by Nicole Snow
His huge chest rises and falls, his rough fingers laced through my hair, a question on his lips.
“Fucking shit, baby girl. What did you do to me?” He genuinely wants to know.
But the only answer is to drive my lips down, faster and tighter on his lovely shaft, gently squeezing his balls. His breathing goes to tatters. His chest ripples like a mountain moving, and a minute later, he comes so hard in my mouth I’ll be tasting him for days.
Later, it starts sinking in, when I’m slack on the bed, tucked into the nook of his arm and completely boneless.
This man is my amnesia. The good kind.
My cure for everything wrong.
And I can’t even help falling way too hard, too fast, and too beautifully for those sea glass blue eyes that glow like torchlit paths to my future.
I still don’t have the energy to even open my eyes when Flint wakes me up for dinner.
I don’t know how he finds the energy to cook, but he moves like he’s on cloud nine. And just like everything else, his seafood stew is divine, this succulent dish of tender fish, Hawaiian lobster, and mussels in a broth so savory I’m sure it’s illegal somewhere.
We eat it with long, toasted planks of buttery bread and a bottle of delicate white wine.
Back in bed, after supper, I flop down next to him. It’s not even a question whose room I’m sleeping in tonight.
“You are amazing. You know that, right?” I whisper.
He chuckles, props an elbow on the pillow beside me, and kisses my forehead. “Think it’s the other way around. It’s a rare, sweet thing finding this kind of bliss in a storm, babe.”
Storm. It’s almost hard to believe we’re even in one sharing nights like this.
His eyes grow dim, and I think I know why.
Despite how wonderful making love with him is, spending time together, it’s not the answer to our problems. I trail a finger over his shoulder, down his arm.
“How did you get those scars?” I ask, having felt them numerous times while my hands grazed his back.
He tenses. “It was a job, several years back. Not long before I sold my old company.”
As kind and giving as he is, he holds a metric ton of pain inside.
“What happened?” I ask softly, hoping I can coax him to let things out. Let them go.
His gaze goes across the room, out the doors to the sea.
“It was a kidnapping, a woman and her daughter. We’d tracked them all the way to Bali, but the bastards there were better armed, better manned than our intel suggested. They hit our boat with some kind of improvised explosive and sank it before we hit the shore. I got Cash to safety, along with a couple other guys, but the others...”
His thick sigh tells the full tragedy.
My heart breaks a little then. I wrap my arms around him tighter, just listening to the steady, rapid beat of his heart. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It gets worse. I was captured while looking for my men. They did the usual shit, knocked me around, stuff I’d learned to handle since BUD/S school. They used a drill on my back, used it to peel away the skin, trying to make me talk, tell them who’d hired us. It almost fucking killed me.”
My stomach clenches. My eyes sting at the pain he must have endured. “But you didn’t talk,” I whisper, already knowing he didn’t.
“No. They had me in the same room as the woman and her daughter, though, so she could watch her rescuer die. I came to while they were telling me they’d kill her and the kid, all because they were family of this man who’d double-crossed them. They took my weapons, but I found a chair and used it on the man with the gun. I tried. Before I could do more, everything went crazy. More minions rushed into the room at the same time my men came crashing through the windows. I threw myself over the woman and her daughter, tried to protect them from the gunfire, but...”
My heart jumps up in my throat. “But?”
He sits up and flips his legs over the edge of the bed.
The scars on his back seem larger to me now, knowing how they got there, and the gruesome pain he’d endured. They almost glow like soft bony discs in the moonlight.
I lay a hand on his shoulder. “Flint, you did everything you could. You were—”
He shakes his head like it’s heavier than the moon. “We extracted her daughter, brought her home safely, but they’d already abused the woman. She’d taken a direct hit to her abdomen in the crossfire. Cash fucking tried, but...she died on our way home.”
Okay.
I’m crying.
I can’t imagine what he’s gone through, but I sense how much this weighs on him, dragging down his soul. “It wasn’t your fault! Just like you always tell me. Bad people doing horrible things doesn’t mean you should take the fall for their evil. You tried.”
He shakes his head again, his final answer.
I lay my hand on his back, over the scars.
“Yes, tried, Flint,” I tell him again.
I wish there was some magic combination of words to help him.
“Not hard enough. We should’ve been able to bring her home alive. That little girl lost a mother, and they got away,” he growls. “They got to live to savage more innocents.”
Scooting closer, I rise up on my knees and massage the muscles in his neck and shoulders. They’re like giant knots. “And I should’ve been able to do something on that boat.”
He twists to look at me, frowning. “No, you—”
“It’s the same thing. I was there. I should’ve been able to do something.”
“Hardly, Val. Difference is, I’m a trained professional and—”
“And I’m just a spoiled rich girl?” I’m not trying to argue with him.
I just want him to see the similarities. His gaze lasers through me.
“Look, you keep telling me none of this is my fault,” I say. “If you’re right about that, then you have to know what happened to her wasn’t yours. I’m sure you told the other men who were with you that. It wasn’t their fault. You’re too good a man not to.”
