Transcending Darkness

by Airicka Phoenix

  That only seemed to fill Maraveet with even more suspicion. Her green eyes snapped to Killian and narrowed into thin, murderous slits.

  “Has he now?”

  Juliette must have realized she’d said something wrong, because her smile faded. She glanced from Maraveet to Killian with a look of uncertainty.

  “Only that you grew up together,” she explained.

  Maraveet was not appeased. She continued to burn holes into Killian.

  “Odd thing to tell a person you have no real interest in.”

  Juliette blinked.

  Killian kept his eyes on his sister. “Still none of your business.”

  “You’re an idiot if you can’t see it!” she bit back.

  “There is nothing to see.”

  Fine nostrils flared as though Killian had cursed. Maraveet’s chin went up.

  “The fact that you can say that is cause enough for concern. As of right now, I cannot trust you to make any sort of decisions.”

  With that, she stalked towards the doors. She paused in the hallway to poke her bodyguard with the toe of her boots. When he only groaned, she stepped over him and disappeared from sight.

  Juliette turned to Killian. “Did I miss something?”

  Killian sighed. “Not even a little. Maraveet is … difficult to understand.”

  “I didn’t offend her, did I?”

  Killian laughed. “She’s not easy to understand … or offend. She’s just … Maraveet. Come on before she burns my kitchen to the ground.”

  With her hand firmly in his, he led her downstairs.

  “Is she normally so exciting?” Juliette wondered as they reached the bottom and surveyed the small chaos taking place outside the open doors.

  Plumes of gray smoke wound to the heavens, filling the air—and his house—with the stench of sulfur. His men were running around trying to clean up the mess, but there were scorch marks everywhere, staining the snow black. A short distance away, a cluster of men stood watching and grinning.

  Killian growled low in his throat. “Unfortunately yes. But at least she didn’t land on the roof via helicopter this time.”

  Juliette’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s different…”

  “That’s Maraveet. She never does anything easy.” He stormed into the kitchen with Juliette hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “Did you set my house on fire?” he demanded of the woman rifling through his kitchen.

  In the process of ransacking his cupboards, Maraveet snorted. “Of course not. I know how upset you get when I do that.” She slammed one cupboard shut and yanked open another. “Just a few flash bombs and smoke grenades. Nothing harmful.”

  “Why can’t you use the phone like a—”

  Maraveet whirled around so fast, she was practically a blur. “Don’t say it! You know how I hate the N word!”

  Juliette looked at Killian. “The N word?”

  Killian decided not to push his luck with his sister. She already looked like she wanted to start hurling knives at him … again.

  “I’ll tell you later.” he told Juliette.

  “You should be thanking me!” Maraveet snapped. “Your men were utterly useless. The moment the bombs went off, they practically wet themselves. Had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to do next. I waltzed right past them. It was appalling. I could have killed you.”

  “My men aren’t in the habit of getting bombed!” he shot back.

  Maraveet smirked like he’d just proven her point for her. “Exactly. Shameful.” She twirled back around to the cupboard hanging open. Jars and cans were shoved carelessly left and right. “Why in the bloody hell do you not own any tea?”

  He was about to tell her the tea box was right in front of her face when she spotted it. The box was ripped down and she gawked at the thing was though it were personally responsible for the slaughter of helpless kittens.

  Her head jerked up, her expression comical. “What is this?”

  “Chai,” he said as evenly as possible. “It’s tea.”

  She shook it next to her ear like she expected to hear the whimper of lost souls begging to be let out.

  “This is not tea,” she decided, smacking the box down on the counter. “I don’t know what this is, but I’m pretty sure it will give me hemorrhoids and influenza.”

  Killian sighed. “You are being irrationally overdramatic.”

  “It tastes best with milk.” Juliette’s quiet murmur reminded them she was still there, watching the scene unfold with one hand smothering her grin. “The chai,” she explained when Killian and Maraveet both stared. “If you make it with milk…”

  Maraveet shot the lowly little box a wary glance, but made no move to pick it up.

