by Cynthia Eden
“Of course.” Sarah immediately headed for the door.
Gabe hesitated, but then he gave a tight nod.
“Ana . . .” Asher wasn’t moving. He was too busy glaring at Cash. Cash glared back. He was furious at her brother, but he also understood the guy. Asher blamed himself for the pain Ana had experienced. Oh, man, you have no clue. I blame myself every single day. If I’d killed Louis when I had the chance . . .
Ana heaved out a frustrated breath. “Asher, I can take care of myself. And really, what do you think he’s going to do to me, here, at LOST?”
Asher’s nostrils flared.
“You’re her twin,” Cash said flatly. “She loves you. I get that. I don’t want to hurt someone she loves.”
Asher looked smugly satisfied.
“But what’s happening here—it’s between me and Ana, and if you get in my way, I will lay your ass out on the floor.”
That smug satisfaction slipped a bit.
“You might have been a SEAL,” Cash added darkly. “But I was a Ranger. And I’m not your punching bag.”
Asher stepped toward him.
“Leave, Asher.” Her voice wasn’t as calm now. “I can take care of myself. Just go outside. Help Sarah run the check on NamUs like we discussed. I can handle this.”
And Asher headed for the door. His steps were dragging and he sure looked unhappy, but the guy left. The door closed behind him with a soft click.
He was alone with Ana.
Beautiful, perfect Ana.
And he didn’t know what the hell to say or do.
“Why’d you let him get all those punches in last night? You didn’t even try to defend yourself. And you kind of look like hell right now.”
He shrugged. “Figured I was due those hits.”
Her gaze darted to the floor, then back up to crash with his. “Because you slept with me?”
He shook his head and closed in on her. She tensed, but he kept walking. Cash only stopped when he was about a foot away from Ana, and he made sure not to touch her. He’d only touch her when she asked for his touch. Hopefully, if he was a very lucky bastard, one day, she would ask. One day. “I was due . . . because I hurt you.”
“Cash . . .”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. You’ve been hurt more than enough.”
Ana flinched.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” He was. He felt clumsy and awkward around her. She stared at him with those dark, soulful eyes, and he wished he could make things better for her. “Do you think that I haven’t wanted to go back in time? To go back and kill him when I had the chance? Every day, I have that wish. If I’d just stopped him then, you never would have been hurt.”
“Why do I matter so much?”
Because you’re you. He cleared his throat. “I saw a news video of you—hell, Ana, I think I was eighteen. Just getting ready to go into the army. I was supposed to ship out the next day. And there you were—on the news, all dark eyes, pale skin. Pain and strength. The reporter was saying that Louis Griggs had hurt you. My brother. He’d done that. You were so vulnerable, I didn’t know why anyone would ever hurt you. I saw the pain in your eyes. The grief. And I wanted to help you. Something seemed to—to just give way in me right then. I wanted you better. I wanted you whole. I wanted to take away every single moment of pain that you’d ever had.”
But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d just made her hurt all over again.
“Fate brought you into my office two years ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Ana Young, all grown up. So beautiful it almost hurt to look at you. And your eyes—still as dark and deep. But there wasn’t grief in your gaze any longer. There was pride. Power. You’d saved yourself. You hadn’t needed anyone else to do the job.”
“Asher stopped your brother.” She shook her head. “Asher—”
“I’m not talking about who killed those bastards. I’m talking about you. About how you came back from the darkness and made yourself strong, day by day. You did that. You came back.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed.
“I was drawn to you, and when you asked me to go out and have a drink, there was no way on earth I could have said no. I knew the whole time, I should have told you who I was. Tell her. Tell her. Tell her. Those words beat at me, never stopping.” He wanted to touch her so badly. His hands clenched as he kept them at his sides. “Then I kissed you and the only thing I knew was need. I had you in my bed, and my control shredded. I couldn’t get close enough to you. Couldn’t touch you enough.” He expelled a ragged breath. “Then dawn came. You left without a word, and I—I couldn’t chase you down. Because then you’d know who I was. And I’d hurt you.”
Ana’s gaze searched his. “But you came to LOST, looking for me.”
“And I was just going to work the case.” That had been his plan, anyway. “My boss did want your cooperation because I told him how amazing you were. You truly can track down criminals like no one’s business. You know your shit, and I realized what an asset you would be on the investigation. I came to find you because the FBI needed your help tracking Bernie.”
“You should have stopped me. Stopped us before we went too far.”
She thought he actually could have done that? Did the woman not realize just how much he wanted her? “Try living in hell for two years and then getting a glimpse of paradise. You won’t turn away from that. You hold as tightly to it as you can.” Just as he’d held tight to her. “And everything I said to you the other night? It was true. You are beautiful, Ana. You are perfect. You need to understand that. Know it in your soul.”
Her gaze cut away from his. Her hand rose, trembling fingers reaching to trace the scar on her lip.
Cash caught her hand in his. “You are perfect.” He hadn’t meant to touch her—he hadn’t—
Her dark stare came back to him.
