by Adrian, Lara
She stepped around him, feeling his gaze at her back as she jogged down the stairs and exited the mansion. Outside, the summer afternoon was bright and warm and clear. She soaked in every bit of it as she set off at a comfortable pace, through the command center’s main gate and out to the private road that descended from the peak of the broad, highly secured hill to the main street below.
Ordinarily, her route might have taken her around the base of the hill on Summit Circle. But today, instead of taking the familiar path, Kaya turned away from it and jogged in another direction. About half a mile down was a large boulevard that would eventually take her into the heart of Montreal. She followed the divided stretch of pavement for several blocks, until she spotted a taxi heading her way.
She signaled to the driver, glancing anxiously around her as the car slowed in front of her. “I need to go to Dorval, please.”
At his nod, she climbed in. Twenty minutes later, the driver had delivered her to a depressed section of the city southwest of Montreal’s downtown. The area hadn’t been a stellar place to be at any point in history, but during the wars that followed First Dawn, this patch of urban sprawl had become a magnet for gangs and rebels of all stripes. Now the ruins of old warehouses and factories long vacated stood drab and dilapidated on either side of the street. Panhandlers and addicts camped at nearly every intersection, including the one where Kaya instructed the taxi driver to drop her off.
“You sure you wanna be down here, miss?” The middle-aged man ran his palm over his grizzled jaw. “If you want me to wait for ya, in this section of town, I gotta add twenty bucks surcharge for every five minutes I risk my vehicle standing at the curb.”
Kaya shook her head as she handed him the fare for the drive. “I can find my own way back. Keep the change.”
He took her money and wasted no time pulling away after she got out of the car. Not that she could blame him. There were few people who chose to spend time in this area of the city. And usually, if they were lucky enough to get out, they made a point never to come back.
Kaya should know. She’d been one of them.
She walked up the street toward a rat hole bar with a sagging roof and a facade of weathered brown wood scarred with old gunshots and tagged with layers of painted gang graffiti. There was no signage on the door or visible from the street.
Then again, no one who belonged anywhere near this place needed to be told who owned it.
Those who didn’t belong were never given a chance to make the mistake twice.
Kaya counted herself in the latter camp, especially now that she had pledged herself to the Order. Nevertheless, she reached for the black iron latch on the door and pulled it open.
The place was empty and dank. It reeked of stale cigarette smoke and spilled liquor. In the light shining in from behind Kaya as she entered, she saw a dark-haired woman hunched over behind the bar with a mop and bucket.
“We ain’t open yet.”
The young woman’s weary voice held a rasp that made her sound as derelict and forsaken as her surroundings. Kaya disregarded the unwelcome greeting and walked inside anyway.
As the door thumped closed at her back, the woman behind the bar huffed out a curse and swung around with a scowl. “I said we ain’t--”
Her words cut short the instant her eyes met Kaya’s. Astonishment flashed in her gaze, followed by disbelief . . . then a cold, hard suspicion.
Kaya felt all of those things as she looked at her too.
She hadn’t seen this woman’s face in years, since she was sixteen.
But no, that wasn’t quite right.
She saw this face every time she looked in the mirror.
Her twin sister had aged considerably since then, her dark brown eyes narrowing on Kaya as if she were the enemy. And maybe she was.
“Hello, Leah.”
“What are you doing here?” No trace of warmth in that accusing question. Only mistrust. Animosity, even.
Kaya steeled herself to the twinge of hurt she felt at her sibling’s glower. “I need to talk to you.”
Leah glanced nervously over her shoulder, toward the swinging door that led to the back of the bar and the kitchen. She stayed right where she stood, with the bar between her and Kaya like an impenetrable wall. “We’ve had nothing to say to each other for the past four years. How the hell did you know where to find me?”
“I ran into someone who knows you--or did, anyway. His name was Jacob Portman. He was working security at the Rousseau-Mercier wedding.”
Leah’s glare morphed into a confused frown. “You spoke to Red?”
