by Black, Incy
“You can’t ship me off to Jack Ballentyne. Not without putting him, his wife Lowry, and their children at risk.”
“Jack and his private security firm, Fortress, provide some of the best close protection available. Once I alert Jack to the threat, he’ll throw a cordon around you and his family that neither man nor beast can penetrate. End of argument.”
No, not end of argument. He hadn’t considered the very real possibility of a danger within that ring of steel. “Will—”
His palm came up. “You’re going, Angel. You and I? Some people just aren’t meant to share close proximity.”
“Fine, then I’ll have to go it alone because I’m sure as hell not about to expose anyone else to me. I’m not safe.”
His brow crinkled. “What the hell does that mean?”
How to explain? How to excuse?
How not to cry?
“Rhys didn’t kill Cymion Gray. I did,” she blurted.
Chapter Twelve
He’d taken confessions, hundreds of them. Some sick, some sane. Some proud, some desperate. None had rendered him speechless.
He noticed her fingers. Wrapped so tight around her coffee mug, the ceramic had to be scalding her. He pried them loose gently. She didn’t notice.
And then she did. Not the prying free, but that he hadn’t released her hands. The look she leveled at him was feral with warning, but if she thought he’d be the first to drop out of their eyeballing contest, they’d still be sitting here well into the next decade.
She tugged. He clasped her hands more tightly. She’d spent damn near twenty years locked in a secret; he wasn’t about to let her fall back into that dark now. She’d reached out; he’d caught her by the wrist. He would not drop her. With words failing him, the only way he had to communicate that promise was through touch.
“Let me go, Will,” she breathed softly.
He didn’t, not immediately. He wanted the connection of trust they’d forged imprinted on her soul.
He relaxed his grip, but only after he was damn sure she’d got the message—he’d catch her if she slipped.
She slid her hands free. “Rhys didn’t kill Cymion Gray. I did,” she repeated, not in a rushed spill the way she had before, but articulated with calm precision.
“And you’re telling me this because…” It was an old interview trick, leaving a statement incomplete. The interviewee usually rushing to fill the uncomfortable void. Not that he wanted Angel uncomfortable, but with his behavior having forced her soul-stripping declaration, he needed private mental time to kick his own arse.
“So you’ll understand. About Rhys, about why I have to behave like a bitch.”
He didn’t need to beat himself up. She was doing it for him, albeit unwittingly. “I didn’t call you a bitch,” he countered softly.
“No, but I bet you’ve thought it often enough, and my behavior has been—”
“Understandable, given the pressure on you from all sides.”
“Will, if I’m going to do this, you need to let me finish without interruption—please.”
He nodded. “I’ll try—unless you wander into the realms of bullshit.” His response earned him a weak smile.
“Uncertainty, not being able to control what’s happening around me, does bring out the bitch in me,” Angel began, her voice so quiet he had to lean closer to catch what she was saying. “I know it, and you’ve met her often enough to know you didn’t lie… But do me a favor, Will, try not to provoke her quite so often; it’s exhausting trying to keep her contained.
The hairs at his nape lifted. “Meaning?”
“I have to keep myself in check. Always. Rhys said—”
He didn’t want to know what that fucker had told her. Not when he suspected whatever crap Rhys had filled her head with had stolen Angel’s freedom to be all she could be. Her father couldn’t have called her “Sunshine” for nothing.
“Just tell me what really happened the night of Gray’s attack,” he prompted, repositioning his chair, so he’d be ready. Ready for what, he didn’t know, but his inner warning system was on high alert.
“It was late. Rhys and I were supposed to be asleep. Instead, we were sitting at the foot of the staircase. Me giggling, Rhys shushing, both believing our parents would be enchanted to find us awake and waiting to surprise them when, having finished watching the late night TV show they both loved, they made their way upstairs to bed. The doorbell rang. I raced ahead of Rhys to get to the front door first.”
Her fingertip circled the rim of her mug. Around and around, so fast, had it been a glass, it would have sung.
His throat tightened. Should he still the frantic movement? Should he not?
