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  BLACKLIST

  Copyright © 2020 by Geneva Lee.

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Quaintrelle Publishing + Media

  www.GenevaLee.com

  First published, 2020.

  Elec. ISBN: 978-1-945163-41-8

  Cover design © Date Book Designs.

  Image © alesgon/Adobe Stock.

  In Memory of Trish

  Contents

  1. Sterling

  2. Adair

  3. Sterling

  4. Sterling

  Five Years in the Past

  5. Adair

  6. Sterling

  7. Adair

  8. Adair

  Present Day

  9. Sterling

  10. Adair

  11. Sterling

  12. Adair

  13. Sterling

  14. Sterling

  The Past

  15. Adair

  16. Sterling

  Present Day

  17. Adair

  18. Sterling

  19. Sterling

  The Past

  20. Adair

  Present Day

  21. Sterling

  22. Adair

  The Past

  23. Adair

  Present Day

  24. Sterling

  Present Day

  25. Sterling

  The Past

  26. Adair

  Present Day

  27. Adair

  THE PAST

  28. Sterling

  Present Day

  29. Sterling

  THE PAST

  30. Adair

  Present Day

  31. Adair

  The Past

  32. Sterling

  Present Day

  33. Sterling

  The Past

  34. Adair

  Present Day

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Geneva Lee

  1

  Sterling

  Rain splatters the succession of black Mercedes-Benzes and Bentleys arriving at the cemetery. Everyone in attendance pulled their most somber sedans out of the garage this morning. There are no flashy red coupes or ostentatious sport utility vehicles today. Rich people know how to put on a show, and today is all about show. But despite the dark clothes and the umbrellas, not a single tear rolls down a single face as attendees climb out of their cars and make their way toward his grave site. The rain cares more than anyone present, myself included.

  A woman stumbles, her heel catching in the mud, and my arm shoots out to break her fall. She glances up, murmuring thanks. Everything is gray around us—the sky, the rain, the headstones. Even her copper hair looks almost silver in the clouded light. The world is a hundred muted shades of nothing, except her eyes. They are bright glittering emeralds against the day’s gloom. Even after five years, I’d know them anywhere. A lot has changed. I’ve changed. Maybe she has, too. But those eyes are the same.

  Nothing registers on her face as she turns to accept the hand of her companion. He leads her to the front of the crowd, where she belongs. With them.

  I skipped the service and the viewing. I’m not here to pay my respects. I came to see him put in the ground. I came to smell the dirt as it hits his coffin and seals the fate of the MacLaine family. Business can be attended to later. I want the pleasure of watching a man fade to nothing but a legacy—a legacy I intend to destroy. But that’s not the real reason I’m here. It’s a perk that I made it back to town in time for the funeral.

  A priest says a few words. The rain continues to fall. When the ceremonial dirt hits the coffin, I’m watching the redhead. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t look away. I guess she didn’t change after all.

  Adair MacLaine.

  The only woman I’ve ever loved.

  That bitch? She’s the real reason I came back.

  An hour later, I pull into the paved, circular drive of Windfall, the MacLaine family estate, and hand the keys of my Aston Martin to a parking attendant. Judging by the slight bulge protruding from the left side of his cheap blazer, he’s doubling as security. He scopes out the Vanquish appreciatively before his eyes skim over my Italian wool suit, pausing at the Breitling on my wrist and sweeping to the black Berlutis on my feet. Nodding toward the house, he steps to the side. It seems the only identification they’re checking is material status.

  That’s a mistake.

  Mourners are distracted. Some by grief. Some by a preoccupation with social responsibility. The MacLaines suffer from the latter.

  People hosting a funeral have blind spots. Ever wanted to see inside someone’s house? A funeral is a perfect opportunity. Thieves, paparazzi, and assassins all know it’s an in. Need to get to a high value target? Kill someone close, but easier to reach, and wait for their funeral.

  Not that I killed Angus MacLaine. Even though I would have liked to. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

  The former senator had no shortage of enemies. Some he’d made on his own. Others he had inherited along with the family newspaper empire. For every legitimate bit of journalism he had, he owned ten tabloids. His television networks ran more propaganda than an army recruitment office.

  But it wasn’t his business practices that made me hate him—although they didn’t help his case. It’s that he was a soulless son of a bitch. Maybe he’d had a heart at some point, but he sold it for a fortune that amassed five billion dollars. Then he’d gone to Washington to protect it at all costs, like his father before him. That was then. This is now. And I’m the devil come to collect.

