Ultimate Sins

by Lora Leigh

  “The only thing I could do,” she answered, her voice tear-thick as she drew away from him. “The only thing I could do.”

  Turning away and wiping her eyes, she drew in a hard breath. Her fingers were still shaking as she straightened the top she wore, then stiffened her shoulders and moved for the door.

  Explanations. She had come up to their room to talk to him, he remembered. His hunger for her had been too great to wait, though.

  Crowe was beginning to wonder if perhaps he should have waited.

  * * *

  Amelia could feel Crowe moving behind her as she descended the stairs, aware of Ivan Resnova, several of his men, as well as Rory, John, and Ivan’s uncle, Gregori Resnova, waiting in the foyer.

  John caught her gaze, and what she read there had her shaking harder than ever.

  Understanding.

  John knew what, who, was coming.

  She could feel it racing through her.

  Ivan Resnova stepped forward as well as the four cousins he’d hired as security agents for the company he and Crowe co-owned with the other Callahan cousins.

  “The vehicles are parked just outside, Crowe,” Ivan stated, his cool gaze sliding over Amelia before returning to Crowe. “Are we certain this is safe?”

  “It’s safe,” Crowe growled, but she could hear a thread of some emotion in his voice. An awareness perhaps. He didn’t know exactly who was in the car, but did he suspect?

  “Very well.” Turning to Rory and another agent by the door, he nodded.

  The front door was opened, four agents moving quickly outside it as Crowe brought Amelia to a stop at the bottom of the staircase.

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow. Panic was pushing at the edge of her mind, tempting her to just spill the truth before her parents walked in the door.

  She heard the first curse.

  Ivan had moved to the front door, and now his gaze turned to her in accusation.

  Stepping aside he allowed her uncle, Jack Roberts, into the house. Behind him her mother rushed in, and then her father, Ethan, and the burden he carried. They were all surrounded by the four men who made up the independent Ready Team One.

  It was Amelia’s father’s burden that held everyone’s attention as her head lifted from Ethan’s chest.

  Brown and gold swirled together, creating an oddly penetrating gaze. Long, thick black hair was pulled back from a delicate, fragile little face with a stubborn chin and high, Callahan cheekbones.

  She was dressed in jeans that practically hung on her tiny frame, while the sweater and jacket she wore couldn’t shield the fact that she was far too small for her age.

  Was Crowe holding his breath?

  Those eyes locked on her as her grandfather set her on the floor and helped her out of the heavy jacket. A bright smile curled her lips and joy lit her face as she looked from Amelia then to Crowe, then back to Crowe again.

  Finally, Kimberly Crowe Callahan Roberts gave a muted little cry and threw herself into her mother’s arms.

  “Mommy, I missed you so much,” her baby cried as Amelia caught her, lifted her up, and held her as tightly as she dared.

  Burying her face in the heavy silk of Kimmy’s hair she tried to force her tears back, hating the thought of sobbing again, here, in front of so many.

  “Hello, Crowe,” Amelia’s mother, Thea, greeted softly. “I’m sorry we had to do it this way.”

  “We had to protect her, Crowe,” Ethan stated as Amelia tried to reassure herself it was going to be okay.

  Kimmy lifted her head then, her gaze spearing to her father’s as Amelia fought the need to scream at everyone for staring at them as though they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  Blinking, Kimmy watched him as Amelia turned to him. He was staring at their daughter as though dazed, disbelieving.

  “Crowe, I’d like you to meet Kimberly Crowe Callahan Roberts. You wanted to know where I disappeared to four and a half months after you left?” She stared back at her daughter as Kimmy watched her father somberly. “Kimmy was born three and a half months early.”

  “But I was strong, wasn’t I, Mommy?” Kimmy smiled at her, though Amelia could see the uncertainty in her eyes.

  “You were, baby.” Amelia agreed.

  Kimmy looked around the room then. Rory first. She gave him a little smile as he winked at her. Then John. She almost giggled when John blew her a kiss.

  Ivan simply stared at her, causing Kimmy to glance back at her mother, once again uncertain before looking back at Crowe.

