by Jenna Mills
The realization dulled all those sharp edges inside, the ones that had been slicing her heart for so long she’d forgotten there was another way.
“You really don’t think they’ll hurt him?”
Liam’s expression remained as closed and distant as it had been from the moment he’d given her the stuffed animal. It was as though the gsture had depleted him, left him operating on fumes. They’d walked for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, the silence between them thickening and pulsing with every beat of her heart.
Until he’d steered her toward the Ferris wheel. Then she’d pulled away from him, stopped in her tracks. Reality granted them no reprieves. They weren’t lovers so lost in each other that the world around them didn’t matter. They weren’t out for an evening of fun. In her purse, her cell phone sat ready, waiting for a call that might never come.
“Trust me,” Liam had said. “This is the best way to play the game.”
Game.
The word stuck in her throat like a giant wad of Play-Doh. “This isn’t a game,” she’d protested.
He’d taken her arm and led her into one of the small cars, and now the giant, brightly lit wheel began its ascent. Liam sat next to her, quiet, intense, staring toward the south. To the right, city lights twinkled and sprawled; to the left, the darkness of the lake gaped as far as the eye could see.
“Answer me,” she said. “Do you think they’ll hurt Alex?”
A hard sound broke from low in his throat. “They have nothing to gain from hurting him.”
Instinctively she slid a hand into her purse and retrieved her small phone, glanced at the display to make sure it was still on. “Then why won’t they call?”
Finally he looked at her, and when he did, when those dark eyes of his skittered over her face like clouds across the moon, her heart changed rhythms. “It’s all part of the game.”
Game. There was that word again, and this time it punctured the thin veil of patience and control she’d been trying so hard to hold on to.
“This isn’t a game,” she said again, and her voice broke. Swallowing hard, she hugged Nemo to her body. “It’s my son’s life.”
For a moment he said nothing, he just looked at her. Then he stunned her by reaching for her hand, chilled now, and cradling it against the warmth of his. “I know,” he said, his thumb tracing small circles against her palm. “I know.” His eyes met hers. “But to Titan it’s just a game.”
She wanted to pull back from him, his world, but they were alone in a small car suspended high above the ground with the cool lake breeze rocking them. “But why?”
“They’re playing you,” he said with a matter-of-factness that sent a nasty chill through her. “Priming you. Pushing you to the edge, trying to drive you out of your mind with worry. They want to unravel you,” he added. “So the next time they make contact, you’ll be so desperate, you’ll jump at the chance to get your son back.”
Her breath caught in her throat, and up so high above the ground, she no longer smelled the sickly sweet scents of the carnival. She wanted to deny his explanation, but couldn’t deny its logic. With each second that crawled by, the longer the silence, the more leeway her imagination had to run wild. And the more her imagination worked against he
In her mind flashed the memory of the night on the beach, the way she’d torn at her own shirt, willing to do anything, anything, to get her son back.
“You have to trust me,” Liam said again.
This time it was Danielle’s turn to look away, to focus on the string of airplanes streaking across the dark sky, a blur of slow-moving lights, one after the other, snaking across the city and out over the lake, making a U-turn to head back in for a landing.
Trust. “I wish it was that easy,” she murmured.
“Danielle.” It was just her name, a name she’d heard all her life, but when he said it, the way he said it, it was as though he spoke in some secret, ancient language. He lifted a finger to her chin and tilted her face toward his. “There’s nothing easy about this.”
The quiet statement wound around her heart and pulled. She felt herself lean toward him, reach for him. On some distant level she was aware of the way she tilted her face, lifted her mouth. The way he leaned toward her. The way her heart thrummed and drummed. The groundswell of want and need, twined so tightly it was impossible to separate one from the other.
The shock was instantaneous, a wild current rushing through her. His mouth brushed hers and his lips moved, but rather than a kiss, they formed a near-silent hiss, and then he was once again turning from her and staring into the night as the small car swung its way down the giant wheel.
And Danielle was left sitting there, hugging her son’s stuffed animal and trying to breathe. This was a mistake, she knew. Coming to the carnival, spending time with Liam, letting herself see the man behind the FBI badge. She should have stayed home alone. She should have sent him on his way.
But now they sat side by side in the small cage of a Ferris wheel, rocking to the breeze blowing steadily off the lake. A smart woman would move away from him, stare off into the distance like he was doing. A smart woman would pretend that she’d not wanted, for one tenuous second, to feel the heat and warmth of his kiss.
She’d been alone for so long, she figured it was only natural. Maybe it was the memories stirred by being at the carnival, maybe the crushing disappointment of looking into the faces of so many children and not seeing her son, but for the first time in years she actually wanted to lean on someone else.
Except, he’d pulled away.
She watched him now, the acute stillness of his body, the uncompromising lines of his face, the shadows that had once again hidden his eyes, and even though she knew better, she lifted a hand to his face. He’d touched her so many times. He’d taken the gun from her hands. He’d caught her arm to prevent her from running from him. He’d brushed the hair from her face.
But this was the first time she’d touched him.
The first time she’d initiated contact with a man since the night Ty died.
He flinched.
