Ultimate Sins

by Lora Leigh

  Crowe watched her closely, carefully, well aware that she had adeptly sidetracked from the originally explanation.

  “What happened after the explosion?” he asked her, firmly enough that she realized he had no intentions of letting the subject go.

  “Ethan was terribly hurt,” she sighed. “But I nearly died. The car was carried miles down the river before he was able to get us out of it. By then I was unconscious, losing blood and of no help at all. He managed to get us out and onto dry land, but my purse and his cell phone were in the car, leaving him no way to contact his team. It took Jack and his men nearly thirty-six hours to find us. Ethan managed to keep me alive, but he couldn’t prevent the loss of our child. The majority of the explosion had been on the passenger side of the car as well. The windshield blew out, the force propelling the glass into the car and striking my face.” When she brushed her fingers against her left cheek self-consciously, he realized where the few changes were concentrated now. “By time Jack had us transported out of the canyon in a way that ensured no one realized what was going on, I’d developed an infection. I spent years fully recovering. The plastic surgeries were horrible enough, but the injuries from the explosion had ensured I could never have more children. Ethan would have sent Jack and the others after Amelia immediately, but he had no idea who had attempted to kill us. He believed for years that it had happened because of the nature of his work. It simply never occurred to us that Wayne was behind it until he was revealed as the Slasher and Ethan’s contacts in the forensics division of the FBI told him that the explosion that killed Wayne’s cousin was identical in design to the one that nearly killed us. What was more, the unusual compound used in it was, to the last test, the exact same compound used in Ethan’s car. All this time we hadn’t taken Amelia with us, terrified that his enemies would target her if they were aware we weren’t dead.” Her voice broke on the statement while tears escaped her eyes and for a moment she fought the sobs that would have escaped as well. “We would have gotten her out of here, just as we took Kimmy as she begged us to, to protect her from the Slasher. We begged her to go with us as she prepared to leave the baby. It was destroying her, to leave Kimmy to be raised by us while she made plans to return to a life that was destroying her. A life no one else knew she was living. She wouldn’t leave with us, though.” Thea sniffed tearfully. “She was afraid the Slasher would become suspicious, or that Stoner would return and do as he’d threatened by gossiping about the two of you until the Slasher came looking for her, and managed to find Kimmy as well.” Her gaze was tormented. “And she was certain if she didn’t return, then Wayne would do as he threatened and have you and Cami arrested for the file she had helped you steal from his office the summer before.”

  “He couldn’t have—” Crowe began.

  “He would have.” A slender, shaking finger was suddenly pointing toward him as her voice hardened, her expression filled with remembered pain and a glimmer of fury. “Not even I or Ethan learned the full truth of this until recently, Crowe. Kimmy was, and is, her heart, and it killed Amelia to leave her baby. But she returned because she knew Wayne was preparing to have Cami arrested, and had already completed the paperwork that would have forced the army to return you to Corbin County for trial. Just as he had threatened her he would do if she tried to leave.”

  Crowe felt his fingers turning into fists. The need to strike out at Wayne burned through his senses.

  “The army wouldn’t have let me go at that point.” He shook his head, remembering the black ops training he had been inducted into about the time Amelia would have given birth to Kimmy. “Trust me, Thea. I was far too important to them by then.”

  Thea sat back in her seat slowly. “Even Ethan was unaware until only recently of your acceptance into whatever group you were a part of.” She wiped her hands over her face wearily. “Your secrets ran just as deep as hers. And were just as dark and filled with pain.” The anger in her gaze receded as he continued to watch her, crossing his arms over his chest and meeting her stare steadily.

  “Did you know when she learned she was pregnant, she went to Clyde to try to contact you?” Thea asked then.

  He blinked slowly. “She didn’t tell him why she was searching for me.”

