by Katee Robert
Ryu let silence coat them for several long minutes, the only marking of the time passing being the tension bleeding into his body at her back. “I told you that I was hurt as a child.”
The change in subject had her opening her eyes and rolling to face him. His expression gave her nothing, but had she really expected anything more? Delilah frowned. “You mentioned it.” She’d figured the abuse had to be pretty intense to create such an intense trigger from being touched in that specific way. Delilah knew all about that, though thankfully she’d been able to dodge her own personal trigger up until the last week. There was a reason she’d made it to twenty-six without learning to swim. She found herself holding her breath, waiting to see what Ryu would say next.
“The four of us found each other in a place called Camp Bueller. Two of my siblings were stolen and brought there. My sister and I …” His breath hitched. “It’s recently come to light that we arrived there by different means.”
She’d thought he was hurt by someone in the family or close to him. That was the usual path abuse took. A camp? She suddenly knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she wouldn’t like where this conversation went. There was only one reason children were stolen and brought to a camp. Her stomach lurched at the thought of the evil that must have gone on there. “Ryu,” Delilah whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”
He ignored her. “Most kids barely lasted six months before they died or broke. My sister and I were there for ten years.” Ryu shuddered. “Toward the end, I was on the verge of shattering, but Te kept me from crossing over. Barely. She couldn’t save everyone, but she saved the three of us. I owe her everything, Delilah. Everything. It’s not a debt any of us can repay, even if she won’t acknowledge that it exists.”
Oh no. No, no, no. “You think I have something to do with something threatening your sister?”
“I know you do.” He touched her chin, bringing her face up so she had nowhere to look but directly at him. “I have a week to find a way to save my sister from a path that puts her in extreme danger, and I have absolutely no doubts that whoever put you up to trying to hack my phone is connected to the person responsible for Camp Bueller. My father.”
The room gave a sickening spin. She jerked back, needing to put some distance between them. “What did you just say?”
“My father.”
“Your father put you in that place?” Delilah’s father might be as close to true evil as she’d ever come to, but even he had kept his violence to her and Esther. He hadn’t spread it around. He hadn’t profited from it financially. He still deserved to die in a ditch, but Ryu’s father … She didn’t know what the word was to describe something worse than evil. She didn’t know if there was a word to encompass her horror.
Ryu rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I will protect my sister, and I will make him pay for what he’s done.”
The rest of what he’d said finally caught up with her. “Why do you think your—” She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t use the familial relation to describe that monster. Any connection to Ryu was too much. “Why do you think that man has something to do with me?”
“We’re closing in. It stands to reason that he’d want someone on the inside to stop us before we truly endanger him.”
She knew nothing about the man on the other end of the phone. He had no accent. No defining vocal characteristics. It wasn’t as if he’d given her proof of identification before he started blackmailing her with threats against Esther.
Delilah sat up. She couldn’t do this. “I …” She climbed out of the bed and bolted. She was almost to the doorway when her words got the best of her, too. “I understand, Ryu. Not about what you went through; I won’t pretend our pain is anywhere near comparable. But I understand what it is to do anything—anything—to protect your sister.” She didn’t wait to see if he understood. She’d already said too much.
Instead, she ducked out of the bedroom and retreated like the coward that she was.
Chapter 13
After a morning spent coming to terms with everything Delilah had—and hadn’t—said, Ryu knew one thing for certain. She betrayed him to protect her little sister. Whether someone had actively threatened the girl or had simply offered Delilah enough to make it worthwhile remained to be seen. In the end, it didn’t matter. It was the one pressure point Ryu couldn’t maneuver around. She’d fight him to a standstill and then keep fighting if she thought it would benefit her sister.
Just like he’d do for Amarante.
Which meant they were well and truly fucked.
He couldn’t force Delilah to trust him enough to tell him the truth. He wouldn’t hurt her or allow anyone else to hurt her, so she effectively had him over a barrel. Whether she knew it or not was irrelevant.
He also couldn’t stop Amarante from going to the Warren to meet with their father. His sister would find a way no matter what obstacles he and the others threw in her path. His only hope lay in offering her an alternative way to kill their father that could be done without sacrificing herself in the process.
Ryu didn’t have an alternative solution.
He sat back and stared at the monitors with all the information on Nicholai Krylov and the Warren. In the end, it wasn’t much beyond what he’d already known. The Warren had been around for decades, though Nicholai had only taken over in the last ten years. He’d worked his way up from the bottom and he’d done it fast, resulting in the previous owner passing over several candidates to settle on him instead. No one knew where he came from before he appeared in the Warren, but everyone knew that crossing him was the last mistake a person would make. There wasn’t a single instance of someone doing it and living. They all died eventually, and usually in terrible ways that served as a warning to others. It didn’t matter how intensive their protective detail, how isolated their location; Nicholai always punished those who broke the Warren’s rules.
