Until his parents had died. Gone out in their blaze of glory. And the people from DHR had come to take him away from his grandmother. Suddenly, they’d decided she was the unfit one.
“You swore not to be like them, right?” Ethan’s fingers tapped on his desk. “Your buddies Chance and Lex—they went off to be true blue soldiers, but you were different. You stayed here. You got a job with the FBI.”
Julianna’s hand jerked in his grasp and she tried to pull away. He didn’t let her go.
“You’re with the FBI?” Her voice came out as a high squeak. “You—you can’t be!”
He shrugged. Julianna was definitely worried now, not a good sign. “I was.” He put a deliberate emphasis on was. “I have a knack with computers. I learned early on that I could use that knack on the wrong side of the law.” A side that his parents had been too familiar with during their lives. “Or I could try to make up for some of the pain my family caused.” And he had. He’d worked with the cyber unit for years, unraveling so many secrets. Learning that the polite world he saw truly was just a thin veneer of deception. Real monsters were out there, and they were everywhere.
When Chance had come to him with the idea of opening VJS, he’d agreed. Devlin wasn’t sure if Chance even realized the truth about all the work he’d done for the FBI. Sometimes, Devlin didn’t even want to think of the cases.
Because he hadn’t just stayed with the cyber unit. He’d gone out on missions, slipped into the darkness…
And wondered if I’d ever get back into the light.
Julianna was still trying to pull free. He was still keeping his hold on her. He was afraid if he let her go right then, he just might lose her. He glanced toward her.
“The FBI,” she said, shaking her head. “I am so screwed.”
He frowned at her words.
“How much of her past…” Ethan said, drawing Devlin’s attention, “have you already discovered?”
“Apparently, not enough,” Devlin fired back. “Because I didn’t realize she was involved with you.” That fact pissed him off. Just how involved had they been? Friends, lovers? And when?
Ethan Barclay was trouble, and Devlin hated for Julianna to be any place near the guy.
Ethan’s fingers drummed on the desk top once more. “I know lots of people. You’d be surprised at the folks who owe me favors in this town.”
“She’s your friend,” Devlin said.
Ethan inclined his head. “So it would seem.”
“Then explain to me…” Now fury pumped through him. “Why you let your friend stay with that bastard? He broke her wrist. He hit her—”
Julianna gasped. “Stop—”
“I saw the hospital records,” Devlin nearly snarled. “Sophie is building your defense, remember? It was easy enough to access those files.” Child’s play. “He didn’t just hurt you once. He hurt you over and—”
“I tried to leave a second time, all right? I tried!” Her voice was too sharp.
Ethan shot to his feet. “Julianna…”
Her shoulders straightened with pride. A pride that made Devlin’s chest ache. “He thought he controlled me when he hurt me. He was wrong. I was just biding my time with him.”
Ethan paled. “This shit never should have happened! I would have taken care of him! I would have—”
“The flash drive,” Julianna whispered. “I had to get it, no matter what.”
For an instant, a red haze swam in front of Devlin’s vision. “You were abused because you were protecting this bastard?” First Sophie had tried to protect Ethan, and now Julianna? What. The. Fuck?
“No.” Julianna’s voice was sad. “It wasn’t for him.”
Silence.
Ethan’s gaze was on Julianna.
“Who?” Devlin demanded. Who had she endured that pain for? Who the hell was it?
Julianna cast a worried glance his way. “You don’t have to turn over evidence you find today, do you? I mean, if you’re not FBI any more, maybe you can just let the past go.”
That ache in his chest got worse. “What are you covering up?” His fingers slid along the inside of her wrist, a caress that he couldn’t help even as he waited to see just how much trouble she was really in.
Julianna swallowed. “I’m covering up a murder.”
Chapter Seven
“Uh, Jules,” Ethan said, his voice more than a bit strained. “If Sophie happened to be here right now, this is the part where she’d advise you to stop talking.”