  “Wayne and Clyde were old friends. She had no idea how deep Clyde’s loyalty to your cousins went. No one did. His rough attitude and weekend desertions of the three of you when you were younger had many of your parents’ former friends suspecting Clyde had no more love for you than your mothers’ families appeared to have.”

  And that was no more than the truth, Crowe knew.

  “It was deliberate,” he told her, realizing now that he should have told Amelia of the many and varied subtleties and progressions of lies Clyde had used to protect his charges. “Clyde was investigating the deaths of our parents until the day he was killed. He never trusted Wayne again, though, after the night I showed him that file Amelia led me to.”

  But he had never told Clyde who had helped him steal the file, or that he had been seeing Amelia secretly.

  “And neither Wayne nor Amelia knew Clyde believed you over him,” Thea revealed. “Amelia overheard Wayne’s meeting with Clyde when he learned she had given you that information. He told Clyde he’d only just learned that Amelia had given you a file she’d changed the names on, changed the information on, to convince him she was helping him, to get her into your bed. He made Amelia appear to be a sort of secret groupie. Clyde gruffed and growled and told Wayne he’d not seen the file, but he’d be certain to ensure Wayne was given a copy of it if he did. To Amelia, Clyde’s loyalty to you was a lie. She couldn’t trust him.”

  Who had Amelia been able to trust? he wondered. From the sound of it, there had been no one to turn to, no one to help her shoulder the burden she carried. Watching Thea, he remembered how his mother had loved her like a sister. Just as, he knew, his mother’s death had devastated Thea.

  “There’s so much anger in you, Crowe,” she said, her expression saddened. “And so much pain and fear in Amelia now. She didn’t want you and Kimmy to meet this way. And she didn’t want Wayne to ever learn of the child she’s hidden from him. But Ethan is just as stubborn as you can be, and he knows Wayne will never show himself unless he’s pushed.”

  The control Crowe had been holding on to broke.

  “My daughter and my woman are not Ethan Roberts’s fucking bait!” The words were torn from him before he could stop them, dragged from the depths of his soul and rasping with burning rage as they shot toward Amelia’s mother like verbal bullets.

  Grimacing, he pushed away from the counter. The anger he was fighting to pull back only surged higher as Ethan himself stepping into the kitchen, no doubt listening from the doorway—just as Crowe would have been had his woman been confronting another man’s anger in such a way.

  “But my daughter was your bait.” Moving to Thea, Ethan laid his broad hands on her shoulders, standing over her protectively, his eyes blazing with paternal anger. “When I would have convinced her to leave and return to Europe with Kimmy, you walked back into her life and made your demand that she weave that little illusion of being your lover to draw Wayne out,” he sneered. “How did that work out for you, asshole?”

  “Ethan, don’t.” Thea touched his hand, turning her head to stare back at him. “Amelia’s been hurt enough. Don’t add a confrontation with the man she loves to her heartache.”

  “She could have told me,” Crowe snapped furiously. “She could have discussed this with me before bringing our child into this.”

  “And Wayne would have learned of her child at a time when she didn’t have that child with her. And no matter her trust in her parents, her uncle, and the men they fight with, still, she would have been terrified for Kimmy. And Wayne would have found a way to use that fear against her.”

  Crowe froze, staring at the other man, his jaw clenched to the point that his back teeth were in danger of cracking.

  “Are you sugges
ting I would have allowed that secret out?”

  Ethan’s smirk only tempted the rage that years of training barely held in check.

  “Crowe.” The gentleness in Thea’s voice hardly registered. “Would you have told your cousins? Or Ivan? Would you have trusted any of your men?”

  He narrowed his gaze on her with a deliberately icy look. “I would have seen to her protection, so what’s your point?”

  “Wayne’s managed to stay one step ahead of you from the moment he was revealed as the Slasher,” Ethan pointed out. “I’m really fucking surprised you haven’t suspected what Amelia has known for weeks. You have a break in your security. Somehow, somewhere, someone is giving Wayne your secrets.”

