She liked the view of the river and the ease of transportation. She could be on I-95 in a heartbeat or across the river into Manhattan at the drop of a hat.
Why did she feel such dread coming to a stop in front of the familiar building? It rose up in front of her, so tall, the windows lining all four walls like eyes looking down. Studying her. Judging her.
“You okay?” Zane removed his helmet. “You don’t have to go in alone, you know. I can come with.”
“Nah,” she shrugged, hopping off and handing him her helmet. Let him think she felt good. Confident. She wanted him to. It got old after a while having somebody worried about her. Being cared about was one thing, but being the object of concern wasn’t something she loved. It was just a step away from being hovered over.
And he wanted to hover. She could practically hear him fighting with himself as he sat astride his motorcycle, all gleaming and shining and sexy as hell. Just when she thought he couldn’t get any hotter, he went and brought out a freaking motorcycle.
“You look super hot on that thing, you know,” she winked, backing away.
“Oh yeah?” he smirked.
“Like you didn’t know it. I’ll be a few minutes; that’s it. Fourth floor, apartment three.” She winked again before turning away and going inside.
It was all so familiar yet so strange like she was riding the elevator of somebody else’s apartment building, like she was walking down somebody else’s hall, like she wasn’t herself anymore.
If only that were true.
She pulled her keys from her back pocket—the only thing she’d taken with her from the wreck before Zane took her from the SUV—and slid one into the lock. She opened the door not three inches, then stopped.
There was music playing inside.
Shit. She froze, her hand still around the doorknob, still halfway in and halfway out of the apartment. Her mind whirled out of control. Who was there? Why would they be there? What did they want? How did she not get an alert that her apartment had been broken into?
Simple. Because they hadn’t broken in. The alarm pad sat across from the door, just inside the foyer. The system was on, and it looked untampered with. There were no wires hanging from it, nothing like that. Somebody had opened the door, typed in the code and that was it.
Who could’ve done that? What did they want?
She never went around handing her code out to random people. Nobody knew how to disarm that alarm except for her and the building manager. She was sure of it.
Then again, she’d been sure of a lot of things up until recently.
Fight or flight kicked in, adrenaline flooding her system all at once. She could barely stay still, her brain urging her to run—it was an effort to remain in place, to counter what eons of instinct and evolution compelled.
Just then, there was something stronger than instinct. Stronger than evolution.
Curiosity.
Morbid, maybe, but she knew that was what held her in place, barely breathing, one foot inside the apartment. She wanted to know who was in there. How they’d done it without her knowing.
And what they wanted from her.
She had no doubt that whoever it was, her skill would match theirs. It had been a while since she’d engaged in hand-to-hand combat, but she wasn’t a slouch, especially now when the stakes were probably life-or-death.
She knew what it meant to be the target now, the potential victim, and she didn’t like it very much. She wouldn’t make it as easy for this person, whoever they were, as her targets had made her job.
Whoever they were, they weren’t trying to keep their presence secret. What were they thinking, turning on music? It was a dead giveaway, for God’s sake. Maybe they hadn’t expected her yet.
And not just any music.
Her heart, hammering rapidly, came to a sudden stop.
The answer was right in front of her, but she couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t. It was impossible. Why hadn’t she begged Zane to come up with her? She couldn’t do this alone. Her knees threatened to give out, her legs turning to jelly as the sound of an oldie-but-goody filled the apartment.
She was a little girl again. It was Saturday morning. She’d wake up to the sound of music filling the apartment, and she’d know Mom was in cleaning mode, that she could pretend to be asleep all she wanted, hoping to avoid having to do chores, but it was no use. Eventually, the door would open, and the music would get louder, and she’d find herself holding a dust rag and polish before she knew it.
She could practically smell the polish, lemon fresh, even now. Years later.
Suddenly, a voice rang out. “Are you coming in, or aren’t you?”
She covered her mouth with one hand, shaking, tears spilling over her fingers. No. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
The one thing she thought she wanted more than anything, the one thing she’d wanted for a decade, had come to be. Like a dream coming true. The impossible had become possible.
And she didn’t want it now. Not anymore.
But there was no pretending not to hear that voice. Not to connect it to the person it belonged to.
Somehow, her legs moved. One foot in front of the other. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her but leaving it unlocked. Zane would inevitably wonder what was taking so long and would come up to check on her, and she wanted him to be able to get in. At least she could still think clearly enough to manage that.
Why was she so afraid? Why did she think she’d need protection? Easy. Because that voice had been strident. Confident. Even happy. And that didn’t make sense. She couldn’t rest easy, couldn’t afford to collapse in emotion.
One step. Another. Slowly. The living room revealed itself bit by bit as she walked down the hall leading from the foyer to the large, open space which held everything but the bathroom and bedrooms. Everything else was one large room, the warehouse’s original windows allowing light to stream in.
Everything seemed to be in place.
She was in the kitchen then, to Aimee’s right. Around the corner where the hall ended. Aimee crept closer, not sure she could handle what she knew she was about to see.
