Young Truths (Young Series) (48 page)

“Because anybody who knows you—
really
knows you—knows that the only way to really get to you, to really hurt you is to go after the people you love. They are your weakness, Matt, they always have been. You don’t think clearly when they are in danger and you’ve proven that time and time again.”

Annoyed as I am at him for calling my family a weakness when they are the ones who’ve kept me strong throughout this entire ordeal, I know he’s right. I’d go through hell and back as many times as it takes for them. And I have. “Has everybody involved with this been accounted for?” I ask tiredly. “I mean, is it really over, or is this the calm before a really nasty storm?”

“Honestly, I don’t see how it could get worse at this point,” he answers. “But from what I’ve worked out, yes, we’ve got everyone. They’re all either dead or in police custody without a chance of release.”

“Frank was behind the bombing a few years back,” I say suddenly, having forgotten about that particular detail until now. Marcus looks at me in shock. “Told me himself. I mean,
I suspected it, right? But knowing just how far back this has gone...”

“Yeah,” Marcus says quietly. “You think it’s because of that chip?”

I shrug. “I think it had been brewing for a while. The chip just exacerbated the situation and they started to get desperate when they didn’t manage to kill me in the plane crash. If I’d known the trouble that fucking thing would cause, I never would have started working on it.”

“You know, in a weird way, it’s because of all this that you and Samantha got back together,” he says musingly. “If Frank’s guys hadn’t been keeping tabs on her, you never would have gone to Omaha for her.”

I think about that for a moment. It’s crossed my mind several times that if the circumstances had been even slightly different, Samantha and I wouldn’t be married again, and we wouldn’t have Olivia. “I think I would have,” I say slowly, my brow furrowed. “I was getting to the point that I was thinking about her more often than I had in years. My little surveillance visits to Omaha were becoming more frequent and it was becoming harder to keep my distance. We always would have gotten back to this, I know that. It was just a matter of time.”

The next time I open my eyes, I’m alone in my hospital room. Luckily the ache in my head has subsided significantly, so it’s less of a strain to look around my surroundings. Once again, Matthew has gotten us into a private hospital suite. I wonder faintly if he’s paying rent on the place after all the time we’ve spent here. Directly across from my bed is a table full of flowers and balloons and baskets of fruits and chocolate, though I can’t imagine who would send all of this. Hospital staff, perhaps, as a welcome back gift. I wonder vaguely if there’s some sort of frequent patient program...

Rolling my eyes, I relax into my pillows and once again think about the events that brought me here. Unlike last time, I don’t have an immediate need for a sedative. I don’t really feel much of anything, actually; I’m more empty than upset. I suspect I’m in shock and I much prefer this to whatever happened to me when I was talking to Matthew. Vaguely, I wonder if that’s why he isn’t here—that I freaked him out so much he couldn’t bear to be around me. Or maybe it was because he’d seen me shoot somebody dead. I’d imagine that would freak out anybody.

As the pain medications begin to wear off, I start to remember more about what happened that night. I regained consciousness on the floor of East Coast Travel listening to Mark and Matthew talking. It took me a while to really understand what they were saying and even longer to reconcile the words I was hearing, exactly what they meant, and my belief of the reality of the situation. I’m not sure I’ll ever really get over what Mark did. And I feel selfish when I compare the short friendship he and I had to the friendship Matthew had with Leo. Leo’s betrayal was far worse and Matthew had to have felt about fifty times more hurt than I do right now.

The door to my room opens and I expect a number of people—nurses, doctors, Claire, my husband—but the one who enters is probably the last I would have thought might visit me. Marcus smiles when he sees I’m awake. “Am I interrupting?” he asks in his low baritone voice.

I shake my head. “Matt isn’t here,” I inform him hoarsely. “I’m not sure where he is...”

“He’s checking on the kids and his mom,” Marcus replies
promptly. “I spoke to him before I came here and I imagine he’ll be back in a couple hours.”

“Oh,” I say in response. “So why are you here?” I wince at the unintentional rudeness of my tone, though I truly can’t think of why Marcus would be here if Matthew isn’t with him. It’s not as though he and I are particularly close.

