Page 297 of The Lies We Play

To obtain all that, Fitz needs the federal package and that security company’s report to file the supplemental affidavits. The federal package came in yesterday. The company sent the rest earlier today.

Sunday morning, I will be in more danger than I was after the accident.

If only I could remember.

“The last thing I need is for either one of you to be in danger,” I say, looking at him because looking away would make it smaller, and this is not small.

Creed’s face changes.

His eyes go colder than his voice.

“I’ve been waiting for them to kill me,” he says. “But I’ve been careful to stay away so they don’t do anything to my family.”

I open my mouth.

Close it.

Then I finally ask, “What do you mean?”

He looks at the half-finished tape job on his hand. For a second, I think he won’t answer.

Then he does.

“I did my best to reach out to you,” he says. “At first, they pushed me not to have contact. Legal noise. People showing up. Messages through channels that should have stayed private. Then there were notes left for the doorman at my building. No envelope. No return address. No fingerprint anyone could match. Calls too. Nothing traceable. Same general structure every time.”

He swallows.

“Stop searching for Liv, or you’ll be next. Stop harassing the Saint Claires. Halston is off limits. Continue, and your family pays.”

“Creed.” My voice comes out wrong.

He looks up.

“The most recent one was three months ago,” he says. “It named Vesper, my sister, and my niece, Vienna.”

His mouth tightens around the little girl’s name.

“That baby girl is . . .” He stops, and for the first time since I walked in, the controlled man in front of me almost disappears. “I’d die for her. Same as I would for you and Liv. I tried to let things go even when it killed me.”

I narrow my gaze. “But you didn’t.”

He shakes his head. “Not entirely.”

“Why?”

His eyes meet mine.

“I had hope.”

Hope.

For ten years, this man has kept a hand around a possibility so small it probably cut him every time he touched it.

“There were others about Luther,” Creed says. “Two specifically about his contract. One about an injury they said would happen at a Boston game. It didn’t happen, but it came close. There was one about my father at the camp after Christmas one year. Accidents happen on rural roads.”

He gives a short laugh. It is ugly.

“I just handed every note to Fitz.”