  Frank took that moment to enter the room. His navy suit was streaked with black. His face was sweaty and his hands looked like he’d reached into a hearth full of ashes. Dark eyes, narrowed with more irritation than Killian had ever seen on his face rounded, on Maraveet, who conveniently pretended not to notice.

  “Sir, it seems your sister has decided to drop in for a visit,” Frank muttered.

  “How are things outside?” Killian asked instead, smothering his own grin.

  “Coming together slowly.”

  Maraveet nudged the tea box an inch to the right with the tip of her finger, still avoiding Frank’s withering stare.

  “I’ll come out with you.” Killian turned to Juliette. “I’m going to go make sure someone hasn’t scorched holes into the side of the house. You can wait upstairs if you’d rather not have to deal with that.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that.” Maraveet pouted. “I promise not to eat your pretty bird.”

  Juliette laughed. “Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  With a light touch of his fingers along her arm, Killian followed Frank out of the kitchen. He paused once they were far enough away not to be heard.

  “Stay with them,” he told the man. “Make sure Juliette doesn’t kill my big mouthed sister.”

  Frank narrowed his eyes. “If you’re sure, sir.”

  Killian chuckled. “She does make it tempting, doesn’t she?”

  Frank dutifully said nothing.

  Chapter 20

  “Come closer,” Maraveet coaxed once they were alone. “I promise I’ve sheathed the claws.” She rapped her blunt nails on the marble countertop as though to prove it.

  Juliette smiled. “I’m not worried.” She crossed to the island and took a seat on the stool. “Killian tells me you travel a lot.”

  “A bit.” She continued to drum her fingers while eyeing the tea box.

  “I can make that for you, if you like,” Juliette offered.

  “Lord, no.” Snatching up the box, she shoved it back inside the cupboard and shut the doors with a crack. “I’d never forgive myself.”

  She was very pretty, Juliette observed, studying the other woman. Not exactly movie star gorgeous, but she had a sultry glow about her, like the sort of women who modeled Victoria Secret lingerie. She certainly had the figure for it. But it was her accent that intrigued Juliette most. It was every country and no country. It was as though every word that left her mouth held a different twang. Juliette had never met a person like that.

  “What do you do?” she pressed on, fascinated by the only other person besides Molly that Killian had in his life.

  Maraveet seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, because the question gave her a visible start. Her green eyes shot to Juliette with an almost accusatory frown.

  “You’re a bit nosy for someone who shouldn’t be here.”

  The venom in the comment slapped her across the face. The burn of it stung her cheeks and her jaw dropped. She blinked at the woman.

  “Excuse me?”

  Maraveet’s piercing stare intensified. Her mouth opened and Juliette instinctively braced herself. But whatever Maraveet was about to say was silenced by the shuffle of feet. A moment later, the same man who had grabbed Juliette up by Killian’s office ambled into t
he room. Blood was smeared across his chin. It streaked down the front of his dark coat. His eyes still seemed glazed, but he stood before them, sheepish.

  “Ma’am, I—”

  Maraveet put her hand up, stopping his apology. “No need for that, Robert. You’re fired.”

  Juliette was stunned by the calm declaration. But Robert hung his head and staggered back out the way he’d come without a single word.

  “That was a bit harsh, wasn’t it?” Juliette remarked, horrified by how cold the other woman was.

  “No,” Maraveet said simply. “I hired him to protect me. Instead, he went down with one punch. I expect better of my men.”

  While understandable, Juliette still couldn’t wrap her head around how easily she’d done it. It made her think of Killian firing John and Tyson for those exact same reasons.

  Maraveet exhaled when several minutes passed and neither of them could think of a single thing to say. “How did you meet my brother anyway?”

  “He saved my life.”

  “That’s different. How?”

  She found herself telling Maraveet the whole story. Everything from being indebted to Arlo to Killian offering her the contract. She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it. It wasn’t as though it was any of the woman’s business, but once she started, it all just poured out of her. At the end, she smiled softly and gave a little shrug.

