“True.” Eli stood from the table and walked toward his temporary computer setup. “Where did you observe from yesterday?”
“The tree house.”
“No way. Really?” Eli grinned like I’d handed him a puppy. “It’s still there?”
“You were like seven,” Remi pointed out. “How can you remember that?”
Eli shrugged, burying his head in the bags of equipment. “Nine. And I just do.” After some shuffling, he straightened, a large box in his hand. “I think I have the answer to our eye problem, though.” He started a pile, adding some cables and what looked like a battery pack. A remote camera. “I’ll head out and set this up.”
“Uh, you will not.” No way in hell. Eli was nowhere near as familiar with the area as I was.
He gave me a get-real look. “You know, I have paid attention all these years. I’m not an idiot. Besides, if the system goes wonky, can you troubleshoot it?”
Fuck no. That’s why he was the electronics expert.
Resignation settled on my shoulders, but it didn’t dampen my tension. My job was to keep them out of danger, not put them in it. “I don’t like it.”
“I do,” Eli threw over his shoulder as he packed the equipment into a bag. “I set up; Remi watches.”
Remi groaned.
“Hours of entertainment for my dickhead bro. How could I not like that?” Eli’s grin turned evil.
“Great. Thanks,” Remi said.
“No problem.” Eli clapped him on the shoulder on his way to the door. “Besides, this gives Levi a chance for that ass chewing you were due. It’s a win-win all around.”
“Then you’re on your own when it comes to the research on Chadwick and the wills,” Remi warned before Eli could leave. “My ass will be too sore to sit in a chair.”
I’d make sure of it.
Eli shook his head. “Bro, I have a feeling that by the time I get back, more than your ass will be too sore to use. Have fun!”
After a wave he closed the door behind him. Remi slumped, his gaze stuck on the exit. When I didn’t start in on him, he finally turned to meet my stare.
“If you don’t want him to be right,” I said, steel threading my words, “I suggest you tell me what the hell is going on with you. Now.”
Chapter Thirteen
“None of your damn business.”
The words were belligerent, but the tone… There was that something again. It sounded suspiciously like defeat.
“Remi…” Fuck. I hated this. I was the only father they truly remembered, but my dad—he’d been a good man. The best. I didn’t want to know how he’d feel about what I did for a living, what I’d drawn Remi and Eli into. Some of his lessons, his morals had stuck with me. That’s why I was so careful about the jobs I took. But the rest…
I didn’t know how to do this part of who I was.
“Just tell me, bro.”
His gaze drifted to the hall Abby had disappeared down. “It’s a woman.”
My heart literally seized. “Abby?”
“No!”
Relief deflated me quickly. So Abby reminded him of the woman he wanted. Or of what he wanted to have.
I watched him carefully as the pieces came together in my mind. “You won’t let yourself have her.”
“Fuck no.”
Not a surprise. Look at where I was coming from. But I had to ask… “Why not?”
“Take a look around, Levi. Why would I put her through all this?”
I couldn’t agree with him more, though I didn’t say it aloud. I wanted far more for my brothers—and Abby; especially for Abby—than I’d ever wanted for myself.
“My and Abby’s problems stem from the people around us, circumstances, not necessarily who we are.” Which is why her house is a pile of fucking charcoal—because of the people in my past.
“Then run away,” Remi said. “Leave all this behind.”
“I can’t.” Even if I could, I wouldn’t. My brothers might be adults, but they were still mine to protect.
“Why not? A couple of fake IDs, some disguises and you could be on your way to the Caribbean by nightfall with no way to track you.”
I ground my teeth together, dropped my gaze to the shiny tabletop.
“But you won’t, will you?”
“I should. Likely it would be the best way to keep Abby safe. That wouldn’t protect you or Eli from whoever Chadwick is working for. With.” I waved a hand vaguely. “Whatever.”
“That’s not the only reason and you know it.”
I took a deep breath and met Remi’s gold eyes. “You’re right.” Nathaniel Agozi’s sense of justice—and the injustice of his and Miriam’s deaths—would never let me walk away. Amos might have pulled the trigger, but it had led to this, to someone else trying to kill for their money. I couldn’t let them go free, even to keep the woman I loved safe.
“I can’t walk away either,” Remi said. “This”—he flung his arms wide—“is who I am. It’s all I know. I might try, for her, but I would only take it with me. And possibly destroy her in the process.”
Just like I had Abby. And I didn’t just mean her house. She wanted all of me, but I was too fractured to give her that. Too scarred at my very core.
Remi was watching me. “Now you get it.”
“I do, brother.” And I had no idea what to do about it, for either of us.
Remi’s fists went tight, his knuckles paling at the force. “I would rather never have her than to put her through hell.”
“Abby’s life isn’t hell,” I argued. It wasn’t great at the moment, but I couldn’t deny the impulse to defend her, defend us.
“But she’s not totally yours, is she? She’s in limbo. And believe me,” Remi said grimly, “that’s hell for a woman.”
“What else can I give her?”
