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“Tell me.”
She visibly quaked. “I needed his help. I was out of money. Flat broke before I even opened the market. Brizio’s brother double-crossed us. We paid for imported goods and invested in his shipping business, but he never delivered. Never even started the business. We had to find another source and that cost us everything I had. I couldn’t go to my father for the money. He’d never lend it to me, since I’d depleted my trust fund.”
“Why Ethan?”
She swallowed hard. “I—I don’t know. It just happened,” she reiterated, fear tingeing her voice. “That night of the Delfino party in Scottsdale. After you and Ethan talked to him about the problems I was having setting up shop in Old Town. You and Ari left afterward. I had a few drinks with Ethan. I explained the situation with Brizio’s brother, and that we were having a cash flow problem. He offered me the money, Dane.”
I could see my husband’s shoulders bunch. This was about to get even uglier. If that were possible. He’d shot Ethan. Dead was my guess, since Dane didn’t seem concerned that Ethan might rise up, gun in hand.
My insides churned over the reality of the situation and the trauma it would cause Dane when the adrenaline stopped pumping and it fully hit him that he’d killed his best friend and mentor.
Mikaela said, “He wanted a few favors in return.”
“So you slept with him.”
“Yes. But that wasn’t all. Dane, he wanted my electronic badge for the Lux. I didn’t understand why, but he knew I had one with no restrictions. There were only a few you’d issued that granted all access to every inch of the resort. Ethan’s badge was only good for getting him to the top floor of the executive wing—your office suite, because that was all he’d ever needed. Yet I consulted with Chef D’Angelo and the managers of the various restaurants, so I had to be able to get to them for meetings.”
“Oh, God,” I breathed. I was about to heave again. “She was the one who let Wayne Horton into all those restricted areas after Amano fired him. She was the one who provided him access so he could plant the snake and the scorpions … the bomb.”
I was certain I’d gone as ghostly as Mikaela.
“I didn’t know what he was up to,” she insisted. “I swear it, Dane. I didn’t ask; he didn’t tell.”
“And that exonerates you?” Dane hissed between clenched teeth.
“Dane, please understand, I—”
“Ari was attacked. Repeatedly. On-site and off. Because of the access you gave to Horton. Ethan shot her, Mikaela. My wife! He kidnapped my child.” His tone was low, lethal. His finger twitched against the trigger of his GLOCK.
“Dane,” I said in warning. I could sense the dark place he’d gone to in his mind, knew what he saw before him was not his childhood friend but a traitor. Someone who’d destroyed everything he’d built, someone who’d threatened his family, someone who’d deceived him. “Put the gun down, Dane. Call the FBI. Daugherty will take over from here. I have all of this recorded. Just walk away. Bring our son home.”
Fat drops rolled down my cheeks. I needed this to all be over. It was too much. Too painful, too harrowing, too impossible, to continue watching, experiencing. It needed to be done.
“If you kill her,” I told him, my throat and heart constricting, “you’ll regret it. You know you will. Maybe it’d be justified and you’d feel satisfaction right this very second, but when the reality hits you, Dane, you’ll hate yourself for pulling the trigger. She doesn’t deserve to die.”
Ethan’s death I had no qualms over. But this was different. Mikaela had gotten caught up in something much bigger than herself, something she likely couldn’t wrap her mind around even if she tried, even if she had all the facts. I still struggled with it myself, and I’d been immersed in this life, this evil, for more than a year.
“Dane,” I urged.
It took several more suspended seconds for him to respond. He didn’t lower his weapon, though. In a menacing voi
ce that left no question of what he’d do to her if they ever crossed paths again, he said, “I will make you pay for this. I will make sure that you live a very miserable life in prison. You will never get help from me again. I will nail your father for his involvement, for whatever conspiracy he partook of that killed my parents, for whatever the fuck I can do to make sure his life is over, too. You will both rot in hell. Do. You. Hear. Me?”
I gaped. Mikaela shed more tears. Her bottom lip quivered and her breath came in heavy pulls. Clearly, she couldn’t speak. Only slowly nodded her head.
“You are dead to me,” Dane said. “Whatever happens to you from this moment on will never, ever be of concern to me.”
He took a few steps back. Didn’t disengage the weapon but didn’t keep it pressed to her forehead, either.
To me, he said, “I’m disconnecting the call. Kyle’s bringing the baby home. I’m contacting Daugherty.”
There was such a distant, detached note to Dane’s voice that it sent a chill down my spine. Panic shot through my veins. “Dane?”
“I love you, Ari.” He hung up.
I stared at the screen, my mind reeling, my insides shattering.
“Dane,” I whispered as my own tears streamed. “Come home to me.”
