Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Dare
I’m worried about you—about why you haven’t written. I’m sure you’re going through a lot, so I’m trying to ignore the worry and be patient. But I miss you.
I’m looking at the stars again, and is it just me or do they not shine like they do when we’re together?—Always, Athena
Fuck. I pressed the door shut to my cabin, leaving my palm flat on the surface as I hung my head.
What the fuck was I thinking? Letting her touch my face like that? Forget the risk I took that she’d recognize me—however small it might be—the greater risk was that touch— her touch.
The last time I’d been touched by a woman…I sh uddered, feeling as though an earthquake had let loose from deep inside me. The last woman to touch me aside from my sisters was the woman who’d betrayed me—broke me. Amira. What the hell kind of twist of fate was it that the next woman to touch me after that was the woman whose heart I broke?
It wasn’t a twist. It was a goddamn torpedo.
Fate didn’t deal with my life in games, only weapons and destruction.And I didn’t know what was more destructive—the pain in Athena’s voice or the desire flushed to her cheeks.
Either one should’ve been reason enough for me to stay away, but when we’d learned about her ex and gambling and the policy he’d taken out on her life, I couldn’t let anyone else break that news; it had to be me.
Maybe I wanted to protect her from the pain as much as possible, but more likely, I sadistically hoped she’d shoot the messenger. I deserved it.
I’d been the first to betray her, and now, her almost ex-husband…
“Fuck,” I muttered and scrubbed my hands over my face like I could remove every trace of her soft fingertips, every last trace of heat, every remaining tingle of electricity.
She wasn’t a fool— I was.
“Dare?”
I dropped my arms and looked at Ty. I hadn’t heard him approach, but it was obvious by the look on his face that he’d been watching me for some minutes.
“What’s up?” There was no hiding the bite of frustration in my voice.
“You good?” The very fact he was asking the question implied that he knew I wasn’t.
Shit.
“Yeah. Fine,” I clipped. “What is it? ”
“Sacramento PD just called. They have Brandon Martins in custody?—”
“I’ll go—” His arm barred me from walking by him.
“Wait,” he said steadily. “They’re bringing him to Armorous for questioning. Harm’s going to go with you.”
Armorous was better than a precinct; there were more rules I could…bend. But to have my brother there…
“Fine.” We walked to the elevator together. “We’ll go up and interrogate him. In the meantime, Athena said she had paintings in her car the morning of the explosion. I don’t know if Hadrian found evidence of them, but I told her I’d check the gallery she was bringing them to; it’s the Tableau in Monterey.”
“I’ll look into it.”
I grunted my thanks. “What about Ivans? Still nothing?”
Ty shook his head.
The way Ivans managed to hide himself under layer after layer of deceit was nothing short of surgical. I’d hunted through every database and resource at our disposal to find anything linked to one Richard Iverson —property, business, hell, I would’ve taken a fucking parking ticket—but there was nothing. And by the time I came to that conclusion, Ty had uncovered Brandon’s gambling debts and the life insurance policy he’d taken out on Athena.
No matter how unlikely it seemed that Athena could be involved with Ivans and it not be the reason for her attempted murder, the facts pointed in a different direction. So, I held off telling her the truth about Ivans— Iverson; maybe if this truly had to do only with her ex-husband, I could spare her any additional pain.
“We’re missing something,” I said under my breath.
“I feel the same way, but talk to the ex-husband. Maybe that will shed some light.”
“Yeah.”
“Harm. Darius. Good to see you.” Hazard Foster, the owner of Armorous Tactical, greeted us at the door that seemed extra wide just to be able to fit him. He stood a good couple of inches above my six-foot-one and at least an inch above my brother’s six-foot-three.
“How long ago did he arrive?” I asked once we’d made it through pleasantries.
Harm’s pointed stare snapped to me.
“Twenty minutes,” Hazard said, leading us down the hallway.
