Theo turned on the engine. Surprisingly, it came alive without a sputter, despite the car leaving black skid-marks horizontally across the road. “My family wants to find him. Your FBI friend wants to cuff him. You must know, only one of us can win this war.”
I fingered the necklace Kai gave me, underneath my shirt, remembering my promise. Both brothers. My obligation.
“You searched me out for a reason. I agreed to come along with you. We’ll use each other for as long as we need,” I continued. “No more.”
While rocky, Theo got us back onto asphalt. He said, “And when one of us is done?”
I kept my attention forward, careful in my reply. “The other will be discarded.”
13 Precious Nicknames
The city of London greeted Theo’s and my awkward silence by screaming through it. Cars puttered past, honks ensued, music pulsed out of open windows and storefronts, and crowds of chattering people crossed intersections. The clog of pedestrians yelling at each other in a clipped English accent seemed to be the only difference between sounds of the UK and New York.
Well, that and the brief but polite beep-beeps rather than the prolonged leaning on car horns preferable to pissed-off New Yorkers.
Now wasn’t the time to tell Theo that my bladder was also screaming, but I hoped we would reach our destination soon. My throat was parched, too. It was unfortunate that in my raiding of the private plane, I didn’t think to swipe bottles of water, lime curls included.
We stopped at another light and I uncoiled my legs, wincing at the small space the car offered my bottom half.
“We’re five minutes out,” Theo said. They were the first words he’d uttered in over an hour. Granted, I hadn’t provided any of my own, either.
I nodded and shifted again. “Good.”
“Do you have to…?” Theo quickly took his eyes off the road to glance at my thighs.
“That obvious?” I asked.
“You’ve been twitching around like a toddler for the past fifteen minutes.”
“Nice of you to notice.” I gave him the side eye. “And offer to pull over somewhere.”
“I told you, we’re in a rush.” He turned left. “Just past this block, and we’re there.”
I fisted my hand against my stomach, like that would stop the torrent of need coursing through my gut.
He found a spot on the side of the road, and his parallel park was seamless.
Why was it so sexy to see a guy one-hand a steering wheel while turning and looking out the back window of a car?
Did parallel parking really turn me on these days?
I winced. Ouch. my lady parts shouldn’t be prodded more than necessary at this point.
Theo flicked off the engine. His movement, after being frozen in the driver’s seat for the past hour, reactivated his scent, and his familiar smell, a smoky amber wood, drifted below my nostrils.
“Let’s go.” He shouldered open his door and I followed suit. Theo parked us in a small, cobblestone alleyway, where the sounds of Central London were present, but muffled. It was midday, thus the bustling lunch crowd we’d driven through minutes ago, but here in the shade of Victorian architecture and hand-placed stones beneath my sneakers, it was more like I was meeting for tea in the nineteenth century.
I’d never been to London before. It would have been wonderful to see Big Ben, or the Tower of London, or Westminster Abbey—all the touristy places that somehow, in London, seemed not so ad nauseam and more essential to one’s education.
Did I want to see where King Henry VIII cut off his wives’ heads? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But sadly, the Clyde to my Bonnie had other plans.
I trailed behind him, taking stock of everything in this alleyway, from the modern trash bins to the Gothic-era stone carvings framing doorways and window sills. The gray wasn’t so gray here. It was entrenched, an essential color of history that fascinated and gave me pause. There was a light drizzle, but it didn’t feel dreary. It fit perfectly within this scene of silent spirits and historical homes. How many footsteps preceded mine? Hundreds of years’ worth of ghosts moved through this street, despite the modern bleats of traffic and calls and curses of pedestrians clad in the latest trends.
The pull in my gut wasn’t so physical this time. It was a loss, being unable to explore the bones of this city.
A creak sounded, and I realized Theo had unlocked and opened a wooden door while I’d been standing on the sidewalk with my face tilted up underneath my raincoat.
“Coming?”
I scurried over as he swept a hand inside. A gentleman at last. I went in, wondering what the catch was in walking through first.
