Playing in SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 9) (25 page)

They’re immediately
next to me on the ground, tearing off their t-shirts as I tear the
sheet that’s covering me. I don’t care about being naked
underneath the small piece that’s left. I don’t care about
anything, except for keeping Matt alive. If he dies, then the old me
will die along with him. I’ll come back to this place, and this
time, it will be for real.

The paramedics come in
and push us out of the way. And then they stop and shake their heads.
“He’s alive.” They just look at me like I’m crazy, and right
now, I probably am. I pick up a gun and check it for bullets before
pointing it at them. “He. Is. Alive.”

They spring into action
and start taking care of him. As they pull the gurney away, I start
to follow them. The local police stop me when they see the gun in my
hand, so I drop it and explain myself. I see the ambulance pulling
away, and try to run after it, but I’m too late.

“Come on, Rei, we’ll
get you there,” Nate says.

“We have something
for you, too,” Aiden tells me.

“No. Not yet, Aid.”

“Yes, Nate. It’s
time.”

“The fuck it is. He’s
going to live. Matt won’t give up, and I’m not giving up on him.”

“We have to be
realistic. Even if he lives, it won’t be the same.”

“He
will
live, but now you better give me whatever it is you think I need,”
I say, finally speaking up.

Nate looks at Aiden
with a glare. “You give her yours, because I’m not having that on
me when he wakes up pissed.”

“She deserves it,”
Aiden says, pulling his wallet out and extracting a tiny envelope.

He hands it to me, and
I see the word “Princess” in Matt’s handwriting. Leave it to
him to insult me even in written form. I open it as I get into the
backseat of the Jeep Nate leads us to.

Reina,

If you’re
reading this, I’m either dead, or close enough to it that Nate or
Aiden felt it was the right time to give this to you. I wish I was
brave enough to tell you the things you’re about to read, but I’m
not. My two biggest regrets in life are pushing you away all those
years ago, and doing the thing that made me push you away. What
you’ll read will either make you hate me more, or love me more.
Either way, I need you to understand something. I love you. More than
any person on this Earth has ever loved another. I’ll love you even
after I take my last breath because life and death have no power over
the love I feel for you. Hopefully, what you find here will show you
that:

Email address:
[email protected]

Password: the
date we first met

Yours forever,

Matt

“Give me a phone.”

“We may not have
service,” Nate says.

“Stop stalling me and
give me a god damn phone or I’ll jump out of this Jeep and find
someone else who will help me.”

Aiden shares a look
with Nate, and then hands me his phone. I bring up the browser and
almost cry when I see the two bars. I click on Google, log Aiden out,
and then log into the account Matt gave me. What I see brings those
tears I was trying to hold back—thousands of emails, the last one
dated yesterday. I go to the oldest page and see that the first one
is from over eleven years ago. On the day that Matt broke my heart
for the first time. I take a deep breath, and click on it, both
hopeful and scared of what I’m about to learn.

Reina,

I did something
today. Something I don’t think I can live with. It was an accident,
but that makes it even worse. I was with my unit when we were
attacked, and I started shooting at everything, everywhere. And I hit
him—I shot an innocent man. A man who has a family, a wife and two
small children. I don’t know why he walked into that intersection
where he must have heard the guns. Maybe he thought he could help,
even though he didn’t have a weapon. His wife said that he was a
good man, one who was opposed to the war. I went to see her and
promised to provide for her and their children for the rest of their
lives. I know it can’t make up for what I did, but I had to do
something. She said she doesn’t blame me, but how can that be true?
I killed her husband. I KILLED him. My C.O. says I need to stay quiet
about it, that it would be bad press if it got out, but that’s not
right. People should know. You should know. I can’t tell you,
though. Not ever. I wouldn’t survive having you look at me like the
monster I know I am. I’m not sure I’ll be able to survive living
the rest of my life without you, but I have to. I can’t have you
anymore. I don’t deserve happiness, and everything about you makes
me happy. I’m going to break up with you. It’s going to break me,
but I have no choice. I’ll never be able to call you My Beautiful
Queen again, and I’ll never get to hold you or make love to you.
Someone else will get to do those things while I stay away and love
you from afar. There will be no one else for me, because I’ve
already had the best.