The small gesture shouldn’t have wounded her, but somehow it did. Still, it didn’t deter her. Warning shrieked through her, but very slowly she let her fingers skim the rough planes of his face, felt the prickles cleown to her bone. “Who was she?”
From the car behind them, the sound of a child’s giddy laughter filled the air, but Liam said nothing. Not with words. Only the tightening of his jaw confirmed her suspicions.
“She hurt you,” Danielle said quietly, and even though it shouldn’t matter, nothing about this man should matter, she couldn’t just let him sit there and quietly suffer. Poison had to be drawn out. Bit by painful bit.
“She hurt you bad.”
Slowly Liam turned to face her, exposing her to the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. “It wasn’t her fault.”
Danielle’s heart kicked hard. Instinct warned her to retreat, but suspended high above the ground, there was nowhere to go. “You blame yourself.”
For a moment he said nothing, just looked at her as if she’d stripped off a bandage and jammed a hot poker into a wound that had never healed. Then he swore softly. “Let it go.”
The wind whispered harder, sending stray tendrils of hair into her face. “Hurting isn’t a weakness,” she told him, because intuitively she knew he thought it was. “Feeling makes you human.”
He hissed out a low breath. “You really want to know what I’m feeling right now?”
The serrated edge to his voice should have warned her, frightened her. But it didn’t. “Yes, I do.”
His hands were on her face then, both of them, big, strong, holding her so that she couldn’t move. And his eyes flashed. He leaned closer, rubbing a thumb along her lower lip.
“So do I,” he said in that alarmingly quiet way of his, with a voice that had no business coming from a man of his size. “So do I.”
Then he was gone, and just as q
uickly the ride ended and the attendant opened the car and Liam strode into the night, leaving Danielle sitting there hugging the stuffed animal to her heart.
And trying desperately to breathe.
Liam cut through the milling crowd, but could do nothing about the frustration winding him up inside like a top about to spin out of control. He’d done it again, damn it. And not just once but twice. He’d tried to reinforce the line between them, make it darker, thicker, harder to cross.
But then he’d looked at her sitting next to him, and the line had disintegrated.
He’d just wanted to console her. He’d just wanted to comfort her. At least, that was what he’d told himself. But the second his mouth had brushed hers, the moment he’d felt her warm, moist breath on his face, the paltry lies he’d told himself evaporated, leaving only a sobering truth.
For a few dangerous minutes he’d forgotten about everything. He’d forgotten about Titan and Kelly, he’d forgotten the blinding needs that had driven him for years. The need for justice. The need to avenge.
He’d forgotten the fact that a little boy’s life hung in the balance. That the child’s mother was depending on Liam to bring himme safely.
There’d been only Danielle, and a relentless thirst unlike anything he’d ever known. He’d wanted to drink her in. He’d needed to drink her in. All of her, not just her pain. The parentless little girl who’d grown up shuffled from foster home to foster home and the gutsy woman, the courageous survivor she’d become. To taste and savor and—
Damn. He really was a son of a bitch.
He wanted to walk faster, but knew she was already going as fast as she could. She was a step behind him, and even though his fingers itched to close around her hand, he didn’t trust himself to touch her again. The last time he’d glanced back, he’d seen her scowling at him, clutching the goofy stuffed fish to her chest. She’d looked ridiculously young with her hair wild and untamed around her face, her skin flushed, holding the toy as though it was something dear and to be cherished.
As though it was her little boy.
The realization chilled him to the bone and instantly sobered him of the desire to turn to her and take her in his arms, to hold her tight and kiss the stunned look from her mouth.
He needed to get away from her, damn it. He needed to be back in his hotel room, where he could be alone with the sleek lines and smooth curves of the bottle he’d ordered from room service. He’d given in to one temptation tonight. He was determined to prove he could resist a second.
“Come on,” he said, glancing back at her. “I’m taking you—”
The words died a cruel death. He stopped walking, damn near stopped breathing. Dark spots clouded his vision. He stared through the haze, the whir, at the mob of strolling teenagers and gum-smacking adolescents, laughing families and adoring lovers.
Danielle was gone.
Chapter 9
“What’s the matter, afraid?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove anything to you. Either of you.”
“You are afraid!”
Danielle stared at the House of Mirrors, but barely saw the small makeshift tent. The young woman collecting tickets called to her, to everyone, but the voice sounded faraway, suspended in a tunnel of time and space. There was only a thirteen-year-old Anthony, scowling, even so long ago, with his defiant gold hoop earring and long wild hair slicked back into a ponytail, and Elizabeth, dare in her eyes and holes in her jeans.
The memory drew her, much as the carnival had that hot summer night a lifetime ago, when she and Anthony and Liz had first arrived in Philadelphia. They’d never planned on staying there. They’d wanted to go far, as far as they could get, as far away from North Carolina as possible. Thed been running for weeks. Sleeping in parks and bus stations. Hitching rides with truckers. Picking pockets for bus fare.
That had always been Danielle’s specialty. Her lucky sense had always guided her to the safest targets.
California, they’d thought. They’d go west. The land of opportunity and sunshine. No one would find them there. No one would drag them back to North Carolina. No one would make them see Wayne Toliver ever, ever again.
