“How would you know that?”
She rolled her eyes, and his cock jerked. She made him want to yank her into his arms and kiss the sass out of her.
“I read. When you’re alone a lot, you read. I happen to be fascinated by crime stories.” Color tinged her face. “I write sometimes. You know. Stories. I like to write and I do research, studying crime and criminals. Arnotto was in the news a lot. More recently, his granddaughter, Siena, was in the news. I know Alonzo Massi took over the territory, but …” She trailed off, a little confused by the name change. She knew Alonzo’s name had been changed.
“Fyodor Amurov and Alonzo Massi are the same person. Fyodor only recently went back to his name.”
They were ready for their uncles to come after them. Coming out in the open was better than letting them think they were afraid of them. Lazar and Rolan would love nothing more than to think their nephews were cowering far from their homeland, living in fear of their retaliation. Fyodor had thrown down the gauntlet by taking back his name.
“Maybe I thought by coming here, I’d be safe, and I’d learn more and be able to write better. I don’t know, I just felt it was the right thing to do. I can leave, Timur. I don’t want Evangeline to think I came here to hurt her or her husband.”
His heart clenched hard in his chest. She wasn’t leaving. It was too late for that. His leopard had claimed her. He ignored her offer, but he also heard the mixture of lie with truth. It was difficult to hear, but something about her tone made him uneasy. “Tell me about your parents’ murders. Who did it? Were they caught?”
She shook her head. Her fingers left her bare thigh and stroked her throat. He could see she wasn’t aware of that defensive gesture, nor did she realize her hand trembled. The tip of her tongue moistened her full lower lip, ran all along the curve and disappeared. “I should have been there. I wasn’t there, but I should have been.”
He remained silent, but now she was rocking herself very gently. It took everything he had not to pull her into his arms. He understood why Evangeline had fallen under her spell. Ashe not only appeared innocent of any crime, she was compelling. Mesmerizing. She had a magnetism about her that pulled anyone near her right into her. He felt her emotions as if they were his own. Telling her she would have been killed along with her parents wasn’t going to change how she felt.
“We weren’t living together. My parents were very … private. I don’t know the right way to put it. It was the two of them. They loved me, but they liked to be alone together. Maybe it was from living so long apart from the world. In any case, they encouraged me to go out on my own when I turned eighteen. I didn’t go very far, but I loved having freedom. I checked in with them every week or so, or they found me and did the same. We were like that for a couple of years.”
“So, you lived close to them. In a town?”
She nodded. “Hence my barista skills. I got a job in a little café similar to the Small Sweet Shoppe, although it was more coffee than pastries. That was where Evangeline and I worked together. Sometimes my shifts didn’t give me much time off, and I was a little surprised they didn’t come to see me after two weeks. We had never gone that long. The first two days I had off in a row, I went up to their cabin.”
She dropped her hand, and he saw her swallow hard. Her small teeth bit into her lip and she shook her head. “They were in pieces. Tortured, it looked like. Whoever did it was sadistic. I could barely tell who they were.”
She dropped her gaze from his, but not before he saw the sheen of tears. That hurt. An actual pain. He couldn’t stop himself. He pulled her right into his arms and held her against him. She held herself stiff. Resistant. He almost released her but then her body melted into his. Her skin was hot, probably from the bout with her leopard’s heat she’d wrestled with in her sleep.
She smelled good. Her hair. Her skin. He resisted tasting her and found he was a little resentful that his leopard had. He pulled her onto his lap and rocked her gently, trying to give her comfort when he knew there was none to be had. How could there be?
“Who could have done that to them?” She pulled back enough to look up at him. “It doesn’t make sense. I knew they were leopard. I didn’t think I was, because I didn’t feel her. I hoped, of course, but my mother explained it wasn’t always passed on. I knew they were. Dad was a ferocious fighter. What could possibly defeat two leopards and then tear them to pieces like that?”
He had a bad feeling he knew. “Could they have seen something they shouldn’t have? Did they talk to you about where they came from? Two leopards don’t just appear out of nowhere. They had to have come from a lair.”
Ashe all but crawled off his lap. He let her, because she didn’t know she already belonged to him and he wasn’t going to add to the mess she was already trying to comprehend. She swept back the tendrils of hair falling wildly around her face and once more took up her position in the middle of the bed.
“I don’t know where they were from. Neither ever told me.”
Her eyes hadn’t quite met his and there was something in her voice … Not a lie exactly. A deception? He wasn’t certain. “Did you ever see them in leopard form?”
She nodded. “Of course. Often.”
“Describe what they looked like.”
She smiled at the memory. “My father’s leopard was interesting. That golden color was only along his spine, the rest of his coat was grayish-white in color with very widely spaced rosettes. I thought he was beautiful and unique.”
She was describing an Arabian leopard. They were very rare. Their numbers had fallen below a hundred. Below fifty. Now, one had been killed.
“Your mother? What did she look like?”
“She was beautiful. Truly beautiful. Her coat was very thick and the ring around her rosettes was very thick. She was distinctive, even though she had a pale coat as well. Not like my father’s but still not the gold color you think of when you describe a leopard.”
