Legacy of Lies (Empire of Lies 3)

I look ahead and see Michael in the front seat.

His jaw is clenched, and he’s talking to someone on his cell phone.

“It’s been handled,” he says. “You can tell him now.”

I can’t make out what the voice on the other line is saying; my head is still ringing and he’s speaking too low.

Minutes later, the car comes to a stop and I see Michael tossing a few coins into a toll booth.

Then I pass out again.

The final time I awake, I force myself to keep my eyes open as he slows at multiple four way stops.

Ardmore Lane. Pine Avenue. Trellis Cove. Left, right, left…

He steers the car through a massive iron gate, then down a heavily wooded lane before pulling into a brightly lit garage.

His eyes meet mine as he slowly frees me from the rug. Lifting me up, he carries me inside a colossal mansion, where the bright lights of a glittering chandelier greet me.

There’s a loud and sudden, click-click-clickety-click sound. Then a series of long beeps, and I look up and realize that there are small white cameras watching my every move.

I’m unsure of what the hell is happening, and I’m convinced that this is some type of nightmare.

I try to force myself awake, but the scene in front of me never changes. And something tells me that my new reality is a hopeless one, that the bright future I was planning for is about to get dark.

Michael sets me down on the couch and glances at his watch. Then he locks his eyes on mine, staring at me with the same pain that’s in my chest right now.

“You should start getting comfortable here, Meredith,” he says, turning away. “You’re going to be here for a while.”

“What do you mean, I’m going to be here for a while? What the fuck is this, Michael? What the hell are you doing?”

He looks over his shoulder, his gaze moving down to the ring on my finger, then at me. “I’m doing what’s in your best interest…”

Meredith

Now

I stare out the car’s window as Michael speeds through the desert, trying my best to silently repeat the refrain I used when he left me in Mexico. The refrain that made me hate him.

Your husband is a murderer-for-hire, and your father hired him to kill you…Everything you know about the both of them is a goddamn lie.

He’s tried taking me to two international airports so far, but they’re both closed, so there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s determined to get me to another one. Since he’s recently tossed a How to Adjust to Life in Switzerland book in my lap, I know that he’s determined to get me out of his life by the end of the day, no matter what.

My heart still isn’t getting the memo, but I won’t let my emotions rule my decisions anymore. I won’t give in, and I won’t go back. I won’t even look over at him as he drives since he’s still capable of making me wet with a single glance. (And unfortunately, he’s done it five times already.)

Not anymore.

This time, when we go our separate ways, I’ll have to make myself look at Michael for the man that he really is. Not my husband who I desperately tried to understand.

He’s a fucking murderer, and a criminal.

Full stop.

Michael

Now

Three days later

Since the drug cartels are determined to burn this country to the ground, every airport where I’ve tried to take Meredith is shut down for the rest of the week. It’s left me no other option than to drive two hundred miles out of the way, to a secluded villa I bought several years ago. (At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. I can easily charter a jet and have this woman out of my life in three hours. I can easily focus all of my attention on the one person I have left on my ‘all or nothing’ list and move on.)

My luxurious, one-story house sits beneath a bevy of plantain trees, fifty miles away from the closest town, and its feet away from the gulf. It’s one of the many properties I keep as a tax write-off, a perfect space to rest whenever I’m researching a foreign target.

I’m not sure why I thought Meredith would be appreciative of these accommodations, why she would be somewhat impressed, but she isn’t. Not only is she being completely nonchalant, but she’s giving me the one thing that never failed to get under my skin when we were living together in the mansion: the goddamn silent treatment.

She hasn’t spoken to me for the past three days—three fucking days, and I refuse to be the first to make a move.

I’m currently staring at her as she undresses in the master bedroom, the room I nicely offered for her to have alone—and she’s ignoring my gaze. She seems unfazed by the gauze I’m rewrapping around my wrist, a minor injury I took when saving her life the other day.