Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Dare
She’s gone.
The funeral is next week, and I don’t know how…I just don’t know how I’m going to do this.
She’s gone, Darius…and I’m afraid you are, too.
“Dare.”
Ty’s voice reached out from behind me, but I stood rooted to the ground until the elevator doors closed. Rob met Athena and me right as we returned from her house, and I quickly suggested my sister take Athena back to the cabin so I could touch base with Harm and see what Ty found on the address.
I needed to cool my fucking jets from…whatever the hell that was back at her house. Her torture by tongue. It was time to distract myself with purpose rather than the promise I’d have to keep when all this was over: to walk away from Athena once and for all.
I turned to Ty. “What is it?”
He was waiting, half in the hall and half in his office, his expression creased. As I reached him and followed him into the room, my head jerked to the side as though to snap the invisible string that wanted to pull my gaze back to the last place it had seen her. Golden hair. Trembling chest. And eyes that brimmed with questions I didn’t have answers—good answers—to.
“You alright?”
No, I’m a fucking fool.
I’d needed to stay away from Athena. After the night in the bath, I needed to get control of myself and treat this situation like I swore I would—like every goddamn case we’d tackled. Without emotion. Without attachment. Without want.
And at the first instance to prove I could do that, I’d gone and kissed her again.
“Fine,” I answered because ignoring his question would’ve given away the truth; I was as far from fine as fucked got. “Is that address owned by Ivans’s alias?”
“It’s a stack of shell companies holding the property; it’ll take a few days minimum to tunnel through them all.”
I didn’t have a few days. I wouldn’t survive a few more days around her.
“Alright”—I drove a hand through my hair—“I’m going to head over there and check it out?—”
“Wait.” His word hit me like a gavel, sentencing me to stillness.
His jaw muscle clenched hard, vibrating all the way onto his skull, and my eyes narrowed. His expression was pinched. His heavy pulse was knocking on both sides of his neck. Something wasn’t right.
“What’s going on?”
He hesitated, moving from where he stood back behind his desk. Avoiding the question. Jesus, when had Ty ever avoided…anything? He was more resolute than Harm. Older than all of us. Perpetually resigned to handle whatever life threw at him with the same emotionless expression. Except this—whatever the hell it was.
“Ty…”
“It’s about Athena’s ex.”
“Brandon? Did they find him?” I folded my arms, feeling the stack of envelopes crinkle in the pocket of my jacket, and I stilled. “Is he dead?”
There was no small chance that whoever helped Brandon escape custody did so with the intention of making sure he didn’t talk.
“No. No sign of him yet. But you know I’ve been looking into who paid him…” He clicked around, and then an image appeared on the larger screen. Bank account registers. “The cash I obviously can’t trace. But the second deposit he said he received when the bomb went off…I found that.” He highlighted a line on the register. “It wasn’t a US account, so I called Carina to see if she could…do what she does.”
Carina Damiani was a forensic accountant for the CIA and the wife of one of the Covington Security team. Any time we were dealing with money transfers or offshore money handling or hidden accounts and transactions, she lent us a hand.
“Was it a GrowTech account?”
“She traced it through three separate banks and it led to an offshore account in the Caymans?—”
“Shit.” That was pretty much a dead end.
“We won’t be able to find out who owns the account, but she was able to tell me that the balance in that account is massive. Hundreds of millions.”
“Has to be GrowTech,” I muttered and shook my head. “I need to go to that house. There has to be something?—”
“Dammit, Dare, let me finish.” Hard, almost angry emotion cracked through his voice. “Carina found one other transfer the account made. Six weeks ago. Fifty-thousand dollars to another US account.”
Six weeks. That was before the mystery financer contacted Brandon. It could’ve been to anyone—for anything—but if it wasn’t something, Ty wouldn’t be telling me about it. If it wasn’t something bad, he wouldn’t look the way he did.
“Whose?” I asked low, feeling the thump of my pulse hard against my throat.
He hesitated, and in his hesitation, there was a flicker of concern. Of fear. Of pain, but not his own. Mine.
“Athena’s.”
My jaw went slack. I would’ve rather the ground open up beneath me or lightning strike straight to my chest. Hell, I would’ve rather a grenade launched into my ribs than feel this pain. Again.
Thump.
They’d paid Athena. Why would they pay her?
Thump. Thump. My heart protested every beat as though it were a hammer beating a stake into the center of my back.
