by Ivy Layne
Abigail's eyes started to close as we headed down the long, narrow drive back to the main road. She looked so lost, sitting on the other side of the bench seat. I reached out and took her hand in mine, and the startled expression on her face told me she didn't expect comfort from my direction. Was I doing such a bad job at taking care of her? I thought not, but after the confrontation with Evers and her hesitance as she held my hand, I had to wonder if my take on this whole situation was off.
I hated being wrong, probably because I had so little practice with it. Not being arrogant, it's just the truth. Still, taking in the defeated, anguished expression on Abigail's face, I had to wonder if this might be one of those very rare times I was completely fucking up.
The squeal of tires broke into my thoughts. I barely had time to straighten and look out the front windshield before metal crunched and the van spun sideways, throwing us hard to the left. I heard the crack of Abigail's head against the side of the van, gunshots, then the pounding of feet on pavement, muffled through the metal of the van.
"Don't move," the driver of the van said, sounding disturbingly calm considering the fact that we were now stopped in the middle of the road, straddling both lanes, and apparently under attack.
Both he and the other guard jumped from the van, slamming the doors behind them. I heard the beep of a lock, then nothing.
I'd never imagined I'd wish for Cooper's commando skills. I could shoot a gun, and I was fit, but I was not stupid enough to think that I had any option other than to stay exactly where I was and wait for them to sort this out. Abigail's hand had been torn from mine when we'd been hit. I found it on the seat beside me and grabbed it again, squeezing tightly.
"What just happened?" she asked, her voice thready and terrified. Her eyes were wide, and I caught the dark gleam of blood on her left temple in the early morning light suffusing the van, but it didn't seem to be flowing. I didn't think she was badly hurt. I hoped she wasn't. Her left hand went to her seatbelt, and I said, "No. Leave your seatbelt on. I don't know if they have another vehicle, but I think we should stay strapped in until the Sinclair team tells us otherwise."
She blinked and said, "You're right. Of course, you're right." Lifting her hand, she briefly touched the side of her head, then stared at the stain of blood on her fingers. I loosened my tie and pulled it from my collar.
Handing it to her, I said, "Here. Use this."
She dropped my hand to take the tie, leaving my fingers cold and empty. Turning the silk tie over in her fingers, she said, "I'll ruin it."
"I don't care about the fucking tie, Abigail," I snapped, and I instantly regretted my tone as her face closed down and went politely neutral. Most of the time, Abigail's dignified act turned me on, especially now that I knew how hot she was in bed. When she used it to put distance between us, it just pissed me off.
I opened my mouth to tell her to knock it off when my brain kicked into gear and reminded me that I was the one who'd put that look on her face in the first place, and if I wanted it gone, I might want to try not being such an asshole when she was scared and hurt.
Forcing myself to calm down, I said, "I don't care about the tie, sweetheart. You're bleeding, and it looks like it stopped, but it'll be easier to tell if you clean it up a little. Okay?"
She dropped her eyes and nodded. I pretended I didn't see the sheen of tears as she gingerly used my tie to dab the blood from her temple. It didn't take long before it was apparent the cut wasn't bad. It was still bleeding, but only a trickle. Head wounds always bled a lot, so if this one was clotting already, it wasn't a big deal. Good to know, since it felt like we'd been sitting in the van for an hour. The road outside was quiet.
"Abigail," I started, not sure what I planned to say, when the distant rumble of an engine cut through the early morning quiet. My stomach tightened as I realized I was hearing the approach of motorcycles. Another squeal of tires, less than a second before the grinding crash of metal on metal, and we were flung in the opposite direction.
Lightning crashed behind my eyelids, an explosion of pain in the side of my head. My hand was again torn from Abigail's. Fuck. They had reinforcements, and if the motorcycles weren't a coincidence, then the Raptors had gotten tired of waiting for Big John to make his move.
