by J. R. Ward
And over the next couple of months, he'd played her perfectly, seducing her carefully and with calculation. He'd even told her he didn't want to have sex before they were married—so he could introduce her to his Catholic grandmother and mother with a clean conscience.
They were married five months later, and things had turned on a dime after the ceremony. As soon as she'd moved into that hotel suite with him, Mark had controlled her as tightly as a fist. Hell, when her mother had died, he'd insisted his chauffeur accompany her back to California and be at her side from the second she stepped off the plane to the moment she put her foot back in the suite.
And the sex-before-marriage thing? Turned out that hadn't been a big sacrifice for him because he'd been sleeping with his various mistresses—and she'd learned this when one had turned up with a belly the size of a basketball about a month after the ink was dry on the marriage license.
Coming back to the present, she got to her feet with the rest of the congregation and sang words from the hymnal that Robbie held in his hands.
Considering what the past had taught her, she worried about the fairy tale she'd spun in her head about Vin.
Optimism wasn't for the faint of heart. And daydreams could get you in troubnle.
* * *
He sat behind her and she never knew it. Which was the beauty of disguises. Today he was wearing his churchgoer one, which meant blue contact lenses and wire-framed glasses.
He'd waited in the back of the church for her to come in with the son, and when the two didn't show up, he'd figured they were missing the service for once and still back home. He'd left and gone to his car, but as he'd been driving away, he'd seen the two of them on the sidewalk, talking intently. Circling the block, he'd watched them talk together until they had run into the cathedral and disappeared through the big doors.
By the time he'd reparked his car, he'd missed half the service, but he'd managed to sit right behind her and the son, slipping from the shadows and lowering himself into the pew.
She spent most of the service staring up at the frescoes that were being cleaned, her head tilted to the side so that the angle of her cheek was especially lovely. As usual, she was dressed in a long skirt and a sweater—today they were a deep maroon—and she had a pair of pearl earrings on. Her dark hair was coiled up in a loose bun and she was wearing light perfume…or maybe it was just that laundry detergent or those dryer sheets she used?
He'd have to go to the supermarket and sniff the Tides and Cheerses and Gains and Bounces, to see which one it was.
Sitting in the pew, she looked like such the Good Mother, helping her son find the right pages in the hymnal, bending down from time to time when he had a question to ask her. No one would even have used the word slut within hearing distance of her…much less apply it to her: She seemed to be one of those women who had immaculately conceived her child.
It made him think about the guy he'd beaten with the tire iron. Not the part about killing him, although evidently that hadn't gone as planned, as the fool was just in a coma—another reason disguises were so very necessary. No, he thought about the expression on the man's unbusted face as he'd come out of that dirty, filthy bathroom at that dirty, filthy club.
What a lie her illusion was.
Rage boiled in him, but it was so not the right time for that, and to distract himself, he stared at the delicate muscles that ran up the nape of her neck. Soft curls formed around the gentle curve, and more than once he found himself leaning forward as if he would touch them…
Or maybe wrap his hands around her throat.
And squeeze until she was his and his alone.
He could just imagine what it would be like to subdue her struggles and claim her as his…could picture the rapture in her eyes as she died.
As he got wrapped up in the future, he nearly acted on his impulse, but fortunately, the singing parts of the service helped to break his furious concentration and occupy his hands. He also looked over at the son from time to time to keep his obsession from locking on her in a place that, if things got away from him, he'd lose everything.
The son was so well behaved. So grown-up. A little man of the house, no doubt.
She never released him to go with the other children to Sunday school, keeping him instead right by her. Which was a little frustrating, although she was wise not to let him out of her sight. Very wise.
But she shouldn't worry. The little boy was going to be with his Father very soon…and she was going to be with her forever husband.
The perfect future was mapped out for them all.
Chapter 27
Vin walked through the door to the duplex, closed himself in, and felt like someone had kneed him in the gut. From the hall, he stared at the ruined living room, and could not believe what he was looking at.
As he walked into the space, all he could do was shake his head. The couches were overturned and the silk pillows were trampled and a number of statues had been knocked off their stands. The rug was ruined over by the bar, stained by liquor that had bled from broken bottles, and the walls were going to have to be repainted and repapered because it looked as if a couple of Bordeaux wines had been thrown at them.
Taking off his coat and tossing it on a ransacked sofa, he wandered around the once perfect space. It was amazing how all those priceless things had been turned into trash so quickly. Shit, add a layer of grime and some food garbage and you had a Dumpster.
Bending down, he picked up some shards that had broken loose from a Venetian mirror. The thing had been struck with something that vaguely resembled a human back, the center of the piece smashed in a long, torso-like column.
The fine spray of white powder all over it seemed to suggest that the police had gotten busy dusting for fingerprints.
Man, someone sure as hell had been thrown around the room.
Vin went over to the bar and put the jagged pieces of mirror next to some of the busted bottles. Then he resumed the search for exactly what the cops had no doubt been after.
No blood that he could see. But maybe they had already removed the things that had been marked by it.
