We ate in loaded silence for a few minutes. Not long after Remi joined us, the other cell phone on the countertop vibrated, the one I’d given as a contact point last night. I stood to answer.
“Agozi here.”
“Mr. Agozi, this is Detective Roger Bryant.” The man’s gravelly voice grated on my nerves. “How are you and Ms. Roslyn this morning?”
Low on sleep and good will if Abby’s glance meant anything. “We’re fine, thank you. What can I do for you, Bryant?”
The entire room perked up, all eyes locked on me.
“I’d like you both to come down to the station today if possible.”
And by I’d like, I was sure he meant I demand. “For…?”
“Just a second interview,” Bryant said. “See if we can help you remember anything more.”
No fucking way that was all the man wanted. “When?”
“Noon.”
It wasn’t a question, of course. “We’ll be there.”
Satisfaction colored Bryant’s, “Thank you.”
I ended the call and looked up at three pairs of questioning eyes. “That man is going to be a problem.”
“The detective from last night?” Abby asked.
I grunted a reply.
“He’s just a cop,” Eli pointed out.
“No, he’s not.” I returned to my seat at the table, my arm brushing Abby’s as I passed. “He was part of the team that investigated our parents’ murders.”
Curses erupted from both Remi and Eli.
“What does he want?” Abby asked.
“Us, there. For more questioning.” I glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Can you be ready in an hour?”
Abby crammed the last bite of biscuit into her mouth while shooting me a mean look. A moment later she was heading for the bedroom.
Exactly where I needed her to be.
“E—”
His hand came up before I could even get his full name out. “Dig up everything I can on the douchebag cop, his partner, his family, his cat… I know, I know.” He grabbed his plate and Abby’s and headed for the sink.
“You want me with you at the station?” Remi asked.
I thought about that one a minute. Having two guards for Abby would be best, but… “No. The less exposure we have, the better. He’s already talked to me.”
Remi glanced at the bedroom, then met my gaze again, one eyebrow raised. “I wasn’t worried about Bryant. I’m more worried about a buffer between you and her.”
I gave him my best keep-it-up-and-you’re-dead smile. “Piss off.”
Remi shrugged, but I caught his grin as he took his plate over to the sink. My hand hit the back of his head as he passed. “Shut up.”
He snorted. “Make me, dickhead.”
Impossible. If I’d learned anything in the nineteen years since we’d been on our own, that was it. Running mouths and rampant opinions were a given. Unless we were on an op—then everyone deferred to me.
Everyone except Abby.
Chapter Eight
A police station was not the ideal place for a man like me, but that wasn’t why I tensed as we walked up the front steps. No, it was the visceral assault of memories that had me wanting to escape so hard I was sweating.
Abby brushed her hand along my bicep, seeming to sense my anxiety. She always did, even though I’d long ago perfected hiding my emotions. Hopefully no one here had her ability to see through my disguises.
A single touch wasn’t enough. As she passed through the door I held open for her, I settled my palm at the small of her back. Guiding her, yes, but also reminding myself. This is who I was now, the man whose simple touch could connect me with the most important person in my world.
Not the eleven-year-old boy who’d been filled with so much fear and grief and rage that he’d thrown up every time his uncle brought him here.
Even the smell was the same. Garbage, coffee, and chemical air freshener that couldn’t mask the underlying age and decay of the building and its inhabitants. We crossed the foyer to the front desk, the ring of my boots on the bleached tiles an echo of my past, a death knell that urged me over and over to flee. Back then, it was Amos Agozi’s cruel hand digging into my thin, bony shoulder that kept me moving forward. Now it was the discipline I’d built over a lifetime of survival, of killing. I knew what had to be done to get what we needed: information. I’d face my demons for Abby; nobody else.
“May I help you?” the man behind the desk asked.
“We have an appointment with Detective Bryant,” Abby said. I watched the man soften as he eyed her, the glimmer of attraction sparking in his expression. A little younger than me, without the hard edge I’d cultivated all my life. Did Abby want someone like him? Would her life be easier if I left her to find a man without my baggage?
Easier, maybe, but not safer. She might deserve a man like him, but she wasn’t going to get one.
“Of course,” he said, his gaze sliding to me as he reached for his phone. Not quite meeting my eyes. He knew a predator when he saw one.
We waited a few minutes before Bryant came to collect us. Following him to his office was a walk through the Twilight Zone—a sense of unreality, like this just couldn’t be happening. I hadn’t felt that way as a child, too scared of what Amos would do to me. To my brothers. I’d walked in on the man with his gun raised, pointed at my dead parents on their bloody bed. When he’d swung that gun toward me, I’d thought I would die. Almost wanted to.
But Remi and Eli had needed me. And Amos had needed a witness to corroborate his story—an intruder in the million-dollar mansion, motive unknown.
Even as a child I’d known Amos would only need us for so long. Then we’d be as dead as my parents.
“I tell ya,” Bryant said as he escorted us into his office, “I can’t get over the déjà vu here.”
No joke.
I gave Bryant what he was expecting, clearing my throat of the gravel that had built up on the long walk through the halls. “Yeah, this is not something I ever expected to relive.”