He couldn’t be certain without seeing her mother in leopard form, but it almost sounded like an Amur leopard. He was very familiar with the Amur leopard. He was one. He turned the information over and over in his mind. He had heard stories of an incident …“How old was your mother when she gave birth to you?”
“She was very young when she had me. A teenager. Barely sixteen.”
He couldn’t sit there on that bed. He got up quickly, all flowing muscle, hot energy needing to go somewhere. Needing to do something. “Did your father keep a diary? A journal? Was there anything at all that might be a record of your parents meeting? Their life together?”
He talked too fast. Asked too many questions. She looked at him as if he’d grown two heads.
“Why? What are you thinking? Do you know who killed them?”
“I need more information.” His eyes were on her face, and this time, he told his leopard very firmly to listen for any note of deception. “Why did you really come here? You read about Evangeline marrying. I know that is true, but you came here looking for answers about your parents, didn’t you? You thought Fyodor might have those answers.”
For the first time, her gaze slid completely from his. Just for a moment, but he caught it. There was the briefest of hesitations. “I did read about Evangeline getting married. I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. I really don’t have other friends, and I’m not trying to sound pathetic. It’s the truth. I came here because I was afraid. As for answers, what would Fyodor know about my parents’ deaths?”
She’d turned that around neatly, but he wasn’t buying it. He paced across the room, sending her a scorching look. “You don’t want to play games with me, baby. Not when I have to protect my family. You fucking tell me the truth. I want to know why you’re here. Cut the bullshit and get to the facts.”
“I have told you the facts.”
He moved fast, a blur of speed. He had her down on the bed, his fingers wrapped around her throat while he loomed over top of her. He let her stare into his eyes. Flat
. Cold. Glacier cold. Ice blue. Let her see the kills. So many. Too many. Let her see he was capable of ending her life right there. He let her feel it as well, his fingers easily cutting off all air so that she fought him instinctively, her body thrashing, her feet drumming, her fingers trying to pry his loose.
Only when he was certain she understood the rules did he let her go. She gasped. Wheezed. Fought to pull air into her burning lungs. He got up and got her a glass of water. When he returned she was sitting up slowly. She clearly considered throwing the water in his face, but when he stared her down, she took small sips to allow it to slide down her swollen throat.
She glared at him, but he could see he’d gotten his point across. He hated the fact that he couldn’t disconnect with her. He had perfected the ability in his youth. It had been the only way to survive. Now, with Ashe, even knowing she was lying, he couldn’t disassociate. He was disciplined enough to stay in control, to continue to give her that flat killer’s look that kept her in line, but for the first time since he’d been a child with a father forcing him to hurt others, he felt what he was doing.
She cleared her throat, winced, and then glared some more.
He indicated the glass of water in her hand. “Drink some more. The cold will help.”
She didn’t argue. She drank. He leaned against the bureau, managing to look lazy and unsympathetic. It required all of his acting skills. He waited. He’d done enough interrogations to know when someone would crack. He’d scared her. He’d also pissed her off. She wasn’t completely cowed, which would have been better for them both, but he liked the fact that she wasn’t.
“My mother was a victim of human trafficking when she was just fifteen. At least, that was what was in her journal. I knew where she kept it. She was terrified of her father.”
“From Russia?” The moment he heard the description of her mother’s leopard, the thick, lighter-colored coat, it made sense. Some of the female children were auctioned off or sent to work for a man who ran the brothels for Lazar. He moved the women constantly so they would never make any friends.
“How did she come to be with your father?”
“He was from another country, but very wealthy. His father bought girls at an auction and he purchased my mother and gave her to his son for his birthday.” She cleared her throat and then took another sip of water.
He was patient. In any interrogation it was important to read the one being interrogated. Every nuance. Every expression. He knew when to stay quiet and when to push. He didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.
“Her leopard rose and was claimed by my father’s leopard. When my father realized that he couldn’t ever marry her, or be with her on a permanent basis, that his father planned to give her to others and then return her to the man who’d sold her when he was finished with her, they ran. My father took enough money to survive for years if they were careful.”
“They had to have been extremely careful to last, what? Twenty years?”
She nodded. “At least I thought they were careful.”
She pressed the glass to her forehead as if it ached. He found himself staring at the marks on her throat. He wanted to mark her skin, but not like that. It didn’t give him satisfaction to see his fingerprints on her.
She pulled the glass down and looked at him, sorrow in her eyes. “My father had been trying to stop the trafficking and the auctions. He had names and dates. He had even contacted some of the victims. He had someone talking to him from my mother’s family, feeding him information, and then his source abruptly went silent.”
“Who was this person?”
“My mother’s sister.”
He doubted it. Her mother’s sister would have been trafficked right along with her, unless she was given to someone in marriage. Often, a lair would give a woman to a man in another lair so he could have children. Once she produced sons for him, he would kill her. That was the fate of the women in his world. Still, if that had happened, and Ashe’s father had located her, most likely she was now dead and her husband had found some evidence of correspondence.
