by Shayla Black
and knew that a name shouldn’t wipe out who she was or what she’d experienced and achieved. But it felt like more than a name. His beliefs called her whole identity into question.
“That’s easy to say because it’s not you,” she tossed back. “J-just go on with your story.”
Joaquin locked his jaw. In frustration, yes. But Bailey couldn’t fail to see concern before he turned to the others.
Her stomach flipped over as she listened to Joaquin explain the bodies of women cropping up across the country, explained their similarities—age, background, coloring. As she listened again, Bailey closed her eyes, wondering how this could be happening. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been a just another Houston woman prepping for an audition and vaguely contemplating where her life would lead.
Now she was in Dallas with a dark, dangerous man she barely knew, wondering exactly who she was and if she’d make it out of this ordeal alive.
“So they’re after you?” Sean concluded at the end of Joaquin’s story, leveling a heavy stare at her. The affectionate fiancé had been replaced by a cold agent.
“That’s what Joaquin thinks.”
“Yes,” he answered Sean.
“Did you see any evidence of anyone else pursuing you before yesterday?”
“No.”
“Were you watching for that?” Joaquin challenged.
“Why would I? I never imagined anyone would be after me. I was an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. I just did my thing.”
“If you’re Tatiana Aslanov and LOSS is onto you, that’s not the case anymore.” Sean tried to soften his warning with a compassionate stare. “Even if you’re not the missing girl, they believe you might be. So you’re still very much in danger.”
His words reverberated through her system, echoing the worry in her head. Bailey sat back in her chair and blinked. Confusion, anxiety, horror—it all hovered just under a blanket of smothering shock. Everything was coming at her so fast . . .
She jumped out of her chair and paced away, not caring that Joaquin stared after her. She didn’t even want to think about how surreal all this was again. But that part was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Heels clicked across the floor. Bailey tensed just before someone laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. She whirled to see Callie standing beside her.
“I know this is difficult. They’re so focused on the who, when, why, what, and how to crush the danger that they forget we can be overwhelmed and scared.”
Bailey nodded. The woman appeared so collected. Not just that, but whole—both inside and out. Looking at her, no one would ever guess that she’d run for her life for almost ten years, that as a teenager she’d been hunted from state to state, identity to identity. But Callie had overcome and found her future.
Whether she was Tatiana Aslanov or not, if anyone believed she was, they would hunt her. She had to focus on that now. Hopefully, the rest would sort itself out.
Pressing her lips together to try to keep her composure, Bailey blinked away more tears. “When you were running from these killers, did you ever have anything that felt like a normal life?”
Callie opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “I’d love to make you feel better, but I would rather prepare you for reality. No. I was always looking over my shoulder.” With a squeeze of her arm, the woman went on. “We can hide you here for a while. Sean, Thorpe, and Axel will move mountains to keep you safe.” She glanced back at the three men, now in deep discussion about LOSS and how to keep them off Bailey’s tail. “I think Joaquin would do the same and more.”
“I-I don’t even know him. We were ‘introduced’ when he stuck a needle in my neck to drug me and bring me here.”
“He did it to keep you safe,” Callie pointed out. “That’s a tough way to meet, and I’m sure it doesn’t inspire confidence. But if it makes you feel any better, the men he knows, Logan and Hunter Edgington, they’re protectors through and through. They saved my friend, London, from someone trying to kill her. They’re both former SEALs. You don’t know them or me, but I swear if they have anything to do with Joaquin, then you’re in no danger from that man. Besides, I see the way he looks at you . . .”
Bailey glanced past Callie and found Joaquin’s stare drilling into her. Protective. Hot. Full of unspoken intent. As their gazes locked, it impacted her somewhere in the middle of her chest, then boomed uncomfortably lower. Taking a breath got difficult. As she fell into his green eyes, a wave of dizziness floated through her head.
She jerked her gaze free. God, she sounded like an idiot swooning over a good-looking man. He was a dangerous stranger dragging her into dangerous crap.
“I’m focused on staying alive,” she told Callie. “But hearing that I might not be who I believed . . . That’s a lot to accept.”
“Of course it is! My situation was different because I voluntarily changed identities, but the result was the same. Lots of new towns, new lives, new . . . everything.” Callie shrugged. “The important thing is stopping these guys so you can be you again, whoever that ends up being.”
Digesting those words, Bailey chewed on her lip. Callie understood what she was going through probably better than anyone else; she’d cut through all the emotion and gone straight for the heart of the matter. She’d given what sounded like good advice.
“Yeah. Me.” Whoever that was. “If I’m that girl, I don’t know anything.”