Marcus only smiles, clearly not taking any offense. “I just wanted to pop by, see how you were feeling. Mind if I sit?” He gestures at the chair beside my bed. I shake my head and he sits down with a sigh. “Been awake long?”

“Few minutes,” I answer, already feeling tired again. “Is Matt okay?”

His brow furrows. “Yeah, he’s fine. Why?”

I shrug. “We didn’t really talk much the last time I was awake. All I really saw was how his face looked.”

“Ah,” Marcus says in realization. “He’s got a few broken ribs, but nothing major. Technically, he was released after they wrapped his chest, but he refused to actually go home for any real length of time. He wanted to be here with you when you woke up. I don’t think he actually expected you to be awake this morning or he wouldn’t have left.”

The relief I feel at his words is almost ridiculous. I don’t know how I could have thought Matthew would just abandon me no matter what I’ve done. If anything, he’d be even more protective and territorial of me than ever before. I smile slightly at the thought.

Marcus takes a breath to speak, but hesitates. I look at him questioningly and he leans forward slightly. “I don’t want to upset you or make things worse than they are, but Matt mentioned that you remembered what happened the other night and that you weren’t taking it well.”

I feel the blood drain from my body. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised that Matthew is discussing things with Marcus; he needs to vent just like anybody else. Personally, I’d rather he talk to Marcus than, say, Claire. “Am I supposed to be happy about it?” I grumble sarcastically.

“No,” he says sympathetically. “It’s not an easy thing to come to terms with; I know that. But if you wanted to talk about it...” He shrugs.

Though five minutes ago, I would have been perfectly content to pretend it never happened, now I have the urge to discuss it. And for some reason I feel better about talking about it with Marcus than I would Matthew. “Have you ever...” I trail off, rolling my eyes at myself. Marcus is an FBI agent; there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s killed during his career. “Sorry, that’s none of my business.”

A corner of his mouth lifts slightly. “When I was a kid, it was just my mother, my older brothers, and me. My dad disappeared when I was a baby and I never saw or heard from him. We didn’t live in the best neighborhood, but my mom did everything possible to provide for us and raise us properly. By the time I was eighteen, my oldest brother had been killed in a drive-by, my second oldest brother was in prison for a number of things, and my third brother was following in their footsteps. My mom got sick and one of the last things she said to me was that she wanted me to do something productive with myself, get myself out of that life. I realized I had a choice—either I’d end up in prison or a grave, or I could join the military. I did four years in the Navy and I realized just how much I needed that structure and discipline in my life, particularly after my mom died. The Navy turned my life around completely.

“When it came time to reenlist, I’d gotten a job offer from the FBI and I jumped at the chance. My first partner was this 25-year vet, big grump of a guy and the only times I ever saw him smile or laugh were when he was with his wife and children.”

“Sounds like you,” I say softly.

He grins at me. “Anyway, Bartlett brought me into his home, into his family. I was at every Sunday dinner, every holiday, every family celebration. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father. About three years into my FBI career, we started investigating this huge drug cartel case. Nobody knew anything about the ring leader, but a lot of people had been killed by them—innocent people. Women, children, other agents... One night I came across some information that suggested Bartlett was involved i
n the cartel—not even involved; he was the ring leader. We met up in a warehouse and I confronted him, and in the end, we had our guns pointed at one another. It was a choice of him or me. All I could think about was spending all that time with his family and everything he’d done for me over the years, and it killed me to think I had no other alternative. No matter how much he meant to me, he was the cause of so much grief and he needed to be brought down. So I shot him. He was dead before he hit the ground. I had to face our colleagues and tell them why I did what I did.”

“How’d you cope?” I ask, unable to stifle the question.

“Buried myself in my work. Luckily I’d met my wife a few months before that, so I was able to lean on her. I still don’t know why she didn’t leave me during that time. Eventually I realized situations like that aren’t unheard of in my line of work. It’s not common, of course, but it happens. There are still have times that I feel that I was wrong to do what I did, even knowing what I know now about him, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”

We sit in silence for several minutes as his story sinks in. “I didn’t even realize what I was doing until it was over,” I whisper, staring down at my hands. “All I really knew was that someone was threatening
Matthew, and I had one chance to save his life. I just... The guilt is what hurts the most, I think. Mark being what he was is still a complete shock for me and I’m not sure it’s really sunken in yet.”

