Helena’s swirling green eyes looked earnest as she sat on the edge of the bed, and Liana felt her chest loosen a little. The knowledge that Helena wasn’t about to jump in and start judging her for the choices she’d made was huge. It meant she could let her guard down—a little.
“And as for Nick—when you grow up with nothing the way we did, you turn to whatever gives you belonging, that makes you believe you matter. Acceptance is a powerful thing. And the Black Sparks give that to Nick. I don’t fault him for that. He had nothing before, and he now he has a family – one that will have his back through anything, one that won’t toss him out on the street just for speaking his mind or following his heart,” she finished. “And that’s what’s important to him now.”
“So that’s what I am to him, you think? Just…an obligation?”
“Look, maybe I’ve already said more than I should have. If you want answers, you’ve got to talk to Nick. But we did spend some time talking last night. And he told me Tryg told him to keep an eye on you.”
“I gathered that,” said Liana. “I’m pretty sure the only reason he came over to dinner last night was because Tryg told him to.”
Of course, that didn’t account for what he’d done—or tried to do—in the living room, after Kirrily had left. That was not the behavior of a young man who had been ordered to do a tedious chore, who had only been counting the hours until he could leave. It was the behavior of a man who had been waiting a long time, years, even, wondering what this particular woman would feel like under his touch. It was curious, longing, even a little angry—but, above it all, it felt real, and she’d gotten swept up in it. But, perhaps, that was only her mistake, not his. They’d both waited so long; they both had unfinished business. That all made sense. But the idea that he had only done it satisfy his curiosity, and now had no further need of her, made even more sense. After all, he had moved on; picked up the shattered pieces of what she’d left him with. He knew better than to risk it all over again by getting involved with the girl who had wrecked his life the first time around.
She realized she’d been lost in thought, and that Helena was looking at her pointedly. She felt herself flush a little; knowing this wasn’t anything she could, or would want to, explain to the other woman, sympathetic as she appeared to be, especially not when Liana wasn’t yet sure what kind of stake Helena had in Nick.
“Anyway, he said you could be the key.”
“The key to what?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t push him. But from what I gathered, he seemed to think you, or this cop boyfriend—”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend of yours was involved with the Vipers somehow.”
“What?”
“Look, don’t fly off the handle. It isn’t Nick, I’m sure. Not his idea, I mean. He was just parroting what Tryg told him. Like I said, his loyalty, if anything, will be his downfall.”
Liana drew her legs up underneath her, turning to face Helena. “Look, Jack is not a nice guy, and that’s putting it lightly. But he’s a cop. That’s what he does. He’s a law-and-order guy. He wouldn’t have made sergeant if he were rolling with the biggest biker gang on the Eastern Seaboard. And if Nick has the balls to suggest that Jack planted me here as some kind of mole—” She threw off the covers, unable to continue.
So that’s what Nick thought: that she was some kind of puppet, to be controlled at the whims of Jack Camus, or any other man who dangled a carrot in front of her, whether it be a scholarship, new clothes, or a steak dinner at the hottest restaurant in town. And it wouldn’t have hurt so much if there wasn’t that little bit of truth to it, festering somewhere inside of her – the knowledge that she was capable of selling her soul. The worst part was, she’d done it before. Noel had held out the ultimate carrot—her college career, her reputation—and she’d sold out Nick to get it. She didn’t blame Nick for thinking she’d do it again—she’d never proven to him otherwise. She’d never tried. Well, that was one thing she could do right now.
“I should find him.”
Helena put her hand on her arm. “Relax, Liana, I’m sure that’s not what he was suggesting. It was late, and we were all tired.”
“I don’t care.”
“Anyway, like I said, he’s across town somewhere, with Tryg.”
“Some protector,” Liana scoffed.
“Believe me when I say that the only thing between the inhabitants of this house and the big, bad world outside is definitely not a biker kid with a switchblade.” Liana cracked a smile. “If that were true, my husband totally wasted his money,” Helena said. “Besides the locked gate, we’ve got CCTV covering every inch, an armed guard on call 24/7. And if worse comes to worse, a panic room upstairs encased in three feet of bulletproof lead.”
Liana perched on the edge of the bed, suddenly hearing how her heart had sped up, the adrenaline knocking about inside her head.
“He’ll be back this afternoon. Meanwhile, I’m sure if he were here, he’d tell you to have some breakfast. And then get dressed.”
Liana picked up the expensive-looking blouse with some skepticism, glancing unobtrusively at the tags and trying to keep her jaw from dropping open. Normally, she would have jumped at the chance to wear the designer labels she couldn’t afford to look at when she lived in New York, gazing longingly at the artfully-arranged store windows on 5th Avenue, whispering to her of a better life, the kind she had once imagined when she lived with her mother and Noel.
Liana wasn’t sure she should have felt ashamed at this. But Helena was talking about the kind of acceptance, the kind of unconditional support, she had wanted to offer Nick all those years ago. She had wanted to allow him shelter, to let him know he would be safe place to keep his soul safe, that she would never hurt or betray him. Needless to say, she’d failed utterly at that. If that was what the club was offering him now, he deserved that. And if that was what Helena was offering him now, he deserved that just as much. He’d managed to build a life for himself. What he definitely didn’t need was Liana, crawling home with her messes and baggage, dragging him down into the mire all over again. It was logical that she should stay away from him. She grabbed the clothes and glanced from side to side.
