Veronica Shay—or Veronica Vianni, depending on what legal document a person went by—had grown up knowing how to lie. She’d had a natural aptitude for it, much to her parents’ dismay. She’d courted the wrong side of the law until they’d disowned her.
She hadn’t cared much at the time. After all, she’d found her own family. A place she belonged.
Or so it had seemed.
It hadn’t been a happily-ever-after, and for years she’d blamed everyone else for the horror she’d gotten herself into. It had only been when she’d started to take responsibility for her own actions that things had started to change.
She packed her bag now, trying not to think too deeply about then. The way her life had changed. So much for the better. She’d turned herself into someone who did the right thing. Who took down the bad guys rather than glittered on their arm.
Shay, the head of the North Star Group, a secretive collection of skilled operatives who’d worked together to take down the vicious Sons of the Badlands gang, and then thwarted a dangerous death machine supplying military grade weapons to all the wrong people, wasn’t remotely recognizable to the eighteen-year-old Veronica Shay who’d married Frankie Vianni fifteen years ago.
Frankie Vianni who was supposed to be dead, but clearly wasn’t. And thus was a threat to every member of North Star. Because there was no way he’d forgiven and forgotten the way she’d gotten out of the Vianni Mafia family—by getting a fat lot of them killed or jailed.
Shay hadn’t expected to escape unscathed. Even when Granger Macmillan had taken her under his wing and brought her in on the ground floor of starting the North Star Group, she’d been waiting for Frankie to appear.
Two years ago, he or the ghost of him had nearly killed Granger, and because of pure luck or skill it was only nearly.
But someone had been irrevocably hurt, and it hadn’t been her. The cause for it all. It had a member of her North Star family.
She wouldn’t let that happen again. No matter what she had to do. Frankie had made it clear he was making his move. So, Shay would move right back. She would act. Bullet wound or no bullet wound.
She’d finally gotten rid of Betty, one of her closest friends and North Star’s doctor. Sent her off to Montana to start her new life, and thus be out of Shay’s hair. Sabrina and Connor were still around, two of her lead field agents, but she’d put them in charge of a mission that had gotten a few other regulars out of North Star headquarters.
She’d hired a pilot who wouldn’t ask questions, asked him to meet her at an off-grid air strip, and was prepared to deal with her past, rather than wait for it to deal with her.
Because even if the past few weeks had been calm as she’d healed, she knew it wasn’t over. Frankie was just trying to make her sweat.
He didn’t know the woman she’d become.
Shay slung her bag over her shoulder and winced. In an ideal world, she wouldn’t be this hurt or in this much pain, but she’d made her choice to leave ideal behind a long time ago.
She left her room. She didn’t sneak—sneaking would make someone pay too much attention, if someone did in fact see her. Which she had planned around.
She’d created this North Star headquarters. After their old one had burned down, thanks in part to Frankie’s family, and Granger had put her in charge, she’d moved them from South Dakota to Wyoming. She’d designed this compound on an old deserted ranch, and worked hard to lead North Star as they took down people doing bad in the world.
This year had been successful and yet, important pieces of her team had left North Star for a real life. Marriage and babies and futures somewhere else. Not risking their lives. Not constantly fighting the bad in the world.
Once upon a time, Shay wouldn’t have understood it. She would have scoffed at it, in fact. But her life had changed since that explosion over two years ago. Was it an age thing? Was it the fact that the man most hurt in the explosion was her one and only tie to her past?
She didn’t know. So much so, she wasn’t fully sure who she was anymore. She didn’t even know what she wanted.
Except to be free of her youthful mistakes without them touching anyone else she cared about.
Shay walked with all the authority she could muster as she moved through the maze of hallways and then out the front door.
Easy as you please. She slid her sunglasses on her face against the blinding sun bouncing off the snow. The vehicle would be a bit trickier. Since it was North Star property, any of their tech people could have it tracked.
She still hadn’t figured out this part yet. Her best bet was to take a car and ditch it somewhere. Probably in the opposite direction of the airstrip.
No one was going to let her disappear. She’d tried that already. But Vianni’s men had been on her tail so she hadn’t had a chance to get everything in order first. And North Star had stepped in and stopped Vianni’s men.
But Frankie hadn’t been there. Likely, he’d sent a group of volunteers just to see if they could breech North Star. He wouldn’t risk his own life until it was a sure thing.
Shay wasn’t about to let it be a sure thing. She wasn’t about to let her friends, or more accurately found family in North Star, step in and get hurt in the process. This wasn’t North Star business. This was Veronica Shay business—an identity no one in her current life knew existed.
Except Granger Macmillan and Nina Wyatt. Nina wouldn’t tell. In the year Nina had known about Shay’s past, she’d never told her husband, which meant she’d snitch to no one.
