by Lora Leigh
He was her only chance to find a reason why. Why someone so close to her had betrayed her. Betrayed her and her child.
“They knew,” she whispered as he held her to him, his arms tight around her, his head lowered over hers. “No one should have known I was pregnant but myself and Poppa.”
But there were those who could have gotten that information if her father hadn’t been incredibly careful. And there were just a few, a very few, who could have gotten it anyway.
“Amara…”
“The men who abducted me. I don’t know who they were. They were masked. But I saw the eyes of the one who cut my hair, heard his voice. He knew Poppa would send you after me. He knew I was pregnant, and each blow was meant to kill my baby, Riordan. He said my death, the baby’s, and Poppa’s chosen stud for me, would weaken him. It would weaken him, then they could take him down. But, he also said if I wasn’t so damn nosy it would have never happened.”
“You saw the man who beat you, didn’t you? That day in the restaurant?” He couldn’t hide his fury from her, she realized. She could almost taste it.
“You can’t kill them yourself, Riordan. It’s why I wouldn’t tell Poppa.” She drew away from him, drawing the sheet to her breasts and staring down at him. “I won’t be the reason either of you risks prison for me.”
Those blue eyes were like fire in his dark face. “Prison?” Incredulity filled his voice. “Have you forgotten who your father is?” For a moment, an amazed laugh nearly escaped—and would have if the hurt and fear hadn’t flashed so bright across her expression. “Amara, baby…”
“I won’t risk you carrying that crime for me.” Her voice broke on a sob. “The law means something to me, Riordan. I couldn’t bear it if you and Poppa took vengeance rather than justice. You have to swear it to me.”
It meant something to her. Yes, the law meant something to her, because she’d grown up under the shadow of where her family had come from and how her father’s family had amassed their fortune.
A fortune that allowed Ivan Resnova to walk away from the bloody legacy he’d been born into. A man who walked in the shadows of both worlds, the criminal and the just, never really stepping fully into either no matter his desire to live free of his past.
She knew the horrors her grandfather, Ivan’s father, had committed. Knew the consequences of them and as a child had nearly died as a result of them more than once. And her conscience simply couldn’t countenance murder.
There was a difference though, Riordan had learned, between murder, retribution, and justice. Sometimes, the only justice was the one that came swiftly, without fanfare, and with no chance of freedom. And he’d never give those responsible for hurting her a chance to do so again. If Ivan or Noah didn’t beat him to it.
Riordan could only stare up at her, fury pulsing through his veins as he fought the vow he knew she was going to ask him to make.
“You’re asking for the impossible,” he finally told her. “Whatever your father does, I’m afraid I can’t stop him. And I can’t promise I won’t help him.”
Her face crumpled. Tears ran from her eyes in slow rivulets as she covered her face with her hands and silent sobs shook her slight body.
“Goddammit, Amara, you can’t ask this of us.” Surging from the bed, he grabbed his jeans from the floor and pulled them on.
Dressing took only moments, but he was aware of her moving from the bed. Silently. Finding her clothes, she dressed as well.
“Then I’ll do it myself,” she told him, her voice hoarse from her tears.
God! He was a second away from plowing his fist into the wall.
“What the hell do you want from me?” he growled. “That was my child too, Amara. My child and my woman, and they nearly took both of you from me. Do you want me to just stand aside and allow that to happen?”
“No!” she cried out, jerking her sweater over her head before facing him. “I want you to stand with me. Stand with me and let me face the man who took our baby and nearly killed you. I want you to let me face him.” She was all but screaming. “Then I want him and the bastards he was meeting up with turned over to law enforcement. I won’t have you murder a man for me. Not you or Poppa.”
Anger filled her face, but determination defined it. She wouldn’t tell him a damn thing if he didn’t agree to her demands, and he knew it.
She was the most stubborn, independent, aggravating woman he’d ever known in his life.
Clenching his teeth, Riordan jerked his shirt on as she glared at him, her lips set in a firm line, arms crossed over her breasts.
He could find a way to make this work for both of them, he told himself. Noah would never allow his brother’s wife to be in harm’s way, and Amara need never know that a very private arm of the law had taken care of the bastards determined to see her dead.
The agency that gave Elite Ops their power had given the other man full authority on this mission. Ivan was essential to several operations they had underway now, and may have in the future. He was their eyes and ears into organizations they’d have never known about otherwise.
He could discuss this with him and Micah, come up with a plan, and then give Amara what she asked. Neither he nor Ivan would pull the trigger, but the threat would be eliminated.
“We can’t do anything until the storm’s over anyway.” He forced the words past his lips.
Her head lifted as she took a trembling breath before she said, “He’s here. In the house.”
Riordan felt his blood freeze. In the next breath, he swore the rage filling him had it boiling.
“Say that again,” he demanded, furious. “I know I didn’t hear you correctly, Amara.”
“I said, he’s here, in the house,” she snapped, face flushed, not even bothering to hide her anger. “Now will you help me, Riordan? Will you promise me you won’t let Poppa kill him and you won’t kill him yourself?”