The building was like a military barracks. Halls of rooms equally spaced. Everything was either metal or painted various shades of gray. Even the massive team— there had to be fourteen or fifteen of them now?— all wore a kind of standard uniform: black pants and black and gray camo tees, the Armorous logo just barely visible in shiny black.
Armorous was like Covington Security, but on steroids. It made sense; Hazard tended to recruit only military elites, most of his team were retired Army Rangers, and their focus was split between tactical training as well as high-value target protection and asset retrieval.
“I held off interrogating him. Figured you’d want to handle that.” Hazard stopped in front of a metal door, the plaque on the front said Interrogation One.
“Yes.” Questioning Brandon Martins was only the beginning of what I wanted to do to him.
“Sacramento PD said we could have an hour to get the information we need before they’ll have to release him.”
“Got it.” I wouldn’t need an hour.
Harm grabbed my arm. “Dare?—”
“Give me ten minutes, then come in,” I ordered, belatedly wondering when the last time I’d given orders to my older brother and former commanding officer was. My first guess was never.
His nostrils flared. Harm didn’t like the idea of me going in alone.
“Five minutes,” I growled and shrugged my arm free, shooting him one last look before I walked in the room and closed the door behind me.
“What the hell am I doing here? You can’t just fucking hold me like this. I have rights,” the man whined— actually fucking whined— from the chair he was cuffed to.
Short, dark hair. Dull brown eyes. Quivering jawline. Brandon Martins. Athena’s husband. Piece of shit. His clothes were a mess, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Yeah, this guy was guilty.
I hated him instantly. Not because he was guilty. Not because he was a degenerate gambler. Not because he whined like a fucking coward. No, I hated him instantly because he’d had her. He’d had her smiles. Her laugh. Her talent and compassion. He’d had her love, and this was what he’d done with it.
I walked up to the table, my palms landing on the top like a goddamn crack of thunder, and he jolted.
“What the hell, man? Where am I?” he snapped petulantly .
“Did you try to kill your ex-wife?” The words bubbled like acid between my lips.
He shook his head and fidgeted in the chair. “She’s not my ex yet.”
My hand launched forward and clamped around the front of his throat. Instantly, he gasped and choked for air.
“And you’re not dead…yet,” I countered, letting him fight for a sliver of breath before I let go. “Did you try to kill your ex-wife?”
He glared at me, face red, nostrils flared. But there was nothing he could do.
I tipped forward. “Don’t make me ask again.” I tipped forward. “Because when I try to kill people…I don’t try.”
“You can’t kill me,” he said hoarsely. “You’re law enforcement.”
I chuckled. “No, I’m not.” I turned my arm so he could see the patch on my jacket. “Vigilante. So, I answer to no one.”
He tried to hide it, but he started to shake in the chair. Fucking coward.
“I didn’t kill her. You have no proof.” He jostled the cuffs.
“I have a laundry list of gambling debts that you owe and the life insurance policy you took out on her after she told you she wanted a divorce, and the fact that divorce is supposed to be finalized this week. That’s all I need,” I said low, lifting my hand in front of his face and stretching out my fingers, just waiting for him to give me an excuse to strangle him again.
“Alright.” He turned his head and ducked as I reached for him. “Alright. Just stop.”
“Did you plant the bomb on her car?”
Slowly, he looked up at me, pure rage leaching over a face that looked increasingly gaunt before he snarled, “Yes, okay? First off, she deserved it for what she did to me! Trying to keep that house—for what? And then leaving me? She was nothing without?—”
My fist finished his sentence, sending him and the chair flying back into the wall before toppling over. Behind me, I heard the door open, but I was already on Brandon, hauling him up against the wall with one hand and landing my knuckles into his cheek with the other.
“You never deserved her.” Crack.
“Dare—”
“You don’t deserve to live.” Crack. “I’ll spare you prison?—”
“ Enough.” Harm bodily hauled me back, his arms hooked under my shoulders. I struggled for a second, my chest heaving as Brandon crumbled to the floor.