“I imagine not.” The man’s gaze was hardened by years of seeing the worst in life, much like mine was, but not without a touch of sympathy. “I’ve never forgotten your parents’ case; I hope you know that. Never regretted not finding a perp more.”
I nodded abruptly. “You said you needed to follow up on some things from last night?”
Bryant eyed me a half minute more before turning his attention to the open file on his desk. “Of course.” He folded his hands on the scarred wooden surface, leaning forward. “You said you arrived at the house shortly before the incident, is that correct?”
I relaxed into my chair, letting the focus fall to Abby.
“We did. Maybe ten minutes before?” She glanced at me. I nodded.
“And you parked in the garage.” Bryant looked at the papers under his hands.
“Yes. My car was already there, but we pulled Levi’s SUV in as well.”
I was still pissed over losing the vehicle. Not that I couldn’t replace it; I could, five times over, without blinking an eye. Death paid big-time. It was the principle of it—any loss came far too close to Abby.
Who continued to answer questions, even as she shifted in her seat, crossing her legs. Bryant might’ve thought she was uncomfortable with him, but I knew better. Her feet didn’t touch the floor; she was uncomfortable in the chair. My little bird.
I couldn’t believe I actually knew enough about a woman to realize that she was too short for a seat. Or to care that she was uncomfortable, but my first instinct was to find her somewhere else to sit. The blend of surprise and satisfaction that accompanied the knowledge was far more pleasurable than the sweat-inducing memories that had filled my head minutes ago.
“Anyone watching the house would’ve seen you arrive,” Bryant said thoughtfully.
“Of course.” Abby’s tone said she was confused about the detective’s focus. So was I.
“What are you thin
king, Bryant?” I asked gruffly.
He picked up a slender silver pen from his desk and tapped the end on the papers.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I’m thinking, why would someone attack, knowing a big, scary guy like you was around? Why not wait till Ms. Roslyn was alone, unprotected?”
Damn it, he was right. My presence should’ve been a deterrent. Mine and Remi’s? No one should’ve come within a hundred yards of the place. And I knew they would’ve seen us both through the windows.
It made no sense.
Abby was looking between the two of us, still confused. Without thinking I reached for her hand, hating the way it trembled in mine.
“I know you were young when your parents died,” Bryant said, “but I’m assuming since your uncle’s death that you’re aware of the contents of your father’s will.”
What did that have to do with anything? “My uncle was a bastard, Bryant. He shipped us off to boarding school the second he could.” Or at least that’s the story he used, as I found out later. “When I was finally able to, I made sure my brothers and I were as far away from him as we could possibly get. And never looked back.”
“Shame.” Bryant tapped some more. “Your uncle was also murdered. Also unsolved. Unusual in the same family. But I did some digging.” He shuffled aside some of the papers until he found what he was looking for. “It appears your father’s will stated that everything be held in trust for his children. If his wife also died, his brother was to be the executor of the will.”
“Right.” My father hadn’t known his brother would betray him.
“But…Amos Agozi died before the three of you, so your father’s lawyer took Amos’s place as executor.”
I hadn’t gone looking for a fortune when I killed Amos eleven years ago, only revenge. My brothers and I didn’t need the money, so I hadn’t even considered finding out what happened to it.
Bryant passed over the paper in his hand. “Oddly enough, the trust your father set up reverts to your full control when you turn thirty.”
“What?”
I scanned the document, the legalese skimming off my brain. All I could focus on was that word, thirty, near the bottom. My next birthday. And it was coming up, less than a month from now.
Thirty.
The implications buzzed in my head like a thousand angry bees. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
The puzzle pieces fell into place, a grim picture that made my stomach roll. “You think this wasn’t about Abby.”
Abby tensed beside me. Guilt began a slow crawl over my body.
“Unfortunately,” Bryant was saying, “I think last night has very little to do with Ms. Roslyn other than proximity.”
Proximity. Bile rose in the back of my throat.
“Though it’s too early to be certain, I can find no credible threat to her. Nothing has churned up on her father’s case, no concerning discoveries or enemies coming to light.”
“But if whoever this was saw us arrive, knew I was there…” And Remi. Kill two birds with one stone.
And then there was the attack on the street, the one Bryant didn’t know about. Remi had been with Abby then. With a ball cap over his dark blond hair, he could easily have been mistaken for me.
The meeting hadn’t been a setup for Abby. It had been a setup for me. But how had they linked us together?
I took a deep, shaky breath, desperate to keep the contents of my stomach where they were. Abby lost her house because of me. I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t stand to face the devastation, the accusation that might be in her eyes.
“I’ve only been able to make cursory inquiries so far.” Bryant picked his pen back up. “But one thing did give me pause. Do you know who your father’s lawyer was?”
I’d been eleven years old the last time I heard that information; I hadn’t cared. “No.”
“Alan Chadwick. Of Manassas, Chadwick, and Heinz.”
I jolted in my seat.
“Heinz?” Abby asked. “Lance Heinz?”
“Yeah.” Bryant tilted his head. “You know him?”
