Assassin's Heart

by Ella Sheridan

  Abby finished the last sandwich, then assembled the tray with the food and drinks for three. She added oatmeal molasses cookies before pushing it across the island toward me. “Go get ’em, brother.”

  I looked from this woman who’d changed all our lives, to the tray, and back again. Then picked up the offering she’d provided in both hands and headed upstairs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Leah —

  I’d brought a backpack full of things for Brooke, including her favorite pink pajamas with the white unicorns dancing across them, their rainbow horns bright and colorful. Brooke welcomed the warm fabric against her goose-bumped skin after her bath, but she wasn’t smiling. Watching her, I wondered how long it would be before either one of us smiled again.

  “Come on, baby.” I urged her across the room to the bed, pulling back the covers for her to climb in. “Let’s get you warm.”

  “Will you brush my hair, Mommy?”

  I’d just brushed the tangles out in the bathroom, but that wasn’t what she meant. From the time she was little, Brooke had been soothed by long sessions with the brush running through her hair. She needed to be soothed now more than ever. And maybe I needed to soothe her.

  A knock sounded at the door. Brooke jumped.

  I gathered her close, choking up at the evidence of her fear. “It’s okay. Nothing to be afraid of here, I promise.” The scent of soap and sweet baby filled my nose, reminding me she was here, safe, with me. “Let me go see who it is.”

  Brooke clung a moment longer before reluctantly releasing me. Another knock sounded as I crossed the room.

  “Just a sec!”

  Opening the door allowed the scent of tomatoes and cheese and toasty bread to flow in, but it was the sight that greeted me that made me warm—Remi, a full tray gripped in his hands. That same sense of security flowed through me as I’d had with Brooke, the rightness of having him here with me. With us.

  Was it right? I’d seen firsthand what this man was capable of, but tonight I really didn’t care. I was listening to my heart, my head be damned.

  “I thought you two might want some dinner.” He shifted from one foot to the next, his eyes full of... I don’t know. Something I’d never seen before, not on Remi. Something that only grew stronger when Brooke called my name.

  I stepped back to let him in. “Thank you.” Why hadn’t I thought of this? I had no idea how long it had been since Brooke had a decent meal.

  “Thank Abby,” Remi whispered as he passed. “She sent cookies.”

  My laugh surprised me.

  “Hungry, little one?” Remi asked. He crossed the room to a table in the corner, seeming oblivious to Brooke’s absolute silence and wary gaze. “I hope you like grilled cheese.”

  Brooke was peeking over the blanket she’d pulled up to her face, following Remi’s every move as he began laying out the food. I watched the tension seep into his body, and that’s when I realized what I had seen earlier, flickering in his eyes—fear. Remi was afraid of a little girl.

  He should be. Children cut through bullshit faster than any adult ever could, cut down to the truth of you in seconds, and they weren’t afraid to reveal whatever they discovered. I needed to keep that in mind. Brooke realizing that Remi and I were close would have been my worst nightmare until today.

  Having a gun held to your daughter’s head, watching men bleed out in front of you—it all had a way of putting everything in perspective.

  I crossed the room and pulled him toward the bed. “Brooke, this is my friend Remi.”

  His fingers twitched against mine as he waited for her response. Brooke stared at our entwined hands for a minute, still clutching the blanket. “You came with my mommy to the bad place.”

  Now it was my turn to flinch.

  Remi went to his knees beside the bed. “I did. I came to help your mom.” He held out his hand. “Hi.”

  The word was croaked, Remi’s uncertainty lightening my heavy heart. I laid my palm on his broad back, felt him hold his breath as Brooke made her decision. Finally one tiny hand let go of the blanket and met Remi’s. “Hi.”

  “Remi brought us some food,” I said, hoping to give him a chance to breathe. “Come eat.”

  Brooke eased from the bed, still a bit wary. She’d always been like me—serious, careful, but with that friendly trust most kids had. She’d seen too much, had too much done to her in the past few days for that natural openness to not be damaged. Every time I thought about it, every time I saw the fear on her face, the urge to strangle Ross with my bare hands surged inside me. And then I’d remember that I couldn’t because he was already dead, and grief would rush in to mix with the anger.

