by Sybil Bartel
I stood there.
My twin tipped his chin toward the dead man as he held the phone to his ear. “You think that piece of shit is worth losing your future over?”
I’d already lost my future.
Vance snorted. “Then again, if you’re going to find religion every time you see a dead asshole, then maybe you shouldn’t be in the Marines.” His call connected, and he turned his back.
I’d wanted to be a Marine for as long as I could remember.
Before her. Before this. Before I knew what I was capable of.
She cleared the corner and disappeared from sight.
His phone to his ear, Vance glanced over his shoulder and threw me a final warning. “Last chance.”
I selfishly turned and walked away in the other direction.
Mentally shaking myself out of the memory, I scanned the garage again.
Then I told Luna a truth I’d never spoken about. “Abernathy should’ve targeted me.” The next morning after that night ten years ago, I was on a transport heading downrange when I’d gotten a two-word text from my brother. Problem’s handled. But Vance had lied. The problem hadn’t been handled. Kyle Abernathy was still alive.
Luna turned in his seat to look at me. “Because?”
“I’m the one who beat the fuck out of him at that party,” I admitted. “I killed his assistant.”
“Jesucristo.” Luna leaned back in his seat. “Do I want to know why?”
Pick a reason. “Abernathy was a predator. His assistant was worse.” I was out of my mind. “Abernathy got Sanaa to sign a contract, then told me he was going to ‘break her in’ before his assistant said they were going to pass her around the Trinity executives so they could all get a taste of her. She was seventeen. She was my girlfriend. I was deploying the next morning. In a rage, I threw my elbow into the assistant’s face before going after Abernathy. Killing the assistant wasn’t intentional.”
“Dios mio,” Luna muttered. “And you’re just now telling me this?”
I didn’t answer. There was no point.
Luna scrubbed a hand over his face. “How come you weren’t charged?”
“Vance. He said he’d handled it.” I’d stupidly taken him at his word.
Luna muttered another curse in Spanish. “Fucking pedophile should’ve been taken out, but you’re telling me that ten years ago, Vance handled covering up all of that on his own?” he asked skeptically.
I watched two vehicles pull in that could be potential threats. Everything was a fucking threat now. The first car pulled into a space, and the second drove to the bank of elevators. A woman wearing a straw hat got out of the back seat, and the car took off.
I looked at Luna. “Vance was the one renting that house.”
Exhaling, Luna scrubbed a hand over his face. “Madre de Dios.”
VANCE WALKED INTO THE SUITE with a strained smile. “You rang, love?”
I glanced at the time on my cell.
Twenty-two minutes left.
“We don’t have much time. Ronan’s going to be here in twenty minutes.” He used to always be early when we were younger. I was betting that hadn’t changed.
Vance frowned. “I don’t think now’s the time to—”
“I’m not talking about that.” I waved my hand dismissively through the air. I’d already decided I was done sparring with him. As much as I loved the release and the feeling of barely harnessed control, I would have to find some sort of normal exercise like a sane person. Like a stupid treadmill. Or something.
Vance’s phone rang, and he pulled it out to glance at the screen. His frown deepened.
“I think Ronan knows it’s Abernathy,” I blurted. “We have to find him now. Before Ronan does.”
Vance looked up. “We don’t even know for sure if it’s him.”
“Who else could it be? We banked this whole trip on it being him. It makes sense.”
Inhaling, Vance let it out slow. Then his placating tone came out. “Sanaa. We suspect it’s him. We tracked his movements up until Venezuela five months ago. It’s a known hotspot for plastic surgery, and we’re making all the right assumptions, but no one on the tour has a passport with a Venezuelan stamp in the past five months, and we’re coming up empty everywhere else.”
“But you yourself said we didn’t check all the cleaning crews at the venues or vendors, or local staff at every stop on the tour. Just because we couldn’t find a passport coinciding with where we think he was, doesn’t mean it isn’t him.”
