Page 112 of Cruel Debts
"Well, things changed," Asher grumbled, his eyes finding me in the room behind him. "She was the priority. You made that clear when you made us accept her protection contract."
"Right. You got me there. Now stop changing the subject and let's get out with this secret of yours."
Liam frowned, staring at the floor. "You might want to sit down for this one."
She took the seat behind her desk, the scowl she wore quickly becoming a permanent fixture on her face. "Talk."
"Your ex isn't who he claims to be."
So fast I could barely believe it had happened, her eyes flicked to me, then back to Liam. I almost doubted it even happened. Almost. "I'm listening."
"He's been living under an assumed name for years. The name of our dead best friend, and the fourth in our unit from our time in the military. Keehn McCoy."
Asher cleared his throat, frowning at the top of her desk. "His real name is Danny Mistwood. He's a rich kid who fled his family and hit the streets until he lucked out and found a body with ID on it that had a good past attached."
Lilly slammed her fist down on the top of her desk with a snarl. "I think I know who the fuck Imarriedfive years ago. Who I wasfucking."But it's in her eyes, right there for all of us to see. She knew. But for whatever reason, she let herself be lied to.
Just like every other woman out here, she trusted a man, and he lied to her. Betrayed that trust.
"I've known his identity was fake from the moment you stepped into my office. How the hell do you think I found out about you to recruit you?"
Or maybe not.
Maybe she'd been playing her own long con this whole time. But that didn't explain?—
"How come he never mentioned it when we blackmailed him to work for us?"
Hawke looked genuinely confused. Lilly just leaned back and grinned like a feral cat.
"He doesn't know that I know. But we met years ago on the streets, when he was Danny Mistwood, and I was Lilly Tremaine. Neither of us shared our pasts with each other beyond our names, but if you cared to do some digging, it wouldn't be hard to find out we both came from the same world, and were looking for an escape that society wasn't willing to give us without struggles."
"So you knew," Liam deadpanned, his eyes narrowed nearly to slits. "All this time, you knew we were blackmailing him over his name, his identity. And you let us do it. You let us believe you had no idea about us beyond the stories that circulated in the South End, and?—"
"You assumed all that on your own. What I told you when I called your man over here to join us, to make his own squad, a crew, and join the Guild in its early days, was that I'd heard of you. I didn't say how. He didn't ask." Her eyes hardened as she stared at me. "Just like you didn't ask too many questions when you found out he was wearing a mask made of your dead best friend's namesake."
"Why didn't you say something?" Hawke had switched from confused, to outraged, to upset in less than two minutes. "Why did you let us think?—"
"Because I've been trying to teach you all from the start to ask more questions, assume nothing. And with the rare exception of Danny's situation, and the McCoys, you have taken that lesson to heart and run with it. You're the best our organization has tooffer. But you're woefully blind when it comes to the people you love."
She's right. When it came to Keehn, it was like they'd been blinded and handed braille signs without someone telling them how to read them. But they willingly overlooked what was right before their eyes with him. And I wasn't sure what they had for him could be calledlove,as much as it was a brotherly bond?—
"Don't look at her like you're revealing some heavy truths over here. She knows all about the Keehn situation."
I shrugged. "It's true."
Lilly smiled. "That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about how they were so blind about your situation because of their love foryou."
The guys were up and out of their seats in a heartbeat, the three of them rushing to talk over each other. Lilly silenced them with a scowl and then dismissed them with instructions to take me home. She didn't elaborate whether that home was my family home or their dorms. She left it up to them to decide how to define that order.
So when I ended up upstairs with them, sitting on the couch as they all stared me down, it filled me with a sense of relief.
I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to go back to that life. I wanted to stay here, with them.
"We need to talk, Trinity," Asher said with a growl, pulling a seat over to line himself up in my immediate gaze. Hawke perched on the coffee table, and Liam took the seat to my left, careful to leave space between us.
He'd take some work to warm up, but it was a start.
"Are you okay?"
