I didn’t risk looking at him again, so I didn’t know if he had a reaction or a thought or a feeling of fucking guilt. But it didn’t matter anyway. Soon enough it was our turn to be marched outside.
Mason motioned for his men to start with Gus, putting me at the end of the line. I didn’t know if he planned it that way on purpose, or if it was spur of the moment as I walked past him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered under his breath, stepping in front of my path to fidget with my handcuffs. His head dipped and I had to strain to hear his whispered confession. “I didn’t know we were moving until after you left. We had to wait for the warrant.”
Fury burned in my blood, clouding my judgment. Twisting my neck, I hissed, “Save it. You’re a fucking liar.”
“That’s amazing coming from you.” He stepped back and motioned for one of the other agents to take me outside.
I didn’t say another word to him, which ended up being a blessing. At the edge of the dining room, Atticus had moved behind Sayer somehow. He had eyes for Mason in a way that made me nervous for the federal agent.
We didn’t speak until we were outside, but we had to wait in line while they loaded us one by one. Atticus turned to me, paranoia darkening green eyes. “What did he say to you?”
I let out a longsuffering sigh. “Who?”
“Don’t play dumb, Caro. It doesn’t suit you.”
My expression was tired, impatient. “Oh, Payne? I don’t know. Threats as usual. This time his charges are going to stick. This time I better fess up. This time blah, blah, blah.”
“Did he offer you a deal?”
The truth tightened my throat. I didn’t have an issue lying, especially to people like Atticus. But this time, the truth held a weight I wasn’t used to. This time, the truth was scarier than ever before. “Not yet. But he will. I’m sure he’ll offer you one too. Isn’t that the dance with these guys?”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “You better not take it.”
I blinked at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I would never take a deal, asshole. I’m offended that you would even question my loyalty.”
“I question your loyalty every fucking day, Valero. You’re a snake.”
That was rich coming from him. I smiled politely and stepped by him to get into the back of the truck. “And you’re a dickhead.”
“Everything okay?” Sayer asked, his eyes on Atticus.
“Just peachy.”
“Super fucking okay,” Atticus growled as the doors closed with a final slam behind us.
That was it. They dragged us to their offices, threw us in isolated interrogation rooms and picked us off one by one.
By the end of the night, most of us were allowed to go home. I caught a ride with Gus, Frankie and Atticus and we headed back to Gus’s for the night. We waited for Sayer to join us, but he never did.
In the morning, they charged him with counts they planned to prosecute and I realized my worst nightmare had come true.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Five Years Ago
I signed in at the front and let them escort me through locked doors and hallways that smelled like metal and sweat. My hands balled into fists, my fingernails digging into my palms. It took everything in me not to scream. By the time I reached the visitation room, I was sick with hatred and the scent of this place.
Seeing Sayer in his prison tans was an entirely new level of frustration. This was the first time I had been allowed to visit him at Schuylkill, his new federal prison home for the next seven to ten years. I gripped my stomach and ordered my body not to wretch up the lunch I’d nibbled on during the three-hour ride to the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.
All I wanted to do was throw my arms around him and crawl in his lap. And maybe never leave. We hadn’t touched in three months—not since he’d been out on bail. That was the longest we’d ever gone without touching. Even before we had become an official couple, Sayer always had his hands on me. Holding my hand, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, finding any and every way he could to bring us together. This no-touching policy was absolute hell.
I blamed Mason Payne. He’d overcharged Sayer, hoping that would make him talk. It didn’t. Sayer never opened his mouth. Instead, he took the sentencing, pled guilty to all accounts and faced his fate.
And why had he pled guilty? Because Roman had asked him to. Roman had wanted to send a message to the FBI—that we would not be intimidated. That we would not back down. That we would not leave.
He told Sayer it would be a badge of honor, that his sacrifice for the bratva would give him the respect he needed to become the next spy. Sayer had believed him.
Here we were now—Sayer in prison for the foreseeable future and me out on the streets—working for an increasingly savage crime family, arguably the most powerful and vicious organization DC had ever seen. Their growth over the past ten years was staggering. I could only imagine what would happen in the next decade. And I was without the man I loved by my side.
He immediately wrapped me up in a hug, pressing a kiss to my cheek. We stayed like that for as long as we could, pressing ourselves into each other until we were one being, one spirit, one soul. When the guard stepped forward and tapped the table, we slowly, reluctantly let go.
His eyes shimmered when I sat down across from him at the orange table. “Six,” he murmured. “I’ve missed you.”
He already looked different. He was harder somehow, made of stone more than human. “I came as soon as I was allowed,” I told him, unshed tears making him blur. “I hate this,” I whispered.
He reached his hands across the table but stopped short, before our fingertips touched. “It’s not going to last forever.”
The room was busy, inmates and their visitors huddled together in quiet conversation. I scooted closer to him and dropped my voice even lower. “What’s it like?”
“Horrible,” he told me honestly. “The place is swarming with fucking Italians. I swear Payne did that on purpose. He’s trying to get me killed.”
