Well, she couldn’t avoid him forever. Her eyes finally settled on Theo, and she was shocked again at how different he looked. Life had definitely been difficult for him, and it was visible all over his face. In fact, the entire group of people at the table intimidated her.
He’d been good-looking before, in a waifish, metrosexual sort of way. Now, he was so very alpha and broody, he could be pictured on the cover of one of those gothic romance bodice-rippers her mother used to read. Power emanated from him, but not a helping-little-kittens-out-of-trees sort of power. Nope, this was a power that told her he could solve her problems, but he was going to do it on his own terms. And she wouldn’t like them.
Theo finally looked up and caught her staring. Dusty stopped breathing. His eyes glittered as they bored into her, not seeming surprised to see her in the least, even though she’d changed her own appearance since he’d seen her last. She watched as his eyes crawled over her features as if doing an inventory. His mouth turned down even further, and she was convinced he didn’t like what he saw.
Well, fuck him. She needed help. She wasn’t going to play the damsel here. Jutting her chin out, she tossed her shoulders back and dug deep in her gut to find the reasons she’d called him.
“Okay, Dusty,” his voice was deeper and gruffer than she remembered. “Why are you here?”
Because he’d told her to come here. That was why. All this hoopla wasn’t what she’d planned, although she hadn’t really planned any of this.
She took a massive breath in, trying to gather her thoughts.
If he wanted to play this way, she’d play. Dusty knew that by involving these guys, she’d have to retell everything she knew anyway.
“Ten years ago, my sister was attacked and brutally tortured, raped, and murdered.” Theo flinched at her words, but this was his damn idea so she continued. “Her killers got off the charges and then disappeared. They attacked me last night.” She closed her eyes and bowed her head, seeking some inner strength somewhere. She didn’t find it, honestly. She had forced herself to stop thinking of Sunny’s death years ago. Now all those memories were forced to the surface, and the pain was exactly as bad as it had been a decade ago. “I think they want me now.”
The words spilled from her mouth, sounding even more awful out loud than they had in her head. She took another breath to recover, looking at Theo for a reaction. Aside from the thinning of his lips, there was none.
“What did the police say?” Holder leaned forward.
That had been a depressing experience. She’d gone in to give a statement this morning, after not sleeping in her chair for a couple of hours and finally giving up. The police had taken her statement, a description, and sent her on her way.
“They said it was good to have a paper trail in case something else happens.”
Theo was making a fist on the tabletop, his knuckles creaking. Po was expressionless, listening. Lilith was picking at her fingernails, but Dusty could tell she was listening. Holder was the only person who seemed the least bit interested.
He looked between Dusty and Theo. “Y’all have history?”
“Her sister was my wife.” Theo’s words cut through the silence of the room, thick and heavy, and Holder leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers.
“Why weren’t they prosecuted?” Liam asked quietly, as if he knew he was stepping into something deep and personal with a third of the room.
“They got off on technicalities,” Dusty choked out, the memories ashy on her tongue. She had sat through days of testimony only for the judge to rule something that had never made sense to her, and bang his gavel, dismissing everyone with a smile.
Liam’s reaction was a heavy sigh, as if he understood, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t possibly understand what it had done to her family—to see those three men, who had done all the things that had been said in the courtroom—walk away slapping each other’s backs and chuckling. It had literally killed her parents, her dad dying of a heart attack two days later, and her mother withering away into nothing soon after that. She’d had a heart attack as well, technically, but Dusty had seen her starve herself to death—not eating enough to sustain a bird after losing her daughter so horrifically, and then her husband so quickly.
Theo stood and started pacing the room.
“So what do you want from us?” He sounded angry. At her? She couldn’t tell. One hand fisted at his side, the other ran down his tie and into his vest, possibly a nervous tick. He gripped the back of the chair he’d just vacated, his knuckles white, his hands massive and powerful. This wasn’t the man she remembered at all. At the trial, he’d been meek, tears streaming down his face as he relived the horror he’d been through.
This man was pissed.
She guessed time could do that to people.
Looking directly at him, she swallowed hard, reminding herself of all she had done in the decade since she had seen this man. She forced the damsel vibes to go away and strengthened her tone. “I’m not sure. I called you for some kind of help. It’s clear to me that I’m next somehow. Last night, they acted like they would do something, but got scared off because of some guy that was in the shadows. After knowing what they did to my sister, I know they were trying to threaten me.”
And it had worked. She owned a bar and wasn’t easily intimidated, but her history with these guys had done it. She knew who they were, what they had done, and what they could do.
And she knew exactly what they could get away with.
“You weren’t there.” Theo’s voice was cold in the silence of the room. “You don’t know what they did to her.” She shrank under his glare. He was pissed at her for some reason.
What had she done to him? Nothing.
Suddenly angry and embracing that emotion with both hands, she stood from her seat and leaned across the table to get into his face. She would not be bullied when she’d come to him for help.
Liam held out a placating hand. “If you’ll go with Jennifer and fill out some paperwork, we’ll discuss this and come up with a concrete plan for you. Would surveillance make you feel better?” Holder’s tone was softer, understanding, and she found her ally in the room. It certainly wasn’t Theo.