I love you,

Matt

* * *

I
can’t wait to get home and check my email. Today is the day I get
my email from Matt. He never misses a week, and I live for those
words from him. I can’t wait until he can come home again—I’m
going crazy waiting for him. Reading his emails and knowing he’s
missing me, too, is what keeps me going.

I
rush through the door to the apartment Jane Corrigan put me in, and
turn on my computer. I could’ve used one at the Foundation, but I
like to be alone when I read the words of love Matt sends me. We
don’t write anything scandalous, but our words are still intimate,
meant only for each other.

I
bring up my email and smile when I see the notification from him. The
smile falls from my face as I read the words he’s written. No. This
isn’t right. Matt loves me. He told me he loves me, and he’s said
it in every email since he left. He wouldn’t want to see other
women. He couldn’t. But it’s there on my screen, the letters
blurring as I view them through my tears. No matter how many times I
read them, they still say the same thing.

I think we should
see other people. I’m sorry, Reina. It’s really not you. Take
care of yourself, Matt.

I
straighten my spine, and force myself to stop crying. I’m not some
silly girl anymore. I’m a member of the Society, and I can get
through this. Even though I know I’ll have to see Matt because of
Jane, I’ll survive. If I mean so little to him, then I’ll make
him mean nothing to me. I don’t know how, but I will

* * *

Three days ago

Reina

I’m practically
skipping as I enter the Corrigan & Co. building. Last night, Matt
finally admitted that he loves me. We made love for hours after that,
and he let me sleep in while he got up to go into work. I should be
able to catch him for lunch if I hurry.

One of the security
guards stops me before I get on the elevator. “Mrs. Corrigan, your
husband asked me to have you meet him in his office the minute you
arrived.”

“Thank you,” I tell
him with a smile.

I take the elevator up,
straightening my white sweater dress a little. It’s got a cowl neck
and a long skirt, and I feel pretty and feminine in it. I usually
dress to intimidate, but today I just wanted to dress like a wife. A
wife who’s loved.

Matt’s secretary
waves me through, and I walk in, prepared to molest my husband. That
plan goes out the door when I see that he’s not alone. One of the
Corrigan attorneys is standing at the side of his desk.

“Hi,” I say to the
man while I look at Matt, who won’t look back at me.

“Hello, Reina. Are
you ready to sign your life away, literally?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s been one year
today. I have the divorce papers ready for you to sign. Matt’s done
his part already.”

“You signed them?”
I ask Matt. He doesn’t answer me, but I see it on his face. He did
it. “You signed them.”

“Of course he signed
them. This was a marriage of convenience after all. Here’s your
pen.”

I don’t remember my
legs moving, but I’m all of a sudden standing next to him, holding
my hand out. Convenient? No. Nothing about this past year has been
convenient. Frustrating, hopeful, sad, fun, and sexy, but not
convenient.

I take the pen and sign
all the places he tells me to. “Congratulations. I just need to
file these, and then there’s the waiting period, but you’ll be
officially free of each other soon.”

I drop the pen onto the
floor and walk out. I hear people greeting me, and I force myself to
answer as I make my way to the Foundation. I manage to smile for Alex
to tell her I need a little time alone to go over some files. I walk
at a normal pace to my office, but once I close the door, it’s all
over.

I use voice controls to
turn off the cameras and listening devices, and then I sink to the
floor. I scream and cry, and then I destroy. I throw our wedding
picture into the wall, and then go to work on everything else.
Everything but my desk. I need my computer, but the rest of the
office looks like a tornado came through. It’s not enough.