“Medium-security,” I reminded him. “These aren’t killers.”
He looked down at his hands. “Yeah, maybe.”
Meaning they were definitely killers that just wasn’t the reason they were in prison.
“Sayer…”
His head lifted, pain and fury bright in his gaze. “I’m going to be okay, Six. I can handle these people. I’m more worried about you. Is Gus taking care of you?”
I nodded quickly. “Yeah. He’s been good.” Only that wasn’t exactly true. Nobody had been good. Sayer’s arrest had really shaken up the organization. Not that people weren’t arrested all the time, but Sayer was the first of the higher ups. And he was taking the fall for everybody.
The rest of the guys were waiting for it to be their turn. Gus wasn’t exactly one of them, but he had been acting strange lately and super secretive. The bosses had started his training. He was always with his dad now. And Atticus. He didn’t really seem to have time for me anymore.
I hadn’t even seen him in two weeks.
“Good,” Sayer grunted. “He knows I’ll kill him if anything happens to you. You’re my one regret about this whole thing, Caro.”
My chin wobbled, my voice dropping to a squeaky whisper. “So leave. Take the deal.”
His eyes flared, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”
My hands landed protectively on my stomach. “Sayer, I need you. I can’t do this without you.”
He shook his head, not catching my meaning. “You’re the toughest chick I know, Six. You’ll probably be running everything by the time I get out and I’ll be out of a job.”
He was joking, but I couldn’t find it in me to laugh. Or even smile. “Didn’t Mason explain the deal? He said he was going to—”
He cut me off with a smiling, “Hey, hey, hey.” He discreetly glanced around before leaning in and dropping his voice even lower. “Don’t bring that up here. Don
’t mention that name here.” He let out a frustrated sigh, his jaw ticking once. “I’m not trying to be an asshole. I just have to be careful, yeah?”
I nodded once. “Yeah.”
His smile was small, but there. “It’s not happening anyway. You know why.”
Because he was loyal to the pakhan. Because he would never betray his brothers. Because this was part of the life, of living in the bratva. This got him more street cred. This built his reputation with the bosses. There were a million reasons for him to do this.
But not one of them included me.
“Sayer, for God’s sake, this isn’t about them.” He motioned for me to lower my voice by pumping his hands in the air which only infuriated me more. “There are other things happening outside of the… the… family.” But that wasn’t true. They were happening exactly inside the family. His family. I just didn’t know how to tell him while he was in here.
“Six, nothing.” He held my gaze, clearly pissed and frustrated with me for continuing to argue with him. “Nothing could change my mind. Drop it.”
I sucked in my bottom lip and tamped down a scream. I folded my arms over my chest and looked across the room. There were two men at a table staring at me. I immediately averted my gaze to another table. Again two men, one visitor, one prisoner, staring at me.
My glare moved back to Sayer. “I should go.”
He grabbed my hand, squeezing it between his. “Don’t be mad, Caro. I know this sucks, but… you have to know that the alternative is not a viable option. I mean, what kind of life would that be? Always looking over your shoulder? Waiting on black hoods and the blind drive to the nearest empty warehouse. You know this is the best possible scenario. We’re going to tough it out. We’re going to be fine.”
I wrapped my free hand around my stomach, hugging myself. “I’m scared, Sayer. There’s so much I want to talk to you about. So much I need to tell you.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple, even though he got yelled at by the closest guard. “And you will. Write me a letter, yeah? That’s probably the best way. Nothing too specific. But I can basically read your mind. I’ll figure it out.”
You’re going to be a dad! Was that too specific?
Had he read my mind just now?
“Just wait for me,” he said with a nervous smile. “Don’t leave me while I’m in here.”
No, he hadn’t.
I finally gave him a wobbly smile. “I would never.”
“You’ll wait for me?”
“Forever,” I promised. “I would wait for you forever.”
He leaned in, his eyes glistening in a way that I had never seen before. “I love you, Caroline. More than anything.”
My chest pinched painfully. “I love you too.” I had to sniffle hard to hold back stupid tears. “More than anything.”
His smile broke. “Stop trying to one-up me.”
I just shook my head at him, not able to muster the energy to joke around. My stomach churned and I knew I was going to be sick.
“I should go.”
His face fell. “Oh, right. Yeah, I guess you probably should. You’ll be back though?”
I pressed a kiss to his lips, braving the wrath of the guards. “As soon as possible,” I promised.
“I need nudey pics next time you come. Maybe a whole book of them.”
“Why don’t you see what you can do about one of those conjugal visits, hmm? I feel like that’s the natural next step here. Not an entire book of me naked. Pretty sure you would get shived for it and then my poor naked self would start a prison riot.”
His head tipped back and he laughed. The sound was the Sayer-before-prison laugh. I soaked up every second. “Someone’s awfully cocky.”
I winked at him. “Just calling it like I see it.”
A warning that our time was up came over the speakers. I threw my arms around him one last time, pressing into him as closely as possible. His strong arms were around my back, squeezing me just as tightly.
“I hate that this goodbye feels so permanent,” I whispered against his neck.