The lines by his mouth going tight, he gave me his fake patience. “I understand that, love. But give this plan a little more time to work. We set the bait, we already got another note, this is working.” He stepped toward me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Be patient.”
I wasn’t patient. “We need to get to him.”
“That’s been the plan all along.” His expression turned lethal. “Draw him out, take him out.”
“If Ronan sees him, he’ll kill him.” Then he’ll have killed two men to protect me. Where would it end?
Vance’s face shut down. “If I see him, I’m going to kill him.”
“That’s different,” I stupidly admitted.
Dropping the pretense, Vance snorted. “Right.” Turning away, he looked back down at his cell phone.
“Don’t be like that. You know what I mean.” I didn’t even know what I meant. Was it okay for Ronan’s twin brother to kill in the name of protecting me, but not Ronan when he’d already done exactly that?
Vance’s persona slid easily back into place. “Sorry, love, don’t think I do.” His thumbs flew across his screen as he sent a text.
My head spun. “I’m talking to you.”
“And I’m listening. What’s your point?”
Grasping at desperation, I threw misplaced anger at him. “I’m not the only one who stands to lose here.”
Finishing another text, he shoved his phone back in his pocket. His hands going to his hips, he gave me the full weight of his attention, but it would never compare to his brother. “Short of setting off one of his fucking bombs, there’s nothing he can do to either of us. And since I’m not going to let that happen, you’re safe.”
Safe.
What a cruel joke. And it wasn’t lost on me that Vance said either of us. “I set the chain of events in motion that made Ronan beat Kyle Abernathy and kill his dreaded assistant.”
Vance snorted. “Did you also make Abernathy tell your boyfriend he was going to fuck you and the assistant tell him that he was going to pass you around? Did you make Abernathy a pedophile? Did you propel Ronan’s arm as he threw that well-deserved punch?”
I knew I wasn’t responsible for any of that. People were responsible for their own actions. But sometimes a trigger is pulled and it doesn’t matter who the bullet hits. It only matters who fired the gun, and my finger was on the trigger that night.
“For ten years this had been hanging over my head.” The entire chain of events that fell like dominoes was on my shoulders. “If I’d never signed the contract or stupidly told Kyle about the party, then I wouldn’t have a deranged bomber after me who I got fired so he couldn’t tell the police who’d beaten him up and killed his assistant.”
“You got him fired?” Vance challenged.
“I showed up at Trinity the next day, didn’t I?” I’d done what Vance had told me to do. Even though I’d had a loophole to get out of the contract with what Kyle Abernathy had said, a loophole that maybe could’ve brought me and Ronan back together, I’d shown up because keeping Ronan’s secret was more important.
I never would’ve signed in the first place if I’d known it would’ve led to me losing him. I could’ve always gotten another recording offer or made my own music and sung on my own terms.
I never wanted to be a megastar. The money meant nothing to me beyond food on the table, because I was a simple girl and I always had been. I would’ve been happy singing in a church choir if it meant I could’ve lived a
quiet life with Ronan and had his babies and his arms around me every night.
But that didn’t happen, and I showed up that next morning because Vance told me to. He’d said all I had to do was sing and keep Leo happy, which in turn would keep Kyle silent and, most importantly, Ronan free.
So I did it.
Without hesitation.
Except now here we all were, in a horrible mess that could blow everything apart, literally, because a sick man could detonate his bombs or, worse, point the finger at Ronan and he could go to jail.
All because he’d defended me.
“Yeah,” Vance quipped. “You did great.”
“Don’t you dare patronize me.” Anger simmering, ignoring the fact he had found the previous bombs, I antagonized him. “Why didn’t we just tell Ronan who it is and get this over with?”
