Inhaling again, I force myself to turn on my heel and march out of the closet, and never stop walking. I exit the bathroom into the bedroom and make the mistake of looking at the bed where I’d been tied up last night, swallowing the disgrace and anger I feel, the dread at knowing he’s about to touch me again. I keep moving, and I exit into the hallway and start the walk down the windowless, red-carpeted stairwell. I’m just about to round a corner when I hear Neuville’s voice speaking in French, followed by another familiar voice I know to be Bastile, his personal bodyguard. I freeze on the word collier, or in English, necklace, icy cold reality hitting me. That monster I’m hiding with is the same one I’m hiding from.
“I searched her hotel room again top to bottom,” Bastile says, speaking in the French I pretend not to know. “There is no necklace. How do you want to proceed?”
“Search the property she brought with her when we’re at lunch today.”
“I’ve searched her property.”
“Do it again,” Neuville snaps.
“And if I don’t find it?”
He won’t find it, I think. I made sure of it.
“A man is dead and we got rid of the body for her. As far as she knows, we’re hiding her from the murderer and the police. She’ll give me the necklace.”
Nothing he can do to me will make me give him that necklace. But somehow, some way, I have to figure out what makes it so sought after, and decide what to do with it.
“And if she doesn’t? At what point do I torture her into talking and get rid of her?”
“You don’t. I’ve decided to keep her.”
I jolt back to the present, sucking in air, disoriented by my equally sudden return to reality. I’m still here and I’m still alone, but Neuville’s words are now living and breathing here as well: I’ve decided to keep her.
“Fuck you, Garner,” I spit. “That didn’t go so well, now did it?” I swallow bile in my throat, anger burning in my belly at the things he did to me, but I survived. And I will beat him.
Shoving off the door, I am more focused than ever on answers and an endgame, a motivation that has me hurrying into the bedroom and crossing to the security room in the corner next to the fireplace. Once I’m inside the tiny rectangular room, I sit at the small desk against the wall and key the computer to life. Clicking past the live feed now on the front of the castle, I struggle a bit but find the store security feed and the right date. With surprising ease, I’m watching myself chat with Marabella and Giada in the living area of the store in the Center Tower. I fast-forward and find the part where I left my journal in that room to inspect the delivery Kayden had sent to me that night. I watch Giada and Adriel interact in the living area, having some sort of heated words, but neither touches the journal.
I fast-forward again and find the moment Adriel’s foot hits something and he bends down and grabs the journal from the floor by the couch, where it’s obviously been knocked. He picks it up, but never opens it. He looks a little irritated, like I shouldn’t be so careless, or maybe I’m just remembering his attitude when he handed it to me. He simply stands, leaves the TV room, and finds me in the main store, where he returns it to me.
He didn’t take the pages out of the journal, but neither did Giada or Marabella. I sit back and stare at the computer screen without really seeing it. That day was the only time I’ve had my journal outside of this tower. And the only person who can get in here is Marabella. Sweet, loyal, wonderful Marabella. No. It’s not her. I reject that idea. But . . . if it is, who is she working for? Niccolo, Alessandro, or the worst possibility of all: Garner Neuville?
six
The door to the bedroom opens and I barely have time to turn before Kayden appears in the archway to the security room. And oh God. He’s so big and gorgeous and overwhelmingly male. He’s also radiating a sharp, dark energy that cuts and bites with the certainty I created it. “We were waiting on you,” he announces.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I realized that before this meeting, I needed to know who took those journal pages.”
“Because you still doubt my confidence in Adriel.”
“Because you made me question when the pages went missing,” I correct, “and the last thing I wanted to do was strain Adriel and Giada’s already fragile relationship by throwing suspicion on her.”
His expression doesn’t change, but there’s a shift in his energy that tells me he approves. “And what did you find?”
“Neither of them took it that day—and that was the only time I took it anywhere but here. And the only person who can get in here besides us—”
“It’s not Marabella.”
“Then who is it, and how did they get to my journal?”
“Maybe you tore pages out during one of your flashbacks.”
I think of the moment in the closet when I’d returned to the present, disoriented, and I let out a breath. “It’s possible. I’d really like to think that’s it, but my fear is that it’s not.”
“We’ll sit down tonight and go through the security feed. It’ll take a long time, but we’ll get it done. We’ll find out.”
“We?”
“Yes, Ella,” he says, an emphasis on my name that is one part cold and one part hot. “We. But right now, Giada and Marabella are in the Center Tower. I had Adriel come here to talk to us to ensure our privacy. He’s in the kitchen.”
I stand up, the few steps between us feeling like a world, and he slowly backs up to let me exit but doesn’t turn away. He holds his ground, almost willing me to hold mine, but I can’t. I don’t. I close several of the small spaces between us, stopping an extended arm’s reach from touching him. “I don’t want kids, who can get hurt. I don’t want a dog, because even though I like them, I don’t want to be licked all the time unless it’s by you. But I like cats. Do you? Because I think that we, and this castle, really need a cat.”
