“She promised this guy a successful campaign for district attorney if he would feed information to her son. She railroaded her own son because she was afraid that someone would make the connection between the two of them if he went to trial.”
“You’re kidding! Who would do that to their own child?”
“Apparently Abigail Grant.”
I pressed myself back against the wall, my breathing coming in quick gasps as I stood there. What the hell? Did they just say that my mother paid off the prosecutor to encourage my brother to confess? Why?
I suddenly felt like the walls were closing in. I had to get out of there.
When I was pretty sure no one was looking—not that they were paying all that much attention to me—I slipped out a back door and down the garden path to the pool house. Another favorite refuge when I was a kid. I used to come here whenever Mom was on a rampage about something, avoiding her until she ran out of steam. There was still a couple of packs of cards on the side table from when Mickey and I used to use to play poker.
Oh my God!
I knew she didn’t want his mistakes to reflect on her, but how could she do that? How could she ask someone to feed my brother information so that his confession would be more likely to put him in prison? If he’d stuck with his original story, it wouldn’t have matched the forensic evidence. They would have let him go. But she interfered and…why? Why would she hang her own child out to dry?
It didn’t make sense. She should have wanted him out of jail just for the fact that people would be less likely to find out they were related if he was on the outside. Right? I mean, it was a miracle the press hadn’t figured it out at some point. I kept expecting them to. Every time he went to court, every time my lawyers filed a new appeal, I expected them to find out. But they never did. Not even when he died, not that many people in the press paid attention to that fact. It was a blurb, buried in the back just behind the sports page.
Why, why, why? It seemed the more answers we got, the more questions they generated.
“What did I say? Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn?”
I jumped, Kipling’s words still fresh in my ears—someone made threats—but I knew whom it was. Who else would it be?
Kipling gathered me into his arms and sat on a low couch with me in his lap, his hands gentle as he stoked my back.
“You make me so angry,” he whispered against my lips. “Why can’t you just listen for once? I told you not to go anywhere alone.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he kissed me as if it was the first time. I should have pulled away, but it felt too good. I sat up a little straighter, moving my legs so that I was straddling him. I could feel his erection already awake and aching for attention. I pulled back a little, touched a finger to his lips.
“You’re insatiable. Are you always like this?”
The little lines at the corners of his eyes seemed to suggest he was really thinking about it.
“No,” he finally said. “But there’s something about you…”
And that melted all the resistance that had been building inside of me. The wall I’d wanted to raise up between us just tumbled down. I was a raw ball of emotion right in that moment, and I couldn’t turn from the only source of comfort that was being offered.
Even if I knew it would eventually lead to heartbreak.
He lifted my shirt over my head and pressed his lips to the tops of my breasts, his fingers sliding under the bra that kept them covered for the moment. But he had it pushed out of his way pretty quickly, his tongue teasing my nipples as I reached back and removed the offending undergarment myself. He moaned softly against my breast, his hands caressing the small of my back, his fingers twisting my one free nipple gently. I ran my hand over his head, his hair caught between my fingers. I found myself watching his curls appear and disappear with the tension in my touch. For a brief moment, I found myself imagining small children with those same curls…and then an image of Grace McKay filled my mind and I felt this rush of pain through my chest like I had a right to grieve a child I’d never met, a child my brother confessed to killing.
I pulled back, suddenly overwhelmed with everything I knew about this man, about the end of his family. I’d studied him and that night as if it was the one class that would finalize my education. It had always been about the truth, about proving my brother innocent and freeing Kipling from his grief by showing him the truth. By helping him let go. But in that moment, I suddenly realized two things: the truth wasn’t going to set him free. It was only going to push him back into that dark abyss of grief all over again. And the truth…my Mom was somehow involved—and that made my family and me somehow complacent in what had happened to Jesse and Grace. I fought so hard to prove we had nothing to do with it. But now there was this Mom-shaped stain on my soul and I couldn’t…how could I lay with Jesse’s husband, Grace’s father, knowing that?
I backed up, trying to get to my feet so I could stand. Kipling grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him again.
“What’s going on? Where are you going?”
“Do you know how insane this is?” I asked, feeling a little crazy in the way my voice wavered when I said it. “This thing we’re doing, we’re just perpetuating the pain.”
“We’re comforting each other. What’s wrong with that?”
I laughed, a sound that was more of a sob than it was humor. “My family did this horrible thing to yours. My brother was involved with these terrible people, my mom worked with the prosecutor to make sure no one ever found out the truth. And I…I just kept pushing it, keeping it raw, tearing your wounds open again and again and again. How can you even look at me?”
“Who told you?” he demanded, anger a dark cloud in his eyes. “I specifically told them—”
“Does it matter? I would have found out eventually.”
“Listen to me.” He took my face in his hands, refusing to let me look away. “Fuck it! Fuck your mother! Fuck your damn brother! It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does. Just the truth. We both deserve to know the truth.”
