Jaxton entered the front room, and Kiarra saw Marco sitting in a chair, off to the side. Marco grinned and said, “Are we in for some X-rated action?”
Kiarra glared and Marco laughed. She heard Cam’s voice say, “The only X you need to be worried about is an x-ray. Leave my sister alone, you skeevy man-child.”
“Stop fighting it, Camilla. Your words are your armor, but I know you secretly lust after me.”
Cam growled before Jaxton’s voice rumbled against Kiarra’s belly. “Enough.” He tossed Kiarra on the couch next to Cam. “On Neena’s orders, we have DEFEND-related things to discuss.”
Cam focused back on cleaning her nails with a knife and said, “Jaxton, this is your warning. Treat my sister with more respect in the future or I’ll be forced to use my knife on a tender part of your anatomy.”
Kiarra smiled and tried not to gloat. Cam was on her side, no questions asked; maybe they would have a sisterly relationship one day.
Jaxton crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Kiarra and Cam on the couch. “At Neena’s request, you two need to tell me about your uncle.”
She frowned. What did he have to do with anything? Kiarra was going to have to contact Neena in order to start making sense of Jaxton’s actions, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to be forthright with her.
Cam stopped cleaning her nails and looked at Kiarra, raising an eyebrow in question. Kiarra shook her head. “I don’t remember much about either one.”
“How many are there?” Jaxton asked.
“Two,” Kiarra said.
Jaxton looked at Cam. “Tell me about them.”
Cam focused back on cleaning her nails. “Only if you ask nicely.”
Kiarra grinned and Jaxton shot her a look. Kiarra raised an eyebrow, as if saying: See? I’m not the only one who thinks you need some manners.
She swore she heard Jaxton mumble something about Melini women before he said, “Would you please do me the favor of telling me about your uncles, Ms. Melini?”
“I don’t like your tone, but I’ll forgive it this one time for Neena’s sake.” Cam laid her knife across her thigh. “We have two uncles. Their names are Alexander and James Sinclair.”
Marco sat up in his chair. “The James Sinclair?”
“Yes.”
A look passed between Marco and Jaxton that Kiarra didn’t understand. “What are you not telling me?”
Bloody hell. Her uncle was James Sinclair.
All of Jaxton’s assigned research on the man seemed too much of a coincidence, which meant Neena had been planning this for years.
And now he had Sinclair’s nieces sitting right in front of him.
Judging from Kiarra’s face, she had no idea who Sinclair was or what he was trying to do. Since Cam remained silent, Jaxton decided to explain at least some of it to Kiarra. “James Sinclair works with the Feiru High Council and is influential with Feiru politicians the world over. He is one of the driving forces behind tightening and enforcing first-born policies. We believe he’s pushing to have first-borns locked up from the moment of birth, to prevent any sort of familial attachment.”
Kiarra blinked. “My…uncle…wants to lock away babies?”
Jaxton’s earlier irritation and anger eased at the disbelief and horror he saw on Kiarra’s face. He almost went to her, but Cam beat him to it.
“Don’t call him uncle.” Cam patted Kiarra’s arm. “Save it for Uncle Alex, who deserves the title.”
For years Jaxton had been sorting through intelligence, hoping for more concrete information and evidence he could use against Sinclair. But at the end of the day, he’d had to work with whatever had been brought to him.
But now he had Sinclair’s niece.
Between what had happened to his brother and Kiarra’s scars, Jaxton would never allow the AMT to take another first-born from him if he could help it. Still, neither Sinclair nor those close to him would know that, meaning Jaxton had some leverage. He just might be able to use Kiarra to get the evidence he needed.
Suddenly Neena’s words, about knowing what to do, made sense. “Kiarra and I will leave for Edinburgh in the morning.”
“Edinburgh?” Kiarra echoed.
“The High Council’s base moved there from Accra a few years ago, and Sinclair goes where the High Council goes. Getting to Sinclair is impossible, but I might be able to find some of his closest followers and get the information Neena and Aislinn have been searching for.”