My vision flickered in and out for a few seconds before I was able to focus my eyes. Everything clicked into frame at once—the cracks in the front windshield of the van, the figures moving outside, fighting. The frightened pitch in Abigail's voice as she said, "Jacob! Jacob, say something, please, Jacob."
"I'm okay," I assured her. My head was killing me, and the side of my face was warm and sticky. Keeping my head turned away from Abigail so she couldn't see, I lifted my right hand to touch my cheek. My fingers came away red, my blood gleaming in the slowly brightening morning light. Shit.
I grabbed my tie from where it lay abandoned on the seat between us and used it to mop up the blood on the side of my face.
"What do we do?" Abigail asked. I wished with everything I had inside me that I had an answer. Stupidly, I wasn't even carrying a gun.
"Hold tight," I said. "Cooper was prepared for an ambush. This van is bulletproof. The smartest thing we can do right now is stay put and wait for the Sinclair team to get us out of here."
Abigail nodded and reached her hand out for mine. I took it, squeezing tightly, trying to convey absolute confidence that everything would be all right. I mostly believed it would. I wanted to pull her over to my side of the van and cradle her in my arms. I didn't like her being so far away when we were in danger.
It was instinctive, an urge in my gut and in my heart to protect her from any threat. But I had to be smart. Unbuckling her seatbelt when we had been hit twice would be lunacy. I wouldn't endanger her to make myself feel better, so I settled for stroking my thumb over the back of her hand as we waited and hoped.
More gunshots. A squeal of tires. Through the cracked windshield, I saw a hulking black SUV, the kind most of the Sinclair team drove. It was joined by a second black SUV. The doors opened, and men with guns poured out. No more shots were fired, and shouts bounced back and forth, the words indistinguishable through the closed doors of the van.
We both jumped when the driver's side door opened and the figure in black slid inside. Cooper didn't spare the time to look at us. He just started the van, threw it into gear, and hit the gas, swerving and veering around the vehicles blocking our way.
He sideswiped two bikes but managed to get us clear of the mess in the road, and we took off, flying down the back road and turning on to another two-lane road. Cooper didn't relax until we'd put several miles between us and the scene of the ambush. Meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror, he said, "You two okay?"
"Okay," Abigail said in a quiet, strained voice.
"We're okay," I confirmed. "A little banged up. We both hit our heads pretty hard."
"Bleeding?"
"Yes," I said. "I think Abigail's has stopped, and mine slowed down."
"I'm taking us to the hospital then," Cooper said. "The police will meet us there. Are you up to talking?"
"Yes," Abigail said. "But we didn't see much. It happened so fast, and we never got out of the van."
"Good, that makes it all easier," Cooper said. "Just tell them what you know, answer their questions, and it'll be fine. We need to get this on record. They already know you're the linchpin in a dispute between Big John and the Raptors. Both of them had men there, and they didn't look like they were working together. Since we don't know how this is going to play out, it makes sense to give the police everything they need up front. You haven't done anything wrong."
"It's fine," I said. "Just take us to the hospital so we can get this over with and get home."
"Just hang in there," Cooper said. "It should all be over soon."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ABIGAIL
* * *
We didn't get home from the hospital until early afternoon. We were ushered in
to a curtained room as soon as we arrived—I sensed Jacob's influence there—and the police were both kind and patient. But between a battery of tests to make sure we hadn't cracked our skulls or otherwise injured ourselves, and the procession of officers and detectives who wanted to talk to us, it was hours before we could leave.
Jacob stayed home long enough to share lunch before he disappeared with Cooper, reminding me not to leave the penthouse. I understood that he wanted to get in on the action, and I knew him well enough to know all his instincts told him to lock me up tight where I was safe. Honestly, I didn't want to be in on the action anyway, but being on my own gave me too much time to think.
After Jacob left, I took a shower. Unlike Jacob, I hadn't needed stitches. It was probably stupid to try to wash my hair. The water and soap stung badly, bringing tears to my eyes, but I couldn't stand the dried blood caking my scalp any longer. I stood under the steamy spray, my mind blank, and let the hot water wash away the last twelve hours.