I squeezed Abby’s hand, willing her not to say anything more. Bryant would find out soon enough, maybe, but we needed time to put more pieces together, do our own investigation before evidence started disappearing into police custody.
“My father was a politician,” she said, her tone even. “I know—and have entertained—just about every lawyer in town.”
“Well you won’t be entertaining Heinz anymore,” Bryant said. “He’s dead.”
Abby’s surprise looked believable even to me. My woman had spent years acting happy under her father’s thumb; she knew how to project just the right emotion. But I could read beneath her mask just as well as she could mine, see the pain lurking there. She was hurting.
I needed to get her out of here. I needed to get out of here.
“So what’s your theory, Detective?”
Bryant spread his hands wide. “Right now I’m leaving all avenues open. But I will be meeting with Mr. Chadwick. And doing more digging. In the meantime I think it’s important that you both proceed with caution.”
I nodded. “Abby has an excellent security team at her disposal. We’ve already called them in.” Not that we’d ever been out.
“I’d also like to meet with your brothers, see if they remember anything that might help us.”
“Are you reopening my parents’ case?”
“Not formally.” Bryant narrowed his eyes, the bulldog expression making me wary. “But I can’t deny that there might be a connection.”
“My brothers no longer live in town,” I lied. “I’ll check with them and see what they might know.”
Bryant didn’t like the evasion; I could tell. “Or you could give me their numbers. I could call.”
I stood. “Let me talk to them first. As you can understand, this is a sensitive subject. I’ll have them contact you soon.”
He didn’t argue further, but as we said our goodbyes, Bryant’s focus on me never relented. The man wasn’t about to give up, not now. I’d been right all along. Good cop or not, he was definitely going to be a problem.
Chapter Nine
There was a period in my life when being alone wasn’t possible. With two kids to protect and take care of, my time wasn’t my own. When my brothers were old enough, I would sometimes go out for a ride on the old Harley I’d managed to rebuild from junkyard parts, or sit for a couple of hours beneath the stinging pain of a tattoo needle, letting it wash away the nightmares. Neither was an option today.
But I had to get away.
The ride back to the warehouse had been silent. Not because we were lost in our thoughts. I simply couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth. I mean, what the hell was I going to say? Your life is totally fucked up because of me. You probably hate me—and who could blame you—but I couldn’t have known.
Maybe that wasn’t totally true. Maybe, if I hadn’t been hiding from my past, so fiercely focused on the now, this could have been avoided.
I’d shared sex and laughter and agony with the woman beside me, but I realized now that all the emotion had been on her side. I loved her, I knew that, but I hadn’t truly shared that with her. Hunger, yes, but not love, not till I’d been confronted with her leaving. The laughter had come from her, the agony too. I knew in my gut that she wanted me to give those things back to her, to share it all, carry each other’s burdens, but this…it was too intimate. A weapon that could shatter me. A box that could very well explode in my face.
Or it might have already. Because just as I hadn’t spoken, neither had Abby.
I pulled up to the door of the warehouse, but instead of turning the SUV off, I let it idle. Abby didn’t miss that fact.
“You’re not coming in.”
If I’d wanted to keep everything in my life just as it was, I shouldn’t have fixated on such a smart woman. “I need a little time.”
She faced me in her seat. I waited in the si
lence, knowing she wanted me to look at her, but the shame that had engulfed me at the station felt like a mold around my body, paralyzing me. Freezing me from the inside out.
Her palm settled on my jaw, the warmth of her sizzling through my frostbitten skin. I gasped at the heat.
“Levi.”
“What?”
There were so many things she could say, some of them cruel, all of them true. She didn’t say any of them. Not aloud. Instead she nudged my head up just enough that her mouth could settle against mine.
It wasn’t a passionate kiss. The casual observer would’ve labeled it platonic, maybe sweet. It wasn’t about sex. That simple touch—Abby’s lips and mine—was an affirmation. I opened my eyes and stared into hers and saw…everything. And nothing. No judgment, no blame. Just all the love that she somehow contained in her delicate body, enough to cover and comfort and connect us both. She could manage that all on her own, with more emotion in her little finger than I’d probably allowed myself to feel in a lifetime.
But I didn’t want her to do it alone. I wanted it all, everything, with her.
So I opened my mouth. Took over. Delved into the sweetness that was Abby, greed roaring to life inside me at the flavor of her on my tongue. And when she moaned in pleasure? All I wanted was to get down on my knees and beg her to stay with me. To never leave, not even for a second.
Except that’s what I was planning to do right now, wasn’t it?
I drew back, easing her down with little licks and sucks and brushes of skin on skin. She seemed as reluctant to open her eyes as I was to end the kiss, but I had no choice.
“Look at me, little bird.”
She did. Worry and wonder swirled in her gaze, and I felt my heart break a little bit more. I’d borne the pain of solitude most of my life; how had I managed to gain something so precious?
“I won’t be long; I promise. Eli and Remi…” I cleared my throat. “I need to tell them, but I need my head on straight first.”
The door to the warehouse opened in my peripheral vision, and Eli stepped out. Abby glanced at him, then back to me. Her finger traced my cheek, my lips.
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