Besides, bruises bled under the skin, so it wasn't as if a lack of the stuff here was necessarily going to help him.
While the CPD had been in the building, undoubtedly they'd questioned the lobby guard—except it wasn't like the guy could testify to Vin's not being in the apartment. After all, residents could take the elevators up from the parking…garage.
Vin went over to the phone and called down to the front desk. When a male voice answered, he didn't fuck around. “Gary, it's Vin—did you give the police access to the security tapes of the elevators and the stairwells in the building?”
There was absolutely no pause whatsoever. “Jesus, Mr. diPietro, why'd you do it—”
“I didn't. I swear. Did the CPD get those tapes?”
“Yeah, they got everything.”
Vin exhaled in relief. There was no way he could have gotten to the duplex without showing up in one of those recordings. In fact, what they were going to prove was that he'd left the building that morning and not returned until after midnight.
“And you were on camera,” the guard said.
Vin blinked. “What?”
“You came up in the garage elevator at ten o'clock. It's on the tape.”
“What?” That would have been impossible—at the time he'd been in the car, driving to the Woods with Marie-Terese. “Wait, you saw my face. You actually saw my face.”
“Yeah, clear as day. She came through the front doors and went up to the duplex, and then twenty minutes later you came in through the garage. You had on your black trench coat and you left like a half hour later, with your Boston Sox cap pulled low.”
“It wasn't me. It—”
“It was.”
“But…I didn't park my BMW in my spot—it was gone, and my other car was there. I didn't use my pass card to get through the gate. Explain—”
“You got a ride, then, and came in through the pedestrian door. I don't know. Look, I got to go. We're running a test of the fire alarm.”
The line went dead.
Vin hung up the receiver and stared at the phone, feeling like the whole fucking world had lost its damn mind. Then after a moment, he went over to the couch, arranged the cushions into some semblance of order, and all but fell on his ass.
As the alarm system in the building started to go off and strobe lights flashed from the fixtures out in the front hall, he felt like he was in the dream he'd had, the one where Devina fell upon him like something out of Night of the Living Dead.
Chess pieces were being arranged around him, blocking his moves, boxing him in.
You 're mine, Vin. And I always take what is mine.
As he heard those words in his head again, the sound of the alarm was the perfect accompaniment to the panic burning through his veins. Shit. What the hell did he do now?
From out of nowhere, Jim Heron's voice cut through Devina's: I'm here to save your soul.
Ignoring that summarily unhelpful cue, Vin got up and went to his study in search of something far more likely to chill him out. Over at the intact liquor bottles, he poured himself a bourbon, drank it, and then refilled the squat glass. The television had been left on, but was muted, and as he parked it behind his desk, his eyes latched onto the local news.
When a photograph appeared next to the anchor's blond head shortly thereafter, he could not say he was surprised. With the way things were going, it would take a dirty bomb set off in downtown Caldwell to get a rise out of him.
He reached for the remote.
“…Robert Belthower, thirty-six, was found early this evening in an alley not far from where Friday night's two victims were shot. He is now at St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. No suspects have been identified yet in the crime…”
It was the guy from the Iron Mask. The one who had come out of the bathroom with Marie-Terese.
Vin picked up the phone and dialed.
The call wasn't accepted until the fourth ring, and Jim's voice was tight, like he didn't want to answer: “Hey, my man.”
Still feel like saving my soul now? Vin wanted to taunt. “Have you seen the news?”
Long hesitation. “You mean about Devina?”
“Yeah. I didn't do that, though, I swear—last I saw her was when I broke up with her that afternoon and let her walk out of my place with the ring I bought her—you're welcome. But I'm more calling about the guy they found beaten in an alley downtown. He was with Marie-Terese last night. I saw him with her. Which would make it three men in twenty-four hours who've…Hello? Jim?” When there was an uh-huh, it was clear what the problem was. “Look, I didn't do that shit to Devina, although I know you won't believe me.” Another long silence. “Hello? Oh, for fuck's sake, do you honestly think I could hurt a woman?”
“I thought you were calling because of me.”
Now it was his turn to pause. “Why?”
Another long silence. “She said she told you. About us.”
“Us? What 'us'?”
“She said that was why you lost it and hit her.”
Vin tightened his hand on his glass. “Exactly what is there to tell about the two of you.” The soft curse coming across the line was in the universal language for sex-that-shouldn't-have-happened.
Vin's muscles around his shoulders and down into his arms went rigid. “Are you kidding me. Are you fucking kidding me.”
“I'm sorry—”
The glass shattered in Vin's palm, bourbon going everywhere, soaking his sleeve and cuff, splashing on the front of his shirt and his pants.
He ended the call by hurling the cell phone across the room.
* * *
While Jim hit the end key, he was willing to bet that wasn't the way Vin had terminated the call. No, he had a feeling that whatever phone had been up at Vin's ear was now fodder for a dustpan. Great. Just fucking wonderful.
