by J. R. Ward
"Cait, I swear--"
She held up her palm. "Wrong approach. Any vow you give me? Isn't worth a dime."
He cursed and paced back and forth on her stoop. "Cait, you've got to understand my brother--"
"This isn't about him. It's about you."
"It's all about him! He's evil, Cait, I swear to it--he's--"
"Evil? What do you call lying about the fact that you have a son?"
"Tony's not mine. He's G.B.'s."
Cait opened her mouth. Closed it. Felt a pounding in her temples that suggested very soon, maybe in the next ten minutes, she was going to need to lie down in a dark room for several hours.
"You know what," she said slowly. "I think it would be best if I don't see either one of you again. Please just get in your truck and go--I've got enough to worry about in this life. I don't need this drama."
Stepping back, she was about to close the door on him when he caught the thing and held it wide. "Just let me explain. You don't have to do anything but listen, and if at the end of it, you still think I'm full of shit? Throw me out. Hell, I'll throw myself out. But, Cait, please. Don't let him do this to me again."
She frowned, thinking that was a weird phrasing.
Oddly, she remembered the janitor.
Talk it out. You need to talk it out.
"Please, Cait." God, there was such anguish in that voice of his. "Just hear me out."
After a long moment, she inched back enough to let him through. Closing the door, she went over to the bay window that faced the street and sat with one hip on its ledge. She didn't want him getting any ideas that either one of them was going to get comfortable.
Duke walked around her little living room, dragging his hand through his hair, shaking his head, looking like he was about to explode from some inner conflict. Whatever. She wasn't going to prompt him or make this easy on him in any way: As the light drained fully out of the sky, and the lamps that were on in the room became the only source of illumination, she just sat and watched him suffer.
Kind of gratifying, considering how she'd felt since she'd been to that goddamn mall.
"When you asked me whether or not I had family," he said abruptly, "I told you I didn't, because short of sharing some DNA with G.B.? He and I are strangers--and I want to keep it that way. I need to keep it that way." He closed his eyes and cursed. "We grew up at Our Lady's, and he started killing things then--"
Cait felt her eyes bug.
"G.B. exhibited all the classic signs of serious pathology. Setting fires, stealing, wetting his bed, setting traps for other kids. He was removed from the place and sent to a juvie facility by the time he was ten, and he never forgave me for the fact that I was the one they kept. He hated me--although, honestly, he hated everyone and everything, it seemed. After he left? I didn't see him for years. But eventually, he found me at Union. Didn't know it, though. I had no clue where he'd been or what he'd become."
He stopped and looked at her. "I was dating a woman, had been for a while. It was my senior year and I had all kinds of plans, you know, med school--she was going to go, too. We were all about the future. But you know, premed? Hard major. And I wanted to be ahead of everyone else. I was busy busting my ass in the library--while my brother, who'd been watching me, tracking my patterns, infiltrating my life ... was starting to talk to her. He's a great one for cover-ups--a liar right out of the history books. And he got through to her, in ways I couldn't."
Cait blinked, the plausibility of the story increasing a little with every word he spoke--even though she wished it didn't.
"He, ah, well, let's just say he started sleeping with her behind my back. I found out about it all because she got pregnant. And I'm sure Tony's not my son as I hadn't been with her for two months before that because--to be honest, because I was focused on my work and not her." He cursed again. "I spent a lot of time blaming myself, thinking that if I'd paid more attention to the relationship, maybe it wouldn't have happened--but ultimately, I believe G.B. would have gotten through. He wanted to ruin me that badly. And he did--and it worked. I left school, shut down, backed out of everything. It was incredibly successful, and what he'd set out to do to me." He dragged that hand back into his hair. "I can't explain why the whole thing castrated me like it did. I just ... the world didn't feel safe at all, anymore. And I guess I figured, fuck it and fuck everybody. I'm out."
As shades of her own story filled in the picture he was painting ... she felt a commiseration she hadn't expected, and probably should have fought.