“You can change in the bathroom.”
The thick, expensive fabric of the blouse seemed to slip over her skin like an ocean wave as she pulled it on. Underneath that, she pulled on the black skinny jeans, slightly too long, as she’d expected; she was short enough that most jeans were unless they’d been hemmed, and Helena was taller than most. Still, she felt better knowing that by the time Nick made it back, she wouldn’t look she’d been through the war—even if she felt like she had.
When she emerged into the buttery light of the bedroom, Liana opened up her handbag and rummaged around for a hairbrush and some makeup.
“Here, let me,” said Helena, holding out a hand.
Reluctantly, Liana handed her the brush. She perched on the edge of the bed and tried not to wince as Helena pulled it through the snarls that had been building up for a day.
“Sometimes it’s like I don’t know NIck is anymore,” Liana mused, like they were two best friends having an idle chat about their love lives. “Like everything I knew about him got frozen that day when we were seventeen, and he’s never grown up in my eyes. And then, sometimes,” she said softly, “he lets the veil drop, and I get a glimpse of the man he’s become – the one I’ve never known, the one I never gave myself a chance to know.” She spoke carefully, watching how Helena reacted.
“There are other nice guys around here, you know,” said Helena. “Some of my friends have brothers, and even sons your age, much as I hate to admit I’m that old. Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered, her lavender-scented breath hot in Liana’s ear. “Nick’s such a piece of work,” Helena continued. “One minute he’s zooming up on his bike and getting in my face, demanding to know who I am and what I know about the shipment he lost,” she said. “The next minut
e I offer him a glass of scotch and he’s purring in my lap like a puppy being petted behind the ears.”
“Ouch.” Liana looked at the floor, knowing she needed to hear this, if only to set aside her doubts about what was going on Nick’s mind. She needed to know the truth, so she could keep her expectations reasonable. Last night at Kirrily’s, the hungry, determined way he had touched her, had opened up a channel in her, one that would have been better off staying closed. She knew she needed to make sure it didn’t open farther, and knowing what Helena was to Nick would help her do that. It would help her stay sane, logical. She owed that to both of them.
“Sorry. Nick’s the kind of guy who has floozies falling all over him all the time, willing to cater needs, attend to his every whim. He needs someone who can put him in his place. Show him who’s boss. But most of all, someone who understands him,” said Helena, coming up behind him. “Someone who’s been where he’s been. Someone who gets it. There.” She took Liana’s hand and pulled her off the bed, spinning her around to face the full-length mirror.
Liana forced a phony smile to her lips, watching her face in the mirror, dressed in someone else’s clothes. She knew the subtext of what Helena was saying: You don’t. You’re different. You’re other. And it’s better that way. She had to admit the deep black of the blouse brought out the contrast in her honeyed hair and eyes. So this was how it was going to be, she thought. She was going to let Helena Kinski shape her into the person she thought Liana wanted to be, the person her stepfather always told her she was destined to be, while Helena swooped in and became the woman Nick wanted, and needed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After breakfast, Helena had reached into a drawer in her husband’s study and handed a container to Liana.
“What is this? Mace?” Liana had asked, turning the canister around in her hand gingerly. “I don’t think—”
“Take it,” the older woman insisted. “If you’re going to go out on the grounds, it’ll make me feel better.”
She opened the front door for Liana. Across the lake there was nothing—only more trees and, beyond that, a radio tower whose ugliness Helena had previously complained of. Rory the schnauzer scratched and whined, and Liana offered to take him for a walk in an effort to look useful—and not like she wanted to get away.
Rory gave her a skeptical look as the strange woman bent down to clip on his leash, but now he trotted in front of her gamely, stopping to sniff at the occasional interesting spot on the side of the road. After all, this was his home more than it was hers; his place in the pecking order was assured. Plus, having him there reassured her, even if it were all an illusion.
She was not quite sure yet where she planned to go. Helena had told her the house had three and half acres of land, and she doubted there was likely to be a corner store or a mall or a movie theatre in this shady, secluded section of town. She knew she had to get out, though, if only to give herself the illusion of freedom, of being under no one’s thumb, just for an hour, if that’s what it took. She suddenly thought of Jack, and her stomach turned a somersault. Was she an idiot for wandering out here alone? Or maybe she was overreacting. Just because he’d found out she was in Prudence, and even knew the Ryans’ address, didn’t mean he was in town. He was a police sergeant, after all; he didn’t have the kind of job where he could take off across the country on a whim. But then she thought back to the brief notes he’d left: I’m getting tired of waiting. See you soon. That was not the voice of man who was prepared to sit back and wait for the object of his fixation to come to him.
She turned and looked behind her, a gust of cool wind rustling the leaves of the beech trees hanging over, casting shade on the road beneath her feet, creating strange shadow-shapes. It was time to turn back, she thought with a swallow. This was a bad idea. Not for the first time, she wished Nick were there with her, then immediately scolded herself. To become fixated on him, dependent on him, was the worst thing she could possibly do to them both. She needed to find a way out of this herself.