  “Like I said, saved my life.”

  Maraveet seemed unmoved, but Juliette could see thought churning behind those green eyes. She wondered if her story was getting analyzed and dissected, though she couldn’t fathom for what.

  “You probably reminded him of her.” It was said so low, Juliette almost didn’t hear it.

  “Who?”

  Maraveet straightened. Her head turned a fraction in Juliette’s direction, pinning her to her stool.

  “His mother.”

  Aside from the statue outside the front doors, Juliette hadn’t seen any photos of Killian’s parents. There were no photos at all, which hadn’t seemed odd to her until that moment. But the statue’s face didn’t look a thing like Juliette’s. She was fairly certain they didn’t even share the same height. It made no sense to her how she could possibly remind Killian of a woman that looked nothing like her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at last. “What does his mom have to do with—?”

  Maraveet’s expression grew wary. She squinted at Juliette.

  “He hasn’t told you about what happened?”

  Juliette involuntarily stiffened. “You mean about how she was attacked?”

  “She wasn’t attacked!” The outraged shout made Juliette jump. “She was brutalized. She was tortured and mutilated and raped for two solid weeks by a pack of gutless animals who only used her to make a point.”

  Juliette shuddered, not just from the image, but from the chill that seemed to be wafting off the other woman the way it rises off a chunk of ice. It swarmed around her, biting and fierce and Juliette shrank back in her seat.

  “Saoirse McClary was murdered in the worst possible way any woman could ever die,” Maraveet finished with a slight hitch in her voice.

  “The people who…” She didn’t want to say raped. She hated that word. Hated hearing it. The very sound of it felt violating. “Who hurt her, what happened to—?”

  “Dead.” Blunt and without mercy. “And the world is better off.”

  Juliette nodded in agreement. “Who were they?”

  Maraveet averted her eyes, but Juliette saw the fire burning behind the green, turning them to polished emeralds.

  “Yegor Yolvoski.” The name spat from her lips the way one might spit out poison. “Inbred son of a bitch and his two good for nothing sons. There were others involved, but Yegor was the one who ordered the kidnapping. He took Saoirse right off the street.”

  The lunch she’d eaten hours before churned in the pit of her stomach. The contents felt soured and wrong. But she swallowed it back.

  “Why?”

  “Because of weapons and greed.” Maraveet shook her head as though the thought disgusted her. “He and Callum, Killian’s father, were in business together for years before Saoirse found out that Yegor was putting guns in the hands of children and her husband was helping transport it. Yegor was one of the most powerful arms dealers in the world. Nobody could touch him. But Saoirse would have none of it. She dragged me and Killian into Callum’s office one afternoon and screamed at him about how would he like it if those were his children being armed, being killed. I had never seen her so angry. Callum just sat there staring at us. Killian and I were eight or nine so I didn’t understand, but Callum broke his agreement with Yegor. He pulled his contract. I’m not sure how, but the coast guard got word of the weapons and Yegor got arrested. For years it was unclear whether Callum had given Yegor up or if his time had finally run out, but Yegor saw it as a betrayal.”

  “So he took Saoirse,” Juliette murmured, mesmerized and horrified by the story.

  Maraveet nodded. “He took videos of the things they were doing to her. Each day Killian would get a new one—”

  “Killian?” Juliette felt her insides heave.

  Maraveet didn’t answer the question. “Callum took them. He wouldn’t let us see, but Killian … Killian wouldn’t let it go. He wouldn’t stop. He knew there was something on those tapes regarding his mother and he wanted to see them.”

  “No…!”

  A sad little grin twisted Maraveet’s mouth. “We found them, hidden at the back of his father’s closet.” The smile slipped. A tinge of green spread up the curves of her face. “He wasn’t the same after that. The nightmares … his screams…” A shaky hand was pressed to her mouth like the memory had followed her into the kitchen. “I still sometimes hear them late at night. They were the sound a wild animal would make while being tortured and I couldn’t help him. The only person who could make him stop was Molly. She’d sit with him the entire night while he cried for his mother.”

