by Snow, Nicole
I can’t help a broken, harsh bark of laughter, and I gather her closer, wrapping her up like I can hide her from the awfulness of my world. “That’s my girl,” I whisper.
Over Em’s head, I catch Liv watching me – and for a moment she reaches over, her fingertips resting on my arm, the lightest butterfly’s touch. Blue eyes search me over as if seeking something deeper, something more.
I’m sorry, she mouths, and now I finally understand that look in her eyes.
It’s guilt.
I didn’t think I could ache anymore, but I was wrong. And even though I know I shouldn’t care, shouldn’t push these lines, I can’t help seizing her hand in mine, pressing it against Em’s back.
Later, I mouth back, and keep her cool, shaking fingers twined in mine. We'll talk when we're able.
The urge to murder something, someone, hasn't fully faded.
I’m fucking furious at the people who put my daughter in danger. Furious that this sick vendetta has gone this far.
But I can’t be furious with Liv.
And I can’t let her blame herself for this. Lion's the only one who deserves my fury, my scorn.
My vengeance.
Sooner or later, he'll pay for threatening my daughter, and for threatening Liv.
* * *
Milah’s Vancouver estate is more of a fortress than I expected, even after reviewing the plans on the plane. Electrified fences, double access codes requiring either internal lock activation or Milah’s bioprint, security cameras mounted everywhere.
As Milah leans around me and half climbs over James to stick her arm out the driver’s side window and press her palm to the bioprint plate, I give her a skeptical look, raising a brow.
She plunks back down in her seat almost sulkily. “What?” she mumbles, shooting me a defiant look. “I don’t like paparazzi.”
That almost gets a smile out of me.
But I don’t feel easy until the SUV is parked in the eight-car garage and we’re inside the sprawling, multi-story imitation-Victorian house. Here, the lines are just off enough from classical to lean into showy gaudiness, with just enough extra to be so very perfectly Milah.
I’m worried about the size of it, but as long as I can keep everyone within shouting distance, we should be fine.
Milah’s on-site staff are either still up this late at night, or very good at rolling out of bed in an instant, as they’re waiting to usher us to our rooms.
They adapt quickly when I make it very clear I don’t want us scattered, and all of our rooms need to be adjacent, within easy reach of each other. A shuffling of room reassignments later, and I’m promising I’ll be there to tuck Em in and see her safely to sleep as soon as I’ve dropped my bag off in my room and shrugged out of a jacket stained in blood spatters.
But as I open the door to my room, I pause as Liv breaks away from our group to head toward hers. It's to the right of mine, Em’s to the left. Liv looks so tired, so small, so forlorn and pulled into herself, as if she’s locked herself up in this tiny, fragile bundle of guilt and is holding down hard to keep anything from escaping to hurt anyone else.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m pulling away from my door and stepping closer, reaching out to rest my hand lightly on her wrist. She stills, lifting her head as if waking from a daze, looking up at me.
“Riker...” she says, as if just realizing I’m here.
The urge to take her in my arms is so powerful I almost can’t resist.
I want to shelter her, to stand between her and anything that might make her feel as lost as she looks right now.
But I can’t forget the one night I reached for Crystal, after subduing a home invader...
She flinched from me, looking back as if I was the one who might hurt her.
It’s that memory that makes me pull back from Liv, shoving my hands into the pockets of my slacks for lack of anything else to do.
For lack of anything else to say, too, when I don’t know the words and I’m tangled up inside my own head. It’s a raw sharp blow to the gut to realize I don’t want this woman to be afraid of me.
To realize I don’t want her gone from my life, either.
But it seems like a good place to start, to force out, “I’m sorry you had to see that shit back there. Sorry if I frightened you.”
“Frightened me?” Her brow wrinkles, and her head cocks. “Riker, no.” She shakes her head. “You saved us. All of us.” She trails off, faltering, staring up at me with those wide, pretty eyes, then looking down, her hand curling against her chest. “I feel so safe in your hands.”
Such simple words shouldn’t rock my world. “You're serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I just shot several men. Shot them like nothing. I walked into gunfire without caring if I got shot myself. I may have killed them.” I don’t think it’s even apparent to me how heavy this is until I look away sharply, staring down the hall. “Being willing, being capable of doing that...it can frighten people, you know.”
“It doesn’t frighten me.”
I blink back my surprise. And then she’s so close – leaning into me, resting her hand on my chest, soft and yet so warm, that touch asking me to look at her. Asking me to believe her as much as the quiet earnestness in her voice asks, offers, gives so much with warmth and understanding. “How hard is it to do that for a living? To be that way? But you did it anyway, to keep me and Em and even my sister safe.” Her fingers curl, tangling in my shirt, fingering one of the buttons. “That doesn’t scare me, Riker. It's comforting.”
She’s not looking at me now, but I can’t look away from her.
The way she glances down and off to the side, so shy, so clearly afraid of rejection, and yet putting herself out there to comfort me anyway, to accept me.
Fuck. Sometimes it’s not force that can break you, but the gentlest touch.
