Devil’s in the Details (77 page)

Victoria set the laptop down on the edge of the desk, "It's not a weekend getaway." She looked up at me, "I understand what you are feeling Alex, and I will not ask you to get past the things I've done in the last ten years." She moved closer to me, "All I will ask of you is to continue to trust me. I love you, Alex, and it destroys me knowing I’ve hurt you when it is the last thing I ever wanted to do."

She looked down at her hands, "Voltaire, the old lady in particular has found out a few things that have made him upset. He's put it upon himself to come after me and the only way I can keep you safe is if you come with me. Dani and I have come up with a plan. When in New York, we will be leaving after a day or two there for Europe."

I stared at her confused, "Europe? I don't understand." I sighed, folding my arms, "Don't talk to me like I'm a fellow spy, I'm not Dani." I felt the anger returning quickly.

Victoria nodded, moving even closer and I wanted to move away from her, but my body betrayed me. Her warmth was something I had grown addicted to a very long time ago, and even now, it was my weakness. "Europe for a couple of weeks until I take care of a few things, then we'll come home and I will be out of Voltaire. Retired and freed from this second life I have been living." Her eyes turned glassy, "Then you can leave, carry on with your life as you see fit. I won't stop you."

I frowned harder, shaking my head, "No, I'm not going to Europe or New York with you, I can't be around you right now." I swallowed hard, hating that I was saying what I was, since it was all lies. I wanted to be around her, I wanted to run to her, be swept up in her arms and yell at her while she held me. I waved towards my head, "There's too much in here that I can't figure out, I can't think straight. Everything just leads back to what you did, for me." I looked down at the floor, I was literally being torn into two by everything and not being able to shake how deeply I felt for this woman.

Victoria was an arm's reach away, clutching the laptop. "There’s no room for negotiation, Alex. You have to come to New York. You have to come with me whether you hate me or not." Her voice was firm, yet still trembled. The woman looked like I imagined she did after her incident in the desert and she was in safe hands. Frail, tired, broken, yet incredibly determined to stay strong.

I shook my head harder, "No, I do not have to do anything I don't want to!" I stared at her, "You can't come in here and tell me what to do, I don't even know who you really are."

I didn't realize I was almost shouting at her until I saw her flinch. "You need to give me more answers, Victoria, to all of the questions you left me with. You walked out of this goddamn house like it was nothing! Like I was nothing!" I knew the words spilling out were my emotions speaking for me, but I was worn down and couldn't stop when the floodgates open. "I can barely look at you without seeing the faces of those men."

"And I see their faces every goddamn night I close my eyes! Their faces and every single other face I have eliminated!" Victoria exploded, her voice ringing in my ears and throughout the room. "I don't have time to sit here and argue things I cannot change. As for who I am and knowing who I really am?" Victoria stared at me with glassy clear eyes, "I am still the same fucking woman who fell in love with you, who will always love even when all of this is said and done. So fuck these questions I cannot answer to meet your satisfaction. I fucked up and have fucked up for the last ten years, I cannot change that Alex. I'm not a fucking time traveler that can go back at the snap of a finger and fix all the things I have destroyed."

She blew out a harsh breath, squeezing the broken laptop until I could hear the plastic crack under the pressure. "Yes, you’re right. You don't have to do anything I ask of, but I need you to trust me with whatever tiny bit of trust you have left. I need you in New York, that's it Alex. Trust me one last time, trust me with your life."

I swallowed down the tears, spitting back at Victoria, "No. I’m not going anywhere until you explain everything. Why am I going to New York? How do I explain being in Europe to my family and my job? What the fuck is going on?"

Things were becoming messy. All I wanted to do, was compelled to do muddled emotions, was stand my ground and scream at Victoria, fight with her and find the reasoning behind it all. "Why did you kill those men at the station? I feel like everything we are is a total and utter lie. What was I really? A cover for you to hide behind? A fun experiment to see if you could balance two lives? What the fuck was it, Victoria?" I found myself shouting at her again, unable to be calm about anything in this moment. My life was in total upheaval and it was pissing me off that she was so nonchalant about it all.

Victoria shook her head, "I will repeat, we do not have the time to talk about all of this." She met my eyes, digging in her back pocket and pulling out a small envelope and setting it on the desk next to her. "Your ticket is in there, with the itinerary and the address I will be at." She then turned away, her body shaking and with her voice, "I can't keep fighting with you, Alex, when I have to fight for you to keep you safe." She took one step out of the den, that's when I realized she was leaving again. Walking out on me.