The trouble was, his affect was spot on, the confusion, the pain, the anger ... everything she knew from having walked that path herself ringing true.
And yet ... G.B. had seemed equally credible--
From out of nowhere, she thought of the way that man had looked behind the wheel of his car as he'd driven off from St. Patrick's.
That expression ... what if it revealed who he really was?
"I don't know what to say," she blurted.
"I told you, all you need to do is listen." Duke sat on the couch, and braced his elbows on his knees, his eyes nothing but straight-shooter as he stared up at her. "And here's the part I'm not proud of--well, actually, I'm not proud of a lot, but this ... this is the part that involves you. When I saw you at that cafe? I knew you'd been to see him--you had that ... hypnotized look on your face as you walked out. See, our roles got reversed after the Nicole thing. I started to track him at that point--and I went there that night to ... I don't know. I was pissed off because I'd just covered the child support he was supposed to be paying for, like, the hundredth month in a row. But when you looked at me, and I got out ... there was something between you and me. Later, I went to that theater hoping that you were just there to hear him sing, but then you said he'd asked you to meet him."
"So you wanted to see me because he wanted me, too."
His eyes didn't blink, didn't move ... didn't lie. "That's right. I asked you to the Iron Mask because I wanted to take something he wanted--but Cait, that didn't last. Listen, I swear on ... well, I don't have anything of any value to swear on ... but everything changed for me. I've been head fucked over the whole thing between you and me, because I knew things had started wrong, and I didn't know how to tell you. It just never occurred to me that he'd get to you before I could, to be honest. He hasn't shown any interest in me since what happened with Nicole."
Cait looked down at her Poland Spring bottle. Picked the corner of the label. Chewed on her lip.
For some reason, the image of G.B. and that receptionist fighting together dogged her. The woman had been viciously mad, out of her mind, totally rude--and G.B. had handled it so smoothly, like he seemed to handle everything.
But then behind that wheel of his car, his face ... that beautiful, handsome face ... had been so twisted.
Which was the real one? That was the question.
She cleared her throat. "This is a lot to take in."
"I know. I've had to live with it all my life, and I still can't understand it. Not fully." He laughed harshly. "You want to know how weird it is? I've been going to a psychic for years, down on Trade Street. None of this seems real, so I thought maybe someone who deals in the unreal could help ... protect me or some shit. I don't know."
"Has it worked?"
"No. She's just been calling me nonstop about a dream she's been having about some brunette."
Cait touched her hair. "What kind of dream?"
"She just wants me to stay away from--" He stopped. "But listen, you're a blond now, right. Although honestly, if she was talking about you? She was probably right. You don't need this shit."
Duke got to his feet and went to the door. As he turned and looked across at her, he was grave. "I've said my piece, and I'm really glad you heard me out. You don't ever have to see me again--but I just want to ask you for one thing. If he shows up at your door, if he calls or texts you, if he writes you a song and wants to sing it to you, get the fuck away from him as fast
as you can. Please. I beg of you, don't have anything to do with him."
Cait measured every single thing about Duke for the longest time. "Did you hear about the girl who died at the theater?" she murmured.
"I'm sorry?"
Cait shrugged and got down from the window's ledge. "There was a murder--I guess it was two nights ago? Downtown at the Palace Theatre, where he's been rehearsing. I didn't think about it at the time, but he told me the police are on him about it. You don't suppose..."
Duke marched over and took her shoulders gently in his hands. "Cait. Let me be perfectly clear about this. My brother is capable of absolutely anything. If you know of or saw something that leads you to believe he might have a grudge against that girl? Or some kind of beef? Call the police and tell them. Immediately. And like I said, for the love of God, don't ever let him into your house. Promise me."
She looked up at him. Damn, what a story. But sometimes even the implausible was true.
That was the basis of all fiction, right?
When he turned away again, she reached out and caught him.