“At least not that you remember now.” Callie sent her a soft expression of sympathy. “Give yourself a break. Everything is happening quickly. You can’t expect to just snap your fingers and accept that homegrown terrorists are out to get you, that your family may not have been your biological relations at all, and that people you have virtually no memory of may have given birth to you.”
“You got that right.” She didn’t see the humor in this situation, but she tried to smile. It was either that or cry again. Besides, Callie understanding her plight was somehow really reassuring.
Bailey hadn’t experienced a lot of empathy growing up. Her father had often been distant, her mother flighty. Sometimes, she’d felt like a stranger in her home and wondered why she was so different than her parents, why they had nothing in common.
Maybe now she knew.
“It’s equally hard, I imagine, to know that you lost a biological family you don’t even remember to the same violence hunting you now. I remember my dad and my sister really well, obviously. But to have them gone in an instant and still have to elude killers in the middle of my shock and sadness, to find safety . . . It took me a long time to feel as if I’d grieved properly. Longer still before I finally believed I could start looking forward, rather than back.”
“I can imagine.” And Bailey had a terrible suspicion that her own life could be one giant mirror of Callie’s years on the run if she couldn’t direct these dangerous killers away from her. But how?
“Don’t forget, though. You have an advantage,” Callie added. “I had no one for years, not until I came to Dallas and met Thorpe.”
The woman turned to glance at her former boss and . . . whatever else the man was to her. He met her gaze with a reassuring nod before turning back to the men’s conversation.
A flicker of regret crossed Callie’s face. “Even when I came to Thorpe, I didn’t tell him who I was. I didn’t trust anyone. Eventually, he figured it out, but I’ll always wonder if my life would have been . . . I don’t know, easier? Fuller? Less terrifying, maybe, if I’d opened up sooner. Sean came along about four years later. Same story. They had to pry everything out of me.”
“And now you’re with them both?” Bailey blurted the question. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“It’s fine.” Callie grinned with a little wince mixed in. “Our relationship isn’t conventional, but it works for us. Thorpe and I tend to butt heads. Sean is the calming influence we both need.”
“The referee?�
�
“Something like that. I love them both so much and I’ll be forever grateful that they fought to save me.” Callie leveled her with a serious stare. “Joaquin is fighting to save you. I’m not suggesting you should fall in love with him or anything, but you have someone on your side already. Be grateful. It can make a huge difference.”
“Ultimately, I have to get myself out of this mess.”
“You do, but fighting this alone is over your head, just like it was over mine. We’re talking about terrorists and killers. Me trying to do everything without help cost me a lot of years of misery, not to mention that I’m damn lucky to be alive. Sometimes, helping yourself is figuring out who might stand beside you and make your world a safer place.” Callie glanced at Joaquin.
Bailey mulled the woman’s words, then glanced at her captor. Or was he her savior? She really didn’t know anymore.
Suddenly, Sean rose. “I’ll see what I can find.” Then he looked Callie’s way. “I’ll be right back, lovely.”
She smiled. “I’ll be here.”
“Why don’t you go eat something?” He frowned at her, concern settling over his face.
“I will.” When he sent her a skeptical glare, Callie grinned. “I promise.”
With a squeeze of Bailey’s hand, she strolled back to Thorpe and settled beside him. He curled her against his side and held her close.
“You’re still not eating, pet?” Thorpe asked gently, but he didn’t sound pleased.
“I’ve just been so busy.”
He leveled her with a demanding stare that said he refused to let the subject go.
“All right. I’m going.” She gave a long-suffering sigh and rose.
Thorpe swatted her ass. “A meal, Callie. Not an apple. Not a cup of yogurt. I left you several choices in the fridge. Warm one up.”
The gorgeous brunette looked like she really wanted to protest, but she didn’t. “Yes, Sir.”
At the reverence in Callie’s tone, another pang of envy pained Bailey. The heiress had found her place in this world, people she belonged with and to, men who watched over her. Looking back on her childhood, Bailey realized that she had shared a name and a house with her parents . . . but no real bond. And she hadn’t connected with any boyfriends, never felt the sort of love flowing between these three. So she’d focused on her dance and tried to use it as an outlet for her yearning.
But none of that mattered now. Someone wanted to kill her because she might be a long-lost Russian child. Until she could shake them, she couldn’t figure out who she was, where she belonged, and who she belonged with.
As Callie let herself out of the room, Bailey made her way back to her seat and sank onto the cushion, feeling more alone than ever.
“You okay?” Joaquin asked.
He didn’t have to care at all. She resisted softening toward him for asking.