Her mother. Standing at the island, prepping a meal like it was the most natural thing in the world. Wearing her normal work clothes: starched white blouse, well-fitted, and dark gray slacks. Her hair, the same shade as her daughter’s, was now slightly grey but no less full, pulled into a loose bun at the nape of her neck.
Her mother. Back from the dead after all these years.
“There you are.” She barely looked up from the cutting board, the knife slicing through a carrot again and again. “I’ve been waiting here since last night wondering when you would show yourself.”
Chapter Thirty-One
How would he broach the subject?
That was the question as he waited for Aimee to join him. That had been the question all through the ride too, bouncing around in his head like a pinball in a machine.
Did he come right out with it? Or should he first explain the concept of shifters, in case she didn’t know what he was talking about? Shifters were seen as more of a legend than anything else, but they weren’t as popular as, say, vampires. He wouldn’t have needed to explain who he was if he was a vampire.
Much like vampires, shifters weren’t supposed to exist.
What if she flipped and thought he was a werewolf? That was something he’d have to clear up right away. Yes, he could control his shifts. No, the full moon had nothing to do with it. Yes, he could think clearly when he was the wolf, his human consciousness present but in the background the way the wolf was when he was a man.
His only hope of her understanding was the history they shared. Their connection to this group, this organization of monsters who’d upended so many lives. They had their shared exploitation at the hands of these people to bind them.
Would that be enough?
He didn’t dare hope she loved him. It wasn’t the same for full humans a
s it was for shifters. His wolf knew with complete certainty and absolute clarity that he’d found his mate. No ifs, ands, or buts. It was Aimee; it was always Aimee and would always be.
There were so many shades of grey for a human, especially one as wounded as Aimee, as stunted by everything she’d been through. The girl didn’t believe she was even worthy of love, of a nice home, of peace and solitude. Love was probably the furthest thing from her mind.
Sure, she cared about him. She told him so. But was it enough?
He looked around, noting the absence of cars in the lot. It was closing in on four o’clock, so most people were still at work. Did they know they shared a building with a contract killer? What would they think? Hell, for all he knew, they all shared similar stories of shady underworld dealings. It was enough to make him crack a wry smile.
Until he noticed how much time had passed.
Something wasn’t right. She was taking too long.
He should’ve gone in with her.
If only she had a phone, something he could use to send her a message, to ask if everything was okay.
What could possibly not be okay?
Too many things.
He fought with himself. The entire reason for staying outside was to keep watch, to make sure nobody followed her in. But what if they’d been waiting all along?
And here he sat, like an idiot, waiting on his motorcycle.
He got off, tucking the keys into his pocket. She’d have to deal with it if she saw anything wrong with him coming up. He wasn’t hovering over her. He was concerned. Given the circumstances, there was no reason not to be concerned.
So deep was his concern that he almost didn’t notice the vibration of his phone. “Yeah?” he answered, climbing the stairs to the third floor.
“Zane, it’s Val. Listen. Hawk brought everything back up, online, and there’s a problem at Aimee’s apartment.”
He froze. “I’m at Aimee’s apartment. r almost. How would you know there’s a problem?” He now took the stairs two at a time, cursing himself with each increasingly rapid beat of his heart.
“We may or may not have found a way to hack her building manager’s system,” she confessed. “When you gave me the address so we’d know where you were heading, I gave it to Hawk. He got in in no time—the security is a joke.”
“Focus,” he pleaded, opening the fire door leading out of the stairwell.
“Right. Somebody accessed Aimee’s security system overnight. There’s no sign of them having armed it again. Somebody opened the door less than ten minutes ago, too.”
“That was Aimee. You mean somebody was already inside?” he whispered, running down the hall to apartment three.
“Oh, my God.” There was panic in her voice. Val never panicked.
“Stay calm. Tell Logan. I’m going in to see what’s happening.”
“Be careful.”
He ended the call while his wolf struggled and strained and howled. Aimee was in there with somebody else, somebody who might already have—
No. He’d know. He’d feel it. Everything she felt went straight to him like a radio signal. He would’ve felt it if the signal went dark.
There was no sense of urgency, either. No horror or panic or pain. He guessed that was a good thing as he closed his hand around the doorknob. Please, don’t let this be a mistake.
He pushed the door open just far enough to slip through, then closed it without a sound. The entry and hall leading to the rest of the apartment were white-walled, drywall put up over whatever was originally there. She hadn’t painted it from the stark white the contractors had left it.
No photos, no artwork. No surprise based on the way she’d described her life as being pretty sparse.
The bare walls didn’t matter very much just then. What mattered was the sound of murmured conversation coming from deeper inside the apartment.
Two female voices.
“Where have you been?” That was Aimee, soft and low. Heavy with emotion. There was no demanding, no ordering this person out of her home. “All this time, where’ve you been?
All this time.
Who would she talk to that way?
His heart sank. He was so disappointed for her. No wonder she hadn’t come down yet. Why would she want to leave her mother’s side?