The hug was meant to be quick, nothing but a brief, spontaneous contact. But the instant his arms went around her, she didn't want to let go so fast. Dear Lord, he was still big, and hard, but the fact that he'd done nothing but talk to her for the last ten minutes was the best part of him.
She wasn't just jumping back into anything, though. Too much, this had all been too much--and she was totally confused.
After a moment, she pushed herself away. "I won't."
"I'm sorry?" Duke said.
"Let him in. I'm not going to do that."
Duke brushed her cheek.
This time, when he went to leave, she let him go.
The soft sound of the door shutting was the loneliest thing she'd ever heard, and as she went over and sat where he had, her orderly little house and her orderly little life pressed in on her.
She had never expected something like this to be where she ended up at the end of her year of transformation--thinner, with better hair ... but still very much alone.
Then again, destiny didn't come with an a la carte menu of options. You couldn't pick and choose where you went--not in any meaningful sense, at least.
Listening to the mournful tick-tock of the clock on her mantel, she collapsed back into the chair and closed her eyes.
No crying, though.
This was just a broken heart. It was not something like what Sissy Barten's family was going through--and in a time like this, she'd do well to remember that things could be much, much worse.
At least she hadn't ended up like that poor girl at the theater...
Chapter
Fifty-five
Jim was standing in the darkness, watching from the corner of the living room as Duke unloaded big-time to the woman he'd been sleeping with. And as Jim listened, the sense that he'd been cuckolded for the second time penetrated his brain and made it hum.
Oh ... fuck...
He'd gotten the wrong goddamn soul again, hadn't he.
Ducking free of the room, he stepped through the back door, got out his phone, and hit up Adrian.
The angel answered on the first ring. "What's up?"
Jim rubbed his aching eyes. "When you went to see Colin, back in the beginning of this--you asked him who the soul was, right?"
"Yeah. And he told me it was that Duke Phillips guy."
Jim shook his head wearily. "I don't think that's it. I don't know ... what exactly did Colin say?"
"Look, Jim, seriously? All I was interested in was the intel--"
"I think we've been tracking the wrong guy here."
"Impossible. Under what scenario would Colin be incented to lie?"
"Just what did he tell you?"
"I don't remember--I asked him who it was, we went back and forth because he didn't want to tell me. Blah, blah, blah--and then he said ..." There was a long pause. "Oh, shit."
Exactly, Jim thought, closing his lids. "What."
"He said he couldn't go all the way. He could only get me halfway there--I took that to mean that all he could do was ID the guy, and he couldn't help in the field." There was a pause. "Exactly what the hell's going on where you are?"
Jim looked through the windows into that living room, where Duke and his lady friend were hugging it out.
"They're brothers," Jim said. "And I'm pretty sure Duke's nothing but the triggering agent. The other one ... the evil one's the soul."
"I'm coming right now--"
"No! You can't leave Sissy alone."
"Then I'll bring her with me."
"Never. She is not a part of this--are we clear? Stay the fuck home--"
"Fuck you, Jim--"
"Devina got into our house, okay? She got into my room, and not just once, but several times."
There was a loooooooooong pause. "What the fuck? When? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I couldn't find a moment."
"You didn't think it might be important enough to pull me aside? Like, for a split second?"
"I didn't know until this morning when I almost fucked her, okay?"
"Oh, shit."
"That just about covers it--"
Abruptly, Jim stopped talking and turned around. Sure enough, standing right behind him, the demon had made an appearance. "Ad, I got company. Stay where you are."
As he ended the call, Devina didn't smile. Didn't oil on up to him and start stroking his cock. She just stood apart and stared at him--and that was the scary thing. He much preferred her unstable and flying off the handle.
"So, have you thought about my suggestion," she asked after a moment.
"No."
"Liar."
Jim quickly did the math. He was willing to bet his left nut that the crossroads was happening right here, right now, whether it was here in this house or somewhere else. And if he was right, and Duke was not the soul, then he'd had no time to try to influence that other brother--and there wasn't going to be any.