“Get him away from me,” he shrieked, his nose broken and bleeding as he tried to worm closer to the wall. “He tried to kill me! He tried to?—”
“You’re fine,” I spat. What I’d done was nothing compared to what he’d done to her. “I’m fine,” I muttered to my brother who reluctantly released me.
“Calm down, Mr. Martins.” Hazard appeared and dragged the other man back into his chair. “Tell us exactly what you did.”
“I want a deal.” He turned and wiped the blood from his nose on his shoulder.
“The deal is that prison spares you from those loan sharks taking a limb.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, his head swiveling mindlessly. “ Fuck.”
“Thirty seconds, or they leave you alone with me again.”
His head jerked to me and he stared for a long second—too long. “Is this a setup? Who are you people?” He looked wildly at Harm, then Hazard, and then me.“Is this because I failed?”
Failed ?
“Enough.” I slammed my fist on the table, making him jump again. “You have thirty seconds to answer my questions, or the next thing my fist hits will be you.” My temples pulsed with rage. “Did you plant a bomb on Athena’s car to kill her?”
“Yes.”
My fist curled like a loaded gun, but before I could ask my next question, he started rambling wildly.
“I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice?—”
“You were in debt, not sitting with a fucking gun pointed at your head.”
“ They were pointing a gun at my head.”
“Who?” I tipped forward, scrutinizing his face for the slightest indication that any of this was a lie.
“I don’t know! I don’t know. He was waiting for me in the back seat of my car one night when I left the casino. It was dark. I couldn’t see him.”
I grabbed my phone and pulled up the only recent photo we had of Ivans. “Was it him?”
“No,” he said too quickly, and when I glared, he looked again. “No. I could hardly fucking see anything, but no, I really don’t think it was him—whoever the hell that is.”
“What did the man say?” Harm asked.
Brandon let out a tense breath. “He made it clear I didn’t have long.”
“To pay?” Hazard asked.
“To live,” he snapped.
“Go on.”
“He knew about everything. The debts. The insurance policy on Athena. I’ll admit I got it…as a backup plan.”
“To kill her to collect on the money?”
He glared at me. “Yes.” He wiped the blood from his face again. “But I hadn’t decided to…until he made me. Said he’d do uble the payout of the life insurance policy if I went through with the plan. Left the damn bomb in my car. The remote. Told me how to activate it.”
“Why?”
He sputtered. “Did it matter? I had people practically beating down my door for money I owed them—one loan shark in particular…” He trailed off and shook his head. “This was my answer.”
“You’re a piece of shit?—”
“I wasn’t in any fucking position to ask questions?—”
“Well, you’ve certainly asked plenty here,” I snapped back.
“Did he say anything else?” Harm stepped in—and stepped in front of me—before I did something stupid.
I backed off, giving myself a beat to let the rage come to an even keel.
“No.”
“And what proof did he give you that he’d pay you?” I asked.
“The fucker was sitting in the back of my car, a gun held to the back of my neck and a bomb on the seat. I didn’t need proof that he’d kill me if I didn’t?—”
“Liar.” I narrowed my gaze. “You’re lying.”
He snarled. “Fine. Fuck— fine. He left cash for me in the trunk. A ten percent deposit. When the bomb went off, he wired me another fifty percent.”
“But she didn’t die.”
His lips curled. “Which is why I thought you might be working with him, wanting it back.”
Oh, fuck no. “Where’s the money now?”
His silence was the answer I needed.
“You gambled it away.” I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re a fucking idiot. ”
“Fuck you?—”
“Stand up, Mr. Martins.” Harm didn’t give him a choice. “You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Athena Holman. The police who brought you here will be escorting you back to Sacramento, where you’ll be booked.”
“I want protection—extra protection. This loan shark, you don’t understand—” He stopped speaking abruptly when I stepped in front of him.