  Amelia’s heart broke as Kimmy’s eyes filled with tears and she turned back to her mother. “Daddy doesn’t like me?”

  Heartbroken, her breath hitching with the tears filling her eyes, Kimmy laid her head against Amelia’s shoulder, rejection slumping her too-small shoulders as Amelia stared back Crowe and fought more tears.

  “What have you done, Amelia?” Crowe whispered then, his voice strangled, his gaze still locked on his daughter. “What have you done?”

  Kimmy’s head jerked up. The look she gave her father had him flinching. “She made sure that bad man couldn’t get me,” Kimmy informed him fiercely. “And she made sure that mean old Wayne couldn’t hurt you. And you should like me just because I’m your daughter and because I’m a very good girl. I’m a good girl, my grandpa and my grandma and my mommy and my uncles all say I’m a good girl and that if you don’t like me then it’s because you’ve got a mean heart.”

  “Kimmy,” Amelia exclaimed, shocked at her daughter’s outburst.

  “Mommy, I’m a good girl.” Kimmy’s lips trembled. As she turned back to her mother, her first tear fell. “Tell him. I’m the best daughter.”

  “Baby, he just met you.” She couldn’t breathe. Amelia fought the pain raging through her as she stroked her fingers down the back of her daughter’s thick hair. “He didn’t know about you.”

  Kimmy’s chin jutted out, and the look she gave Crowe should have cut him off at his knees. “He should have known he was a daddy,” she accused him tearfully. “’Cause I always pray, and I’m a good girl, and I asked God all the time to make my daddy find us and make you safe.” Kimmy turned back to her, too somber, too serious. “I cry when you’re not home, Mommy. That bad man might hurt you, and daddies are supposed to take care of their mommies and their good girls. They’re supposed to, Mommy. And I begged God and I know God heard my prayers. I know he did.”

  * * *

  Crowe stared at his daughter as the words fell from her lips. He was strangling. The band around his heart and his throat was tightening as years of memories surged to the forefront of his brain.

  She had prayed.

  I bet you have a good girl, too, the daughter of a friend he’d had several years before said when he’d told her she was good girl.

  Crowe had told her he didn’t have any children.

  The little girl stared back at him for long minutes, frowning before saying, “I bet you do.”

  And he had laughed, but all he could see in that second was Amelia, a child in her arms. A daughter that looked like him, yet was as delicate and fragile as the woman he couldn’t forget.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Amelia whispered as he felt everyone’s stare on him, condemning him, accusing him. “I couldn’t, Crowe. I couldn’t risk our baby…”

  Because of the Slasher. Because she hadn’t known Wayne was a killer, but she knew he would have done anything to get his hands on her and Crowe’s daughter.

  The thoughts whipped through his mind, tearing at him as he stared back at the delicate, hurt-filled expressions of both mother and daughter.

  “Why don’t you like me?” Kimmy asked, causing Amelia’s gaze to whip back to her.

  “Kimmy, no…”

  “I could never not like you,” Crowe whispered over the protest Amelia would made.

  Kimmy looked confused now. “You don’t want me?”

  “Kimmy, stop,” Amelia ordered the little girl gently. “St
op, baby.”

  “I do want you,” Crowe promised her, feeling that possessiveness rising inside him now like a fever he couldn’t control. “Yes, Kimmy, I do want you.”

  “Then why do you look so mad at me and Mommy?”

  “I’m not mad at you,” he promised. “I’m not mad at you in any way.”

  “You’re mad at Mommy?” she asked softly.

  His lips quirked. “I’m not mad at Mommy.”

  “Come here, squirt.” It was Ethan who rescued them all as he took the girl from her mother’s arms.

  Crowe’s fingers fisted at his sides as he fought to hold back the urge to jerk his daughter from the mercenary’s arms. Ethan had obviously been with his daughter from the beginning, just as Amelia’s mother, Thea, had been.

  “Mr. Roberts, Rory will show you and Amelia’s mother to your rooms.” Ivan stepped forward then, his expression cold and hard as he glanced at Amelia. “Once you’ve settled in, we can make arrangements for your men. For the moment, the spare house that was once Amelia’s has been housing the agents on duty here. They can stay there.”

