Page 104 of Mess With Me

I feel a little short of breath. “Lionel,” I begin, but he holds up a finger.

One on the hand holding the bracelet. It peeks out of his fist as he shakes it at me.

“I was so fucking pissed at you, Kelly, for not telling me how it went down. I wanted every detail. I wanted to replay it in my mind, look for cracks. See where you could have done something different and…saved my little girl.” His voice cracks ongirl, and my heart fucking cracks along with it.

For a moment, I feel like I’m going to drown. Or maybe pass out. I shift on my feet just to make sure my legs still work.

I open my mouth to tell him I’m sorry, but he speaks first.

“But it’s not like that anymore,” he says.

I meet his eye, even though I feel like shit doing it.

“You know what I’ve realized since then?”

I work my jaw, trying to stay calm and collected for him. “What’s that?” I ask, my voice a dry rasp.

“I realized that it doesn’t matter what you would have done. You would have done everything exactly the way I would have. You were the best, and that’s why I hired you. I wanted someone to blame, and you were the easiest. So for that, I’m sorry.”

I’m so taken aback I don’t know what to say. “That’s not necessary, Lionel.”

“My wife would keel over if she knew I was apologizing to you. If she hadn’t left me.”

It’s a bad joke and we both know it.

Lionel drops the bracelet into his pocket. “Creelman is a piece of shit. I don’t like having to pull away from him. But I don’t have a choice right now. There are bigger things at play, things I don’t want you getting involved in.”

“Thought I’d been with you long enough to be trusted.”

McCrae & Associates is not old—I joined on the ground floor. We were more of a grassroots kind of place working ad hoc back then, hoping we might get a few dollars thrown our way for the next mission.

“You helped make this organization what it is. And I trusted you with my daughter’s life.”

There’s a gap there, where the bitter truth sits like something ugly and raw.

“I still trust you with my own life,” he says, as if trying to mitigate it. “But I need you to trust me on this one. It’s better that you don’t know what’s going on, for your own sake.”

He walks up to Laura’s plot. When he kneels, his knees pop. For a minute I think he’s going to pray. Or maybe break down. But he only reaches out and rearranges the fresh flowers he clearly put in the vase before I got here.

My mind spins as I try to guess what the fuck he’s gotten himself into. Is it something political? Or is it higher up the chain? Creelman has a boss. His boss has a boss. Creelman may have power, but he’s still a mid-level thug.

Lionel stands up again with little effort. His knees are damp. “You’ve forced my hand by bringing Ms. Macklin into the fold, which makes me think you must care about her. Shit, of course you do if you fucking married her.”

“You know it was for her own protection.”

“No. You wouldn’t have offered just any woman that kind of protection and you know it.”

Fuck him and Fuck Ford for both seeing right through me.

“I won’t be able to use the employee defense forever,” he says. “My resources are limited more than they were before. The financials—”

“I understand. I won’t ask you to keep the wolves at bay forever.”

“I don’t even know if I can keep them at bay, period. Creelman’s asking questions Macklin can’t answer.”

I go still. How does he know that? Ford wouldn’t have shared that we were still keeping tabs on Creelman. Somehow, Lionel’s got insider information.

“Creelman hasn’t cooled off on her,” he continues. “I think he believes her brother doesn’t know where she is for now, but if he thinks Macklin’s keeping her from him, he won’t let him stand in his way. We’re involved in this now—you’ve made sure of that—and if something happens to Macklin…”

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