“Gray had a nice smile. I decided the rule about letting strangers into the house couldn’t possibly apply to such a friendly man, so I invited him in. My parents walked into the foyer, hand in hand as they always were… He shot them both in the face. Point blank. Then, he turned the gun on me. I still hear those hollow clicks of a revolver clean out of ammo.”
Her chin lowered. She stopped tormenting the mug. Hands falling to her lap, she rubbed the front of her thighs. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.
“Then Gray pulled a knife. Sliced at me with little flicks of his wrist, the tip of his blade snicking me seven times—you’ve seen the scars. I looked over to where Rhys still stood at the bottom of the stairs, his mouth wide open like he was screaming, but without sound. I couldn’t look at my parents.”
Somehow, his fingers found hers and, his heart trying to escape his chest, he held on to her tight.
“Next thing I knew, Rhys was sliding Gray’s knife from my hand, and Gray was on the floor. I had blood in my hair, in my eyes, even in my mouth.”
She turned her head and looked at him, or it might have been through him. “Know what my sole thought was?”
His neck was too locked for him to shake his head, so he squeezed her hand.
“That although the monster at my feet now looked like the inside of a cow, at least he still had his face—unlike my mother and father.”
The ghastly silence filling his loft was more brutal than the graphic horror she’d just shared. Instinctively, he did what he’d always done when one of his sisters was in pain. He pulled Angel onto his lap and tucked her tight, the side of her head resting over his heart so she could draw from its beat the solace he had no hope of putting into words.
“Rhys straddled that dead man,” she continued, her voice muffled. “Then he stabbed and kept stabbing. I threw myself on him to get him to stop. The men in uniform arrived while we were mid-wrestle on top of Gray’s body, one catching me when a blow from Rhys sent me flying. They took Rhys away, and I said not one damn word to stop them. Nor did Rhys.” She paused to snatch a jagged breath. “That’s why I owe him, Will. Rhys took the blame for me.”
“Fuck, Angel,” he whispered hoarsely. “You wouldn’t have been in trouble. You were nine years old.”
“I know that now. I didn’t then. And they took Rhys away. They kept him for weeks, maybe even months.”
“They were trying to help him, Angel.”
“Well, it didn’t work. Rhys came back different. When he cut our palms, pressed them together, and we swore always to protect each other, I made another silent vow. That someday, I would fix what I’d broken in Rhys… I’m still trying,” she added on in a whisper. “I will not give up.”
No, because Angel being Angel, refused defeat.
Holding her close, he let the silence tick by. He’d give her all the time in the world. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d fucking steal her some more.
Shadows formed and dissolved as the weak winter sun battled the shifting clouds beyond the high skylights in the roof.
“Don’t send me away, Will.”
His arms tightened around her. “No worries, Sunshine. I’ve decided to keep you.”
“Well, excuse me while I vomit,” interjected a new voice in their private conversation. �
��Though, were I Michelangelo, I might be tempted to capture that sickeningly tragic repose in white marble for posterity.”
“Rhys!” She was off of Will’s lap and flying to her brother, standing at the head of the loft’s staircase, before he could stop her.
How the hell did Rhys get in? Never had the grip of his Sig against his palm felt so right and so necessary.
Rhys caught Angel by the waist, turned her, and pulled her close. His left arm slid across her throat, his splayed hand clasping the side of her head. His right arm anchored her midriff. “Drop it. Unless you want me to snap her neck.”
Will lowered to his haunches slowly, the muzzle of his gun still trained, dead center, on Rhys’s brow. Only at the last moment—when Rhys, the vicious bastard, flexed his arm, causing Angel to choke—did Will lay his weapon down and spin it across the floorboards to Rhys. “Easy,” he cautioned, pushing back up to his full height. “You can let her go now.”
Rhys must have relaxed his arm because Angel half gargled, “Will Berwick’s a friend, Rhys. You can trust him.”
“I remember the last time you trusted, Angel. You ended up letting a psycho into our home.”
Angel’s eyelids lowered. “Rhys, don’t.”
