death. The day after his death, there was a deposit of two hundred fifty thousand dollars. And then, the day after Layla’s, another two-fifty was added.”

She stared down at the pages and shook her head. “I just don’t understand why anyone would go to so much trouble to frame me.”

He had an idea about that, but she needed to hear the rest of it first.

“I went to the bank and managed to talk to a sympathetic bank manager.” He didn’t bother to explain the lies he’d told. That was the job. “He gave me a still photo of the person who opened the account.”

He handed her the grainy photograph. The photo showed only the side of the woman’s face, and it was slightly out of focus. This person had clearly tried to resemble Olivia Gates. She had done a fairly good job of it.

“She looks like me.”

“Yeah.”

“Someone went to a lot of trouble to destroy my life.”

“Actually, I don’t think that was the intent.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever wondered why you were the only team member who wasn’t targeted at that time?”

“That’s not true. You weren’t either.”

“I was. The same day as the attempts were made on Mack, Trevor, and Deacon, someone took a shot at me and missed.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She raised her hand to stop his reply. “Don’t bother. I was just your wife. Why would I need to know something like that?”

He ignored her sarcasm and said, “Ever wonder why, other than Layla and possibly Rio, all the other attempts failed?”

“No. I just…” She shook her head. “No.”

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