I forced myself to speak the same way adrenaline forces you to act—to move—after you’ve been gravely wounded.
“So, the same account that paid Brandon to plant a bomb on Athena’s car and kill her also paid Athena fifty thousand dollars?” Each word was slow and methodical as my tongue stitched them together, piercing one hole after another into the way I’d looked at her—thought of her.
“Yes. ”
“You’re sure?” Sure that I was a fool? Sure that I’d let my emotions blind me once more? Sure that I’d let my own guilt about Athena cloud her own?
“Yes.”His nostrils flared. “We don’t know who the offshore account belongs to?—”
“It has to be GrowTech,” I snapped, my frown so sharp, it was a miracle I wasn’t bleeding from the way it cut across my face. “Who else would be involved in this with that much money? But why pay Athena only to pay Brandon to kill her a few weeks later?”
“I don’t know?—”
“If they were going to kill her to frame Ivans, then paying her must’ve had to do with Ivans, too.” The anger inside me was sharp and savage as it cut a story into my mind like it carved it straight from stone.
“Dare—”
“She was close to him—or getting close to him. They must’ve been paying her for information—to find out what he knew or what he was doing or where he was…” It was the only scenario that made sense. Why else would the same account pay both of them? “They paid her for the information and then paid to eliminate her.” Thump. “Or they paid her and she started to fall for Ivans, and they realized she’d become a liability.”
“Those are all theories. We need more information?—”
“And I’m going to get it.” I spun and yanked the door open; it would’ve swung into the wall if Ty hadn’t been there to catch it.
“Dammit, Dare.” He grabbed my shoulder. “We don’t know. Just don’t talk to her like this right now.”
Me? All that, and the person he had a fucking problem with was me?
I yanked my arm away and stepped in front of him. Got in his fucking face. He didn’t control me or my anger— or my right for answers.
“Talk to her like what? Like she’s a suspect? Like she hasn’t been associated with a criminal and could’ve been involved this whole time?”
Brandon was taking everything in the divorce—she told me he’d taken everything. Why wouldn’t she jump at the chance for an easy $50K to spy on Ivans for GrowTech? And why would she admit to it, especially when she was wounded and her life was in jeopardy?
“Don’t talk to her like she’s Amira.”
I froze. I hated when they said her name—when they reminded me that they remembered my failure, too. When any of them reminded me that I was the one responsible for Ryan’s death.
Instantly, the anger I’d aimed at him returned to its rightful target. Me . I stepped back, self-loathing sitting like acid on my tongue, and headed for the elevator.
Ty’s growl of disapproval chased my retreating steps, but he didn’t try to stop me again. I punched in my code, and the elevator doors opened, but before I stepped inside, I looked at him and said, “I won’t be made a fool of again.”
He didn’t respond except with a pointed stare. Not pointed—barbed. A barbed stare that stuck to my mind, so later I could remember he knew I was about to make a mistake.
Rage pulsed like electricity under the edge of my skin, charging each of my furious steps faster toward my cabin and simultaneously bombarding me with memories that fell like rockets from the tragedy of my past.
“Are you sure her intel is good? That they’re moving tonight?” Harm had demanded confirmation.
“When has her intel not been good?” I’d felt offended for her. Angry at his question.
“Never.”
“Then what’s your point?” I’d gotten in his face.
“My point is that while what she’s given us has been accurate, right now, moving up our infiltration, goes against all of the other intel we’ve received.”
“You think she’s lying?” I was furious in an instant. Harm was the rational one, while anger had always been my strong suit. “She’s risking everything to help us—everything to help me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I hadn’t hesitated.
Me. He’d trusted me. Not Amira. His brother. And my stupid fucking heart had led us to our deaths.
Never again.
Rob and Athena were talking as I threw open the door. Athena jumped, gripping the blanket on either side of her, where she sat at the edge of the bed.
Rob fired an angry glare at me. “What the hell?—”
“Who—”
“Were they paying you to spy on Ivans?” I demanded, stalking right past Rob and lowering until my face was inches from Athena’s.
I wiped every memory of her beauty and her kindness and her grace from my mind, leaving nothing but a blank slate to scrutinize her.
“What?” Athena choked, her brows pulling together.“What are you?— ”
“Did GrowTech pay you to get close to Ivans?” I growled, searching every grimace and flicker in her expression for a crack that would lead me to the truth. “Did they pay you for information on him?”
“Me? Pay me? I don’t understand.”
