Forever. “For as long as I say.”
That sick little chuckle again. “And what about what I say?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I could change what she said, whether she chose to acknowledge that fact or not. We both knew it.
I felt her inhale, readying to fight me again. Her chance was cut off by a knock on the door.
I stepped back and stared her down. “Come.”
The door opened. The steps hesitated before moving around to where I could see the intruder. Remi.
“Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a development you need to know about.”
Nothing could be as important as the battle of wills going on right here in this bedroom. The battle for the future. “What?” I barked.
“Lance Heinz is dead.”
And God help me, but satisfaction settled low in my gut even as the last bit of light died out of Abby’s soulful eyes.
Chapter Four
She reminded me of a wounded kitten every time I looked at her. Like I’d threatened to step on her with my big bad boots instead of fighting for her life, for us, the only way I knew how.
With Heinz’s death, at least she couldn’t argue about safety. She’d agreed to stay with us for a few days, which was why she was upstairs right now, packing a suitcase while I prowled through the downstairs rooms of her house. I wouldn’t go up there. If I did, I’d fuck her until she could do nothing but chant my name to the rhythm of my cock thrusting inside her, forgetting everything but me. Forgetting that she wanted to leave me.
That wouldn’t get her to safety. But tonight, when I had her back at base? She’d learn her lesson.
And yet, with every glance, every step, hell, every inhale as I walked the darkened rooms, I found reason after reason why we shouldn’t be together. Why I would ruin her life.
I truly was an animal, because I couldn’t stop. Even now, soaking in the peace of the home she’d built for herself. A place where every corner smelled like vanilla and flowers, as if Abby had just walked by, her presence lingering around me. Every edge was softened with fabric and padding and care. So much fucking care. The colors were warm, the furniture deeply cushioned. The kind you sank into and never wanted to leave, with fluffy blankets over the backs that felt like silk against your skin. The kind normal men might cuddle under with their wife while she read a book and he watched the latest football game on the flat-screen TV. The kind my parents had taken the time to share on a cold winter’s day.
Just like they’d shared a soft bed at night. And died together in it.
My skin crawled, a thousand ants scurrying over it. I bit out a “fuck” and paced into the kitchen.
Remi stood at the counter, his hand literally in the cookie jar. Abby even had a damn cookie jar.
“Get the fuck out of there.”
Remi stuffed the cookie he held into his mouth, his other hand still digging for more. “Why?”
“Because it’s not yours, asshole.” And seeing my twenty-eight-year-old brother stealing cookies brought back even more ugly memories. Of another kitchen, another jar, and a dirt-smudged, towheaded boy stuffing his face. Why were the memories before my parents’ murder so much more gut-wrenchingly painful than afterward?
“Hey, you got the girl,” Remi mumbled around a mouthful. “The least we can get for risking our asses is oatmeal molasses cookies.”
God, not the oatmeal ones. If I walked any closer, the scent of butter and molasses and brown sugar would overpower me, I knew. I couldn’t admit a weakness for anything, including a goddamn cookie.
My vision went red. “Get your fucking hand out of the fucking jar, then get your fucking ass out on patrol before I put my steel-toed boot up it!”
Remi raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
I stepped closer.
With a slant to his lips that looked suspiciously like a pout, Remi grabbed a fistful of cookies, put the lid back on the jar, and headed for the garage. “Dickhead,” he muttered under his breath.
“You’re damn right,” I called after him. Remi shot a bird over his shoulder—with the hand not full of cookies.
Fucking hell.
My watch said we’d been here ten minutes, which was ten minutes too long. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Trying to roll some of the tension from my knotted shoulders, I pivoted, my target the stairs and Abby. I’d almost reached them when the sound of shattering glass took over my world.
Thousands of shards flew through the air. My arm came up automatically to protect my face, but not before the sting of a hundred scratches raced across my skin. A loud whoosh filled my ears, the sound duplicated behind me.
