by Skye Warren
He leans forward to lick a tear from my cheek. Then he moves us both to the bed without dislodging himself. I’m lying down with him between my legs. He pulls away gently and then pushes back in. The oversensitive flesh screams in protest. “Wait,” I say, laughing or sobbing. “Wait. Wait.”
A slow shake of his head. Those blue eyes are merciless. “No waiting.”
“It’s too fast. We just—”
“I gave you fair warning, little thief. I’m not leaving this sweet body until I’ve come three more times.”
* * * *
Natalie
I wake to the feeling of complete warmth, the kind that seeps all the way into the center of my body, the kind I’ve really only dreamed about. This would feel like a dream, too, except that I have to pee. My body fights me every step of the way. It wants to stay on this warm, muscled, steadily breathing pillow forever. Instead I slip out of bed and go to the bathroom. When I wash my hands I catch sight of myself in the mirror. Wild hair in a thousand knots. Bruises that look mottled-yellow in my skin. I look like a mess, except for my eyes. Those look strangely content. That might have been the only full night’s sleep I’ve ever had. No going out at dusk to do something for my step-father. No waking up at 3 am with my breath coming fast, fear in my throat.
When I enter the bedroom, I’m greeted by a drowsy blue gaze. “Come here,” Anders says.
Intimacy in the dark means one thing. Cuddling the morning after means something else. I’m not in a place where I can be in a relationship. And definitely not with this man. I find myself climbing in anyway. He pulls me close, my back to his chest, his heavy arm wrapped around me, his face in my hair. He doesn’t seem to mind that it’s a bird’s nest back there. He breathes in deep.
“My dad died when I was five.”
He makes a small sound—sympathy? Regret? I’m ruining the moment with my confession, but after watching him take care of me, after seeing him tend to my wounds and my body, even when he has every right to hate me, I owe him this. Now. When it’s hardest.
“I don’t really remember him. It was my mom and me for most of my childhood. We didn’t have much, you know? She’d always look through magazines, dreaming out loud what it would be like when we could buy a marble table or a grand piano. Or a car that doesn’t have someone else’s cigarette burns. But it didn’t feel like a bad life. We had each other. It was us against the world.”
His arm tightens around me. I feel his erection pressing against my ass, but he doesn’t push it against me. He does nothing but hold me. “What changed?”
“She dated a lot. A lot of losers, really. I’d wake up and walk out in my Little Mermaid pajamas looking for cereal, and there’d be some stranger watching TV on the couch with no shirt on.”
He tenses. “They ever put their hands on you?”
I try to keep my voice light. “She probably dated every asshole in the city limits, so yeah, statistically, a few of them were bound to be a creep. I learned to manage them.”
“Their names.”
My laugh sounds forced. “What are you going to do? Track them down?”
His silence answers the question.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.” Besides, that wasn’t the worst part. “Then she met this guy, and he seemed so… normal. He liked chicken fried steak and romantic movies. We even started going to church every Sunday because it was important to him. I was the flower girl when they got married. I thought… I thought we could be a family.”
“Hell,” he says, clearly not liking where this story’s going.
“He started hitting her a few months later. Maybe it was sooner, I don’t know. That was when I found out. I thought that would be the worst, you know? What could be worse than that? Except he told me there was a way I could keep her safe. If I did one little favor. All I had to do was borrow someone’s phone when we were in church—borrow it for fifteen minutes and then put it back, without him noticing. And he wouldn’t hit my mother.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Don’t,” I say, panic rising in my chest. “Don’t. He has friends, okay? And it’s not that simple.”
“What’s not simple about it?”
“He’s a cop.”
He turns me so I’m facing him. Propped up on one elbow, the morning sun highlighting his muscled chest, he looks impossibly handsome. A fairy tale prince that I don’t deserve. “This is why you didn’t want to go to the hospital. You knew he could find you there.”
I look down, studying the pattern of blond hair on his chest. “He doesn’t usually hit me, but I didn’t do what he wanted. I started realizing… it was never going to stop. There would always be one more favor. Always one more threat. So I stole the chess piece, but I didn’t give it to him.”
“It’s your insurance policy.”
I search his blue gaze for understanding. “I just had to do something. Had to fight back.”
“Of course you did.” He presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “But you don’t have to fight alone. Not anymore. Tell me where it is, Natalie. Let me help you.”
Is that real? I don’t have to fight by myself? “This is my problem to solve.”
“Hell. You said it looked like I held the weight of the whole city on my shoulders. You’re doing the same thing. It’s not your responsibility to fight this by yourself.”
The allure is almost enough to level me. I want the comfort he’s offering me. The friendship. More than friendship if his stroking fingers on my thigh are any indication. Except I can’t let him get involved in this. I wasn’t kidding—Norman has friends in the department. People who will protect him, who will avenge him. When I stand against him, I have to stand alone.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
He doesn’t look surprised. Only disappointed. He turns me again, and I brace myself for rejection. For him to leave the bed or maybe kick me out. Except he pulls me close.
