Private Deal

  Nana Malone

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Morgan

  Chapter 2

  Lance

  Chapter 3

  Morgan

  Chapter 4

  Lance

  Chapter 5

  Morgan

  Chapter 6

  Morgan

  Chapter 7

  Morgan

  Chapter 8

  Lance

  Chapter 9

  Morgan

  Chapter 10

  Morgan

  Chapter 11

  Morgan

  Chapter 12

  Morgan

  Chapter 13

  Morgan

  Chapter 14

  Lance

  Chapter 15

  Lance

  Chapter 16

  Morgan

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Lance

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Lance

  21. Morgan

  22. Lance

  Chapter 23

  Morgan

  24. Lance

  25. Lance

  26. Morgan

  27. Lance

  28. Morgan

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  One

  Morgan

  The cemetery looked like something out of a noir novel.

  Gray sky, drizzling rain that couldn't decide if it wanted to be actual drops or just aggressive mist.

  The kind of weather that made you question life choices. I'd twisted my boho braids and piled them on top of my head to keep them away from my ever-present tears.

  The headstones stretched out in neat rows, some old enough to have weathered into illegibility, others shiny and new like Lance's.

  Green grass, soggy from the rain, squished under our feet as we gathered around the hole in the ground that was supposed to swallow my husband forever.

  Pain stabbed inside my chest like a dagger. He was gone. That fucker had actually left me. After everything he'd promised. Anger writhed and collided with my agony.

  He was a lying liar who lied.

  He'd promised me forever. Liar.

  He died. He didn't leave you.

  Either way, I was alone, wasn't I?

  Alone and cold, as if I would never be warm again.

  The stout funeral director approached.

  He had kind eyes and ruddy cheeks and looked far too happy to be a funeral director. That was the first thing I noticed when he approached me with his practiced sympathy smile.

  "Mrs. Lakewood, if you need anything at all⁠—"

  "I'm fine," I said through clenched teeth, not wanting to hear the false sympathy.

  I wasn't fine. I was the furthest thing from fine that a human being could be while still breathing. But I'd perfected the art of lying through my teeth over the past week.

  I walked, and I responded to questions. I pushed food around my plate when it was offered.

  It was the best I could manage.

  I watched Atticus, Pierce, Rowan, Gavin, Micah, and Devon carry Lance's casket from the hearse to the graveside. Five men who'd been part of his life, one who was part of mine, shoulders squared against the drizzle, faces set in grim determination. Devon was here for me, really, but he'd respected Lance.

  They moved in perfect synchronization, as if they’d practiced .

  The whole burial, I was in a daze, clutching his watch in my palm, the metal warm from my grip. The steady tick, tick, tick was the only sound that made sense anymore.

  I scanned the small crowd gathered around the grave. Friends. Colleagues who'd worked with him. But no family but us, the family he’d made.

  No sign of Hector. Hector DuLac. Lance's so-called brother. The deep rage hit me so suddenly I almost staggered.

  Where the fuck was he now? Couldn't even show up when his family's attempt on my life had killed his own brother?"

  "Morgan, honey, you should sit down." Gwen's voice was soft behind me. Worried. She'd been using that tone for a week now, like I might shatter if she spoke too loudly.

  Maybe I would. What the hell did I know? All I knew was he was gone, and I didn't want to be here anymore. I tried to give her some grace though. She was hurting too. The only way she knew to deal with her own grief was to take care of me.

  But sometimes I heard her crying in the bathroom.

  This wasn't like when Mom died. I wasn't a kid who needed my older sister. A kid whose grief made it impossible to function. I had full robot capabilities.

  "I'm fine," I repeated, because those seemed to be the only words I had left.

  The watch kept ticking. Each second marking time in a world that no longer included Lance.

  He'd given it to me that night at the hospital when I was spiraling after the co-op attack. Watch time pass to heal wounds.

  Apparently, some wounds were too big for time to fix.

  "The service is about to start." Atticus appeared at my other side, all protective big brother energy. He'd been hovering for days, like he thought I might disappear too.

  I almost wanted to. Disappearing sounded peaceful compared to this gut-wrenching pain.

  The priest began speaking, but his words washed over me like white noise. Something about Lance being taken too soon. About the love he'd found. About the family he'd chosen.

  They had no idea what they were talking about.

  None of them knew that Lance Lakewood had spent his whole life running from his family's legacy. That he'd built himself into someone new, someone good, only to have his grandfather's violence finally catch up with him.

  That he'd died because he loved me.

  "He was a good man," someone whispered behind me.

  "Such a tragedy," another voice added.

  "That poor girl."

  I wanted to turn around and scream at them. Lance wasn't just good. He was extraordinary. He was complicated and dangerous and gentle and mine, and they were reducing him to funeral platitudes.