This woman's gentleness will annihilate me, if I let it.
I cover her hand with mine, catching it against my chest. “Liv.”
I just say her name, slow, waiting for those eyes.
Her breath catches. Her cheeks warm with pretty washes of pink, and she lifts her head, looking up at me. But before she can speak, James leans into the hall from the living room.
“Riker?”
He pauses as Liv and I break apart abruptly, his keen silver-blue eyes flicking over us both, but his expression remains neutral.
“The police wish to speak with you,” is all he says, before ducking back out.
Right. I sigh and glance at Liv, offering her a tired smile as I turn away. But she steps forward abruptly, pressing against my back, this slight figure weighing me to earth, every bit of her imprinting against me.
“Hey, Riker...” Her breath is warm through my shirt, her lips moving against my spine. “Come back soon.”
I reach back and catch her hand, squeezing tight in the only reassurance I can offer, before I pull myself away—hating every step between us, and the duty that I have to face.
9
A Little Less (Olivia)
This is all my fault.
That thought loops in my head as we convene in the living room.
Riker’s on the phone with his Enguard crew, arranging for a personal convoy of trusted personnel to take us back home.
Em’s putting on a brave face, sitting next to me and pretending to read a book. But over the tops of the pages, she never takes her eyes from the comforting sight of her father.
Milah has isolated herself on a deep, plush divan, curling up in one corner and staring sulkily out the window, refusing to talk to anyone. I know her well enough to know she’s angry.
And I know her well enough to know she’s frightened, too.
Worse, this mess is because of me.
I know my sister was the original target, but I just made things messier by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I hadn’t been at Milah’s place in Seattle when I was, then her security team w
ould’ve handled both those groups of men, and this would’ve been long over.
I’d never have met Riker or Em. Never have become their problem. Never would've put them in danger.
I hate that some selfish part of me can’t stand the idea of never having met these two wonderful people, when it’s my fault Em is pale with sleepless hollows under her eyes, refusing to keep her promise to go to bed until her father can see her safely to sleep.
It’s my fault that little knot of stress and tension wrinkles above the bridge of Riker’s nose.
It’s my fault everyone was almost shot tonight.
It's my fault we're stuck here, under lockdown in the world's fanciest panic room.
Riker pulls his phone away and drops it into his pocket, then sweeps the gathered assembly with a long look.
“We’re staying until Sunday night,” he says. “Landon’s coming for us with an armored convoy then. It’s safer than us trying to get back to another airport on our own, even with police support, and we won’t have to worry about walking into an ambush on landing again. But it’s going to take some wrangling and paperwork to get that kind of heavy armor and artillery over the border without causing an incident.”
Milah wrinkles her nose. “Freaking tanks? Is all of that really necessary?”
The look Riker shoots her is guarded and thoughtful. “Not tanks. Armored cars. Yeah, it is necessary if you want to go home alive. I never should've agreed to this in the first place. Should’ve known something was up. How did they even know where we’d be? Who told them where to find us, and at just the right time?”
My sister’s eyes widen, and she stares at Riker. “What are you implying? That I set this up?”
“I’m implying something isn’t right,” Riker growls coolly, “and that you may have been taken advantage of. No, I don’t believe you’d knowingly put your sister in danger. That doesn’t mean this doesn't reek to hell and back.”
“That’s not my fault!” Milah cries, balling her fists.
“No one’s saying it is, sis,” I soothe. “Look, we’re all raw right now. We’ve got two days cooped up together trying to be as safe as possible. Let’s get some rest and maybe in the morning we can talk things through some more.”
No one answers. Not even James, the only one of us who seems completely unfazed by the situation, his expression icy calm as he flicks through his phone, the light reflecting from the lenses of his glasses.
It’s not hard to see that tensions are high, and we’re all a little freaked out, but I just...I just can’t stand my sister and this man who makes my heart hurt in all new ways fighting with each other. Not now.
Especially when I need to ask Milah a few questions myself, but I need privacy.
“Daddy?” Em chirps softly. “I’m tired.”
I know Em well enough by now to know she does that on purpose.
She’s too smart, perceptive, and she knows that as the child here, she can give everyone reasons to back down without conceding ground, because someone needs to take care of her. I flash her a grateful smile. She beams a tired one back at me.
Riker sighs, pressing two fingers against his temple before his shoulders slump and he offers Em a weary smile. “I’ll tuck you in, love. We'll talk.”
Em nods, closing her book and clutching it to her chest as she climbs off the couch. “Okay.”
Riker sweeps us all with a measured look, lingering on me the longest. “After Em’s asleep, I need to go tour the property and check for anything suspicious. We’ll talk later,” he tells everyone.
But I know, from the way he lingers, he really means me.
* * *
It’s not long before Milah and I are alone. Em and Riker have left, and James excuses himself to his room with a cordial goodnight. Milah’s still sulking, refusing to look at me. Sigh.
“Is there a reason you’re pissed at me?” I ask her.
