Page 129 of The Masks She Wore

?Well, this is getting us nowhere. Completely and utterly pointless. “Where is Marla now?” I asked. Maybe I could at least bring her some good news.

?Charles waved me off. “Last I heard, she was somewhere in the Netherlands.”

?So long as she was alive.

?“Do you know who’s behind this if it isn’t you?” he asked, finding my eyes again. “Do you know why they’re doing it?”

?“You said Marla figured out something about us and you believe that’s the trigger,” Malachi stated. “Do you know what she found out?”

?Charles shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t tell us. She came home that day in a panic, saying we needed to split up for a while. We asked no questions, we simply said our goodbyes and left.”

?An enemy of ours then? My eyes found Malachi’s. Someone who wanted to find out our secrets so they could destroy us.

?Malachi shrugged, leaning back in his chair. We had so many enemies, there was no way to tell who it could be, but if Marla found out something that could destroy us and someone knew about that, of course they would go to any lengths to get that information.

?But she believed that it had been us that were after her. So someone posing as us or someone we rejected, was going after them in order to what? Make a name for themselves in this world?

?Whatever the reason, they would soon find that it wasn’t worth it.

?“Do you know a Blanchard?” I asked, studying his reaction.

?His confusion only grew. “Blanchard? No, why? Is that who’s after her?”

?I watched him for a second longer before finally putting my gun away. “No,” I lied and turned to Malachi. What was the point of any of this?

?“You said she’s your wife,” Charles said, pulling my attention back to him. “Is that something she agreed to, or did you take advantage of her being in such a vulnerable situation?”

?I laughed coldly. “Rae is nowhere near vulnerable. She knows what she stepped into.”

?“We’ll see if she sticks to it when she remembers where her loyalties lie,” Charles stated dryly.

?My brows lifted. “That sounded like a threat.”

?“I know my daughter, she wouldneverwillingly pick a life like yours. A life wearing masks? A life where she couldn’t be herself. She would hate it.”

?He didn’t know his daughter at all then. “She doesn’t have a choice,” I explained, finally shoving my gun away. “You know Charlotte Alascer, Charles, but you have no idea who Rae Bennett is. I’m done here.” Waste of fucking time. He didn’t have anything of any importance to give us other than it was one of our enemies. It didn’t narrow it down, it didn’t help in the slightest. We were still stuck at square fucking one.

?“One last question before I go,” I said, wanting more than anything to just leave. “Viv, you don’t recognize that name, yet there are pictures of them as teenagers together, how do you explain that?”

?Charles shook his head. “I don’t know, we only went to L.A. a few times over the years on jobs. Charlotte never had any friends. I can’t explain that other than photoshop.”

?Some good photoshop. I ran it through my own programs, it detected nothing. “If you’re lying to me, Charles, I don’t care who you are to her, I’ll fucking kill you.” I knew he was lying. The question was why.

?“I’m not lying,” he said through his teeth. “We didn’t know any Viv. D-do you have any pictures of her, any proof?”

?I narrowed my eyes at him and fished the picture out of my pocket. I carried the photo with me everywhere just in case one of the dozens of times I stared at it I would see something different. Something I hadn’t before.

?He took the photo from me, his brows furrowing. “I don’t know any Viv, but that girl? Her name is Beth. Beth Dorsey. We did some work with her parents back in the day, but she lost both of them a few years ago. I didn’t know she and Charlotte took these pictures together. Charlotte knows never to keep any evidence of any life we live, no matter how in depth. No evidence.”

?Smart, perhaps that’s why they convinced her to keep a social media presence, make her go against her own training.

?“Fine. I don’t care what you do with him, Malachi,” I said, turning on my heel. “I’m heading back.” We got all we could from him, of that I was sure. Charles was suspicious. Lying about certain things, the way he acted. If he was trained as well as he talked, he shouldn’t have reacted like that when I pointed my gun at his head.

?He shouldn’t have been scared at all. He didn’t ask hardly any questions about Rae and her life now, although that could have been explained away by Malachi’s presence. If Marla had been friends with him, there was a chance Charles had known about that.

?I had some answers, that was enough for now. Malachi could extract the rest if he wanted, but I needed to get home before Rae realized who she was and accidentally killed our suspects.

?She was a part of this world, and I would do everything and anything I could to remind her where she came from. Her mother had put a lot of effort into her, it sounded like, I wouldn’t erase the progress just because some fuck decided to torture her.

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