Cross Roads, page 23
She drew her arm away. “Thank you, Mr. Muller, but I’m late for another appointment.”
Recognizing a brush-off, the chief of staff stepped back, his features tight. She could still feel the arctic cold of his gaze when she shut the study door.
And looked straight into Rohan’s suspicious eyes.
49
“What are you doing here?” Lena asked, moving away from the study door.
Rohan took in her sexy-ass dress, shimmering hair, and sparkling jewels and experienced an intense desire to both kiss her senseless and throw his coat around her shoulders.
“Taking you home.” He braced himself for an argument, but she nodded her consent.
“My things are upstairs.”
Rohan sent a quick message to Phin as he followed Lena to the west wing of the mansion, where the family slept.
Once the partygoers’ voices receded, Lena asked, “Why are you here?”
“Kayla was concerned about you.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here. Your role in recovering the Catawnee was over the moment you delivered it to me.”
“Three people have died since I met you.”
“Three?”
“On my way over here,” Rohan said, as they entered a large feminine bedroom, “I got a phone call from the sheriff. Bobby Balor’s roommate found him dead about an hour ago. Strangled in his living room.”
“How long had he been dead?”
“The coroner’s estimating between two to three hours.”
Lena paused in the midst of gathering her clothes. Recalled the look that passed between Dean and Izzy. His reference to severing a connection. Her laugh. “Do you think the same person killed Ruthie and Xander?”
“I don’t know. If it was just the thief and the art dealer, I’d say someone is trying to cover their tracks. But I haven’t figured out how Ruthie plays into all of this.”
“Maybe she doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
A pained look crossed her face, and she shook her head. “I’m not sure.” She kicked out of her stilettos. “Turn around.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m naked beneath this ridiculous gown and I want to put on some underwear.”
“Wait until we get home.”
“It’ll only take a minute.”
“Lena, we don’t have—”
A feminine laugh sifted through the door before a tall, dark-haired woman in white entered. “Is this your first lover’s spat?”
Lena sighed. “Go away, Izzy.”
So this was the infamous Izzy DeCarlo. She was pretty, but Byrne had been an idiot to stray away from Lena for this hard-eyed woman.
Izzy’s gaze traveled over Rohan, and a low hum of appreciation vibrated in her throat. “Lena, you always were clueless when it came to guys. You should be fucking this one instead of arguing with him.”
Holding her mound of clothing against her chest, Lena moved to stand in front of him. With their height difference, Lena’s presence did nothing to prevent the other woman from looking her fill. But Lena’s attempt to protect him made his heart swell with an emotion he’d only come close to once before.
Love.
Somehow, this artistic spitfire of a woman had crawled into his chest and taken up residence in his heart. The realization should have scared the hell out of him, given his battle with the Collective, and maybe it did, a little.
But more than that, he wondered if she felt the same about him.
Lena’s gown left a good portion of her back bare. He rested his palm against the warm flesh of her right shoulder blade, hoping she’d interpret his touch as a gesture of solidarity and not him being an opportunistic perv.
“We’re leaving,” Lena said.
“Not until you and I have had our chat.”
“We’ve chatted enough.”
Izzy moved farther into the room, and a man entered behind her.
Rohan’s attention zeroed in on the newcomer. There was something familiar about him. “Dean?”
“They call him Desmond,” Lena said. “He’s part of Palmer’s security team—and Izzy’s pet dog.”
Desmond clenched his fists and stepped toward Lena.
Rohan lunged forward, forcing Lena behind him. “You like to hit women, do you, Des? Is that what happened to Ruthie? She wouldn’t give you what you wanted, so you showed her what happened to ladies who say no?”
“There’s the fire I adore,” Desmond said in a red velvet voice. “Beautiful, but you’re still holding back.” He brushed a fingertip along Rohan’s whiskered jaw. “Don’t.”
Rohan grabbed Desmond’s finger and bent it backward. “I won’t.” He exerted pressure until the other man’s body yielded to the pain, then he slammed a foot into Desmond’s chest, sending him crashing into the wall.
Desmond smiled as if the violent action was exactly what he’d wanted. He pushed off the wall and drew a gun from inside his coat. He didn’t point it at them, just let it hang from his hand at his side. A sick-fuck smile on his face.
Rohan split his attention between Desmond and Izzy. “Expect a visit from the sheriff.”
“I wouldn’t get the police involved, Rohan.” She purred out his name. “I’m not the worst predator Lena needs to fear.”
Desmond slanted a hard glance at Izzy.
“Lose the Seductive Bella act,” Lena said.
“Afraid I’ll turn his head, like I did Xander’s?”
Rohan opened his mouth to set her straight, when Lena’s fingers wove between his.
“No,” Lena said, keeping her attention on Izzy.
He infused all of his newfound feelings into one long squeeze of her hand.
“How adorable.” Izzy clasped her hands in front of her. “I wonder if you would still be enamored of our Angelena if you knew—”
“Let’s get out of here,” Lena said, tugging him toward the door.
