Self-blame was prevalent in this family. “I’m not sure anybody would’ve been able to talk him out of it. He was so confused… sometimes he seemed to be sure that he was angry at the idea he might be hesitant. Other times he was quieter. I thought maybe he was reflecting, but…”
“But, what?” Bess asked, and it was the hope flaring in her eyes that really twisted the knife in Devon’s gut.
“I don’t think he regrets what he did. I could tell you otherwise and make you believe that he was being coerced, but I didn’t get that sense. I’m sorry.”
Bess sagged. “No,” she sighed. “You’ve been through so many awful things, and I’m so ashamed that my boy put you through more trauma.”
Being abducted hadn’t been fun, and everyone was acting as if she should be traumatized. But Devon didn’t feel that way this time. After being taken by the cartel and stuffed into a metal box to live in a hovel for months, it didn’t feel like her time with Thad was a proper abduction. To be driven in a hot car for a few hours and then put up in a hotel, it just wasn’t even close to the same thing.
On the plane on the way home, Syn had even paid for her to fly business class.
Devon hurt for the Kindred, but not really for her own ordeal. The most terrifying part had been Caine and now she got the sense, from the way Zara had reacted, that he was much more complex than just the brash thug he made himself out to be.
“It’s all part of being Kindred,” Devon said, hoping it would make Bess feel better to know that she hadn’t been disturbed.
But Bess didn’t perk up. “And that leaves me a bit lost,” she said. “These boys needed me to look after them and to support them when they went to the auctions. Now Zave tells me that he won’t go back.”
“He can’t. Syn have threatened to accuse him of—”
“Despicable things,” Bess said, showing anger, which to Devon was healthier than being depressed. “Zave did everything he did because Thad asked him to. He used his money and his reputation to get them in. He risked his livelihood every time they went there. He would be disgraced if there was a suggestion he’d been party to what went on down there.”
“Like I said, I don’t want to give you false hope. But I get the feeling Thad’s not the mastermind. Grant or Mitchell, someone knew what the Kindred were doing with the cartels. Maybe they found out after, I don’t know, Mitchell’s been away for a long time setting up a base for him and Grant. Maybe he was doing that in Mexico and that’s how he got in with the cartel who took me. But it was because of what happened with my brother that I was taken in the first place, though I was never supposed to end up here. I was supposed to end up dead.”
“That’s probably when they found out what Zave was doing,” Bess said. “Zave explained it to me last night, dearie. If Mitchell and his people paid the cartels to take you, they paid to make sure you were the headliner so that the most perverted of men would want you.”
The most depraved buyers wanted what was seen as the best, they sought their prey at the top of the bill. “Yes,” Devon said.
“They would never have done that if they’d known you were going to be bought by the Kindred, would they? They didn’t bank on your brother going to the Kindred for help or the Kindred being able to find you. They thought you were going to be bought, tortured, and killed. And that Rigor would get the message. Zave was never supposed to buy you and never supposed to bring you here and fall in love with you. But he did.”
Just like old times, Bess was reassuring her when it should be Devon’s job to do that for her today. “What are you saying?” Devon asked.
There were tears in Bess’ eyes when she closed her hands around Devon’s cheeks to hold her face up, a couple of inches away from her own. “That even in the most dire, darkest, disgusting, and hopeless of scenarios, sometimes light finds a way through. When it does, it’s our job to nurture and encourage that light, not to extinguish it.”
Devon had no plans to extinguish her love for Zave and wouldn’t walk away from him. She was astounded that Bess was taking the time to comfort her when her own world was falling down.
“Do you need a minute?”
Zave had managed to do it again. He had snuck up on her. He was standing just inside her bedroom, holding something in his palm. Being that he was fully dressed, Devon guessed he wasn’t here to have fun with her. Although it was possible that he held a toy for her in his palm and that he’d come down here to sideline the drama for a while.
“No, I’m ready,” Bess said and stood up.
Something was going on, Zave wasn’t here to see her. Bess brushed her hands down her skirt and then bent over to kiss Devon right on the mouth. “Now you take care of him. I don’t care what he says, keep poking and prodding until he lets you in again. Just like you did before.”
“Wait!” Devon said. “What’s going on?”
Zave gave her the answer, “Bess is going to stay at Thad’s for a while. She stays in his apartment when she’s on the mainland anyway, she has a key.”
“He might have left a message for me,” Bess said. “If he hasn’t, well, someone has to pack up his things, don’t they? If you’re sure he doesn’t regret his decision, then he’s not coming back.”
Devon couldn’t let Bess go like this. She jumped out of bed, still holding the sheet to her chest but not really caring who she flashed. Throwing both arms around Bess, she squeezed her. “Please don’t stay gone for long,” Devon said. All the upset she’d locked inside seeped out in hot, wet droplets from her eyes. “Please come back to us soon.”
“I will,” Bess said, stroking her hair. “You’ve been good for us all, dearie.” Bess pulled away and caught the sheet for Devon so that she wouldn’t find herself naked.
