Chapter Thirty

We were in the back of an ambulance. Only not with Urban. My biological father’s body was being carted away by American government agents. They arrived before the Czech police, or the paramedics, or the press. They knew where we were, not because of Regina’s interview or because they were following us, but because my parents called them. They called them. Specifically, they called their old ally Martin Bittman. He arrived at our little peninsula in a speedboat while Sophia was pinned under my mother’s knee, Urban was dead in the mud, Regina was cowering behind a tree, and my sister and I were covered in a man’s blood. Agents spread out, “handling the scene,” as Bittman rushed my family into his boat and sped us down the blackened river. Amber lights from the nearby hotels bounced off the water’s surface, a cool mist spraying our faces, all in a manner very reminiscent of my chase with Craig Bernard through the canals of Venice. We’d ended right back where we’d started, only there was no one to rescue this time. Urban was already dead.

Eventually, he pulled the boat to shore and there was an ambulance waiting on the banks. He swung open the van doors and I expected to find a stretcher with Urban inside. Instead, it was empty except for a full black trash bag. Immediately my parents pulled out the contents and began to undress before Bittman even slammed the doors behind us.

“What’s going on? Why are we here? Where’s Urban?” I asked, as I watched my mom unbutton her black blouse while my dad sorted what looked like a paramedic’s uniform.

“We’re leaving,” Mom explained, tossing her blouse on the floor and revealing a rather too provocative black lace bra for any child to see on a parent.

“Where are you going?” Keira asked, hazel eyes squinting tight with confusion. We were the ones covered in blood. If anyone needed a change of clothes, it was us.

Dad unbuttoned his pants, sliding them down to his ankles as he kicked off his black loafers. He stood in his boxers, and I fought the urge to cringe. This was only the second time I’d seen my parents back from the dead and they were in their underwear. I doubted this was how Keira envisioned this confrontation.

“It’s a long story,” Dad explained, “but as your mom said earlier, we know Felicity. We’ve worked with her before. Your friend’s interview was never going to happen.”

“So you weren’t in town to kill Regina?” I asked. Mom shot me a look.

“What do you think of us?” she snapped.

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” I just watched my biological father die in my arms at the hand of his granddaughter. I didn’t know what people were capable of anymore.

“We were with Urban today because we cut a deal.” Dad pulled what looked like a pair of very itchy black work trousers up his hairy legs. “With Cross’s body found, the safety deposit box, the Reys caught, and the two of you on Access Hollywood…” He rolled his eyes like he disapproved of our public statements. Good. He should. We didn’t do them for his benefit. None of this was for them. “We didn’t have many options.”

“We weren’t walking willingly to the needle, or going back to a black-site prison.” Mom cut me a look.

“You know we didn’t want that for you, but I didn’t want my friend to die, either,” I said, though I owed them no explanations. I truly thought they might murder my best friend, and the fact that this was a possibility was on them. Still, I thought they should know that we weren’t dead inside; we didn’t want to see our parents harmed.

“We know. And we would never have hurt your friend. You have to know that,” Dad said. Only I didn’t. “So we played the last cards we had.” He buttoned a short-sleeve, collared white shirt.

“Sophia and the Reys told you that we were going around the world blackmailing old acquaintances, and they were right,” Mom explained.

“After all those decades, we had a lot of clients,” Dad continued for her, shoving his feet into a pair of black orthopedic sneakers. “We’re talking powerful clients who didn’t want their secrets on the front page of their countries’ newspapers, and we thought we could get them to help us, hide us.”

“Then Urban found us.” Mom buttoned her white shirt. They flipped back and forth telling this story like they’d practiced it, except they couldn’t have. It was the interaction of two people who were each other’s entire world. It made sense that my mother didn’t leave him after her affair with Urban—well, anyone who’s ever watched a Lifetime movie knows the other woman (or other man) rarely ends up on top of the love triangle. But it was almost comforting to know my entire childhood wasn’t a lie. They might have had unfathomable issues, and crimes, between them, but at least their bond was real. “He told us about your conversation in Poland, how much you girls wanted out of this.” Her gaze flickered between me and my sister.

Keira grabbed my hand. “You really needed to be told that?”