Devlin had turned to face her. There was no expression on his face. A very big part of her wondered if she were making a terrible mistake. She’d certainly made her share of those over the years. Perhaps she was making another one right then. But lying to Devlin just didn’t seem right.
When she’d been with him earlier, she’d felt a connection that had been real. True. He’d seemed to actually see her—the person she was, and not just the woman she spent so much time pretending to be.
“My sister.” As soon as she said those words, Julianna knew there would be no going back now. “I’m protecting her.” That was her job, wasn’t it? As the older sister, she was supposed to protect Carly, no matter what. She’d screwed up before, but she’d been determined to help her sister this time around.
But Devlin shook his head. “I didn’t turn up a report of any sister in your background check.”
“She’s not my blood sister. My mother’s second husband…” Oh, but her mother had enjoyed her marriages—all of them. “He had a daughter. Carly. My mom only stayed married to him for a few months before she moved on.” She’d moved on to much greener pastures because Carly’s father had been too much of a dreamer, and not a “doer” for her. “But I kept in touch with Carly. She was family.”
Ethan nodded. “You should understand that, Devlin. Didn’t you and your VJS buddies form your own family in foster care?”
Devlin had been in foster care? Julianna’s eyes widened. She didn’t—
“Carly murdered someone,” Devlin said, his words sharp.
“Sh-she was protecting herself,” Julianna tried to explain. “She was…money was tight, okay? I wish she had told me sooner, but Carly was trying to support herself and her dad. She was only seventeen and she was—”
Ethan stood up. “I found out she had gotten a job dancing at a club. One she had no business being in. Julianna and I found out at the same time.”
Julianna glanced toward Ethan. He always tried so hard to keep his voice expressionless when he talked about Carly. He was good at wearing his mask, too.
“The owner of that club became obsessed with Carly. I got her to quit,” Julianna said and she hated that painful memory of Carly. Her humiliation. Her tears. “But he kept coming after her. Saying that she belonged to him. He was following her everywhere.”
Ethan strode from around his desk. “I told the bastard to back off, but those days, I was just some twenty-one year old punk to him. He didn’t fear me.”
Not like today. Julianna knew too many people feared him today.
“He came after me,” Ethan said flatly. “He and his goons had me pinned down and they were beating the hell out of me.” His hand lifted and he held the flash drive out to Devlin. “You can see the rest for yourself.”
Ethan’s fingers finally released their hold on Julianna’s wrist.
She said, “One of…one of Quincy’s men made the video.” Quincy Atkins. Would the name mean anything to him? The D.C. crime boss who’d vanished years before. “I didn’t even know it existed, I mean…why the hell didn’t the guy come forward sooner? I had no idea about it, not until I tried to leave Jeremy.” Her back teeth clenched together. “He had it. He knew.”
Devlin headed toward Ethan’s computer. He inserted the flash drive and tapped on the keyboard. A few mouse clicks later, the video opened. Julianna crept forward so she could see the screen.
A much younger Ethan was on the dirty floor, bleeding. His face was smashed to hell and back.
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Carly was there, her long, dark hair streaming down her shoulders. She was tied to a chair, screaming, begging for Quincy to stop hurting Ethan.
Quincy waved his hand and his men rushed from the room.
Then Quincy—a big, hulking jerk of a man—took the knife from the sheath at his hip. “I’m gonna cut Loverboy open,” Quincy boasted. “Then you’ll be mine. Body and soul. I’ll own every inch of you…and no one will ever be able to help you again.”
Tears poured down Carly’s face. “Please,” she begged in that video. “Don’t hurt him anymore. Don’t. I’ll do anything—just don’t!”
But Quincy lunged toward Ethan. He kicked Ethan in the ribs. Again and again. Then he rolled Ethan onto his back, holding the knife right over Ethan’s heart.
In the present, Ethan cleared his throat. “Too many bastards are always coming at me with a knife,” Ethan said then, his shuttered gaze on the video. “Why the hell is that?”