  The roller coaster probably wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, for me or for Brooke.

  The tomato-and-cheese goodness filling the air actually drew a growl from my stomach. I made sure Brooke had all she needed, watched for her to take her first bite, then attacked my plate. Remi watched, a soft look on his face, as he ate his own food.

  “Mommy, where is Mrs. Lydia?”

  I paused, my spoon halfway to my mouth. I’d never lied to my daughter, but then I’d also never told her someone she loved was dead. “Lydia hurt her head badly, baby.”

  She looked up at me, eyes wide and shining, as if she knew what was coming but still had to ask. “Did the doctor fix it?”

  He didn’t have a chance. “They couldn’t fix it, Brooke.”

  “She died?” A tear slid down Brooke’s face.

  I reached for her, took a deep breath. “She did. I’m so sorry, but she did.”

  “Did Uncle Ross die?”

  He had told her he was her uncle? “He was hurt very badly too.”

  “By the bad man.”

  “Yes.”

  She pushed her spoon around in her soup. “Uncle Ross told me to be very quiet and we’d be okay. We had to stay quiet or the bad man would get angry.”

  Ross said he’d protected her. Was that what Brooke was saying?

  “Why’d the bad man hurt him, Mommy?” More tears fell. “Will he come back? Will he hurt us too?”

  I raised desperate eyes to Remi’s. How did I answer that question?

  “Brooke,” Remi said, his voice low and firm. Something in me settled at that tone, just as he’d probably intended. “The bad man is not coming back, I promise you.”

  Don’t promise. Don’t make her believe something that might not be true.

  But Remi wasn’t listening. Laying his napkin on the table, he rose from his seat. “Come look at this.”

  I followed as Brooke scooted from her chair and walked with Remi across the room to the darkened window. Kneeling next to Brooke, he pulled the curtain aside. “See that gate way out there?” He pointed. “And that fence that goes as far as you can see?”

  Brooke nodded.

  “That gate keeps the bad man out. And we have cameras everywhere so we can see any bad men coming a mile away.”

  “What if they get in anyway?”

  “They won’t,” Remi told her, the words absolutely certain. “And even if something bad happened, if someone tried to get in? They’ll never get past me and my brothers.”

  Brooke frowned up at him. “What brothers? Are they as big as you?”

  Remi grinned. “Almost.” He flexed a bicep. “Do you think any bad guys could get past that?”

  Brooke dared to poke the hard muscle with a finger. “No.”

  Remi gave her a sharp nod. “No is right.”

  And then my daughter did something I hadn’t expected to see for a long time—she smiled. Not just a turning up of her lips, but a genuine smile that reached all the way to her eyes. Remi smiled too, and the oddest sensation filled me. Like my heart melted right into the floor and my ovaries exploded all at the same time.

  Lethal. This man was lethal, in more ways than one, and I’d better remember that.

  After we finished the cookies Abby had sent and gathered our dishes onto the tray, I put a coupl
e of pillows on the floor in front of my chair for Brooke, bumping her up to the right height, and began long, soothing brushes through her hair as she leaned against my knee. Remi sat, watching us in the quiet. Gradually Brooke’s weight became heavier and heavier against me until I knew she was asleep, her head lying on my thigh.

  “You’re a good mom, Leah,” Remi said as I laid the brush aside.

  “I try.” That’s all you could really do. When I’d discovered I was pregnant, I’d been terrified. My mom had died when I was little, and Angelo hadn’t had any family. How was I supposed to know how to raise a child? But then I’d ended up on the run. At that point I figured I couldn’t screw it up any worse, so I’d promised myself to try my hardest. Brooke and I had figured out the mother/daughter thing together.

  “Not everyone does.”

  No, they didn’t. I sifted my fingers through Brooke’s honey-colored strands. “What about your parents?”

