She’d been terrified, but she’d kept her chin up, a certain strength to her that was so very different from all the rest. So he’d chosen her, because he had to choose, planning on keeping her in his room to keep up appearances but in actuality leaving her alone.
Yet once she was there, looking so scared and so vulnerable, he knew he had to help her. He had his goal and his plan, but it wasn’t going to happen fast, which meant he had to stand by and watch, let the most terrible things happen to these girls. Yet he had to do something in some small way, otherwise he’d go mad.
So he’d decided that night that at least she would get out. He would make it happen. And it had been easy in the end, especially given his contacts. A forged passport and a private jet to take her back to the States. Dmitri doing the transport.
She’d told him her name, and though he’d forgotten it, he’d never forgotten her. Because she was the first. The first girl he’d managed to save.
He hadn’t known how to deal with the relief that Thalia had been saved rather than lost in the brothels of Eastern Europe or Asia, mainly because there had been so many other girls who hadn’t been saved. The fact that she was Temple’s sister shouldn’t have made any difference.
So he kept it locked down as he handed her the phone with Thalia’s picture on it, kept his voice flat as he said, “Your sister was one who got out. I helped her escape.”
Temple stared at him, shock on her face. Then she glanced down at the phone. The shock fled, her features crumpling, and she turned away from him, her head bent over the phone’s screen.
Every part of him wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, but he stayed exactly where he was. Allowing her a moment of privacy.
Her shoulders shook, yet she didn’t make a sound.
“That’s what I do with the girls I choose for the night,” he said into the silence, “I help them escape. She was the first one.”
There was a long silence.
“She’s alive?” Temple’s voice was thick.
“As far as I know.”
Another silence.
She handed him back his phone, keeping her face averted. She’d been so vulnerable to him before, had let him see everything, but not now. Now, she remained silent.
Jericho put the phone back in his pocket. “I’ve held up my end of the bargain.” He knew he sounded cold and impersonal, but he couldn’t seem to alter his tone. “It’s now time to hold up yours. Are you ready?”
Temple didn’t speak, only gave a short nod.
He didn’t push it, opening the door of the sedan and getting out. She followed him, wrapping the black overcoat she wore more securely around her. Nevertheless he still got a flash of the dress she was wearing. It was gold lace, completely see-through and completely inappropriate to both the weather and the place they were going to. However, as his ostensible lover, she had to be seen as the stripper she’d been posing as when dealing with the opposition, and jeans and a T-shirt weren’t going to cut it like they had on the flight over.
She looked so fucking sexy he felt himself get hard, which was completely inappropriate as well, certainly when they were going into a life-or-death kind of meeting. The fact that her eyes were red-rimmed didn’t make it any better either.
Controlling himself, he went into the café, Temple following behind him.
The place was packed, which was why he’d chosen it in the first place. A crowd would help muffle their own conversation, plus it would also put a limit on the kinds of stunts a man like Elijah Hunt might pull.
Then again, the guy had managed to kill an employee of Jericho’s in the middle of Battery Park the month before, so it wouldn’t pay to underestimate him, crowd or otherwise.
Hunt was sitting by himself at the back of the café, but he clearly wasn’t alone. The tables around him were full of people, yet Jericho spotted at least five guys hanging around who were clearly there as protection.
Jericho gave a quick, surreptitious scan of the crowds, spotting his own guards already sitting at various tables around the café. He’d sent them in fifteen minutes earlier, but he was pretty sure Hunt knew who they were in much the same way as he’d already spotted Hunt’s.
He smiled, threading his way through the tables to where Hunt sat, pulling out a chair and sitting down, Temple beside him.
“What the fuck is this?” Hunt’s belligerent black gaze settled on Temple and scowled.
“This?” Jericho slid an arm around her, pulling her in close, putting on a show. “This is Ginger. She’s here for a reason.”
“Ginger?” Hunt virtually spat the word.
There was fear in Temple’s eyes. She was pretending obviously, setting up the impression of a woman completely out of her depth. “It’s my stage name,” she said, her voice quiet.
An odd expression crossed Hunt’s face, but before Jericho could puzzle it out, he turned his black gaze on him. “What do you want?” Hunt demanded. “You said this was about Violet. If you’ve touched a hair on her head, I’ll—”
“Relax Mr. Hunt,” Jericho interrupted lazily. “Violet’s safe. I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Then what the fuck is this about?”
Excellent, straight to the point. “You’ve been having problems, I hear.”
The other man’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not having any problems whatsoever.”
“Bullshit you are. You were nearly taken out a couple of days ago by a traitor in your own ranks.” He sat back in his seat, giving the illusion of complete relaxation. “I know all about it, Mr. Hunt, believe me. You’re having difficulty hanging on to your empire, aren’t you?”
Hunt was silent, staring at him. But Jericho didn’t make the mistake of thinking he had the guy on his back foot. Those black eyes were assessing, calculating.
Jesus Christ, what kind of man had Violet gotten herself involved with? When he’d gone after her the month before, he should have shipped her straight to Paris whether she wanted to or not.
