Chapter 4 - The Painted Lie
The library on the ground floor smelled of polished wood, leather-bound books, and the sudden, sharp scent of Taryn Vail’s panic.
She sat on the edge of a velvet settee, wrapped in an oversized cashmere sweater that Beckett had bought for her three weeks ago.
Her blonde hair was unbrushed, and her blue eyes were red and swollen from crying.
When Beckett walked into the room, she sprang to her feet, rushing toward him with outstretched arms.
"Beckett! Oh God, Beckett, I was so scared!" she cried, attempting to bury her face into his chest.
Beckett did not catch her.
He caught her by the wrists instead, his grip firm enough to stop her forward momentum instantly, though not tight enough to bruise.
The coolness of his touch made her freeze.
"Sit down, Taryn," he said softly.
"Beckett, what’s wrong?" she asked, her voice trembling with manufactured innocence.
"The guards wouldn't let me leave the safe house."
"They treated me like a prisoner!"
"They wouldn't even let me charge my phone!"
"I told them to do that," Beckett said, walking over to the fireplace where cold ashes sat undisturbed from the night before.
"Why would you do that?" she asked, tears spilling down her carefully contoured cheeks.
"After what happened last night?"
"After that horrible woman attacked me in front of all your friends?"
Beckett turned around so quickly that Taryn gasped and shrank back into the cushions.
"Do not call her that," Beckett said, his voice dropping an octave into a register that made even hardened killers look at the floor.
"Do not speak her name in this house."
Taryn swallowed hard, her lower lip quivering.
"Beckett, she slapped me!"
"You saw it!"
"You protected me!"
"I protected a lie," Beckett said, pulling a folded slip of paper from his pocket and tossing it onto the low table between them.
It was a bank deposit slip, timestamped three days before the anniversary.
Taryn glanced down at the paper, and the color vanished from her face so completely that her foundation looked like chalk.
"What is this?" she whispered.
"That is a wire transfer for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Beckett explained calmly.
"It was sent from an offshore shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands to an account belonging to your sister in Denver."
"The funds cleared forty-eight hours before you walked into my ballroom and told my wife that the first drink should be strong enough to make bad decisions look reasonable."
Taryn’s hands began to shake violently.
"I don't know what you're talking about—"
"I bought your silence sixteen years ago, Taryn," Beckett said, taking a step toward her.
"I bought your apartment, your car, your jewelry, and every lie you ever told me about how much you loved me."
"I was arrogant enough to believe that a woman twenty years younger than me actually cared about an aging gangster."
"I wanted to feel young again, and that vanity made me blind."
"Beckett, please—"
"Who gave you that quote, Taryn?" Beckett interrupted, leaning down until his eyes were level with hers.
"Who told you about the roadside bar in Maine?"
"Who told you about the champagne?"
"I never told you that story."
"I never shared that with anyone."
Taryn began to sob uncontrollably, curling into a ball on the velvet sofa.
"He said you wouldn't hurt me," she wept, covering her face with her manicured hands.
"He said you were wrapped around my finger!"
"He said if I created a scene at the party, if I made her lose her temper, you would choose me over her!"
"Who said that, Taryn?" Beckett roared, striking the wooden mantelpiece with his fist, the impact echoing like thunder in the cavernous room.
Taryn flinched violently, tears ruining her makeup.
"Julian!" she screamed.
"Julian Vance!"
"He approached me two months ago at the marina."
"He said he had photos of us together, that he would ruin my life if I didn't help him."
"Then he offered me money—more money than you ever gave me!"
"He told me all I had to do was make sure she walked out."
"He said she already wanted to leave, but she needed a reason that wouldn't make her look like a traitor to your captains!"
Beckett stood frozen, the horror of the realization crashing down upon him in suffocating waves.
Julian hadn't manipulated Laurel.
Laurel had manipulated Julian.
She had used Beckett’s mistress, Beckett’s vanity, and Beckett’s greatest enemy all at once.
She had let Julian believe he was orchestrating a coup, when in reality, she was using Julian’s private security, Julian’s cars, and Julian’s safe routes to escape the city with Beckett’s entire treasury.
She had played all three of them like instruments in an orchestra, and Beckett had provided the opening crescendo with a single, unforgivable slap.
"Get her out of my sight," Beckett said, not even looking at Taryn as Pierce stepped into the room.
"Beckett, please! What are you going to do to me?" Taryn screamed, clinging to the arm of the couch as Pierce took her by the elbow.
"Nothing," Beckett said, turning his back on her completely.
"You are not worth the bullet."
"Put her on a commercial flight to Denver, Pierce."
"If she ever enters this state again, bury her."
Taryn was dragged from the library, her desperate apologies fading down the hallway until the heavy doors clicked shut once more.
Silence reclaimed the room, thick and suffocating.
Beckett walked over to the tall windows overlooking the expansive gardens.
Outside, the rain had finally stopped, leaving the gray morning sky hanging low over the manicured hedges.
Laurel had designed those gardens herself.
She had planted the English roses, built the stone terraces, and spent hours sitting on the marble bench reading while he conducted bloody business inside these very walls.
He had thought she was safe here.
He had thought he was protecting her from the brutality of his life.
He had never understood that she had stayed not because she was helpless, but because she had loved him enough to bear the burden of his sins alongside him.
Until last night.
His phone buzzed on the mantelpiece.
It was not Pierce, and it was not an encrypted alert from his captains.
It was a direct notification from his private courier service downtown.
May you like
A package had just been delivered to the front desk of the Shaw Tower in the financial district, marked strictly personal and urgent for Mr. Beckett Shaw.
The sender's address was listed simply as: *The Roadside Bar, Highway 1.*
