As if reading my thoughts, she tilted her head and stared at me. “Your life’s going to change forever, too, you know.” She used the couch’s back to try to steady herself before standing upright. “As soon as the news breaks, everyone will know. Are you ready for that?”
“Ready? No.” I smiled, turning around and ambling to the door. “Prepared? Yes.”
The drive to the airport passed in contemplative silence.
Scrolling through names of L.A. based therapists on my phone, I clicked on the pictures of ones who looked friendly. All women. I couldn’t see myself pouring my heart out to a man after everything I’d been through.
Ransom looked grim and deep in thought. I was amazed he didn’t use the time to work on his phone.
“You sick or something?” I took a break from my therapist shopping.
He glanced at me, still a million miles away. “No.”
“You seem distracted.”
“Just thinking.”
“What about?”
His eyes clung to mine, the answer inside them. He was hiding something. I understood, I’d lived my life cloaked in secrets, too. Something deep and dark and dangerous.
“I’m trying to think how to put it into words.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Focus on finding a therapist, Hallie. You’ll need one.”
He twisted his head back, watching as cars swished by. I lowered my gaze back to my phone, my eyes landing on a fifty-something woman in a funky emerald blazer and a welcoming smile. She had the Rachel haircut—totally nineties—her hair as flame-red as mine.
Ilona Queen, PsyD
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Alcohol addiction, substance abuse, eating disorder, trauma, PTSD, and relationship issues.
I clicked on the Book a Consultation button and held my breath.
Maybe this was the beginning of the end.
And the end of thinking I couldn’t rewrite my beginning.
Then.
As it turned out, we didn’t even have to kill Mr. Moruzzi.
The work of saints was often done through others. In our case—Mrs. Moruzzi.
Apparently, Mr. Moruzzi was sitting on quite a hefty sum of life insurance. Don’t ask me why that dumb fuck thought it would be a good idea to have a good insurance policy when everyone in his life wanted to see him dead.
On the news, we heard it was an accident. A terrible human error. The loving couple simply went hunting together, as they often did （according to the reporters, not to reality, which was more like Mrs. Moruzzi couldn’t fucking stand her husband or the filthy orphans he brought home to work for him）。
One shot to the head. It actually pierced all the way through and hit the deer, too. The deer survived. Mr. Moruzzi—not so much.
Mrs. Moruzzi did everything right. She called the cops immediately. Told them her version of things. The Moruzzis were a well-off couple from the nice part of Chicago, who’d adopted three sons, all of whom were in college. No one would ever suspect homicide.
Mrs. Moruzzi was off the hook.
And so was I, or at least I’d thought.
Because a few years later, I did take a life.
The most precious life there was.
A life never meant to be taken.
“I think I found a really good therapist.”
Hallie sat in front of me on the plane. She angled her phone better, showing me a picture of a woman who looked like an older version of herself. “I still don’t know how I’ll afford her, seeing as I’m putting scissors to my parents’ credit card as soon as I get back to Los Angeles, but I’m thinking Keller might let me work at Main Squeeze.”
Staring into her blue eyes, all I could think about was how much I didn’t want her in Los Angeles. How much more affordable it would be for her to move elsewhere and start over. And, naturally, how it would make my life as her bodyguard.
“How will you make rent?”
Her face fell. She hadn’t thought of that. “I guess…I won’t? I’ll have to find something smaller. A studio, maybe. Would you mind very much moving into a studio apartment?”
I wouldn’t mind sharing a tuna can with this woman, but that wasn’t the issue.
“Los Angeles is expensive.” I tried another angle. “And unsafe.”
“Okay, Sherlock.” She quirked an eyebrow, sitting back as the plane took off. “What’s your point? You know I’m not moving to Texas.”
“Texas and California aren’t the only states in the federation.”
“You think I should move somewhere I don’t know?”
“I think you should start fresh.” I reframed it. “Go somewhere where rent is cheap, where the paparazzi won’t hound you.” Or any Bratva members.
She mulled it over, munching on her lower lip. In my defense, moving her elsewhere wouldn’t only benefit me. She didn’t need all the paps swarming around her when shit hit the fan and news started breaking about Craig.
“I guess…Minnesota is beautiful this time of the year.” She looked mystified by the idea of taking a new path, maybe a new identity.
I nodded encouragingly.
Hallie shook her head, suddenly frowning. “No, I can’t do that. I can’t just up and leave. It would send the wrong message. Like I’m running away.”
“You can’t stay in Los Angeles,” I said impatiently, thinking about Kozlov, about stupid Anna, about all the complications.
“Of course, I can.” She smiled. “And if I run into financial issues, at least I’ll have—”
“Your life’s in danger,” I cut her off, tired of orbiting around the same issue.
She blinked, staring at me wide-eyed, as if I’d slapped her. “My life’s in danger?” she repeated, dumbfounded. “How? Why? Craig?”
Digging my fingers into my eye sockets, I let out a shaky breath.
“Nothing to do with him. You’ve been in danger for months,” I said. “Ever since I came into your life, to be exact.”
“Tell me everything.” Her tone was cold, unyielding. She was already a different woman from the one who’d tried to stab me with a soda bottle. She was made of sturdier stuff. And I wondered if she knew it.
“Back when I worked in domestic counter-terrorism, my job was to take down the L.A. Bratva. The Russian mafia operation had gained power quickly and taken control of the streets, especially around Hidden Hills, Westlake Village, and downtown. The illegal gambling and money laundering were bothersome, but not a deal breaker. Human and arms trafficking was where the government drew the line, and it was becoming clear we had a problem on our hands. The year I stepped into the role, thirty-three innocent people were killed by them.”
Her head hung down in sorrow, but she didn’t say anything, which allowed me to finish.
“The ringleader was a guy named Vasily Kozlov. A nasty son of a bitch with an impressive track record for taking the lives of those who crossed him. The mission was to get our hands on him, dead or alive. Breathing was always preferable, but it wasn’t necessary.”
This was the part I dreaded. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t rehashed that day since the moment I’d handed in my resignation and given the agency an on-record statement of what happened. Law knew most of it. Tom, only some.