He looks at me, then shakes his head one more time and stands up.
I don’t want to push him too hard. It’s something he has to see for himself. Just like me.
Honestly, from what he’s just told me, I can see things differently in my own situation. I don’t know why exactly, but I know it’s the truth.
It’s not my fault.
I’m still going to do something about it, just like he did with her, but I’m not going to beat myself up.
And if I have anything else to say about it, neither will he.
We wake up late the next day, past eleven o’clock.
I hear the shower hissing and smile.
While he’s in the bathroom, I collect our clothes. I lay his on the bed and get dressed before walking out to the kitchen.
Since Flint made such a scrumptious dinner last night, I’d like to return the favor.
I’ve never had the opportunity—no, that’s not right.
I’ve had the opportunity to learn how to cook, I just never took it because we had a chef.
Since living here, I’ve learned a few things. So I dive into fixing sandwiches, grabbing everything from the fridge.
They’re piled high with meat and fancy cheeses, plus a selection of fresh fruit on two plates, when he comes into the kitchen.
I’m nervous. I don’t know exactly what to say. Remaining silent, I stay planted.
Flint grasps my hands, pulls me close, and kisses me like no tomorrow.
It’s nice knowing he feels the same way after I saw him naked last night in more ways than one.
My heart doesn’t stop pounding when we separate, though. A small part of me worries what he’ll say next.
“Been doing some thinking and...fuck it, babe, I can’t be a flaming hypocrite. You’re right. It’s time to start burying the past. You aren’t to blame, and neither am I.” He kisses my forehead and looks at the sandwiches. “These look gre
at.”
I grin, mainly because of his bad acting.
They look like a dog’s dinner. But mine tasted pretty good from a test bite or two.
His face says he still doesn’t believe he wasn’t to blame, not fully, but it’s a start, just saying it out loud. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have understood that, but I do now, and I believe it.
I poke him in the ribs. “I figured you’d be hungry.”
He grins, picks up the sandwich, and takes a bite. “Starvin’. Need to keep my energy up after last night.” He winks at me. “So do you.”
I’m surprised I don’t melt into a puddle of feely-feels right on the spot.
We joke around while eating. Neither of us wants to touch the idea of him going to the King Heron offices again. Anger at Ray for putting us all in this predicament and upsetting Mother curdles the food as it hits my stomach. He can’t keep doing this.
Not to mother, not to me, or anyone else.
“That hit the spot,” Flint says, picking up his empty plate. “Thanks for lunch.”
“You’re welcome.” No longer hungry, I pick up my plate to dump the other half of my sandwich in the trash.
Flint pulls his phone out of his pocket while setting his plate in the sink.
The way his face instantly goes blank takes my breath away. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I grab the phone as he drops it on the counter and turns, running for the door.
“Stay here,” he tells me, not even caring what I read off the screen.
Get out here now. Someone just dropped something off at the gate.
The text is from Davis.
My turn to run for the door.
“Stay there, Val!” Flint shouts back, already outside and darting down the driveway.
The gate hangs open and Davis is dragging something heavy through it. A limp body.
I barely get out a gasp. My heart stops as I recognize who it is.
Ray.
Frozen in my tracks, I can’t speak until Flint and Davis are walking past, working together to carry Ray by his arms and legs. “Is he...is he dead?”
“No,” Flint answers. “Get inside.”
I run ahead of them, holding the door, and then rush to the couch and shove aside the pillows so they can put my brother down.
He’s been destroyed.
His eyes are swollen shut. His entire face is battered and bruised and covered in dark spiderwebs of blood. Same with his arms and hands. His dark purple shirt is torn, stained all over with more rusty splotches.
“Oh my God.” My trembling hand goes to my mouth.
“Cash is on his way,” Flint says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll save him.”
I nod, and needing to do something, I go to the kitchen for a bowl of warm water and a washcloth.
An odd numbness fills me. I’m so mad at him, but he’s my brother, and for now a helpless man who’s been beaten within an inch of his life.
I don’t even know if I love him, but no one deserves this.
If he’s done wrong, he should be on trial in front of a jury.
Not smashed to a bloody pulp by vigilante monsters.
Flint takes the washcloth out of the warm water as I set the bowl on the table, wringing it out, but I stop him.
“I’ll do it,” I say, and start wiping Ray’s face, discovering a large gash on his forehead that’s still bleeding.
It’s the only large wound I find, and I tell Cash when he arrives, then step aside so he can take over.
Davis ran back outside the second we brought Ray inside, and Flint is in the garage, loading things in his truck.
“You’re going to King Heron, aren’t you?” I ask, stepping up behind him.
“Yeah. Don’t worry, Cash will stay right here with you.”
Now isn’t the time for arguing.
A sigh bleeds out of me and I look him in the eye. “Go in the back door when you get there. It’s the best way in where no one will see you. The code’s nineteen-fifty-nine, if they haven’t changed it.”
He gives me a swift, heartfelt kiss before climbing in his truck. It takes every shred of my willpower not to burst into messy tears, watching him drive away.