Devon didn’t want to let go, she didn’t want to stop hugging her. But Bess was using everything she had to hold back the tears that were weighing on her lashes. Zave widened the bedroom door, and Bess shuffled out. They both disappeared.
But Devon wasn’t done yet. She wrapped the sheet around herself and tucked it in. Pulling it higher over her legs, she followed them out of the room and down into the foyer. Bess opened the front door and looked around the grand space. After smiling at Devon one more time, she went out.
Devon was only halfway across the lower floor. Zave paused to come back to her. “I’ll be gone for most of the day,” he said.
“If I’d known, I’d have come with you.”
“You’ll be safe here.”
“It’s not that I’m afraid. It’s just… I’ve never been here alone.”
His frown might be worry or it could be impatience. “I can send security if you need someone to stay with you. I’m taking the chopper, the guys who got Jennifer brought one of them back.”
Taking the chopper just meant it would take longer to get there and longer to get back. “What should I do here?” Devon asked.
Being alone, the whole place was her responsibility, and suddenly she was afraid she might burn the building to the ground or something. “What you always do. This is your home, isn’t it? Sometimes you’re going to have to be here by yourself.”
A small concession was still a concession. Zave touched her jaw and went to leave, but she caught his wrist. If she was going to stay here all day and not put up any protest at being left alone, she expected him to kiss her goodbye.
To his credit, he understood her pout and kissed her. “You will come back, won’t you?”
“What do you think I’m going to do? Abandon you out here?” he asked.
Bess had told her there was food in the cold store, enough to last for months. So if that was his plan, Devon was more likely to go insane out here alone than die of starvation. “If you do, I might have to go toy hunting.” She didn’t linger over the innuendo. “Is there anything you need me to do?”
“Yes,” he said. She was surprised that he would entrust any task to her.
Concentrating, she was ready to memorize anything he said to h
er. Devon wanted to prove that she could follow his instructions, that she could be trusted. “What?”
“Eat, rest, draw, relax and take care of yourself. If you have any problems, go down into the basement, okay? Just keep going down.” He kissed her again. “But only go if you’re bleeding.”
Ok, so that wasn’t exactly what she’d expected and didn’t give her much of a chance to impress him. She sighed. “Or aliens have landed?”
“Yeah. If one of those two things happens, get yourself downstairs. I have to get to Bess.”
“Take care of her.”
Devon stayed where she was and watched him leave. Wearing only a sheet, she wouldn’t go outside to watch them take off and disappear over the horizon. But she did run upstairs to her room and open the window, though she would only see their flight for a few seconds. When the sound of the rotors faded to be taken over by the sound of the crashing ocean waves, Devon exhaled.
The island was hers.
She was alone.
Devon had the run of this whole place and could do anything she wanted. So why was it that all she could think about was Bess’ well-being and Zave’s sanity? And what might be in that basement.
EIGHT
When she first heard the helicopter rotors approaching the island, Devon was excited. Being in the house alone wasn’t as daunting as she might have thought it would be. Because she had plenty to keep her entertained, Devon distracted herself from reality with art supplies that were still in her room. When she relaxed, she enjoyed the down time.
Every time her mind wandered, Zave was the dominant feature in her thoughts. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, and when he might come back to her. Which was why when she heard the familiar sound of the aircraft, she pounced up to her feet and went to the window. Of course, she couldn’t see it, the space created by her open bedroom window was too small.
So Devon left her room and ran up the stairs to the larger double window in the library that opened wide. She didn’t want him worrying if she made a dramatic gesture of throwing open the window to wave at him. But she did open them enough to peek out, and that was when the excitement went away.
Yes, there was a helicopter on approach, but it was white, not like the one Zave flew. And there were boats in the water, far on the horizon, at least three that she could count from this distance. As she wondered what all these people might be doing in this area, another helicopter came into view on her left and then there was another approaching above the boats.
Slamming the windows, Devon locked the latch and held her breath. What was she supposed to do if Syn launched a full-scale attack on this island? Except, where would they get the resources to launch an invasion?
Going to her room, she dressed in the most sensible clothes she had. It was just lucky that Bess didn’t have access to the lab, or she’d probably have moved all of Devon’s things there while they were on their Mexican mission.
Tying her hair back, Devon wished she’d spent more time asking about weapons and security instead of busying herself with her art and expecting Zave to take care of everything. The Kindred went to the basement when they had their meetings, but she’d never gone to the lowest levels of the house and didn’t even know if she had access, despite what Zave had said before he left.
Now was the time to find out.
Going to the spiral staircase that she knew well, she descended as far as she could and touched the security panel on the door at the bottom. It allowed her entry, and she thanked Zave for his forethought.
Except when she went through, Devon found herself in a long, black corridor that had doors and passages leading off of it. Where was she supposed to go? Which room should she go into? And then, as if someone had read her thoughts, a red light flashed along the top of one of the doorframes. Hurrying forward, she paused, wondering if she’d actually seen the light or imagined it, because she couldn’t see anything up there that looked like a bulb.