"Don't fucking walk away, Victoria. Stay here! Talk to me!" I let the tears slip, she was infuriating me with her stone cold, unbending behavior, "Don't prove my doubts right." I was backwards bargaining with her, trying to get her to stay so I could exact all of my rage on her and hope she would give in before I did.

Victoria paused at the doorway, her back still turned to me, "Alex, you are and will never be nothing to me." She looked over her shoulder and met my eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks, "You are everything to me, but I can't waste any more time. We can't. I will be waiting for you in New York." She turned away and walked out of the den and out of the house.

I yelled at her, "I will not chase after you! I told you that the last time you did this." I stopped when I heard the front door click shut.

I screamed into the empty den, my hands balled up in fists as the sobs returned.

I would not chase after her. No matter what.

"Dani, I'll be at the airport in ten minutes." I choked out the words as I raced the BMW up the freeway. My heart was beyond broken, shattered and with every mile I drove away from our house, I felt the pain increase in my chest. I had done one of the hardest things I had ever done and walked away from the one person I loved with my entire life, and the one person who made me truly whole and human. No matter how much I justified that I had to walk away from Alex and go to New York, it did very little to heal any of the new wounds the last twenty-four hours had created.

I was sliding into the black hooded figure. The one who lacked emotions and cared for nothing and no one. There was a plan put into action, one that had little room for error or delay. I had set it motion the second I left Maggie and Dani at her house and went home in the hopes of convincing Alex to leave with me, but as I expected, she didn't. She stood her ground and fought me like she had all the other times I shut down. I wanted to tell her everything, the entire plan ahead of us. The reasons why she was going to Europe for a few weeks, why I needed her in New York tonight.

How do you tell someone you love that you need to make them disappear because there is a contract on their head? All because of your mentally insane boss, losing his shit that you no longer wanted to kill people at his discretion?

I had already overwhelmed her with the brutal truth of what I did to those filthy pigs who laid their hands on her, I saw no point in throwing more on her until we were safe. Safe and behind closed doors were I could tell her everything without fear, and now I knew I would never have that chance.

Alex made her decision and I respected it, she didn't want me around in her life because of what I was, but I still had to force her to understand that there was just more than a need to keep her safe.

There were things I didn't want her to see, hear, or experience. The only way I could make that happen was get her to the safe house and away from me with Dani as her escort.

What I was about to do in the next forty eight hours would change so much.

"Is Alex with you?" Dani's voice was firm, telling me she was a bit distracted as she spoke to me, "I picked up some chatter. The old lady has sent out three contracts on you and your nurse. One for her to be captured alive and used as bait for you. A five million dollar contract to bring you in dead with a fresh catch contract set at ten million dollars. The fucker is serious about this. What did you do?"

I bit the inside of my mouth, "Alex is still at the house, I couldn't get her to come with me. I need you to go there and do what you do best. Piss people off and get them to do what they don't want to do." I paused, "I don't know what I did to piss the old lady off. I think he got wind of my want to retire and that the old man is helping me leave."

Dani blew out a breath, "Did you even try to convince her to come with you?"

I frowned at the condescending tone in her voice, "Fuck off Dani. I tried you know that, I just can't waste time with arguments I can't solve." I let out a sigh, "This whole plan is for Alex. Everything we put into motion is to keep her safe and give her the life I should have given her, not this life I dragged her into."

"I know, Victoria." She tapped on a distant keyboard, "I will persuade her to go to New York. She called that cop last night, he may be useful in said persuasion."

I pulled into the small private airport, "Dani, please. Get her to New York by tomorrow night, I need to know she is on an airplane out to Sweden by the next morning." I ran a hand through my hair as my stomach twisted thinking about what was going to take place tomorrow night and the fallout after. "Please, promise me…."

"Shut up. You know I will take care of anything and everything." Dani sighed, "Alex will always be safe, I will kill every single plumber that is stupid enough to seek out that contract on her."

I shut off the car and stepped out, "Please, just remind her that I will and have always loved her…" I stumbled over the words as a sob escaped, "That she was the reason why I had to stop all of the lies."

"Again, Victoria, shut up." I could hear the softness in her voice, "That dumb nurse who is far smarter than you deserve, loves you even though she probably hates the living fuck out of you right now." Dani chuckled lightly, "We will do this and it's going to hurt like hell but we will get through this. I promise you."

I nodded into the night air, "I'll see you in New York." I hung up on Dani, catching a glance of the picture of Alex and I with Holly in front of us I had taken the first night the small dog fell into my life. I smiled softly, whispering, "I'm sorry." To the picture before shoving the phone in my pocket and grabbing my bag to head towards the plane.

Chapter 25