Page 9 of Carlos: Trilogy: Part Two

“You say that as if she has another option?” Carlos stated, taking Zoe’s hand on the table. She hadn’t realized her hand had been shaking until he took it and laced their fingers together.

Zoe looked down. The grip was somehow reassuring. From anyone else, it might have seemed controlling…but not from Carlos. She raised her head and saw he wasn’t even looking at her. Like he’d subconsciously known she’d needed his steadying grip.

“Well, I looked into what happened in Philadelphia,” Keys went on. “Zoe Rutterson is a wanted fugitive. There’s no getting around that. The Mutineers did an excellent job of corrupting your DNA and trading out your fingerprint samples. Unless they’re run again, no one will know the difference. Zoe Rutterson can’t live in Mount Grove. However, you don’t have to be Clara Everwood either.”

“Who would I be then?” she asked. “I want to—” She glanced to Carlos. “I want to start living again. Kyle deserves to have a life, a real one. He needs to go to school and have friends.”

“I don’t know what you know of Bulldog and Abby’s history,” Keys said softly. “I was able to backdate a marriage for them. As far as the government is concerned, they’ve been married for years and Bulldog fathered her two youngest children. ‘Abigail Knight’ couldn’t exist anymore so I made it so she never existed.

“I can do something similar with you and Kyle. It won’t be as clean cut or perfect, due to the publicity and the federal warrant out for your arrest. But I can tweak it so no one believes Zoe and Davis Junior are still alive. Hell, I know some people who might even have some extra bodies lying around we can use to at least fake your death more thoroughly.”

Zoe’s jaw dropped. Keys made it sound like he could do all of this with a click of a button. And bodies? Where did people get ‘extra bodies’ from?

“I can make you be Zoe again,” Keys told her. “No more hiding, no more running. The question I have for the two of you, though, is what sort of history do you want? Kyle is the only…issue,” he hedged. “Because he has living relatives. If his DNA is run against theirs, there isn’t anything I can do. As good as I am, I can’t hack actual DNA. However, I can make it look like there’s no reason to ever test his DNA. If we give the two of you a thorough enough backstory, why would anyone question it?”

“I don’t understand.” Zoe’s eyes glanced between the living room where she could hear the tv, Carlos, Keys, and back to the living room. “What history are you referring to? You said ‘the two of you’ like you meant Carlos and I, but Carlos doesn’t have to fake an identity or anything.”

“Not an identity, no, but it will make yours a stronger one if I backdate a marriage between the two of you and a birth history for Kyle that claims he’s Carlos’s son.”

Zoe felt like the floor had just dropped out from under her chair. Marriage? Keys wanted to marry her and Carlos?

They’d only been on one date. They’d only had sex twice. They weren’t… She wasn’t… No. Zoe’s head snapped around towards Carlos’s—and she felt her stomach start to sink. She could see it. In his eyes. He wanted this.

Zoe pulled her hand out of his grip.

She shook her head. “No, I…” She stood up, her entire body was shaking. “I can’t… I don’t…”

Carlos stood up too. He walked around to her other side to face her. “Hey, sunshine, hey, easy. Look at me please. Deep breaths… In, out… Good. Again. In, out… There you go.”

Zoe’s breathing became more controlled as she followed his commands. She liked how he was running his hands up and down her arms. Zoe shook her head and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Nothing to be sorry about. Keys was only proposing on my behalf. It’s not a real proposal unless you see me down on one knee, okay?”

“But you want it,” she said out loud. “You want to get married.”

“Not today,” he insisted. She wasn’t sure she believed him. “Zoe, unlike my brother, I haven’t been in love with you since I was six years old. You’ve heard the term ‘high school sweethearts’? Well, they were kindergarten sweethearts. There hasn’t been a day since they met as kindergarteners that my brother hasn’t known he’s wanted to marry Abby.”

Zoe hadn’t known that—only that they’d been dating as teenagers before Abby had moved away.

“So it is completely reasonable and not at all out of character for my brother to marry Abby after only reuniting with her for a couple of days. But you and me? We’re different. We have feelings for each other, sure, but I am not ready to marry you or to claim Kyle as my son. We, you and me, are not ready for that. Even if it is just legal and never mentioned again, the implications will always be there. We’ll always know the difference and I’m not willing for us to ruin what I think is a pretty fantastic start to a new relationship just to claim we’re married.”

Zoe felt her racing heartbeat start to slow. His words were so sincere, so Carlos, that it helped calm her.

“Davis…my husband,” she added, because she hated to say his name. “He changed after we got married. It was like he was a completely different man. All he cared about was making a son and how we looked to the outside world. Perfect life, perfect family, perfect home… Everything had to be just so. He,” her voice cracked, “he only started hitting me after we got married. If he’d done it before… Well, I’d like to think I’d have left him…” Zoe let her voice trail off.

There had been no leaving Davis Rutterson. Not before their wedding and certainly not after.

Her eyes flitted up to Carlos and then back down to her feet. “I don’t think that’s you. I know you wouldn’t… I know that,” she stressed, “but the idea of marriage… It’s terrifying.”

Carlos helped guide her back down to her seat. She finally was able to meet and hold his eyes when he knelt in front of her. “Two knees,” he pointed out. “Not proposing.”

Zoe let out a choked sob. But it worked—he got her to smile.

“Zoe, sunshine, I hate what you suffered through. You have the most beautiful soul and to think that some fool tried to quash that? Well, it makes me wish he was still alive so I could kill him myself.” Zoe’s eyes widened at his words. “Violence aside,” Carlos added pointedly, “I want you to live. I want you to thrive. Yes, you moved in here with me. I loved coming home to the sound of your laughter today. If I thought for a second you weren’t happy here or I couldn’t make you happy here, I would have left you on the club’s property and dated you properly.”

“Really?”

His nod was earnest. “Really, really,” he said with a crooked smile.

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