I was grateful Jacob had taken me to see my mother. She'd been so frail, as if she'd diminished in the weeks we'd been apart. She wasn't going to live much longer. Maybe I should have felt some relief at that, both for her and for myself. I didn't. I couldn't. It was selfish, but I wanted her to stay with me longer, even if she didn't know me anymore. Even if she never opened her eyes again.
I pushed the thought away and got out of the shower, carefully squeezing water from my damp hair and wrapping myself in my fluffy cotton robe. My mother's fate was out of my hands, and what I wanted didn't matter. I had to think about my own fate. Jacob had thrown our whole deal on its side, moving me into his bedroom, introducing me to his family, and taking care of me when I was sick. We hadn't agreed to any of that.
He'd told me he didn't want emotional complications, and maybe he was disciplined enough to do all those things with me and still feel nothing. I wasn't, not even close. If I took a minute to stop fooling myself, I'd admit I had feelings for Jacob. A lot of feelings. Too many feelings, not just love. I liked him. I enjoyed spending time with him, eating dinner with him, and seeing him when he came home from work every day.
Liking was bad enough. I wasn't supposed to like him. I was supposed to do my job—cook for him and be available for uncomplicated sex. That was it. Whether I liked him was irrelevant. So how much worse was it that I was in love with him? I hadn't wanted to fall in love. I'd known it was stupid, that it would only lead to heartbreak, and yet here I was, head over heels in love with Jacob Winters.
Normally, I don't like it when women play games—or men, for that matter. Game playing just made things more complicated. But in this case, our whole relationship had been a game, a business deal, really, but a business deal and a game weren't that different. Emotional honesty had never been part of our agreement. In fact, the whole point of the agreement was to avoid emotions entirely, at least on Jacob's part.
I didn't know what he was playing at by moving me into his bedroom and introducing me to his family, but I did know it had to stop. I couldn't walk out on him. Not while I had my mother to worry about. But I could insist that he play by the rules he'd set up. My stomach rolling with nausea at what I was about to do, I went to Jacob's closet and began to empty my side. Clenching my teeth and ignoring the tears in my eyes, I walked back and forth, my arms filled with my clothes, until I'd erased all signs of my presence in the master suite.
Once that was done, and Jacob still wasn't home, I paced the penthouse, wondering what to do next. I knew there'd be a confrontation when he discovered I'd moved out of his room, and waiting for it was driving me crazy. I ended up in his office, sitting behind his desk. It seemed it was my day for defying Jacob's wishes. I wanted to see the picture again, and I couldn't very well ask him to show it to me. It hurt him too much to see it, and I wouldn't put him through that to appease my curiosity.
I tried his desk drawer and found it unlocked. He'd been distracted the last time he'd had the picture out and must've forgotten to secure it in his rush to leave his office and check on me. I was pulling the envelope from the drawer when I saw it. An earring, a round, glowing pearl suspended from a diamond-encrusted ball.
My earring. I'd lost it at a charity ball over a year before. I'd looked everywhere for it, and its loss had led to a huge fight with John. Why did Jacob have my earring? If he'd found it, why hadn't he returned it? I set it on the desk and studied it. It was definitely my earring. It'd been custom-designed. There wasn't another like it.
I wanted to think it meant something, but I wasn't going there. I wasn't going to start spinning dreams based on an earring I'd found in his drawer. I had too much at stake to risk any more of my heart than I already had. I couldn't help falling in love with Jacob, though I'd tried to stop myself. But that didn't mean I had to start having expectations. Hope. I wasn't going to be that stupid. I placed the earring back in the drawer, nestling it between the pens where I'd found it. I was going to forget I'd ever seen it.
Resolved, I pulled the picture from the envelope and angled Jacob's desk lamp to throw light on the image, trying not to wince at the brutal scene it displayed. I'd originally thought it was a crime scene photograph, and it could've been. It's not like I'd seen a lot of those. Or any, ever. But I would've expected a crime scene photograph to have some kind of date/time stamp. This picture had nothing like that. But it was definitely a photograph of the murder scene. So who had taken it? The press? Or the killer?