I lowered my arm in time to see the carpet runner lining the steps burst into flames. A Molotov cocktail. As I processed what I was seeing, a second bottle shot through the shattered window. A similar impact echoed in the living room.
“Damn it!”
Something happens to a man when he’s used to battle, when fighting is his world. The adrenaline rush comes later. In the moment, everything slows—time, your breathing, your heart rate. All that exists is the calculations in your head, the plan. In that moment my focus went laser tight, my only thought whether I should hit those stairs running or not.
“Abby!” I crept as close to the stairs as the ball of flames would allow, the heat shriveling my skin. “Abby!”
Her face, pinched and white, appeared in the upstairs hallway. “Levi!”
Footsteps pounded the hardwood floor behind me. I pivoted and dropped to one knee, my gun coming up in a heartbeat.
“It’s me.” Remi advanced despite the gun in his face, brushing glass from his hair and shoulders.
“Garage too?” I asked.
A sharp nod answered me. Damn it. Both Abby’s car and mine were in there. They could blow any minute. And if they went, so did the gas line in the kitchen.
“The French doors in the living room are toast,” Remi said. “Looks like there’s another down the hall. They got us on all four corners.”
They wanted us to die. And if we didn’t, if we got out, they would most likely be waiting.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
“Take the basement,” I told Remi. We’d extended the space to include an escape tunnel that exited in the woods behind Abby’s house. “Come around behind the bastards if you can, see what you can find. There’ll be at least four of them.”
He didn’t wait. We both knew how critical time was. Already the smoke was obscuring my view of Abby at the top of the stairs, stinging my eyes, filling my lungs. Soon the heat would push her completely out of my sight.
“Abby!”
She peered around the corner again. Her eyes were wild, terrified, but she didn’t back down. That was my woman.
“You can’t get down the stairs,” I yelled. There weren’t any stairs any longer, not near me. Two Molotov cocktails could do a helluva lot of damage. “Go back to your room and out the window.”
“That’s a second-story window!”
“I know. I’ll catch you, little bird. Now go!”
I’d always be there to catch her, whether she wanted me gone or not.
I waited long enough to see her dart back down the hallway before turning away from the fire. The dining room was to my back, far enough away that the flames hadn’t touched it yet. Pulling my T-shirt up to cover my mouth, I hurried to the window overlooking the front lawn. My gun was still in my hand, at the ready, as I eased around the window casing to check the front yard. Neighbors were gathering in the cul-de-sac, pointing, shouting, some with cell phones to their ears. Good. A crowd was the best safety I could give Abby at the moment, probably the one thing our attackers hadn’t counted on.
Tucking my gun away, I slid the window open and climbed out. Several men rushed in my direction.
“Are you all right?” one asked, reaching for my arm.
I kept myself rigid, kept my instinct to fight in check. These men were Abby’s neighbors—I knew becau
se we’d thoroughly vetted each and every one of them. They weren’t our enemies here. “I’m fine.” I coughed. “Abby’s upstairs.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw something fly through the air toward the ground. Abby’s suitcase.
“Help!”
I rushed toward the opposite side of the house. “Abby! I’m here.”
Her window was open, her head and upper body leaning over the sill. Smoke poured out around her.
“That flowerbed should cushion her fall,” one of the men said as they surrounded me. The bed was mounded with mulch and big, green, leafy plants I didn’t know the name of. The man was right, but I had no intention of letting Abby hit the ground. I’d catch her first.
“Abby, straddle the sill, then push your legs out,” I yelled up. Sirens sounded in the distance, and I prayed that between the crowd and the firemen and Remi out there somewhere, it was enough to keep Abby safe from whoever had attacked. “Come on, little bird. I’ll catch you.”
I could see tear streaks in the smudges on her face. She was scared, but she did as I asked. I wanted to tear the men who’d done this apart with my bare hands.
