Dangerous Illusions (Steel Hawk Book 3)

by Sarah Ballance

  “What do I need to do?”

  “Give me five minutes. I’ll send you a text when I’m done, at which point you can just go in with your fingerprint. Make sure you shut the door behind you, and as soon as you’re done call me so I can reactivate the shutdown.”

  Relief flooded through her. She’d expected a greater hurdle. For once, something seemed easy. “Got it. Hopefully, I won’t be long.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing down there.” The ocean between them did nothing to weaken the wariness of his tone.

  “Being nosy. What else?”

  “Fine, don’t tell me. But tell your sister, at least. And Sophie?”

  “Yep?”

  “Thank you. I know I had to be hog-tied to hire you on—”

  “Wow. That’s just a little too much information for me.”

  He sighed. “What I was going to say is I appreciate what you’re doing, even if most of your discoveries thus far have embarrassed the hell out of me.”

  She grinned. “Having someone get past your fingerprint scanner embarrasses you, but you admit to being hog-tied?”

  “Okay, that’s it. I’m done here. Wait for my text.”

  He ended the call, leaving Sophie staring at her phone with pinpoints of jealousy stabbing at her. Her sister deserved all the happiness in the world, and Sophie was thrilled for her, but it left her feeling emptier than ever. She wanted what Honeysuckle had with Adam. She wanted what she almost had with Edward. It never would have been anything permanent—she wasn’t so naïve as to think that was possible—but the brush with the emotional intimacy left her far too aware of what she was missing. She still felt the man, for God’s sake.

  You’re in. The text came through in the nick of time, saving her from another mental rerun of the most incredible sex she’d ever experienced in her life. How would anyone else ever measure up to that? She couldn’t regret what had happened between them, but she was utterly lost as to how she’d get over it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  The elevator ride to the basement didn’t pass quickly enough, and she’d nearly broken a sweat by the time she freed herself from the stupid cage. Maybe her sister could talk the Man of Steel into an upgrade—not that it mattered. Sophie wouldn’t be sticking around.

  She scanned her way into Adam’s lab, then shut the door firmly behind her. The click of the lock did little to settle her nerves. If anything, the echo exacerbated the extent of the emptiness.

  Or so she hoped.

  She didn’t look forward to going into the annex. The idea of running into a rodent gave her enough pause, but her more immediate concern was the fact that the last time she thought she was alone in there, she’d had two visitors, neither of whom she’d seen enter. Whether she’d just missed it or someone had been there before her, she wasn’t sure. Nor was she sure it mattered. The dark, unfamiliar space was dangerous in more ways than one.

  She made quick work of the lock on the supply closet door, then eased it open and slipped inside. The cameras watched, but she was less concerned about getting caught than she was about gaining access. When the door clicked shut behind her, she jumped. Cool it. But her attempt to reassure herself only brought to mind the sound of rats scurrying through the cavernous basement, escalating the panic.

  She almost wished Edward was there.

  Almost.

  Sophie fingered the damnable key that hung from the chain around her neck. The chain was long enough that she could tuck it in her bra, which explained why Edward hadn’t noticed it before the bright light of the morning after. By the time he’d stripped her naked, the chain around her neck was probably the last thing he’d notice, and it had likely ended up to one side or the other where he’d be even less likely to see it in the dark.

  The key, an heirloom that had been handed down for generations, now felt like a curse. For years, they had seemed only decorative in nature, but Honeysuckle’s research in Zarrenburg found something more. In Sophie’s key was an engraving of a circle with a small cross attached, the traditional sign for the female sex, and the word Burgh. She and the rest of the Hawk family had assumed all this time it was a reference to Zarrenburg, but what if there was something more?

  Burgh. Clara de Burgh. Another coincidence? Maybe the name was Zarrenburg’s version of Smith or Jones, but the possibility of something more sent adrenaline shooting through her limbs…and gave her the motivational shove she needed to move the paper boxes and open the basement door.

  She knew the path to Edward’s office, so there was a small comfort in having an idea of where she was going, even if her plan to break into his safe left her a bit queasy inside. Second thoughts pummeled her. He’d probably open it if she asked—he certainly hadn’t thought twice about leaving her alone in his apartment—but she didn’t think herself in a position to beg favors. She suspected he needed his space to process what they’d learned about his origins—something he now undoubtedly would associate with her.

  She let herself into the room that held his safe, then felt blindly overhead for the cord that turned on the light. When she made purchase, she pulled the chain, bathing the room in pale yellow. After moving the boxes that hid the safe, she borrowed the drop cloth off Edward’s bench and placed it on the floor, then got to work.

  The cast-iron safe looked to be an old Salamander, but Edward said he’d replaced the lock. That left her with the relatively easy task of breaking into a modern setup—not the most secure of methods for keeping the paperwork safe, but considering the fact the safe was hidden and forgotten, it was enough.

  Sophie inserted her tension wrench and applied pressure to the lock. Then she inserted her pick and found the rear pin. In less than a minute, she’d worked her way through the line, adjusting torque to force each upper pin out of the cylinder. Overwhelmingly pleased with herself, she opened the safe and extracted her tools.

  She was in.

