Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Dare
B ang. Bang. Bang.
I jolted against the warmth tucked to my front, Athena’s bare body curled against mine. Around mine. A groan awoke in my chest, my body tucked into the heat of her pussy. It only took a second for my dick to turn from semi-hard to steel and for all of me to regret having to move from this spot.
I’d waited…a lifetime for last night. A lifetime of trials and triumphs and loss. A lifetime of thinking our paths had diverged and that door would be forever closed.
I’d waited a lifetime to love Athena Holman, and I didn’t want to wait a second more to tell her.
But I would have to because someone needed me.
“ Darius ?” It was Rob knocking.
Athena made a soft noise that didn’t help my body’s growing reaction.
“Dammit.” Gritting my teeth, I quickly pulled my body from hers and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Stay here. ”
I rose from the bed, finding my sweatpants on the floor where I’d discarded them when we came inside last night. Pulling them on, I looked around for the wrap for my arm and realized it was still outside. Oh well.
Rob must’ve heard my commotion because she didn’t knock or say anything more, instead waiting for me to come to her.
I opened the door quietly, finding my sister reclined against the wall. “What is it?”
I stepped into the stairwell, closing the door behind me, but not before Rob saw enough over my shoulder. I watched something flicker in her gaze—a bright happiness that appeared for a second through the clouds that normally shrouded her.
“Sorry to wake you.” She looked genuinely apologetic.
“I’m assuming it’s important.” I folded my arms, giving support to my shoulder.
“We found the shooter.”
“What?” I reeled. “Who? Where is he?” There was hardly room for the two of us on the small landing, but still, I advanced a step toward her. “I want to talk to him.”
“Not going to happen,” she said, and I stilled. “He’s dead.”
“Fuck!” I spat the word, reaching to drive a hand through my hair and realizing too late it was my injured arm. I pulled it down with a wince and a more effusive curse that ended abruptly when the door opened again.
“Dare?” Athena’s voice settled me even though I wished we hadn’t woken her. “Hey, Rob,” she greeted my sister when she realized who was with me.
“Sorry for the interruption.” Rob looked at me, knowing it was my decision how to handle this conversation.
I exhaled slowly. “Let’s go back inside.” There was no need to stay cramped in the hallway anymore.
Rob’s information hung like a cloud of uncertainty over my shoulders as we went into the kitchen. Athena went directly to the coffee machine, filling the tank with water and letting it start to heat.
“What’s going on?”
Again, Rob looked at me, and my jaw tightened. I wanted to protect Athena from this, but that would always be my downfall—wanting to protect her from things that were out of my control.
“Rob said they found the shooter, but he’s dead,” I rasped.
It should be a good thing—it was a good thing. But my gut told me his death was just one more in this string that was going to leave us with more questions than answers. It was strikingly suspicious that everyone who’d tried to kill Athena ended up dead before we could interrogate them.
“Dead?” Athena gaped and looked at Rob. “Who is he? What happened?”
Rob sighed. “Last night, Monterey police got a call about an accident on the highway. A car veered off the road and down the embankment; the driver was pronounced dead at the scene.”
“And the driver is our guy? How do you know? How are you sure?”
“Well, it was the car. Black Mercedes with tinted windows. License plate 4GR03T3,” Rob said, her eyes flicking to Athena as she poured three cups of coffee. “Police got to the scene, ran the plate, and that pinged the nets Ty set up. Harm reached out to Rorik, who went up there early this morning to offer his assistance on the autopsy. Harm just called Ty with the update.”
“And Ty sent you?”
“No one else wanted to disturb…” She trailed off, biting the corner of her lip to stop a smile as Athena fumbled with one of the mugs, saving it before coffee sloshed everywhere and giving it to my sister .
“Do they have an ID on the body?” And a reason to believe he was our guy?
“Alan Brady.” Rob lifted the mug and took a sip. “His ID had another name, but AFIS matched his prints to his real identity. He was investigated for involvement in several homicides about a decade ago, but nothing stuck. And after that, it looks like he was living under aliases.”
Our gazes met, the reason passing between them: Brady was a fixer.
“What else?” The guy might be a criminal, but that didn’t make him the criminal responsible for shooting me.
She paused for only a second. “They found the gun in the trunk of the car. It was wrapped in a black garbage bag. He was probably going to toss it. They matched ballistics to the slug Rorik pulled from your shoulder.”
“I see.”I took the mug Athena offered me, murmuring my thanks as I let my fingers brush over hers.Less than ten minutes away from her body, and I was craving her touch more than I wanted coffee.
“There’s more,” she said, and I looked back at her. “Ty checked into his accounts. There was a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit made from the same account that paid Athena’s ex.”
“So, Ivans paid Brandon. When Brandon didn’t succeed and got arrested, Ivans helped him escape custody and then killed him because he could implicate him.”
“But he still wanted Athena dead.”
“So, he hired Brady to fix it.”My grip on the mug tightened, wishing it was around the dead man’s throat.
Rob nodded. “I talked to Ty and Harm. We think Brady sprung Brandon from custody and brought him back to Ivans to question him. Meanwhile, Ivans gave Brady Brandon’s original task of…”
“Killing me,” Athena filled in softly .
“Brady left to track you down. At some point, Ivans and Brandon ended up killing each other, and by the time Brady returned, you and Ty were on scene. We think he didn’t realize Ivans had been killed, too, and that’s why he continued to go after Athena, thinking the man who paid him was still alive.”