Was he really buying this? What kind of coincidence would it have to be to have the messenger show up right at the same time as Ashe? More, that he would find a place to rent just one street over from her? That was a lot to ask anyone to believe, let alone a suspicious man like him.
“I’m telling the truth.”
“You didn’t before.”
“Everything I’ve told you is the truth. I just left off parts or twisted them to what I needed, but the truth was there.”
“Because you know I’m leopard and can hear lies.”
“Your leopard bit me. He called to my leopard. Why did he do that?”
“We’ll get to that once we sort this out. I can’t have you running around like a loose cannon when my brother’s life could be in danger.”
“Why would his life be in danger from me?” she demanded, but once again, just for a fraction of a second, her gaze slid from his.
“Do you believe he has something to do with human trafficking?”
Her mouth tightened. She didn’t answer, but he didn’t need her to. He shook his head. “Did you come here to kill him?”
“I would never kill an innocent man.”
“Ashe, do you really think a woman like Evangeline, the woman you obviously respect, would be married to a man involved in trafficking?” He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her levelly, daring her to say one unkind thing about Evangeline.
“She might not know.”
“She’s too intelligent for that. If he’s involved, she would know. She wouldn’t tolerate it, not for one second, and you know that. Gut level. Deep down. You know that about her.”
She nodded because no one could be in Evangeline’s company for two minutes and not recognize she wouldn’t tolerate her husband being involved in something like human trafficking.
“He’s still my only lead,” she said. “If he isn’t the one, maybe he can point me in the right direction. And it doesn’t negate the fact that I needed a friend and a place to lie low.”
He studied her face while the tension between them stretched to screaming. “Has it occurred to you that the reason your father died is because he didn’t leave this alone? These men play for keeps.”
“As do you.” She coughed and took another sip of water.
He nodded. “I’m responsible for Fyodor and Evangeline. They have an enemy so cruel and so vicious, you could never conceive of him, not in your worst nightmare. I take that responsibility very seriously. It weighs heavy on me every time they are out of my sight. I walk a very fine line, giving my sister-in-law the things she needs to make her happy, and yet keeping her safe while she does them.”
“Like her bakery.”
He nodded. “She loves it, but she’s very vulnerable there. Our enemies will always know when she has to get there and when she leaves. They will think nothing of killing others to get to her. Innocent people who’ve done nothing to them. They would bomb her bakery and think nothing of blowing up every store for a block.”
“And you think I could be one of these people.” She made it a statement.
He nodded. “It’s possible. You carry weapons. You’re leopard. You arrived at the same time one of our enemies sent a messenger. That’s a big coincidence, Ashe.”
“I’ll leave.” Her fingers went back to stroking her throat, a nervous gesture he knew she wasn’t aware of. The action drew attention to the darkening marks there.
He didn’t so much as blink and he breathed evenly, keeping the tension from showing in his body. His leopard was now prowling, suddenly very moody and bad-tempered. “If you left, I wouldn’t have the ability to keep my eyes on you, now would I?”
She went back to glaring. “I can’t win no matter what I offer to do. I told you the truth. My name really is Ashe Bronte Mostafa.”
“And you know Mostafa is your true surname.” He made it a statement.
Fa
int color slid up her neck to stain her face. She nodded. “Yes. I know that’s my real name. My father didn’t like us to use it. They both loved Bronte poems. I know Charlotte Bronte was famous for her novels, but she did write poetry. She, along with her sisters, wrote poems my parents particularly liked.”
He particularly liked them as well. “What was their favorite?”
She raised her chin the slightest bit, as if she thought he was challenging her. “Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Life.’ They often read that one to me.”
He was familiar with it, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. She had managed, in a very short period of time, to slip under his guard and get inside him. There was something very valiant about her. He straightened slowly, a thought coming to him. It was farfetched and completely ridiculous, but sometimes one had to consider the ridiculous.
“Did your father ever talk about the messenger? Or a messenger? Did you ever hear him use those words?”
She nodded. “Once, just after I moved out. I had gone to visit them, and they weren’t staying in the cabin. I tracked them into the hills. I knew their favorite camping spots, so even when their tracks disappeared into water, I knew where I could find them. Dad said they’d be traveling in the mountains for a few months but staying relatively close just in case I needed them.” She finished the water off and set the glass aside on the nightstand.
“Needed them for what?”
“He told me to look out for a man. A stranger. One calling himself Apostol. He said he was the messenger. I said messenger for what? Of what? He never answered me. He just looked at my mother and both shook their heads.”
“He is the messenger of death,” Timur supplied. “At least that’s what his role is supposed to be. Most likely, he caught up with your parents.”
“This messenger killed them? He tortured and then killed them?”
“I doubt if he did the actual killing. He found them, delivered the message so they would know they were living on borrowed time, and then the actual elimination team was brought in.”
“Is that what you are?” She looked him straight in the eye. “Are you the elimination team? Is that why you’re here?”
Leopard's Run Page 6