  The contents were sparse—two manila envelopes. Sophie removed them and pulled out what was inside. Steel Hawk papers. Patent stuff, maybe? She flipped through it, not finding anything of interest. They all appeared to relate to Adam’s inventions—if there was anything nefarious hidden in the documents, she’d be hard-pressed to recognize it for what it was.

  Under the second packet, she found an envelope. It was much smaller than those with the Steel Hawk paperwork. Could this be personal? She gingerly extracted the contents to find they matched what she’d found in the hidden folder on his computer. His birth certificate. The original news articles on his parents’ accident and subsequent investigation. A copy of the faded, damaged note from Zarrenburg. A handwritten diagram that resembled a family tree. Sophie took out her phone and captured several photographs, noting with interest that part of the family tree was blank. Someone had circled the empty branches. She couldn’t tell if it was the document’s original author, but it definitely wasn’t the same pen. He hadn’t mentioned this to her…was it intentional, or an oversight? He seemed to have been otherwise forthcoming, so she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  The final item was another death notice, this for Otto Zarrenburg. Though she’d seen it before, she captured the document with her camera. A final inspection revealed the safe was empty. Edward had said he’d received two letters, but there was no trace of the notes from his so-called concerned friend, or the envelopes in which they’d arrived.

  Another dead end.

  She returned the personal documents to their envelope and was reaching to put them in the safe when she heard something behind her—something solid. She spun to see someone standing in the doorway.

  Edward.

  “Have you found what you were looking for, Ms. Garza?”

  Her heart raced manically, even though she considered him more friend than foe. “How did you know I was down here?”

  “I got a notification that you’d accessed the area,” he said easily. “A little security upgrade we implemented after you pointed out the
flaw in the system.”

  Dammit. Why hadn’t Adam warned her? Then it hit her. He might not know. Unease traipsed over her flesh. “Why didn’t you tell me about the family tree?”

  He scoured his jaw with one hand, and only then did she notice he hadn’t shaved. The five-o’clock shadow he wore was every bit as attractive—and as lethal—as the tattoo, but neither had anything on the tense, feral set of his jaw or the cold, dull look in his eyes. “Is that all you’ve got?” he asked. “My failure to mention a family tree that means absolutely nothing to me?”

  “We have a name. That means something.” Or it did to her. His countenance only darkened.

  “Forgive the bad pun,” he said, “but it seems you’re barking up the wrong tree. Upon closer inspection, you’ll find all those branches belong to the royals. Clara de Burgh was a peasant woman.”

  A peasant with twenty grand in the bank. “Who were her heirs?”

  “I don’t believe that’s any of my business. I was sold off, remember?”

  Sophie jumped to her feet. “I think you’re missing the point. Someone has been trying to tell you something. The obituary on Otto, the information on illegal adoptions… Edward, you were sent a royal family tree with empty branches.”

  His cold assessment chilled her to the bone. “So what do you want me to do? Run up to the Zarrenburg royal palace waving around a couple of news clippings and a hand-drawn diagram that looks like a third grader made it? And say what, that I might be royalty because some anonymous tipster is toying with me? There’s probably a whole dungeon full of royal wannabes who have tried that trick, and just so we’re clear, Ms. Garza, I have no desire to be one of them. Whatever happened in the past needs to stay there, and that includes what happened in my apartment yesterday. All of it.”

  He stared at her as if he expected her to acquiesce. To say they hadn’t mattered. But she wouldn’t. Not on her life. “Your parents were murdered. Don’t you think you owe them something more than to brush it under the rug because you can’t deal with the truth?”

  “The truth is not my damned problem,” he said. He was calm—so horribly calm. “And it sure as hell wasn’t a priority for them. It’s over, and I trust you’ll respect that.”

  He left without waiting for a response, not that he’d left her room for one.

  She started after him but came to a standstill when the door slammed in her face, rattling the walls around her.

  She shook from her head to her toes.

  Edward might well have a family in Zarrenburg. His mother had at least one tie to royalty with Otto Zarrenburg…could there be another one far greater than either she or Edward realized? Was his concerned friend trying to tell him he was of royal descent? And if that was the case—if Edward was Clara’s oldest son—whatever heirs she might have left in Zarrenburg might have good reason to destroy him.

  Sophie’s thoughts returned to the video—to the man who looked just like Edward, and a woman wearing her sister’s gown for the coronation ball. Why Honeysuckle? Edward was clearly being framed. Perhaps the footage had been intended to make him look untrustworthy, considering her sister was seeing Adam at the time, who would have been enraged over what he must have thought he’d witnessed. And now with Sophie investigating, it was likely the video had been sent to her for the same reason. Her head spun with the possibilities, of the implications thereof.

  She needed to get back to her computer, maybe talk to Honeysuckle to see what else she might know about Monique Vass, the royal biographer. She’d clearly befriended the royal family—or had at least gained their trust—before she turned on them and spilled all their secrets…but why?

  Sophie returned to the safe. She picked up the packet of personal documents and slid them inside, but instead of going smoothly, the corner caught on something. She leaned closer and peered inside, seeing nothing, so she used the light from her cell phone to illuminate the space.