“It’s not,” he said to my temple. “This is forever, Caro.”
“Promise?”
“Always.”
We finally said goodbye for real. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. There had been so much I hadn’t told him, so much he needed to know.
The trip home was only supposed to take a little over three hours. It took me four and a half because I had to keep pulling over to puke. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was exhausted, my throat was raw and my emotions were all over the place.
I hadn’t told him.
Part of me knew why I couldn’t. That ugly, smelly, scary visitation room was the very last place to make that kind of announcement. Plus, I wasn’t even sure it was safe to tell him in there. If there were Italians everywhere, then they would be looking for any way to control him… to hurt him. And it seemed like a pregnant girlfriend on the outside was a pretty great way.
Pregnant.
I still couldn’t believe it. It was impossible to wrap my head around.
Last night I’d stood in front of the mirror for a good hour trying to decide if Sayer would be able to tell or not. Would he see the small swell of my belly? Or the greenish tint to my skin? Would he notice that my boobs were bigger? Or that my hips had flared?
If he had, he hadn’t indicated anything today.
Now I didn’t know what to do or how to tell him. Hey, you’re going to be a dad! sounded a little contrived. Plus, there was the reality that he wouldn’t even really get to know the child until after he got out. In seven to ten years.
Oh my God, how was this even my life?
I practically crawled up the stairs to my apartment. I lived with Frankie, but I didn’t think she’d be home yet. She had a dinner with her uncles and those usually went late.
Although sometimes I was wrong. My door was cracked when I finally made it to the top of the stairs. She must have just gotten home.
I shut the door behind me because I was a normal person and had a healthy fear of local serial killers unlike my roommate, and threw my keys down on the entryway table. “I need a ginger ale stat!” I called to Frankie in our darkened apartment. “And an industrial strength toothbrush. I just had the worst five hours of my life.”
The light clicked on in the living room and I stumbled back, hitting the wall with my shoulder. Ow.
“Caro,” Atticus snarled from the middle of my living room.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I demanded. “Where’s Frankie?” I took a slow breath when I saw my dad. Vinnie and Brick were there too. And a couple of the other goons Atticus liked to work with. “What’s going on?”
I had to strain to hear Atticus over my pounding heart. “A little birdy told us you’re working with the feds.”
Snorting a sardonic laugh, I walked past the posse of threatening men and straight for the refrigerator where I retrieved an ice-cold ginger ale—the only thing that could cure my excessive morning sickness that ironically lasted all day. And night. “Do you know what I spent my day doing today, Atticus? Driving three and a half hours to see my boyfriend, visiting him in the federal prison he’s been sentenced to for the next decade. And then I drove home. Sounds pretty loyal to me.”
“We know you’re loyal to Sayer,” Atticus barked. “But that doesn’t mean you’re loyal to the bratva. Someone’s working with the fucking FBI, Caro. We think it’s you?”
It could be me. It would have been so easy to make it me. But it wasn’t.
“Well, I think it’s you,” I told him quickly, sternly. “But I know without a shadow of a doubt it’s not me. Get your facts straight.”
It wasn’t me. I had played around with the idea of going to Mason, giving him whatever he wanted from Sayer. If Sayer wasn’t going to take the deal, maybe I could for us both. Maybe Sayer wouldn’t even have to know.
But it would never work. First and foremost, Mason wan
ted information that only Sayer or someone at his level could give. All I could do was incriminate myself and Frankie and Gus. The second reason was that Sayer wouldn’t necessarily get the deal. If I gave up everything I knew, they might move me to WITSEC after trial, but there was no guarantee that Sayer would get released. In fact, I was pretty sure that Mason would keep Sayer forever if he could. Sayer was as guilty as the rest of the avtoritet, our captains, so Mason would feel compelled to punish him.
I would be without Sayer after that. And he would never forgive me for snitching. Going to the feds was not an option. No matter how enticing the deal sounded, I couldn’t take it.
This time I wasn’t lying to Atticus. I really wasn’t working with the feds. I did, however, chat with them occasionally… Or enough to give the appearance that we were working together.
And if the pakhan ever found out how much that would be it for me. They’d hand me over to Atticus. I’d never see Sayer again.
And I didn’t have just Sayer to think about anymore. My hand went reflexively to my belly. Protective, defensive, feral.
“Caroline,” a deep, accented voice said from behind me, forcing me to turn around. It was Roman. I’d spoken to him a few times over the years, but I avoided him as much as possible. He was the scariest person I had ever known. I still had nightmares about him from when I was a kid and lied to him about stealing from Atticus.
Although I usually felt better whenever I saw Sayer wearing the necklace I risked everything for.
“H-hi, Roman.”
He was flanked by Dymetrus and Aleksander, all of them equally terrifying. Equally evil.
“You say you don’t know anything about the FBI,” Roman went on. “And yet we hear rumors that it is because of you that our Sayer is in prison. Help us understand.”
I licked dry lips, thankful that I had already thrown up every single thing in my stomach. Otherwise I would be emptying it here and now, right in front of the pakhan.