“We can talk about that later,” Lydia—who he guessed was Lydia, anyway—assured her. “I’m just so glad you’re safe. I was hoping you’d be here with me tonight, that we could have a nice dinner together. Just like the old days.”
“Mom, we rarely had dinner together.”
“On the weekends, we did.”
“That’s true,” Aimee relented.
What was this? Some sort of skit? The way the two of them were talking, there might as well have been no time passed. No betrayal, no lies.
No supposed death to grieve over, to move on from.
What was he supposed to do now? How was he supposed to play this? He was still in the hall, out of their line of vision. He could stand there and listen, waiting to see what happened, but what if one or the other decided to cross the hall? He didn’t exactly blend in with the walls.
Pulling out his phone, he sent a quick text to Logan. A’s mom at apartment. In here with them.
Logan responded almost instantly. Steer clear! Can’t trust her!
Sure, he couldn’t trust her. That was the truth. Who knew how deep this ran or how much she had to do with their imprisonment, their genetic alteration?
She could blow their cover, go back to her partners and tell all.
If she hadn’t already.
Meanwhile, Aimee was in there with her. The implications of this entire situation unspooled in his head, swirling out of control. If Lydia had been alive all along, if she was the reason for Aimee’s tracking implant and all the rest, he couldn’t trust her—not even with her own daughter whom she was willing to use to her own ends.
He couldn’t leave them alone together. There was no telling what might happen, especially if Aimee found out the entire truth—that her mother had set her up all along, that she’d been the puppet master controlling her daughter’s life.
She needed him. His own life didn’t matter so much when compared to what she needed.
Which was what got his feet moving, one step at a time until he’d cleared the hall and stood looking at what might’ve been Aimee and her mirror image—except for the streaks of grey in Lydia’s hair.
She knew him on sight, her face falling, the smile she’d only just been in the process of bestowing on her daughter turning to a scowl of disgust. “You.”
“Me,” he shrugged.
Aimee turned, surprised. “Zane?”
Lydia snickered, turning to her daughter. His mate, his love, his everything. “You didn’t tell me you brought your wolf along.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“What did you just call him?” Aimee looked from Zane, whose jaw hung slack in surprise, to the woman she hadn’t seen in ten years.
Her mom smiled. “I called him a wolf, sweetheart, because that’s who he is.”
“Are you talking about his company?” It was impossible to make sense of any of this. She’d been sitting there, watching her mother prepare dinner, completely lost in shock when Zane walked in. She’d almost forgotten about him; the surprise was that great, the sense of walking into her own past.
“His company? Oh, you mean Wolf Shield?” She shook her head, clicking her tongue.
“What, then?” She looked again at Zane who seemed to be getting over the initial shock. Now, he looked downright murderous.
Her mother gestured to him with the butcher's knife she still held. “Don’t even think about pulling a weapon,” she advised. “I want you to leave it on the counter where I can see it, then walk away from it. Got it?”
“Mom,” Aimee whispered, stunned to hear her talk this way. She knew it was funny in a sick sort of way, being surprised by anything her mother did at this point. The
woman had just come back from the dead, and all she could do was correct her.
“Sweetheart, I know what I’m doing. Let mommy handle this.” Her mother watched with narrowed eyes as Zane did what he was told. He left his pistol on the countertop, then backed away from it with his hands clearly visible.
“Thank you,” her mother murmured with a smile. “See? I’m not a monster. I only need you to do what I ask, and we’ll get along just fine.”
“Can you please explain to me what the hell you’re doing in my home?” Aimee blurted out, palms flat against the counter.
She shot Aimee a look that brought back way too many memories. “Amelia. I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t talk to me that way.”
It was too ridiculous, too surreal. There was nothing for her to do but burst out laughing, helpless laughter that made her stomach hurt from the force of it. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to scold me? Now? After all this time?”
“You haven’t given me a chance to explain. This isn’t the way I wanted this to be.” Her mother put down the knife, sighing heavily as she leaned against the counter. “You have no idea how difficult this has been.”
Aimee stared at her in wonder. “It’s been pretty tough for me too, Mom.”
Her eyes softened. For a second, Aimee could believe she was looking at the woman she’d known through her entire childhood, a loving mother, a concerned mother, a woman working her fingers to the bone to provide for her child without the help of a partner. “I know that, sweetheart,” Lydia murmured, her face nearly crumpling with emotion.
“How would you know? You went away. Where did you go? Why didn’t you take me with you?” God, she sounded like a little kid, pleading with her mother. Desperate to understand. Still hurting, after all these years—more so than she had ever hurt before, in fact, since now she knew she’d been lied to, that her mother had deliberately avoided her for so long.
“I want to tell you all about it. I’ve longed for this, Amelia. I really have. I wanted so much for us to be together again. I wanted to take you with me too. Truly, I did. But you were practically an adult by then anyway, and it seemed a wiser decision to fade away from your life. Besides,” she added, shrugging, “the police would’ve been twice as determined to find us if the two of us had disappeared. I couldn’t have that.”
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