  But I didn't scream. I stood there in my black dress—the one Lance had bought me months ago because he said it made my eyes look like amber fire—and let them talk.

  The watch kept ticking.

  I caught sight of Micah across the grave, his eyes hidden behind glasses, but I could see the pain there. He'd loved Lance too, in that complicated way men loved their chosen brothers.

  We were all just casualties in Charles DuLac's war. And casualties of Hector's betrayal.

  "Morgan." Gwen's hand touched my arm. "They're asking if you want to say something."

  Say something. About Lance. To a crowd of people who thought they knew him.

  "No."

  My voice came out steady. Controlled. Like I was declining coffee instead of eulogizing the love of my life.

  Gwen squeezed my arm. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

  But that was the problem, wasn't it? I wanted to do everything. I wanted to scream and rage and tear this cemetery apart with my bare hands. I wanted to bring Lance back. I wanted to go back to that morning when he'd kissed me goodbye and told me he was just running to get croissants.

  I wanted many things I couldn't have.

  The service continued around me. Gwen stood up first, her voice shaking as she talked about Lance. Then Atticus, his words steady but pained. Pierce said something about respect. Rowan and Gavin spoke together about brotherhood. Their voices blurred together, a distant hum I couldn't quite process through the static in my head.

  None of them mentioned that he'd been trained as an assassin before he was old enough to drive. That he'd spent ten years building a new identity. That he'd married me to protect me from his family, then fallen in love for real.

  That he'd died because Charles DuLac was a monster who couldn't stand to lose his weapons. And because Hector DuLac was part of the family that had hunted him down.

  The watch ticked steadily against my palm.

  "We'll now have a moment of silence," the priest announced.

  The quiet was suffocating. Dozens of people were trying not to breathe too loudly while I stood there, drowning in the absence of Lance's laugh. His voice. The way he said my name like it was something sacred.

  Spitfire.

  I'd never hear that again.

  The silence stretched on, and I realized people were waiting for me to break. To cry. To show some sign that I was grieving properly.

  But I couldn't cry. Not here. Not with all these eyes on me, waiting for a show.

  I'd cried enough in private. I'd screamed into pillows and punched walls and curled up on our bathroom floor, breathing in the lingering scent of his cologne.

  This wasn't the place for that grief. This was a performance.

  "Let us pray," the priest said finally.

  I didn't pray. I held Lance's watch and remembered instead.

  The way he'd looked at me that first night at the Westhorpe Hotel, like I was something worth burning the world down for.

  The way he'd traced my face in the dark, memorizing me.

  The way he'd promised me transparency and given me his whole self, even the parts that scared him.

  The way he'd whispered "this feels real" at our wedding, like he couldn't quite believe we'd found each other.

  The way he'd kissed me goodbye that last morning, soft and sweet and completely ordinary.

  "Amen," the crowd murmured.

  People started moving. Talking. Planning reception logistics and shari
ng condolences. The business of death continued around me while I stood frozen, watching them lower Lance's empty casket into the ground.

  "Morgan, honey, we should go." Gwen's voice was soft behind me as people began to disperse.

  I didn't move. Couldn't move. Leaving felt like abandoning him all over again.

  "I'm not ready."

  "I know, but we need to get you somewhere safe⁠—"

  "Safe?" I laughed, the sound bitter and broken. "He's dead because of me, Gwen. Because someone put a bomb in my car, and he happened to be the one driving it."

  "Morgan—"

  "It should have been me in that car. It should have been me who died, not him." The words tasted like ash. "So don't talk to me about keeping me safe. I don't deserve to be safe."

  Gwen's eyes filled with tears. "That's not true."

  "Isn't it? Lance is dead because someone wanted to kill me. Because I made him a target just by existing." I turned back to the grave. "The least I can do is not give a damn about my own safety."

  The irony wasn't lost on me. For months, Lance had been terrified that loving me would get me killed. Turned out, me loving him had gotten him killed instead.

  "Cmon, sweetheart," Gwen's voice was gentle. "It’s time."

  I wasn't ready for anything. Not the reception, not going home to our empty loft, not the rest of my life without Lance in it.

  But I nodded anyway, because that's what widows did. They moved forward even when it felt impossible.

  As we walked away from the grave, people pressed my hands and murmured things I didn't hear. Sam, who used to work for my sister, was holding an umbrella and wearing a sad smile, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. Their faces blurred together into a sea of sympathy I didn't want.

  At the cemetery gates, I finally looked back.

  I pressed Lance's watch against my chest, feeling its steady tick against my heart—the only thing left that still moved like he was alive, while rain continued to fall on the grave where we'd buried an empty box and all my dreams.

  2 Weeks Later…

  The Egyptian cotton sheets were twisted around my legs like I'd been fighting something in my sleep.

  Probably had been.