I’m
not enough, and now I know that I never will be. It’s time to do
the only thing I can—take on the mission that will end my life. I’d
never kill myself, but nothing’s stopping me from taking the one
assignment that I should never even get close to. I was asked for
help, but even the person asking knew I couldn’t personally help
without putting myself at risk. Which is why it’s perfect for me
now.

I email her and then
put everything in place. I’ll have one hour to get out of town
before everyone realizes what I’ve done. I’m going to miss my
friends, but I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t be here,
watching Matt parade his women in front of me again. I let him fool
me twice, and now I have no one to blame but myself.

I put that smile back
on as I seal my office, telling Alex I have an unexpected
appointment. She doesn’t question the sunglasses on my face, even
though I can tell she wants to. I make it out of the building and
into my car without any problem, and then I drive to the private
airfield. It’s time for the end to begin, once and for all.

* * *

Matt

I’m on my third glass
of Scotch when the alarm on my desk goes off. It’s a distress
signal from the Society, one I’ve never heard before, so I know
it’s bad. I’m running for the door before it ends its chime. I
make it into the Foundation offices and find chaos. I follow Alex
into the conference room, but notice that Reina isn’t there. My
grandmother is in her place at the head of the table, and my stomach
drops.

“Where is Reina?”

“She’s gone. That’s
what the alarm is for.”

Oh God no. No. “How
can she be gone? She’s in charge.”

“She deactivated
herself. She had it on a delayed timer, so it didn’t take effect
until she was already far enough away for anyone to go after her,”
Ainsley says.

“You have to know
where she was when it deactivated.”

“Yes. She was in the
air. My team is trying to find the plane, and they’re also trying
to recover what they can from what’s left of her hard drive.”

“She destroyed her
computer?”

“She destroyed her
whole office. She broke everything that wasn’t bolted to the
floor,” Faith tells me.

“We’ve got
something,” Ainsley says before I can ask any more questions. She’s
looking down at her tablet, and all of a sudden there’s an email up
on the screen.

It seems
straightforward. A nun is asking for help because her convent is
being threatened by a trafficker. Audrey stands up so fast that her
chair topples over, which tells me there’s more to it than just a
normal mission.

“No. Jane…no. She
didn’t. Why did she go? Oh my God.”

“I don’t know,
Audrey.”

“What is it? What’s
wrong with Reina going on a mission? I know she’s out of practice,
but she’s still tough.”

My grandmother
practically collapses into her chair before answering. “What’s
wrong is that the man who’s terrorizing the convent is the man we
saved Reina from over eleven years ago.”

“Saved her? What the
hell are you talking about?”

It’s Audrey who
answers. “I had just been recruited into what would later become
the Society when I met a woman on the bus. She was crying, and
something drew me to her. I took her to a diner, and after getting
her some food, she told me about her daughter. A beautiful girl who
was taken by the Coyote who helped the family cross the border. They
had paid him, but once he saw Reina, he wanted a different kind of
payment.”

“Son of a bitch.”

My grandmother speaks
up to finish the story. “Yes he was. And is. Reina was the first
official Society mission, and we got her out. She would never tell us
if he raped her—.”

“He didn’t,” I
blurt out. “I was her first.”

“I guess I needed to
know that, but then again, I really didn’t.”

“Sorry, Gram.”

“As I was saying, we
got her out, but without killing him.”

“That’s my fault. I
couldn’t do it. I should’ve done it,” Audrey says, looking like
she’s going to break down.

“It was everyone’s
first mission. You got Reina out, and that is what’s important,”
my grandma tells her.

“You know he was
obsessed with her. If he sees her, he’ll do whatever he can to have
her again.”

“Why would she do it,
though? She had to know it was a suicide mission,” Jade says.

“I don’t know. It
had to be bad, whatever it was. Her office, deactivating herself. I
never thought she would leave. Something had to have happened,”
Audrey says.