Milah flinches, then scrunches her nose up before hanging her head. “I’m not. Not at you. Just feels like I’m being put on trial here for this entire thing.”
“I think that might be your guilt talking, sis.”
“Whatever. Probably.” She uncurls herself, standing. She looks about ready to drop, and she should go to bed, I think, but she offers me a humorless smile of pure exhaustion and asks, “Hey, wanna go sit by the fire pit? It's a nice night.”
“Should we be out in the open? Riker might worry.”
Milah actually looks horrified. “You think the fire pit’s outside? Um, do you know what a mosquito bite would do to my skin?”
I hang my head, struggling not to laugh.
Same old Milah.
And it’s same old Milah when she shows me her custom-designed patio – an entire glass enclosure looking out over the stars, with a few screened panels to let fresh air in and keep bugs out.
This fire pit is an elegant thing set right into the stone floor, sunken into the ground, and the casual seating scattered around looks like it was stolen from the Palace at Versailles. Milah drapes herself dramatically along a chaise. Very Marilyn Monroe.
I find myself a deep upholstered easy chair and tuck myself into it, hugging a pillow to my chest.
“Okay,” I say. “Now, what’s really going on? Why bring us up here? I thought this was your private sanctum. Not even family allowed.”
Milah cringes and flings an arm over her eyes. “I just wanted to talk to you alone, and then when the Daddy train wanted to tag along, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.”
“Phone calls are good for private convos, Mimi. You didn’t have to drag me to Canada.” I study her closely, the way her skin looks especially thin over her inner elbows, blue veins showing.
I hate that I can’t tell if the shadows under her eyes are withdrawals or just the shade of her sprawling arm. “Be real with me. How bad is it?”
That’s when Milah goes stone-still.
She drops the sulky party girl act, and I get to see my real sister.
There’s Milah, the pop starlet, and then there’s Milah, my sister – and Milah, my sister, is a quiet and brooding woman, sensitive and vulnerable and full of tortured, self-recriminating thoughts that drive her to extremes. She’s always been this way. When we were girls, she'd take bigger and bigger risks to be the center of attention, even if it meant hurting herself.
She’d fall off a stair railing after claiming she could run down it in heels. She’d mess around with dangerous boys who didn’t know how to take no for an answer. She’d drink herself into a stupor.
If I had to guess, I’d say she was a junior in high school when she started with the drugs, but I’m not sure.
I just know that once, long long ago, she wasn’t like this.
Then one day, when she was ten and I was eight, I found her with her mouth bloody and her dress ripped, sobbing into her skinned kneecaps. She would never tell me what happened. She still won’t.
But she became a different girl that day, and it felt like she was trying to take on all the bad things in the world so they couldn’t touch me.
Which is why I try so hard, no matter what, to be a good thing for her and, in my own way, protect her right back.
Without her party girl mask, Milah’s eyes seem a darker, steadier blue. She bites her lip, flaking off day-old lipstick.
“Feels like it’s eating me, you want to know the truth,” she whispers. “Goddamn. I thought it'd be better after all this time, but...”
I’m out of the chair in a moment and over to her chaise, settling on the edge, gathering her into my arms. Shaking, she huddles against me, burying her face against my stomach. Her arms are like narrow bands of steel around my hips and stomach. I stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head.
“Remember what your therapist said,” I murmur. “It’s always going to come and go. It'll never be completely gone, but the important thing to remember when it comes is that it will go again. It'll pass. It won’t hurt forever, Mimi.”
Th
e wretched sound she makes nearly breaks me.
“I need you home, Livvie,” she sobs. “Daddy needs you home. It's just...it’s not the same without you, it –”
I stiffen. That’s when it all makes sense. That's when it sinks in.
Daddy set this up.
He used Milah and her withdrawals to get at me because he knows I can’t resist my sister when she’s in pain. He’s manipulating her to manipulate me into coming back home to Seattle, and to him.
I should be furious, but there's one question I can't get past.
Why?
Why go through all this trouble to pay Enguard to keep me safe, then play these weird games to get me to come home?
Is my father more involved in this than I realized?
I know he’s one of the targets, but I always thought it was just tertiary to Milah. That she was the main focus, and we were just collateral damage to scare her and even the score for their two dead men. Maybe I’ve been around Riker too long and I’m absorbing his suspicious nature and jumping to too many conclusions, but now?
Now, I’m not so sure.
Jesus. When did I become so mistrustful of my own father?
Then again, when he’s always looked right through me...
Did I ever really trust him in the first place?
“Milah,” I say carefully. I don’t want to set her off. This whole thing may be a farce, but her pain is too real. “Did Daddy ask you to bring me home?”
She whimpers, her hold tightening on me. “Please. Don’t be mad.”
It takes everything in me not to explode.
“Why? People are still after us. Home's the easiest place to get all of us together in one place to take us out together. It doesn't make sense.”
“It does, though!” she protests. “It’s safe. It wasn’t safe before, but Daddy’s put in new security systems and hired an entirely new security team. There are armed guards everywhere. It’s okay now. It’s okay to come home.”
