Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Athena
“ Y ou’re incredible.”
I turned, smiling as Darius approached, his gaze flicking to all of my paintings decorating the walls of the gallery.
Landscapes from here to Sacramento. Bright, bold colors claiming every inch of the canvasses, beckoning the viewers into a vivid escape.
“We’re about to find out,” I murmured, tipping my head back as his arms came around me.
“I already know, Angel.” Dare cupped my cheek and lowered his mouth to mine, sweeping me into a kiss that instantly calmed my nerves.
Over the course of two weeks, fear of more danger had slowly and steadily been replaced by anxiety over my show. Wanting everything to be perfect. Worrying that it wouldn’t be. And Dare had been by my side in every way.
For me, starting over didn’t happen in a day. It didn’t happen the instant I moved to a different town and into Mom’s house. My new life had been built day by day since I’d moved home. Box by box. Painting by painting. Connection by connection. All leading to this.
It wasn’t until we’d left Sherwood that it hit me what my gallery show had started to represent. My rebirth.
After months of becoming reacquainted with myself after Brandon, returning to my first love of art, and then finding Darius again, it was like digging up all the pieces of my heart and soul that had been methodically buried by an insecure, weak man who wanted to make me feel like nothing.
But standing here, surrounded by the paintings I’d spent countless hours creating and supported by the man who’d do anything for me, I was the person I’d always wanted to be. And I was Dare’s everything.
“Though I’m still nervous about the portrait,” he murmured, ending the kiss and tilting his head to the portrait I was standing in front of. The only portrait in the gallery. Ryan’s.
There was no color, only pencil and charcoal. A man brought to life in shades of gray—like many soldiers who experienced war. Some parts of them shining bright, other parts too dark to ignore.
I’d started the portrait from a photo Dare had shown me the night we’d left Sherwood for the second time, and I surprised him with the finished drawing two days ago. He’d cried; we both had. And then he protested when I told him I wanted it hanging in the center of the gallery.
“You’re not responsible for his death,” I’d reminded him. “But you are responsible for keeping his story alive.”
I wasn’t the only one starting over and breaking free from the things that had held me down .
“Don’t be nervous. Just tell them how he made you smile. Laugh. Live.”
The drawing wasn’t for sale; it was for the story. Ryan’s story. A black-and-white reminder of the sacrifice of soldiers so the rest of us could live in color. And Darius was here to tell it.
He made a low noise and lowered his head to my neck, whispering in my ear, “They’re going to love you.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then fuck them,” he rasped, and my heart fluttered. “If they don’t buy your paintings, I’ll buy all of them.”
“What? No.” I shook my head and laughed. “You can’t?—”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do—no price I wouldn’t pay—to know how you spent every moment in the years we’ve been apart.”
It had been so long, and yet, decades felt like nothing more than a drop in the ocean. Like no time had passed from the first time he lifted me onto my kitchen counter and kissed me senseless to the second time.
It made me wonder if the idea of time was more art than science. An interpretation of the world around us the way it could bend and stretch, quicken and slow, relative to its surroundings. Like a blank canvas altered by the paint of perception.
And around Dare, the time we’d been apart folded in on itself until it seemed so small compared to the time we’d been back together.
“Darius…” My lips parted, the words I’d lived with for weeks but hadn’t said no longer met a barrier of fear. This was my new beginning. And I wanted it to start with loving him. “I?—”
“Athena! Are you ready? The parking lot is filling up,” Glenn interrupted gleefully, tossing her bright orange scarf over her shoulder as she joined us .
“It is?”
“Come see.” She ushered me eagerly with her.
“I’ll be right here,” Dare murmured as he stepped back, his admiration urging me to step into my future as equally as the love in his eyes promised I’d find him there waiting.
“Excuse me, Ms. Holman. I’d like to purchase a painting.”
I didn’t think twice about the cold shiver that went through me; the air conditioning was on full blast. I didn’t think twice as I turned toward the deep voice that wanted one of my works; there was a huge crowd here to see my paintings. One that had awed and overwhelmed and consumed me.
