by Nancy Gideon
“Hey, baby.” Their king nodded to Kip. “Good timing.”
“Even better,” their youngest brother said, dangling Sylvia’s gift. “Keys to the city.”
Cale smiled, a wicked show of teeth. “Let’s go say hello.”
Emergency power was coming on, a winking parade across ceiling lights, highlighting the UP button on the elevator. Kip held the door open for the gruesome pair and used the key to unlock the top floor so they could ride up in heavy-breathing silence.
They weren’t sure what type of a reception to expect when the doors glided open to a dim and empty reception area. Cautiously, they approached the far door where a thin strip of light beckoned from beneath it. Turow put out his hands to wave Kip and Cale back, but both stood firm at his side, chiding him with their impatient looks.
Row paused, eyes closing as he reached out along the bond. The intensity of emotion hit him like a fist to the gut and twisted hard. Gladness, relief . . . warning.
Proceed with care.
Row turned the knob cautiously, using his body to shield his brothers from immediate danger.
The living area was also dark and empty. Sylvia’s presence rushed over him in a palpable wave. His gaze darted between the closed doors, but he couldn’t narrow the energy to a specific place. He gestured, directing the other two each to a flanking door while he approached, his focus on the central one. Kip pushed open his, leaned in quickly then shook his head, falling in behind Turow as Cale let his fly open while he went in low and fast. He emerged a second later, shaking his head. They advanced on the remaining room, tense and ready.
Turow flung door number three open, sending it banging against the wall. A figure popped up behind the bed.
“They’re gone,” Rosalee cried out, hands up in a posture of surrender. Her features wet with convenient tears, she ran toward Turow, crying, “I’m so glad to see you! It was awful! James is out of control. I did everything I could to protect her. Thank God you’re here!”
Cale intercepted her, gripping her elbow and slinging her to Kip. “Keep the lying bitch quiet and out of our way before I end her.”
Rosalee clung to the least-intimidating of the trio and kept her mouth shut.
Turow entered the office, giving any potential hiding place a cursory look, finding nothing.
Where the hell were they?
Everything happened so fast.
The lights went out. Security monitors went black.
Pain, sudden and strong, exploded like an atom bomb through her jaw, dropping her to the floor. Through that halo of agony, James crouched over her, hands clutching her throat.
“You brought him here!”
“No!” she wheezed as consciousness waxed and waned. “It’s our bond. I didn’t betray you!”
“Liar!”
“You need me, James! Think!”
The tremendous pressure eased, allowing Sylvia to gasp for breath through the tearing burn.
“If he’s here,” she managed in a raw whisper, “it’s to kill us both.”
Emergency lighting came on, casting a harsh, greenish glare upon the sharp angles of his face. In rage, James terrified. He rose to snatch a pistol from one of the desk drawers. Sitting up, she caught the glint of silver as he checked the rounds.
“It’s time to put an end to his interference.” Gun in one hand, James gripped her wrist with the other, pulling her to her feet then tugging her after him.
The door she had assumed to be a closet opened into another hall that ran behind the reception area to an emergency stairwell. Jaw throbbing, throat aching, Sylvia followed his hurried descent down the tight turn of steps until they emerged in a cool, climate controlled wine cellar. Clever like a rat, of course James had an escape route. While she recovered from the twisty turn of six flights, James was on his phone. She could hear him speaking rapidly to Bart.
“—down in the wine cellar. Bring the car around to meet us. Rosie? Leave her.”
So much for family loyalties.
He turned on her in a tense fury. “Tell me you still have the book!”
She patted the shoulder bag she’d managed to hang on to. “We can start over someplace new.”
“No! I won’t be driven out again. I’m going to kill your annoying mate, and then I’ll have Cale taken out, along with his next generation, and I’ll claim what should have been mine!”
He was going to order Kendra and her unborn child to be murdered! So he did have someone in place in their compound, someone who would assassinate a pregnant female.