Still, there is no discernible reaction from him, his expression hard, his chiseled jaw harder, and it twists me in knots. It hurts, but what hurts more is knowing that his reaction is because I’ve made him feel what I feel right now. Rejected. Hollow. Empty. Unable to take the silence another minute, I start to walk away, but only manage a step before Kayden catches my arm and turns me back to face him. I’m once again staring into those unreadable eyes.
“He’s not happy,” he says, the warning about Adriel not exactly what I was hoping for.
“Does he know about my connection to the necklace?”
“I told him nothing more than what you did in the car, which is part of the reason he’s pissed, but I wanted you to decide what to share.”
Kayden gives respect, and thus he receives it. It’s only one of the many reasons he’s such a good leader. “Thank you, and I’m not going to hold back. You were right. He should know the truth.”
His eyes narrow slightly, a hint of approval in their depths before he gives me a barely perceivable nod, but when I expect him to release me, when I think he intends to in fact, he does not. Instead, he studies me, searching my face, probing, looking for something, I don’t know what, but I hide nothing. I let him see the emotions I feel. The regret, the fear, the love. But too soon it seems, and without any palpable reaction, he releases me. “He’s waiting.”
My arm tingles where his touch was, a sensation I carry with me as I give him a nod of my own. As I turn away from him, moving across the room, I am hyperaware of him behind me, close enough that when I would open the door his arm stretches around me, his hand on the knob. His big body encases mine, the scent of him, all masculine spice and dominance, teasing my nostrils.
He leans in and says, “He’s going to attack.”
“I can handle it.”
“Of that, sweetheart, I am certain.”
There is a hint of something in his words that I don’t like, an implication that he’s certain of this, but not
of me or of himself, but I never get the chance to reply, not that this is the right time anyway. He opens the door and sidesteps to allow its movement, exiting into the hallway. Almost instantly the door shuts again behind us. We walk down the hallway, and I can almost feel The Hawk take over, the sense of focus on that part of him rising to the surface. In unison, we cut left under the archway and into the living area, where the fireplace is burning in the far corner, just beyond the leather couch and chairs, its warmth stealing the chill that extends beyond the nearly century-old stone walls to the kitchen to our right.
We cross the room and step under yet another archway to pause in the entryway of the kitchen, where Adriel stands behind the island, his dark, wavy hair a bit in disarray, his leather jacket gone. He’s wearing a shoulder holster and not one but two firearms over his skull T-shirt, its deadly undertone rather appropriate considering how hard and cold his stare is right now.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, pressing his hands to the granite surface, that deep scar down his cheek giving his voice an even harder impact. “What the fuck are you, and what the hell were you doing with Garner Neuville?”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about an awkward silence,” Kayden says dryly.
I almost laugh, and probably would if there wasn’t a throbbing vein at Adriel’s temple I’m pretty sure would burst if I did. “CIA is a good guess,” I say, giving him a direct answer, crossing to stand on the opposite side of the island.
He scowls. “A good guess? How do you make a ‘good guess’ you’re in the fucking CIA?”
“I still have amnesia, Adriel. That isn’t fake.”
“Start at the beginning,” Kayden says, appearing at the end of the island between us, “back in San Francisco. With David.”
“The man you were traveling with that we can’t locate,” Adriel clarifies.
“Yes,” I confirm, “but I’m not sure David is where this originated. The PI who visited us today revealed what I had already started to piece together. My father was a CIA agent and somehow, in some way, I believe that’s relevant to all of this.”
“Not just an agent,” Kayden supplies. “A high-level, top-secret operative.”
“How do you think he’s involved?” Adriel asks.
“Relevant,” I correct. “Not involved. He was assassinated when I was a teenager.”
“Assassinated is a powerful word,” Adriel states. “It implies a hit.”
“It was a hit,” I say, “complete with men in black and guns, though the agency never officially called it that or gave us an answer.”
“It happened at Ella’s family home while she was there,” Kayden supplies. “Ella killed them before they escaped.”
Adriel looks at him and then gives me a skeptical look. “Didn’t you just say you were a teenager then? And since we’re talking CIA, I assume they were professional assassins?”
“I was already an expert marksman, which I doubt they expected from a teenager,” I explain. “And it was my father’s last wish.”
“For you to kill them,” Adriel says, sounding a little incredulous. “As a teenager.”
“Yes. He lay there in his own blood and told me to kill them, and he knew I could. He’d been training me since I was old enough to hold a gun and fight.”
Adriel’s eyes narrow on me. “Was he grooming you to be an agent?”
“No,” I say, ice sliding down my spine with the certainty that comes with my reply. “He was grooming me for the day they came for him or for us because of him.” I fold my arms in front of me and look at Kayden, speaking to him. “I think I was looking into his murder. I don’t know why I chose the present day, so many years after my father died, but whatever the case,” I look between them, “I pissed off the agency, and the result was me taking this schoolteacher job and lying low. But I also don’t know if that was my own choice or the agency trying to get me off the wrong radars.”