In the house.
The bastard was there, believing himself safe because Amara’s memory of the kidnapping and the loss of her child had been forgotten. No one knew Amara was aware of who had beaten her so horribly yet.
And if he was here, he would know who the others were.
Pushing his fingers through his hair furiously, he restrained his need to force every person at the estate, except those he knew hadn’t been a part of it, into a room and begin interrogating them one by one.
Micah had taught him some interesting tricks over the years where interrogation was concerned. And he wouldn’t have a problem using them.
Until he stared into Amara’s eyes and saw the knowledge she would carry, that he could be just as cold blooded, just as merciless as her father.
She loved the man she called Poppa. Loved him as a cherished, well-loved child, but she once told him how she had cried over the years for the choices she’d suspected he’d made to protect her. Choices that had nothing to do with the law.
“Everything,” he ground out then, turning for the bar for a drink and wishing he could drink enough to still the ice he could feel trying to take over what little conscience he had left where the enemy was concerned. “Tell me everything, Amara. And by God”—he turned back to her, one finger stabbing in her direction—“you better not leave so much as a breath you know they made out of it. I want to know it all.”
chapter twenty-three
He’d told her he wanted to know it all.
He’d been insane.
Standing in his room more than an hour later as Amara showered, Riordan recounted the information to his brother. The assistant district attorney, Parrick’s meeting. She hadn’t seen the other two men, but as the bastard sliced her hair off, she’d seen his eyes and recognized his voice, and he’d laughed at her.
And as his fists had plowed into her fragile stomach, he’d gloated. Because he’d known she was pregnant.
Standing by the fire, staring into it as his brother and the man they both called a friend, silent behind him, he had to force himself to ca
ll back the rage filling him.
Tobias and two other members of the team were ensuring the bastard stayed in place as this meeting played out. Ivan was waiting in his office, waiting. Ivan didn’t wait well. He’d taken Riordan’s only bottle of Irish whiskey as he stormed out of the room, dragging Crimsyn Delaney with him.
Amara had demanded that she be allowed to face the man who tried to kill her first, and the betrayal that filled her eyes, her voice, still echoed in Riordan’s head. That son of a bitch had helped raise her, helped protect her. And he’d laughed as he’d nearly killed her.
“I’ll have a team sent out for Parrick before Ivan’s told to ensure he doesn’t beat us to him,” Noah said into the silence. “We’ll get the identity of the third man and have him picked up as well and taken to the mountain.”
The mountain. The base of operations, inside a mountain located just outside the small town in Texas both of them had been raised in. Riordan had lived there all his life and had never known that a top-secret military installation had been built inside one of the rising formations of the national park there until the year Noah had come to town.
“What will be done with them?” He asked his brother as he turned back to him. “I promised her neither Ivan nor myself would kill them, but God help me, Noah.”
His teeth clenched to hold back the damning words.
“They’ll be interrogated,” Micah answered, his expression, his voice, reminding Riordan of the hardcore Israeli Mossad agent he had been years before. “Once we have everything, you know how it works. We don’t pass sentence or carry it out except under the most extreme circumstances. But once their guilt’s proven, Riordan, they’re not given the chance to walk away from it.”
He was one of the few people outside the agency who knew how Elite Ops worked. It wasn’t always pretty, and justice was determined by guilt or innocence. Guilt didn’t walk way.
He gave a sharp, brief nod. “Ivan won’t like it.”
His gaze met Noah’s in concern. If Amara’s father killed in front of her, it would destroy her last fragile hope that her father wasn’t the monster others made him out to be.
“Ivan will agree to it,” Micah disagreed. “Once he knows the lengths his daughter has gone to keep him from killing someone in vengeance, he’ll give her the illusion needed. But no doubt, he’ll be there when the sentence is carried out.”
“I’ll be there as well.” Riordan knew he’d have to be.
He had to know that once this was over, there was no doubt that the bastards behind this could ever strike out at her again.
Noah simply nodded. His expression solemn, regretful, but that regret was an older brother’s affection for a man he’d helped raise, one he still tried to protect whenever possible.
Riordan hadn’t needed protecting for quite a few years now, he consoled himself. He’d found that steel core of Malone pride and savage determination years ago, and it had only hardened in the years since.
“Bring her downstairs after she’s showered,” Noah told him. “We’ll be waiting for you in Ivan’s office. Let’s finish this.”
Finish this.
Blowing out a hard breath, his head turned toward Amara as he heard the bathroom door open. She stepped out, dressed in well-worn faded jeans, long-sleeved dove gray shirt tucked into the low band, and ankle boots.
As their gazes locked she pushed the sleeves to her elbows then clasped her hands together, staring back at him miserably.
She’d had to face too much. That thought tormented him. The abduction, the loss of their baby, the knowledge that a friend, a person as close as family, had betrayed her, weighed on her slender shoulders.
“Don’t leave me like that again, Riordan. Like you did before the abduction,” she said as he walked toward her.
Determined. Stubborn. That was his Amara.
