CHAPTER FOUR #2
On my side-by-side monitors, I pull up the security footage from the restaurant earlier and an old photo of Stone and Melody Gallagher, sharing Bernard’s theory that those are Zara’s parents.
Ryker leans over the desk and studies both screens for several beats. “It’s been a long time. But revenge is best served cold, and I see the resemblance.”
“She is presumably Stone’s daughter,” I concur. “And also likely here on assignment.”
He straightens, plucking his treasured dice from his pocket. “Reason enough to report her to KORT.”
“It isn’t that simple.” I close out the screens and turn toward the floor-to-ceiling glass window, staring out at the New Orleans cityscape and noting the history and the subtle changes that have transpired over the past two decades.
“If I remember correctly, she was about nine when she lost her mother. Not much older than Jax and Rena were when Mom died.”
He stands next to me, peering at the same scenery, but absorbing it with far less tolerance. “You aren’t responsible for what Dad did to Melody, so sympathy, leniency, and compassion for her offspring have no place here. Is this woman a threat or not?”
Something swirling in those green eyes was far more telling than her career as an assassin.
The confidence in which she greeted me, her levelheaded retorts, and her deliberate unveiling of what she knew revealed her profession in spades.
But there was more to her. If circumstances were different, I’d be desperate to know what that was.
I’m forty years old, and I can’t recall the last time I had an itch to know anyone.
Regardless, romance is tedious and draining.
I don’t have the luxury of indulging in frivolous endeavors.
Certainly not with someone more than a decade younger than me.
“My gut says she’s nothing I can’t handle.” I lift my wrist and spin my luck on my watch—a compulsion that soothes me. “She’s fearless and strategic, but lonely.”
I went with green earlier, but now I pick fourteen.
“Most assassins are,” he argues, striding away to pace and roll his dice around his palm. “That’s one of the draws for them at La Lune Noire. Camaraderie. But if she’s here—”
“Her mother is, in large part, the reason Dad is dead.” And indirectly, our mother, too, but I don’t need to share the painfully obvious. For good measure, I do tack on, “And the reason Jax and Rena are not.”
Twenty-seven. Both are red. I should’ve gone with color.
He grunts, his frustration growing. His approach to complications is usually more hotheaded than mine. “It sounds like she might be here to rectify that.”
“Maybe.” I trail my gaze across the horizon, the day’s end melting into the city and begging for nightfall to nurture old ghosts.
He halts in his tracks, parking next to me and whipping his head in my direction. His dark brown hair falls onto his forehead, and his features line with indignation. “And that’s not enough for you?”
That’s fair. I’d do anything to protect them.
Rena’s life being in danger is not something I’m willing to trifle with.
But she’s also living in a location that’s yet to be discovered and protected by four former Navy SEALs and a cabal that has power throughout the world.
The peril isn’t imminent. I own an enterprise that caters to the nefarious and depraved. Jumping the gun would be foolish.
It’s imperative to not lose sight of who I am. And who I’m not.
“I promised you all I wouldn’t become him. That I wouldn’t be rash or malicious or take the lives of innocents.”
“She’s not an innocent,” he protests.
His outrage surges through me. I owe him so much.
He never wanted anything to do with La Lune Noire, but he willingly gave up any other future when I asked him to.
He even pushed Mercy away, setting aside his hopes of his own family to tend to the one we already had.
I couldn’t have raised the four younger ones and run this business without him.
But he also despised my father, like I did.
And I won’t allow either of us to forget that what we owe this family more than anything is to never turn into Hayden Noire.
“She is until we know otherwise.” My tone steadies into a gruff demand, conveying that I won’t budge on this matter, but he still deserves exposition.
“If Stone trained her, then she’s been programmed to never involve innocents.
So, she’ll focus on me. At least for now.
And she’ll do it pragmatically. Her eyes betray her. She’s calculated, but not vindictive.”
He sighs with acceptance and understanding. “That’s why you opened the door.”
“Partly.” I wander over to the bar, pouring us both an evening drink.
“She needed to know she wasn’t safe here.
That making a move and getting out would be impossible.
And I needed to assess her. She won’t attempt a hit on me here.
She likely wasn’t instructed to. Nor will she cause any harm to the rest of you or the girls.
I’d guess her mission is for intel. Pattern of life on me so she knows when I regularly leave the resort.
To see if I possess an in with the media conglomerate or have knowledge regarding them. And possibly Rena’s location.”
Speaking of Rena, I’m running late for a video call to join her and Ty, tucking the little monsters into bed. Since visitation is scarce these days, Papaw reads them a story three times a week. It generally coincides with family dinner so Rena feels included.
He takes the crystal tumbler of whiskey when I hand it to him, swilling it and deciding to trust me, like he always does. “What’s your plan?”
With my glass in hand, I amble toward the door, eager to return to the family. “To invite her into my world. Keep your enemies closer.”
He smirks, gearing up to goad me. “And if she makes a move in close proximity?”
“Then I’ll kill her myself.”
“Or fuck her yourself?” he counters, his dimple declaring his satire.
Siblings always sense things.
It’s not surprising that he went there, but I hate how it blasts me back to how helpless I felt to the gravitational pull toward her.
I hadn’t intended our encounter to be seductive.
But there was an undeniable allure about Zara, even though I hate myself for succumbing to it, if only for a brief interaction.
I open the door, but I don’t move to head back to the family. “While that could be an enjoyable tactic to shake out her secrets, she’s too young.”
His rationale etches its arrival into his forehead. “If your math is correct, she’d be about twenty-nine.”
“Yep,” I scoff. “The youngest child I raised was fifteen years my junior. And she’s given me two grandchildren—in essence. Eleven years is a lifetime.”
“Yours isn’t over, Axe. Something other than taking care of everyone and everything might be good for you.”
“And your advice is to seek that with the woman who was likely hired to kill me? Whose side are you on?”
A hearty laugh bellows out of him as he brushes past me.
“Yeah. Maybe not her. Although I find it curious that she was on a date with another man, and your protest as to why you wouldn’t pursue her had nothing to do with that.
” He side-eyes me, waiting for the confirmation of that fumble because a part of my brain has indeed determined Beck is a nonissue—which is concerning—but when I don’t give him anything, he continues, “Don’t dismiss her because she’s young.
She likely far out-skills you in the killing department, even with your history. ”
My father forced me to train with an assassin too. But other than Ryker, the only people who know that are dead.
“That’s precisely where she’ll fail. I know what she’s capable of. She has no idea what to expect from me.”