And when I faced him, I didn’t think; I remembered.
My jaw went slack, the last blank frames of my memory from the morning of the explosion etched into place by this man’s pointed chin, narrow eyes, and dark hair. And then I caught the slow gesture of his hand as he moved his jacket to the side, revealing his right hand tucked underneath and holding a gun.
“We’re going to walk nice and easy to the back like you want to show me something.” His jacket flapped shut, concealing the danger underneath.
Without thought, my gaze searched for Dare. I was the one who told him I was fine. Who assured him he didn’t have to hover?—
“Don’t even think about screaming or making a scene unless you want someone to die.”
I looked back at the dark eyes glaring at me, and the air in my lungs went up in smoke. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and turned, plastering my best attempt at a smile like everyone else’s life depended on it.
Breathe, Athena. Dare will realize. Dare will find you.
The man’s presence loomed behind me like a spider coming for his prey. I followed his instructions because if I wasn’t careful—if I didn’t think about how to get out of this—I’d only end up more tangled in his web.
We walked around the last displays in the gallery, and somehow I managed to give off no sign of concern to the few people we passed. The door that led to the warehouse space in the back swung open just before we reached it, and Glenn appeared. I tensed, and my captor made a low noise to remind me of the consequences of straying from his will.
“Oh, Athena.” My friend beamed. “There’s someone asking about the soldier?—”
“It’s not for sale.”
“But you should hear the offer?—”
“Not at any price,” I insisted.
“If you say so.” Glenn sighed, and then seemingly noticed the man behind me. Instantly, she was skeptical. “Do you need something? Is everything okay?”
“Oh yes.” I nodded effusively. “Mr. Henry is a former client, and he wants one of the landscapes I don’t have out on display.” The lie came easily when it was the only thing protecting her life.
Glenn instantly relaxed. “Oh, how nice.” She stepped to the side and held the door open. “Well, don’t be too long. I think you should hear this offer.”
I shook my head and walked by her, holding my breath that she didn’t notice anything off about the man behind me—or what was hidden underneath his jacket.
I jumped when the door closed loudly in the big open space, the clang of metal ricocheting off the walls like a knock inside a coffin.
“Mr. Henry?”
I spun and banded my arms over my chest, staring at his arched brow. “What do you want from me?”
“Keep walking.” His chin jerked in the direction of the back door.
My throat tightened, and I slowed my pace, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “You were at Richard’s house the other morning.”
The less he realized I knew, the better, so I kept my knowledge of Ivans’s real identity to myself.
“Yes.” He chuckled. “Richard.”
As for the man with the gun to my back, his identity I didn’t know. But I recognized him. The instant I saw him, I remembered his face. I remembered Richard—Ray—escorting me through the house that morning. He wanted the paintings in the living room and begged me to tell him where to hang them.
Suddenly, pain seared through my head. I gasped and pressed a hand to my temple, bowing over in pain and knocking something off the table next to me.
“Dammit. Keep moving.” His orders came with the press of his gun to my back, the whole of me stumbling forward like I was made out of a single block of stone, my joints forgetting how to bend for a split second.
And then I saw what I’d knocked over—a tube of paint. One that I proceeded to step on when he’d pushed me to move, sending yellow paint squirting over the floor.
Yellow. Follow me.
I planted my next step squarely in the yellow acrylic, trying to get as much as I could on my shoe so I could leave a trail.
“You came over while I was there…” I murmured to hold on to the memory and to distract him from the intentional trail of yellow footprints I now left on the concrete floor.
“I did.”
The memory didn’t come back in pieces, it came back like threads. Strand after strand. Images. Sounds. Smells. That all had to be woven together.
Ray had just led me to the living room when there’d been a knock at the door. He’d left me with a smile and a plea to use my artist’s touch to decide where the paintings should go.
I’d never been more grateful for Glenn’s massive warehouse. Storage space. Studio space. And right now, a safe space, since it was clear my captor had no intention of killing me here.
“Unfortunately for you, Richard was a fool.”
I held onto my reply, instead clinging to the threads of my memory and weaving more of that morning.