  “Jack stays here,” Ethan informed the other man, his tone firm as he turned back to the others. “The rest of you go ahead to the spare house. I’ll contact you once I’ve settled things here.”

  Four battle-hardened, scarred, icy-eyed men of war. None of them were married or had families, but before they left, each of them took Kimmy in his arms and accepted a hug and a kiss as though it was some fucking ritual, Crowe thought.

  He recognized the jealousy crawling through him as well. They had been there as his daughter grew, as she turned into the fiery, outspoken little minx she so obviously was.

  Other men had raised and protected his child.

  His child.

  He should have been protecting her. His cousins should have been her uncles. He shouldn’t have been introduced to his daughter after she was old enough to realize he hadn’t protected her and her mother.

  Finally, Kimmy gave her mother a kiss and tightened her arms around her neck.

  “I can live with you now, Mommy?” she asked, obviously determined that she wasn’t going to be separated from her again. “I’m always scared the bad man’s hurt you when you’re not home at night.”

  “I know, baby.” Amelia held her with a desperation Crowe couldn’t have missed if he’d wanted to. “And I promise, I’m trying to make sure you get to stay with me every night.”

  She couldn’t promise her daughter they’d be together.

  She couldn’t even promise her daughter that the bad man wouldn’t hurt either one of them anymore.

  Ethan took Kimmy from her arms, kissed Amelia’s cheek gently, then followed Rory up the stairs while Thea hugged her daughter tightly before following.

  Her uncle, Jack Roberts, moved forward. He didn’t hug Amelia. He faced Crowe instead. “I think of the sacrifices my niece has had to make because she loved you,” he said, his voice soft. “We could have taken her from here.” He looked around the house. “We could have taken her anywhere in the world and she could have lived safely with her daughter…”

  “Jack, stop, please,” Amelia begged him, her hands catching his lower arm in supplication. “Please don’t do this.”

  He didn’t even glance at her. “She deserved a life that didn’t include hanging around here to protect you until that damned Slasher could be caught. A life that didn’t include lying to her family about the son of the bitch she had to claim for a father that was abusing her.” Anger filled Jack’s voice.

  “Uncle Jack, please. Please don’t do this.”

  Crowe turned his gaze to her, his fists so tight he swore his knuckles were going to pop from the flesh. “Enough, Amelia,” he growled. “You couldn’t tell me the truth. At least let someone else do it.”

  “No,” she protested, glaring at her uncle. “Stop this now, Jack. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “It wasn’t then,” he agreed, his expression scathing as he turned back to Crowe. “But the second he decided to accuse and judge you for whatever the hell it is he has in his mind, then it becomes his fault.”

  “For God’s sake, Jack,” she whispered, pain filling her voice as Crowe saw the aching regret in her eyes. “He didn’t know and I won’t have this. Not now. Not like this. Let it go. Now.” Her voice hardened. Jack grimaced before staring down at her like a damned teenager wondering if he could get away with some prank.

  “Amelia…”

  “Now, Jack,” she demanded. “Let it go.”

  The look Crowe was given would have worried a lesser man. A man who didn’t know his own strengths, his own abilities.

  “We’ll talk later,” Jack promised him.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” Crowe assured him, inclining his head in acceptance of the upcoming confrontation.

  “Chill out, badass.” Jack grinned, his head dipping to kiss the top of Amelia’s head gently. “We’re going to make everything work out, just you wait and see.”

  They were going to make everything work out?

  Unclenching his fists long enough to rake his fingers through his hair, Crowe turned and stalked from the foyer and from Amelia.

  He couldn’t trust himself, couldn’t trust his own response to her or the self-disgust raging through him.

  Because he should have known, he told himself. The day Clyde had called, weeks after Crowe had left, to tell him Amelia had been at the ranch looking for him, he should have known.

  He had known.

  Striding through the kitchen and out the back door. The shock of icy wind slicing through his clothes barely registered. The snow swirling through the air, the hint of the blizzard moving in—none of it registered.

  His daughter.

  All he could see was his daughter, her soft little voice asking him why he didn’t like her. Telling him her mother had protected her, that was what she did.