  Something wet dropped on the back of her hand, startling Juliette. She looked down and was surprised to find she was crying. Tears were streaming down her face and raining off her chin. Her coat was stained with droplets. She wiped the rest away with her sleeves.

  Maraveet didn’t notice, too lost in the past.

  “They dumped her outside those doors when they were done with her, right where that fountain now stands. She had fought them for a week before she’d given up, not that anyone can blame her. They had torn her apart in every way imaginable.”

  An image of herself on the side of a dark road, being grabbed and shook by Killian rose up in her mind. She remembered the urgency in his voice, the panic in his eyes as he’d made her swear never to give up. It had made no sense to her then, but now she understood.

  “Oh, Killian…”

  His name whispered from her lips, a sound of her heart hurting for him. The pain reverberated through every corner of her being. It was only the fear of having to explain why she was crying that kept her from finding him, from pulling him into her arms and promising never to let him go through that again.

  “What happened to his father?”

  Maraveet rubbed a hand over her tired face. “Yegor killed him, too.” She exhaled heavily and let her hand drop. “The sniper was supposed to take out Killian, but Callum jumped in front of the bullet and died instantly in Killian’s arms.”

  How was it possible for a person to have endured so much horror and heartache and not have gone completely insane? she wondered. How was Killian even functioning? To have seen that much at such a young age, it would have consumed her. She would have lost her mind.

  “But at least he had you and Molly,” she said to the woman across the island.

  Maraveet shook her head. “He had Molly. I couldn’t stay here anymore. This whole family felt cursed and I knew that if I stayed, either me or Killian would be next. So I took a job in Paris. I traveled. I stayed away, because getting close to anybody when you do the
kind of work Killian and I do, will get you killed.”

  It should have made sense. Maraveet’s logic was reasonable. She’d lost her parents in a gruesome manner as well, not as horribly as Killian, but traumatic nevertheless and she had every right to want to get away, yet it was wrong. It was so wrong. Juliette couldn’t even wrap her head around the very concept of what she was being told.

  “You left him?”

  Maraveet looked up. “What?”

  Slivers of fire had begun to heat the ice left behind by Maraveet’s story. She could feel their gnawing as they worked to envelope her heart.

  “You left him,” she repeated, no longer a question. “He had his mother brutally torn away from him and his father just died in his arms and you … his sister, left him. You just … you…” She couldn’t even speak through the hatred swelling up to close around her throat. “You abandoned him to this place full of all those demons and nightmares and never looked back. Hooray for you that you got to travel the world and forget, but Killian stayed here. He walked these halls, halls that had once been full of everything that had meant anything to him. It’s a wonder he didn’t lose his mind. I can’t believe how … selfish you are, how … horrible.”

  Maraveet jerked back so fast she almost stumbled. Her face had gone white, making her eyes appear even brighter. But Juliette wasn’t finished.

  “I’m sorry, but you are not a good person.”

  With that, Juliette slid off the stool and marched from the room before she did something truly unforgiveable, like beat all the rage and sadness she felt boiling up inside her into the other woman’s face. Her spine tingled with the force of the tension working through the muscles. Her insides quivered between the urge to scream and break something or cry until the hurt stopped. Instead, she counted the crack-crack-crack of her heels snapping off the marble all the way to the front doors.

  Someone had closed them to the swirling snow falling outside, but all she could think about was the fountain on the other side and the woman it immortalized. Her heart hurt all over again as she thought of Killian as a small boy, watching as the woman he loved was beaten and tortured. She thought of him waking up in the dead of night screaming for her. Then to have his father, the only person he had left, sacrifice himself to protect him and having to live with that … how could so much unfairness happen to one person? It was no wonder he was afraid to love anyone. How could he when those he loved were either killed or they left him? But she wouldn’t leave him. If he asked her to, she would stay with him forever.