Julianna’s stare slid back to the screen. She saw Carly tear free of the ropes that bound her. She saw her sister lunge out of the chair. “Don’t hurt him!”
Carly slammed into Quincy. They flew over Ethan’s body and the knife…
Carly rose. The knife was in Quincy’s chest. The handle stuck out, but the hilt was in him. Quincy opened his mouth, as if to call out to the guards.
Carly put her hand over his mouth. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her body shuddered.
Ethan crawled toward her. A trail of blood was left in his path. His hand lifted…
And he shoved that knife even deeper into Quincy’s chest.
The video stopped.
Nausea swirled in Julianna’s stomach. “Jeremy showed me the video. H-he told me that he’d make sure Carly went to prison. That he’d destroy her.” She pushed back her hair, aware of the quiver in her fingertips. “Quincy raped my sister. He terrorized her. After that…after his death…she broke down. It took so long for her to get her strength back. But she finally moved past that night. Put it totally behind her. She has a new life now. She’s thriving in New York. She…she’s safe.” Julianna swiped at the tear that had slid down her left cheek. “I just wanted to keep her that way.”
Devlin took the flash drive out of the computer and put it in his pocket.
And it was right then that Julianna realized…she was still wearing his coat. His warmth had been surrounding her the whole time.
But now he knows.
She shrugged out of the coat and put it across Ethan’s desk.
“How did Jeremy Smith get the video?” Devlin’s voice sounded far too calm to her ears.
She and Ethan shared a quick glance.
“No lies,” Devlin warned. “Just the truth.”
“That night,” Ethan said quietly, “I was interested in getting Carly out of that place. I…I called a friend to help with clean up.” He smiled bitterly. “You might know that friend—Daniel Duvato.” He rubbed at the scar on his right cheek. “He’s the bastard who went psycho and tried to kill me. It seemed he’d been keeping that little video, waiting for the perfect moment to burn me with it. When Jeremy’s security guy came sniffing around a while back, Daniel gave it to him…for a price.”
“Let me guess.” A muscle flexed in Devlin’s jaw. “Was that security guy named Ray Holliwell?”
Ethan nodded. “That would be the bastard.”
Oh, Dear God…Julianna hadn’t realized—the man who’d been murdered had been so mixed up in all the madness. She tried to think, to plan, to look for a way out of this mess. “Ethan wasn’t the only one who’d get burned if that video is given to the cops,” Julianna said, trying to make Devlin understand. “Carly would, too. I wasn’t there for her before. I didn’t help her. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.”
Devlin swore. “You know what this is, right?”
She held her breath, waiting.
“This is fucking motive, Julianna. It’s the perfect motive for you to kill. Not because that sick bastard was hurting you—not that defense anymore. Shit, this is motive because you wanted to stop him from exposing your sister. It’s a motive for you to kill him and Ray Holliwell.”
She knew what it looked like. “What are you going to do?” Because that was what mattered. Would he turn the flash drive over to the police?
“I don’t fucking know.” He marched around the desk. He grabbed the coat and put it around her shoulders again. “For now, we’re getting the hell out of here. I have to think.”
Ethan stepped in their path. “I know you want to burn me.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You and VJS all think I’m scum. I get it. You’re wrong, but fuck that.” He exhaled roughly. “If you turn in that flash drive, you’re burning them. Julianna doesn’t deserve that. Neither does Carly.”
Devlin stepped toe-to-toe with him. “Your enemies stretch for miles, and they just keep coming.”
“I’m popular that way.”
“You ever stop to think that one of those enemies may be after Julianna? Maybe someone knew her husband had that flash drive, knew that it would implicate you, and that person is doing anything necessary to get his hands on the damn thing. Even if that anything includes killing Jeremy Smith and putting a bomb in Julianna’s car.” He shook his head in disgust. “Why do others have a way of getting hurt around you? Gwen, Sophie—”
She saw Ethan’s face harden, and she knew that Devlin’s words were hitting their mark.