“No worries,” he promised, a growl in his voice that he couldn’t hold back. “The next time you try to make me promise to keep our relationship a secret, I’ll just paddle your ass.” He cupped the side of her face gently. “You sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure.” Her answer was as confident as the look in her eyes was heartbreaking. “Let’s get it over with so I’ll stop tormenting myself with it. Before I start crying again.”
She’d cried enough as far as he was concerned.
“I love you, baby.” He whispered the words against her lips, feeling her quickly indrawn breath as surprise lit her soft gray-blue eyes. “What? You hadn’t figured that one out yet?”
He was amazed that she hadn’t. The day he awoke in the hospital, even his Grandpops had known.
“I hoped.” Such a wealth of emotion filled her eyes, reached out to him, held him and made him so damn hard it was all he could do to not throw her to the bed and fuck her until she was too tired to make this demand of him.
“I loved you from the first look, before I ever kissed you, before I ever touched you,” he swore against her lips, his gaze holding hers. “Now stay close to me. We do this and then we secure him. Don’t risk yourself.”
She nodded quickly as he drew back from her, wishing he’d chosen a different time to proclaim his love.
“Your education in romance etiquette is sadly lacking,” she told him as he drew back. “Declarations of love are supposed to come when you’re not in a hurry.”
“It should have come long before this,” he told her, his tone heavy with regret. “Long before. Come on now, let’s get this over with.”
Letting him take her hand, Amara tried to tell herself that everything would be fine as they left the bedroom and headed for the stairs.
Noah and Micah waited at the bottom of the staircase; Tobias and two others from Riordan’s team waited at the door to her father’s office.
This was the hardest thing she’d ever done. To face this man who had been such a part of her and her father’s life and to have to face that he’d betrayed her so horribly.
The fact that anyone had betrayed her to that depth shook the very foundations of her life. Never at any time would she have considered it possible that she could be hurt so horribly by someone she knew.
“He’s in the office,” Noah said quietly as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “Your father’s having his evening drink now.”
Yes, her father liked to enjoy a drink in the evening with the few friends who had come out of Russia with him. They’d sit around the fire, discuss security, or any problems that arose. They were his confidantes, his friends. It was one of the rare times during the day that her father wasn’t armed.
It was one of their rules. They locked any weapons they carried in Ilya’s desk in the main office while they were talking. They were friends. They trusted one another. There was no need for weapons, her father often said, when a man was with well-trusted friends or family.
Entering the ante office where Ilya usually resided, she let the memories of that night play through her mind. The beating. His eyes. His voice.
“Your father never understood the past,” he snarled down at her. “The past is never forgotten, bitch…”
The past.
A time when brother had been turned against brother, husband against wife. When the Resnova family had been torn into so many pieces, ripped asunder to the point that the lives lost far outnumbered the survivors.
Stepping to the door in front of Amara and Riordan, Noah gave a firm wrap with his knuckles.
He was armed, as were Riordan and Micah and the others behind them.
“Enter,” her father called out, his voice not exactly relaxed, but his normally jovial disposition had been strained since her abduction. And she could still hear the anger from the meeting with Crimsyn.
Not that she’d found her own former light-hearted attitude.
Opening the door, Noah stepped inside first, his hand settled carefully on the weapon he wore at his thigh. Tobias, Sawyer, and Maxine flanked her and Riordan, with Riordan guarding her side carefully.
Amara watched her father stand slowly as Ilya watched them curiously from one of the chairs in front of the fire.
“Amara?” Her father frowned. “Did you remember more?”
But he knew. She saw his expression, the heaviness in it, the grief.
“I did.” She let her gaze turn to the men who sat with him.
Ilya and Alexi.
There was such concern in their expressions. And love. How could she see that in his eyes?
Slowly, Ilya rose from his chair beside her father, protectively, as Alexi did the same.
“Why?” she whispered, staring at the man who had stolen such precious life from her.
Her baby.
“Amara?” Her father drew her attention back to him with the snap in his voice.
“Why, Alexi?” she asked as she fought her sobs and her rage as shock filled his face. “You were there. You beat me. Cut my hair. Why?”
“No…” he whispered, his expression slack now as her father and Ilya stared from her to Alexi.
“You did!” she cried out, fists clenching at her stomach. “You knew I carried Riordan’s baby. You knew he and Poppa loved my hair long. You said my and Riordan’s death would weaken Poppa. Why?”
Riordan held her securely to him as she screamed out the last word, restraining her, holding her back when she would have flown at him.
“Why?” she screamed again.
And he just stood there.
Comprehension filled his gaze before he dropped his head and stared at the floor, saying nothing. The glass in his hand dropped to the rug, the amber stain of the liquor spreading across the fine material.
Silence filled the room.
Her father’s silence. Ilya’s silence.
“Are you sure?” Her father sounded almost broken.
“I didn’t see his face.” Shuddering, she refused to take her gaze from the other man. “I saw his eyes, I heard his voice. And he laughed”—she sneered at the memory—“laughed that I would never survive the night to tell my poppa. And Riordan wouldn’t matter because he would die as well.”