  “You fucker!” The words tore from him as he glared into the darkness. “Come on out, Wayne. Come on, you son of a bitch, because I’m going to cut your fucking heart out. Wherever you’re hiding, however you’re hiding, enjoy it tonight. Enjoy it, because I’m coming for you.”

  He stared out at the cold, the snow, the moonless night wrapping around him.

  “I’m finished playing, Wayne. You’re dead.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Crowe?” Thea Roberts stepped into the darkened kitchen as Crowe refilled the coffee cup he’d brought down from the security center. “How have you been?”

  He was sucked back into the past just that fast.

  Thea Teague Sorenson and Kimberly Corbin had been the best of friends, even before marriage. Thea had been a regular part of Crowe’s life until his parents’ death. And then for several years later, until her own supposed death.

  Turning from the counter and staring back at her through the dim light, he realized she looked different. Not just physically, though she retained enough of her former looks that he could identify who she was. She looked stressed, but there was an inner contentment in her gaze. The look of a woman well satisfied by not just her lover, but also her relationship with him and the life he provided her.

  “What happened, Thea?” he asked her, leaning back against the counter to watch curiously as she pulled a stool from beneath the center island bar and lifted herself to it. “Why did you desert Amelia?”

  “Desert her?” Thea shook her head, her once naturally dark hair a soft, dark blond, her green-and-gray-toned hazel eyes enhanced by contacts and appearing more green than they had before her disappearance. “I would have never deserted her. She was my baby. But, just as Amelia was forced to do, I had to make a choice to let her live safely where she was, or force her to live with the same danger Ethan and I believed we faced.”

  He propped his hands on the counter behind him and watched her intently. “I thought Wayne was the danger you faced?”

  “But we didn’t know that then.” She sighed, brushing her hair back from her f
orehead as her lips twisted wryly. “Wayne learned Ethan had returned from the navy. He was having us watched, though we were unaware of it. We were heading to Aspen to see a divorce lawyer, then we were going to return to Sweetrock and pick Amelia up from school before leaving Colorado and moving to California. We were nearly to Aspen when the brakes went out on the car. Ethan had nearly managed to get us to the bottom of that last mountain on the old route into Aspen, along the river, when the car exploded and we went through the guardrail into the water.”

  He frowned. The old route had been closed several years before because of the number of vehicles crashing through the guardrails and catapulting into the churning rapids below.

  Lowering her head and obviously fighting to keep her emotions under control, Thea dragged in a deep, hard breath. When she looked back at him, tears glittered in her gaze. “I was six weeks’ pregnant with Ethan’s child. Our second child.” Her lips twisted with bitterness. “Neither Ethan nor I was aware I was pregnant when I married Wayne. Ethan had left the night after our first time together, several weeks before I was due to marry Wayne. Ethan had no idea I was preparing to break off my engagement with Wayne; he believed I was marrying Wayne despite the fact that I was a virgin when he took me to his bed.”

  “What made him believe you were going to continue with the engagement?” Crowe asked, wondering at the countless lives Wayne had destroyed.

  “Wayne,” she admitted painfully, staring at the bar where she traced a faint scratch with her nail. “Ethan and I were, and still are, fiery together.” Lifting her head, her hand stilling, she made the admission softly. “But Ethan was a hothead in those days. Wayne suspected we had begun seeing each other again, the manipulating bastard. The day after Ethan and I were together, he made certain Ethan overhead him telling a friend that I had gone with him to pick out a ring that morning and how excited I was now that the wedding was drawing closer. Then he pretended to confide in that friend that I had shared his bed in the house we had chosen. He even claimed that I wasn’t a virgin, but it didn’t matter to him because he knew I’d make a loving, proper wife,” she sneered. “Ethan knew I was a virgin when we were together, but we had argued that night and I cruelly told him I’d marry Wayne regardless. He believed me, I guess.” She shrugged. “When he disappeared I stupidly went ahead and gave in to parental pressure and married Wayne, not realizing until too late that I was pregnant with Ethan’s child. Ten years later Ethan was in Sweetrock visiting friends when he saw Amelia and realized she was nearly identical in looks to his younger sister, who happened to be nearly Amelia’s age.”