She nodded to Holder before looking back at Theo. It was as if he didn’t know her, he was so detached. This wasn’t why she had called him. Dusty suddenly regretted calling him at all.
She missed her twin, even after ten years. The idea of seeing Theo again, her twin’s husband, made her feel like something would complete itself within her. But clearly it wasn’t going to happen. He was super pissed at her, obviously. She could only guess at why. They hadn’t had the best relationship before, but he was all that was left of Sunny. Of her family. Her heart twisted painfully, and she took a deep breath, trying to relieve some of the pressure, but she couldn’t.
Nothing would relieve it, apparently.
Theo’s jaw clenched and his fingers still gripped the chair like he was about to rip it in two.
She made her way out the door to the receptionist’s desk. She wasn’t sure what these guys could do for her now that Theo wasn’t speaking to her. This wasn’t what she’d thought would happen.
“Take a break Samson. Get lunch or something and come back for assignments. We meet for a roundup in the conference room at two o’clock.”
Liam was in charge. As bosses go, Liam didn’t suck, but Theo couldn’t tell him why he needed out of this.
Theo would be assigned to work this case and he knew with a gut-churning certainty it would get him fired before he got to work another one.
So be it.
Fucking Dusty.
Why now? He was so damn close to getting his personal resolution to this event that had consumed him for the last ten years.
And in she waltzes, looking like his Sunny, needing help.
Of course, she had dyed her hair black, as far from Sunny’s blond locks as possible. Was she trying to separate herself from her sister? And why
would she do that? It was damn near impossible to do, so why even try? Sunny had been the most beautiful woman in the world, and by default her twin as well. They were identical, right down to the mole on their cheeks.
This was going to be hard.
He got a fruit cup out of a food truck by the office and stood in the warmth of the sunshine, eating it as he seethed.
Theo was almost finished. He would not let this put a kink in his plans. He would do whatever they assigned him to do since he really wasn’t in any position to say no. But he would still do the other job in his spare time, and get it done. It was for his own mental sanity.
He understood he shouldn’t, but there was no way he couldn’t. It was his retribution. His own method of vengeance for these assholes. He’d come up with the plan in the Army, had worked on it in his head while he did his duties and made friends. His Army buddies had kept him grounded while he’d come up with this plan. Then, when he’d been discharged, he’d started working at a shitty security firm, working local concerts and shit, installing security cameras, and hunting his prey on his downtime.
And now that he was close to ending this shit, they’d found her.
Whatever. He would do this before they hurt her, and then he would be done with all of it. He’d probably lose this sweet job in the process, though. But then he could disappear and do something else.
Maybe raise bees. He liked bees. They had clearly delineated paths in life, the main goal to protect the queen. Soldiers, workers, the queen. Their honeycombs were pieces of intricate mathematical art, so specific in their dimensions, some would call them a work of God. But he had to focus on something else now.
“Hey, man, you on lunch?” Jeremy jogged up behind him, a sack of something greasy in his hand. “Mind if I join?”
“No, man. I was just headed to that bench.” He wasn’t, but he gestured with his chin to a bench not far away and they walked over to it and sat down.
“So, Dusty? Sunny’s sister?” Jeremy knew as much about Sunny as Theo had told anybody. They’d seen some shit together overseas and lived to tell the stories. In the beginning, Jeremy had ignored Theo’s tears over Sunny. Eventually, Theo had told him what he was comfortable with, which hadn’t been much. At any rate, Jeremy knew more than anyone how much Sunny had meant to him.
But he’d never told a soul about Dusty.
And he wasn’t going to now.
“Yeah. Sunny’s sister.”
Theo would admit that Jeremy was a safety net. He’d felt off-kilter since Jeremy had met Miranda. Jeremy had someone to share his feelings with, his time. He deserved it, too. Jeremy was a good guy.
His only real friend.
Now he had someone else, which was fine. Theo needed to focus on his plan, anyway. No distractions.
Of course, distractions came anyway, in the form of his demons.
The demon that took his sunshine from him was back, rearing its head in the visage of Dusty. He thought he’d never see that woman again, and here she was hiring his firm.
Of course, he’d made her go through these channels in an effort to get her out of his hair. When she’d called, he’d thought that the securities firm would intimidate her and make her back off, because he had things handled. He wasn’t going to tell anybody that, but give him two weeks and these scumbags would be gone.
But she was clearly too scared to be intimidated. He couldn’t really blame her, not after hearing all the fucking testimony about what had happened to her sister at the joke of a trial. No, he couldn’t blame her, but he could definitely be pissed about it.
He was so close, and now Serpent protection was involved. If everything he’d heard about them was true, they’d know what he was doing, and he’d lose the job right after getting it.
“So, what’s the story?”
Theo sighed. “No story. She’s Sunny’s sister. The assholes came after her. She hired us to find them, protect her, or some shit. Isn’t that what we do?”
Jeremy held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Didn’t mean to crawl up your ass, man. Just thought you might have some insider info or something.”
“I’m sorry. Just tired, I guess. How’s Miranda?”
Jeremy smiled as he looked at his feet. “She’s fantastic. She wants me to quit drinking so much, though. I guess I probably should.”