“We can’t all get everything we want,” Dad explained, pulling a black baseball cap over his head, completing his look as a paramedic. “Urban figured the only way for you to get out, and for us to avoid the mountain of evidence growing against us, was to give the U.S. government what it wanted.”

“Your clients,” I realized.

Dad nodded with a smug grin. “Our clients.”

“We called Martin and told him we’d give them all our files, every job we ever did, every world leader that could now be blackmailed by the U.S.A.—as long as they let us disappear and left you alone forever.” Mom stepped toward us.

“Really, what would you choose? Send a couple of old fogies to prison? Or have access to a trove of blackmail that could serve the government for decades to come?” Dad shrugged. It was an offer the CIA couldn’t refuse. “Martin agreed. He said he’d talk to Felicity, kill the interview, and tell your friend everything she needed to know about her boyfriend’s death to buy her silence.”

“She’ll be getting a tidy sum of money if she stays quiet.” Mom widened her brown eyes to emphasize just how rich Regina might become if she developed sudden amnesia about all these global clandestine affairs. The money would be hard to explain to her family, but maybe they wouldn’t care. I imagined Mrs. Villanueva’s face when she saw her daughter stroll through the door. She’d probably ignore a lot, give up a lot, to have Regina back. I would.

“The plan was for us all to be declared dead, again, and for you to be set free from this,” Dad explained.

“Only you got to Sophia and Regina first.” Mom had the look of a villain from Scooby-Doo. And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids! At least Daphne and Velma had a dog. They shared some laughs. Our group wasn’t nearly as jolly.

“You could have told us. Charlotte tried calling Bittman several times,” Keira pointed out. “He could have saved us a trip, probably saved Urban’s life, if he’d said he’d cut a deal with you.”

“I’m not sure Bittman believed we’d pull through,” Dad said. “I’m guessing you being here was his contingency plan.”

“He liked knowing you’d turn us in.” Mom looked my way.

“Do you expect us to apologize?” I asked. “We’ve been running for our lives for almost a year, because of you. Damn right we were going to turn you in. You’ve put us through enough. But we hoped if we found the right lawyers, it wouldn’t be so bad. Marcus’s parents…”

“Yes, Carlos and Rosario are living it up in country-club prison. Sorry, but that’s not for us.” Mom scrunched her perfect nose. “But it’s much better than Sophia can hope for.” She exchanged a look with my dad.

“There’s a CIA black site somewhere with her name on a cell.” Dad actually smiled, like it was completely fair that Sophia went to jail and not them. I wasn’t sure I agreed. “It should be enough justice to satisfy your friend, Regina. And hopefully you.”

“Nothing will ever make up for Tyson’s death,” I replied. It was a simple fact that maybe they would understand one day, maybe at some point in their lives they’d develop a conscience and fully grasp the consequences people paid for their actions, but I wasn’t sure they had the capacity for that. I hoped that wasn’t a trait Keira or I inherited.

“So what’s next for you? What happens next to the Teflon parents who slip away from everything?” Keira asked, eyeing them head to toe, her face absorbing the irony that they were actually dressed as medics dedicated to saving lives.

“It’s not what happens to us, it’s what happens to you. You get to live your lives now.” Dad’s face softened like he was giving us a gift. “It’s what we want, what Urban wanted.”

His last words. My throat grew thick.

“Don’t act like you’re doing this for us. You’re doing this because you get to go free.” Keira sounded tough, but she was squeezing my hand so tight I could feel the pain simmering in her chest like a teapot about to sing.

“Keira, what we did to you was wrong.” Dad stepped toward her, but my sister shifted back, pulling me with her. It was us against them; it always would be. “We want to make it right now.”

“By getting off free? By not paying for your crimes? By leaving us again?” Her voice shook.

“Well, that’s up to you.” Mom pulled her hair into a low bun and placed a baseball hat on her head. “We made a deal to give us all the best possible outcome. We were supposed to walk away, us and Urban. I’m sorry about what happened to him.” She gazed at me, and I could see she meant it. He meant something to her. There was loss in her eyes. I wondered what I looked like. “Tomorrow we will be declared dead, right along with him. No one will look for us. We’ll start over. And whether we start over as a family of two or a family of four is up to you.”