“It will,” he says quietly. “I don’t know whether this changes anything, but he was playing you from the very beginning, Samantha. Everything he did or said was done because he needed to get close to you.”

“I know that. Doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”

“I’d be surprised if it did,” he comments. “I can’t tell you how to cope through something like this, Samantha, nobody can. But I will tell you I think you did the right thing.”

“I killed somebody,” I breathe in horror, looking at him. “How is that ever the right thing?”

His brow furrows. “You didn’t kill anybody,” he says slowly. After a moment, his eyes widen. “Sam, you shot Reilly, but it didn’t kill him. When you and Matt were on your way out of that building, my team and I were just arriving. I saw Reilly coming after the two of you and I fired the shot that killed him. Not you.”

I’m not sure why, but that makes me feel moderately better. “Matt was right about him,” I say quietly. “He never trusted Mark, and I thought it was because he was jealous or felt Mark threatened our relationship or something. I dismissed it every time and never thought twice about it. He was my friend and I trusted him. What does it say about me that I didn’t even realize he was a threat to my family?”

“It says you’re human,” Marcus says simply. “The fact that you could trust anybody after the things you and Matt have been through is practically a miracle. I thought the same thing you did about Reilly and Matt; shocked the hell out of me to realize he was involved in all of this. And I really dou
bt even Matt saw this coming. Reilly played his part well and it worked. You can’t blame yourself for falling victim to that.”

Easy for him to say... If I’d been a bit smarter, I never would have let him as close to me as I did. Something tells me I’ll be dealing for this for a while. Perhaps I should start seeing Dr. Morris again...

The door of my room opens again and we both look up as Matthew enters. He stops in surprise, seeing me awake and Marcus sitting beside me. “Hi,” he says cautiously, taking a few steps into the room. “Everything okay in here?”

I manage a small smile and his eyes widen as he returns it. “Everything’s fine,” I say, surprised when I realize it’s not a complete lie. “Marcus and I were just talking.”

“I see that,” Matthew replies, walking to the other side of my bed. He hesitates a moment before leaning down to press a soft kiss on my lips and when he pulls back, he looks relieved and confused all at once. “If I’d known you were awake...” He glares slightly accusingly at Marcus. In turn, Marcus looks back at him in amusement.

“Are the kids okay?” I ask, distracting him.

Smiling, he sits beside me. “They’re fine,” he assures me. “Mom’s taking care of them. They both miss you and Tyler wanted me to tell you he loves you.”

More than
anything that makes me feel better. “I miss them, too.”

“I just spoke with your doctor. He says he wants to take you in for a brain scan just to make sure there isn’t any damage they might have missed, and if it comes back clean, I can take you home tonight.”

“Very good news,” I murmur, my eyelids getting heavy. Before I fall asleep completely, I turn my head to look at Marcus again, managing a smile. “Thank you.”

He smiles, reaching out to pat my wrist. “Anytime. Get some rest.”

Best advice I’ve heard all day...

In the ten days since the night at the travel agency, life is very slowly returning to normal. Samantha has been opening up more to me since she got out of the hospital and we’ve had some very in-depth conversations about everything we’ve been through. For the most part, she’s recovering well, though there are nights she wakes up crying from nightmares. Her memory has been trickling back piece by piece and she’s even remembering the events leading up to her poisoning. It took herculean strength to hide my reaction from her when she told me that she’d had lunch with Mark Reilly that day and that he’d gone to pick it up from the café. I knew he was behind it, but seeing the pain on her face as she relived the betrayal of a supposed friend pissed me off more than most things could ever manage. Then she told me about the flash of memory she had one day of being in the hospital after the poisoning and how Reilly came to see her while she was sleeping. She remembers him touching her, whispering an apology to her before telling her he loved her. My fists still clench at the thought of it.