Chapter Thirteen
Anders
I stamp my feet on the ground, but cold air still seeps into my legs. Pine needles prick through the fabric. Freezing drops of water fall intermittently from the treetops. Give me inner city apartments and dark alleyways any day. This nature shit isn’t for me.
My phone buzzes. I read a message from my investigator. Natalie Lhuirs, age 24. Graduate student enrolled at the University of Illinois, School of Art + Design.
I’m already typing back an answer. You find the accomplice?
A little bubble appears with three dots. Then, Roommate says she goes to school all day, works in the evenings. She visits home every few months – in Tanglewood.
Where’s her family?
No word yet. There are 2K Lhuirs in the Tanglewood city limits. More if you include surrounding areas. That’s assuming she’s got the same last name. I’ll have more in a few hours.
In a few hours it might be too late.
Her stitches mostly dissolved. Her bruises mostly healed. She’s back to fighting form, and a conveniently fake call on my cell phone about an emergency provides her with the perfect opportunity to escape.
I have a clear view of the house. In particular, I have a clear view of the second story on the right-hand side. That’s where I can see my very own Disney princess rappelling down the brick wall. She’s not using long hair. Instead she has what’s probably twelve thousand thread count sheets tied into a rope.
For a few, cold, miserable minutes out here in the dark I thought she wasn’t going to take the bait. Her slender figure moves quickly over the hill. She almost blends in with the night. If this is how she looked near the Den, it’s no wonder she managed to breach their defenses. They’re prepared for an assault. She’s practically invisible. Only when she rounds the building do I step out of the trees. Someone steps with me. A tall silhouette. “Hell,” I say.
Gabriel shakes his head, looking a bit like a wild animal getting the water out of his fur. “That took forever, didn’t it? Thought she was actually
going to sleep for a minute there.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Same thing you’re doing. Following her so we can find out who’s pulling the strings.”
I turn up the collar on my coat and stuff my hands into my pocket. It’s going to be a long, miserable walk tailing this woman. “You should go back to Avery. She probably needs a foot rub or something.”
“Nah, I’ll do it when I get back. Otherwise you’re going to get lost.”
We round the building, following in Natalie’s footsteps. Only to see red taillights wink in the distance. “Fuck,” I say, striding to my car. “Where did she find a ride?”
Gabriel slings himself into the passenger seat. “Uber for criminals?”
I ignore him as we drive without headlights. Lucky for me Gabriel lives out in the land of rolling, expansive estates. Meaning there aren’t a lot of cars. And there are even fewer Honda Civics. We follow it from a safe distance. The car in front rounds a bend. When I reach the same place, there’s a T in the road. No sign of those red tail lights.
“Turn right,” Gabriel says.
“How do you know?” I say, but I’m already following his directions.
“It’s the only way out of the neighborhood. Aren’t you glad you brought me along now?”
“Thanks,” I say, and I know I sound surly, but I don’t like the idea of using Natalie as bait. It feels too uncomfortably close to the way she’s been used before. Except my goal isn’t to harm her. No, I want to protect her. The only way I can do that is by finding out who’s behind this.
It’s only a fringe benefit that I’ll also find out who hurt my mother.
Tracking becomes easier when we hit the highway. There are more cars around. Less chance they’ll recognize someone tailing them. I stay a few cars behind. Part of me wants to keep my focus on the mission. Find out who’s pulling the strings, as Gabriel put it. And eliminate the threat. The other part of me, the doctor part of me, can’t help cataloging all the things that can go wrong. The human body is so fucking fragile. And none more than the woman in that 1998 navy blue sedan.
We hit the west side, which isn’t exactly a surprise. There’s plenty of criminal activity here. There’s also the Den, right in the very heart. That’s where the sedan slows down. Natalie hops out of the car before it’s even fully stopped, and then it zooms away. She pauses a moment to look up at the Den. The third floor. That’s where I keep my room, though it’s a cold and lonely place. Sterile, really. Then she walks right through the front door.
“What?” I say, fury rising inside me.
“Absolutely not.” Gabriel’s already shaking his head. “No way Damon had anything to do with this.”
He might have. He could have wanted the full auction price for the chess piece, arranged its disappearance, and kept the money. It would have been so fucking easy in his own building. The guilt and the offer of repayment—all of it could have been a show. “Then why’s she waltzing in like she has any business being there?”
“I don’t know, but I trust him like I trust you. With my life.”
That makes me pause. There are a lot of people who trust their lives to me. It comes with the medical degree. All of them are strangers. Even my father withdrew so far after my mother died that he was like a stranger to me. There are only a few people in the world who know me. Gabriel is one of them. Damon is another. Friendship. I would have admitted the term reluctantly, but it’s more than that, I realize now. It’s family. That’s why I keep a room in the Den. Not because it’s conveniently located for midnight emergency calls in the west side. Because Damon and Penny are family. So are Gabriel and Avery. And the little wriggly potato inside her stomach.
A car pulls up in front of the Den.
A dark blue Taurus.
Anyone could identify it as a law enforcement officer a mile away.
I tense, because this might be Natalie’s step-father.
Except when a woman emerges from the car, wearing a buttoned-up gray suit, and a man who might be younger than her comes out of the passenger side, one thing is clear: these are feds. It’s puzzling, because I know Damon Scott would never call them in. Someone could steal the crown jewels out of his pocket, and he’d handle it personally.