“If you were lying low, how did you get into this?” Adriel asks. “It sounds more like you were undercover, to me.”
“Maybe,” I say, my brow furrowing. “But if I was CIA and pursuing the necklace—”
“The necklace?” Adriel asks, his tone sharpening again, his gaze shifting to Kayden. “She knows about the necklace and you didn’t tell me.”
“We’re telling you now,” Kayden states. “Only you, until we decide otherwise.” And just that easily he ends the subject, glancing at me. “Tell him how you got the necklace.”
“David gave it to me as an engagement gift—which makes the idea of me being undercover seem illogical. If I were after the necklace, I wouldn’t have carried it to Europe and risked losing it. But it also seems completely illogical to think that I have a connection to the CIA and just fell into something this big.”
“How did you go from eloping to knowing Neuville and Niccolo?” Adriel asks.
I give him the rundown, including my history with David, what happened at the hotel, and even Neuville showing up, covering pretty much everything. “I didn’t know who Neuville was, beyond being a powerful French businessman.”
“So you were intimately involved with Neuville,” Adriel says, the statement hitting me in every wrong way possible.
My gaze jerks to his and I snap, “I fucked him or I died, so yes. I was intimately involved with him right up until the point that I held a gun on him in front of his people, and ensured he will never fucking stop coming for me.”
“Easy, Ella,” Adriel says, holding up his hands. “I was just trying to understand the dynamics.”
“The dynamics?” I ask. “The dynamics are—”
“You don’t need to do this, Ella,” Kayden says softly, his voice somehow managing to deliver a cool caress I feel in every hot, angry burning nerve ending in my body, of which there are many.
“He’s right,” Adriel states, his hands pressing to the counter. “I get it. Sasha’s told me about his appetites. He needs to pay.”
“He needs to do more than pay,” I say. “He needs to die—but I’m fully aware of the concerns about whoever takes over being worse.”
“Do you remember his second-in-command at all?” Kayden asks.
I shake my head. “No. I know his bodyguard, and I’ve remembered enough in the last few hours to know that he didn’t accidentally meet me—not that we really thought that was a possibility. I also think he planned to kill me when he got the necklace, but changed his mind. He decided he wanted two possessions for the price of one.”
“You hid the necklace from him?” Adriel asks.
“I hid it from everyone,” I say. “I didn’t know why it was important or what it was worth, but I knew at least one person had died because of it. I had to know why, before I knew what to do with it.”
Adriel narrows his gaze one me. “And did you find out?”
“I don’t know that answer yet,” I say.
He studies me more intensely. “Did you offer it to Niccolo to get away from Neuville?”
“I want to say no,” I admit. “I hope I can say no at some point, but Niccolo says that I did. And I was desperate to escape, and I did come to Italy. If I did make a deal with Niccolo, I have to believe I had a plan to protect the necklace.”
“You know what I think about that?” he asks, his expression as indiscernible as his tone.
“That I suck.”
“That you’re honest,” Adriel says, “even if it’s painful, and I respect that. I’ve got your back. And I expect that our gun-wielding Lady Hawk has mine.”
There is no question the “Lady Hawk” reference is about me being Kayden’s woman, and considering all that is wrong between Kayden and me at the moment, it twists me into about twelve knots. “I do,” I promise. “I have your back.”
“We need to talk about Alessandro and Niccolo,” Kayden says.
Adriel’s
gaze shoots to Kayden. “What about those two creates one sentence?”
Kayden gives him the rundown on the meeting and the ammunition Niccolo claims he has against Alessandro.
“I’m really fucking curious about what this file entails,” Adriel says, glancing at his watch. “It’s six o’clock now. So it’s supposed to be here in the next two hours.”
“And I want to be ready to act when it does, no matter what it turns out to be or not be,” Kayden says. “I’ve contacted Nathan, Matteo, Sasha, and Carlo and told them to get here for a meeting at seven. I need you to try to get Sasha out of Gallo’s bed in time to be here. I called her on a blocked line so that Gallo wouldn’t recognize the number if he was with her, and she didn’t answer.”
“Sasha has our phone numbers coded with nicknames, so that’s not a problem. I’ll get a hold of her. Before I do, though, a word of warning. The last time I talked to her, she said that now that Gallo’s suspended, he’s got nothing to focus on but hating you and fucking her. A meeting, I see. But pulling her away from entertaining him beyond that is dangerous. Do we really want to move her out of the equation?”
“She told me,” Kayden says. “And fucking Gallo from sunup to sundown is a poor waste of her talents. Just get her here for the meeting. She knows Neuville and Paris. I’ll decide the next step with Gallo from there.”
“Gallo will stalk me again if he gets the chance, but I can handle him,” I say. “But it’s Carlo who makes me very uncomfortable. Do we really need him involved?”
“He makes everyone uncomfortable,” Adriel says. “And he enjoys it.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” I say. “But is that good?”
“Considering he makes no one as uncomfortable as he does Alessandro,” Kayden says, “it makes him a huge asset.”