  Oh, Crowe didn’t suspect a damned thing. He knew. Just as Ivan knew.

  “Son of a bitch,” Ethan cursed softly. “You were aware of it.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest and staring back at the couple, Crowe didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. He didn’t owe Ethan Roberts shit and he sure as hell didn’t owe Thea Roberts—or Sorenson—or whoever the hell she was—a damned thing.

  Especially not explanations.

  “Do you have a suspect?” Ethan growled.

  “Go to hell,” Crowe suggested mockingly.

  “My daughter has stayed here when she could have run from Sorenson’s cruelties years ago,” Ethan pointed out furiously. “She could have raised that kid of hers, herself, rather than sobbing in grief each time she’s had to watch her baby fly away after the secretive visits she was terrified would result in the Slasher or Wayne following her. And you blame her for not telling you those secrets, even knowing the leak you have in your organization? You blame her, even knowing how desperately she’s always loved you? Well, aren’t you just a fucking fine piece of work, Callahan.”

  Crowe watched him with scathing fury. “No, Roberts, I blame you and that accident-waiting-to-happen brother of yours for convincing her to place our child in danger rather than keeping her so safely hidden that even Ivan, with all his contacts, couldn’t find so much as a whisper of suspicion that Amelia had given birth to that child, no matter his suspicions. I blame the two of you because your fucking adrenaline addiction meant far more to you than the child Amelia has risked her life to protect every day of her life, for nearly seven years. That’s who I fucking blame.”

  “Resnova couldn’t have suspected a damned thing.” Roberts glared at him through narrowed eyes, his hands flexing on Thea’s shoulders as she glanced back at him warily.

  Crowe gave a bitter, cynical laugh. “If she’d had a lover there would have been time spent in motels, or a little love nest with DNA of some sort present. There would have been evidence of calls to an unknown party on her cell phone or home line. Or there would have been a burn phone hidden somehow that would have activated long enough for his men to get an unknown signal from her vicinity. There were none of those signs of a lover. What there was, was Amelia leaving for Aspen—and once she reached it she simply disappeared.” Crowe stated. “She would return within a week, eyes reddened, her demeanor almost grief-stricken and obviously attempting to hide it. Ivan’s been trying to track where she goes and who she leaves with ever since he forced himself into this little game with the Callahans and the Slasher and learned there was a single, living past lover I was determined to hide. His notes reveal he’s suspected she had my child for the better part of a year now. Especially since she has refused to see her gynecologist since I left over seven years ago.”

  It galled Crowe that even he had believed, for a time, that she’d had a lover.

  “She was already six weeks’ pregnant when you left,” Thea whispered, her voice still thick with unshed tears. “We showed up a few weeks after she learned of her pregnancy, and she learned then I hadn’t died or just run away. We begged her to leave with us until we learned who had attempted to kill us. To hide with us. Ethan was certain he was getting closer when he learned who had sold the military-grade explosive used in the bomb placed in the car. She refused to leave. Four months later she called, hysterical. She was in some damned nasty hotel room, six months’ pregnant and certain she was in labor. She’d run from Wayne’s the second she’d begun having pains, terrified she wouldn’t be able to hide her baby, trying to reach the clinic she’d had the pregnancy confirmed in, and returned to monthly for checkups because they didn’t require an ID. The clinic was an underground medical facility, though, and had moved for whatever reason. She was terrified of losing her baby, and just as terrified that the Slasher would take her infant if she checked into a hospital. It was a miracle we were even in the States.”

  Crowe felt horror twist in his guts then.

  God, he didn’t want to hear this. Those underground fucking clinics were often butcher shops. For all the good they did, there were the instances of agonizing deaths and botched attempted surgeries that made his guts twist in terror for Amelia.

