“Considering how blackened the damn thing is, I hope not,” I snark. “For my sister’s sake.”
Rowan’s mouth quirks. “Maybe they’re the pieces of light that pierce through the shadows.”
“You don’t have a dark heart, little kitten.” I press my lips to her forehead. “You’re not guilty of anything. None of it was your fault, not the accident, not what happened after. You were just a kid.”
Wrenching back to peer at me, her throat works. Unlike the burden she carried before, she loses some of the tension weighing her down. “You’re the only other person I’ve told about this after it destroyed my relationship with Ethan.”
“He would forgive you.” I cup her face and draw her near.
The relief she exudes is palpable. She clasps my wrist. I’m struck by how important she’s become to me. How much I would give to keep her happy.
“Remember what I told you. There is nothing fragile about you.”
When our lips touch, the kiss is emotionally charged from both our confessions. I hold her close when she breaks down from the emotional turmoil she’s kept locked inside, ready to take on every one of her demons to stop her tears.
I’m still a cold bastard who wants nothing more than to control the world around me, but Rowan has rule over a softer part of my heart. A fitting throne for my queen.
Twenty-Nine
Wren
The tension in the car is oppressive. Jude’s body is like a statue as he weaves through downtown traffic, jaw clenched and brows furrowed. I glance at him and frown, equally unhappy that we have to play this card.
“I didn’t want to use this,” Jude says.
“I know.” I rub my temple, gaze sliding to Rowan in the backseat. “We have to do something.”
Jude exhales forcefully through his nose. He’ll have to suck it the hell up. Pippa isn’t one of us anymore, so she doesn’t deserve our loyalty. She’s already proven that she doesn’t give a shit about us. He needs to accept it most out of all of us.
The Thorne Point Police Department looms in the middle of the street we turn down. Jude’s grip tightens on the wheel the closer we get to the red brick building.
“If the cops didn’t care about Ethan missing before, why are we going to the station?” Rowan asks.
“We’re buying what they know,” I say.
She’s silent for a beat. “They know?”
“They’ll know something,” Jude cuts in. “Always fucking do.”
“So they could’ve helped find my brother sooner?”
Rowan swallows and grips her seatbelt, meeting my eyes when I turn to face her. If they’d helped her—and they wouldn’t have, not without the right bribe—she never would’ve become mine. I reel in the urge to climb back there and stake a claim on her again so she knows it.
“Thorne Point’s finest,” I spit, “are an unhelpful bunch of greedy bastards and lowlifes. Whatever help they could have offered would have come with a price tag you couldn’t afford or worthless assistance.”
“More or less than the price you demanded?”
Her expression pinches and her eyes shimmer. My heart squeezes, the damn thing impossible to control now that it’s woken up to beat for her. I get out once we’re parked and go to her door to help her out, pulling her close to murmur against her ear.
“They wouldn’t have helped you.” Swallowing, I push out husky words I rarely offer. “Trust me.”
Rowan nods, taking my hand. “Sorry. I know, and I do—” My misbehaving heart leaps into my throat and I squeeze her hand. “—it’s just hard when I don’t know what I could do to help find him.”
It’s lucky Jude knows the schedule of the department’s front desk. The sweet old woman doesn’t stand a chance against his charms.
“Rosemary,” Jude greets warmly, leaning an elbow on the desk.
“Jude.” Rosemary lights up, adjusting her Coke bottle glasses. “What a lovely surprise.”
Reaching into his pocket, he puts down a coin wrapped in protective plastic on the counter and slides it across. The quirk of his crooked smile is practiced to perfection and smooth as fuck. “Found you something.”
“The 1870 Liberty silver dollar I’ve been on the hunt for? Oh, Jude, this will complete my collection!”
If possible, Rosemary becomes livelier. Rowan peeks at me curiously and I shrug. Before Rosemary can snatch up the coin, Jude drags it back with a charming smirk that makes a dimple appear.
“Ah, ah. Rosie, you know I can’t just give it up.” He leans closer to flirt our way in. “What kind of favor will this buy me?”
Rosemary flushes, her mouth open in a tiny, wrinkled O. She blinks owlishly and peers around.
“What kind of favor?”
“For you? The Rosie special.” Jude holds his fingers close together and squints. “Just a tiny one.”
Her rapt gaze drops to the coin he rolls through his fingers in a showy dance of skill. She watches it go back and forth twice before she flashes another look around at the few other people in the lobby area.
Jude tosses the coin and snatches it from the air. “Let us back there. I found something for one of Detective Bassett’s ongoing cases, but she made me swear to keep it on the down-low. You know how she gets.” He winks. “We’re just doing what she asked. So, for the price of this baby, will you waive procedure for us?”
Rosemary takes less than thirty seconds to decide and is the chipper owner of some useless collectible coin. Jude’s smile drops once we pass the barrier to get past the civilian section.
“You really aren’t above bribing old ladies?” Rowan whispers.
He shrugs. “I do what I have to, sweetheart.”
“Was the coin even authentic?”
“That would be telling.”
I know him. While he has no qualms screwing over most people to run a successful con, he probably did hunt down the real deal for Rosemary.