“And what happens when we do? What if the truth is more than we can handle?”
He studied my face for a long moment. “I identified the bodies of my wife and child days after they were brutally murdered. I looked the cop in the eye when he described to me all the horrible things that had been done to them. And you…you sat in the courtroom every time the prosecutor talked about what a depraved human being your brother was. You believed in him after everyone—including me—told you that he wasn’t worth it. You never let any obstacle stop you from doing what you believed was right.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “I think we’ve both been through the worst. The truth can’t possibly live up to all that.”
I shook my head because I didn’t believe that he truly understood what I’d always clung to. I really believed my brother was innocent. And I believed that innocence was clear us both. That had changed. I still believed—I knew—my brother was innocent. But my mom?
“I’ve been living in a dark place since all this began,” Kipling said softly. “I never thought I should be allowed to feel again, to be happy, to move on with my life. I always felt like I should suffer because they suffered. But then I found a purpose in working with David and the others at Gray Wolf. And I’ve found pleasure again with you. I don’t want to analyze it beyond that. I just want to feel again.”
He drew me close to him and kissed me. I closed my eyes, all this pain, all this doubt, all these dark emotions swirling around inside of me. But his touch…I think I’d wanted this from that first moment, seeing him in the back of the courtroom. I finally had it, no matter how fleeting it was. I needed to get out of my own way and learn to live in the moment because, sometimes, that’s all you’ve got.
He lay me down there on the low couch and kissed his way from my lips to my breasts to my belly. I ran my fingers through his hair again, watching him move lower and lower. He looked up at me as
he worked the buttons on my jeans, the need radiating from his eyes reminding me that he wanted me. His eyes weren’t closed. He wasn’t going into this blindly. He wanted me.
He tugged my jeans away, sliding my panties slower than necessary down my hips, revealing that he really just liked watching the most intimate parts of my body slowly reveal themselves to him. When he stood to undress himself, moving quickly in his haste to join me on the couch, I found myself studying every inch of him, finding it both familiar and achingly new. I wanted to remember this so that I could revisit these memories when I was once again alone.
He hooked my knees over his shoulders as he slid inside of me, closing his eyes and clenching his jaw as the sensation of his cock plunging into my warm depths rushed over him. I watched, reaching up to smooth my palm over his cheek. He turned into my hand, kissing my palm as he began to move, sliding into an easy rhythm with the first few thrusts. I wanted to close my eyes and let the pleasure he was creating deep in my core become the only thing my senses knew. But I couldn’t take my eyes from him.
He must have sensed my gaze because he opened his eyes, his movements faltering slightly. Then he leaned down and kissed me gently.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice rough. “Too beautiful. It almost hurts to look at you.”
Tears started to roll soundlessly down my cheeks. I touched his face again, and he pulled back to look into my eyes. He wiped my tears away, his eyes steady on mine as he continued to move inside of me, his rhythm—our rhythm—slowing as physical need was pushed back in favor of intimacy. It seemed to last forever, but nothing really does. And when he cried out, his orgasm overtaking him, I whispered those little words against his throat.
“I love you.”
I knew he couldn’t hear me, just like he hadn’t before. But I had to say it; I had to unburden at least that one thing from my shoulders. I had to let him know that he deserved to be loved again. Maybe not by me, but by someone.
He held me when it was over, his hands moving over my belly, his lips skimming my shoulders. But then his phone buzzed and he couldn’t ignore it. Not this time.
“They think they found something,” he said, reading the text message someone had sent. “I should go back up to the house.”
“Okay.”
“Are you coming?”
“Yes,” I said, even though I was still curled up on the couch as he climbed over me and began to dress. I watched him, again trying to memorize every line of his perfect body.
When he was ready to go, he looked down at me. He squatted so that we were almost eye to eye, running his hand slowly over the curve of my jaw.
“You okay?”
I took his hand and intertwined my fingers with his. “Go see what they found.”
“You’ll be up in a minute?”
I nodded. “I just need a second.”
“Okay.”
He kissed my temple, then walked away, our fingers lingering together for just an instant. He let the door slam behind him, and it was like a bullet bursting through my chest.
I wanted to fall apart, but I had something I had to do. I’d set out to make this thing right for Mickey and for Kipling. Now I knew what I had to do. I just hoped it was enough.
Chapter 11
Kipling
David and Ash had their heads together when I walked through the back door into the sitting room. I found myself smiling, even though it was entirely inappropriate to the situation. But it was nice to see the brothers on common ground. There’d been some tension between them because of David’s attempts to create a security agency that was as good as—if not better—than his brother’s original. I supposed there was always some competition between siblings, but they seemed to have found their way back to the same level.
Family. These people had shown me a true definition of family that my previous experiences had lacked. I would forever be grateful to them for that.
“What did you find?”
