Page 40 of Lose Me In The Shadows

“I know you,” she said instead. “You’ll say it even if you don’t mean it. You’ll say anything to get what you want.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m not like Luke. Lying doesn’t bother me. Which is why I won’t say it right now. I won’t lie to you, because I don’t believe it, and you know I’ll just be manipulating you with it, and that doesn’t do either of us any good. Back in the shower.Please.”

The please was supposed to be an olive branch, she knew.

It rang hollow.

Just like an acknowledgment that they were wrong to take her would.

But she got back in the shower anyway and let him rinse the dye out of her hair and add conditioner, soaking up the tender care, even if she couldn’t decide if it was real or not.

Maybe this was the best she could have, at least for now. They had all used her body, she might as well use theirs. Take what she could from them and see this through. Get her revenge, assuage her misplaced guilt for shooting Luke. And when this was over, she’d figure out what came next.

That’s not what you want, that voice said.You want to stay. You just don’t want to admit it. Isn’t it easier if you’re forced to stay, so you don’t have to confront that part of yourself?

The water shut off. He turned her around in his arms to face him, and stroked a gentle hand down her cheek, over her lips. She opened her eyes. He seemed fascinated by her face. “Tell me something. If you’re so angry about the kidnapping, then why didn’t you shoot me? It was my idea, after all. And I convinced Conor it was his. Why did you shoot Luke?”

Even though she’d suspected as much, the confession was a gut punch. It made it easier for her to answer him, cruel as the answer was.

“He’s a better man than you and Conor. I expected betrayal out of the two of you. I trusted him more, so it hurt more.”

Micah nodded, blue eyes dark, thoughts hidden.

“Let’s get you dried off. The plane’s about to land.”

Back in their seats, Conor pulled out some paperwork and showed it to her: a passport, birth certificate, driver’s license. Her face stared back. It was her passport photo, but with brown hair that Micah must have photoshopped at some point.

“Your new name is Maya Gartner. You grew up in Seattle, no siblings, your parents are both deceased, and you’re a dogwalker.” His lip twitched slightly. “You especially love basset hounds.”

God, she shouldn’t have left that journal entry out for them to read.

“Why do I need all this?”

Conor sighed, but Micah was the one who spoke. “Our number one priority is to keep you safe. We can’t leave you alone, and we won’t risk you getting caught, so you need a disguise—and a new identity. And in order to get you safe again, we need to go after the Johnathans and expose what they did, that they set us up.”

“Which in turn will exonerate the three of you,” Kara surmised.

Conor nodded.

She swallowed. She needed to tell them.

“Chris told me, by the way, why he and his brothers set you up to take the fall. Why they made sure you got bad intel from your superiors.”

Conor’s face went dark, but he didn’t say anything.

“It was me. This whole thing was because of me. Your life—” She looked at the other two before turning back to Conor. “—lives were destroyed because of me. Chris was pissed that the three of you were with me—I guess he used his brothers’ power to spy on me after I left New York. They needed someone to carry out the hit. So in punishment for touching me, because of course the only one who was allowed to play with me was him, he decided to destroy your lives and everything you believed in. He couldn’t have accounted for that man’s wife dying, too, or his sons being there, but he’d always planned on using it to get you dishonorably discharged.” She looked down, saying quietly, “—I’m sorry.”

No one said anything. Finally, she felt a finger raise her chin. She looked at Conor.

“Not your fault,” he said shortly, roughly.

“I know that, theoretically, but—”

He shook his head, adamant.

Micah spoke. “Don’t take that on, baby.”

Luke, maybe unsurprisingly, said nothing.

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