“We exchanged a few words,” Kaya replied, feeling no emotion for the human who had opened fire on Aric after attempting to attack her too.
She’d read his mind in those frantic moments and knew the hatred he had for Aric on sight, simply because he was Breed. She had registered his alliance to violent rebel gangs like the ones who frequented this bar, and the ones who’d carried out this morning’s slayings just a few miles here.
“Portman’s dead,” she told her sister. “I killed him.”
Leah gaped. “Are you insane? Red was one of Angus’s men from back in the day.”
“Well, now he can meet him in hell.”
“You’re crazy.” Her twin let out a sigh and gave a hard shake of her head. “You can’t be here, Kaya. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Why not? Do you have a reason to be afraid of me now?”
“Fuck you.” The response flew at Kaya like a slap to the face. She should have seen it coming. That was always her sister’s method for dealing with difficult conversations and hard choices. Lash out with cutting words and claws bared. “Why are you here? If you’re looking for some kind of teary, pathetic reunion, you can forget it.”
“No, that’s not what I was hoping for,” Kaya admitted quietly.
She’d all but given up on that idea a long time ago.
One of the last times they saw each other had been after their mother’s murder. The night sixteen-year-old Kaya had shot and killed the man responsible for her death, then fled into the city alone. She had run to the only person she knew and felt she could trust: her twin sister.
But Leah had problems of her own, even then. A runaway from the age of fourteen, she had turned out too much like their mother. Troubled. Addicted. Under the control of bad men. Heartless killers who spewed the same hate and lies the girls had been exposed to all their young lives.
Kaya had refused to stay for more than a handful of days. And Leah refused to leave. It was the last time they had seen each other. Until this very moment.
“I want you to know I’m with the Order now.”
Leah reeled back. “With them? What the hell does that mean?”
“I’m training with them here in Montreal, to become a warrior.”
Her sister gaped as if Kaya had just told her she intended to tear someone’s head off and drink from the stump of their neck. “I hope you didn’t come all the way down here just to tell me that.”
“No,” Kaya said. “I came to see if you know anything about a Breed family who were murdered this morning over in Pointe-Claire.”
Leah’s face was unreadable. “Why would I know anything about that?”
“Because whoever did it left quite a calling card. They broke into a Darkhaven and slaughtered the entire family--the parents and two little boys, one of them just an infant.”
Leah swallowed at that, the first reaction she gave that even hinted at emotion.
Kaya pressed on. “They savaged a young mother, Leah. Using her blood, they wrote awful things on the wall above her body. Things I used to hear quite a lot when our mother was alive. Things I heard from the people you call your friends--ignorant assholes like the one who owns this bar.”
Leah’s gaze flicked over her shoulder once more. She lowered her voice to a tight whisper. “If you’re trying to shock me by insinuating Angus or his men had so
mething to do with a killing like that, save your breath. I know what he’s capable of.”
“And yet you stay with them. All this time, Leah, you’ve stayed.”
She didn’t respond, but a storm churned within the dark brown eyes that were so similar to Kaya’s own. There was torment in her gaze, but she refused to give it voice.
“If you know something about the attack on that Darkhaven, you need to tell me.”
Leah crossed her arms. “I don’t. But even if I did, talking to the Order is the last thing I would do.”
Kaya blew out a curse in frustration. “Don’t you care about what’s right or wrong? Doesn’t justice mean anything to you?”
“You have no idea what matters to me,” she shot back now, angry and defensive. “You never did. You were always the strong one, the smart one. Always whispering to me about your dreams and plans for your future, even when we were little kids. The only thing I ever wanted out of my fucked up life was to survive it.”
“At the end of the day, that’s all anyone wants,” Kaya replied.
She’d heard the pain in her sister’s voice. She understood it the way only a twin could, connected on a level that went deeper than basic siblings. But Leah wasn’t reaching out. She was pushing back, barring Kaya as if she were a stranger.
And maybe after all this time, that’s all they were to each other now.