“I’m the one who’s twisted up. That’s why I told you, I wasn’t the good guy you thought I was. I wish I could have been. I wish I could have been the guy you wanted, Ana. The one who’d never let you down. The one who could protect you from every threat out there.” Pain roughened his voice. “I wish I were anyone but the man who hurt you so much. Just by being his brother, I hurt you.”
“Cash . . .” Ana shook her head. “No secrets, do you understand me? You can’t keep secrets. All they do is rip people apart. Secrets come out and they destroy.”
She was talking to him. That was progress, right? Actual progress.
“What other secrets are you holding back?” Ana asked him. “What other things have you—” She stopped her eyes widening. “He knew.”
“What?”
“The killer—the caller—he told me not to trust you. Said you weren’t the man I thought. He knew about you.”
Cash considered that, and realized . . . shit, she’s right. But if the guy had been digging into Cash’s past . . .
Why?
Ana’s breath hitched. “Sarah thinks he researches his prey. That he digs into their lives, finding out all he can about them.”
“You think I could be one of his targets?” Bring it, asshole. Come and get me.
“I don’t know.” Those dark eyes of hers seemed to see straight through him. “Have you crossed lines, Cash? Done things that he would think you needed to be punished for?”
He was still holding her hand. His fingers were lightly stroking against her inner wrist. “I was a soldier, Ana. I killed on missions, yes, I won’t deny that. And while I’ve been an FBI agent, I’ve had to shoot two perps. I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. The first man, he was about to shoot my partner. I had a split second to fire, and I did.” No, he didn’t like remembering that moment. He tracked the most violent criminals in the United States, the ones who were dark, disturbed predators, and those predators often did not surrender easily. They’d rather kill, go out in a blaze of glory, and not spend the rest of their lives locked in a cage. “For the second man, he had a teen in front of him, a hostage. The bastard was a
sick freak who’d kidnapped the boy years ago. We’d tracked them down on a tip, and when we went in, the guy put his gun to the boy’s head. Said if we didn’t get the hell out of there, he’d blow the kid’s brains out.”
He could see that terrible scene. The trailer that had reeked of human waste. The boy’s too thin, emaciated frame. Kenneth “Kenny” Barn had been eleven when he went missing. He’d just vanished while walking home from school. Four years later, he’d been found, in that dank trailer. “I wasn’t going to leave the boy. So I shot the perp—right in the head.” His blood had gone on the boy, the kid had been screaming but . . .
He was alive. He made it out alive.
“So yeah, I’ve spilled blood. I’ve killed. And if the bastard out there thinks I need to get some payback for that, then he can come the hell on.” Cash would be waiting. His fingers slid over her wrist once more. He was in Atlanta for one reason, to get Ana. To take her back. He was supposed to follow orders. Supposed to get this job done.
He was holding her hand. Her guard was down. It would be so easy to yank out his cuffs. To lock one around her delicate wrist. To lock the other around his. They’d be bound together. He could force her to leave with him.
Instead, his hand slid away from hers. He wasn’t going to damage the fragile truce that seemed to be forming with her. He wasn’t going to do anything to damage her, not ever again. Maybe they’d never get back to the place where they’d been. Maybe she’d never look at him the same way.
But . . .
He could try.
“I want you to help me, Ana. I want you safe.” He nodded. “I appreciate you giving me the chance to tell you my side of things.” He would never forget the way she’d looked last night. Hearing the truth about him had made Ana physically sick.
I did that to her. I never want to hurt her again.
“This guy is out there, hunting.” He needed to push the difference between their relationship and the job that they both had to do. “Ellen Summers could still be alive. We need to find her.”
Her hand had fallen back to her side.
“The perp contacted you before, it’s only a matter of time until he does it again.” Cash believed that with every fiber of his being. “Come with me. Come to D.C. Talk to the executive assistant director. Let’s get this bastard. Let’s stop him before he kills again.”
Then he waited.
Ana, choose me. Choose to come with me.
“I may never hear from him again, Cash.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true.” He glanced back at the closed door. “What did Sarah have to say about him? About why he’s contacting you?”
“She thinks he believes I’m . . . like him. That I can understand him. Because of my past.”
That was exactly what Cash feared, too. “He wants to share what he’s doing. Wants recognition. You give him that. Ana, he will be contacting you again. Only this time, he might not just call you. He may try to make face-to-face contact. He’s dangerous. And he’s closing in on you.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I know.” He did. “But why do you have to be alone? We can help each other. I actually thought . . . I thought we made pretty good partners.”
She didn’t speak.
“Help me stop him, Ana. Help me—”
Her phone rang.
Ana tensed.
So did Cash. Ana pulled out her phone and he saw the words Unknown Caller on her screen.
“Speak of the devil,” Cash said grimly.
Ana flinched and then her finger swiped across the screen, taking the call and then tapping the button to turn on the speaker.
“I don’t like this shit.” Asher paced in the conference room at LOST, anger humming in his blood. “We should have thrown that guy out into the street.”
“Man, you need to breathe. And stop pacing like that—you’re making me dizzy.”
When Asher stopped to glare, Gabe smiled at him. “Look, I get that you think LOST is all-powerful, but even we would run into some issues if we started throwing federal agents off the premises.”