“We have to talk.” A voice I hadn’t recognized echoed into the living room after Richard opened the door— my captor’s voice.
“Not now.”
“You don’t get a damn choice.” There was anger—rage even in the tone—and I remembered staring blankly at the painting in my hand, too preoccupied with Richard’s visitor to think about where it should hang.
“Then in here.” Their steps went from loud to quiet as they walked to the other side of the house, their voices disappearing out of earshot.
I’d felt unsettled. Uncomfortable. Like the bubble surrounding my fledgling relationship with Richard had been pricked. I’d propped the paintings, one against each wall, without much thought and headed for the front door; it was nothing but pure instinct that told me I should get out of there.
My hand was on the doorknob when I realized I could hear their voices again .
“She shouldn’t be here.” The stranger’s voice was louder.
She… he was talking about me.
“It changes nothing.” I heard Richard’s reply as I moved toward the voices.
“For a doctor, you can be pretty damn idiotic.”
Doctor? Richard wasn’t a doctor.
“It changes nothing. I’ll take care of her when the time comes.” Richard could’ve meant a thousand things by those words, but my brain would only let me believe he meant one thing. One unbelievable thing.
“Outside,” the rough voice behind me demanded, dragging my thoughts back to the present.
We’d reached the back of the warehouse and the exit to the small parking area out back. My fingers trembled, pushing the bar as I remembered the last thing I’d heard.
“I don’t trust your track record, Ray. I’m having it handled.”
Ray. He’d called him Ray.
“I’m not jeopardizing anything. You forget, Wenner, I’m the one who lost a decade of my life to protect Belmont. What I’m owed is worth far more than a pretty blond’s fuck.”
I couldn’t restrain my gasp. The slightest sound of shock snapped the man’s attention to the door, letting me see his face.
Wenner. I knew that name.
I turned on the pavement, shocking Lloyd Wenner with my about-face.“You work for GrowTech…” I said slowly, suddenly seeing the man in a whole new light.His expensive suit. His air of authority.
But according to Dare, GrowTech was trying to get rid of Ivans.
His eyes flashed. “I see you’ve learned a little something since your imbecile husband failed at his singular task.”
I ignored the barb. “Ex,” I said, and he glared at me. “Ex-husband. ”
He pulled the gun from his jacket. “Get in the car, Ms. Holman.”
Stubbornness propped my chin higher. “What do you want from me?”
“I think that should be pretty obvious,” he said and shook his head. “You saw me. You know too much. And I’ve been planning Belmont’s downfall for too long to let the whole thing go to shit because of Ivans. Now, get in the car.”
Planning… Suddenly, all the pieces formed a fuzzy picture. Wenner was the missing link. He was the invisible string that knotted everything together and explained the unexplainable. Who killed Ivans. Why a GrowTech account paid Brandon and then the other man who’d shot Dare. It was all Wenner’s setup. A frame job to pin my death on Belmont because I’d met him the night of the gala.
I didn’t understand the depths or intricacies of their vendetta, but I understood that I’d become the sacrificial pawn in their game.
“Or what?”
He reached into his pocket, and dread wrapped its cold fingers around my throat. “Or I kill you.” He lifted his hand, some kind of switch in his fingers with a toggle and a button. He flipped the toggle, and in the corner of my eyes, I saw a red light flicker.
A red light tucked into the frame of Dare’s motorcycle.
“And then I’ll kill the man who thinks he has a chance at saving you.”
The earth opened up beneath me and swallowed me whole. Wenner had planted a bomb on Dare’s bike, and if I didn’t drive us away from here, he’d make it look like I did, and as soon as he knew Dare was following…
Adrenaline injected like fire into my veins. Or maybe it was pure fear. Not of my own death, but of his.
Dare hadn’t lived in so long because of a death and because of a woman…and he’d risked everything to protect me. Now I would do the same.
“Alright.” I let my chin fall.
“Get in. You’re driving.” He waved me to the driver’s side with the gun. “And remember whose life you’re risking if you try anything stupid.”