To stop it, she’d have to remain close.
“Ours,” she reminded him with a frostiness that briefly stopped him.
He smiled, a fierce baring of teeth. “Ours.”
When he started to make that fateful call, she tugged his arm down. “We need to get out of here first. Saving the book is the important thing. Remember what’s important. Revenge can wait.”
He nodded and added, “But not for long.”
A quiet voice intruded from the shadows by the stairs.
“Time’s up.”
Before Sylvia could react to the sight of Turow stepping into the faint light, James drew and pointed the revolver, growling, “For you.”
Without thinking, Sylvia caught his wrist, bringing the full brunt of his fury in her direction. She defused it with two words.
“Let me.”
Cold blue eyes assessed her, looking for weakness, for deception. She betrayed none.
“You said it was the only way to make you trust me,” she argued. “You were right. He’ll never stop. He’ll always be one step behind us. I’m tired of looking over our shoulders. Let me prove my loyalty.”
“Syl.”
Her attention snapped to Turow, her features twisting in frustration. “Why couldn’t you just let me go? You’re right, you know. You are easy to walk away from.”
Those sharp words quickened the desired response. Brief but unmistakable emotion flashed in his eyes before features instantly tightened.
“I can’t have you constantly on my scent. I’m tired of kicking you away. You just won’t let go. Why can’t you just accept the truth? I don’t want to be with you!”
“You wear my mark,” he said stubbornly, as if that explained it all away.
“You forced me to. It means nothing to me except a tie to what I want to forget. I told you to let me go. Why can’t you ever listen? Why don’t you ever learn? James was right. You’ll never stop unless someone stops you.”
Sylvia reached for the gun. James let her take it, a cold, respectful smile on his face. It was heavier than she’d imagined, as heavy as the weight of her guilt as she pointed it at Turow’s brave heart. She made her words as killing as the impact of silver would be.
“If it comes down to me or you, it’s me. It’s always going to be me. I’m sorry, Turow. You knew who and what I was the first time you kissed me.”
“Yes,” he replied stoically, “I did.”
Before James could stop her, Sylvia advanced, aim steady. “Time you get what you deserve.”
“I think so, too.”
“What took you so long?” In three running steps, she was in his arms.
Row scooped her up, drawing her tightly to him as he stripped the gun from her hand and pointed it at his brother.
Lost in his embrace, breathing him in, palms mapping the deliciously hard terrain of arms and shoulders, Sylvia didn’t look behind to enjoy the shock and anger undoubtedly waking on James’s face. She looked ahead to things closer, dearer to her, anticipating the taste of Row’s mouth, the feel of that masterfully trained body moving in harmony with her own. For a long moment, she refused to relinquish the reality of him, so solid, so strong, here to welcome her home. Home being wherever he was.
She rode his huge inhale, feeling him tremble on its release as he whispered, “Are you okay?”
“How could I not be?”
He eased her away from the blissful haven of his embrace
to see that truth for himself. The smile died on his face. His eyes went dark and hard as he assessed the fresh marks from his brother’s fist.
“He hurt you.” Turow’s statement was scary flat. “I felt your pain, your fear. That will never, ever happen again.”
“Row, I’m fine. You’re here. Nothing else matters.”
He dismissed her plea, that killing stare lasering to James. “You hurt her. You put your hands on her. You burned her, scared her and beat her. My mate. My mate!”
James sneered, standing unafraid as the bore of his own pistol sought out a fatal target. “You’re a fool, Turow. She enjoyed it. We’re alike, she and I. You know nothing about us. How could you from inside your sterile little world where you believe a fool should be king. You don’t know anything about power, about strength. If she goes with you now, how long do you really think she’ll stay?”
“Forever.” Row spoke that as an absolute. “You’re the fool. You don’t know us. You don’t know what we want. You have no idea what true power and strength are. It’s holding our family together. It’s confronting evil without fear. It’s doing the right thing, and that’s something you’ll never understand. But it doesn’t matter now, not for you. You should have killed me when you had the chance because you’re not taking another breath.” His finger whitened on the trigger.