A light turned on behind me and the entrance sounded shut. Theo’s close presence caused tangible pinpricks along the backs of my arms and shoulders, until he swept in front and gestured up the stairs. Then it was just his scent, tempting my nose and causing me to fall into step like a cartoon cat following the smell of cooking fish.
Another door greeted us on the second floor. We were in some sort of walk-up, with wallpapered blossoms on the walls and wainscoted stairway railings. Now that Theo’s cologne had tempered, it was stale in here, airless and clogged. Without electric light, we would have been groping around in complete black.
Theo knocked with a loose fist, the other jammed in his coat pocket. Me, I hastily pulled the hood down and smoothed out my tossed salad hair, as if royalty would be greeting us and not a smarmy connection of the Saxons’.
A muffled “Yeah?” could be heard through the thick wood.
“It’s me,” Theo said.
A couple of metal clicks, and the door opened. A very tall, bald black man stepped into the light.
It took me a second, but—“Omigod, I remember you.”
His opaque eyes slid in my direction and he looked me up and down in much the way he did when I’d made my first foray into the poker underground.
“You were the bouncer at Theo’s games.”
A brief nod, and right when I thought I’d thoroughly unimpressed him in the exact way I had when we’d initially met, he said, “Where’d your rainbow hair go?”
I was surprisingly flattered by his remembrance. “The way of my innocent youth.”
Again, he nodded, but it was to Theo with a bemused expression. I was about to ponder why, until Theo gave him a hard nod and asked, “She inside?”
“Hasn’t stepped outside since we got here,” the bouncer responded.
He pushed the door wider, and Theo stepped in. Intrigued, I followed, feeling Bo’s survey of me as I passed.
“Who are we meeting?” I asked Theo.
“The mistake.”
I chewed on that, recalling Theo’s explanation in the car—heard amidst sheer terror—and recalled him speaking of a mistake Trace had made.
The dim hallway had our forms taking shape only because of a single bulb above our heads. The wallpaper had gone from floral to a deep red and white damask pattern, the white curled and yellowed with age and cigarette smoke. The dark wooden floorboards creaked beneath our feet, evoking sympathy toward the downstairs neighbor, if the apartments below were occupied.
The feel of the place was slumlord, or at the very least, a squat house. If a rat scurried across my feet, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Um.”
Both of them paused in the hallway at my voice.
“Can I…” Good God, I didn’t want to, but I had to.
“Bathroom,” Theo surmised.
The bouncer said, “Go right when we go left.”
I dipped my chin in thanks and separated from them when the bouncer directed. I turned the heavy brass knob, horrified that I’d be forced to use these facilities that could very well give me scabies—
The white was blinding. The porcelain sink even more so. Every part of this John had been cleaned so thoroughly my nose tickled at the smell of lemon and bleach still in the air.
Feeling much more relaxed, I went about
my business, washed my hands, and exited, taking the first archway on the left, where Theo and his bouncer had gone.
Upon rounding the corner, a sofa chair came into view and the person in it. I gasped, then covered it up with a cough and a hand over my mouth. Theo cast a cutting look my way and I waved an apology, muttering, “If you would tell me about these things beforehand, maybe I’d be more prepared.”
A skeletal girl—woman?—sat within the stained, pilled green fabric, an IV bag dripping to her right. Her brunette hair hung in lanky hunks, tangled with clotted blood, her spaghetti strap red dress that draped over her shoulders reminiscent of a clothes hangar, but none of that gave me pause.
It was her face, and the flesh that coated it. There was no pink flush, no Caucasian beige skin the way the rest of her indicated it should be. It was purple, mottled. My molars ached for her. One eye was swollen shut and her lower jaw hung as loose as her clothes. Her lips, which upon closer inspection, should have been plump and dewy with youth, were cracked and bleeding. One cheekbone was higher than the other, and a deep slash, stitched haphazardly, marred the velvet smoothness underneath. A bandage, already dirtied with rust-colored blood, covered her nose.
