Chapter 21
21
Zeke stretched, his hand searching for Nina in the bed. In the cold bed. In the empty bed.
He sat up, looking around the room like he missed her, but she was gone.
Panic set in. Was it possible someone snuck into his house and took her while he slept?
No. He couldn’t think that.
He grabbed shorts and a tee from the floor and dragged the shorts on as he rushed to the door, nearly tripping when his toe caught on one pant leg. He slapped his palm against the door and shoved his foot into the shorts.
He yanked the door open and raced down the stairs, sighing with relief when she was sitting on the couch.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at him like he was only half as crazy as he felt. She turned back to Franklin, the lucky cat purring loudly enough for Zeke to hear from ten feet away.
“You weren’t in bed. I thought something happened.” He went to the couch, leaning down to kiss her.
She turned her head, letting his lips land on her cheek. “Morning breath. I couldn’t sleep.”
“I don’t care about morning breath. And you love sleeping in.”
She nodded. “I know. I’m tired. I guess I’m excited to spend the day with Monty.”
“I never tried to keep you from him. Did you think I was?”
“No. I just woke up early and decided to come downstairs instead of risking waking you up.”
She didn’t look at him. She stayed focused on the cat. Zeke knew the move. Hell, he was a pro at it. Avoid eye contact and admit nothing. Brush them off until they stop calling.
She was done with him.
“Okay.” He tried not to let it hurt, but fuck, it felt like someone pried his chest open and yanked his heart out, setting it in her lap like his greedy cats. He pulled his tee on, as if that would keep all the loose parts inside instead of spilling everywhere.
She didn’t say anything, so he went to the kitchen. Coffee was made. He filled a mug and took a sip. The bitter taste was horrible, but he needed things to suck for a while. He needed the reminder that there was something to look forward to. Even if it was as stupid as sugar in his damn coffee.
Because looking forward to Nina leaving him was going to fucking hurt.
“Do you want breakfast?”
Nina shook her head and eased Franklin to the cushion next to her. She stood and pointed to the stairs. “I’m going to go take a shower. Monty is going to be here in a little while to get me.”
Zeke nodded. Monty was going to be there in an hour, but he wasn’t going to argue with her or tell her she had plenty of time. If she wanted to get away from him, he was going to let her go.
Franklin and Gene sat at the bottom of the stairs and watched Nina race up them. They both meowed, then looked at Zeke like he fucked up.
“I don’t know what I did, but thanks for having my back,” he told the traitors.
The shower turned on upstairs, and Zeke gripped the edge of the counter. She was in his bathroom, naked and wet, for what could be the last time.
He should have insisted she stayed with Montgomery. If she had, he wouldn’t have known what he was letting go of. He wouldn’t have the memories of being inside her to keep him up at night, wondering about who she wanted more than him.
He closed his eyes and let himself have a pity party for one minute. Sixty seconds, then he had to get the fuck over it.
He breathed slowly, absorbing all the fear he felt over her leaving. At the end of his sixty seconds, he put it all aside and boxed up his love for her, the same way he did for the twelve years she was gone.
Zeke fixed breakfast while she was in the shower. He sent a text to Montgomery letting him know they were up and he was making breakfast if Mont wanted to join them.
The knock on the door and the key in the lock answered the text. “I was just trying to figure out what to eat. Where’s Nina?”
“In the shower. Did you come up with a plan for today?” Zeke asked, hoping he sounded normal.
Montgomery nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking we could walk around the city a little, go to the Falls, then get lunch and maybe talk her into a tattoo.”
“Really?” Zeke asked.
Mont shrugged. “I figured I have one that matches my brother, it would be nice to match my sister, too. If you’re okay with that.”
Zeke nodded, choking back the emotion in his throat. Fuck, he’d been feeling too many of those lately. “I think she’ll be open to that.”
“Hey,” Mont said. His voice was softer and closer, and when Zeke turned, Mont was only a few feet behind him. “I can’t thank you enough for watching out for her this last month. I haven’t handled all of this very well, and knowing you were here for Nina gave me the space to get my head in order.”
“You okay?” Zeke asked.
Mont nodded. “Yeah, I’m getting there. I just… Knowing what she went through makes me feel like even more of an asshole. What if we’d been able to find her? What if I never left?”
“You can’t think about that. She said she doesn’t blame either of us.”
“I know, but shit, she was right here in Niagara Falls. She was here.”
“Yeah.” Zeke thought about the same thing every night since Nina came back. He drove himself crazy with regret and guilt. Especially when he laughed and teased and loved her. He didn’t deserve to be happy to have her back when she had so many painful memories.
“This is why we do what we do,” Mont said. “Why we started Rose Protection Agency. No one else should go through what we did. But having my brother with me through all of this made it bearable.”
