Gray frowned. “Okay, I get that, but let’s say you get proof. What’s next? Treason is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible to prove. It’s not even prosecuted often. The burden is too high and in this case, I don’t see how you’ll meet it. Are you going after a murder charge? Several murder charges? What’s your endgame here?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “I don’t know how much proof will be enough, don’t exactly know what I’m looking for, I just know we need more. We need something to tie him to this.”

“Kate and I are going to meet with my father’s former employee tonight,” Matt added. “He’s the final link that I can think of. I’m going to press him harder, see if I can get him to turn over any proof or other details he might have.”

“Is that really safe?” Blair interjected.

“It’s not ideal, but I’m not leaving her by herself. She’s safer with me than she is on her own.”

I figured no one was going to argue with that point considering he looked scary intense right now. It was interesting to see him like this, utterly consumed by the mission. I’d seen so many versions of him throughout my life, and I loved each and every one of them. We’d grown up together, and even in the time when we’d been apart, we’d still become people who complemented each other, despite how much our experiences had differed.

“So let’s say you get proof. What happens then?” Blair asked, concern in her voice.

This was the hard part.

I took a deep breath. “We have to leave. We’ve talked about it, and even if we pin this to our father, this goes deeper than him. There will still be people out there who could be after us. We wouldn’t be safe. The world thinks Matt is dead, and right now it seems like the best thing is for him to stay that way.”

Blair’s gaze met mine. “And you?”

“Even if I wasn’t involved in this, even if I could get out, do you think I’d leave him?”

A moment passed between us and I waited for the fight, for Blair to try to convince me that I was making a mistake, for her to do her big-sister thing, but instead she just nodded, her hand finding Gray’s, and I realized that somewhere along the way, even through the rough patches, our relationship had changed. I’d been afraid that I’d ruined everything between us with my involvement in Capital Confessions, but I realized now that we’d both grown up and become better versions of ourselves. Sometimes it took some shaking up to realize what mattered most and who you should cling to.

“Where will you guys go?” Jackie asked.

“It’s probably better if you don’t know,” Matt answered, exchanging another one of those looks with Will and Gray. “We can work out a system to keep in touch—burner phones or something. I’ve used them before and they can be secure.”

“So we’ll never see each other again?” Blair asked. “This is just it?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, pain in my chest. “Maybe this will blow over. Maybe someone will nail him and everyone involved. But I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“We might be able to meet in neutral locations once this blows over,” Matt added. “We’re going to need to assume new identities. With Kate’s notoriety in D.C., coming back to town really isn’t an option anymore.” He grimaced. “And time is running out. Things are escalating dramatically with the explosion. The longer we stay in town, the more dangerous it becomes. I want to meet with this guy and then leave in the next couple of days.”

“Are you going to your father’s funeral?” Blair asked.

In all of the chaos, I hadn’t thought about the fact that his father’s funeral was today. It would be largely attended by the D.C. political elite, frequent inhabitants of the society pages, and the Forbes list. My father would be there, shaking hands. Hell, he’d probably deliver the eulogy.

Matt shook his head. “Wasn’t planning on it. Kind of hard to do when you’re dead.”

“You aren’t that recognizable with the beard.” Blair smiled. “Besides, I have a feeling you have some tricks up your sleeve when it comes to altering your appearance.”

“I said my good-byes a long time ago. There’s nothing left for me there anymore.”

“Your mother’s there.”

“I don’t exactly have anything to offer her, either. I’m not who I was and I can never be him again. She’ll be fine. She has friends, has her own life. She doesn’t need me.”

I was probably the only one who picked up on the way he ran the words together, as though he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and his family. He had so many emotions swirling around inside of him, and his parents were yet another wound that wasn’t quite patched up.

“Let’s get started,” I interjected, wanting to save Matt from having to talk about this any longer. As much as I knew he hadn’t come to any kind of resolution or peace where his family was concerned, I wasn’t sure going to his father’s funeral was the answer either.

Sometimes you had to break ties with the people who had hurt you in order to find peace. Sometimes it wasn’t the family you were born to, but the one you created that carried you through the rough patches. So I sat with the five people I considered my family and somehow, despite the chaos surrounding us, we laughed as we plotted and schemed a way out of the life I’d been born into.

Chapter Twenty

A crime wave has taken Washington D.C. by storm. We’re shocked by the rash of muggings and murders hitting D.C.’s elite. Is the heat spiking the crime wave or are there more nefarious forces at work?

Police found the body of a man …

—Capital Confessions blog

Matt

Blair’s comment about my father’s funeral stayed with me throughout most of the day as we went through the research Jackie had done, as Blair and Kate brainstormed for anything they could remember from their childhood that would help connect their father to Afghanistan, as we all attempted to figure out what our next move should be. The comment stayed with me after they left, and Kate and I dressed for the meeting, as I armed her and went over gun safety with her.

My mind should have been entirely on the task at hand, but instead it kept drifting … to memories of my childhood, the few times my father and I had bonded over one of my soccer games, the first time he’d ever taken me to his office and I’d seen where he worked and declared that one day I wanted to be just like him.

Maybe I should have gone to his funeral. I could have slipped in like I’d slipped into the house the night he was killed, could have managed a disguise. But I hadn’t. I didn’t feel like I was Matt Ryan anymore, like his life was mine. There was Kate, the thread between the two versions of us, and then just … nothing. And at the same time, miraculously, I didn’t feel lost anymore. It was as though hanging on to her was enough for now.

I didn’t know what my future entailed, didn’t know what kind of job I’d settle into, couldn’t really see beyond getting out of this mess we were in. But I was happy. I loved her. And even though our future looked nothing like the future we’d imagined when we were kids, it felt right. As though just having her by my side was enough. I wished I could have given her the things we’d once had, but even as the thought entered my mind, I remembered that this was Kate. She’d never cared about that stuff before, and somehow I couldn’t imagine her caring now.

“You’re distracted,” she murmured, no judgment in her tone, just the gentle prodding she seemed to have adopted around me.

I parked the car near the Lincoln Memorial, checking my watch. I opened my mouth to tell her that I wasn’t, but the truth came out instead.

“Yeah, I am. A bit. Sorry.”

“Was it what Blair said about your father’s funeral?”

I nodded. She knew me too well to bother pretending otherwise.