Pippa is filling out paperwork at her desk in the open floor plan space when we slip in. It’s a slow afternoon for the force, most officers milling around with half-eaten sandwiches and chatting like gossipy hens. Pippa is the only one hard at work.
The second she glances up, her features contort and her gray eyes darken with fury. Jude offers her a severe smile.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Pippa is pissed, her dark curly ponytail whipping back and forth as she glares from us to her colleagues laughing in an office with the door ajar.
I pick up a framed photo from her desk and keep my tone light. “Is that any way to greet your old friends?”
“You called us, remember?” Jude plants his hands on the desk, bracketing her elbows before she sits up and covers case files labeled Leviathan. “That’s what your call log will say.”
“You son of a—”
“Save it, pipsqueak.” Her mouth clicks shut at the old nickname. Jude toys with the other items on her desk, choosing the pen she was using to twist between his fingers. “We need to talk.”
Seething, she explodes from her seat. “If you think I’m going to have anything to do with you—”
“I suggest we find a nice private room.” This time the threat is clear. I tip my chin toward the other officers having their boys club lunch while Pippa works through hers. “Wouldn’t want to tarnish that gold star you’ve been shining since you joined the force, detective.”
“Please,” Rowan adds, shooting me and Jude a sharp look. “I really need your help to find my brother.”
Pippa’s freckled cheeks blossom with color, but she swallows back her retort. “Fine. Come with me.” She leads us to an empty office and checks her watch. “You have twenty minutes until Bill comes back from lunch. I’ll give you five. Make it quick.”
For all the smooth work he did to get us this meeting, Jude hesitates. It’s a testament to how much this girl once owned him body and soul that betraying her cuts him deep. She did it to him first. In my eyes, she deserves his retribution.
“T
it for tat, brother,” I mutter.
Jude grunts. “Do you remember that night?”
Doing this with an audience must kill him. I commend his resolve to do what it takes. We’ve all seen him torture himself going over what happened and what he could’ve done differently to keep his ass out of juvie. It’s all Pippa’s fault.
She sucks in a breath and closes the door. “How could I ever forget the worst night of my life?”
“You and me both, baby girl.” Jude’s mouth curves without any trace of humor.
“Don’t,” she hisses. Stricken, she casts a hateful look at me and Rowan. “Stop playing games.”
Jude dips his head and crosses the room to tower over her, face hidden from view by the sweep of his hair. She’s horrified by whatever expression twists his features.
“You know you were there,” he starts in an emotionless tone. Pippa flinches. “I know you were there. We all do.”
“You don’t know anything,” Pippa bites out.
“Oh, but baby, I do. I have proof.” Jude makes sure she’s watching as he slips a flash drive from his pocket, waving it before doing a sleight of hand trick to make it seem like it vanished.
Pippa’s face drains of color. “No.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been holding out all these years to fucking blackmail me, asshole?” Her breathing speeds up and her fists ball.
Jude sucks on his teeth. “Been holding out for a lot of things. Now, if you don’t play nice, this could mean the end of this career you’ve worked so hard for. They’ll find out what you’re complicit in, and then what?”
She clenches her teeth. “I won’t let you.”
“Good,” I cut in, popping away from my slouch against the wall. “Then you understand what’s at stake if you don’t give us what we want.”
“I fucking hate you,” Pippa fumes.
“Likewise. These are the details of a call that came in at 2 a.m. yesterday.” I show her the notes Colt copied to my phone once he went through his recordings of 911 calls and caught this one about a noise complaint coming from the campus. “We need the report details.”
Pippa’s eyebrows furrow. “That… Okay, ignoring the fact you are even privy to information like that, this is nothing. I checked it out but no one could corroborate. My supervisor told me to write it off. I have the report.”
“Give it to us,” Jude says.
“And if I don’t? No matter how small the matter, it’s still a police report. I can’t just give you that shit without putting my job in jeopardy.”
“Your job is already in jeopardy,” Jude says cruelly.
Pippa clamps her mouth shut, mulling over his warning. After a minute, she makes the right choice. “Wait in the hall. I don’t want anyone to see.”
She leaves and Jude stares after her, his face painted in regret and the pain of losing her.
“Are you okay?” Rowan asks.
Jude clears his throat. “Yep. Let’s go. I hate the stench of pigs.”
We move to the hallway. It’s not long before Pippa speed-walks by without acknowledging us, slipping a nondescript folder in Jude’s outstretched hand for the pass off out of the line of sight from the camera with me blocking the exchange. Rowan’s eyes widen and I wink at her.
“Spy shit,” she murmurs on our way past Rosemary.
“Just business,” I say.
We wait until we’re in the car before reading the report. Jude hands it to me and I skim its contents.
“Noise complaint was called in by a freshman who stayed too late at the library. Heard it on her way back to the dorms. She describes it as a struggle that ended in a scream.”
“Let me see that.” Rowan takes the paperwork, eyes flying over it. “This says she was near Withermore Hall at the time. The secret room.” She covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh my god, he might have been there.”
I stiffen. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“It’s written right here in the report.”