I walk back inside, still oddly numb. I’m worried, scared, yet I know there isn’t a lot I can do right now. As much as I wish there was.
“How’s he doing?” I ask as soon as I’m back by the sofa.
“He’ll live,” Cash says. “But he took one hell of a beating. Broken bones, lacerations, possible internal bleeding...the works. We need to get him to a hospital.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“More water,” Cash whispers. “If we polish him up now, it means less work later when we have to come up with some cockamamie cover story to check him in.”
For the next half hour, I help get Ray cleaned up and bandaged.
“He’s going to be fine,” Cash tells me quietly as he closes his leather bag. “We should still have him seen, though I don’t believe he’s in any immediate danger. His prognosis isn’t quite as dreadful as I’d feared.”
I’m concerned for Ray, but doubly terrified at Flint going to the office by himself. “Okay. I guess you’d better go now.”
“Go?” He cocks his head.
“Flint said you’d be following him to the office to help, right?” Suddenly recalling the fingerprint reader, I run to the kitchen. “He needs Ray’s fingerprints.”
“Flint already got Ray’s prints, Valerie. First thing we did as soon as I had him stable,” Cash says, running a hand through his hair. “I told him I’d stay here with you.”
A dense knot in the pit of my stomach says something is about to happen. Something awful.
“Flint needs your help,” I say. “I don’t. I can take care of Ray and look after him. We’re safe here, I’m sure he has guys outside watching this place. Flint’s all alone.”
Cash pulls out his phone and dials a number. I can hear it ringing before it goes to voicemail. My heart claws its way to my throat as the doctor’s emerald-green gaze meets mine.
“He’s not answering,” Cash growls, slapping the phone down against his thigh. “Dammit.”
I’m trembling. “Then you need to go, Cash. Now!”
He glances around, unsure what to do. “Nonsense. I told Flint I’d stay here with you and—”
“Go!” I yell, jerking forward, digging my hands into his shoulders. “He needs your help.”
“Fuck.” Cash stiffens, moves several steps down the hall, then stops and points at me. “One condition. You’ll stay inside. Keep all the doors locked. Call Davis the second anything strange happens.”
Then he rushes out the door. I press the back of my hand against my mouth, holding in a panicked sob.
That dread knot in my stomach grows harder, stronger. It’s sickening.
I spin at the sound of a moan and hurry to the couch where Ray tries sitting up. “Ray, no. Don’t get up. Just rest.”
“Val? Valerie?” His eyes are narrow strips as he looks at me. “Is that...really you?”
“Nah, it’s Taylor Swift,” I tell him, remembering how much her songs annoy him. I put a hand on his shoulder as he blinks in confusion. “It’s me. Lie back down.”
“No, I...no!” He drags his legs off the couch and flops up, groggy and wincing. “You don’t...they know, Val. I...I tried. But...they fucking know.”
I can barely understand him as he slurs his words in this eerie whisper.
That scares me almost as much as what I think he’s trying to say.
“They know what?” I sit down beside him.
He hangs his head. “Proof.”
“Proof? What proof, Ray? Proof about what?” I’m frantic.
“Dad.” He slumps against me.
“Ray?” I shake him, lightly so I don’t do more damage. “Ray!”
He lifts his head, drawing a deep, rattling breath, trying to regain strength.
“Go,” he mumbles.
“You, danger. Your boyfriend. They know.”
My spinning mind locks up. “Boyfriend? Flint. They know about Flint?”
“Yes.” It’s barely a whisper on his split lip.
For the next minute I’m just staring, shaking, making a mental list of all the vital things I need to do.
Then the house goes dark. Every single light. Even the clock on the microwave winks out, and so does the panel light on the wall. The security system panel.
Oh, no.
The door to the lanai slides open with a soft whoosh.
I want to believe it’s Flint, or Cash, or Davis walking in, but it’s already too late.
Savanny is hissing and growling.
18
When Canaries Sing (Flint)
The lack of security makes me wonder even more about Ray and exactly what he’s dealing with, and why.
A business of this caliber with an entire room full of dark secrets should have more security. Not just a twenty year old kid up front, who’s so glued to his phone he doesn’t even watch the main lot.
Val was right. All I’d needed was the code for the back door.
She’s been right about other things too. Little things about the house, about Bryce.
She was only wrong about Bali. Yes, I’d told the others it wasn’t their fault. It was mine.
I was the team leader, so the burden fell on my shoulders alone.
But none of this shit with King Heron is her fault.
And if I can prove it, maybe I’ll start seeing something different with my situation, too.
The green light flashing pulls my attention back to where it’s needed. The light indicates the reader just accepted the fingerprint I’d held against the screen.
I hold my breath, opening the door, shining my flashlight in.
What the hell? It looks like a tiny situation room. Pictures tacked on the walls, file cabinets, shelves, boxes. I move closer, and recognize Joel Cornaro as the man in several photos.
I’d known he was behind this, but as I shift through some papers, read the dates written on the photos, I have to wonder if I was wrong about Ray. Very fucking wrong.