“What happened to you?” I whispered.
She looked up, her jade green eyes spearing into my core, and I realized I’d spoken louder than I intended.
“It’s difficult for her to speak,” Bo said as he stood behind the girl’s chair. “So it’s advised that any questions asked be essential.” He said to Theo, “We should get her to a hospital soon.”
“She hasn’t been yet?”
Again, me with the trigger-happy mouth.
“We needed to talk to her first,” Theo said for my benefit.
“But—”
“One of our doctors has seen her and okayed a few hours,” Theo cut in.
“She needs a bath,” I demanded. “Or if you would so deign, a wet sponge. Something to indicate that she’s not a wounded animal here for your inspection.”
Theo turned. “How many times do I have to convey to you that time is of the essence?”
“I understand that,” I said patiently. “Yet you seem to forget that innocent people are often caught up and very nearly killed when they associate with your brother. And they deserve respect. Attention. Kindness.”
His expression turned grim and I closed my mouth. I’d hit a mark, unintended but true. The girl before us had craved tenderness and been beaten. Left to fend for herself, but by God, she did. The kind of fight it took to get over that kind of threat was like an infection that infiltrated the blood, becoming an auto-immune response with no cure. I wasn’t about to let Theo walk all over this woman.
“She’ll receive it,” he said quietly. “And while it doesn’t look like it, Drea has been cared for. She is under watch, and a doctor associated with the Saxon name sees her three times a day. She needs a place to rest, yes, and a quiet room to recover—all of which she has. But for our visit, she’s been moved—with her consent—to this chair for a short time. I am not the beast you make me out to be.”
“And I’m not the innocent beauty you still think I am.” I indicated the room around me. “Does she sleep in the bathtub? Because that’s about the only thing that seems sterilized in this place.”
“And also one of the only areas my brother won’t think to look.” Theo signaled to the bouncer. “Bo, get Drea some water, please. Now.” He turned his attention back to me. “Can I get on with our mission, or do you have any other concerns you feel compelled to air out?”
I glared at him in answer. Damn it, I wanted some water, too.
“Good.” Theo knelt in front of Drea. She stiffened at the proximity, and I had the urge to rush over, drape my arm across her trembling shoulders, and murmur reassurances. But, considering her reaction to a man two feet away from her, I didn’t dare give her that kind of heart attack. I stood back, watching carefully and absently playing with my necklace.
Theo’s shoulders sloped and a hand relaxed on his one bent knee. By some sort of witchcraft, that same flow of calm reached his features, every muscle softening into a standstill. The scar seemed to disappear. His eyes became kind.
That same stare regarded me in the car. After the fishtail, his face, those airbrushed lashes, the dark shadow of his stubble, the clear blue of his irises, were all I could see. Pleading that I focus. That I’d be okay, if only I breathed him in.
“Can you tell me?” he asked Drea, his voice remaining low, a soft-flowing river of words.
She responded to his voice the way a beaten horse would. Shying away, skittish, but ultimately, painfully, looking upon her captor since there was nowhere else to run.
Those cracked lips parted, a ribbon of black between the bruised red. “He … hurt … me.”
“I know.” Theo didn’t touch her. His tone was his only tool of comfort. “That’s why I’m here. To find him. Contain him, so he never has the opportunity to do anything like this again.”
“There are … more? People like me?” Her brows furrowed, the action causing her pain as she hitched a small gasp.
“Than you’ll ever know,” Theo said grimly. After a moment of quiet, he murmured, “I’m one of them.”
Her attention flicked to his scar.
It was the most information I’d gleaned since running into him on the bottom floor of a yacht. Trace did that to him. And the when of it, the why, the how, would remain a mystery. Would he ever come out of the darkness? To this girl, to me? It was a harsh reminder that I didn’t have a right to know anything about what he did. I never had that honor in the first place.
Especially after what I’d agreed to do to him when this was over.