Then, a wisp of red light, like a snake of smoke, flickered again from left to right along the top of the doorframe. There was a security panel on this door as well, and although she’d been granted entry to this floor, her heart was still hammering with doubt when she touched her thumb pad to the blue circle against it.
The door whooshed open. She didn’t know where she was going or even if this was where she was supposed to be. When she went in, surprise stopped her in her tracks. The dark room was lit by emergency lighting, and against the farthest wall was a bank of monitors displaying images of different locations.
In front of that was some kind of control station with three smaller monitors and three keyboards built into the desk. To the right was a circular conference table with swivel chairs around it. This was some sort of hub.
Moving forward, she explored the images and saw some that looked exactly like this house. Bess had said there were cameras dotted around, but Devon had never known where they were. One of the images changed and she saw a room that looked just like the foyer upstairs, but the décor wasn’t the same and the carpet on the stairs was a different color.
She recalled what she’d been told about the twin houses and deduced that she was looking into Brodie’s manor. Searching for clues in other pictures, she tried to figure out where the Kindred were monitoring. The KC building was familiar, but the images of other corporate offices were not.
“Shy?” The voice made her gasp and she whipped around, but there was no one in the room with her. “It’s ok. Walk forward, I’m on the intercom.”
“Zave?” He was talking to her. “Where are you?” she asked, rushing forward to the desk and that was when one of the monitors at the workstation flickered on to show his office at KC.
“I’ve sent someone to get you,” he said, descending from a standing position to a seated one so she could see his face.
It was a relief just to look at him. “How did you know I was down here?”
“Motion sensors,” he said.
It wasn’t a secret that they were scattered across the island, but it hadn’t occurred to her that the information they fed back would be accessible from anywhere other than his lab. “You can see them there?”
“The Kindred have to be able to access all of their systems everywhere,” he said. “I should’ve just given you a phone, I don’t know what I was thinking.” He was thinking that she would be safe here, and he had no reason not to believe that. She hadn’t. “You did the right thing going down there.”
Sinking into the first chair, she put a hand to the side of the monitor. “I’m not bleeding, but I didn’t know where to go,” she said, guessing that she didn’t have to tell him about the choppers and boats. Zave had a habit of knowing more than she did at all times. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t defend the island on my own. The basement was my only shot and the light above the door…”
“Only certain doors have them. You were observant to notice it. Brodie’s manor’s rigged to show different lights when different fingerprints are used on different doors.”
Information about the houses was fascinating, but it wasn’t pressing and didn’t explain why their island was being invaded. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“This is Syn’s opening gambit,” he explained, and her worst fear was realized. They were literally invading the island. “I’ve sent a KC chopper to get you. Pack whatever you think you’ll need, we won’t be staying on the island for a while.”
The Kindred were strong and they were proud, she didn’t expect them to surrender without a fight. Devon might not be combat minded, but she would rather stay here and do what she could until reinforcements for her side could arrive.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “We can’t give up this house to them.”
Zave didn’t seem as worried as she felt. Yes, there was concern in his expression, but not much more than his usual grim outlook. “Syn aren’t the ones coming,” he said. “What did you see?”
“Helicopters, boats.”
The media hadn’t entered her thoughts. Maybe she was more battle-ready than she’d thought because she’d been prepared for a fight, not an interview. “Why?” she asked, panicking that Syn may have made their criminal accusations against him. Except if they had, he’d probably be in a police cell right now, not in his corporate offices.
“Syn weren’t happy that the Kindred showed up. They didn’t get Dempsey, but they snatched a kid who worked with him, a boy named Howie. They’re pissed enough about not getting what they wanted that they want to stir things up for us.”
Stir things up. Ok, so Devon would admit a preference for a media invasion than a Syn or police one, but how could they have gotten the media interested so quickly? Zave wasn’t even on the island yet they were descending on it like they were expecting to find the story of the century. “So they send the media?” she asked. “Why would the media care about—”
“Our marriage,” Zave said. “Did you tell Syn we were married?”
Thad had. Marrying the man she loved was important life news for her, and until now, she hadn’t figured out that it may be of interest to the masses too. But, damn it, what a great distraction. Now Zave’s hands were tied, he wouldn’t be able to get involved with the Kindred side of things while the media held him under a microscope. The genius recluse who’d lost his parents in a tragic accident hadn’t been seen for years, yet, he’d somehow found himself a woman and got himself married to her.
Of course the world’s media would be interested in one of the smartest businessmen of their generation marrying a woman no one even knew he was seeing. How did a hermit who lived on an island miles from civilization find himself a woman?
Maybe they thought she was mail-order or betrothed to him from birth. Whatever they thought, she was a target and so was he. They would want to know about her, why the relationship had been kept a secret, and what it meant for KC that it’s isolated leader was emerging to take the reins again.
Finch (Kindred #6) Page 9