  “By time we reached her, Kimmy was in distress. She wasn’t in the proper position in the birth canal and Amelia was half out of her senses with pain and blood loss.” Remembered grief twisted Ethan’s and Thea’s expressions. “She was screaming for you, Crowe, as some old Navajo medicine woman chanted between her thighs and tried to coax Kimmy into the proper position.” Ethan wiped his face, his jaw working fiercely. “It took about a second for our medic to figure out what to do. He shot her full of painkillers as the medicine woman was pulled away from her. By the grace of God he managed to turn Kimmy and I watched as this tiny, whimpering little form was delivered into his hands an hour after we arrived.”

  “Less than a minute after Kimmy was laid against her chest, Amelia died.” Thea delivered the bombshell as a sob shook her entire body.

  “What the fuck—” Crowe all but wheezed, icy chills of terror racing through him. “What the hell are you saying. She’s alive—”

  Ethan breathed out roughly, “‘Save my baby, Daddy,’ she whispered as Thea kept trying to bring her fever down with the ice the medicine woman had ready, and a bottle of alcohol. ‘Please, Daddy, don’t let the Slasher take my baby. Crowe’s baby.’ Then she just closed her eyes and let go.” Ethan was fighting his own tears. “If the team and Jack hadn’t been with us, we would have lost her. Our medic always carries his gear with him. He managed to shock her back while I contacted a nearby military base and had a medical support chopper sent out. She was airlifted to the base and hospital and recovered there while Kimmy was stabilized after being born three months early. Amelia had been sick, and none of us knew it.” Ethan swallowed tightly. “She didn’t know that she’d developed a very rare, very deadly infection caused by the pregnancy itself.”

  “The same infection your mother fought in the last months of her pregnancy with Sarah.” Thea was crying now. “I nearly lost her, Crowe, because she loved your child and you, more than she cared for her own safety and well-being.”

  He needed to fucking sit down. Every bone and muscle in his body was locked tight, pain radiating through his heart, striking at his soul and leaving bleeding gouges in his spirit as Ethan and Thea revealed the hell his too delicate little fairy-girl had gone through after he’d left her.

  “Don’t you ever stand before me again and blame my daughter for a single decision she’s made where you or Kimmy is concerned.” Ethan’s tone was filled with a dark promise of death now. “If you care an iota for Amelia or even think you might want to be involved in your daughter’s life, then by God, you’d better fix the pain you’re causing both of them. Because so help me, Crowe, if you don’t convince Kimmy you love her better than a kid loves ice cream then I’m going to make it a priority to ensure you never fucking see either of them again. And you had better go ahead and eat one of your own bullets if you ever cause one of them to cry again, let alone both. Because if you do, then I’ll by God force-feed you one of mine.”

  The promise of violence didn’t even register with Crowe. All he could see was Amelia, her pretty turquoise eyes closed in death as th
e too tiny form of his premature child whimpered for her mother.

  For warmth and safety.

  His Amelia had died without him. If only for seconds, she’d still passed from life without him to hold her, to force her to hold on to him, to hold on to every chance they could have together.

  Shaking his head, his fury lost in the realization of all Amelia had gone through, Crowe could only stare back at them in stark agony.

  “Not care for them?” he whispered, barely able to speak past the emotions threatening to choke him to death. “God help me, Ethan, I’ve loved her until my soul felt like a dark, dying husk without her. And that child I met tonight was already such a part of my heart that all I can think about is eating that fucking bullet myself if the evil shadowing us manages to touch her or her mother, for even a breath of a second.”

  He stared at the couple, in equal parts furious and jealous that they had raised his child rather than himself and Amelia, and overwhelmed with a thankfulness that acknowledging it ripped from his heart. Those emotions battled side by side with the blank horror of knowing he’d nearly lost both of them and the overriding fact that he still could.

  “Crowe—” Thea moved as if to touch him.

  He stepped back with a quick shake of his head. “I have to think…” His throat worked convulsively as he fought against the emotions overwhelming him. “I have to finish some things.”

  Turning, Crowe strode quickly from the kitchen, back through the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor.