by Marie Harte
He stared down at his empty bowl and poured another.
Avery paused in the doorway, looking sexy as hell in sweats and a skullcap. “Lucky Charms? Really?”
“Don’t even think about screwing with my cereal. You touch one magical marshmallow, and I’ll make your life a living hell.”
“So what else is new?” Avery muttered—not quite under his breath—before he turned away.
Nathan couldn’t help grinning when the door slammed. Having Avery annoyed with him put everything right with the world. The past would always be there, but the future had possibilities. He ate two more bowls of cereal and left the bowl for Avery to clean up when he returned. But on his way out of the kitchen, he made himself look into the far corner, the one place he’d avoided since arriving at the house.
The cellar door was the same. A thick oak wood painted black with a dead bolt high on the frame, too high for a slight twelve-year-old to reach…
* * * *
A foot shoved him hard, and he tumbled down the stairs. He landed on his ass, a few bruises to add to the ones currently there. Something skittered in the pitch-black, and he bit back the cry that would fall on deaf ears. The cold bit deep into his flesh and bones. A soul-weary exhaustion filled him. When would this end? And then the footsteps… It wasn’t over yet. And that made everything worse.
“Come here, Nathan. Come to Uncle Malcolm and take your punishment.”
* * * *
Punishment for what, he’d always ask. And every time, his uncle would beat him harder for not knowing. A smarter boy would have made something up, but Nathan had been stubborn back then, like now. He’d never deserved any of Malcolm’s abuse. He’d avoided his aunt after each occurrence, not wanting her to know, because Malcolm had warned him that if she did, he’d hurt her too. And then that one day he hadn’t been careful enough, and Danielle had seen the hint of a welt under his shirt…
Nathan shrugged the memories away as he exited the kitchen. Not yet. But soon, he’d go down those stairs. He’d get past his fears and find the strength to defeat his uncle. And in the doing, he’d find out what the hell had really happened seventeen years ago, when his uncle had tried to kill Danielle and instead ended up with Nathan’s knife in the center of his chest, where his heart should have been.
Chapter Four
Avery returned to find Nathan frowning at his laptop. “What’s up?” His breath came out in rasps. The temperature outside had lowered to twenty degrees. And though the sidewalks were cleared of snow, he’d still run through several mounds of the white stuff to reach a greater distance. Between the run and last night, he felt like a new man. One able to take on a murderer and a playboy too sexy for his own good.
Christ, when would this desire go away? He tried to ignore his erection and sat down across from his partner. Maybe sex with Nathan wasn’t a good idea, not if it distracted him from keeping an eye out for danger.
“Ian finally found what Jack couldn’t.”
Avery snorted. “I bet that fried Jack’s ass.” Ian Ryder, their newest addition to the team, had been and probably still was a master forger. The guy had contacts all over the place, in law enforcement and underground. When psychic means failed, they could turn to Ian for help, and Ian never let anyone—Jack especially—forget it. Personally Avery liked the guy. Ian was small and cute and funny. Not threatening, and not his type, though Ian had offered several chances to get to know him better.
Nathan glared at the computer.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell has your panties in a twist?”
“Dickhead.” The standard response he typically received from Nathan. Avery had been worried that this morning might be awkward. To his pleasant surprise, being around Nathan felt normal. Just…enhanced…by that sexual tension he now knew they both felt.
“Still waiting.”
“It’s just, here. Look for yourself.” Nathan spun the laptop around. He wore a dark sweater and jeans, his hair looked damp, and he smelled like soap. Clean and handsome and so fucking close. Avery could easily see himself tying Nathan up and having some fun. Later. After the mission, he reminded himself.
He took a look at the laptop and frowned. “This is beyond PWP clearance. How the hell did Ian get this?” Most of the names and locations had been blacked out, but Avery saw enough to understand just what Malcolm Dixon had done that had necessitated his travel all over the place. “I hate to break it to you, Nathan, but your uncle is even worse than you thought.”