“Yes. You,” I snarled, my brain short-circuiting at her heartbreaking tone. The sight of her face morphed into another’s. Her blond hair turning black. Blue eyes deepening to brown. My mind spliced present with the past—Athena with Amira.
“No! Why would you think they paid me?
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Athena?—”
“That’s enough, Dare.” Rob grabbed the arm of my jacket and pulled; she might have a certain kind of might, but she didn’t have enough strength to move me. Not like she wanted to.
I shook her off and planted my fists on the bed on either side of Athena, lowering my voice. “Fifty-thousand dollars was deposited into your account a month and a half ago. Explain.”
Her eyes went wide. Surprise— no, it wasn’t that. I wouldn’t believe it .
“No—”Her head started to shake.
“A month and a half ago was when you started to see Ivans. Were they paying you to spy on him? Why? For what?” I pushed.
“No, they didn’t?—”
“And either they got what they needed or they thought you were compromised.” And pushed.
“No, you’re wrong?—”
“So, they paid Brandon to plant the bomb.” And pushed.
“ Enough.” Rob didn’t pull me this time, she shoved me. Rammed me, more like it, and hard enough that I stumbled to the side, catching myself before I collided with the wall. “What the hell is wrong with you? ”
“Me?” I charged, jamming my finger into my chest and then leveling it at Athena. “They paid her, and I want to know why. What did they want? What did she learn?—”
“Nothing!” Athena stood, her shout cutting through our argument. Suddenly, she appeared wild, wisdom and fury shaping every inch of her. Chin lifted, she looked straight ahead rather than at either of us, though our voices would’ve given her some idea of where we were.
And the subtle magnitude of that was enough to shake me to my core. She couldn’t see, and yet she couldn’t bear to look in either of our directions. Like once more, she was left to face the unimaginable on her own.
“No one paid me anything because I don’t have access to my account.” As she spoke, I realized the pit in my stomach that had been there from the second I barged through the door. Anger had camouflaged it, but no longer.
“It’s okay,” Rob said gently and went to her, thank God. But when she put a hand on her shoulder, Athena flinched. “Tell me what happened.”
Her. Not me. Because I was a fucking asshole. Broken by betrayal. Consumed by anger. Fuck.
Fuck me.
Ty was right; I shouldn’t have come. Hell, I shouldn’t have involved myself in this from the start. From that damn photograph. I should’ve given it to Harm or Rob and let them handle it.
For everyone else, the garage was a haven from the outside world. Not for me. For me, the garage was a cage. Not to keep them out, but to keep me in. Me and all my anger.
“Six weeks ago, the bank called me about suspicious activity in my account. They told me about the deposit, and I panicked. I thought it was Brandon—I thought he was trying to sabotage one more thing before the divorce was finalized, trying to do something to stall or prevent it from going through,” she said, barreling through every hitch of her voice like her own pain and vulnerability didn’t matter. I certainly hadn’t acted like it mattered to me. “So, I asked them to freeze the account. There wasn’t much money in it before that anyway. I figured it was better to open a new account once the divorce was final—one that Brandon wouldn’t have any information on.”
The pause she took…the long breath that brought another stab of pain to her head, making her wince…the anger I’d felt coming here now paled to the depths of my self-loathing.
Fuck. Me.
“You can check with the bank,” she added, biting her bottom lip when it started to quiver. “I haven’t had access to the account…”
I was going to check because it had to do with Ivans—with this case—but I knew we’d only find proof of her honesty.
And of my villainy.
I stared at her.Her eyes were so glassy and blue, it was like staring at the surface of the sea—but not even the sea was big enough to hold the tears I’d make her cry.
“Athena—”
Rob blocked her from my view.“I think you should leave, Dare.”
“It’s okay. I-I’m sorry,” Athena murmured, the words so wounded and habitual, I couldn’t stop the groan of pain they pulled from my chest.
“Don’t apologize, Athena.” My sister’s stare pinned mine, unforgiving. “This has nothing to do with you.” And everything to do with me.
Her apology was worse than her tears. Worse than the pain on her face or the hurt in her eyes. Her apology wasn’t her own guilt, it was mine. It was my guilty verdict, proclaiming me as one more person who’d promised to care for her and instead made her the victim of my weakness.
“She’s right,” I rasped and dragged my hands through my hair, forcing myself to breathe against the weight that threatened to cave in my entire chest. “This had nothing to do with you.”
I left for the same reason I had twenty years ago: so I wouldn’t hurt her any worse.