Will switched off all emotion. As he always did before taking a life. The kill couldn’t be immediate, not with Angel’s neck at risk, but her brother would die for torturing her with that blame.
“I’ve seen the scar on her hand, Rhys. There is nothing Angel wouldn’t do for you,” he said to appease the crazy bastard at her throat. “Months of standing up to Butters and his threats, and not once did she cave and give you up.”
“In showing you that scar, telling you about the vow behind it, that’s exactly what she did,” Rhys said. “It’s what gave you the idea to stage her fake funeral. You knew I’d break cover for her.”
The bastard still held Angel in a one-arm grip across her waist, but at least his other arm was no longer around her neck. He needed to keep Rhys’s rage off Angel and directed at a more apt target. “Did blowing Butters’s head off make you feel better, Rhys?”
“Angel’s the killer in the family, not me.”
“Not sure those soldiers you shot up with BT11 and the victims of the violence it triggered would agree with you on that.” He felt safe pointing that out now that Angel’s neck was no longer under threat.
But if Rhys hadn’t taken out Butters, then who had? Because the hit sure as hell hadn’t originated from the Cube. He’d know if it had. The Assassins—his team—were the only unit sanctioned to close kill-orders.
And those bastards at the Ministry of Defense were in the clear on that score, at least. Their tight-knit shock at what had being going on right under their oh-so-superior noses had been palpable during his reprimand. Not that their united appall had seen the kill-order on the Trehernes lifted. Oh, no. Protecting the MoD’s reputation took precedence over common decency. The sanitizing of their filthy laundry had to take place out of the public eye, with no loose ends left hanging.
Fine, but there were a multitude of knots that could be used to do just that. Offing the stupid—Rhys—and the innocent—Angel—was not the only option.
“Okay, Rhys. Let’s negotiate,” he started. “If you want the kill-order on you and Angel retracted, you’re going to have to demonstrate a shed-load of good faith to those who want you both dead. Returning the thumb drive onto which you copied the files you stole would be a good place to start.”
He’d worry about who’d killed Butters once he’d secured Angel’s safety. Rhys, on the other hand, could rot in jail for the rest of his life, for all he cared.
“No, thanks. I have a different plan.” Rhys raised his arm and brought his fist down on Angel’s thigh.
She yelped and twisted violently. “What the hell?” she cried, thrusting free from her brother with enough vigor she’d have gone through the window had Will not sprung forward to halt her momentum.
Mid-lurch backward, a plastic syringe cracking flat beneath the weight of his trainers, Rhys dropped to his haunches and scrambled for the gun. Which he leveled at him and Angel, as he staggered back to his feet.
“Watched you let him finger-fuck you back in those woods, Angel,” Rhys said, oozing revulsion. “I saw how much you both loved it. You enraptured, getting off faster than a starved whore at full speed.”
Loosening his hold on her, Will tried to edge Angel behind him, but she had too tight a grip on the front of his T-shirt.
“Oh my God,” she mouthed slowly and soundlessly staring into his eyes, her own wide with horror. Then, swinging around, she yelled at her brother. “You watched? Gross—what’s wrong with you, Rhys?”
A pace in front of him, her arms up and wide, she shadow-danced Will’s attempts to get at Rhys. “Don’t you dare,” she snapped at him over her shoulder before returning her attention to Rhys.
“What did you just stick me with?” she demanded hoarsely, rubbing her thigh frantically.
“Guess,” Rhys shouted back at her.
“You shot me up with BT11? Knowing what it can do to people?” Incredulity added a raspy hoarseness to her horrified half whisper.
“I’ve modified it, made it safe,” her brother blustered. “This nightmare started with you. Seems only fitting it finishes with you, too.”
A cut crystal silence followed. Beneath his touch, he actually felt the temperature of Angel’s skin drop. He also felt her deep inhale and slow exhale.
“I love you, Rhys. You know I do,” she said eventually, her voice soothing, like cool, thick cream on angry sunburn. “But how is what happened with BT11 my fault?”