Granger... Well, he was a bit more of a wild card these days but since his past connected to hers, she doubted he was in a hurry to let anyone in on it.
So, she got in her North Star vehicle and drove into Wanayi, a small town where Shay often went to buy groceries or other necessities. She studied the vehicles in the gas station parking lot. Any would be easy enough to steal, but none of them looked like they belonged to people who’d have an easy time replacing them.
She sat in her car, parked in the far corner of the lot, keeping out of sight, watching the comings and goings trying to figure out how to accomplish her goal. After about thirty minutes of this, a cab drove into the parking lot.
As far as signs went, Shay was willing to take this one. She watched the driver gas up, head inside. While he was paying, she quickly moved across the lot and slid into the back seat.
Even cabbies didn’t lock up out here.
When he returned, he eyed her through the window before getting in. If he was surprised to find someone sitting in his cab, he didn’t act it. But when he slid into the driver’s side, he didn’t close the door. He kept it open and one leg out.
“I’m off duty. No money on me,” the man said in a smoker’s rasp.
Shay held two twenties over the seats. “I’ve got cash. Half now. Half at the drop-off point. All you have to do is drive and not ask any questions and you can pocket that cash.”
The man eyed the money, then his phone sitting in the middle console. Shay figured he was considering calling the cops. She couldn’t blame him. She’d even let him—once she got the hell out of Dodge.
Eventually he took the bills and slid them into his pocket. He pulled his leg into the car and asked for an address. Shay gave him one in the general direction of where she was going.
He drove, eyeing her in the rearview every so often. She kept herself looking relaxed, her bag far enough out of reach that he didn’t think she’d grab it and try something shady.
When he got close enough to the airfield she thought she could walk without hurting her injuries too much, she leaned slowly forward. “This’ll do.”
The cabbie slowed to a stop, eyeing her suspiciously. “This ain’t nowhere.”
“Exactly.” Shay handed him a hundred-dollar bill, didn’t hurt to sweeten the pot. “Not a soul needs to know. Got it?”
He studied the bill, then her, and shrugged. “Fine.”
She didn’t know if it’d be enough. Especially if someone questioned him, but it would give her a head start anyway.
Shay got out of the cab, looked around. The snow would slow her down, but it was sunny day which would keep the bitter cold at bay. She didn’t look back at the cab driver. Instead, she just got to work.
She walked away from the highway. Best not to be spotted if any car passed by. She knew the area well enough, because she’d studied it when she’d chosen North Star. Before they’d gotten their own little airstrip, they’d used this one.
It was about a mile. Not long, but she was dragging. Too damn tired for a little hike. This gunshot wound was a real pain.
Finally, she reached the private airstrip. Just a long strip of earth in the middle of nowhere. A plane was parked by the tiny office building.
She didn’t head for the building. If she could avoid that, and just get to the pilot, she’d be better off. She frowned at the plane as she got closer. There was something vaguely familiar about it. Then again, all planes looked the same to her. Especially these small single engine ones that looked more like they belonged in an old WWII movie.
She didn’t see any evidence of a pilot, so she moved for the plane. As she got closer, she could make out a pair of boots next to the opposite wheel. So someone was standing on the other side of the plane, most likely refueling or something.
Still, Shay surreptitiously put her hand close to the gun she had concealed at her back.
When the body stepped around, she braced herself for a fight. A nasty surprise.
The man’s face was a surprise, but not quite the one she was expecting.
Tall, broad and all too familiar, even if she hadn’t seen that reckless smile of his in too many years to name. Not because he’d been such a stranger, but because he hadn’t smiled much since his injuries two years ago.
“Where to?” he asked.
Shay looked at him and knew she had three options.
She went with the dumb one, simply because it would feel good. She threw a punch.
“I’LL GIVE YOU that one for free,” Granger Macmillan said, forcing himself to smile though he didn’t feel it. Not because the blow had been painful, but because it hadn’t been. He’d trained Shay himself. She was usually a better punch. Which meant her wound was really slowing her down.
“You don’t give anyone anything for free, Granger,” she grumbled.
He might have argued with her, but since she was the only one he made allowances for these days, it felt a little too close to a truth he didn’t want to parse.
“You look ridiculous in that hat,” she said distastefully. “You’re no cowboy.”
“I don’t know.” He adjusted the hat on his head. “I think the cowboy life is growing on me.”
She rolled her eyes.
“But I’d never give up flying.” He patted the plane’s glossy wing. “So, why don’t you hop in and we can head off? Time’s a wasting.”
“So strange I don’t recall inviting you.”