Besides, she thought, maybe Helena was exactly what Nick needed, somebody to keep him on the straight and narrow when he went too far, somebody to give him freedom, but reign him back in when he needed it, somebody who had enough money to ensure he’d never go wanting.
But was that what Nick wanted? It sounded awfully controlling, and if there was one thing Liana knew about the Vice President of the Black Sparks, it was that between Tryg, the club, foster care and prison, he had enough people telling him what to do to last him a lifetime already. Whatever was going on, Liana believed Nick was smart enough to go into it with his eyes open. He had to know what he was getting into. He wouldn’t let Helena manipulate him—he certainly wouldn’t let Liana.
After all, she’d woken up this morning to find him gone. That wasn’t an accident. Chances were he’d left, not just to meet with Tryg, as Helena had maintained, but because he’d had enough of Liana already. He’d done his due diligence by getting her somewhere safe; he was under no obligation to stay longer. Of course he wouldn’t want to hang around the house and have to look in the face of the girl who’d caused him far more grief than his young life merited. But why had she been so disappointed when she’d woken up to find him gone? Was she expecting to sit down in the breakfast nook and have English muffins and marmalade, like some idyllic married couple? That wasn’t Nick, and that wasn’t her. It never had been, and she wasn’t naïve enough to think it ever could be.
A sharp bark from Rory brought her back from where her thoughts had taken her. She pulled back on his leash, wrapping her hands tight around the leather, as if that alone could keep her safe, wondering what had startled him. He seemed focused on something beyond a clutch of sun-dappled elms. She shouldn’t have let her thoughts drift. Helena hadn’t put that mace in her handbag for fun.
Never let your guard down. Constant vigilance was one of Nick’s trademarks; she remembered the night he’d stayed up late after breaking curfew with her friends and found him in the living room—not on the couch, where a normal person would sit, but on the floor, with his head resting on his curled-up knees, his hand hooked loosely around his other wrist, only to jerk up rapidly at the sound of the key in the door. She only realized later he’d chosen to sit somewhere uncomfortable so he’d be less likely to drift off. She couldn’t help but wonder where he’d learned that technique – if there’d been nights in his life when he’d been too frightened to fall asleep, too on guard about what might happen if he closed his eyes for even a second.
“Did you stay on guard for me?” she’d teased him when he’d leaped up, brushing his hair up from where it had fallen in front of his face, looking suddenly very young—ironically, the exact opposite of how she knew he wanted to appear.
“No, I stayed on guard for nuclear war,” he’d teased back, as if he’d ever admit it. “But it happened to coincide with you.” Later, he’d managed to somehow assure Noel that she’d been back hours before curfew, saving her hide.
Light filtered in; she was coming to a break in the trees, the border of the property. She could see the empty, curving street beyond. The soil was loamy and wet underneath her feet; she even spotted a clump of snow where the sunlight hadn’t been able to penetrate. She almost wished she’d thrown a sweater over her short-sleeved blouse. There was no fence; Liana supposed there were cameras where she couldn’t see them. Anyone brazen enough to come this way would have to make it up to the house eventually and, when they did, the alarm would sound.
Rory’s barks had grown more frantic now, but whatever had attracted his attention wasn’t moving. It was simply something that the dog had decided didn’t belong there. It was a car, she realized, the engine shut down, shaded by the trees so its color was murky. She knew she should have turned around, but she felt herself drawn to it, as if she were rag doll hauled along by a child, limp, with no will of her own. It was a familiar feeling—and the car was a familiar car, she realized as she walked softly around it. A sleek b
lack Mercury, tinted windows with New York state license plates – the kind of car that never called attention to itself, like a coiled snake waiting to spring. Sleek, unobtrusive, and intimidating, as befitted a guy who had worked as an undercover narc for much of his career. She’d ridden in that car; taken her top off in the car, felt Jack’s fingers like spiders crawling over her bare, frozen nipples—she felt like gagging, like throwing up her breakfast. He was here. He’d found her, somehow. There was no escape. Nowhere on earth was safe for her anymore. She turned. The buzzing in her ears had grown higher in pitch. “Rory?” she called, feeling behind her to pat the dog’s fur for some sense of reassurance.
Footsteps, a crash of brush in the undergrowth, a man’s heavy footfalls. She froze like a block of ice, hands poised in midair, terrified to move or even breathe. It was the wind—no, it was a person. Coming closer. There was nothing to do but bolt, even if it meant driving herself deeper into the woods.
“Helena?” she screeched as she ran. Goddamn this vast property; she knew neither Helena nor anyone would hear her. She fingered her pocket for her phone, but of course there was no time to call anyone, either. She dropped Rory’s leash and flew along the path, one of the black sandals she’d borrowed from Helena crumpling under her feet, then flying off into the brush. She didn’t dare to stop. Up ahead, a structure; it looked like some kind of caretaker’s shack, a hut to store tools or firewood out of season. Her hand frantically brushed the padlock on the door, fumbling for a way to undo the lock. Maybe there was a window she could smash. There had to be something.
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