Chapter Twenty-Seven

In every horror movie, there’s always a moment when the victim sees her attacker, whether she’s in the shower or in the closet, she finally sees the blade coming with wide eyes that shout this is happening. I imagined, in that moment, that was how I looked as I stared at my three parents. Together.

They were smiling.

“What…what are you doing here?” I sputtered, before I woodenly turned toward my sister.

Night had fallen and it was pitch black on our peninsula, but even still I could see Keira’s face go pale. She looked lifeless, like she’d forgotten how to blink.

“Keira.” I stepped toward her and grabbed her hand. She didn’t budge. “You okay?”

“Darling, I think your sister’s in shock,” said my mother, flicking the part in her thick espresso hair like she was worried the growing fog from the river might cause it to frizz. “Regina, good to see you again.”

“You bitch!” Regina yelled, thrusting her hands in the air like she didn’t know what to do with them, but she really wished she knew how to punch. “You threatened to kill me! My whole family! Even my grandma!”

“But I didn’t, did I?” Mom shrugged as if to say, Wow, kids today are so dramatic!

Regina’s face contorted, her brain unable to comprehend how someone could casually threaten murder. I could see her trying to understand my mother. I should warn her it was a wasted effort.

“Mom, Dad, Urban…what?” It didn’t make sense. I knew they were in Prague. I’d felt it. I worried they might kill my friend, but the looks on their faces didn’t match that scenario. They seemed so nonchalant, as if they simply stumbled upon us on their way home from dinner.

“Why are you so surprised?” Mom asked, her dark hair falling perfectly over her shoulder. “Didn’t you come here to stop us? Oh no, the big bad wolves!” She laughed at her joke as she swatted my dad’s shoulder—well, the dad who raised me. And he grinned, like this was funny.

I was starting to feel like Regina as my teeth ground together.

“Please, don’t be upset.” Dad noticed my reaction. He strolled toward me, sidestepping the tree that divided us. “We heard about the interview. Actually, I think everyone’s heard about the interview. They’ve been doing an unusual amount of marketing for it. I would have advised less, wouldn’t you?” He looked at Urban.

“It’s overkill,” Urban agreed and they all laughed at his pun.

Because killing was funny.

“I feel like the media wastes so much money these days,” Mom added. “Remember back when one well-placed news article would get the job done?”

“You could make anyone look like a Soviet agent,” Dad said.

“Remember Wilson?” Urban sounded wistful.

“Poor sucker, he never had a chance.” Dad patted Urban’s back.

“I never liked him, anyway.” Mom looked like she wanted to wink.

Meanwhile, Sophia was lying in the dirt groaning, my knuckles were bleeding, Keira was frozen in an iceberg of shock, and Regina was seething so much I feared she’d take out her phone and start filming. Yet they hardly noticed we were there. It was as if they were having a long-awaited reunion, only lacking the Princeton T-shirts.

“What is going on?” I squinted with confusion. “Are you guys friends now? I thought you hated each other? I thought you were trying to kill each other?”

“Potato, Potahto,” my dad said, as if there were no difference. “Things change.”

“Things like death threats?” I clearly didn’t have the constitution to be a spy, because I would never find this normal.

“No, things like the Reys being arrested and singing from the rooftops,” Dad said.

“Thanks for that,” Mom griped.

“Grandfather, I was taking care of it,” came a voice from behind me. I turned to see Sophia pushing herself upright in the mud. Her bony arms shook as she tried to support her weight, and she leaned on a nearby tree, clumps of wet grass in her strawberry blond hair. A little piece of me hoped there might be a few specks of dog poo on her, too. Simple pleasures.

“Sweetheart, I think you’ve taken care of enough,” my mom said to Sophia, her tone condescending. Then she pointed her gaze at Regina like a weapon. “I hope by now you finally realize we had nothing to do with your little boyfriend’s death.”

Seriously? Little boyfriend? Even I could hit her.

Regina grunted in offense. Frankly, I was tired of apologizing for my mother—this time not because she was a spy, and not because she was capable of such a murder, but for the sheer fact that she lacked any sense of empathy. The woman was a shell of muscle and action without an ounce of compassion. How did this happen to her?

Urban stepped forward. “I was being truthful in Poland.” He looked at me. “Sophia was not acting on my orders, but still I’d like to apologize for her actions and extend my deepest regret.”

“Tyson is dead, because of all of you!” Regina cut in, her voice cracking from hysteria. Here was the apology she desperately wanted, the words she’d tried to break the internet to receive, and I was betting they didn’t make her feel one bit better. Nothing would.

Urban shrugged to suggest life was unfair. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I don’t care.” Regina shook her head, then frantically glanced at her watch. “I know who you are. I know what you’ve done. And I’ve already been interviewed. They filmed me. Even if I miss the live segment, you’ll still be in handcuffs. Only difference is, she’ll be with you.” She pointed to Sophia.

“Oh, honey, that footage is destroyed,” my mom cooed, before eyeing Sophia. “Felicity worked with us long before she ever met you.”