Vance looked at me for a moment, like he couldn’t believe he was having to explain himself. Then he shook his head and sighed. “We already discussed this. Ronan wouldn’t have gone along with the plan to use you as bait to flush this sick bastard out. Since we weren’t making headway in London with hundreds of people on the tour who could’ve all had hundreds of hidden agendas to hide however this prick was getting past your security, the next logical step was to isolate you. Abernathy saw both me and Ronan that night. He knows there are two of us. Throwing you, me and Ronan in his sights, cleverly packaged all together in one location, should make him salivate. If it doesn’t, getting him on Amherst’s home turf combined with the fact that the ten-year annual payoff term he negotiated with Amherst just expired should. If Abernathy doesn’t make a move to kill us all with a fucking bomb, I’m betting he’ll be stupid enough to go after Amherst for more money. Either way, I’ll be ready. Therefore, this is, and always has been, the quickest way to draw him out.”
“And if he goes to the police to tell them everything?”
“Let him.” Vance smirked. “I still have plenty of connections in this town.”
I knew Vance was right about the plan, but I also knew what he’d told everyone on the plane was the frightening truth. He was pushing his luck. We needed to find Kyle. But it wasn’t happening fast enough, and every hour that we were all here was only increasing the risk that Kyle Abernathy would get to one or all of us.
And I wasn’t going to let that happen. “You need to take me to the lobby again.”
“Absolutely not.”
“If he sees me again, it’ll draw him out again. I know it will.” At least, I hoped it would.
Vance looked at me like I was a child. “Calm down and trust the plan. I know what I’m doing.”
Anger coiled around my throat and tingled in my limbs. “Maybe Adam was right. Maybe I should bring a whole AES team in instead of just you.”
Vance’s expression shut completely down, and he crossed his arms. “Yes, that’s a superb idea,” his flat tone mocked. “Bring in half of AES’s staff, have Adam pull the trigger on alerting Homeland Security, the local authorities and get the media involved. Let’s start a nationwide manhunt, and when we bring in Abernathy alive, he can tell everyone who will listen that your boyfriend killed his assistant, beat him into a psychological meltdown, his boss has been paying him off in annual payments for ten years, and the great Sanaa’s entire career was built on the pretense of covering it all up because Leo Amherst had a hard-on for a seventeen-year-old girl.”
Anger, guilt and powerlessness flushed my face red. “Stop it.”
“Stop what, pet? The truth that years of lawsuits won’t keep Ronan out of jail, your career intact, or Amherst from suing you for defamation just because he can? But it’ll all be worth it because Abernathy will be caught red-handed with his bombs, so problem solved. Is that it?”
“I hate you.” I glared at him.
“I know,” he replied impassively. “Are we done now? Can I get back to doing my job?”
I was so angry, at him, at myself, at the world, I couldn’t speak.
“Right then.” Vance snorted and turned toward the door. “I’ll be around if you need me to remind you again how to not fuck your life up further.”
When his hand hit the door handle, I found my voice. “Do you actually care about any of this? About what happens to your brother or me or even yourself?” He was so cold sometimes, I wasn’t sure he had a soul. Not one that loved or felt or did anything besides what was obligated, because for every pet name, every smile and every calculated sweet gesture, there was an equally dismissive, cold, cruel or dead look in his eye.
Glancing over his shoulder, Vance Conlon leveled me with a look that never would’ve crossed his brother’s face. “I stopped worrying about myself a long time ago. As for you and Ronan, I’m here, aren’t I?”
I asked him the question his brother had refused to answer. “Before that night, Ronan told me to never mistake you for him. Why did he say that, Vance?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
Vance stared at me, almost as if in challenge.
“Was I the first girl of his you kissed?” I knew Ronan’d had girlfriends before me, but he’d never spoken of them.
Vance didn’t even pretend to hesitate. A humorless smile spread across his face, and he raised a mocking eyebrow. “Kiss?” He chuckled. “Come now, love, you can drop the innocent girl-next-door routine. I think you’re mature enough to say fuck. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I sucked in a sharp breath of guilt that was immediately polluted with shame for both of us.
“Right.” Vance winked. “On second thought, keep that up. That act sells millions of records.”