Cam picked up the knife on her thigh and sheathed it. “Then I’m going with you.”
Jaxton shook his head. “No, Neena said Kiarra and I must go alone.”
Cam stared at him at length before finally nodding. He was relieved when Cam didn’t argue. They both knew she could easily check with Neena to confirm Jaxton’s words.
When Neena gave an order, it was best to follow it. To understand that meant Kiarra’s sister had been with DEFEND for some time.
“I don’t like it, boss,” Marco piped in from the corner. “You’ll need backup.”
Marco implied Jaxton would be spending all of his energy protecting Kiarra, and Marco was right. But maybe, just maybe, something would spark Kiarra’s elemental fire.
Jaxton had had a knee-jerk reaction earlier and might have overreacted to the thought of Kiarra lying to him. Messing with her DNA could’ve caused her abilities to become dormant. Or she’d been tricked into believing they were—but no matter what Kiarra believed about her abilities, Neena was never wrong.
“Marco’s right,” Kiarra said. “I’m more of a liability than an asset. No matter how much I dislike you at the moment, I can’t protect you if something goes wrong, Jaxton. And I won’t have that on my conscience.”
Kiarra wants to protect me? “Don’t worry, pet, we’ll figure something out.”
“What will happen to Garrett? He needs special care and attention right now.” Kiarra leaned forward. “Who will look after him?”
Jaxton felt a stab of guilt, but knew he’d find a way to make it up to his brother. “We’ll meet up with Amma and she’ll take care of him.” He briefly explained how Amma often treated many AMT escapees.
Kiarra frowned. “Do you trust her?”
“Yes.” Although Jaxton didn’t know exactly how Garrett would react to Amma’s care. “You have the rest of the morning to pack. We’ll leave with Garrett after lunch.” He switched his gaze to Cam. “If I leave you two alone, can I trust you to stay put?”
“Like I would upset Neena.”
Jaxton nodded. “Good. Then take this time to answer some of Kiarra’s questions.” Before Cam could reply, he motioned for Marco to follow him and exited the room, not wanting to dwell on the guilt pricking his conscience. The guilt was two-fold—one part for handing over the care of his brother to Amma, the other part for feeling jealous of Kiarra’s concern for Garrett.
Hopefully once they reached Scotland, he could delegate most of Kiarra’s training to his sister—who was also a member of DEFEND—and focus on Sinclair. Kiarra was becoming too much of a distraction.
Chapter Fifteen
Kiarra’s life had become an emotional roller-coaster. Inside the AMT, she’d known what to expect from one day to the next, and was able to control her emotions accordingly. Now, decisions were made at the drop of a hat to send her off to a different continent. No one asked for her opinion, they just expected her to go without a word.
Then Jaxton had disappeared before she’d had a chance to protest, leaving her alone with a sister she’d written off years ago. Cam may have defended her with Jaxton, but Kiarra knew next to nothing about the woman sitting next to her. Cam was a stranger now.
Still, this might be the only chance she ever had to get answers. Life inside the AMT had taught her to never to take things for granted, and this was something she needed to do, no matter how painful the memories.
She turned her body toward her younger sister and again faced the scars and unreadable face from last night. She wond
ered about Cam’s past, but Kiarra was afraid of where those questions might lead, so she started with something safer. “When did you start working with DEFEND?”
“Four years ago.” Cam placed her sheathed knife inside a pocket. “Uncle Alex thought it’d be the best chance for me to find you.”
Kiarra vaguely remembered her uncle, but never placed him as a man of action. Uncle Alex had been a man of law and letters. “He made you join DEFEND?”
Cam shook her head. “No, but in my early twenties Uncle Alex suggested it since he had some contacts within DEFEND. I needed a change and he wanted me to go somewhere that would keep me out of trouble. I tried out, passed the preliminary tests, and here I am.”
She wondered what kind of “trouble” Cam had gotten into. Cam was keeping something from her, but Kiarra was in no position to push. Just hearing that someone had looked for her made Kiarra’s heart swell. But one person was blindingly absent from Cam’s answers, so she asked, “What about our brother?”
