Forsaken (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #3)(84)

He smiles, and it’s evil, a wicked twist of his thin lips. “It was a good gift you gave me that day. My father didn’t even know about the meeting, but he would have kept coming at you. He would have figured out you gave me the cash.”

“So you killed my family.” Somehow my tone is flat, unemotional, but the knife on the place setting is far too near my hand considering how much I burn to kill him.

“I do what I must.”

I want to kill him. I want to be that Grim Reaper. But Chen made it clear that if I act on my own, he pulls out. I inhale and let it out, asking, “And Gia’s father? Was he on your ‘must’ list?”

“He was on my father’s ‘must’ list, and killed too soon. My father thought Rex had what we wanted. Turned out you got there too quickly. So,” he says, tapping the table, “we’re here. It’s warm inside. Let’s just do the exchange. I have the cash in the car.”

I lean forward. “I came here to say good-bye to my parents. I wasn’t foolish enough to bring the cylinder. It’s being delivered to the drop site.”

“Well then, I guess we’ll have to drive there together.” One of his suited goons stops beside the table, shoving back his jacket to flash a gun. “Let’s go, shall we?”

“Not yet. I haven’t had my burger, and you aren’t going to shoot me without that cylinder.”

“Okay. You eat, and we’ll shoot the next customer that walks in the door.”

I throw my hands up. “Fine. But the cylinder won’t be there until the set time.” I push myself out of the seat and Rollin’s goon shoves me toward the back door.

My lips twist at the predictability. This is what I want, what Chen wanted when we set this trap. I walk down the hallway, toward what I know is a deserted, graveled back lot, with little to no lighting. I step outside and into the headlights of a car, shoved and forced to right my footing. Straightening, I find three men forming a line in front of me, and when I see Jared is one of them, my blood boils.

His eyes meet mine, and he doesn’t blink or look away. He is just here. With Rollin. Without remorse for his actions. “You f*cking traitor,” I spit.

“It was time for this to be over,” Jared calls out.

“It’s time for you to be over,” I say, launching myself at him, only to have the two men beside him draw their guns.

“Careful,” Rollin says, moving to stand in front of me. “We don’t need to get bloody when we’re playing nice.”

“If he stays, there is no deal.”

“Five hundred million says you can tolerate him,” Rollin says, and he’s barely spoken the words when engines roar in the near distance, and we are suddenly swarmed with motorcycles manned by men in ski masks. There is a crazy rush of activity, and then everyone in Rollin’s group has a gun at his head and is being shoved into a car.

One of them grabs Jared, and I shout, “Wait!” crossing to stand in front of him.

“Why? Why did you do it?” I demand.

“I didn’t want to, man. It was a bad hack, and I ended up in trouble.”

“With Rollin?”

“No. It was a setup and they held me captive.”

“You let them.”

“I tried to set you free by just giving them what they wanted.”

“You believe that, don’t you?”

“I was protecting you.”

“Oh, really? Well, I’m not protecting you.” I wave to the man holding him and turn away, walking toward another man waiting for me at the door.

“Documents,” he says.

I reach in my jacket and hand them to him. “What’s going to happen to them?”

“Whatever we want to happen to them.”

I inhale and let it out, not sure why I care what happens to Jared. But I do. I open the door and walk inside Red Heaven.

Gia and Coco walk in, having been alerted by the Chinese when it was safe.

Gia rushes to me and hugs me, and I hug her back. “Is it over? Is it really over?”

My cell phone rings and I quickly answer it to hear Chen’s voice. “Turn on the TV behind the bar.” The line goes dead.

I grab Gia and motion Coco forward, grabbing the remote the bartender has left on the counter. Switching channels, I find an image of Sheridan being walked out of his offices in cuffs. The caption reads: “Oil mogul and associates arrested on suspicion of selling U.S. secrets to China.”

I turn to Gia and my hands come down on her arms. “It’s really over.” I pull her to me and kiss her fast and hard, needing that connection with her, before I take her hand and lead her toward the door. Stopping at the door, I take one last look at my past. It’s gone, but it will never be forgotten. And as I face forward, leading us into the night, it’s with the hope that Gia, the woman who has made me whole again, is my future.




GIA AND I talk to Liam and Amy on the way to the airport, relief and some uncertainty in all of us. It’s midnight by the time we arrive in Dallas and make our way to a hotel for the night, planning to go to the property I own the next day when we can stock the kitchen and make it home for a few months. Still being cautious, I check us in with fake IDs, not ready to call this over until we have a few months behind us and a long-term plan to deal with the cylinder in place.