A coughing fit seized Abby as she maneuvered into position. I watched, helpless and raging, as she dangled, her belly on the windowsill, coughing so hard I thought she’d choke.
The men around me called encouragement. I ignored them, sidling up until I stood directly beneath Abby’s window. Putting every inch of command I had into my voice, I barked up at her. “Move it, Abby!”
She wiggled backward. “You’ll catch me?”
“Always.”
She slipped down farther until she hung by her grip on the windowsill. Maybe ten feet separated her from my arms.
A window somewhere in the house shattered, reminding me that the kitchen was likely on fire. We had to get away from here.
“Drop!” I yelled.
She let go.
The fall took forever and mere seconds. Pain shot through my arms and chest as her body hit me, sending me onto my ass. I rolled immediately to set Abby on the ground and scrambled to my feet. Between me and the group of men, we hustled her toward the street as the first fire truck pulled up.
Seconds later, the back portion of her house exploded. The pressure didn’t reach us around front, but Abby hit her knees anyway. Choking sobs racked her body.
I stood to one side a few minutes later, watching a paramedic push an oxygen mask at Abby while another treated the scrapes on her hands and forearms where the brick had shaved off several layers of skin. The crowd still milled around, many of the women coming over to offer Abby help if she needed it. Offering sympathy. Caring. All I had to offer was safety, but I knew which one Abby would choose. Her eyes constantly sought me out, making sure I was nearby, making sure I was okay. My gaze was always waiting for hers.
She was alive. We were alive. When the paramedics finally let me close, I scooped her into my arms and buried my face in her smoke-scented hair.
That’s when the adrenaline hit.
Chapter Five
The oxygen mask obscured most of Abby’s face. The paramedics had tried to give me one too, but I’d shoved them off. I needed to be able to move, not tethered to a machine. Abby needed their attention, not me.
I’d held her for long moments, grounding us both, but my need to protect her had finally driven me to my feet. I kept my fingers wrapped around her nape as they treated a bump on her head where she’d connected with the brick during the fall. My gaze swept the crowd continually, watching for anyone who didn’t belong, but with the fire department and EMTs and people streaming in from all over the neighborhood to check out the fire, it was impossible to tell if anyone was paying the wrong kind of attention.
Remi had briefly appeared in my line of sight. He and Eli were out there, watching, wary. I should be out there with them, on the hunt, finding the bastards who’d done this, but Abby was my first priority, always—even if I compromised my own safety for hers. It went against everything I’d taught myself, everything I’d taught my brothers, but I couldn’t escape it, no matter how much my brain said I should. The rest of me told my brain to fuck off and stayed.
Two hits in twenty-four hours. There was no fast escape this time, but my brothers would watch our backs until I could get Abby away.
The paramedic finally stepped back, and that was when the cops moved in. Partners, apparently, one older and one not, both in the detectives’ uniform of cheap slacks and uncomfortable sport coats. “Ma’am,” the older one said, his focus on Abby.
I felt the muscles in her neck tighten, her spine straighten. She more than anyone knew how carefully I avoided official attention, but there was no choice here: I wouldn’t leave her alone. If that meant records, well, we could always erase them later.
“I’m Detective Bryant. We’d like to get a statement if you’re able.”
A shock ran through me as I stared at the guy. Gray hair, gruff voice—I knew that voice. Knew him. The knowledge burst through me with a nausea chaser. He might be nineteen years older and have more lines on his face, more weight sagging over his belt, but I’d never forget that voice. Detective Bryant had worked my parents’ murder case.
Fuck.
Abby pulled the oxygen mask off. “I’m fine.” The gravel of her words clearly said she wasn’t, but no one argued with her. I couldn’t resist running my thumb along her pulse, though. When had reassuring her become vital?
About twenty-four hours after I’d met her, probably. No matter how much my jackass self had fought it.
The cop’s gaze dropped to my thumb, then rose to me. His eyes narrowed—trying to figure out why I seemed familiar? All he needed was my name, and he’d have it soon enough; they’d want ID, and I didn’t have an alternate on me. So Levi it was.