He walked out.
TAKING THE ELEVATOR UP ONE floor, I stepped into the lobby and pulled my cell out. Dialing, I scanned the hotel. People checking in, a couple heading to the bar, stragglers in the lounge, and the woman with the hat was sitting on a bench by the fountain, rubbing her feet.
Harm picked up on the first ring and gave me a sitrep before I could ask for it. “She’s in her suite. We’re all doing our patrols, but it’s still quiet.”
Something was wrong.
I could feel it.
I scanned the front where hotel security was posted, only allowing registered guests in after this morning’s meeting. “Any other activity?”
Harm didn’t answer.
The hair on the back of my neck rose. “You sense it.”
Harm inhaled. “Like the storm that’s coming.”
“Talk to me.” Harm had spent the last few years at the top of a mountain. If anyone could get in touch with a shift in the weather, it was him.
“We’re missing something,” he replied, echoing my exact sentiment to Luna.
“Agree.” I scanned every single person in the lobby as I strode toward the event rooms.
“Something crucial,” Harm added.
The hallway to the conference spaces empty, I turned back toward the lobby. “You got the pictures I sent?” Before getting out of the Escalade, I’d taken screenshots of the pics Luna had of Abernathy and texted them to Ty, Harm and Tyler.
“Those won’t help.”
I didn’t disagree, they were years old. “If you didn’t want to be seen, what would you do?”
“I wouldn’t be me.”
I rephrased. “If you were intent on revenge and were aiming for your target, what would you do?” I’d thought about this since walking off that private jet.
“What would I have to lose?”
“Anonymity, freedom.” Except that wasn’t the right question. “What he thinks he has to gain is what’s driving him.”
Ignoring my statement, Harm was silent a moment. “Your brother is hiding something. Her too.”
Weren’t we all? I didn’t comment. I needed to speak with her. “I’m coming up now.”
“Vance just left her suite.”
A decade old anger flared, and I shoved it down. “Two minutes.” I hung up and walked to the bank of elevators.
A
couple and a group of three men in suits joined me as we waited. I cataloged all of them, and when the doors slid open for one of the lifts, I stepped back as they all got on. I waited until the elevator was ascending, then I hit the call button again.
Turning, I scanned the lobby.
The woman in the floppy hat was digging in her beach tote, and instinct had me take a step in her direction. At the exact same moment, another elevator arrived, and four loud teenage boys in swim trunks with towels around their necks spilled out.
“Dude, did you hear Sanaa was here in this hotel?” a taller one said. “She was in the lobby this morning.”
“I’d totally cougar tap that,” the shortest one boasted.
My hands fisted as they all laughed and aimed for the pool.
The lady in the hat picked her bag up and turned toward the restrooms as the door to the elevator the teens had just vacated started to close.
Stopping it with my hand, staring at the woman, I stepped into the elevator.
My cell pinged with a text.
Ty: All’s quiet. I don’t like it.
Hitting the button for the penthouse, I swiped my card key, then typed a reply.
Me: I don’t either.
Ty: Doing another perimeter patrol. We’ve got extra eyes on the garage and loading dock now. Sitrep if I find anything.
Me: Copy
I shoved my phone back in my pocket as the elevator opened to the top floor.
Harm made eye contact with me as he stood outside her suite and nodded.
“Do you know where Vance went?”
“Said he was going to do a patrol.”
I was uncomfortable with only two of us up here, but anyone who got this far would’ve had to bypass all our perimeters downstairs, and that would give us ample warning. “Luna’s watching the security feeds from the office, so we should have all access points covered.”
“Should,” Harm stated like it was a four-letter word.
No response for that, because he was right, I opened the door to the suite.
EVERY TIME I LAID EYES on him, my heart broke more.
His square jaw tight with determination, his cheekbones almost too pronounced to be handsome, looking lethally unreal with a gun on his hip and heavy black boots, he strode into the suite with his gaze zeroed in.