“They’ll give you protection in prison,” I assured him. “It’s called bars.”
Harm passed him off to Hazard, and even once the door closed behind them, I could hear his cries all the way down the hall. Fucking coward. I didn’t know what was worse—knowing the truth…or knowing I’d have to tell Athena.
“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging both my hands along my skull.
“You’re in too deep.”
I whipped around and glared at him. After what we’d just heard, that was the first thing he said to me?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said tightly, my body light as a tightrope of anger stretched too thin. “We needed answers, and I got them. I’ll call Ty—” My brother grabbed my phone from my hand, and I snapped.
A sound erupted that I didn’t even realize I’d made until I’d pinned my own brother to the wall, my forearm over his throat.
My chest heaved, and our stares collided. His was hard and shocked and hurt. And shame washed over me like ice water. I was fucking losing it.
I stumbled backward, driving both hands along my scalp. “Fuck.” I turned back, scrambling for some kind of apology.
“We’ll talk later,” he said before I could say anything. “Call Ty.”
Gritting my teeth, I swallowed hard and pulled out my phone again. My heart pounded so hard, Ty’s name tremored on the screen when I tapped on it.
“What did we learn?” he answered.
That I’m fucked.
“The ex was paid to plant the bomb on Athena’s car,” I rasped.
“ Paid?”
“Promised double what the insurance payout would be. Ten percent cash deposit, fifty percent deposited into an offshore account when the bomb went off.”
“I’m guessing the last forty was supposed to come when her death was confirmed.”
“Yeah.”
“So, he was getting paid twice to kill her?”
I flexed my fist, my jaw so tense I couldn’t get out an answer.
“He was approached in his car. Didn’t get a good look at the guy or a name. Denied recognizing a photo of Ivans.” Harm rattled through the details. “He seems to be under the impression the man is someone he borrowed from coming to collect?—”
“He’s a fucking idiot,” I interrupted. “It makes no sense. First, why pay him more money when he already owes them? Second, even if the job he was doing for them was worth the investment, why Athena?”
That was the part of this that made no goddamn sense. At least before, Brandon trying to kill her for the insurance payout was a solid motive. But for him to have been paid additional money to do it by someone else… who? Why?
There was only one answer my mind would let me consider.
“It has to do with Ivans.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I just didn’t know how or why .
“Why would Ivans want her dead?” Harm folded his arms, watching as I started to pace, my mind churning through possibilities.
“I don’t fucking know,” I muttered and ran my hand along my chin in frustration. “Athena said they’d only been on a few dates. She didn’t want a new relationship…yet.”
My brother looked particularly hard at me as the conversation drifted toward silence.
“I’ll look into this payout he mentioned,” Ty offered. “Even with an offshore account, I might be able to get a lead on where the money came from, and that could give us a better idea of what’s really going on.”
“Thanks,” Harm said. “If it does have to do with Ivans, we’re obviously missing something. A part of the relationship we’re not seeing.”
Not seeing…
I growled, an idea starting to form like the first darkened clouds of a storm. “We knew she was seeing Ivans. Remington knew…what if we weren’t the only ones?”
“What do you mean?”
“Our assumption is that Ivans returned to the States to blackmail Belmont and Wenner and GrowTech. He was at GrowTech’s fucking fundraiser; they have to know he’s here—what he wants from them,” I said, rambling as I tried to keep up with the flow of the thought. “What if Belmont is behind this? What if his plan is to kill Athena and pin it on Ivans?”
“Frame him.”
Just like they did before.
“Exactly.”
A ripple of cold worked down my spine. “Did you find out anything at the gallery?”
“The paintings you described are there. I spoke to the owner, Glenn, but she wasn’t there the day of the explosion. All she could tell me was that those two paintings are there, but there are three others that were there but aren’t any more.”
“There’s three missing?”
“She said to come back later this week to talk to Carol, who was working that morning. She would’ve let Athena in.”
I made a low noise.