  The guest room at Gwen and Atticus's penthouse was all cream and gold, expensive and soft.

  Nothing like the warm chaos of the loft Lance and I had shared. Afternoon light slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long shadows across my untouched sketchbooks stacked on the pristine white desk. Everything here was perfect. Clean. Empty.

  The dream had woken me again.

  The same one I'd been having every night since the explosion. Lance in our kitchen, making coffee in that stupid Batman mug I'd bought him as a joke. Humming under his breath while he moved around our space.

  Like he was still with me.

  In the dream, I could smell his cologne. Feel the warmth of his skin when he wrapped his arms around me from behind. Hear him whisper, "Good morning, Spitfire," against my neck.

  Then I'd wake up in Gwen and Atticus's guest room, and the loss would hit me all over again. Fresh and brutal and gut-twisting.

  I hadn't slept more than two hours at a time since it happened.

  A sound made me look up. Gwen stood in the doorway holding a plate. "Morgan, you need to eat something."

  It smelled like Magda's cooking. Something with herbs and love and all the things that were supposed to make you feel better.

  It was like ash in my nose.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "You haven't eaten since yesterday morning."

  "I'm fine."

  Gwen studied my face with that worried expression she'd been wearing for days. I probably looked like hell. My boho braids were tangled because I couldn't bring myself to care about brushing them. My eyes were swollen from crying. I'd been living in pajamas because real clothes felt like too much effort.

  Everything felt like too much effort.

  "Adele called. She couldn't reach you on your phone," Gwen said carefully. "She obviously understands, but she'd like to know if you'll be coming into meetings on your collection."

  I turned away from her. "Handle it."

  "Morgan—"

  "I can't." My voice came out raw. "Buy me time. Just... handle it."

  Gwen set the plate on the nightstand, right next to the box of Lance's things. His watch was sitting beside it, ticking steadily. I'd been carrying it around like a talisman, but even that felt too heavy today.

  "What's in the box?" she asked gently.

  I looked at the cardboard container Pierce had brought over yesterday from the loft. Pictures of us tucked behind his credit cards, books and his journals.

  "His journals. The box is full of them. I've never been able to read them."

  Gwen's eyes softened. "Oh, honey."

  "I can't." My voice cracked on the words. "I can't read or look at them."

  "You don't have to. Not yet."

  But I did have to. Eventually. Because they were the last piece of him left, and I was greedy for any part of Lance I could still touch.

  Gwen sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle me. "Atticus is handling the legal stuff. The will, the accounts, the business transfers. You don't have to worry about any of that."

  I nodded without really hearing her. Lance had always been methodical about that kind of thing. Organized. Like he'd been preparing for this possibility his whole life.

  Maybe he had been. Maybe when you grew up in a family like his, you learned early that death could come at any moment.

  "I should go back to the loft," I said eventually.

  "No." Gwen's voice was firm. "You're staying here until you're ready."

  "I'll never be ready."

  "Then you're staying here forever."

  The certainty in her voice almost made me smile. Almost. But smiling felt wrong when Lance would never smile again.

  "I keep expecting him to walk through the door," I whispered. "Like this is all some elaborate game. Like he's going to appear and tell me it was all fake."

  Gwen's hand found mine. "I know."

  A sob tore from y throat. "'I'm so angry with him for leaving me."

  "I know, honey. Me too."

  The anger felt good for about half a second before it collapsed back into grief. "And I hate myself for being mad at him because he's dead and I should just miss him, not be furious that he left me."

  "You can be both. Grief isn't neat and tidy."

  After she left, I stared at the journal for another hour. Black leather, worn at the edges from Lance's hands. He didn't write in it all the time, but sometimes he'd pull it out. I knew it was a way for him to process his thoughts.

  I'd called him a secret romantic for keeping a diary.

  He'd just smiled and said some thoughts were too important to trust to memory.

  The afternoon light was fading when I finally worked up the courage to open it. My hands shook as I lifted the cover.

  The first entry was dated right after he'd forced me to move in with him.

  She's sleeping next to me, and I can't stop watching her breathe. Funny how something so simple can be the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Morgan has no idea that she saved me.

  My throat closed up. I almost shut the journal right there, but I couldn't stop reading.

  Today, she laughed at something Micah said, and the sound lit up the whole room. I used to think happiness was something other people got to have. Something I'd traded away a long time ago. But she makes me remember what it feels like to deserve good things.

  The entries went on. Page after page of Lance writing about us. About our fights and our makeup sessions, and the way I looked when I was concentrating on my designs.

  Morgan gets this little wrinkle between her eyebrows when she's frustrated with a pattern. She thinks I don't notice, but I notice everything about her. The way she hums when she's happy. The way she argues with me just to see my reaction. The way she trusts me, even when I haven't earned it.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks, dropping, then blurring the ink. But I kept reading.