Asher growled. “He’s—”
“Not his brother,” Sarah said, her voice cold. She was sitting in the seat to the right of Gabe, not surprising really, because when it came to LOST, Sarah was Gabe’s right hand. She was also the agent who would be opening up the West Coast division of LOST soon. “Cash Knox isn’t Louis. He’s not responsible for the things that Louis did, so you need to get that straight in your head. I get that this is personal for you, believe me, I do. But you can’t put his brother’s sins at Cash’s door.”
“He hurt Ana.”
“He didn’t want to—don’t you see? That’s what this was all about. He never wanted her to be hurt, so he didn’t tell her the full truth about himself. Not that I blame him. It’s not like I enjoy leading with the fact that my father is a killer.” She began to fiddle with the gleaming diamond ring on her left hand. Sarah didn’t normally fiddle. She was still. Still waters run deep. The very fact that she was showing a small crack in her façade had him feeling like shit.
“Sarah.” He forced his back teeth to unclench. “You know I’m not meaning anything against you. You’re nothing like your father.”
“And when your rage cools, you’ll realize that Cash is not at all like his brother. He certainly seems different to me.” She stared down at her diamond, then looked up at him. “You probably don’t know this, but my father hurt Jax.”
Jax . . . he knew the name. Jax Fontaine had certainly captured plenty of attention for his exploits in New Orleans. The guy had been thought to be the leader of the criminal underworld there, but then . . .
Then Jax met Sarah.
The guy had been obsessed since that meeting. And Sarah had agreed to marry him. The shiny ring on her finger? It had come courtesy of Jax.
“My father did things to Jax . . . to Jax’s family . . . things that can never be forgiven.” Her chin lifted. “But Jax doesn’t blame me for what happened. When he looks at me, I know Jax only sees me. Not my father. Not the river of blood Murphy left in his wake. Jax sees me, nothing more. And he loves me.”
Ana doesn’t love Cash.
But, fuck, wasn’t that the whole reason he’d launched the investigation into the guy’s past in the first place? Because Ana had been different when she mentioned him? Small slips that Asher had noticed because he and Ana were so close. “I just want to protect her.”
“I understand.” Sarah’s voice was soft and he knew she truly did understand what he meant.
I failed Ana once. I never want to fail her again.
“But you need to realize,” Sarah continued, her voice still soft, “Ana isn’t fourteen any longer. She knows how to fight her own battles. How to make her own choices. And sometimes, she’ll make choices you don’t agree with, and when she does that . . . there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
Sarah thinks Ana is going to choose Cash. He shook his head. No way. No—
“You can’t control your heart. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong man. Sometimes, you find a connection to someone and you never realize the danger, not until it’s too late.” Her shoulders rolled back. “And by then, you don’t even care that you’re walking into fire. The flames feel too good.”
The caller didn’t have to be the killer. It could be a telemarketer. It could be a wrong number. It could be—
“Why did you leave, Ana?”
It was him. Same robotic voice. Same app. Same game.
“I have a job to do,” Ana said, fighting to keep her voice flat. A hard task considering the way her emotions were nearly ripping her apart. “You were the one who reminded me of that, remember? There are people who need me in Atlanta. People who are missing.”
Robotic laughter crackled over the line. “But someone’s missing here . . .”
Cash had his phone out. He was texting fast and furiously. No doubt, trying to get hi
s agents to get a lock on the caller.
“You have Dr. Summers,” Ana said. She knew she was supposed to keep the perp on the line as long as possible. If she did that, then Cash’s team would be better able to find the guy. She’d do her job.
More robotic laugher. “I do.”
“Why? Why’d you take her? She’s not like Bernie Tate or Forrest Hutchins—”
“Don’t be too sure of that.”
“She’s not a convicted killer!”
“Not all killers wind up in jail. Special Agent Knox knows that truth. And so do you.”
Ana looked over at Cash. He was still texting, his face grim. She pressed her lips together, then said, “Let Dr. Summers go.”
“Why?”
“Stop it.” The words came out angry but her control was just gone. “Stop that stupid voice. Why are you hiding behind it? You’re making the bad guys pay, right? You’re doing some kind of revenge hunting? If everything you’re doing is so damn justified, why hide?”
Cash’s gaze had jerked up to meet hers.
I went too far.
There was silence on the line. Oh, God, he’d hung up. Too soon. They wouldn’t be able to find him. They—
“You’re right, Ana.” The robotic voice was gone. This was a man’s voice. Low, deep, smooth. No accent. “I shouldn’t hide, not from you. After all, you understand, don’t you?”
Sarah had said the killer believed she understood him. That she could relate to his kills. “I do. Sometimes the only punishment that works is an eye for an eye.”
“Bernie Tate was a big player in prison. All of the other inmates feared him. And he was just in there, making plans to hurt you. Sitting in his cell, jerking off to pictures of you. He thought I’d help him. That we’d take you out, but he was wrong.”
Cash’s eyes had gone flat and cold.
“Thank you,” Ana said, realizing the role she needed to play with this man. If he thought she understood him . . . then I will. “Tate needed to be stopped.”