Jeremy did drink a lot. But he didn’t get drunk and mean, so Theo never thought anything of it. He shrugged.
“You probably do drink too much.”
He managed to function though, and Theo didn’t think it was that big a deal, but Jeremy was still smiling, as if the thought of quitting drinking was exciting to him.
“So good luck with it.” He forced a smile to his face in answer of his friend’s smile. Being supportive and shit.
They sat in silence for a while, until it was time to go back to work. Jeremy with the self-satisfied smile of the sexually replete, and Theo with the scowl of a man with vengeance on the brain.
Back at the office, Theo followed the guys to the conference room. Jeremy, Po, Lilith, Liam, and a few more he hadn’t met yet.
“So, this new job, you get it, Samson. I’ll work it with you, along with Lilith.” Lilith grunted her agreement as Liam started the conversation.
“Got it.” Theo was glad Jeremy wasn’t working it with him. He was too close and would get nosy about what he was doing in his off-time. Living with the guy and working the same job would have him keeping too close tabs on him. Since he’d met Miranda, it was easy enough to do his thing because Jeremy Stryker wasn’t paying that much attention to Theo. He wasn’t home. Now, he was all about the pussy he was getting.
“You’ll do nights, Lilith will do mornings, and I’ll do the days. Po, you got a workup?”
“I emailed them.”
“So, between Po’s workups and Jessica’s paperwork Miss O’Malley filled out, I’ve decided this is a pro bono case. She can’t afford us, and you have a past with her. If we’re getting paid, I think it’s a conflict of interest. A pro bono case will help us with some paperwork Jennifer’s been working on. Some sort of grant for securities or something. Anyway, we should have a solid starting point. Anything of note to discuss, Po?”
Hearing the last name was a punch to the gut, but Theo grunted through it, unwilling to break down here. Besides, anger was better. Knowing this was a pro bono case did something to his insides though, and he couldn’t put his finger on the pinching feeling in his chest. Sure, she didn’t have the money. She’d probably used insurance money from her parents and shit for the bar, and it couldn’t be that lucrative.
But still, his first case was a pro bono case of a woman that he’d—never mind. He didn’t need to go there.
“These guys were low-level in a ring with Damien Kennedy, that guy who was an up-and-coming in the black market, dealing in girls, guns, and drugs. But he disappeared about three years ago, and his organization sort of fell apart, because of in-fighting and shit. That was when Bascom Forester was unbeatable. He took them down, probably because Damien wanted to be the top dog.”
Theo knew all this. But he crossed his arms, listening to Po talk about the wannabe mobster as if Theo Samson himself hadn’t made him disappear.
Basically, Damien Kennedy had been a young upstart, trying to get a big enough gang together to take down Bascom Forester, the douchebag who led the city’s underbelly. Some part of Theo wanted Bascom dead too, just out of principal, because if Damien hadn’t been a slum lord at his apartment complex, Bascom probably would have been. But Bascom was too powerful, too far removed from his purposes.
Damien Kennedy had been practice for the big show. A poor practice. Theo had killed Damien without a plan, without follow-through, and had almost been caught. After that, he’d concentrated. He’d had plans when he took down the lawyer and judge who Damien had paid off to trump up the chain of evidence. He’d spent three years forcing patience and planning the perfect crimes for the rest of them.
Po wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but he acted intrigued nonetheless.
Leading a double life was hard. Sure, his outward persona was of a wronged patriot, bereaved widower who joined the Army for some purpose in his life, moving on afterward to work security and keep people safe. But no one knew of his plans for the people who had tied him up and made him watch as they raped, tortured, and did horrific things to the love of his life before she gave up and succumbed to her injuries.
“The one thing that hasn’t come up in all the talking though,” Po was saying as he looked at Samson with eyes that probably saw more than he said. “Is that Samson was there for the killing. He was the key witness in the prosecution’s case before it was thrown out.”
And there it was. His out. He was a clear conflict of interest now.
All heads swiveled toward Theo, no doubt the words on the tips of their lips, wanting to ask about the gory details. Her screams. The blood. His helplessness. His retribution.
But the questions didn’t come. Instead, Holder asked, “You okay to do this job?”
Theo looked down at his hands—hands that were covered in metaphorical blood. Sunny would want her sister safe. As much as he didn’t want to do this, it was his fucking job.
The image of Sunny filled his brain; light and breezy, her smile was contagious, and he always used to smile when he saw her. She was his everything, and then she was gone. This could be his way to get her back, in some way.
Sunny wasn’t the same as Dusty, but taking care of Dusty might make him closer to Sunny again.
He looked at his new co-workers and lied through his teeth. “Yeah. I can do this.” He would ignore the history he had with Dusty and use this experience of watching her to get closer to his Sunny again. “No problem.”
Dusty was slinging drinks while Holder sat at the bar, sipping on a ginger ale. He was almost cute in his effort to blend in. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, but everything fit too well, and he was too alert to be someone just hanging out in a bar. Nonetheless, she appreciated his presence. She could work and not be looking over her shoulder for those men anymore.
The Secrets We Keep Page 2