“And then he died.”
With that, the conversation stilled for a beat, but I couldn’t leave it there.“Cause of death?”
“Blunt force trauma from the accident. The car went off the side of the road and then off a cliff.”
“Right.”The hot coffee settled with bitter familiarity on my tongue. Just like the sense of unease and doubt in my chest. “And the reason he crashed?”
“His blood alcohol level was off the charts,” she replied, her eyes narrowing. “What are you thinking?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m thinking that the people who keep trying to harm Athena conveniently keep turning up dead.”
Rob stiffened, the movement slight but strong enough to ripple the silence.
“What is it? What are you thinking?” I asked steadily.
“Nothing,” she answered too quickly, her fingers tensing around the ring on her necklace.
“You think it’s Remington, don’t you?”
“No.” Again, the answer was too quick to be anything but a false denial.
Why?
Why would the former FBI agent, who now sat at the top of his previous employer’s Most Wanted list, be involved in our business?
Yes, there was a moment last year when Rob told one of her friends to impersonate the infamous criminal to save the woman he loved. Looking back now, that moment seemed like a siren. A warning flare. The very first domino that toppled all the rest.He’d been involved in helping Harm save Daria. He’d sent the photo of Athena and Ivans to me. He was everywhere. Alright, not everywhere. But everywhere he shouldn’t be.
“Why would Remington want to help us?”
There were plenty of things Rob did on her own. Plenty of secrets she kept from the rest of us. And that was fine, unless it was a man like Remington who had her in his sights.
“He wouldn’t,” she declared. “And your first mistake would be to think anything he does is to help anyone but himself. So, if he did play some role in this, it would be to serve his own purpose. Regardless, whichever way you look at this, Remington or accident, it means Athena is safe.”
I stiffened, anger rushing through me. I wish she wouldn’t have said that. It didn’t feel like Athena was safe. It felt like we didn’t know enough to be certain that all the bad guys were offed by a benevolent villain, let alone to declare Athena safe.
“So, it’s over?” Athena asked hesitantly. “I can go home? Go to my art show in two weeks?”
The owner of the gallery assured Athena that the show would go on whether or not it was safe for Athena to be there. She wanted to support her—wanted her success. But Athena really wanted to be present. Wanted to see her dream—her future—finally come to life.
“Rorik’s running additional tox screens on the body, but I can’t think of any reason not to. Can you?” Rob looked at me.
I pushed an exhale through my tight lips, wanting to say yes. Wanting to insist that Athena needed to stay here for a few more days until we could be certain. But certain of what?
“I don’t know,” I ground out, my voice turning hoarse. There was no reason—no one else who would want to hurt her. Then why did it make me feel uneasy ?
Maybe it was because I thought I’d have a few more days with her here before we talked about what happened next. It wasn’t that I was uncertain of what I wanted with her—which was nothing short of everything—but she was the one who’d been married. Betrayed. She was the one who was just starting over, and I was afraid to admit I wanted to start with everything—afraid that what I wanted might be too much too fast and I’d lose her all over again.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to decide that.” Rob leaned over the counter and set her mug in the sink. “I’ll let you know if we find out anything else.” But she wasn’t planning on it.
I walked my sister to the door, following her into the hall to give us some privacy.
“Do you really think she’s safe?” I rasped, not caring how vulnerable I sounded.
Rob tipped her head, her sharp stare softening. “I think she’s not the one you’re afraid to let out of here.”
I’d lived here for so long—secluded myself for so long. To not only find someone and be with them but to now venture out…was that the thing that made my chest tight?
“You deserve a life, Dare.” She put her hand on my arm and then pulled me in for a hug.
It was there I realized I’d started to believe it.
Guilt was a bad habit, started by trauma and strengthened by solitude, but I was going to break it. I had a reason to break it now.
“So do you,” I reminded her as she went to pull away.
“I have a life,” she said and smiled at me. “I have my people. My purpose.”
“And love?”
Her smile flickered but recovered quickly. “Love? If I fall, who’s left to take care of Ty? He’s getting up there. ”
I chuckled and glanced around, saying, “If he hears you say that…”
“A good debate is good for the soul.”
“I don’t think Ty would agree with that either.”
“Maybe he needs a little disagreement in his life.”
After finishing with Rob, I returned inside the cabin, my eyes hooked to the floor, until the door was shut and I heard her voice.
“Dare.” The expectation in her voice told me everything. She wanted to leave. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go back to normal. But did she want to do it with me? “Come home with me.”
I stilled. “Athena…”
She moved in front of me.“You don’t have to,” she murmured, sliding her tongue over her bottom lip as she flicked her eyes around the room. “Not if this is where you want to be.”
Hell no.
I reached for her cheek, turning her head up. “It’s not,” I confessed, lowering my lips toward hers. “I think it’s been a safe house for me, too.”
All these years, I’ve felt sheltered here. Protected. Cocooned from the harsh reminders of the world and what I’d done. But the cabin had been nothing more than a limbo. A protected purgatory I deemed myself destined to spend the rest of my days in. But from the day I’d brought her here, it was as though her presence had shined a light in my darkness, and I could finally see .
I could see the empty space and bare walls. I could see the lack of a life as though it were carved into the foundation.
“Then come home with me.”
I let loose an exhale when my forehead touched hers.
“Okay.”