Kaya recalibrated her feelings for her sister, resolved that she wasn’t talking to her twin but questioning a member of a hate group so tight-knit and steeped in doctrine it might as well be labeled a cult.
“Do they know you’re one of us too?” Leah’s question caught her off guard. It held a curious edge, but there was no mistaking the accusation in it, either. “Is that why they sent you here?”
“They didn’t send me. And I’m not one of you,” Kaya replied, but the denial lacked the venom she wanted it to have. “I haven’t been part of this world for a long time.”
Yet she’d been born into it, raised within it. For the first sixteen years of her life, all she’d known was the abhorrent, violent world that somehow still held her sister in its thrall. As much as she wanted to deny it, Kaya’s shame over that fact ran deep. It would likely never fade.
“Oh, my God,” Leah whispered, openly astonished. “They don’t know.”
Kaya felt her jaw clench. “Don’t try to make this about me. If you know anything about those killings today, I need you to tell me. Please, Leah. Whoever did it showed up prepared to take out any Breed male they came in contact with. The Order is investigating. It’s not going to take them long to come around here asking the same questions I am.”
Leah glanced away from her now, her mouth flattened in a hard line. She picked up a damp cloth and began scrubbing the scarred countertop of the bar. “This conversation is over. I want you leave now, Kaya.”
Instead of doing what she asked, Kaya stepped forward. “Have you ever heard Angus mention Opus Nostrum?”
Leah’s hand stilled. Her face paled a bit, blood draining from her cheeks and lips. At that same moment, a thump sounded from the back room of the tavern. Someone had just come in from the alley at the rear of the place. Kaya didn’t have to guess who it was.
“Shit,” Leah hissed. “Get out of here, Kaya. Don’t ever come back, do you understand? Angus will kill me if he sees me talking to you.”
“Then come with me.”
She blurted the offer before the thought had barely formed in her mind. But she meant it. Never mind everything that had passed between them four years ago or at any time before or after. Leah was her sister, her twin. She couldn’t walk away without trying to reach her, to appeal to any thread of humanity still remaining in her.
“I mean it, Leah. You can leave with me, right now. I promise you, the Order will keep you safe.”
“Shut up.” Leah gave a vigorous shake of her head, sending her dark brown hair sifting around her shoulders. “Shut up and get out, Kaya. I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you.”
More noise sounded from the other area of the bar. Then a voice as jagged and cold as gravel called out. “Raven! Goddamn it, woman. Where the fuck are you?”
When Leah flinched, Kaya reached for her hand. “Come with me before it’s too late.”
“Too late?” She scoffed, brittle and angry as she wrenched out of her loose grasp. “You have no idea what you’re saying. Now, get out of here.”
Pain stabbed her as she watched her sister withdraw. “If you refuse now, I may not be able to help you later.”
“Go, damn you!” Leah snapped in a harsh whisper. When Kaya’s feet refused to take the first step, Leah threw down her wash rag and finally circled the bar. “Get out of here. Before I call him up here to make sure you never come back.”
Kaya’s gaze snagged on the subtle fullness of her sister’s belly. She sucked in her breath and it sounded more like a sob than a gasp. “You’re pregnant. Oh, God . . . Leah. Please tell me it doesn’t belong to Angus.”
But her sister gave her no such reassurance. Her unblinking gaze stayed fixed on Kaya, bleak and hard. Her face was shuttered, inscrutable. Unknowable, even though it was a mirror reflection of Kaya’s own features.
“Leah, please--”
“Angus! I’m out here.”
Her shout broke Kaya’s heart. She backed up a couple of paces, edging toward the door as the clomp of heavy boots vibrated in the floorboards. Her sister turned away as Kaya reached the tavern door.
The last thing she saw of Leah was her stiffened spine before Kaya pivoted and bolted out to the street to make her escape.
