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Justice had been served, though. After years of creating a network all around the underground world, searching every corner of the earth for her killer—and learning the ugly details surrounding her death—I’d finally found those responsible. I took out every last one who’d had a hand in her murder.
It’d been her secrets and lies to me that’d made my quest for justice that much harder and take so damn long. That also hurt. The fact she’d kept so much from me. Part of me wondered how much more there was I still didn’t know.
“You should’ve told me. About the blackmail. About everything.” I shook my head. “Damn you, Rebecca.” A play-by-play of the last few months pushed through my mind like a movie I wished I’d never bought a ticket for. “I could’ve saved you. Maybe not our marriage, but your life—that I could’ve saved.”
I hadn’t been crazy, though. Her death wasn’t the botched result of a random home invasion. She’d died because of me. Well, because of my job. Not that the world would ever know the messy truth of what happened. I wouldn’t let them, because Rebecca would rather keep her secrets buried with her.
I closed my eyes, trying to come to terms with how a celebrity treasure hunter, who was also secretly an overlord for illegal smuggling and trafficking routes, was behind everything.
Andrew Cutter had never been a guest at a party Rebecca had thrown, or on any list connecting her to him in the past. Against my better judgment, I’d reached out to Susan Mackenzie, curious if she knew the name without telling her why I was asking. She’d said no, told me to rot in hell, then hung up on me. So, I still had no clue who brought Andrew into her life or why, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever know.
Rebecca, being Rebecca, must’ve said yes to Andrew’s dinner invite—that she never told me about—given his celebrity and star-like status. According to Andrew’s confession, when he couldn’t get Rebecca to cheat as planned that night, he’d drugged her and staged photos of the two of them together. Then came the blackmail. The threats to publish the scandal in the news and all over the internet if she didn’t do what he wanted.
She died thinking the photos were real. She died not knowing she turned him down, that she’d been faithful to me. She’d thought she had too much to drink, just like the other time, and she did whatever the bastard told her to protect our marriage. She must’ve not believed I’d forgive her a second time. And I wouldn’t have. Especially not with a guy who was her celebrity hall pass’s doppelgänger.
The part I also hated was that I knew she’d done everything more so to protect her reputation and family name than to save our relationship.
Regardless of her reasons, Andrew’s target had always been me. Once he’d somehow discovered I’d worked for the Agency, he manipulated her, forcing her to break into my files. She’d stolen my private list of twenty-five unclosed cases, and he’d had her funnel them to an unsuspecting target—Red Robin Hood—who also happened to be Andrew’s ex-girlfriend.
It was a long and complicated story as to why he used and then killed Rebecca, but ultimately, her connection to Red Robin Hood, who I now knew as Rory McAdams, was how I finally found out how and why she died. I’d wound up partnering with Rory to take him down.
“I worked with Navy SEALs to find your killer,” I told Rebecca, as if she were standing in front of me, instead of a cold piece of granite. “You’d have liked that. Probably not so much the way I went about it, or that I broke my promise to Rory and those men when I said I wouldn’t kill some of Andrew’s men afterward. But they were ordered by Andrew to murder you, so of course they had to die.” I let go of a deep breath and opened my eyes, wondering why I still didn’t feel better. The case was closed. “I know, I know, I’m still a wanted man, which ruins your name and legacy,” I grumbled, hearing her voice in my head, lecturing me about that. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Dallas howled as if answering for her, and he crooned again.
“Don’t tell me you think I should do what those SEALs we worked with suggested. Go into private security just because you liked their dog, Bear?” He barked at me, bopping his head yes. “Of course that’s what you want.” I knelt by him and scratched behind his ears, now eye level with Rebecca’s name.
Dallas wailed in delight, and I looked around, confirming we were still alone.
I shouldn’t be here, but I had to see you. “You were going to tell me about Andrew, right? It’s what you couldn’t tell me over the phone? Is that why you changed? Sold off most of your family’s businesses?” I stood upright, hands diving back into my pockets again.
Without my focus on revenge, I felt emptier now than ever before. I peeked at Dallas as he stared up at the cloudy sky and howled.
“What do you see up there, boy?” I followed his gaze, half expecting him to answer. “I don’t see anything.” I swallowed an unexpected lump down my throat, unsure why thoughts of Diana Mackenzie surfaced, but there was a tattoo on my back inspired by her, and she was the only person to ever see me cry in my adult life. The day of Rebecca’s funeral, on the rooftop, as we’d both searched for answers in the open sky above us.
I doubted I’d ever see Diana again. Not that it’d be a good idea anyway. She wouldn’t recognize the man I was now, so different from who I’d been all those years ago.
No, she needed to stay in the past, just like the rest of my life.
And somehow, someway, I’d have to find a way forward, which required a first step.
I reached into my pocket for my wedding band and stared at it, preparing to leave it behind so I could finally let go. My stomach squeezed, and the breath froze in my lungs. I closed my eyes and curled my fingers inward, securing the ring inside my palm.
I wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
But soon.
“Soon, Rebecca—soon, I’ll finally walk away from you.”
PART II
AFTER…
14
CARTER