  A smile crooks across my face as I survey the kingdom I’m about to take. The MacLaine estate sprawls as far as I can see in every direction. Thirty years ago, Angus MacLaine built it for a couple million dollars. Today it’s worth ten times that, and yesterday I bought the lien on it. I read once in an interview that he wanted his family home to recall the glory of the Old South without all the baggage of the past. I assume he meant slavery and the Civil War. It was just like a MacLaine to believe he could simply erase a problem. The architect had managed the feat, creating an estate that occupies fifty acres in Valmont, Tennessee—the most prestigious enclave outside Nashville. Stone columns rise from the veranda to support a second story porch that runs the length of the main house’s front. Unlike traditional antebellum homes, the house extends to wings on each side. The east wing houses the family bedrooms and private areas—places I was once not allowed to enter. The west wing is comprised of a solarium that empties into the grounds. Those are completely blocked by the behemoth white mansion, but I know it won’t have changed. Past the outdoor kitchen waits a swimming pool, tiled in Venetian glass. His and hers pool houses offer a much needed, if entirely bullshit, air of propriety. Then there’s the tennis court, and, if you walk far enough, stables that shelter the family horses.

  I don’t give a fuck about the house, though. Or its tennis court. Or its swimming pool. I’m not here for the modern art coveted by collectors throughout the world. I’ll sell all of it, eventually. Just not yet. That’s the difference between reciprocity and revenge. Reciprocity evens the score. Revenge, when done correctly, is slow, like lovemaking. It lingers. It builds. It lacquers pain, coat by coat, until you crack.

  I’m in the business of vengeance.

  The inside of Win
dfall is more extravagant. MacLaine was unfamiliar with the concept of too much. Most American homes could be parked on the marble floor inside the foyer. The ground floor boasts all the standard rooms—the dining room, a sitting room, the kitchen—and then some: a ballroom, the staff kitchen, the breakfast room, a gentlemen’s parlor, and God knows what else. I stare for a moment at the split staircase that curves toward the upper rooms, remembering the first time I set foot in this hellhole. Adjusting my tie, I swallow the thought into the pit I use for past memories.

  MacLaine would be pleased at the turnout, even if half the people here despised the bastard. People you’d recognize from Forbes magazine covers or television, if anyone still watches it, mill throughout the ground floor. It’s a sea of black, groups moving in surges from one empty conversation to the next as easily as they run through the canapés.

  A man near the bar glances in my direction, his face blanching paper-white. I’ve been recognized. Not that he’ll tell anyone who I am. Then he’d have to admit that he knew me—that he knows what I do. I move past him without a second glance. He won’t be any trouble—and I have bigger prey to hunt.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” an older gentleman says when I pause in the dining room.

  I know who he is, but I feign ignorance. He wouldn’t appreciate it if I told him we were acquainted. Not Mr. Moneybags who paid to have the barrier to his takeover of his largest competitor permanently removed last year. No, he wouldn’t want me to tell him that we’ve worked together distantly. Not in such a public gathering of self-proclaimed people of importance. Instead, I shake his hand, locking my grip firmly. Statement enough.

  “Sterling.” I’m not listening when he introduces himself. My thoughts are elsewhere in this house, memories warring with desire as I wait for her to make an appearance.

  “What do you do?” he asks.

  “Asset management.” I snag toast with caviar off a passing tray and pop it into my mouth.

  “What firm? My man is retiring…” he continues on and I resist the urge to walk away. Death can’t stop networking. Not with people like this.

  “I’m a private contractor.”

  He waits for more information—maybe a business card. I don’t offer any. So like a good member of the greatest generation he fills the void between us with mindless market chatter. I nod enough to look like I’m listening—and then I feel it—feel her—approaching. The room is electric, humming with the undercurrent of static building toward a strike—and the inevitable crash.

  2

  Adair

  This isn’t happening.

  My mother once told me that having MacLaine blood running through your veins meant being able to walk through fire like you set it on purpose. Given how often MacLaines start shit, it’s a valuable skill to have. Today, though, even in the pouring rain, I felt the heat the moment he touched me. It burned through me like wildfire. That’s how it had always been with us. No one was responsible for the devastation. It was an act of God, some natural force that couldn’t be prevented once it started. There was no controlling it. No denying it. All I could do the moment our eyes met was turn away and hope I made it out unscathed. Unlike last time.

  That’s the thing about being a MacLaine, we may walk through fire but that means we’re all hiding scars.

  The moment the limousine pulls into the drive, I’m out and up the steps. I don’t have to go far to find a bottle of bourbon. Not at Windfall, the family estate my father built. My finger traces the label. West Tennessee Whiskey. My father’s favorite. I pour a glass with unsteady hands, hoping to wash the memories away.

  “It’s been five years,” I remind myself quietly. But while five years might be long enough to bury secrets, it can’t erase mistakes.

  The house will be full of people soon. Mourners come to pay their respects, or rather gossip about my father and his fortune. They’re here to play the guessing game torturing the rest of us: who gets the money? The land? The company? What will happen to the MacLaine legacy? It’s all I’ve thought about for months. Years, if I’m being honest. Ever since daddy got sick. Ever since…

  And then? Sterling Ford shows up at the funeral.

  Which can only mean one thing: a reckoning.

  I tried to play off the encounter. Five years had passed. Neither of us were kids anymore. I’m not certain I’ve changed much. At least, not as much as him. When I first met him, Sterling was a lean but wiry six feet. At the time I’d wondered if he was an athlete, but his physique then had come from a very different source.

  “Maybe it wasn’t him,” I say to the empty room, even it doesn’t believe me. I know it was him like I know I’m breathing.