The gasp out of Sophia was louder than any scream. “What?” She glared at her grandfather. “I had a plan! That interview would have buried them! They would have gone down! Not us! How could you let this happen?”

Urban stepped toward the girl he’d praised my entire life, the girl he paraded around company parties, the girl he sent to meet me in Rome and give me the forged manual in my father’s handwriting. His loyal biological soldier, who he thought was his only shared blood in the world. Until me. “You are my granddaughter. You always will be. But this scheme of yours got a seventeen-year-old boy killed and brought down my entire empire. Sophia, it’s over.”

Her mouth slid open then shut. “No, you don’t understand. I did this for you. To save you! And it would have worked!” She pointed at him, her face full of betrayal and loss from the one person she loved above all. I knew what that felt like. “You were losing it! Sending her baby photos?” It was as if he’d FedExed me weapons of mass destruction. “How do you think that made me feel? I’ve loved you my whole life, I’ve accepted you, all of you, everything you’ve done. And you were ready to burn down all of Department D for a girl who hates you!”

Hearing that word out loud twisted something inside me, like I didn’t want to hear it from her. I didn’t want Sophia Urban talking for me, or pretending to know how I felt about anything. I didn’t even know how I felt. But Sophia’s eyes were wild and desperate. Her words weren’t meant for me.

“I had to show you that she’d never accept you, never want you. I had to show her who you really are, who we really are.” Sophia gestured to all of them, Urban and my parents, like they were one united criminal cohort. “That was why I did it. How many people have you killed in your lifetime? How many people have you destroyed for money?”

She kept talking, barely breathing. “At least I did this to protect us, to protect the company. I thought once her friend was dead, once people she cared about were threatened, she’d run the other way, get as far away from you and Department D as possible. I thought maybe she’d even be so scared she’d turn the two of you over to the cops.” She gestured to my parents before growling my way. “You probably would have, too, if it wasn’t for Allen Cross spilling his guts and roping you into that ridiculous plan with those Dresden Kids.”

“I never wanted anything to do with any of this. You didn’t have to kill Tyson to make me see that.” My face twisted at her logic. If this was to keep her hold on her grandfather, she could have him. That was never in jeopardy, not on my end.

“That’s not why she did it,” my mother interjected, casually stepping forward like it was time for the dramatics to stop. “Honey, twenty-two years old and you still can’t share?” She tsked at her with contempt. “You were worried that you’d lose your place as an Urban, that you’d be usurped in the family hierarchy. You didn’t do a damn thing for the company. You did it to push Anastasia as far away from your precious grandfather as you could.”

“Yeah, how’s that working out for you?” my dad quipped.

“So what if I did?” She wobbled toward Urban, her mouth still bleeding and her words slurred from the swelling of her lips. “That still means I did it for you! To protect you. She’ll never want to be a part of this family, our family. And I tried to fix everything. It’s all I’ve been doing lately! You know that! I can still fix this. I can hide you, we can start again…”

“It’s done.” Urban flicked his wrinkled hand, shooting her a severe gaze. “Department D was finished the second I took Keira from her home. It’s my biggest regret.” He looked to my sister, who still stood motionless, processing the spectacle that was our living, breathing parents.

Then Urban placed a palm on my father’s shoulder, a gesture seeming to convey a message, an agreement. The men nodded.

“We had a good run, didn’t we?” Dad smiled.

“We did.” Urban flashed his dimples in return.

“And we’ll always have Moscow,” Mom joked and they all laughed at an inside joke, heads thrown back in the moonlight, sharing a private moment, like the old friends that they were, like they didn’t have crimes in common, lovers in common, and children in common.

It was a friendliness so shockingly natural, I felt more bewildered than Sophia. We had to be missing something. Something huge.

“You hate Urban,” I said, trying to dissect the weird camaraderie as I peered at my mom. “You tried to kill him. He tried to kill you. You kept me from him my whole life. Why are you acting like none of that happened?”

“It happened, darling, but so did other things, a lot of other things that are best left for another day.” She gazed lovingly at Urban, then at my Dad.

“Love and hate, they’re on the same coin.” My dad winked, like he honestly didn’t care that his best friend had an affair with his wife that produced a child. I couldn’t understand it. Would I be like this one day? God, I hoped not.

“I didn’t hate Urban. Not all the time, at least.” Mom laughed, and they laughed with her, as if it were funny. Meanwhile, their hate had been strong enough to kill. “I kept your paternity a secret for the simplest of reasons—I didn’t want to leave my husband.” She gazed at Urban, then bumped her shoulder into my dad’s in a sign of solidarity. How did this not bother him? “Randolph lost his daughter, he was grieving, and your father and I weren’t in a good place, for reasons we don’t need to rehash. Things happened. But I knew if Urban found out you were his, he would have tried to force me into a divorce, taken control of my life, and maybe even stolen you from me altogether…”

“You don’t know that,” Urban cut in, his eyes on his feet.

“Don’t we?” She gave him a knowing glance, and he didn’t disagree. She then turned back to me. “I’m glad you know the truth now. It’s good. You should know him.”