“He traveled a lot. Not as much as I liked, but the three years I spent here were tolerable because he was selling drugs.” At Avery’s questioning look, he added, “Pharmaceuticals. So we’d been told.”
“So Danielle didn’t know what he really did for a living?” He’d decided to call her by her first name, because he could see Nathan had yet to deal with her passing.
“Who the fuck knows?”
Avery could feel Nathan’s frustration.
“She apparently had a hard time with the truth.” Nathan rose to his feet and began pacing the kitchen.
The time had come for some answers, things the files hadn’t mentioned about Nathan’s early years. “Tell me what happened that night, when you thought you’d killed him.”
Nathan stopped in his tracks.
“Tell me. I know a little about him, but we need a whole picture of the man. Hell, even you don’t know as much as you thought you knew about him.”
Nathan’s jaw clenched. Then he blew out a breath. “I hated him.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“My mom died when I was ten. I moved in here at my aunt’s insistence. She wanted me; he didn’t. I know he served in the army. That he was a Ranger, I think. But he got out to be with her more. Then he found a job selling drugs to hospitals or something. I only knew he went away and left me the hell alone. But that last time he came back, he was different.”
“How?”
“Normally when he dealt with me, he was cold. Not an emotional head case, but a man who knew what he did was wrong and didn’t care.”
Avery had wanted to ask but wasn’t sure how. So he simply said, “Did he ever sexually assault you?”
Nathan shook his head, and he didn’t appear to be hiding anything. Thank God.
“No, but I have to wonder if he would have if I hadn’t tried to stop him that night.” He looked away from Avery for a moment. Then he met Avery’s gaze once more. “I came back late from a friend’s house. I was supposed to stay the night, but I’d forgotten something at home. I don’t even remember what it was now. I found him in the living room, beating the shit out of my aunt. He’d lost it. Really gone off the deep end. I’d never seen him like that before, and it freaked me the hell out.”
“I’ll bet,” Avery murmured.
Nathan shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down. “Apparently she’d caught him beating me and confronted him with her suspicions. I don’t know if that’s what made him nuts or what, but he was screaming at her and calling her all kinds of names. He was going to kill her. I know it.” He looked at Avery again, and Avery nodded to keep him talking. “So I picked up a big knife lying on his briefcase. A KA-BAR some Marine friend of his had once given him. Like it was calling to me,” he mused, and Avery had the uneasy sensation Nathan had left him. “I picked it up, and I knew where to hit him.”
“Like you read something off it?”
“Kind of.” Nathan didn’t explain any more. “I stabbed his thigh to get his attention. He bled a lot; I remember that. When he let her go and turned, it was like looking at myself. I can’t explain it, but I saw me in that man. He punched me right in the face and kept at it. My aunt jumped on his back and distracted him.
“And then I remembered the knife. After the first punch, I’d dropped it. But when she jumped him, I grabbed it. I’m still not sure how I did it. I could barely see through swollen eyes.” Nathan spoke quickly, the rush of words and the panic behind them pulling at heartstrings Ave
ry didn’t know he had. “My nose was broken, and he’d cracked my jaw. But I stabbed the fucker as deep as I could, right in the heart. He fell with a surprised look on his face, or so Danielle told me.”
Avery had to clear his throat to speak. “No shit?”
“Yeah. I swear he was dead. I mean, I stabbed him in the heart. We took off. No medical attention or anything. Just jumped in her car and vanished off the grid. We stole a car on the road and ended up at my grandmother’s. She hooked us up with cash. Gran was loaded.” His strained smile reflected no joy. “Then we disappeared. When he never came after us, I thought he’d died.”
“Did Danielle tell you that?”
“No.” Nathan frowned. “Come to think of it, we never talked about him again. Like if we didn’t mention him, he’d never existed. And our lives were great.” He blinked hard. “Were being the key word. I can’t believe the fucker was still alive all that time. I mean, wouldn’t my aunt have changed my name if she knew that?”