Cam’s lips thinned into a line. “That’s another reason you need to find James Sinclair.”
“What does that have to do with Giovanni?”
“Sinclair has him.”
Kiarra’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“We were split up when our parents died. Uncle Alex tried to win Gio’s custody, but failed. Sinclair wanted an heir, and Gio was the perfect solution since he wasn’t a first-born that could tarnish his reputation.”
Kiarra was afraid to ask her next question. “Does Gio share Sinclair’s views?”
Cam leaned forward. “I believe there’s hope for him yet, but we need to get him away from Sinclair. Do whatever Neena asks of you, but find a way to get Gio out before it’s too late, before Sinclair takes away another member of our family.”
A chill ran down her spine. “What do you mean before he takes away another member of our family?”
Cam sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. Kiarra thought she wasn’t going to answer, but finally Cam said, “James Sinclair murdered our parents.”
Kiarra’s stomach dropped. “How?”
Cam looked Kiarra straight in the eye. “He staged their deaths to look like a car accident, but a few years ago, I found a witness who knew the truth. Renee and Arturo Melini had become liabilities with their anti-AMT actions, so Sinclair took care of it.”
“But our mom was James Sinclair’s sister. Why would he want to kill his own sister?”
Cam’s face became hard. “If there’s one thing you need to remember, it’s this: blood doesn’t necessary make a family. Ambition and power change people in unpredictable ways.”
“But our mother was his younger sister…” Cam’s face looked too much like what Kiarra remembered of their mother, and she had to look away.
“Kiarra.” At the command in Cam’s voice, Kiarra looked back. “The man does whatever it takes to get what he wants. Even members of the High Council are afraid of him. Our mother was just another obstacle, just like you will become one the moment he discovers you escaped from the AMT.”
You are just an obstacle to him. Ty and his researchers might want her alive and whole, but if James Sinclair found out his first-born niece had escaped and was at large, he would do what was necessary. If he could orchestrate his own sister’s death, then Sinclair wouldn’t think twice about hurting a first-born niece he’d only met once or twice.
She was now an even bigger burden to Jaxton, Neena, and all of the others trying to protect her. “Cam, I can’t go alone with Jaxton. I don’t want him or anyone else to get hurt because of me.”
Cam put a hand on Kiarra’s shoulder and squeezed. “Neena does things for a reason. I trust her, and whether you’ll take my word on the matter or not, I’m not going to interfere, just keep an eye on you as best as I can. Jaxton owes Neena a debt for his brother, and he’ll see it through.”
From what Kiarra had learned of Jaxton over the last few days, he would see his debt through, even if it took his life.
Still, she was tired of being helpless; she wanted her elemental fire back.
She reached out to the south, but felt nothing. Cam looked at her outstretched hand and said, “What happened to your fire, Kiarra?”
Her instinct told her to tell Cam the truth, so she did. “The AMT messed with my DNA and took it away.”
Cam’s face hardened, and Kiarra decided to change the topic to avoid upsetting Cam further. “Everyone keeps saying to trust Neena, but I learned the hard way not to rely on one person when it comes to your own safety. What if it doesn’t all work out? I can’t protect myself, let alone anyone else.”
Cam stood up and pulled Kiarra to her feet. “I know trust takes time, so in the meantime, we need to ease your fears and teach you a way to protect yourself.” She took out a small handgun and gave it to Kiarra. “We have a few hours, and I’m going to show you how to use this.”
Jaxton had left Kiarra alone with Cam, confident that the two wouldn’t try to escape. While the two sisters had their own issues to deal with, leaving Cam with Kiarra had freed up Marco. Darius had found a way to secure the shadow-shifter for transport and had left last night, so only Marco and Taka stood in front of him in the CCTV monitoring room.
He’d filled them in on the relation between Kiarra, Cam, and James Sinclair. It was time for Jaxton to send his remaining men and new charges on assignment. They would have to scatter, but he wasn’t about to waste their talents by merely sending them into hiding. “While Kiarra and I head to Edinburgh, I need you two to take care of some business. The Four Talents have appeared and we need to find them.”
