Hush (Black Lotus #3)(76)

“Now?”

“Now.”

He gets up and steps to his laptop next to my unloaded pistol. I follow, and when he sits in the desk chair, I stand over his shoulder. I watch as he bypasses the Internet and accesses the deep web through Tor, which is an anonymity network that insures nothing he does will be indexed.

In a few quick swipes of the keyboard, numbers and codes begin to filter in. “There you go,” he says and then points to the screen, explaining, “This column lists the country codes, this one here lists account and routing numbers, and this column here is—”

“Close it down.”

He looks at me in confusion but does as I instruct and proceeds to logoff. I’m satisfied that without the threat of force, he handed over all the information without an inkling of hesitation.

“I don’t want his money. You can do whatever you want with it.”

Lachlan closes the lid to his laptop, picks up the gun, takes one bullet from the floor, and slides it into one of the cylinders. He then gives it a spin before locking it into place.

“Here,” he says in an even tone as he hands me the gun. “I’d take a bullet for Elizabeth. You on the other hand . . . I need to come down from you shoving that muzzle into my head, but I’d take a bullet for you as well. You want me to prove my loyalty to you?” He takes a couple steps back. “Pull the trigger.”

A sane man would take his word for it, but the gesture isn’t enough for me, not after everything that has compromised my life and Elizabeth’s. She’s much too precious to take anyone’s word at face value. So I stretch my arm out in front of me, but with a slight adjustment, one that Lachlan won’t be able to detect, I mark his right arm as my target.

He offered this test of integrity, and when I cock back the hammer, I slip my finger over the trigger, and follow through.

I squeeze and fire, but all that sounds is the snick from the chamber rounding.

Lachlan’s face drops, stunned that I pulled the trigger and then relieved when he realizes his game of Russian roulette just played out in his favor. He falls back into the chair as I holster my gun. And now that I have the confirmation that the only reason he withheld information from me was to f*ck over Camilla and my father, I turn and walk to the door.

“Stop by later this afternoon. Elizabeth would enjoy seeing you now that we’re back,” I say without turning around.

And then I leave.





ELIZABETH IS STILL in bed sleeping when I get home from a long day of meetings. It’s been days of the same. She’s heartbroken and trying to cope with losing her father for the second time in her life, so I haven’t wanted to push her too much. I’m worried though. She’s been living in shades of darkness since we returned from the States. It’s more than the moping around that concerns me though. After my talk with Lachlan the other day, I came home and heard her voice coming from the bedroom. But she was in there alone. When I opened the door, I could tell she had been crying, so I decided not to question her.

I have to remind myself how fragile she still is. It wasn’t that long ago when she completely broke down after she found out about her mother and had to be medicated. She’s experienced only a handful of episodes since that night, but none that measure in magnitude.

Walking over to the edge of the bed, I watch her as she sleeps peacefully. Her face is soft and her breathing is steady. I run the backs of my fingers along her cheek, feeling her smooth skin warm against mine. I can finally look at her without the past fueling my hate for her. No longer do I want to cause her pain and suffering. No longer do I want to punish her.

Seeing her with her father helped stitch the wounds she inflicted with her deceitful ways. For the first time, I saw through all the walls she’s spent her whole life building and into the very core of who she is. Watching her with him, hearing their stories, and learning about who she was as a little girl suddenly made her transparent, and I could finally see the purity and softness that’s shrouded beneath years that have hardened her.

I let her sleep while I go into the closet to hang up my suit jacket, and when I go into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water, I realize I forgot to grab a hand towel. Turning off the faucet, I walk into the toilet room and pull a towel from the linen cabinet. That’s when I look down and notice something sitting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. I flick the light on to find it’s a tiny blue pill, half-dissolved in the water.

I go to her sink top and pick up her prescription bottle to confirm it’s the same pill.

She’s been lying to me.

I have to wonder why she’d flush the pill instead of taking it because she needs to be taking them every day.

Going back in the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed where she’s still sleeping. The dip of the mattress beneath me causes her to stir awake. Her eyes flutter open, and I handle her delicately. “You’ve been sleeping long?”

She looks at the clock on the bedside table and responds, “Not too long. How was your day?”

“Busy. What about yours?”

She sighs when she sits up and leans back again the headboard. “Same as the day before.”

“Did you remember to take your pill today?”

“Yes,” she answers with a curious look on her face. “Why?”

“You know how important it is that you take them every day, don’t you?”