“Not necessarily. You do know your last name was originally spelled with a C and not a K, right?”
“What?”
Avery shook his head. “Didn’t you read the folder I gave you?”
“I thought it was the same one I had.”
“No. Jack had me look through a few things he dug up, stuff that didn’t jibe. Michelle Kraft never gave birth to you, but a Danielle Craft did after she’d been married to Malcolm Dixon.”
“How could he not have known?”
“From what I read, the guy was active duty and deployed at the time. He was gone for more than a year. Probably why she never told him or you. Danielle stepped out on the guy and was afraid he’d find out and try to kill you. Even she had to know he was unstable after living with him for so long. Think about it. If it was bad when he thought you were his nephew, imagine what he might have done if he’d thought you were his wife’s illegitimate kid.”
“Good point.” Nathan sat next to him. “This shit is giving me a headache. I mean, why, if Malcolm was alive all these years, did he wait so long to come back? Why kill Danielle now? And why come after me if she’s dead?”
“Yeah. And what are the odds he happens to be in possession of a stolen blade belonging to our client, and you’re now on the case?”
“Has to be a setup, right?” Nathan’s gaze met his, puzzlement clear in his even features. “What have you seen, Avery?”
“Besides your uncle in this house holding that bloodied blade? Not much.” He refused to admit he didn’t want to look again. He feared seeing Nathan dead or hurt, and he didn’t want to know.
“When’s the last time you looked?”
Trust Nathan to be persistent. “Let me shower, and I’ll get back to you on that. Besides, we need to talk about how to handle the case. I have an idea or two to get Malcolm back here sooner than later.” He left the room before his partner could nag him again.
Avery didn’t like the taste of fear anytime he looked too closely at the future. Dark times were coming. Though he’d seen himself and Nathan laughing together, he didn’t know if that would occur before or after they dealt with Dixon. And they would deal with Dixon. That, Avery knew to his bones. He just hoped they could both live with the outcome.
* * * *
After running five miles through thick flora and the uneven terrain of the jungle outlying his home, Malcolm retreated to the small courtyard in the middle of his ranch. A small, covered pavilion sat at the center of the courtyard, where a photograph perched on a small wooden table. Malcolm approached and stared at the picture. It was a routine steeped in loss, betrayal, and remembrance.
Danielle had been a true beauty in face and form and deed. If he’d ever suspected she might turn on him the way she had, he never would have married her. It hurt to see her staring back at him when he knew she was lost forever. But he needed the pain to remind himself he was still alive.
He sighed and left the pavilion to start his daily exercises. Nearby, in a stand that held his favorite weapons, Sangre watched over him. He executed the familiar lunges, poses, and strikes calculated to reaffirm his muscle memory. Decades of hard training had allowed him to age slowly. Though he’d turned fifty-five just two weeks ago, he had the body of a man much younger.
His life had come full circle, ever since he’d found Sangre. The gladius called to him, returned him to the place of his birth and the scene of a terrible day he wished he could do over. Even now, two decades after her perfidy, Malcolm still missed his wife.
Her surprise upon seeing him hadn’t been faked. The same government agency that had told him she and Nathan were dead had told her the same about him.
He didn’t mind the lie she’d been given so much as he cared about being manipulated. Now that his old handler lay chopped to pieces beside a copse of morro trees, Malcolm felt a step closer to closing the circle of his strange past.
Only twice in his life that he could recall had he ever lost control. In both instances, Danielle—and by extension, Nathan—had been involved.
He finished his exercises and gripped Sangre in his hand. He thrust and parried, dancing with his new favorite weapon as he reveled in the blade’s grace. Moving as so many had before him, he reenacted the killings that made Sangre so powerful.
Danielle had been an easy execution. The blade had soaked up her blood and spirit in one smooth, slick thrust. Her confessions had come too little, too late. He refused to believe the joy he’d seen flash in her eyes. It had been there and gone briefly, like the flash of life that winked out in the shadow of Sangre’s cool cunning.