But then they’d made it to the outskirts of Philadelphia, and tired and hungry and dirty, more scared than they wanted to admit, they’d targeted the carnival as the perfect spot to lift a few dollars. Maybe they could get enough to pay for a hotel room. Nothing fancy. Just a room. It didn’t matter how dirty it was, as long as it had a bed. It had been so long since they’d slept in a bed.
Even longer since the girls had enjoyed the luxury of dropping off to sleep without the worry of who might try to join them under the cover of darkness.
The carnival had seemed perfect. Lots of people and commotion. Easy to slip around unnoticed. Easy to make an escape.
But then they’d stumbled across the House of Mirrors, and secrets had started to unravel. Determined to show her brother up, Danielle had spun around, searching for an easy target. The tall, older man with the unkempt beard had seemed perfect. He was just standing there, gazing into the distance, not paying the least bit of attention. And his jeans were loose. All Danielle had to do was—
Jeremy Solienti had grabbed her hand the second she’d made her move.
Danielle blinked, surprised to find her eyes had gone misty. Jeremy. She missed him every bit as much as she missed her brother and sister.
The sickly familiar scent of cotton candy almost choked her. Frowning, she checked her mobile phone, then glanced around the crowd, wondering where Liam had gone. After he’d strode away from the Ferris wheel, she’d gone after him, but he’d made it clear he had nothing to say to her, and she wasn’t a woman to fall in step behind a man like a good little girl. So she’d taken her own path, let the distance between them widen, and then she’d seen the House of Mirrors and she’d stopped.
Instinct told her to turn away now, to go in search of Liam. He would not be pleased when he discovered her gone. Instead she lifted her chin and moved toward the house, handed a wad of tickets to the attendant, then stepped inside.
The past greeted her like a long-lost lover. The lighting was dim, the air warm. The maze sprawled before her, daring her to choose the right path. She moved forward but found herself bumping against a mirror instead. She turned, tried another path, ran into a miniature version of herself.
“Mommy, look how short you are!”
She spun around and came face to face with another image, this of her impersonating an Amazon queen.
“Dad, when did you get so tall?”
Emotion tightened her throat. Tears stung her eyes. Everywhere she looked, she saw her little boy. He’d loved the House of Mirrors, loved to run from cubbyhole to cubbyhole, smearing his hand up against the images reflected back at himTy had laughed and laughed.
There was no laughter now. No Ty. No Alex.
She was alone, just as she’d wanted to be. She’d broken ties with her family, determined to live life on her own terms. To give her son a normal life.
Pivoting, she tried to retrace her steps, but the sea of mirrors swallowed her. Everywhere she looked she found only her image staring back at her, her eyes wide and dark.
This was a mistake. The House of Mirrors. The carnival. Leaving her house. She should have stayed home, alone. She should never have left with Liam. She should never have let herself lean, never have let herself want, not for one fraction of one heartbeat.
The quick burst of panic made no sense. It gripped her, circled her throat and squeezed. She tried to breathe, but the air inside the tent had grown warm and stale and sticky, and it stalled at the back of her throat.
Get out, a voice deep inside commanded. Get out now. She started to run, but the maze closed in on her. “Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
The voice was low, dangerously quiet, and it kicked through Danielle with a force that stu
nned her. She wasn’t a woman to gasp, but the small choked sound echoed through the quiet tent. She spun toward the voice, the man, felt herself stagger back against a mirror.
He’d found her, and he was coldly furious. “Liam.”
She’d seen him angry with her before. At the beach, when she’d pulled a gun on him for the second time in twelve hours. Just earlier that day, at Sal’s shop, when he’d barged in to find Sal with his hands on her. She’d seen the hard lines of warning form on his face. She’d seen the glitter in his eyes. She’d seen the way he moved, protective and threatening at the same time.
But this was so much worse.
He didn’t move now, didn’t say anything, just stood there in front of a prison of mirrors, his tall, dangerously still image surrounding her like an army about to lay siege. She tried to turn from him, but he awaited her at every corner. She moved anyway, but ran smack into his reflection, tall and imposing. Unmoving.
And then she noticed his eyes. The glitter was there, but it was a flat glitter, dull and uncompromising. The lines of his face were hard, his mouth flat. Gone was any trace of the man who’d slung a softball at the pyramid of milk bottles to win two stuffed animals, who’d gone down on one knee to share one with a little boy he didn’t even know. The man who’d stared vacantly over the city, from high in the Ferris wheel. Who’d brushed his lips over hers. Who’d admitted he didn’t know what he wanted.
This man knew what he wanted.
“Start talking.”
Two little words, but they carried the authority of a man used to being obeyed.
“I don’t owe you any explanations,” she said, but then he was moving forward, the whole circle of tall Liams closing in on her.
“Do you have any idea?” This time his voice was lower, hoarser. He stopped, halting the encroaching army along with him. “Any idea at all what I thought when I turned around and found you gone?”
She swallowed hard, wanting to step back. But she refused to move. She’d known he wouldn’t be happy. She’d known he expected her to be trotting behind like a good little girl. But this… God, no, she’d never expected this. “I didn’t think—”