No. “Stop it.” Julianna pushed between the two men. And she directed her growing fury at Devlin. For too long, she’d had to guard her emotions. She’d had to walk on freaking egg shells until she thought she’d break with Jeremy. But he was gone and she was free. She’d take her life back now. “Ethan’s my friend, and you don’t talk to him that way.”
Surprise flashed on Devlin’s face.
“You can be angry. You can be pissed because you think I misled you.”
“You did mislead me,” Devlin muttered.
“But Ethan was trying to help my sister. No one else was there for her. Not even me.” That hurt so much to admit. “And Sophie will be the first to tell you…Ethan is a good man.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Even if he doesn’t always think so.”
Devlin swore.
Ethan looked away from her. “You should go with the bodyguard, Julianna.” Then he pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her brow. “And you stay safe.”
She nodded.
He eased away from her and bumped lightly into Devlin. His hand brushed over Devlin’s side, a would-be aggressive move. “You keep her alive, or you’ll see just how dangerous I can truly be. I’m not some punk kid anymore.”
“Save your threats for someone who gives a damn.”
“Stop it,” Julianna gritted again, driven to the edge. “We have to focus on what matters right now.”
Devlin glanced at her. “You’re right.” He pulled her closer. “You matter.”
He…well…
“You matter,” Devlin said again.
Then he was guiding her away from Ethan. She didn’t look back. She knew exactly what Ethan had done a moment before, and really, it was for the best, wasn’t it?
One nightmare over. Only a few dozen more to face.
Devlin took her outside. He led her to his SUV. She couldn’t help but tense when she drew closer to it. She wasn’t going to be looking at cars the same way for a very long time. The last few times she’d gotten into a vehicle, her stomach had knotted and she’d remembered the lance of fire on her skin.
Devlin stopped her before she’d gotten too close to his SUV, and he lifted his remote, cranking the car with the press of a button. It growled to life—and, wonderfully—didn’t explode.
Her relieved breath slid out.
“I know,” Devlin said as he brushed the snow off her cheek. “I know what the jerk did back there.”
Her head tilted as she stared up at him.
“Is Ethan the one who taught you how to pick poc
kets?” Devlin asked her.
She pressed her lips together, then admitted, “He and Carly were close when we were younger. When mom and I lived in the area…yes, he taught me.” Ethan had always known such interesting things.
“You’re better than he is,’ Devlin said as his fingers lingered near her cheek. “I didn’t even feel it when you took the drive.”
His hand started to fall away.
She caught it. Held tight. “His life is on the line, too. He doesn’t—”
“Trust me?”
She nodded. The snow fell down onto them. It had started to fall heavily while they were in Wicked.
“What about you?” Devlin shifted ever closer. “You told me the truth. Does that mean that you trust me? How do you feel, Julianna? How do you feel about me?”
“I…” Was she supposed to trust him? So soon? Probably not. Another mistake. She’d thought that she knew Jeremy and she’d been dead wrong on that score. She’d sworn never to be blinded again, but…
Devlin had deserved the truth in Wicked. He was working to protect her.
He…
“You don’t trust me, not fully, not yet.” He didn’t sound angry. In fact, his voice was tender. Warm in the cold. “That’s okay, baby. I can wait.”
She stared into his eyes, not understanding him at all.
“I can wait as long as you need.”
That was nice. Maybe the nicest thing she’d heard in a very long time.
But then his gaze slid away from hers. He frowned as he looked over her shoulder. “Someone’s watching us.”
Her muscles locked.
“In a blue SUV, sitting at the curb. Tinted windows.”
If the windows were tinted, how could he be sure they were being watched?
“The vehicle isn’t covered in snow…it’s warm. Running. Someone is in it right now.”
She spun around, looking for that vehicle. She found it—and saw the tinted window rolling down. Down…
“Gun!” Devlin roared and he locked his arm around her stomach and yanked her to the side, hurtling her down behind his vehicle.