“Row!”
Cale’s command was the only thing that could make him hesitate.
“We need him. We need what he knows.”
Surprisingly, it was Sylvia who reinforced their king’s edict. Her palm rubbed along the tension of Turow’s arm, sliding down to cover the hard ridge of his knuckles.
“You promised me, Cale.” He spoke those words fiercely.
“And I’ll keep that promise, brother. He’s not going anywhere, and when we’re done with him, he’s yours. My word.” Cale moved up from behind him into his peripheral view. “Let it go . . . for now. Help me take him back home for questioning. I need him alive.” With that, his king crossed between the bore of the gun and its intended target. “Hello, Jamie.”
Cale’s sudden blow dropped his older brother to his knees. James wiped the blood from his mouth and laughed.
“This isn’t over, Cale.”
“For you it is. Row, help me.”
Sylvia caressed his clenched hand, finally pulling his gaze to hers. She smiled. “Let it go, my prince. We have each other. That makes everything worth it. Except leaving you. I had to. I knew you wouldn’t agree with what I had to do. It’s done. I have what I came for. And I have you. No regrets. No looking back. Agreed?”
She felt the push and pull of indecision as Turow’s gaze cut back to James and what she had asked him to walk away from. Revenge. Retribution. A quick conclusion to the threat James posed as long as he could draw a breath.
“Do I have you, Row?”
Kip came up on the other side of him, dragging a woeful Rosalee with him. He reached out his free hand. “I’ll take that for you while you think up an answer.”
Sylvia released his hand, letting Turow pass the pistol to his brother. Only then did she exhale.
Very gently, Row outlined one of the bruises on her face with his fingertips. “You’ve always had me.”
His mouth claimed hers, as soft and sweet as his touch, satisfying all the way to her soul.
Cale broke in with a curt, “I’d like to get home for some of that myself, so could we get this wrapped up if it’s no incon-fucking-venience to you two?”
Turow leaned back, regarding her with a look so tender it all but melted her bones. “To be continued.”
“The sooner the better.”
Still cinched tightly to his side, Sylvia began walking with him to where Cale had James on his knees, hands atop his head. The sight stirred a fierce satisfaction. Until Rosie, pulling against the grip Kip had on her arm, cried, “You lied to me! How could you? I trusted you like a sister!”
“Right back at you,” Sylvia returned. “Playing me, Kendra, Wesley on that lunatic’s behalf. We’re not sisters. We’re not family. You can forget about ever seeing my brother again. You made your choice and chose wrong. Hang beside your cousin.”
She continued at Turow’s side, turning away from the girl’s manic tears, only to be surprised by Cale’s sudden, strong embrace.
“I owe you big, mama.”
“Yes, you do. You know me. I’ll collect.”
At one time she would have taken advantage of the warmth she saw in his gaze as he stepped back, seeking to turn gratitude to her benefit. She wasn’t that person anymore.
James laughed. “You don’t know her, Cale. Not like I do. She’s just like her mother. She’ll turn on you and Turow, just like she did me, and you’ll deserve it for trusting her.”
Sylvia returned a chilly smile. “I’m not like Martine. She cared for nothing but her own interests.”
“And yours are pure now? For the sake of that big happy family that’s going to welcome you back with open arms?” He laughed again, a harsh, mocking sound. “How’d that work out for you last time? You think anything’s changed.”
She’d changed, but he’d never understand that. She wouldn’t waste the effort arguing.
“Let’s get this piece of shit packed up and outta here,” Cale growled.
Turow was more than ready to go, eager to get James on ice and himself buried inside his mate’s hot welcome home. He wouldn’t relax until they were alone with just the sheen of sweat between them. Then, after a day or week or so of clothing optional togetherness, he’d begin the work of winning his clan over to acceptance of the woman he loved. And he wouldn’t rest until they saw her as he did. As brave and true and fierce and filled with the same need to be accepted that had ached inside him until she’d said the words that wiped all that lonely sorrow away. I love you, Row.