  There was a seam in the bottom of the safe.

  She looked over her shoulder, half expecting Edward to be standing there. He wasn’t.

  Could it be a hidden compartment? She dug out her lock pick and eased it into the small crack. The metal plate wriggled. She pushed harder until the piece jarred loose.

  When it popped up, her breath caught.

  There were papers inside.

  Could Edward have known? She studied the edge of the plate that had come out. Her pick had left a mark—not the only mark, but definitely the cleanest. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing how long the others had been there.

  She put down the plate and reached for the paper, her hands shaking.

  The top one was dated eighteen fifty-one and addressed to Prince Randolph.

  She angled the fragile paper so she could see it better. When she turned toward the light, she caught the telltale hint of something in the air. Smoke? She looked overhead, seeing a few tendrils of it between her and the bare overhead lightbulb. Oh hell. That couldn’t be good. If she’d smelled it sitting on the floor of a closed room, it had to be bad on the other side of that door. Quickly, she threw the papers back in the safe and relocked it. If there was a fire, the cast-iron safe should keep whatever was inside from burning to a crisp, which was more than she could say for herself. As soon as she secured the safe, she crawled to the door and placed her palm flat against it, praying for it to be cool, free from the heat of flame.

  It wasn’t.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Royal descent.

  It wasn’t possible.

  Edward had nearly paced the shine off the floor in Adam’s lab, but the workout had done nothing to calm his nerves. His concern wasn’t so much that he might be of royal blood, but that someone else might jump to the same conclusion as Sophie had—namely, the concerned someone who’d taken to sending him anonymous letters. Her question about Clara de Burgh’s heirs had hit home. He’d never considered he might have a sibling out there, but the possibility now seemed very real…especially in light of the striking resemblance the man on the video bore to Edward.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you had a twin.

  Maybe not a twin, but a brother. One with delusions of royalty?

  Edward looked at his phone. Twenty minutes had passed since he’d left Sophie in the basement. After what happened the last time he’d caught her in there, he’d swallowed his pride and followed her inside to make sure she was safe. That made leaving her in there a particularly dumbass thing to do, but when he’d seen her going through his documents, something inside him broke. He’d wanted so badly to believe in her—wanted it to a fault. Now he had a pillow that would probably always carry her scent and sheets he’d have to burn if he ever wanted a chance of resting again.

  And a misplaced obligation to make sure she was okay.

  He didn’t have to be happy about it.

  When he got back to the closet, he was surprised to find it was locked. He hadn’t done that, had he? He wasn’t in the habit of leaving it open, so it was entirely possible. Annoyed, he withdrew the key from his pocket and opened the door.

  He was inside the closet when he caught the first hint of smoke.

  Sophie.

  He felt the door to the basement and, finding it cool, attempted to open it.

  It didn’t budge.

  “Sophie!” He pounded on the wall, knowing damn well she’d never hear him unless she was standing immediately on the other side. “Sophie!” He threw his weight against the door once. Twice. On the third try, something finally gave. He flew through the splintered opening and landed on the basement floor.

  Smoke gathered overhead, but he couldn’t see the source. The darkness revealed no light.

  “Sophie!”

  He stopped short of charging in after her. Instead, he did an about-face back into the supply closet and grabbed a couple of towels. He used bottled water kept in the closet to soak the towels, then grabbed two more bottles for the road.

  Back in the basement, the smoke had
already grown thicker. He covered his nose and mouth with one of the towels and hightailed it in the direction of the office where he’d left Sophie. When he turned the corner, he stopped short.

  He’d found the fire.

  There was a pile of boxes in front of the office door. The fire was mostly contained to the stack, though it had started to spread. The thick black smoke and heat reminded him of burning rubber. There was no telling what was in the basement…or what could have been brought in.

  He removed the cloth from his face, nearly choking on the smoke. “Sophie!”

  If she answered, he couldn’t hear it over the crackling of the flames. Where were the sprinklers? He could have sworn he’d seen them overhead, but maybe they’d been damaged. Or disabled.

  “Sophie!” He slammed the side of his fist against the wall of the office. Was she even in there? “Sophie!”

  He pressed the cloth to his face again and took the deepest breath he dared.

  Thump.

  The noise had come from the office. Had he imagined it? He beat on the wall again, and to his relief, he got an answering knock. Hang on, Soph. He didn’t say it aloud—he needed to save his breath—but he prayed she heard him anyway.

  The flames had darkened the door, but it hadn’t yet caught fire. However, the pile of burning debris completely blocked his access. Going through the wall wasn’t an option—it was too solid for that. His eyes skirted the area lit by the fire and landed on a folding metal chair. He set the water bottles down against the wall, then he tucked one of the wet towels in the neck of his shirt and the second in his waistband. Holding his breath, he grabbed the metal chair and swung hard at the burning stack. He could only pray he wasn’t swinging at an accelerant—if so, he was just asking for an explosion—but it was a chance he’d have to take.

  The pile scattered on impact. Empty boxes. He quickly beat and shoved the burning debris until he could get to the door. The knob was hot, so he used a towel to swing it open. The light was on, so despite the smoke, he easily scoured the room.