CHAPTER 16
Aric dropped an image file into a growing folder of possibles for Kaya to review, then moved on to the next hundred photos that waited on his tablet. It was painstaking work, visually scanning every image from the wedding for a glimpse of a dark head on a portly man who might turn out to be the one she saw leaving the reception. As tedious as the search was, without her having read Mercier’s thoughts, the Order wouldn’t even have this small advantage in their pursuit of Opus’s members.
He let out a heavy sigh, frowning when he considered the way Kaya had acted around him this morning.
They had shared an incredible night together. Hell, sunrise hadn’t been half-bad either. He might have been tempted to call it pretty damned close to perfect--if not for the dreadful news that had greeted them not long after they’d come back inside the command center.
The shocking daytime attack on a Darkhaven had put everyone in a grave mood.
In particular, Kaya.
For what wasn’t the first time, Aric checked the clock and wondered if he should have insisted on accompanying her for her run. It wasn’t that he worried for her safety necessarily. She had been trained to handle herself by some of the most capable members of the Order. She was strong-willed and physically fierce, but she was also shaken to her core by what they had witnessed today. He’d seen that in her eyes after they had returned from the crime scene, even though she had insisted she was fine.
When footsteps approached in the corridor, Aric glanced up, hoping it would be her. But the gait was all wrong, too heavy to be her graceful stride.
He exhaled a curse, leaning back in his seat as Rafe strode into the war room.
His comrade cocked his blond head in question. “Something wrong?”
“I thought you might be Kaya. I’m making some good progress on the photos and I need her help to put this task to bed.”
Rafe grunted, then pulled out the chair next to Aric and plopped into it uninvited. “You sure that’s the only thing you want to put to bed? You two seemed awfully friendly last night. I’ve seen you seduce your way around other females often enough to realize there’s something unusual going on with this one.”
“You’re one to talk,” Aric volleyed back. He wasn’t ready to think about how he really felt about Kaya, much less discuss it with Rafe. Instead, he opted for deflection. “Just how serious
are you about this Siobhan O’Shea?”
“Shit,” Rafe said, going quiet for a long moment. “It’s serious. I’ve never met anyone like her, man. She’s beautiful and sweet and so damned innocent. I swear, there are times I wonder how someone as pure and lovely as her can be real. And the way she looks at me . . . like I’m her personal hero or something. It’s heady stuff.”
Aric smirked, reaching out to cuff his friend’s shoulder. “My condolences, brother. Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”
“Yeah. I guess I do.” He blew out a laugh, but his gaze was as solemn as Aric had ever seen it. “You want to hear something crazy? If I had to construct the perfect woman for myself, Siobhan is it to a T. I don’t know why fate decided to put her in my life, but now I can’t imagine letting her go.”
Aric chuckled. “Coming from you, that does sound crazy.”
In all the times they’d caroused together in Boston and more recently in D.C., Rafe had hardly given a second look to any of the countless women who’d tried to catch his eye. His blond mane and aquamarine eyes that turned heads everywhere he went had come from his beautiful mother, Tess. His magnetism with the fairer sex had been a gift passed down from his father, Dante, one of the Order’s most dangerous and revered commanders. With his fallen angel appeal and the dark charm and swagger of the devil himself, Rafe could have any woman he desired.
That the golden warrior was smitten with a timid little waif like Siobhan O’Shea made little sense to Aric, but who was he to question his friend’s heart?
“Gotta say, never thought I’d see the day you let a woman get under your skin like this,” he told him. “Be careful, brother, or you might end up falling in love.”
The fact that he didn’t deny it or at least come back with a smartass reply told Aric just how captivated he was with the Irish Breedmate.
“I just want to keep her safe,” Rafe murmured. “After the hell she’s been through, she deserves some happiness. I want her to know she can trust me to protect her.”
Aric nodded. He was getting a taste of that feeling himself when it came to Kaya. Except her trust seemed hard to win--maybe even impossible. And while she had definitely survived an awful past, she was far from in need of anyone’s rescue. It was a fact that made him respect her even more than if she had been a delicate innocent in search of a hero to save her.