Secrets upon secrets. He hadn’t been the only one with something to hide. Or someone, in Danielle’s case.
Malcolm still resented Nathan, the greedy child who’d stolen his wife’s interest. The blade fed his bile, and he allowed it. The emotion saturated him, filling all the empty parts of a man once whole. And then he knew.
Nathan wasn’t just his past. Nathan was his future. The possibility of continuation, forever, teased with potential. What if the boy had grown into a man Malcolm could use? From the material he’d gathered in the past few days, Malcolm knew Nathan had inherited his share of talent. The ability to touch an object and know its truth was a power unto itself. Like Malcolm’s ability to touch a weapon and absorb the knowledge of how to best use it, and how others had used it. What if Malcolm could absorb Nathan’s essence the way Sangre did—through death?
Excitement flared at the thought of battling Nathan face-to-face. Where so many other foes fell too easily, the boy wouldn’t fade, not as fast. He’d been the only person ever to get too close to killing him. At the time, Malcolm had considered the incident a freak coincidence, sheer luck. Now he knew better. The boy had power, and he’d tapped into it.
What would it be like to fight someone of that skill? To know that he’d found a worthy opponent, finally? Blood of his blood, a tie connecting father to son?
He grinned and slashed at the air once more, sure Danielle would roll over in her grave if she knew what thoughts filled his thriving mind.
* * * *
“You’re kidding, right?”
Avery shrugged. “What’s the problem? We’re not learning anything from the neighbors. The library has jack shit on the guy, and Ian’s only managed to tell us to hurry up and wait while he ferrets more crap on Dixon.”
“So your answer is to put out an ad in the local paper?” Had Avery slipped in the shower and hit his head? “Genius, we don’t want Malcolm to know we’re here. We want to surprise him, remember? That way, when he’s standing over me with a bloody sword, I’m ready to take him out. Not become his next victim. Shit.”
“Easy there, Nancy.”
Nathan hated Avery’s condescension, even as he thrived on their arguments. He was such an idiot, helpless to stop himself from craving the attention.
“What we need to do is take control of the situation,” Avery continued. “I know Malcolm will be here. I know he’ll be carrying Sangr
e covered in blood, and I see you in the vision. You’re whole, not a scratch on ya, so take it easy.”
“Stop being an ass. This isn’t about me being afraid.” It’s about me worrying about you. I can’t protect you from the monster if I’m dead. “I know what he’s capable of; you don’t. You might think you’re hot shit on the mats, but Malcolm is lethal with a weapon. And with Sangre, he’s more than capable of killing…and killing…and killing…”
“I get that.” Avery regarded him with a narrowed gaze. “You haven’t opened up in here, have you?” Psychically.
Nathan shook his head. “It’s a lot to absorb. Especially since everything in this house has been handled not only by my aunt, uncle, and myself, but by all the other people who’ve traipsed through in the years since. My aunt let a friend of hers run the place as an inn for a while. That’s part of where the place got the reputation for being haunted. The guests claimed they heard strange noises at night.”
Avery remained silent a moment, his blue eyes impossibly deep. “What if they did hear noises? What if your uncle used to come back here after you and your aunt left?”
“Creepy, but it could have happened.” Nathan repressed a shiver. As much as he needed to kill the old man, he didn’t want to face him again. He’d tried to put that part of his life behind him.
“I want you to feel out the house. I’ll be with you. And while you do, I’ll open myself as well, try and catch any floating energy, maybe jump-start my senses to see the future more clearly.” At Nathan’s look, he shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”
“I don’t know. We’ve never worked that way together before.” But the notion intrigued him. Having Avery nearby while he opened his psychic senses would ease his worry about safety. While he tapped into his abilities, Nathan lost his awareness of reality. Just as Avery did. “Look, if we do this, you have to stay awake and aware until I pull out. I don’t want us both fuzzy in case Malcolm’s here somewhere, watching.