Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1)(90)

Face, chest, belly, thighs—they hit together, all at once.

The impact was violent. It knocked the breath out of me. It hurt like fire, like I’d been slapped against frozen asphalt by a giant hand and shattered every bone in my body.

I was paralyzed. Every inch of my skin burned.

Stunned, agonized, I drifted facedown toward the bottom of the pool until Sloane jumped in and saved me.

Until David disappeared, that was the worst pain I’d ever felt.

I feel it again now, that hard-slapped breathlessness. That shattered, suffocating pain.

I whisper, “My dead fiancé? David?”

Kage pauses. Looks at me with those empty, goodbye eyes.

“His name isn’t David. It’s Damon. And he’s still alive.”





37





Kage





At least once in every man’s life, he faces a reckoning.

My father told me that. He knew a lot about reckonings. About calculating gains and losses. About saying goodbyes. He left everything he had in Russia to make a new life in a new land. To have better opportunities for his children than he had for himself.

He paid with his life for that risk, but I doubt he would’ve regretted it. He was stronger than I am. He never regretted anything.

But me, now, standing here…I regret it all.

If only I’d told her from the start, I wouldn’t have to bear that look on her face now.

I wouldn’t have to witness Natalie’s love for me going up in flames.

She sits perfectly still. Her back is straight. Her face is pale. Her hands are spread open on her thighs. Around her throat, the necklace I bought her glitters like ice.

In a small voice, she says, “Damon?”

It’s an invitation to continue. Or maybe it’s a plea to stop. I can’t tell.

The only thing I know for sure is that if a person could die from a look, I’d be a dead man.

“He was our accountant.”

Her nostrils flare. Something dark gathers behind her eyes. “You knew him?”

“Yes.”

I can’t take the look on her face, so I turn away, dragging a hand through my hair.

“Max trusted him implicitly. He was brilliant with numbers. Saved the organization a lot of money. Made us a lot, too. The stock market, offshore accounts, international real estate…Damon was a genius. So smart that nobody ever noticed he’d been skimming. That he’d set up hundreds of shell accounts to funnel money into. That he’d been planning his way out for years before he finally fled.”

The clock ticking on the wall seems unnaturally loud. When Nat stays silent, I turn back to her.

She’s a statue.

Cold. Lifeless. Blank. One of those marble sculptures that decorate a tomb.

To deal with the agony clawing its way up my throat, I keep talking.

“He made a deal with the feds. Gave them evidence in return for immunity. Testified against Max at his trial. Provided a huge amount of data, records, ledgers, files. Max was convicted and sentenced to life. Damon went into witness protection. The government gave him a new name. A new identity. A new life. They relocated him here.”

I draw a breath. “And then he met you.”

Motionless, Natalie stares at me. When she speaks, she sounds like she’s been drugged.

“I don’t believe you. David didn’t have a penny to his name. This is lies.”

I pull my cell phone from my pocket, pull up the picture app, swipe through until I find what I’m looking for. Then I hand her the phone.

She takes it from me silently. She stares at the picture on the screen. Her throat works, but she doesn’t make a sound.

“Swipe left. There’s more.”

Her finger moves across the screen. She pauses, then swipes again. She keeps going for several moments, her face growing more and more pale until it’s white.

She stops swiping and says, “Who are these people with him?”

When she turns the phone to face me, I brace myself. Then I look her in the eye.

“His wife and kids.”

Her lips part. The clock ticks. My heart bangs inside my chest like a drum.

“His…wife.”

“He was married when he went into WITSEC. Claudia still lives in the same house. Has no idea what happened to him. He left everything behind, including her.”

Her voice raw, Nat says, “And his children.”

“Yes.”

“He was married with children when we were together.”

“Yes.”

“He embezzled money from the mafia, turned state’s evidence, put Max in jail, abandoned his family…then came here with a new identity and…and…”

“Met you. Proposed.”

Gripping the phone, she lowers it to her lap and closes her eyes. Then she sits there, not moving or saying anything, pale as a ghost and just as lifeless, except for the vein throbbing wildly in the side of her neck.

I’d slit my wrists and bleed out on my knees in front of her if I thought it would make her pain go away, but I know it won’t.

The only thing I can do is keep telling her the truth.

“We didn’t know where he’d gone until last year. Then we made a contact inside the bureau. Someone willing to trade information for cash. He let us know where they’d relocated Damon, gave us his new name, everything. But by then, Damon had already moved on.”