“She also mentioned seeing Ivans—Iverson come around a bunch to see Athena and look at her work.”
“Right.” I exhaled loudly. “I’ll…talk to her.”
“Dare…”
“What?”
My brother crossed his arms and looked at me. “You can’t spare her the truth anymore.”
“About Ivans,” I clarified, as though there were some chance he was referring to the truth about who I was. “I know.”
My breath exhaled in a bitter burst of laughter, thinking of how that conversation had to go. I had to tell Athena that her ex-husband was paid to blow her up to frame her new “boyfriend” for the crime and that her new “boyfriend” was a wanted fugitive.
“I’ll do a deeper dive into the payout to Martins and let you know what I find,” Ty said.
When our call ended, Harm added, “Since we’re here, I’ll see if Hadrian can go through the evidence from the bomb one more time. If they were going to frame Ivans, there would need to be more evidence tying him to the bomb or the car or…something.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, my mind still staked to my own task. “I’ll tell Athena and then take her back to her house. See if anything jogs her memory.”
“You think she’ll be okay with that?”
“She will be if she’s with me. ”
“And what about you?” His stare narrowed like the scope of a sniper. “You going to be okay?”
I didn’t answer him and ignored the target the words painted on my back as I walked out of the room and headed for my bike. Normally, as soon as I was on the road, my mind would settle . Not today.
All I thought about the entire drive was the feel of her fingers on my face…and the look I’d bring to hers when I told her the truth.
“Let me talk to her.”
“No.” My shoulders lifted and tensed. “I said I’d do it.”
I turned and faced Rob, who stood with her shoulder propped in the doorway to the rec room. Per usual, she was in her uniform of all black with her hair braided over her shoulder. I remembered one time we’d gone to a local Celtic fair, maybe a year or so after her parents’ deaths, and a little girl had walked by us, pointed at Rob, and exclaimed, “ Look, Mom, it’s Merida!’” It was funny. Cute, even. But Robyn was no princess, though she was brave.
“I know, but I think I should.”
“Why?” I demanded like an idiot—like Rob hadn’t been the one spending hours with Athena each day.
“Because I understand.” She reached for the chain around her neck, and I turned away.
I jolted and then threw back the remainder of the whiskey in my glass. “And I don’t?” I shook my head. “No one understands betrayal more than I do. No one understands what it’s like to realize the person you love tried to kill you. ”
Not just me. My brother. My brothers. My feelings for Amira had almost cost all of us our lives that day. All because I’d been too blind to see the truth.
“And do you want to relive that?”
I gritted my teeth, breathing as though flames were sinking into my chest with each breath.“I told her I’d tell her when we knew about Brandon. I promised her the truth.”
She paused, and for a second, I thought she was giving in—giving up. I should’ve known. “And what about your truth?”
I froze. “I told you. I’m not telling her who I am. There’s no point, only more pain for her.”
“Not that truth,” she said, and I cocked my head in her direction.“That you care about her.”
Brave .
“I care what happens to her. There’s a difference.” And that difference was a hill I would die on. “She’s vulnerable and under our protection.”
“You care more than that.”
“No, I don’t. I can’t. I won’t. ” I was a glutton for punishment—for her anger. I wanted her to feel toward me what she should. Resentment.
“Then let me tell her.”
Rob was right. I should let her talk to Athena. I should let her break the news. But dammit, I couldn’t. I couldn’t trust anyone else with her pain. It was mine and mine alone to suffer.
And to comfort her was my punishment. My redemption.
To be there for her in the way I wasn’t all those years ago.
I shoved away from the bar and strode over to my sister, towering in front of her. “And what do you know about love and betrayal?”
Something flickered in her gaze. She let go of the ring on her necklace and let her arm fall to her side.
“More than you know.”
Her answer surprised me. More than I was ready to process right then, which worked out because she didn’t give me the chance.
“I’ll be in the garage with Ty if you need me.” And then she was gone.