“Couldn’t get any worse.”
6
Dread nearly consumed Lottie on the way back to her condo. Hunt had gone quiet. Too quiet.
And when Archer and Elise showed up only a few minutes after they arrived home, Lottie knew Elise had found out all her secrets. She’d never seen Archer look so angry.He’d yet to look at her. A muscle in his jaw twitching.
Lottie kept her distance, standing at the window, while they all took a seat on her couch. She felt it down to her bones—she did not belong anymore. Elise’s stare was drenched in pity…and something else that Lottie couldn’t name. Something that made her stomach want to expel her dinner.
Hunt asked, “What did you find?”
Elise tore her focus off Lottie and sighed heavily, flipping open the file she’d left on the coffee table as Lottie made her way over. “All right. First thing's first.” She plucked out a photo of a couple. They were walking into the elevator, only the back of their heads visible, but the guy wore a hoodie, hiding his identity. “This guy here”—she pointed at the man in the photograph—“doesn’t belong in this building. From what I could gather, he had a one-night stand with this woman”—she pointed at the twentysomething girl—“and left the next morning.”
Hunt asked, “How did you discover it was a one-night stand?”
“Through her text messages to her friend the next day,” Elise answered.
Hunt bristled. “Do I want to know how you were able to get that information?”
“Probably not.” Elise paused to shrug and then hastily added, “But, hey, you get things done your way. I get them done my way. In the end, the good guys win, right?”
Hunt snorted a laugh. “Good point. Let’s skip the method, then.”
“Good idea,” Elise said, taking the photograph back and setting it down on the table. “I couldn’t manage to find out how the surveillance video was cut on Lottie’s floor, but I did manage to catch something.” She hesitated again. This time longer, and Lottie shifted from foot to foot as Elise’s sorrowful gaze met Lottie’s and held. “I got the guy’s face.”
When she flipped to the next photo, Lottie’s stomach roiled, her blood running cold.
A long, heavy pause hung in the air.
Until Hunt said, more of a statement than a question, “You know him.”
“Of course she knows him,” Archer said through gritted teeth. “That’s your brother. Is that right, Marissa?”
Lottie felt the world slow as Hunt’s hard stare returned to her. “Marissa?” He arched a single eyebrow. “Brother?”
Elise began turning over the rest of the documents in the file. Mostly newspaper articles detailing Lottie’s family’s large drug operation and their mob ties. Speaking of the untouchable family. Speaking of their long history of violence and spilled blood. Then the photographs of her and her family—her mother and father and two older brothers—at public events and school graduations. Everything Lottie had tried to hide was right there in front of her. She stared at the damning evidence laid out before her, feeling bile rise in her throat. She slowly met Hunt’s unreadable gaze, his face expressionless, a cop through and through, but then she managed to find her voice. “I paid a lot of money for my past to be buried. As far as I knew, my old identity had been scrubbed. How did you find all this out?” she asked Elise.
Before Elise could answer, Hunt growled, “She’s not the one who needs to answer questions right now, Lottie.” He gestured to the photographs of her father on a newspaper article calling himChicago’s Drug Lord. “Explain this,” he demanded.
Cringing from his wrath, Lottie glanced at her bare toes, wishing the ground would open up and eat her. “I can’t explain this, because if you do, you’ll hate me. All of you.”
Silence fell like a heavy blanket.
When Hunt spoke next, his voice had softened. “Why would I hate you? Why would any of us hate you?”
She felt the weight of the truth crash into her. There was no running any longer. Hunt knew. Elise knew. Archer knew. Soon Rhys would know. Any dreams she had burned out around her. Any friendships she had, gone forever. Her life in Phoenix was over.Hunt…He’d never forgive her. She forced herself to look Hunt in the eye. He stared on, confusion dancing through his eyes. Hunt—hell, all of them—were good, kind, and commendable, and everything her family taught her to hate. “Because once you know who am I, you’ll have no other choice.”
Hunt watched her carefully, a steely set to his expression before he rose, moving to her side. He took her hand even though she felt the tremble. Theliein his touch. “I could never hate you, but you need to tell me what’s going on, so we can understand and help you.”
Lottie scanned the faces in the room. Elise, looking on with pity and hurt that Lottie had been lying to her. Archer, brimming with anger. Hunt, looking baffled and slightly scared. For him. For her? She wasn’t sure. What she did know was there was no running anymore. “You’re right. My name wasn’t always Lottie Harlow.” She saw Hunt stiffen but didn’t drag her eyes away from his. Hoping—praying—that he’d still hold her hand by the time he knew the truth. “I was born Marissa Ricci.” The same last name that was splattered in the newspaper articles speaking of murder, bloodshed and drugs.
Hunt’s brows knitted. He turned to Archer and asked, “How could something like this not hit your radar through the vetting for the club?”
Archer frowned. Deeply. “I’d like to know that too.”
Lottie swallowed the bile rising in her throat and managed, “Anything can be hidden if you pay enough for it go away. Like I said, Elise should have never found it out.”
She expected Hunt to release her hand then. Surely, he’d hate her for all the lies, but he did the opposite; he held her tighter and asked, “Why would you need a new identity?”