Since Hunt didn’t look like he was going to break the silence any time soon, Jericho went on, “You’re not denying it. Good. Now, of course this is a problem for you, but you should know it’s also a problem for me. It’s putting Violet at risk, and I can’t have that.”
Violence entered Hunt’s dark eyes. “Stay the fuck away from her,” he growled, his voice thick with menace. “I can protect her, and I will.”
“I don’t doubt that. But this is still a problem.” He paused, holding the other man’s gaze. “I’m in the States to do a deal with you. If I help you secure your empire, you give me access to the American markets.”
Something black and cold glittered in Hunt’s gaze. “What the hell makes you think I’ll do anything for you? I let you live for Violet’s sake, but I’ll be fucked if I accept your help. And as for the markets—”
“I’m trying to take them down.” Jericho said the words flatly, quietly. It was a risk, a huge risk to reveal himself to this man. But he didn’t have any other option. The guy wouldn’t accept any kind of bargain or any kind of help, so it was either that or he take control forcibly and that wouldn’t end without blood being shed. Probably Hunt’s blood.
The other man had gone completely still. “What?”
Beside him, Temple was motionless too. Waiting.
Another person who knew his secret, another person who could potentially destroy the last sixteen years. What the fuck was he doing? Yet he couldn’t take it back now, it was too late for that. He’d told Temple, and now he’d told Hunt. He could only keep going.
He stared into Hunt’s black eyes. “You knew my father. You knew what he was. Imagine being his son. Imagine having to live with the knowledge that your father was a murderer. A rapist. A slaver. And then try to imagine being slowly turned into that very same monster by the person who was supposed to protect you. Love you.”
Temple had stiffened. He could feel the warmth of her body against him, the scent of her in his nostrils. And for some reason he
found that comforting. So he kept his arm around her and made himself go on. “No one got away from him. No one left his little empire unless it was in a box. So I chose the box. And for the past sixteen years, I’ve been turning myself into the monster he wanted me to be…” He paused, tightening his arm around the woman next to him. “So I could take it all down.”
Hunt didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
This was the moment of truth.
Jericho didn’t look away. “I’m not going to say this again, so listen carefully. We need to secure the U.S. networks, make it look as if everything’s fine, and that I’ve formed an alliance with you. Once that’s in place, I will release the information I’ve gathered over the years to the authorities. There should be enough intel there to incriminate just about everyone I’ve involved in the trafficking networks, and if I do it quickly, they won’t have any time to prepare to protect themselves.”
Hunt’s eyes glittered. “That’s what you’ve been doing all this fucking time?”
“Yes. Incorporating all the smaller networks into mine, making sure no one was left out, was a long process. As was getting the proof I need to put them all away. But you must understand, the alliances I’ve formed are shaky ones and if they see trouble here, they’re going to get cold feet. I can’t have them pulling out. I want them all to go down, Mr. Hunt. Every single last one of them.”
Finally the other man shifted in his chair, yet the intensity of his gaze didn’t waver one iota. “Were you responsible for her death?” The question was hard and flat, and he didn’t elaborate. But Jericho knew what he meant anyway.
“Seven years ago, right?”
“Yes.”
“The man who controlled the European networks was called Jericho. My father did business with him. So I killed him. And I took his place.” A quiver ran through Temple, though why he had no idea. He wanted to look at her but kept his gaze on Hunt instead. Because this was important. “That was seven years ago. Your wife was taken before I took over. So no, I was not responsible for her death.”
There was no expression on Hunt’s face, nothing to betray what he felt except the black glitter of his eyes. “You killed him?” An innocuous sounding question, but there was an undercurrent in the other man’s voice that Jericho recognized.
He smiled, and it wasn’t pleasant. “I cut his throat.”
Hunt’s scarred mouth twisted and Jericho thought he saw the briefest glimpse of satisfaction move in the other man’s eyes. Yet all he said was “I still don’t trust you.”
“I know you don’t. Which is where Ginger here comes in.” He eased his arm from around Temple, even though some deeply possessive part of him insisted that giving her to Hunt was the last thing he should be doing. “She means something to me. So as a demonstration of trust, she’ll go with you as surety for my good behavior.”
Hunt glanced at Temple for a second, his expression unreadable. Then he looked back at Jericho, gaze narrowing as if he was searching for something. Tension gathered in the air between them.
“She knows everything, doesn’t she?” Hunt asked curtly.
“Yes.”
“So any information she has could be used against you.”
Ah, of course. Hunt wouldn’t hurt Temple. Which meant he had to find some other way of using her against him. “She knows everything you do. So yes, it could.”
Hunt let out a breath. “Why should I do any of what you said?”
“Because if you want the biggest human trafficking network in the world taken down and all the fucking perpetrators brought to justice then that’s what you’re going to have to do.”
The other man looked down at his hands, clasped together on the table. “Violet will want to know.”
Something painful twisted inside him, a kind of yearning. Could it finally be possible for her to know the truth? He’d never thought he could tell her, purely because of the danger it presented to her. Plus there was also the fact that Violet would probably want to involve herself and maybe risk herself getting hurt too.
“I don’t want her put at risk,” he said carefully. “The truth could hurt her.”