He didn’t budge. “Knew what?”
“Rohan, please. You can’t believe anything she says.”
“Knew what?” he repeated.
“She’s wanted for murder.”
50
The abyss Lena had been approaching for days—years—was suddenly beneath her feet.
She tumbled. Crashed into the sharp edges of her life. Bled out all of her regrets until there was nothing left but a hollow, endless ache.
No life’s blood.
No fight.
No hope.
She jerked her hand from Rohan’s and left Izzy to seed her poison. To kill Lena’s first prospect of happiness and a normal life in years.
Barefoot, she walked through the mansion, ignoring Kayla’s call, Gerard Palmer’s hand signal, and potential clients’ scandalized stares.
Her eyes stayed dry the entire drive home. They didn’t well with tears once while she mentally constructed her exit strategy. It wasn’t until she pictured Rohan’s reaction at finding her gone tomorrow that she felt the first sting of loss.
After unlocking the dead bolt, she shouldered her way inside and went to her wardrobe. She pulled out the backpack she’d been wearing the night she’d fled Neil’s home and crammed two sets of clothes inside.
She tamped down the urge to pack up her studio, but the countdown clock ticking in her head trebled now. Zipping up her pack, she rushed to her bathroom, flipped on the light, and stared in shock at the empty display case above the toilet.
The Frida Kahlo was gone.
“Looking for something?” a distant voice asked.
Lena turned toward it with dread and a battalion of other emotions. Heavy on the dread.
Beyond the bathroom’s glowing light, the loft’s colorful palette had dulled to a thousand shades of gray, obscuring her intruder’s presence.
Even without seeing him, she knew who’d burglarized her apartment. Again.
She felt no fear. Just a soul-killing inevitability.
Flipping off the light switch, she waited for her eyes to adjust.
A gust of wind ripped fading leaves off trees and carried them past her enormous windows. Lightning strobed through the loft, and she spotted a figure sitting in her favorite chair, facing her.
Still dressed in his finery, Rohan stared at her through black-rimmed glasses. He sat with his legs spread wide, one outstretched. His elbows braced against the armrests. The lower part of his face hidden behind his clasped hands.
He looked as if he were trying to work out a complicated mathematical equation and was failing.
Her attention flicked to the painting propped against the chair beside his right knee. Anxiety coiled like a viper in her stomach.
She nodded toward the Kahlo. “What do you plan to do with my painting?”
“Your painting?”
Her last bit of hope shredded like a delicate strand of saffron.
“Depends,” he said when she remained silent.
“On?”
“How truthfully you answer my next question.”
Anger sparked. She wasn’t a liar. She was a survivor. A pawn sliding across a board game she’d never wanted to play. Who was he to judge her?
“How will you know if I’m being truthful?” she prodded, moving closer.
“I won’t.” His gaze seemed to probe into the dark, broken corners of her heart. “I’ll accept your word.”
“Why? You’ve clearly been suspicious of me from day one. Why do you have faith in me at a time when you shouldn’t have any?”
“My initial suspicion had to do with your sudden appearance at the same time I was fending off a cyberattack. I was concerned the Collective had sent you and that you would destroy me and everything I cared about.”
Lena wanted to ask how things were going with the Collective, but knew he wouldn’t appreciate the distraction. Frankly, neither would she. Although she cared about the outcome of his cyber battle, she was more concerned about where he was going with this conversation.
“Your question?” she asked, getting back to the root of their discussion.
“Who are you?”
Lena didn’t flinch or show any outward sign of the adrenaline rushing her body. “I see Izzy filled your ears with juicy bits before you left.”
“I didn’t need Izzy’s sensationalist comment to know you weren’t born Angelena Kamber.” Rohan had broken into her apartment, removed the Kahlo, and made himself comfortable in the time it had taken her to make a ten-minute detour to her bank’s ATM.
Izzy wouldn’t have just blurted out every sordid detail she’d uncovered about Lena. She would have drawn the moment out. Enjoyed the power she held over Rohan for as long as possible.
Much longer than ten minutes. Which meant—
“You didn’t stay and hear Izzy out?”
His serious expression turned annoyed. “Do I look like a guy who would listen to such a vain and vengeful woman trash on someone I care about?”
Lena stared at him, unable to mask the shock caused by his declaration. Did he realize what he’d said? Had something short-circuited in that brilliant brain of his?
He set his glasses on a nearby table and pushed out of his chair. “Do I?”
The violence in those two words caused her to take an involuntary step back. “No, not really. But she delivered a rather effective cliffhanger. Few would’ve been able to contain their curiosity.”
“I admit, she piqued mine.” His eyes burned into hers. “But not quenched. I prefer to sip directly from the fountain, not a broken glass.” He advanced a step. “Who are you?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“Ehh.” Another step. “Wrong answer.”
Lena backed up, uncertain about this raw, feral side of him. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”
“Who is Angela Jones?”