Not even Amarante could get away with it.
Not even the Island of Ys would protect her if she did.
Ryu scrubbed his hands over his face and looked at the third monitor. It held everything he knew about Delilah and her sister, Esther. The file was significantly smaller than the one on the Warren and Nicholai. They were, by all accounts, two women who had seen some shit and come out the other side into something resembling a normal life. Her little sister was two years into a degree at Columbia. She kept her grades up, kept her nose clean, and showed all evidence of being exactly what she was—a college student intent on getting her degree and bettering her life.
Getting her degree that Delilah paid for by dancing at the club.
There was absolutely nothing to set them apart from thousands of other women on the same path … except for the Island of Ys. He had no doubt that she’d been targeted for her proximity to the Horsemen—perhaps even him, specifically, because of his obvious interest in her.
“Fuck.”
This was his fault, too. If he hadn’t used Delilah’s dancing as crutch, whoever this was would have passed her over without second thought. Her only value to them came because she could get close to Ryu.
He didn’t know how to fix this any more than he knew how to fix the shit with Amarante. It made him crazy. Ryu dealt in solutions. But every time he turned around in this clusterfuck of a situation, something else popped up for him to trip over.
“Ryu?”
He looked up to find Delilah standing in the doorway. She wore a short robe that barely brushed the tops of her thighs and was a show-stopping red. It took far too much effort to drag his gaze to her face and stop thinking about what she did—or didn’t—have on beneath it. “Yes?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, looking more unsure than he’d ever seen her. “We’ve known each other a week. Fewer than that, really if you count up all the hours. Would you trust someone with your sister’s life that you’d only known that long? Would you ever trust someone else with your sister’s life?”
He
wished he could lie to her. If he was smart, that’s the very least of what he should be capable of in order to convince her to tell him everything she knew. He wouldn’t let emotions compromise his bottom line. Ryu looked into her dark eyes and couldn’t dredge up a lie. “I’ve spent most of my life trusting only my siblings. Breaking that habit is damn near impossible.”
“I thought so.” She gave a sad little smile. “But that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.”
“That’s what I’m asking you to do.” He could use the fact that he never talked about Camp Bueller as leverage to demonstrate trust. It was nothing more than the truth, after all. Ryu didn’t talk about his past unless he absolutely had to. He sure as fuck didn’t offer up bits and pieces the way he kept doing with Delilah. She didn’t know that, though, and telling her as much would only look like he was trying to manipulate her. Demanding her trust while offering no evidence to support his claim that he deserved it …Yeah, he wouldn’t trust him if he were in her shoes.
The fact remained that he needed her to trust him.
He wished he could say it was solely for the mission’s sake, but things had never been that simple when it came to Delilah, and it sure as fuck wouldn’t be simple in this, either. She’d trusted him with her body time and time again, even after he proved he didn’t deserve that trust. Selfish of him to want the rest of her, too.
Ryu didn’t mind being selfish. Not now. Not in this.
He leaned back in his chair and studied her. “Let me ask you a question.”
“As if I have a choice.”
He pulled at the cuffs of his shirt. “What happens to your sister if you fail?”
“Ryu … Please, don’t.” She couldn’t hide the fear tensing her muscles or the way her hands clenched at her sides.
Something bad, then. He’d known it must be, but this simply confirmed it. “If you had to trust her safety with me or with the person currently threatening her …”
Understanding dawned on her face and she gave a bitter laugh. “I have absolutely no reason to think that you’d keep her safe. None. Just because you like fucking me doesn’t mean a single damn thing and you know it.”
Her words stung. This meant something to him, even if she’d just been using him because she was forced into that position. The thought left him sick. Ryu scrubbed his hands over his face. “It means something to me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I want this to be real, not just because you had no choice.” He gave a sharp laugh. “Fuck, that’s an impossible thing to ask. I admire your survival instincts. I really do. Your sister is lucky to have you.”
Delilah flinched. “It was real for me, too. It is real.”
He barely allowed himself to dare hope she spoke the truth. There was no way to tell for sure without time to allow this to play out, and time was one thing they didn’t have. He needed a solution, and he needed it now. “Your sister matters to you. Mine matters to me. That leaves us at an impasse unless we can work around it. I’m willing to try. Are you?”
“That’s …” She lifted her hands and let them drop back to her sides. “You make it sound so simple. It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple.” It wasn’t. Amarante would balk at his diverting resources to handle this, especially if it came out that this was some mundane enemy and not their father. Ryu didn’t care. He pushed slowly to his feet. “I give you my word that we’ll try to save your sister, and that we won’t hold her safety against you in the future.”
Delilah crossed her arms over her chest. “Even if your word is good, it’s an impossible thing to accomplish. It won’t work.”