This was the consequence Nigel had been so upset about. This was the culmination of Jim's decision to focus on Sissy. This was the payment for the distraction he'd entertained.
Damn it. He'd really fucked this round up, hadn't he--and there was no going back.
So he had two choices. Either he tried to find Duke's evil half somewhere in the city, and pray like hell that he could talk some sense into a guy he knew nothing about. Or...
"Let's go," he said.
Her perfectly arched brows rose. "Where?"
"Anywhere."
"To do what?" Now she trailed a delicate hand along the tops of her breasts. "Are you going to fuck me?"
"No. But I'll talk about the future."
"We can do that here," she muttered with a bored tone.
"No." Because if he couldn't influence the soul in these last few minutes, the least he could do was make sure she didn't, either. He had no idea what she'd done in this round, but--
"You want me away from this house, don't you," she drawled.
"You were the one who brought up that bright idea about quitting."
She laughed with an edge. "Jim, you know me well enough by now that I'm a lot of things--but never, ever stupid. You want me somewhere else? That's only happening one way."
In the pause that followed, he thought of Sissy. And as she came into his mind, the black hole in the center of his chest became filled with a ringing, nearly crippling, pain.
The demon took a step forward. "You and I can both leave here together. But only if it's to do what I want."
From out of nowhere, a full-body flush of total-nasty hit him hard. Which was a new one: In all the course of his life in XOps, he'd never had a problem with any kind of torture. He'd been subjected to it once or twice, and hadn't dwelled on the shit. And the same had been true in this war with Devina. Whatever she'd done to him, and what he'd done with her out of hatred--none of it had stuck in his head for even a moment after they'd parted.
This, however, was going to kill him. If he went with her now, if he did what he knew she was going to ask of him, he was going to die a little on the inside.
Funny, he hadn't been aware of being alive.
Sissy had brought that to him, however. She had opened him up--and that was why this was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever done.
"Where," he heard himself say.
"I think the Freidmont Hotel. Yes, I'll get a suite there, and I think that would be perfect for what I have in mind." There was a long silence between them. "So are we leaving. Or perhaps you would like to have me here?"
Yes, he had made a mistake in overfocusing on Sissy in the beginning. Yes, it had caused terrible, unforeseen consequences. And yes, to make amends ... this was what he had to do.
"Fine," he said.
Now the demon truly smiled, her red lips parting, her eyes lighting with an unholy joy. "You first, angel mine."
What. The. Fuck.
From G.B.'s position across the street and down a couple of houses from where he'd followed Cait to earlier in the night, he couldn't believe what the fuck he was looking at. Duke had come to her front door and she'd been all pissy and shit--fine, good. But now, inside the house, spotlit in that front window, she was hugging him like that?
"You gotta be kidding me," he muttered.
Maybe Duke's powers of persuasion had improved with age. And that was going to prove to be very unfortunate for Cait Douglass.
Moments later, his cocksucking brother got into that big-ass truck of his and took off.
Goddamn it, G.B. hadn't wanted it to go down like this. But if there was even a chance Cait was going to take that fucker back? Well, he was going to have to once again create a situation where Duke had to live with a reality he couldn't bear.
G.B. had been thrown out with the trash, forced to go and get roughed up at that juvenile detention center for fucking years. Meanwhile, golden boy had gotten to go to high school, and get a scholarship to college, and have that girl of his. Guess the first payback hadn't been hard-core enough, though--otherwise, the guy would have stayed clear of anyone G.B. had been seeing.
He was happy to raise the stakes.
With a resigned shrug, he reached into the black bag he'd brought with him on a just-in-case. Taking out another pair of black industrial gloves--because they'd worked so well with Jennifer--he pulled them up his forearms and got out of his car. He had a knife with him, holstered at the small of his back, invisible under his loose coat. With a black baseball cap on, and the black trousers he'd worn to the funeral, he was a walking shadow as he crossed the pavement, being careful to stay out of the pools of light cast by the streetlamps.