  Pain flashed in his amber eyes, and I wished I’d bitten my tongue.

  “They were the best, at least what little I remember. Kids have an amazing ability to forget things that aren’t so perfect.”

  I hoped Brooke managed to forget some things from the past few days. “You were young when they died, right?” I thought I remembered that from the news coverage when they had taken over Hacr Technologies. “When your uncle sent you to boarding school?”

  Remi huffed. “He didn’t send us to boarding school. We ran away. Or rather, Levi took us away.”

  “What? Why?”

  Remi raised his gaze from Brooke’s sleeping form to meet mine, staring hard. “Because he’d killed my parents. And he would’ve eventually killed us.”

  “I thought they never caught your parents’ killer.” Or his uncle’s.

  “Levi witnessed the murder.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed out a curse. That one piece of information explained so much about Remi’s brother.

  “Where did you go?”

  Remi shrugged. “There was nowhere to go. Nowhere safe.”

  “So...” I considered his words, the posture of his body. They’d run, but... “You lived on the streets.”

  “We took care of each other,” he said, rising from his chair to gather the tray.

  They’d had each other and no one else, no one to keep them safe. Not like Brooke. How had that affected them, three little boys surviving on their own? The streets were hard enough for adults, much less...

  My stomach turned. “Remi—”

  He was almost to the door. “You get Brooke in bed while I take this downstairs.”

  Something about the words made me hesitate. “You’re not staying here tonight, Remi.” The bed was big, but not big enough for three. Besides, I didn’t want Brooke seeing Remi sleeping with me. There’d be too many questions I couldn’t answer.

  “I’m definitely staying here”—he opened the door before turning back to me—“right there in that chair.” He jerked his chin toward a deep, plush armchair in the corner. “Brooke will wake up tonight. She’ll be scared. And I’ll be there to assure her she has a guard watching over her every minute.”

  There was that damn melting/ovaries exploding thing again. I really wished it would go away. Especially since this time it was mixed with a seeping disappointment that Remi wasn’t staying for me.

  Get a grip, Leah.

  “Put her to bed,” Remi was saying, seeming oblivious to the internal psychoses duking it out in my brain. “I’ll be right back.”

  He moved to pull the door closed, then stuck his head back inside. “Oh, and Leah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I expect a good-night kiss when I get back.”

  The door closed behind him. He couldn’t have moved a step away, though, because when I let a curse loose, his laugh reached me before fading down the hall.

  Chapter Twenty

  Remi —

  The crick in my neck had totally been worth it. For the first time in my life, I’d felt worthy. Powerful. I’d kept watch over the two females who meant everything to me, soothing away the nightmares with a few gentle words when either woke up, and this morning, despite feeling like shit from lack of sleep, I also felt like captain of the fucking universe. Like I had found the one thing I was meant to do for the rest of my life.

  Now I just had to convince Leah to believe it too.

  Letting myself out just before seven, I closed the bedroom door behind me and went to take a shower. Half an hour later I was working on breakfast for six. Six. Holy shit. How had our little family of three, relying on no one but each other, doubled in size so fast?

  I almost asked Levi that when he followed me in, but kept my mouth shut, not quite ready to let his particular brand of logic become a downer this morning. Eli arrived shortly after, then Abby, meaning everyone was in the room when Leah walked in with Brooke.

  My brothers stilled immediately, their eyes on Leah’s little girl. I could read the same fear in their eyes that I’d felt yesterday, the same holy shit, it’s a tiny human! How the fuck do I handle this? Followed almost immediately by don’t say the word fuck, damn it! Why was a child so terrifying? Maybe it was because we knew how easy it was to screw up a kid. Maybe it was because it had been a couple of decades since we’d been allowed to be kids. Maybe it was because we couldn’t predict their actions like we could some asshole looking through the scope of a Remington 700.

  Either way, it was best to treat them like a Tyrannosaurus rex—don’t move and maybe they won’t see you.

  “Hey, everyone,” Leah said, leading Brooke by the hand.