  A shiver rolls through me as the memory of his skin, slick and hot against mine, flashes to mind. My body had recognized him before my brain did. He’s no longer the boy I remember, but I would know him anywhere. I am chills and fire—a feverish reconstruction of the woman I was when I woke up this morning mixed with a girl who fell for the wrong man. I knew today would be the end of me. I thought I might have a choice in who I would become after this. Now I know I was wrong. We never really rid ourselves of the past, no matter how deep we bury it.

  “Adair!”

  I quickly down the remaining whiskey. I know my sister-in-law’s voice by the edge of perpetual panic it holds.

  Taking a steadying breath, I leave the bottle on my father’s desk. Exiting the study, I find Ginny in the foyer, struggling to hold a squirming heap of black taffeta and limbs.

  “Could you?” Desperation glints in her chocolate brown eyes. “I need to speak to the caterer.”

  “Of course.” I scoop my niece from her arms. Ellie instantly ceases her struggle, smirking up at me.

  “Ellie, keep your skirt down,” her mother orders before smoothing her own black sheath. Ginny can’t stand a wrinkle out of place. Her copper hair is knotted into a chignon, not a hair daring to escape the tight coil. Her porcelain skin is buffed to perfection, a complimentary shade of rose dusting her cheeks. She is exactly the trophy my brother wanted on his arm. The only kink in her life is Ellie, who was born a bundle of determined chaos. She hurries off toward the kitchens, patting her perfect hair delicately as she goes.

  I place the little girl on her feet, bending down to talk to her. Unlike her mother, Ellie’s strawberry blonde curls are tangled and windswept. I frown as I recall the argument I had with her parents last night. I told them she was too young to attend the graveside service. With them it’s always about appearance. How would it look if Angus MacLaine’s granddaughter were absent? I’d nearly bit my tongue off trying to keep quiet. Now Ginny is put out that Ellie was misbehaving. “You were pulling up your skirt?”

  “Watch,” she tells me seriously. Taking a baby step back, she holds out her arms and spins in a wild circle. Her dress flares out, rippling around her as she twirls.

  “Very nice.” I clap as she slows, dizzily stumbling over her own feet like she’s had too much to drink. I steady her and smile down at her. “Whoa. That’s pretty cool, but do you know why Mom doesn’t want you to do that?”

  “Cause it’s granddaddy’s fumeral.” Her eyebrows crease together like she’s been through this before and recently. She tips her head, her gaze full of questions and I brace myself. “What’s a fumeral?”

  “Funeral,” I correct her gently. I always get stuck with the hard questions where Ellie is concerned. “It means goodbye.”

  “Why are all these people here for goodbye?” She holds up her hands to emphasize how everything about this is weird. “Why can’t we just wave to him when he goes?”

  I curse Ginny for not having this conversation with her. This is supposed to be her job. She’s her mother. I know what will happen if I bring it up. She’ll flutter like a wounded bird and tell me that Ellie doesn’t ask her those things. We’ve been here before. There’s no point bringing it up. Ginny and I aren’t exactly close. Not anymore.

  “He already left,” I t
ell her softly, “and this is a party for us to remember him.”

  “Is there cake?” she asks hopefully.

  Ellie might wait to ask me questions, but clearly that doesn’t mean I’m any good at answering them. If Ginny could skirt the issue, so could I. “Probably.”

  A grin lights up her baby face, then falls away. “He left? Do you miss him?”

  Ellie’s earlier questions were tricky. This one coils around my heart and squeezes. It takes me a moment to answer, because I’m not sure. She waits patiently and I know what I should say. “Yes.”

  “We should find cake,” she says gravely, “so we feel better.”

  “It’s a plan.” I take her small hand in my mine. It’s warm and soft, thawing some of the ice that’s encased my heart since this morning. It’s hard to focus on the bad when she’s nearby and full of life.

  That positivity leaks from me like a slowly deflating balloon when I enter the sitting room, hand in hand with Ellie, and see him. Up until now, I hoped I had seen a ghost. I don’t realize I’ve dropped her hand until she tugs at my sleeve impatiently. Her hand slips back inside mine but this time it doesn’t feel comforting. It feels like an anchor—another family obligation binding me to this house.

  He’s in our adjoining room, strong hands gripping the back of a mahogany dining room, discussing something with an older man, some friend of my father’s. I try not to stare but I can’t help drinking him in, looking for some clue as to why he’s here. When I first met Sterling, I wondered how he was so muscular compared to other guys our age. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for him to fill out even more. Before, he was formidable. Now? He’s intimidating. Even from here, I know his suit was custom tailored to fit his broad shoulders. The dark swirl of a tattoo peeks out from the cuff of his sleeve. That’s new. Gone is the sweep of black hair in favor of a crew cut that showcases the hard set of jawline and slight stubble. I watch as he lifts his hand and rubs it across his chin. The world seems to slow as his gaze flickers from his companion, across the room, and lands on me. His index finger pauses on his mouth and I can almost swear I see his teeth nip his lower lip.