After he rubbed his eyes, he refocused on the entrance of the inpatient building and let the first part of the conversation register: another beaten guy tied to Marie-Terese. And when Vin called, that had been the number one thing on his mind, even above the fact that, oh, yeah, he was up on felony assault for buzz-sawing his girlfriend with his knuckles.
That shit with Marie-Terese was as strong as ever for him. Which somehow didn't feel like such a great thing.
Man, this particular mission was going to hell faster than a free fall.
Jim glanced down at his watch and then resumed staring at each person who went in and out of the doors. It was close to one, so Devina's people would supposedly be coming any second, and then she would be leaving with them.
God, Devina was such a liar.
It felt like sacrilege to come to that conclusion, given how that woman's face looked, but the truth was what it was: Vin hadn't known a thing about Thursday night and what had happened in Jim's truck. Not one thing. The totally-in-the-dark had resonated through his shocked voice.
Why had she lied about telling the guy? And what else had she lied about?
Sure as shit it made Vin's denial more credible.
One o'clock came and went and so did one thirty. Then two. Devina had to be coming out soon, assuming it took about an hour to process her paperwork and her folks were on time—and assuming she didn't go out another way.
And assuming anyone was coming to pick her up.
Wishing he had a cigarette, he held on to his phone and rubbed the flat surface of the screen until it grew warm. Truth. He needed a truth injection into this situation. He needed to know who Marie-Terese was and who Devina was and what the fuck was going on.
Unfortunately, that was going to cost him—
Devina abruptly stepped out of the double doors, a pair of big sunglasses taking up most of her face. She was dressed in a black yoga suit, and her oversize crocodile shoulder bag made her seem thin as a ruler in comparison. As she came out to porte cochere's curb, people stared at her as they passed, like they were trying to place her in the celebri-verse.
There was no one with her.
And…the bruising that had been on her face was now gone. All of it. She was photo-op ready, as lovely and perfect as she'd been over dinner Friday night.
Ice-cold warning splashed through Jim's veins, the kind that had come only a couple of times in his life.
This was wrong. Way wrong.
Straightening in the truck's seat, he braced himself as he looked at the pavement down at her feet. In the light that was pouring out of the sky and creating echoes of objects large and small on the ground, she did not throw a shadow. She was form, but not substance, shape but not flesh. This was the enemy. He was looking at the enemy. He'd fucked the enemy.
As if she heard his thoughts, Devina looked right where he was parked. And then her brows tightened and her face slowly panned from side to side—which he took to mean she couldn't see exactly where he was, but she knew someone was staring at her…
Her expression was stone cold. Nothing like the warmth she'd radiated in front of Vin or what she'd thrown around at Jim in the truck or in the car or in that hospital bed.
Stone. Cold.
Serial-killer cold.
Talk about a truth: She was a seducer and a liar and a manipulator…and she was after Vin. And not as in marriage, but as in owning the man's very soul.
In the center of his chest, Jim also had the sure feeling that she knew who he was and what he was. Had known from that first night when they'd had sex—because she'd seduced his ass on purpose. Hell, the logic was unassailable. His new bosses, the Four Lads, had put him on the field, and it looked like the other side had likewise sent an operative into the situation—who knew more than Jim did.
As that old refrain of “Devil with a Blue Dress” rolled through his head, he started to wonder about guys on Harleys who didn't cast shadows either. And probably were liars, too.
Goddamn it.
Devina scanned the parking lot again, snapped at some poor guy who backed into her by mistake, and then lifted her hand to call up one of the cabs from the line to the right. When a taxi came forward, she stepped inside and off they went.
Time to roll, Jim thought as he started his truck and backed out of his space. As she knew his ride but only in the dark, he had a veil, not a cover, so he had to settle in two cars behind her and pray that her cabbie wasn't in the habit of blowing through orange lights.
While he trailed her, he tuned up his cell phone for a call, and as he pressed send, nothing else mattered other than getting what he needed. Nothing he had to do was too much. No sacrifice was too great or too demeaning. He was back in the land of single-minded focus, as determined and unswerving as a bullet in midair.
“Zacharias,” he said as the line was picked up.
Matthias the fucker laughed low. “I swear I'm talking to you more than my own mother.”
“Didn't know you had one. I thought you'd been spawned.”
“You call me to discuss family trees or is there a purpose to this?”
“I need the information.”
“Ah. Now why did I have the sense you'd come around.”
“But I want the info on two names. Not just one. And I can't do a job for you until I finish what I'm working on in Caldwell.”
“What exactly are you working on?”
“None of your business.” Although Matthias was going to get a pretty good picture of the whos involved.
“How long are you tied up for.”
“I don't know. Not six months. Maybe not even one month.”
There was a pause. “I'll give you forty-eight hours. And then you're mine.”
“I'm not anybody's, asshole.”
“Right. Sure. Expect an e-mail from me explaining everything.”
“Look, I'm not blowing out of Caldwell until I'm good and frickin' ready. So send whatever you like, but if you think you're shipping me overseas the day after tomorrow to off someone, you've got your head up your ass.”