Remi shook his head. “That’s exactly my point. She’d be happier, better off without you. But now that you’ve started with her, she can’t free herself.”
“That’s my choice to make, don’t you think, Remi?”
We both startled at Abby’s voice, like two guilty boys raiding the cookie jar. Abby moved into the room, her pajamas replaced with jeans and a light sweater, her red hair still wet and pushed back from her face. She looked so young like this that I sometimes felt like the pervert she’d jokingly named me last night.
And the way my heart squeezed said it didn’t matter. I’d rather be labeled a pervert than be lost to her forever.
“That’s where you’re wrong, little sis.”
Because even Remi knew, fighting or not, that Abby was a permanent part of my life now. I could never let her go.
“Your life would be far better if he’d never walked back into it,” Remi was saying. “If you’d been allowed to continue on the safe path and never got pulled over to the dark side.”
Abby rested her elbows on the tall back of a dining room chair and leaned in, a sudden flush of anger turning her creamy skin pink. “Let me tell you something, bro—I’ve lived on the ‘safe path’ since I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. And you want to know what it got me? Not a damn moment of actual safety. My mother was murdered and buried in concrete before I ever got the chance to remember her. My stepmother was murdered by a cut brake line. I lived with a man who abused and manipulated me with every breath I took. I was never safe. I didn’t know what safe was.
“Until I walked into Levi’s arms. That’s the only safety I’ve ever known. And it’s worth anything I have to give up to keep it.”
“Then why try to walk away from me, Abby?”
This wasn’t a conversation we should be having in front of Remi, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking. Couldn’t hold back the pain of the hole she’d ripped in my heart. We’d been too busy trying to figure out who was trying to kill us to think about anything else, but even when I’d had her in bed, when I’d been inside her, I couldn’t forget that she’d wanted to leave.
“Because…what you were do
ing to me is only a little less torturous than what Remi is doing to himself,” she said. Straightening up, she met my eyes. “Remi refuses to try in the first place. You’re braver than that; you’ve at least tried to give me some semblance of what I want. What I need.”
“But?”
Her frown said she wasn’t sure how to explain it in a way I’d understand. I wasn’t sure that was even possible. Wrapping my head around anything that risked Abby’s safety probably wasn't going to happen.
“It’s like offering a starving man a bite of the best food you could possibly conjure,” she finally said. “And then refusing to give him any more. There isn’t much he wouldn’t give up to finally feel satisfied. At peace.”
“He doesn’t have much to give up. He’s starving,” Remi pointed out.
“Shut up, dumbass.”
I couldn’t help grinning at Abby’s comeback. For never having had any siblings, she handled mine with ease.
Seeing them suffer her lack of patience, and not just me, was a bonus.
“The point is, all you’re focused on is what she might have to give up. And I’m here to tell you that, for the right woman, it’s all about what she would gain.”
Remi stood. “She’s not you, Abby. And while you may volunteer for this gig, I won’t let her do the same.”
Abby’s eyes went sad as she watched him walk out the door. I felt for him, I truly did. But I also understood him in a way she never would. As men raised to protect, letting someone we loved walk knowingly into hardship, much less danger, was like asking us to sever our own tongue with a dull blade. Almost impossible.
Although having Abby say she wanted to leave me had sharpened the blade a good bit.
“Like denying a starving man, huh?”
Abby turned to me. Her arms came up, hugging her middle. Holding herself together, or protecting her vulnerable parts?
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
I drew up the visceral memory of her cream on my tongue last night, her muscles strangling my cock. “I wasn’t denying you last night.”
She sighed. “This is not about sex, Levi.”
Only a woman could use that tone of voice when denying the power of sex—dismissive, impatient.
I laughed. “Not all about sex.”
When I started a slow stalk through the kitchen, she retreated into the living area, behind the couch. “Aren’t we going to talk about this?” She swallowed hard. “About us?”
I let her see exactly what I wanted when her gaze met mine. “I’d rather do that once you’re in your safe place, little bird.”
She ducked her head, but not before I caught the shy, pleased smile on her face, the need in those hazel eyes. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” I said as I scooped her into my arms. “Oh.”
I settled on the couch, Abby turned sideways on my lap so her legs rested on the cushions, her back against the arm. I wrapped a hand around her hip and pulled her tight against my chest. She shifted her ass, getting comfortable and—added bonus—waking up my cock. Her palm rested on my heart as if it belonged there, speeding up my pulse…because it did belong there, and always would.
“You want to leave me.” I whispered the words into her hair, my heart suddenly galloping for a whole different reason.
Her fingers tightened, twisting into my shirt. “I never wanted to, Levi. I said I have to.”
And I’d immediately jumped into dominant caveman mode: Me, boss. You, stay. This time I wanted—I needed—a different answer than I’d received before. “Why?”
“Because I’m starving,” she said simply. And no, she didn’t mean sex; I understood that, Neanderthal animal or not.
I let out a deep, heavy breath, laid my forehead against her hair. “I don’t know how to be what you want me to be and also who I am, Abby. I’m not normal; I never will be.”