“What are you asking?” My eyes crinkled.

“Come with us.” Dad leaned forward, the already cramped interior of the ambulance feeling even more confined. “You don’t want to be this reality princess anymore.” He scoffed at my sister. “And you haven’t even grown into who you’ll be yet.” He peered at me. “Let’s be a family again. Let us help you.”

Those were the words we’d waited for, the words we’d dreamed of. Let’s be a family again. I wanted that so badly, I practically had it embroidered on a pillow.

I looked at my sister, full-blooded or not, I could read her mind. We didn’t need words. We didn’t need to talk it over. She didn’t even need to make a gesture with her head. Our decision was made.

“No,” I said definitively. Keira squished my hand even more, complete solidarity. “No. We’re not a family.” I shook my head, hair whipping my cheeks as fresh tears fought their way out of my eyes. I looked at my dad. “I don’t regret you being my father, raising me, when you were around. But I don’t forgive you, either.”

“You don’t have to,” he insisted. “But in time…”

“No,” Keira cut in. “You’ve already taken so much time from us. You don’t get to have anymore.”

I nodded, biting hard on my lips to keep from crying more. “You think you know what you put us through, but you don’t. All this spy crap”—I spun my hand around the air as if espionage were in the wind these days—“I could forgive you for that. But leaving us, abandoning us, letting us bury you, letting her drop out of school.” I nodded to Keira. “You don’t know what family is. I was fourteen when you walked out, and I have wanted nothing more since that day than to have a family again. But you’re not it.”

“And who is?” My mom shot back, her voice irritated, like she thought our choice would be simple, like of course we would go with her. My parents always got what they wanted. “Marcus Rey is your family now?”

“Yes.” It was the easiest answer I’d ever given in my life. “And Keira, and Charlotte, and Julian. These are the people who stood by me like a real family should. I choose them.”

“This is the only time we’re making this offer.” Mom said it like a threat.

“Then at least we get to say goodbye this time,” Keira replied.

The silence built bricks between us, then Dad’s eyes shifted from my sister to me. He was looking for doubt, a hint we’d change our minds. When he didn’t see it, he stepped back. Next to his wife, his partner in crime.

“The news will say we died in a shoot-out against Urban, that we killed each other,” he explained with the emotions of a detached tactician. “I recommend you go along with that story.”

Of course. They’d spent their careers designing black flag campaigns, it made sense one would now be used to clear them.

“We won’t say anything,” Keira promised, and I could hear how hard she was trying to keep her voice even, to not show them how affected she was by another forever goodbye.

They were our parents, no matter what they did. And this hurt.

“You’re my little girls, both of you. I love you so much.” Dad had actual tears in his eyes, and despite his career in deception, I wanted to believe his words, so for a moment, I did. I stepped toward him, let go of my sister’s hand, and let him hug me. I wouldn’t keep the door closed this time. I wouldn’t regret not saying goodbye.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. I’d spent years regretting not saying those words. I wouldn’t do that again today. Because I meant it. How could I not? He was my father.

My sister joined in, her arms wrapped around both of us, our faces pressed to each of our dad’s shoulders. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

When we let go, I saw my mother staring at us with a guarded expression; it wasn’t love, it wasn’t jealousy. Or maybe it was. I didn’t really know her well enough to read her face, or her heart.

She placed a hand on my shoulder, never a fan of touching. “Take care of yourself. I know you can.”

Then she looked at Keira and nodded. “You’ve done a good job. I’m very proud. Thank you.” It was a stoic goodbye, but I had a feeling those last few words meant more to Keira than she’d ever admit. For a long time, all Keira wanted was for her sacrifices to be recognized.

Then our father opened the rear ambulance doors and gestured that it was time. I looked at my sister, her eyes as wet as my own, though I tried to swallow down my tears. We stepped out of the vehicle and stood on the muddy bank of the Vltava River glaring at our parents for the last time. Again.

“Will we ever see you again?” I asked, knowing I had no right to pose the question. We’d just rejected their offer to go with them, but still, I couldn’t wonder my whole life what became of them.

Mom clutched the handle to close the door. “Probably not.” She smiled. “But I have a feeling we’ll see you.”

With that, they drove away.