He bit back a curse. “Delilah, I know you allowed them to hack my phone. It’s not a mystery that needs to be solved. I also know that they’re threatening your sister in order to get you to do what they want. The only thing your holding out is doing is wasting both our time when we could be finding a solution.”
He picked apart her words, trying to understand. She sounded like she wanted to trust him. There was more than fear holding her back, though. Or, rather, more than a vague fear. “They’re watching you. If you move out of turn, they said they’ll hurt her.”
She didn’t answer, but her expression was answer enough.
“How are they watching you?” There was no such thing as a truly enclosed environment. Not even on the Island of Ys. They had the best security, they vetted their employees, and they did regular upgrades to ensure everything went off without a hitch.
They also invited the worst of the worst to frequent their location. As good as Ryu and his siblings were, they weren’t infallible. Someone had found a crack and exploited it.
Delilah looked away and her shoulders dropped. “I don’t know. They know things they shouldn’t know, and it’s enough.”
He caught himself before he peppered her with questions. The fact she’d admitted this much was progress in and of itself. “You’re safe here, in this exact place. There are no cameras in this villa and we’re the only ones here.”
“No cameras.” She frowned. “How do you know that people don’t wander through here whenever they want?”
He permitted himself a tight smile. “Because there are cameras set up around the perimeter. No one comes or goes without us seeing. But we’re the only ones who use this place. We don’t spy on each other.” Much. Amarante always seemed to know things she had no business knowing. And Ryu had been known to check up on his siblings on the network that spanned both Pleasure and Pain. This villa was different, though. They came here when they needed a break but didn’t want to deal with the security plans that came from leaving the island. It wasn’t truly a break if meddling siblings were watching one’s every move.
“Perimeter cameras. Of course.”
A clocked ticked in his head, counting down the hours and minutes until this decision was taken from his hands. He didn’t want to have to choose between Amarante and Delilah. He’d do damn near anything to avoid being put in that position.
How the hell was he supposed to convince Delilah to trust him?
He’d fucked that up from the very beginning, and nothing he could see of the future would do anything but make it worse. He leaned back and closed his eyes. If he were another man, the path forward would include seducing her. Things were so much clearer when they lost their clothing and their plotting and let nature take its course.
Ryu wasn’t another man, and seducing her trust wasn’t an option.
Unfortunately.
Fuck, what was he going to do?
Two days and Delilah had nothing to do but think. She worked out. She carefully tested the strength in her wrist. She ate and slept more than she had in weeks.
And she thought.
She meant what she said to Ryu. They’d reached an impasse she didn’t see a way around. How could she? A sister for a sister. That’s what was on the table. Either Esther or Death. As tempted as Delilah was to say fuck Death, she hadn’t imagined the fear in Ryu’s eyes. Fear for his sister and what came next.
Fear Delilah felt right down to her soul.
It had nightmares stalking her sleep, breathing down the back of her neck, whispering threats against the only person in this world she’d die for. Again and again, she woke up sweating and shaking, a scream trapped on the inside of her lips. The last time, she gave sleep up for a lost cause. She’d just have to take a nap in the afternoon like she’d gotten accustomed to doing. Delilah took a long shower, the hot water pounding against her skin banishing the worst of her shakes. It also brought things into glaring focus.
They couldn’t continue like this.
Ryu had made it clear he would keep her here as long as he had to. Every day she spent away from the only way for her own personal nightmare to contact her, her anxiety rose. He said it would be another week, but she had no guarantees. If he called and she didn’t answer, what would he do?
She didn’t know. She just didn’t know.
Delilah fell with a surprised yelp, already bracing for the impact of the hardwood floors.
Instead, strong arms caught her, diverting her route. She landed sprawled on Ryu’s bare chest. It took her brain several precious seconds to catch up and realize that they were not, in fact, injured. “What the hell?”
“You’re welcome.”
Fear and anger and something hot and slick had her sitting up and pointing a finger at his face. “I’m welcome? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t tripped me.”
“I was sitting here, minding my own business, when you tripped. It’s not my fault you didn’t turn on a light or announce yourself.” His hands fell to rest on her hips, a light touch that she felt right down to her soul. “I’m sorry, Delilah.”
God, the thing the man could do with a handful of syllables. It simply wasn’t fair. Her anger bled out of her, leaving only fear and desire in its wake. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. She was so incredibly tired. Bone tired. The kind of exhaustion that left her punch drunk and stupid. They couldn’t go on like this. They flat out couldn’t keep it up.
Words rose, words she had no intention of voicing. “You know, if things were different, I would be bending over backwards to seduce you into being my boyfriend.”
His fingers flexed against her hips, ever so slightly. “If things were different, I would do my own bending for you.”