The room was quiet, each man taking in Jaxton’s words. While he knew them well enough to know they wouldn’t think he was crazy, even he had needed a moment to digest the news earlier.
Taka crossed his arms over his chest. “Do we know who any of them are yet?”
Relief filled Jaxton at their trust in him. “Neena has confirmed the identity of the Fire Talent, but we need to find the other three.”
Taka made the leap. “It’s Kiarra, isn’t it?”
Jaxton nodded. “I know accompanying her alone to Edinburgh is risky, but I’m not about to defy Neena’s orders.”
The men murmured their assent before Marco rubbed his hands together. “Does this mean we get to go to Chichen Itza?”
In the legends about the Four Talents, the Feiru High Council had always a designated meeting place for a Talent to go and leave a mark or message for the other Talents to find. The designated message center had changed over the centuries, but in the most recent legends of the Four Talents, the designated site had been Chichen Itza, the ruins of a once great Mayan city in southern Mexico.
The Feiru High Council no longer designated sites as message centers, but if any of the other Talents had awoken, there was a chance that one of them would leave a clue at the last known site—Chichen Itza. “Since Marco speaks Spanish, I’ll be sending him to Chichen Itza.” Marco did a fist-pump in the air, but Jaxton put up a hand to stall Marco’s celebration. “Cam and her team will investigate the ruins while you stay out of sight and watch their backs.”
Marco’s excitement died. “Boss, you can’t be serious. We barely know anything about Camilla, and I’ve never met her team. I doubt they’ll listen to orders from me.”
“They won’t have to because you and Cam will be on separate assignments, with overlapping but different objectives. Basically, Cam won’t know that you’ll be shadowing her.” He hadn’t discussed it with Cam, but Jaxton had a feeling that Kiarra’s sister wouldn’t mind heading a mission. He’d checked her records and Camilla Melini had a high mission-success rate. “I’ll go over more of the details with you before I leave at lunchtime.”
Marco looked like he wanted to say more, but merely nodded.
“What about me?” Taka asked.
“Taka, I need you to find someone with access to the experiments inside the F-block and find out what you can from them, especially
regarding the suspected lead researcher, Dr. Ty Adams. We need to know if they’re aware that Kiarra’s a Talent. If not her, then check to see if they know of any of the others.”
Taka nodded and said, “I have a few contacts I can reach out to who might be able to help.”
“Use only those you trust, and most of all, swear them to secrecy. I don’t want the AMT or any of Adams’ lackeys to find out what we’re up to.” He looked at both of the men in turn. “Report progress to Neena as often as you can. She’ll help if she’s able, but for the most part, you’re on your own this time. If anything goes horribly wrong, contact me or the others, and we’ll see what we can do to help. It doesn’t matter if we’re scattered around the world, we’re still a team.”
Taka and Marco nodded and Jaxton realized that they’d been heading toward this crossroads for quite some time. Darius and Taka had been more than ready for missions of their own, and while Marco seemed inexperienced, the young man had surprised him once or twice in the past.
Taka, Darius, and Marco were more than merely his team, they were his friends. Yet as much as he wanted to help them, he would have to trust them to take care of themselves. Someone else needed his help more.
A few hours later, Kiarra stood in the front hallway and faced her sister, trying to find the words to say goodbye.
Cam had spent the short time they’d had together teaching Kiarra the basics of handgun operation and safety. The task had given both women something to talk about. In a reverse from their childhood, Kiarra had been the one asking Cam a million questions; her younger sister now knew more about the world than Kiarra did.
And while she knew that going to Edinburgh with Jaxton and helping DEFEND was what needed to be done, a small part of her wanted to be selfish. After all this time, she wanted to stay and get to know her sister.
Marco strutted out from the shadows, taking Kiarra’s hand with a flourish and kissing it. She didn’t even realize how she didn’t shy away from his touch.
Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats) Page 11