  A chorus of hellos had Brooke’s step hitching as they approached the table. Steeling my courage, figuring Brooke had to get used to me sometime, I stepped in to give Leah a quick kiss on the lips. Her eyes went wide, darted to Brooke, but I wasn’t going to hold back for her daughter’s sake. Brooke wouldn’t trust me if I lied, with words or actions.

  “Good morning, little one.” I held out my hand. “Would you like to meet my family?”

  The word family seemed to settle Brooke’s nerves, as if being related meant the others were safe too. That hadn’t proved the case with Ross, necessarily, but it would with the people in this room. When Brooke slid her tiny hand into my enormous paw, I got that same feeling I’d had earlier, like my chest had puffed out to twice its normal size and my head would no longer fit through the door. She was trusting me. So fragile and innocent, and she was trusting me.

  I had to clear my throat before I could get any words out. Standing before the table, I pointed to each person. “Brooke, this is Levi, my brother. And his girlfriend, Abby. And my younger brother, Eli. This is Brooke.”

  My brothers smiled and said hello while going pale, as if I was about to ask them to babysit or change shitty diapers. Ignoring their weirdness, Abby was out of her chair and around the table in a flash. “It’s so great to meet you, Brooke,” she said, dropping to her knees in front of the six-year-old. She held out a hand to shake. “I hope you slept well.”

  Thank fuck for the woman in our family.

  Brooke placed her hand in Abby’s. “No,” she said quietly, solemnly, “but Remi watched over us.”

  Abby reached for something around Brooke’s throat. “That’s a very pretty locket. Did your mommy give that to you?”

  I glanced down to see a delicate filigree heart-shaped locket lying just under the edge of Brooke’s shirt. Abby pulled it out to admire.

  “My daddy gave it to me,” Brooke said confidently.

  I jerked my gaze to Leah, holding my breath.

  Leah’s smile was sad. “Angelo gave it to me. It became Brooke’s on her fifth birthday.”

  Angelo had given it to her? I went slowly to my knees, not wanting to startle Brooke. “It’s beautiful,” I told the girl. “Can I see?”

  When Brooke nodded, I took the heart from Abby. The light danced on the silver surface, disappeared into the valleys of the delicate pattern. “I didn’t see this last nig
ht.”

  Leah frowned. “I took it off for her bath. Brooke’s allowed to wear it during the day. She had it on when...”

  I nodded, understanding what she didn’t say—that Brooke had the necklace around her neck when she’d been kidnapped. I fingered the catch on the locket but didn’t feel any give. Using a nail, I pressed harder, finally rewarded with a small snick.

  The locket popped open.

  Brooke and Leah both gasped. Brooke took a step back, stopped by Leah’s body behind her.

  “It’s all right,” I said, easing my hand closer so the chain didn’t pull on Brooke’s neck. “Eli, come here.” Heart pounding hard, I glanced up at Leah. “When did Angelo give this to you?”

  “When...” Her voice shook. “When I found out I was pregnant.”

  I held her gaze as the gravity of her answer settled on my chest. Angelo, knowing the woman he loved, the woman who carried his child, needed security, had given her what he’d thought was the only security he could—the evidence against his employers. Because there, glistening inside the small heart, was a microchip. A chip that had hung around his daughter’s neck while her kidnappers searched for the fucking thing everywhere but there.

  Why the hell did the men I wanted to kill all have to be dead? Leah had carried the evidence on her body when she’d fled that night. Brooke had worn it for over a year, with no idea that the pretty necklace from her daddy could be either her salvation or a death sentence.

  Jesus Christ, I wished I could kill the man all over again.

  “Brooke, little one”—I dropped the heart, then tapped her chin playfully—“we need to borrow your pretty necklace a minute, please. Can Eli see it and bring it back to you in just a few minutes.”

  A vee appeared between Brooke’s eyes, making her look so much like Leah for a moment that I almost let a laugh escape. She glanced up at her mama, then back to me.

  “Just for a minute; it’s really important.”

  “He’ll give it back, Brooke,” Leah assured her.