Hunt looked up from his hands. “Not more than the lie already has.”
Like he didn’t know that. “There were reasons I couldn’t tell her and you can probably guess what they are.”
“I can. And if you’re lucky she might even understand that.”
The painful thing inside him twisted harder. “I’m not lucky, Hunt. I’ve never been fucking lucky.” Christ, it was time to end this. He had shit to do.
He almost reached for Temple again, to bring her with him, and then he remembered what he’d promised. He had to leave her here. Fuck.
The painful thing grew edges, cutting him, every instinct he had telling him that she belonged with him. And it didn’t matter that he knew she could take care of herself, that she was probably as deadly as he was. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
Locking the feeling down, he reached for her again. He needed to touch her before he went, and if that cemented the belief that she meant something to him for Hunt then, shit, he was good with that.
Taking her chin in his hand, he turned her face toward him. She met his gaze, no trace of the redness of before around her eyes. They were wide, a clear, bright gold, and he couldn’t read the expression glowing in the depths of them. The things he’d told Hunt, he hadn’t told her, because sometimes it was easier to give the facts to someone you hated than to someone you … didn’t.
Had it changed things between them? Did knowing he’d saved her sister change things too? And if they had, how? And what did it mean for them?
It won’t mean anything. You know how this is going to end. How it was always supposed to end.
Yeah. He did.
Jericho gripped her chin and kissed her, and he’d meant it to be soft and gentle, but it wasn’t. It was as if he wanted to impress himself on her, mark her indelibly in some way. He kissed her hard, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, exploring deep, giving no quarter. Yet she didn’t protest, her head going back, allowing him access, letting him take whatever he wanted.
So he did. He sank one hand into her red hair, holding her there as he took the taste of her, took the feel of her lips beneath his and the scent of her deep inside. Imprinting her into his memory so he wouldn’t forget and leaving her with something of himself too, a hard nip on her bottom lip.
Then he released her without looking at her because he knew if he looked into her face again, he wouldn’t let her go. Instead he looked at Hunt, right into the other man’s black eyes. “If she gets hurt, I’ll kill you.” He didn’t even have to pretend the vehemence in his voice.
The other man didn’t flinch. “If what you’ve just told me is true, she won’t.”
It shouldn’t have been so hard to get up from his chair then, to turn around and leave.
It shouldn’t have been so hard to resist the urge to look back.
But it was both those things.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“This is bullshit.” Eva King’s silver-gray eyes were hostile. “You can’t possibly believe him. I mean, where’s the proof? How do we even know if any of what he said is true?”
Temple sat on the black leather sofa of Elijah’s West Village warehouse apartment, watching the four people in front of her argue.
She knew them all, of course—all except the woman with the short, spiky blond hair sitting on the arm of the sofa. The woman was wearing black leather leggings and a black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up. She looked tough, like she took no shit from anyone. She also looked so much like Jericho that Temple kept glancing in her direction, unable to help herself.
This must be Violet.
The other three people were Zac Rutherford, the ex-mercenary who’d hired her to take out Jericho. Eva King, head of the Void Angel tech company and whom she’d once chauffeured for. And Elijah Hunt, who’d hired her to deliver Eva into
Evelyn Fitzgerald’s hands. And they were all arguing about what Jericho had told Elijah that morning in the café.
It seemed they were mightily pissed. As was Violet herself. From the way her arms were tightly folded and her shoulders stiff with tension, it looked like she was only just holding herself back from attacking someone. Which was understandable since Zac and Eva had only just revealed the fact that they’d hired Temple to take out her brother.
Interestingly, Violet hadn’t looked her way once.
Elijah had his arms crossed too, glaring at Eva who was standing on the opposite side of the coffee table in front of the sofa. He jerked his head in Temple’s direction. “If you want proof Jericho’s telling the truth, there she is.”
The moment Temple had walked into the café to meet Elijah, she’d been desperately hoping he wouldn’t give away the fact that they knew one another. But apart from that initial look of surprise, Elijah had gone along with her being “Ginger.”
It was another thing she hadn’t told Theo.
Theo again?
Yeah, she was going with Theo. He’d saved her sister. He wasn’t going to be Jericho to her, not now.
Relief and a choking kind of grief threatened to rise up inside her at the memory of seeing Thalia’s face, but she fought it down. Now wasn’t the time. Especially not when four people were looking at her with varying degrees of hostility.
“Ah, yes,” Zac said, a thin sarcasm edging the words. “The assassin who has yet to do her job.”
On the way back here with Elijah, she’d given him a brief run-down of what was going on and what, exactly, she’d been doing. As it turned out, he’d known that Zac and the rest of his friends, the club known as the Nine Circles, had hired someone to take out Theo, but he hadn’t managed to discover who it was, though he’d been trying.
Oddly enough, he’d looked almost relieved when she’d told him that she was the hired assassin, which was weird. He hadn’t explained and that had puzzled her. At least until Zac and Eva had turned up. And then it had become abundantly clear.
Zac and his friends were trying to take down Jericho, while Elijah, even though he hated Jericho himself, was trying to help Violet protect her brother
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