Legacy of Lies (Empire of Lies 3)

I debate whether I should let her know now, if dropping another emotional bombshell is the right thing to do.

When her chest starts heaving up and down, and the tears begin to fall harder, I decide to go for it.

“Meredith,” I say, wiping away a few tears before grabbing her hands. “Meredith, look at me.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it…” She shakes her head. “I still think about her every day.”

“You don’t have to get over it…” I wait until she’s looking up at me. “Meredith, your mother never really passed away…”

“Excuse me?” Her expression immediately shifts to anger and she glares at me. “What did you just say?”

“She’s not—”

“I’ve told you time and time again that she drowned,” she says, “And I’ve told you that I hate hearing people say that she’s ‘in a better place,’ or that ‘she’s still here with me.’ She’s dead, Michael.”

“No.” I shake my head, looking right into her eyes. “She’s dead in the same way that you’re dead. Turns out, someone else had a change of heart when he was contracted to kill her…She’s very much alive, Meredith.”

Her jaw drops to the floor. She sucks in a long breath, looking like she’s about to hit me with a barrage of questions.

‘Wait.” I press a finger against her lips before she can say a single word. “I found this information out days ago, but I need you to trust me on it, one hundred percent. I can’t take you to see her now, and we can’t even begin to get to her for another few months, until we figure out if you’re going to remain missing or stay alive as your old self. You’ll have to decide what you want, but I promise I’ll take you to see her either way.”

She stands still, looking absolutely stunned. Torn between relief and grief.

“You wouldn’t ever joke with me about something like this, would you?” she asks, her eyes hopeful.

“We both know I’m not the joking type.”

She swallows and leans against my shoulder, staring straight ahead as I light another cigar.

When the sun starts to rise over the horizon, she clears her throat. “Who ordered the hit on my mom? Was that my father as well?” She pauses, hitting me with another one. “Were you the designated hire for that job, too?”

“No to the last two questions.” I pause, getting ready to drop the final bombshell on her. “It was your aunt.”

Her face reddens, and she slumps down onto the nearest chair. She says nothing for several moments, she just continues glaring and shaking her head.

When I realize that it’s been over an hour, I grab her hands and pull her up. I wrap an arm around her hips and kiss her forehead, unable to imagine the tangled web of thoughts that are running through her mind.

“I know which ship I want to take now,” she says.

“Ship one or Ship two?”

“Neither of those,” she says, looking up at me. “I want to take Ship three…I want you to help me get even.”

“Come again?”

“I want to pay my father and my aunt back for all the pain they’ve put me through,” she says. “I want to bring down my father’s legacy, by taking everything he has and burning it to the ground.”

“What?” I can feel my eyes widening.

“I haven’t been able to have a full day of peace since my mom passed—Well, since I thought she passed. And even before that, I…” She shakes her head. “I never completely trusted my father after he abandoned us in the way he did.” Her face turns even redder. “I want to destroy him in every way possible. I want to give him exactly what he was willing to give to me.”

Those are easily some of the sexiest words that have ever fallen from her lips, but they’re wrong. She shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts, and she definitely shouldn’t be discussing them with me.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about right now, Meredith,” I say, half concerned, half aroused. “You’re just emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. Murder is not a suitable payback for what they almost did, and contrary to what you think, that’s no longer my style as of this coming Monday.”

“Then what is?”

Silence.

I wait for her to laugh and tell me that she’s joking about this idea, but she doesn’t. She looks dead-ass serious, and I’m beyond intrigued by her desire for this third option.

“What would you do if it was you?” she asks.

“I would be a bit more creative,” I admit. “I would make sure that they were well aware that I knew what they did, and I’d never loosen the leash that I put on them. Maybe prison time, maybe financial ruin, maybe not. It just depends.”

“It just depends on what?”

“Which dose of karma I thought would help me sleep better at night”