David looked over, standing as he watched me come into the room. Ash stood, too, curiosity in his eyes as he watched me, too. I felt almost like a teenager coming in from a date, my parents trying to figure out what I’d been up to in the backseat of the family car. I crossed my arms over my chest and adopted a stern look, hoping that would end the curious glances. It didn’t, but it made me feel better.
“Joss was going over the crime scene photos and the notes the cops on the scene made. She thinks that they all overlooked something.”
Joss, the tiny girl with the pregnant belly, stood and came over next to David. She held a photo that she carefully kept turned from me.
“There’s a mark on your wife’s body that indicates she was likely beaten by someone who was wearing a very distinctive ring. There’s no mention of it in the police report, but the coroner remarked on it in his report. However, it seems that no one paid much attention to it because of the confession.”
“What kind of ring?”
“It’s square with some sort of insignia in the center of it.”
I nodded, remembering seeing just that sort of ring today. “It’s a military ring. Russian military, if I’m not mistaken. I saw it this morning.”
“What do you mean?” Ash demanded.
“It belongs to Misha Bogdan.”
They all kind of stared dumbfounded at each other. Then Ash handed me a picture of Misha wearing the same ring.
“That was our conclusion, too.”
“Let’s go.”
It didn’t even cross my mind to wait for Harley. I didn’t want her to see this. She’d been through enough today; she didn’t need to see this.
David and his band of security experts were very thorough. They had an address and had even sent Ingram ahead to make sure Misha was home. We drove up in two separate SUVs, everyone but Joss along for the ride. It was a nice house, upper middleclass in a neighborhood close to Rice University in downtown Houston. I had my gun in my hand as I approached the front door, nodding to Ash as he went around one side, Knox down the other. I couldn’t have trusted these people more if we’d been brothers and sisters in a military unit. I knew they had my back.
I pounded on the door, but I didn’t expect an answer. And I didn’t get one.
“He’s going out the back,” David said, reporting what he was hearing over the earpiece they’d all inserted before even leaving Mrs. Grant’s house.
We rushed around the side and found Misha Bogdan splayed out on the ground, Ingram over him with a gun pointed to his head.
“What the fuck!” Misha screamed.
“You left out a few details this morning, my friend.”
“I ain’t telling you shit!”
“Good. I haven’t used my interrogation skills in a while. I’d like to give them a whirl.”
Ingram snatched Misha up off the ground and dragged him back into the house. Donovan moved up along beside me.
“You sure you want to do this, brother?”
“Definitely.”
The house was nice, but clearly lacked a woman’s presence. It was all dark wood and heavy furniture, dishes overflowing in the sink and booze more prominently displayed than knick-knacks or family portraits.
“Not married, Misha?”
“And have someone a person like you could use for leverage? Not hardly.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I prefer coming straight to the source.”
Misha snorted, still trying to be the big man even as Ingram and Donovan were tying him to a chair. Knox came down the stairs and signaled the all clear. The house was empty. We could take all day if we wanted to.
I put my gun down and made a bit of a show of rolling up the sleeves of my shirt. Ash and David sat back, watching from the vulnerable spots of the room—an open doorway and the front door. Donovan sat on the couch directly in front of Misha, staring him down as if he was the most fascinating thing the world had ever created. Knox was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, guarding that vulnerable position,
and Ingram was patrolling the house, moving from room to room at a slow, steady pace.
A well-trained unit.
“You were at my house the night my wife died. I want to know what happened.”
“I told you, I have no knowledge of that crime.”
“And you’re lying.”
I smashed him hard in the face, watching as his nose exploded under my knuckles. He grunted, but that was his only reaction. He’d probably suffered much worse during his days in the Russian army.
“We know you were there. We have evidence the police managed to overlook.”
“You have shit.”
Another punch to the face. He looked up at me and smiled, a tooth that had come loose hanging from its socket.
“You hit her hard enough to leave an impression of your ring.”
Misha tilted his head just slightly. “Maybe that happened before that night. Or maybe it was a different ring.”
“And maybe you fucking know what happened that night and you’re going to tell me!”
Misha spit blood in my general direction, missing the tip of my shoe by an inch.
This was going to be a very long afternoon. But satisfying.
I wasn’t really a violent man, but ten years of rage and frustration and grief and the driving need for revenge were finally finding an outlet. And it felt damn good.
The questions, the punches, we went back and forth for the better part of two hours. Misha was definitely a hard nut to crack. Donovan gave it a go for a few minutes, too, his punch packing a little more power than mine. But he wasn’t budging.
And then Knox had an idea. She snuck back upstairs without anyone noticing, returning with a handful of letters and a notebook that Misha immediately recognized because his eyes widened and he sat up a little straighter.
“Leave my stuff alone, bitch!” he screamed.
Knox ignored him, smiling as she handed her stash over to me.
“Turns out, Misha here has a crush on his former boss.”
“Put that stuff back!”
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