“What about me,” said a barely audible voice from beside me. I pivoted toward my sister and it was like the candle that had been extinguished inside her was now a wildfire behind her eyes. She cleared her throat, shaking her head to brush off the cloud she’d been under, the cloud that was literally now enveloping us in the dark as it rose off the water. “What. About. Me?” she said again, more forceful.

My mother didn’t respond right away, neither did our father. So Keira stepped closer.

“You’ve apologized to her,” Keira’s voice grew stronger. “You tracked her down in Rio, you asked her to come with you, to help you, to save you. What about me?” She snarled. “I was twenty-one when you left us, when you left me to raise your fourteen-year-old daughter. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have a penny! You left us with nothing!”

Dad opened his mouth like he was about to defend his actions, but my sister pointed a finger at him so aggressively, his lips slammed shut.

“You ran that company. You had cash. The Reys have cash. Sophia has cash. And we all know Urban has cash. Why? Because he was the one who gave us money to keep the heat on. Him!” She shot her hand at his spiky white hair, which seemed to glow in the night sky. “You kept everything for yourselves. You ran around the world, saving your own asses, while I dropped out of school! While we cried ourselves to sleep! While I wondered how the hell I was going to feed her, get her grades up, and stop her from turning into some shell of a person. I was twenty-one with a high school diploma! You destroyed us. Did you ever give a shit at all?”

Dad started to answer, but Keira charged toward him, her boots slurping in the mud.

“Men came into our home and took me.” Keira’s voice shook, just a bit, and I hoped they didn’t hear it. This was her moment. I wanted her to have it so much I was ready to clap my hands and cheer her on. She needed this. “They drugged me. They poured my blood into a bathtub. They barely fed me. They never spoke to me. I sat in a room by myself all day for months wondering when they were going to kill me or rape me. I lived in so much fear. Constant fear, for months.”

Tears welled in my eyes. She was saying it. All of it. Stuff I didn’t even know. Her dry lips were quivering so much I bit my own, as if that might somehow help her.

“My little sister had to rescue me. From you.” She pointed at Urban, stepping close enough to spit on his face, glaring into eyes that matched my own. Even in the dark, I could see it now; maybe I always did. “You may claim to love her, you may want her in your life, but you do not deserve her. And you know that. None of you deserve any of us!” She swung her arms at our parents. “Why did you even have children? Why did you drag us into this life? What is wrong with you?”

“Keira”—Dad moved forward, palms raised in surrender—“you’re right. About all of it. When we left, it wasn’t fair. Everything tumbled down so fast, we didn’t have time to make preparations. We thought we’d be killed at any moment. So we saved ourselves.”

“And screwed us,” she snapped.

“Yes.” He nodded once. “After we left, it was too late to transfer money. It would have been suspicious.”

“So you spent it all on designer shoes.” She eyed my mother’s outfit head to toe. It didn’t matter how dark our little peninsula was, a high-end suit and matching heels were still easy to spot. Mom didn’t offer a word in defense. “You took away the people we could have become.”

“I’m sorry for what we put you through,” Dad said, a lame apology, and I could see Keira warring with whether to scream, cry, or hit him. It was like we’d discussed, she was feeling everything, every possible emotion, all at the same time.

“For what it’s worth.” Urban’s voice was soft. “I made a grave mistake when I took you from your home, when I brought Craig Bernard into your lives. I don’t shock easily, but when I heard your parents were alive, I reacted in a way I’m not proud of. And I am truly sorry for what I did to you.”

“You don’t get to apologize! Are you kidding me?” Keira swung a hand at Regina and me. “You are all still actively ruining our lives, right now, so don’t throw words at us—”

“Oh, please!” Sophia snapped, breaking into the conversation. She was still bent over slightly, one hand clutching a tree and the other clutching her side. I probably broke a rib. Good. “Get over yourself, Keira! You’re not dead. You lived in Italy for a couple of months on a fluffy featherbed. Boo freakin’ hoo. Did you even get a scratch? And you’re still whining about it. Shut up, and be lucky I wasn’t running that op.”

“Watch yourself,” Urban warned.

“Or what? What are you going to do, Grandfather? You said so yourself, it’s over! You were the one who brought down Department D. Not me!” she shouted. “So if you want to be the brave captain going down with the ship, fine, but don’t you dare take me with you.”

“Do you really think I would let you take the fall for this?” Urban sounded offended, and more disturbingly, like he had a plan to protect her. How? She killed Tyson. She admitted it. I heard her, Keira heard her, and most importantly, Regina heard her. There was no way she was keeping quiet, and as if hearing my thoughts, Regina charged straight toward Urban.

“If you think I’m letting her get away with Tyson’s murder, you’re not only a criminal, you’re insane,” she shrieked, snarling at him.

“And if you think I’m spending the rest of my life in a cell, you’re insane.” Sophia’s voice rose up from behind me with an eerie calm, all the heated desperation gone—like a serial killer slowly walking through the woods after her prey, not even bothering to run.

Around me, everyone froze.

And when I turned around, I saw why.

Sophia had a gun pointed directly at my head.