Gossip had called Jacob's aunt and uncle's death a murder/suicide. The police had ruled it a double murder, but unable to find any clues after a year, the case had been put on the back burner. As far as I knew, they'd never had any idea what had really happened. If it had been a murder/suicide, then this picture would have to have been taken by a private party at the murder scene, probably a member of the press.
If it had been the media who took the photograph, it would've been splashed all over the news, and though I'd been young, I was sure I'd never seen it before. Not then, and not when everything was stirred back up the year Jacob's parents had died. If it wasn't the press, it had to have been the killer. Why would the killer send this photograph to Jacob? Was he in danger? And why Jacob? Why not one of James and Anna Winters' children—Tate, Vance, Annalise, or Gabe?
Too many questions, and I wasn't going to ask any of them. I wanted to know the answers, but I wasn't equipped to play amateur detective, and Cooper Sinclair and the police both had the picture. They'd taken fingerprints, they'd copied it, they'd studied it. They knew way more about the case than I did. All I had was curiosity. Still, I examined every gruesome detail, looking for some hint as to why it had ended up in Jacob's apartment. It took me a while to spot what was off in the photograph. The tie on James Winters had been altered. It had been done so subtly, I'd almost missed it, but someone had colored it blue.
At the sound of the front door opening, I jumped in my seat, rolling it backward and almost tipping it over.
"Going to change, be right there," Jacob called out.
Panic crackling through me, I shoved the photograph back in the envelope, slid it into the drawer, and closed it. The evidence safely hidden, I sat there frozen, waiting, knowing he was going to see the empty half of his closet when he went to change. He was going to be angry. Very angry.
It was one thing to exercise my defiance of his orders and move back into the guest room when he wasn't home. It was another to face the consequences of what I'd done. I wasn't afraid he would hurt me. At least, not the way John would have. But this wasn't a playful error on my part, and I didn't think he would respond to this by spanking and making me come.
A few seconds later, Jacob appeared in the doorway of his office, still wearing his suit. Fixed on me, his silver eyes were hot and dangerous. In an even tone, heavy with expectation, he said, "Where are your clothes, Abigail?"
I drew in a breath and straightened my spine. I'd done the right thing when I'd moved out of his room, and I knew it, even if he didn't. "I moved
back into the guest room," I said, fighting to keep my tone as steady as his.
"Why?" Jacob stepped into the room and leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest as if this were just a casual conversation. I wasn't fooled. I saw the bulge in his jaw muscle as he clenched his teeth.
"I don't belong in your bedroom, Jacob. You know it as well as I do. We have an arrangement."
"We do," he said, a hint of temper finally making its way into his voice. "And that arrangement is that you do what I say, and I told you to move into my bedroom."
"No, the arrangement was that I would be your pet, not your lover."
"What does it matter? Why do you have to make this so complicated?"
"I'm not the one making it complicated," I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my cotton robe and wishing I'd taken the time to get dressed after my shower. With Jacob in a suit, and me in only a bathrobe, I felt defenseless and off-balance.
Jacob took a step into the room, his face softening as he said, "Is it so bad? Being here with me?"
"No, of course not," I said, shaking my head.
"Then why? Why do you have to stay in the guest room?"
"Because," I shot out, coming to my feet in exasperation. Why did he not understand? Again, I tried to explain. "I can't do this. We have an arrangement. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm your employee. I'm not here to play house. You're the one who set the limits. You don't do relationships, remember?"
"Is that what you want? You want a relationship? Why do we have to define everything? Why can't we just let it be?"
I shook my head, frustrated with him. Tears welled in my eyes, and I stared at the ceiling, blinking them back. I was not going to cry. Jacob always seemed to know what I was thinking. He probably knew I was in love with him. I wasn't going to cry and make myself even more pathetic.