But first, there was James to contend with. Turow planned to pack him up the way he would his grandmother’s china, until safely secured from any possible chance of movement.
He’d taken into account every possible variable. Except one.
Rosalee.
“This is your fault!” she raged at Cale. “You ruined everything! Why couldn’t you have just died in New Orleans the way you were supposed to?”
With an unexpected swiftness, she shouldered Kip in the ribs, stripping the gun from his hand when he stumbled. And without hesitation, aimed. And fired.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Everything happened as if in slow motion, yet there was no chance to subvert the way things played out.
Turow saw Rosalee’s finger tighten. Automatically, he responded, his intent to step in front of whatever came hurtling his king’s way. Simple, reflex actions ingrained in him for such a time of deadly crisis. Nothing interfered with his patterned thoughts. Until something, someone lunged in the way of his sacrifice.
He saw red. A ripple of hair. The sudden hot splash of vital crimson as it struck his face. He had no time to react as Cale toppled backwards, feet tangling as Sylvia hit him like a defensive end. Both of them falling, her atop him as James scrambled out of the way.
One or both of them shot.
Not one for sentiment, James disappeared in a blink.
A strangled wail tore from Turow’s throat. The time it took for his body to respond seemed a lifetime. Then he was on his knees, scooping Sylvia into his arms, freeing a struggling Cale.
“What the hell?” His king sat up, breathing fast, swiping at the blood on his face that wasn’t his as his gaze flew about for signs of danger. Unharmed.
And that left an alternative Turow couldn’t face.
“Syl? Syl!”
It took Kip a second too long to react. Shock held him immobile as he saw Sylvia shove by Turow, taking his place between Cale and the bullet meant to end his life. As they fell, instinct took over.
His hand closed over Rosalee’s, jerking the pistol up a heartbeat too late. He’d underestimated her ferocity and, now, her strength. He reeled,
unbalanced by the sudden impact of her small fist that pulped his nose and turned on instant waterworks to cloud his vision. Her sharp little teeth sank into his thumb as they wrestled for possession of the gun. Shouting in pain, he cinched his free arm around her waist to restrain her. She squirmed, kicking, snapping at him like a feral animal, more determined to attack than escape.
She got her other hand over his where she’d already torn skin and muscle, wrenching, twisting, screaming in her effort to gain control of the weapon. Her knee found his groin, and his already watering eyes bulged.
Sensing his momentary weakness, Rosie pushed and pulled his hand in the same urgent motion. The gun went off again, its fatal projectile entering just below her chin and exiting behind her ear.
They stared at one another for a long, surprised beat before the light went out in her eyes and the life from her limbs.
Dazed, drenched in both their blood, Kip yanked the pistol from her hand as she crumpled, raising it as James raced toward him on his way to the stairs.
Kip did nothing to stop him. He couldn’t take the shot. He couldn’t take James’s life, a failing James recognized in an instant and took full advantage of, pushing past him to make his escape. Kip regarded Cale blankly, letting him grab the gun from his slack fingers before charging after their brother.
Slowly, Turow’s anguished howling seeped through his stupor, prompting Kip to kneel next to Row where he was on his knees, clutching his mate’s still form, those awful, inconsolable sounds tearing up from his chest. He put a hand on one shaking shoulder. Lost to grief, Turow didn’t acknowledge him.
“Row. Row, put her down,” he coaxed gently. Then more firmly ordered, “Let her go!”
“I can’t!”
Turow blinked at him incomprehensibly, forcing Kip to pry her from his grasp and ease her carefully to the concrete floor where she sprawled, seemingly lifeless. Turow continued to weave and rock, eyes too glazed to notice what Kip observed.
He’d seen her move.
Once again, lashes flickered against those pale cheeks.