I shifted against the rear door of the ambulance, all too aware of the handgun tucked in the small of my back.
“Your name?” he asked Abby.
She gave her name and other pertinent information, both of us watching as the younger officer wrote everything down. When it came time to explain what had happened, Abby swallowed hard.
“I don’t know for certain.” She shrugged, her injuries emphasizing the helpless look in her eyes. “I was upstairs when it started. I heard windows breaking, then the fire…” Her swallow pushed against my thumb. “I got out through my bedroom window.”
“And where were you, sir?” Bryant asked.
“Downstairs.”
“Your name?”
My gut clenched. “Levi Agozi.”
The man’s narrowed eyes went wide. “Agozi?”
From the corner of my eye I caught Abby glancing between us, concern tightening her features. I squeezed her nape gently, reassuring her even as I held Bryant’s gaze. “Yes.”
“Your parents were Miriam and Nathaniel Agozi.”
It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t answer. Bryant shifted to meet his partner’s eyes. “Double homicide years ago. We never caught the perp,” he said. Turned back to me. “Your uncle sent you to a boarding school, if I recall correctly. You and your brothers.”
Wrong. But then if Amos Agozi had let it be known that we’d run away, my uncle wouldn’t have been able to keep questions at bay—and he’d desperately needed to. I shrugged. “Our guardian wasn’t big on children.”
Bryant grunted, not seeming surprised.
“And the two of you are…” He glanced between Abby and me.
“Levi’s my b-boyfriend.”
She’d never used that word with me. What we had was far deeper, more intense than boyfriend/girlfriend. I wasn’t a boy, for one. I was a killer. And I should be hunting right now, not dragging up the past.
Abby shuddered under my hand. I glanced down, met the uncertainty in her eyes. A corner of my mouth turned up without conscious thought, giving her the reassurance she craved. She leaned toward me, her shoulder, then forehead hitting my hip.
“I’d really like to get her home as
soon as possible, gentlemen,” I told Bryant. “As you can see, it’s been a night, and there’ll be a lot of work ahead of us in the next few days.”
Bryant kept glancing between the two of us, a vee digging grooves between his brows. “Of course. Please tell us what you witnessed.”
I did as succinctly as possible.
“Ms. Roslyn, who would be targeting you like this?”
Abby huffed a laugh, shaking her head so that it rolled against me. “I have no clue. As you are aware, I’m sure, there were issues a while ago with my father. Since then, nothing.”
Good girl. Mentioning the incident earlier today would only bring more scrutiny. We couldn’t cover the way the fire had started, but there was no need to draw the police in with more suspicion. Bryant was already too focused on me as it was.
“I live here quietly, no issues, good neighbors.” Abby’s eyes glazed with tears. “Normal.”
Her voice choked on the last word, hitting me like a throat punch. Normal. I could never give her normal.
“We’ll be talking to the fire investigator, see what we can find out, but we’ll need to speak to you again, try to nail down what might have caused someone to do this,” Bryant said. “We have your contact information. If you are available, we’d like to reinterview you in the next couple of days, see if anything new comes to mind.”
Abby nodded, keeping her chin down, her auburn hair veiling her face. “Of course.”
“You have my number,” I said, pulling their attention from her. “Call anytime.”
The men nodded, turned to leave. I couldn’t miss the way Bryant glanced over his shoulder as they walked away. Definitely too much attention.
“I’ll get the EMT, make sure it’s okay to leave.”
Abby nodded, not raising her head. I waited a moment, not sure why, then left to get things settled.
At my text, Eli and Remi met us just down the street from the scene with an SUV. After throwing Abby’s suitcase in the rear, I bundled her into the back seat, taking the spot beside her, Remi opposite me. Eli took off as soon as I had her secure.
Assassin's Prey (Assassins Book 3) Page 3