“It could be anyone.” I work my jaw. “But…I hope it was your brother.”
“Let’s get this to Colt.” Jude starts the car and pulls out into downtown traffic.
I leave Jude to his brooding over the past. Each time I glance back, Rowan is staring out the window with unfocused eyes, on edge but hopeful since we read the report. Her hope turns my insides to stone.
As the city buildings whip by and thin out on the way to the Nest, my thoughts churn coldly over what this means for her and her brother. If it was Ethan screaming that caused the noise complaint, then he was alive—was. Now more than ever I believe we’re too late, allowing the distraction of Stalenko Corp to keep us from finding what I thought was a body.
But it was necessary when Rowan was the one at risk. If the choice was to save Ethan Hannigan or his sister, I choose her every time. Even if she returns to hating me for it.
Once again, I’m conflicted by whether to tell her what’s in my safe or not. I already questioned if I should tell her before, no longer comfortable lying to her, even if it might protect her heart. It’s a first for me to take someone’s feelings into consideration before I act.
Would it be cruel to leave her to her hope or a mercy to kill it?
The thought doesn’t leave me alone as we arrive at the Nest. Jude handles passing off the report to Colt while I take Rowan’s arm and tow her with me to my room.
“What about—”
“I have to show you something important,” I confess.
I tested the topic on the cliffs yesterday. Hearing how she views herself, her part in Ethan’s disappearance, firms my grim determination to lay the truth out.
She sits on the edge of the bed while I kneel to access the safe inside one of the drawers at my desk. The cracked plastic frames lay where I left them when we discovered them.
“About three weeks ago, we found these by a dumpster at a warehouse on the north side of the city.” Turning them over in my hands, I sigh and hand them to her, watching recognition dawn on her face. “I think your brother is dead.”
“W-what?” Rowan’s voice is barely above a whisper. “You—you had these this whole time?”
I grimace. “Yes.”
“You’ve kept them from me?” She cradles the glasses as tears well in her beautiful eyes. “They’re Ethan’s.”
“I know.”
“How did you find them?” She demands, jumping up from the bed to rush me. Her voice cracks as she thumps my chest with her fists and it slices my insides to ribbons. “Tell me right now, Wren.”
I catch her wrists. “When you first came to us, we already thought it was futile. The men who sent the guy to follow you also killed the best informant who works for us. That’s how we ended up at the warehouse. I thought these made it a clear-cut answer when we found them busted up. It paints a vivid enough picture.”
The tears stop and my fierce girl pins me with the fire blazing in her eyes. “Why didn’t you give them to me then?”
“You…”
I trail off. Being at a loss for words isn’t common for me. I find it unsettling to not know how to wield my most powerful tool against someone.
“Tell. Me.”
Even as we argue, I can’t stop the reaction I have to her effect on me, heat and anticipation pulling into my groin.
“I thought it was for the best to keep you in the dark.”
Her gaze hardens and her throat convulses with a swallow. “You should have given them to me as soon as you found them. All this time I’ve—”
She breaks off with a choked noise.
“I did what I had to. If we went back, I’d make the same choice if it meant you didn’t have to face this horror.”
Pushing out of my grasp, she goes to the desk to lay down the broken glasses. Beside them is Charlotte’s locket, left behind for once instead of carried with me. I never forget it, but today it slipped my mind before we left.
My heart stops when she grabs it and whirls t
o face me. I lift a hand automatically, stupidly attached to a goddamn useless hunk of precious metal. It’s only a locket, but it’s the last piece I have of my sister, much like her brother’s cracked glasses.
“Listen, you cold, unfeeling bastard—”
I move across the room, caging her against the wall. Snatching her wrists again, I pin them to the wall and grind my dick into her stomach.
“Tell me, is this unfeeling?”
The problem is I feel too damn much for Rowan—more than I’ve felt for any lover, more than I feel for my mother and sister, more than I feel for my own fucking brothers. She’s captured my heart irrevocably.
Caught off guard, she stares at me, unconsciously returning the pressure with a swivel of her hips. A feral groan leaves me and I crush my body against hers. We’ve walked this path too many times and our bodies have become attuned to the arousal dancing in our veins.
“I’m trying to protect you,” I rumble. “Everything has been to protect you. I’ve fucking killed for you and I’d do it a million times over. I know how it feels to have your world ripped apart, so forgive me from wanting to shield you from that pain.”
She shudders, emitting a tormented gasp. When I pry the locket from her death grip, she drops her forehead to my chest while I return the necklace to safety on the desk beside us.
“You took the choice from me.”
“Because I didn’t want to see you hurting.”
“He has to be alive,” she says in a voice so small and brittle it sinks razor sharp claws in my gut. “I need to make it right.”
Understanding empathy lances through me. Enough guilt rests on her, but resolving the fight she had is the last hope she clings to.
Cupping her jaw, I make her meet my eyes. “Your brother was caught up with dangerous people. You know that. I know it. They followed you, definitely intent on killing you. Either to cover their tracks, or make sure he never sent you any of the information he collected on them. It’s probably too late for him.”
“You don’t know that,” she accuses. “You don’t fucking know, that 911 caller—”
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