“You, a mere wisp of a little girl, brought down a monster twice your height and five times your weight. You didn’t hesitate. You struck. You fought. Your strength was phenomenal. So started my fascination with adrenaline.”
“Adrenaline? You told me you were working on vaccines,” she challenged quietly. “I financed your laboratory with my share of our inheritance so you could develop something worthwhile in Mum and Dad’s memory.”
“And I did. Three strains of avian flu, each with the deadly potential to cause a pandemic, now neutralized because of me, with not one single soldier showing adverse side effects. The Chinese paid the Ministry of Defense millions for those formulas. But then Butters and his cronies wanted more. Something different. Something special. And they’d have gotten their super soldiers if they’d just given me more time to test and refine the artificial adrenaline component in BT11.”
“Rhys,” she said, her hands wrapped around her head. “I don’t even know where to start with listing all that’s wrong with your defense.”
“BT11 is my tribute to you, Angel,” her brother protested.
Angel gaped at him. “Tribute?”
Rhys nodded. “Because that’s how special you are.” Standing at her side, Will braced. He could feel a pulse of heat building around her.
“Years of listening to you insist I never lose control…” she muttered, her hands fisted tightly at her side.
“You drawing a blood sample from me if I so much as sniffed crossly,” she hissed, her hands rising and flicking the air in front of her. “Years of you sticking me, and not once did you take the time to make sure it didn’t hurt—”
Rhys reversed a couple of nervous steps.
Will braced to catch Angel if things got messy. He touched his fingertips to the base of her spine to let her know he was there for her.
“Then, when the killings started, did I run? I did not.” Her forefinger stabbed the air. “But you did,” she yelled. “That’s not love. That’s heartless, selfish, insane—”
Rhys looked ready to piss himself.
“Angel,” Will cautioned softly. “You’re scaring your brother.”
She sucked in a juddering breath and spun around to face him. “All that guff about him disappearing because he was going to fix things. The promises he’d stay in contact. Which. He. Did. Not. Me, go
ing out of my mind with worry, pressure from Butters, pressure from you, me having to pretend everything was normal.”
She swung back to Rhys. “I covered for you. I lied for you,” she ranted. “To the fucking Service. Have you any idea how scary as fuck that was? But did I crumble? No way. Instead, I was ready to fuck the man behind me to keep you safe. I—”
The way she was F-bombing, it was obvious she’d lost it.
“Berwick, get a hold of her,” Rhys barked. “That shit in her veins should be safe, but given her metabolism and history, there was always a risk she’d go bat-shit crazy.”
“Sorry, Rhys, you’re on your own,” he said, folding his arms. “If she wants to tear you apart, I’m not going to stop her. After eons of holding herself in check, I’m kind of curious to see Angel really lose control.”
Rhys paled to white chalk. He seemed to be having difficulty breathing. Christ, the man actually believed all the bullshit he’d fed Angel about needing to keep a tight grip on the daughter of Chaos side of her, in case she went on a rampage, leveling civilization.
His half-choked snort would have dissolved into full-blown laughter, had Angel not just elbowed him in the ribs.
“I’m not going to attack my own brother,” she shouted. “I’m fine.”
The jagged rise and fall of her chest slowly smoothed out. “I’m fine,” she repeated in a whisper.
Chapter Thirteen
I’m fine… I’m fine… I’m fine. The echo of those words refused to quiet as they bounced across the space of his loft.
Or maybe that was just his memory playing cruel tricks. Diana laughing, using that same phrase while pushing him out the door of their apartment so he could go infiltrate a suspected terror cell operating out of Marseilles, not three weeks after their row when she’d confessed to cheating, and he’d calmed down enough to return to Diana, believe her words that she loved him, and give her a second chance.
Only she hadn’t been fine. She hadn’t yet moved on from the flaming row they’d had—during which he said awful things—after she’d confessed to having had a brief fling with another man. She’d taken the flowing, poppy-print silk scarf he’d given her—his piss-poor way of apologizing that he’d be away from her for God knows how long—tied it around her throat, and hanged herself.