He kept his voice as even as hers, without the casually cutting edge to it. “Well, good thing I don’t need an invitation then.”
She blew out a breath, clearly trying to get a hold of her temper. The problem she was going to run into was that he knew her better than anyone—including Betty or Nina or anyone else she considered her closest friends.
Because Granger had known her before. Had been the hand held out to save her from the Vianni family, and he knew for a fact not one person in their current lives knew what she’d been through or what she’d done before she’d turned herself into Shay, North Star operative and eventual leader.
He knew what people had thought back when he’d been in charge of North Star and given Shay more freedom and leeway than he’d given any of his other agents. That there’d been more going on between them than met the eye.
It had bothered him, but he’d always figured the best way to fight that rumor was to keep his hands to himself and his focus on the only thing North Star had been about back then: bringing down the Sons of the Badlands.
The gang had been instrumental in the murder of his wife, but only because the Vianni family had let them be.
“This has nothing to do with you,” Shay said.
His attempt at keeping his cool faded. Maybe it was the memory of Anna’s death, or maybe he was just tired of constantly being haunted by a past he couldn’t seem to escape no matter how hard he tried. “The hell it doesn’t.”
“They were after me. They shot me.” She didn’t look him in the eye when she said either of those things, so she had to know.
“I heard they were asking about me too.”
Her gaze whipped up to meet his. A storm in those blue depths. Not unusual—Shay had always been something of a storm. But this one wasn’t controlled the way it needed to be if they were going to beat Vianni.
“It was a distraction,” she said firmly.
If he was someone else, he might have even believed her. “How do you know?”
“Why would Frankie care about you, Granger?”
“I was married to his sister. I’m not the unconnected piece you want to make me.”
“Anna’s dead.”
Yes, she was. It had taken him a long time—too long—to really accept that. To finally grieve and let go. Maybe it was only now that he was even getting there, but if he could count himself truly healed that meant every mention of her couldn’t put his back up. “Yes, Anna’s dead. How does he know you’re not? We’re not?”
“I don’t know. I intend to find out.”
“You need a pilot.” He pointed at himself.
“Yeah, one who’ll drop me off and let me do what I need to do. Not play babysitter and try to make this about him and his dead wife.”
A barb she knew would land, and God help him, he couldn’t quite fight it off. “Get in the plane, Shay. Before I make you.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“You aren’t yourself. You’re injured and still recovering. You need help. Now, you can pretend like you don’t, but it’s only going to get you killed before you even land.” He held up a hand. “And before you argue with me, understand that punch didn’t even hurt. I damn well wish it had, but it didn’t. You hiked, what, a mile? And could barely catch your breath. I’ve been where you are, Shay. I know how much it weakens you. You need someone. If it’s not going to be me, pick your poison. But someone.”
She stood there, utterly still. Granger did the same, and he worked hard to keep his shoulders relaxed, to breathe instead of hold his breath. Why wouldn’t she choose someone else? That Lindstrom guy she’d brought into North Star a few months ago could fly well enough, and was big and capable of handling whatever Shay waded into.
But this was about Vianni. It was about all they’d escaped ten years ago. It was about their pasts.
“What about your dogs?” she asked.
“I took them out to Reece’s place.”
She eventually let the bag slide off her shoulder and land with a thump on the ground. “I’m not going to Chicago,” she said, strain evident in her voice.
“I didn’t say you were.” He grabbed her bag and tossed it in the plane. “You’re going to the Vianni compound in Idaho. The one you’ve been researching for two years, and just found the exact coordinates to...what was it? Thursday?”
She didn’t look surprised that he knew it. Just resigned. Tired.
“I’ll let you fly me there, but you’ll stay back. Let me handle this my way. I’ll call in backup if I need it, but—”
“No,” Granger said firmly, warring with his own temper and impatience. “We do this together.”
“I get that you think because of Anna you have some connection to all this. But this is about me and Frankie. You’re a pawn, maybe. Just like Anna was in the end. Don’t fall for it twice, Granger.”
“We do this together,” he repeated. “That’s the beginning and end of it. You can be pissy about it, bring Anna up as much as you want, but it doesn’t change a damn thing. Vianni knows who and what we are and have been, and we need to stop whoever is left of that family before anyone else we care about is put in danger. Nothing else matters. Not your pride. Not your fears. That’s what got you shot.”
She quirked a brow. “Oh, is that what got me shot?”
“Yeah, it is. I know. I’ve been there. Remember? You’re lucky they didn’t get those explosives off like they did when they tried to take me out. You’d be dead.”
“You weren’t.”
“Close enough.” In more ways than one. “Get in the plane, Shay. And on the way, get used to the fact that we’re partners now. Full stop.”
Copyright © 2022 by Nicole Helm