“What’s normal?”
I closed my eyes. “What you had—a house, a car, school. Normal.”
“Can’t we find our normal?” she asked. “Together?”
The no almost left my lips. There was no difference between normal and our normal, was there? It was just normal and not. And life had put me firmly on the not side of that line, whether I wanted to be there or where she was.
But as we sat there, the tension in her body communicated itself to mine. The rigid muscles, the held breath, the tight grip on my shirt. And I knew, in that moment, that whatever I said next would determine if we came out of this conversation with any hope for a future. I could hold Abby’s body hostage, but I couldn’t force her to give me her heart. That, only she could give.
So what was it going to be?
I’m starving.
I nuzzled her hair, letting her sweet scent push my fears away for now. If only I could stay here forever.
“Our normal?” I asked, voice husky from the knot in my throat.
The pulse throbbing in her neck skipped a beat. “Our normal.”
I didn’t know if such a thing even existed. All I knew was that I couldn’t give up without at least a good fucking try. Either that or cut out my heart, because I wouldn’t need the damn thing if she walked away.
“Okay.” I brushed my lips along the shell of her ear, down to that stumbling, striking pulse. “Okay, little bird.”
Chapter Fourteen
When Remi ducked his head cautiously back into the safe house, we got up and got to work. A basic search of county records told us that anything older than ten years wasn’t archived online. We would need to go down to the courthouse to see my parents’ wills. The idea of holding the papers in my hand, of seeing my parents’ final wishes in the flesh, sent nausea roiling through me, but I got dressed anyway, letting Abby’s hand in mine steady me as we headed downtown.
Leaving the SUV without a weapon left me feeling naked, but Remi would be observing via security cameras, at least outside. I wasn’t naive enough to believe no one could get a weapon into the courthouse—or steal one from law enforcement inside—but I’d have to trust other skills today.
With Abby walking beside me, I wasn’t happy accepting that.
Downtown was bustling at midmorning. Court was in session, lawyers and police officers everywhere, everyday citizens visiting the licensing and business departments. In the basement it was much quieter; not many people came to scrounge through dusty paper memories, apparently. The lady behind the counter eyed me up and down, a mix of dismay and something I thought might be reluctant appreciation in her gaze as it settled on the vee of my T-shirt and the hint of ink it revealed. Her lips tightened into a thin, prim line, her beehive hair swaying as she turned to Abby.
“May I help you, dear?”
With archives or with getting away from your scary boyfriend? I fought to hold back a smile as the thought echoed in my head.
The amusement in Abby’s eyes made them sparkle—she’d caught the woman’s reaction too. “Yes.” She retrieved a paper from her pocket with my parents’ names written on it. “We were hoping to see the records regarding the last will and testaments of these individuals.”
The woman glanced at the paper, her brow furrowed. “Do you know the dates of death?”
Abby gave it, and the beehive bobbed this time as the woman nodded. After retrieving a pencil from the depths of hair behind her ear, the clerk wrote down the date. “This should not be a problem. If you and your”—she cleared her throat—“gentleman friend would like to have a seat, I’ll retrieve the documents for you.”
“Thank you.”
I moved to a nearby bench, drawing Abby with me. Catching her eye, I mouthed, Gentleman friend?
Her choked-off giggle lightened the mood for the briefest moment.
“Nervous?” she asked quietly.
“Why would you ask that?” I wasn’t nervous. Nerves weren’t part of my MO. I had nerves of steel, always.
Abby wiggled her hand, and it was only then that I realized I was doing my best to crush her bones. With a muttered curse I let go. “I�
��m sorry.”
She watched as I took her hand between mine and began kneading away the pain. “It’s okay, you know.”
It wasn’t, but I didn’t say so. What had happened to the man that was never fazed, who never felt anything? The man who’d done his job without emotion, simply because it needed to be done. Who knew in his head that he cared about his family, but never let the caring rule him. He was gone, and in his place was someone I feared might be too weak to protect them all.
Abby leaned close, sensing all that I wouldn’t say despite trying to hold it back. Her warm breath whispered across my cheek to my ear. “Love isn’t a weakness, Levi. You might have had to close some part of that off in order to survive, but you’re not just surviving now. You’re living. Lay down your sword for a little while and let yourself feel. Let yourself grieve.”
My chest squeezed painfully. “Laying down my sword means running the risk of falling on it,” I pointed out.
Abby shook her head, the familiar scent of vanilla and flowers surrounding me as her hair brushed my face. “Don’t you want to remember what you’re fighting for?” Her hand tightened around mine. “Isn’t that what your parents would’ve wanted for you? For all of you?”
I couldn’t answer that question. Parents wanted a lot for their kids, I was sure, but I barely remembered the time when hopes and dreams had lived in my parents’ eyes. All I had was now.
“Miss?”
We looked up. The clerk had returned, her stacked hair shaking in agitation as she frowned across the counter. Abby stood and led the way over. “Yes?”
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