“I’m all right. Where did Sean go?”
“To see what other information he might be able to dig up to assist you,” Thorpe offered. “He’s still consulting with the FBI on this case. They might have some background that will help. If nothing else, he’ll get the murder of these women on their radar so they can start investigating possible tie-ins.”
A good thing. Even if she never came within sneezing distance of danger, these madmen needed to be stopped so no one else faced this fear or endured the dead women’s horror again.
To Thorpe, she just nodded.
He frowned at her. “I’m working some angles from here, too. Joaquin and I have been talking. I’ve sent Axel, my head of security, down to Houston.”
“He’ll see if anyone is looking for you and make sure that no one messes with your boyfriend because they’re looking for you.”
Joaquin must mean Blane. Bailey opened her mouth to explain that he was just a friend, then stopped. The man who’d taken her from her house had tried to kiss her. Worse, she’d nearly let him. If he believed that she was taken . . . well, she didn’t really expect him to keep his distance because of it. After all, a guy willing to pluck a sleeping woman from her bed might not have a lot of scruples, but at least she could use Blane as an excuse if Joaquin tried to kiss her again. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had now. And she needed a boundary between them. She had enough on her plate trying to decipher her real identity and hide from killers. But that wasn’t all. Joaquin oozed this sex vibe that told her he’d been around the block. She, on the other hand, was still taking baby steps down the driveway. He’d chew her up and spit her out. The last thing she needed was to get emotionally tangled with someone like him.
“Thanks,” she said to Thorpe. “Blane will appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome.”
Sean opened the door a minute later with a piece of paper in hand. With a purposeful stride, he headed in her direction. “Joaquin said you don’t remember anything before you were five. And that you only dream about being picked up bloody on the side of the road. Is that right?”
Where was he going with this? “Yes.”
“Do you have a vivid image of the little girl in the dream?”
“No.” Bailey frowned, trying to remember the nightmare in detail. “Parts are fuzzy, but I don’t see the girl’s face. I am the girl, so I see a shirt, a hand, a pair of bare feet. Nothing else.”
He glanced down at the paper he carried. She saw now that the back looked glossy. It was photo paper. He glanced between the page in his hand and her a few times, then whistled. “I used my FBI contacts to get this from the sealed police files in Crawford County, Indiana. Not many have ever laid eyes on this picture. Take a look, Joaquin.”
The other man took it from Sean’s hand. After the merest glance, he swore. “What color shirt are you wearing in the dream?”
Dread sliced through Bailey. “We’ve been over this.”
“Remind me.”
She clamped her lips shut and leaned toward Joaquin, trying to peek at the photo, but he turned it facedown on his lap.
“I want to see,” she demanded.
“Answer the question first. What color is the shirt?”
Why did she get the feeling that answering would open a Pandora’s box of crap? That it would rain a bunch of shit down on her head? Even if it did, she couldn’t afford not to face it. “P-pink.”
“Is it clean or dirty in your nightmares?”
“It’s stained with blood.”
“Tell me this isn’t you.” Joaquin shoved the photo in her direction. “Look me in the eye and tell me you think this is some other little girl.”
With shaking fingers, Bailey took the eight-by-ten and forced herself to look at it.
In the image, there sat a little girl staring at a wall in what looked to be a police station. Her eyes appeared vacant, her face whiter than pale. A paramedic hovered beside her, draping a gray industrial blanket around her shoulders in an attempt to keep her warm. Underneath it, she wore a pink pajama top smeared with blood. The face . . . she couldn’t deny that it was hers.
With a cry, Bailey dropped the picture from her numb fingers.
Chapter Six
JOAQUIN jumped to his feet and rushed to Bailey. Shit, she looked ghostly white. Her pupils had gone nearly as wide as those of her child self in the photo.
He knelt and grabbed her shoulders. “Tatia—” No, she didn’t want him to call her that. “Bailey?”
No answer. She looked through him. His gut clenched.
“Baby girl,” he crooned. She’d responded when he’d called her that before, liked it. He didn’t really want to stop and think about the fact that he enjoyed saying it to her.
“T-that girl . . . it’s me.”
Her four small words should probably have filled him with triumph or thrill or something other than this sick, roiling churn. He tried to reassure her with a soft voice. “I know.”
“I . . . I don’t understand.” She finally blinked at him, and tears swam in her big blue e
yes. Disillusion broke across her face. She looked so fragile, it tore at his fucking heart.
“I know it’s a lot to take in.” He caressed her arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll leave you two for now,” Sean murmured, turning to Thorpe.