Unless someone else called them.
The pieces fall into place with horrifying solidity. Natalie going into the Den, the scene of her crime. The feds, who should have no business here. The problem of the corrupt cops.
This is my problem to solve. She’s going to turn herself in.
I’m across the street in a flash, a second behind the feds through the door. I glare at the bouncer, who gives me a shrug, as if to say, “Feds. What are you going to do?” Except he doesn’t do shit without Damon’s approval. He might not have set this whole theft up, but would he be willing to accept the feds to get it solved? Maybe. Especially if it was Natalie’s condition. Bring in the feds, and I’ll give you the bishop. She doesn’t think she knows how to play chess, but she does. She’s sacrificing a pawn—herself.
I meet the feds in the foyer, who are standing around looking stern and fucking useless.
“Excuse me,” I say, pushing past them. If I can find Natalie before it’s too late… Then Damon appears outside his office, and I know it’s over. He looks resigned but also satisfied. It’s the look of a man who’s about to have his auction business in the green.
Natalie appears behind him, her expression determined. Her eyes widen when she sees me, but she doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t run to my side. Doesn’t trust me to solve this for her.
Damon walks to the ballroom and presses his thumb to the scanner. “It really was a puzzle for me, how anyone made it inside with the fancy tech system we’ve got around this room.”
“Cameras?” the lady fed asks.
Damon snorts. “So you can subpoena them to use against my patrons? No, thank you. But there are logs of who comes in and out of this room. No one entered the room before me that day.”
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” I say. “It’s my property.”
One eyebrow raises. “You were on a tear to figure out who did this earlier.”
Natalie steps forward and puts a hand on my arm. “It’s okay.”
The door clicks open, and Damon pushes inside. How the hell did she manage to get inside? I’m curious, but not enough to risk her safety. “It’s not okay. We’re going home.”
Her smile is sad. “Where is home? Gabriel and Avery’s house? Upstairs?”
“A dorm room in Illinois,” I counter, and her eyes widen. “Yeah, I know who you are. I know what you did. And I don’t care. You’re more important to me than a piece of ivory.”
“More important than revenge?”
Yes. The word stalls in my throat. I’ve been waiting to do this for years. Since I was a child, helping Momma button her clothes and count out quarters at the laundromat.
Am I really willing to give that up for a woman I haven’t known very long?
That hesitation may cost me everything.
Her expression firms. “I have to do this. For me. And for you.”
Before I can argue, she steps into the ballroom. It looks almost spooky with every chandelier shining brightly with no people inside, as if it’s a ghost party. The paintings from the auction hang on the wall. The gemstones and other items are there, too. Nothing has moved.
Damon makes a sweeping motion, looking at Natalie. “It’s your show.”
She glances at me, and in that gaze I see the swift gesture that knocks a piece over, I see plastic pieces spilling in my lap, I see my mother’s head bobbing unnaturally on her shoulders.
“I didn’t show up on the security scanner because I didn’t come in after the party.” She nods her head toward the gowns. “I was under her skirt. It smells like moths under there.”
“Did you have prior knowledge they’d be there?” This from the lady fed.
“Nah, I had a plan to hide in that cabine
t under the caterer’s station. The gown was better. When everyone cleared out I took the bishop.” A self-deprecating grimace. “I stole it.”
“And where is it now?” Damon asks.
“Here.” She nods her head toward her painting, then walks over. Except she doesn’t stop at her painting. She stops at the next one. The one that looks like chaos. Paintings and nails and keys. She reaches over, through some sharp netting, and I think to myself she needs a tetanus shot. Then she pulls out the bishop. “I kept it here because I wanted it somewhere safe. Somewhere where I could have negotiating power against my step-father, but where he couldn’t take it from me.”
She looks down at the piece in her hand. Her thumb brushes over nine-hundred-year-old ivory. Then she holds it out to me. “It’s yours. I’m sorry I ever took it.”
“I’m not,” I say, my voice thick. Fuck revenge. Fuck the nine-hundred-year-old past. I’m living and breathing and hurting at the realization that I might not get to keep her. “I’m glad you did it, so I could wake up and stop beating my head against history. And mostly so I could meet you.”
Unshed tears brighten her dark eyes. She turns to the feds. “So there’s your proof. Along with my statement on Norman Crawford. I hope it will be enough to make the arrest.”
“If everything checks out,” the boy fed says, sounding ominous. “We’ve been looking into Crawford for some time. But you understand that you don’t have immunity here.”
“Am I the only one who cares that no actual theft occurred?” I snap. “The chess piece stayed in the building. Not to mention I’m not pressing charges. Actually, you know what? I’m giving this as a gift. This bishop belongs to Natalie Lhuirs.”
“A gift?” Damon says with a pretend-thoughtful look. I glare at him, but he ignores me, naturally. “A trade might make more sense. You won the bid on her painting, after all. I’m in charge of the auction, of course, and that sounds fair to me. You give her the bishop, and she gives you the painting.”
Her eyes fill. “You bought my painting.”