“A name I used for nearly a decade.”
“Then you became Angelena Kamber?”
She nodded.
“We’ll come back to Angelena in a moment.”
His head tilted to the side, considering her. “You were known as Angela Jones from the time you were what, five to about fifteen?”
“Yes.”
“When did your parents die?”
Lena’s palms grew moist, and she couldn’t think over the rhythmic pulse slamming against her eardrums.
“Don’t lose your courage now,” Rohan said in a gentle voice. “I’m not going anywhere. No matter what.”
Considering their situation, she could have taken his comments as a threat. But Lena concentrated on his tone and the way his gaze caressed her like delicate fingers trailing through her hair.
“Four turning five, I think.”
He shortened the distance between them and took one of her hands in his. “They died in an auto accident?”
“That’s the story Neil told me. But I—”
“Who’s Neil?”
“The man I called father for ten years.”
“He adopted you?”
“I suppose so. I’m not sure.”
“His last name was Jones, too?”
She nodded. Lena had always hated her last name. It was so . . . generic. Ordinary. It had never felt right.
“But you, what?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“You don’t believe your parents died in a car accident?”
51
Rohan’s legendary calm fractured with each second he waited for Lena’s reply.
He had imagined many scenarios to explain her hidden past, some involving a witnessed crime that would require her going into WITSEC, but not once had he considered that the violence had been against her family.
A frustrated growl erupted from her throat, and she strode to the bay of windows, where nightfall’s talons sank deep into the landscape.
Moving to her side, he watched her reflection light up with each successive bolt in the sky. Though it nearly killed him, he waited for her to formulate words she had likely never dared speak while she struggled with the eroding effects of time. Memories, especially ones managed by a nervous system not yet able to comprehend certain audio and visual communication, were transitory beasts.
“My parents and I had gone to my grandparents’ house for a birthday party.” She rubbed her temple as if to bring into focus images obscured by a thick fog. “Maybe mine. I remember being excited and pleased by everyone’s attention.” She sent him an apologetic glance. “But it might simply have been that I was basking in the spotlight of attentive, loving grandparents.”
He pulled her fingers away from where she attempted to drill a hole in the side of her head and massaged away the tension in her hand. “Understood. Go on.”
“I remember the rich, spicy aromas of my grandmother’s kitchen. I remember standing on a stool beside her. My chubby hands covered in white flour.” She lifted her free hand and spread her fingers wide. “But I can’t recall my dadi’s face.”
“It happens. There are nuances to my father’s features that I can no longer recall, and I had a lot more time with him than you did with your grandmother.”
She curled the fingers of her free hand into a fist.
“What else do you remember?”
“Driving in a vehicle. My mother trying to comfort me from her position in the front passenger seat.” She paused, staring at his reflection, but her mind was decades away.
Thunder punched the building, sending a shiver down the panes of glass, a split second before a snap of lightning forced her back to the present.
“Why was she comforting you?”
“I might have been crying.” She shook her head. “My mother handed me something. It was shiny, I think. Then a bright light illuminated her face. Her eyes widened. Then nothing. My memories go dark, except for a brief flash of being carried away from the car.”
Rohan turned toward her. Without releasing her hand, he brushed her loose hair behind her ear. He wanted her to look at him, but knew she was still deep in the past.
“Where were your parents?” he asked in a low voice.
She closed her eyes a moment before her tear-drenched gaze met his. “Burning.”
52
Twenty years ago
* * *
Flames consumed the vehicle, and her little hand reached for the two unmoving figures inside.
“Maa! Pita!” She screamed at the top of her four-year-old lungs and kicked at the stranger carrying her farther and farther away. But her parents didn’t move, didn’t stop the strange man from shoving her into the backseat of a big truck.
Another man, with scars covering his face, got behind the wheel and a woman with short, curly hair climbed into the front passenger seat.
“You stupid fuck,” the driver growled, as they sped away.
She scrambled up to stand on the back seat. Tears made it difficult to see, especially in the dark, but she stared at the burning vehicle through the rear window. Any moment, maa and pita would come for her.
Why hadn’t they let her stay with her grandparents like they had promised?
One moment she’d been blowing out the candles on her birthday cake and the next pita was scooping her up and running out the door, without putting on their winter coats.
“I don’t kill kids,” the stranger sitting beside her said.
“You should have left her behind,” Curls said.
“Where? It’s freezing outside, and the vehicle is going to blow any second—”
A huge ball of fire shot into the air at the same time the flames consumed the two figures in the vehicle.
“No!” She shrieked and shrieked until her throat hurt and her legs gave out.
The stranger who saved her laid her down on the backseat and something warm covered her shivering body.
“What was the girl doing with her parents?” Curls asked. “Our intel indicated she was going to stay the weekend with her grandparents.”
“Something spooked the Kumars,” Savior said. “They’d barely been there fifty minutes before Team A reported them hauling ass out of the house.”
“Someone must have tipped them off,” Scarface said.