Drea reached up, tentatively touching her fingers to the stitched-up gash on her cheek.
“Tell me what happened. If you’re able,” he said.
Her fingers trembled and she pulled them to her chest.
“If you can’t, or don’t want to, that’s okay, too,” Theo said. “I’m not here to force you to do anything.” Somehow, he remained in a half-kneel, despite the fact that his muscles must have been protesting. “But you must know, you are the first person we’ve found, in a long time, who could provide us with something, anything, that we’ve been missing for years.”
Drea hesitated, unable—or unwilling—to look away from Theo. I stepped forward. “Even what he was wearing.”
Theo’s rumble, low in his throat, was a warning, but as usual, unheeded. “Was he in a suit?” I tried further. “A t-shirt? What colors can you remember?”
Theo may not know where I was going with this, but when I was in the hospital and so many questions were bombarding me, spewing out of stern faces and blue uniforms, notepads pulled out, handheld radios spurting static, the beeps of machines and the intercoms, the patter of nurse’s feet—it was all too much. Nothing could come to mind, not with the cacophony of concern spiraling out in silly-string tangles, filling my room.
Sometimes, the simplest question could jump-start the tiniest of details.
“Don’t think of it as bad things you have to tell us,” I said. “Even though, yes, it’s terrible what happened to you. Think of it as things that will help us find the man who did this to you.”
“P-police,” she said.
“They’ve been searching for him for two years and haven’t been able to discover where he is,” Theo said. “The FBI, task forces, all of it was conducted to find him. And he was still able to find you.”
Harsh, but true. I contributed to the silence.
“Suit,” she eventually said.
“Okay. Good.” I knelt beside Theo, using his shoulder as leverage. The old bullet wound gave off phantom cries, especially when I wanted to use my abs. Theo’s glance was quick, but full of concern.
“Did he arrange a meeting with you?” I asked, redirecting his attention.
Drea shook her head. “I met him … in a tavern. I’d gone in for a pint. It had been a long day a
t my desk and—”
Theo frowned. “You’re not a working girl?”
Her brows jumped. “A prostitute? No. I’m not.”
Theo held his palm up. “That’s Trace’s preference when he does things like … this.”
Trace lost his temper on a young professional? “How did you two meet?”
I said it like it was a blind date, or a meet-up after swiping right. It had the effect of casual conversation, prompting Drea to open up.
“I was … just having a pint,” she repeated. Then elaborated, “I probably appeared stressed, or down. I don’t remember looking up a lot. Then someone came up beside me at the bar. Told me the weather looked stormy, then smiled.” Drea said to me, “It was perfectly sunny out.”
“He meant your mood,” I said, letting her know I was following her train of thought. “It endeared you to him.”
“Quite,” Drea replied. Her shoulders settled against the chair. “And when I saw his eyes, well, they were exactly like yours,” she said to Theo. “Bright, bright blue. And so nice.” Her chin drooped. “I’m such an imbecile.”
“To smile at a nice guy?” I said. “That’s not dumb. It’s what we all do.”
“We started chatting, small talk, really.” Drea shrugged, then winced. “He bought us another round, then offered to pay for shots. You Americans, you prefer your liquor hard.”
I wanted to protest, then thought back to yesterday evening and the vodka I wanted to funnel just to get through the night. Couldn’t argue.
“I became tipsy,” she admitted. “Then really tipsy. The pub was closing, and he offered a top-up at his place. How could I say no? He was very kind, quite polite. And…” Her tongue darted out, in the space where it could, as she glanced at Theo.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“I’ve … done this before. Gone home with men. A one-night stand sort of thing.”
I nodded.
“That’s what I thought this would be. We had the drink, whiskey I believe, and he started to get all handsy, and I allowed it because that is exactly why I was there, until … his hold became hard. It was all in jest at first, or so I thought. Maybe he liked it slightly rough, and I was all right with that. I endured his smacks, until it stung, and when he b-broke skin, I—”
WIN THE GAME Page 10