“Same, Mont.”
Montgomery grabbed Zeke’s hand and jerked him in for a hug, slapping Zeke’s back. Zeke returned the gesture, grateful he’d always have Montgomery in his life. Zeke’s days of dreaming Mont would be more than just his brother by choice were gone, but they always had that.
“What’s going on?” Nina asked from behind Mont.
Mont and Zeke pulled apart, both sniffing and wiping their eyes while pretending not to.
“Just thanking Zeke for being here for you the last month and for me my whole life. He’s one of the good ones.” Mont cupped Zeke’s neck and squeezed.
“He is,” Nina whispered. She met his gaze, and he saw a glimpse of what they shared in her eyes.
He turned back to the stove. “Food’s about ready. You guys hungry?”
“Always,” Mont said.
The rest of the morning was a combination of food and laughter and teasing, but Zeke stayed mostly quiet. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her, so he said nothing at all. And when Mont and Nina left to go on their adventure, Zeke resisted the urge to punch a hole in his wall.
Nina laughed at Monty when he made a funny face for their picture. He wanted to document their day, something about needing new pictures of her, and she was on board.
It was a good day. She felt uncomfortable being out in the open at first, but if Monty thought it was okay, Nina was not going to argue. She’d missed the fresh air and the wide open spaces around Niagara Falls.
Even though she’d never left the city, she hadn’t seen the iconic and masterful waterfall since she was a teenager. “It’s still so beautiful.”
Monty leaned against the metal railing between them and the rushing water and nodded. “It is. I don’t come here often, but it’s stunning.”
“Why don’t you come here?”
“Busy.” Monty shrugged. “Mostly work, but I always thought of you when I would come here. It wasn’t easy.”
“I’m sorry I left.”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to apologize. Not to me. You did what you thought was best, and I appreciate you doing that. I hate the outcome for you, but I’m moving forward.”
“Me, too.”
Monty was quiet for several minutes, staring out at the water with Nina. When he turned to face her, she matched his pose. “What do you think you might want to do with your life?”
Nina shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Did you have any ideas before?”
Nina laughed. “I wanted to be a professional soccer player.”
Monty grinned. “You would have been good. You were good.”
“I know. But that was not reality, and obviously now, it’s not something I’d do.”
“What is?”
Nina shrugged. She hadn’t given much thought to a future. When she was with Zeke, she wanted to imagine the possibility of one, but most of the time she couldn’t think past Gwendolyn.
And where she might be.
Monty’s phone rang before Nina could tell him any of that. He answered it in a clipped tone, and Nina stared at the water again, trying not to think about Gwendolyn and the first house.
It was useless, though. The idea that she could still be in the area ran around in Nina’s head all night. Nina dreamed of the early days with Gwendolyn and the house they lived in. She had a particularly vivid dream of Gwendolyn threatening to kill Nina.
She couldn’t sleep after that, not even with Zeke wrapped around her.
A month was a long time to go without any word from Gwendolyn. She had to be gone. Nina was mostly sure of it.
“We have to go,” Monty said, grabbing Nina’s arm.
“What? Where are we going? What’s wrong?”
“Zeke is going to meet us at his house, and I need to go to meet with the FBI.”
“Why? What happened?”
Monty stopped next to his SUV and faced her. The pain on his face broke Nina’s heart. “One of the people you identified as a known associate of Gwendolyn’s is dead.”
“What?”
“Get in the SUV.”
Nina looked around and realized how exposed they were. She scrambled into the front seat, fighting the flood of fear pressing down on her.
Monty climbed in next to her and started up the SUV. He pulled away from the Falls and drove quickly through the city.
Nina wanted to ask questions. To know who it was. To know where the body was found and what happened. To know everything. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask anything. She just sat there, silent, while Monty raced through the city and pulled into the driveway of the townhouse.
Zeke opened her door and shielded her while Monty blocked her from behind. Nina wanted to cry. She thought she was free. She thought she had a chance at being safe. But it would never happen. Not with Gwendolyn out there.
Nina was such a fool hoping Gwendolyn left the area. Maybe she did, but it didn’t matter. Gwendolyn would kill without conscience. She would sell women into slavery and allow them to be drugged and raped without a care.
No one was safe with someone like Gwendolyn free in the world.
Nina wanted to scream and cry and hunt Gwendolyn down and kill her. She wanted to know the bitch was dead. She wanted to know Monty and Zeke and the other Curvy Vigilantes were safe.
But none of them were.
The front door closed and locked, and Nina turned to face Zeke. “I need to know what happened.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said carefully.
“Please tell me.”
“Why? What will it do?”
“Zeke, please,” she cried.
He sighed, running a hand over his head. His eyes closed, holding back everything from her. If he was hesitating, it was bad.
How bad?
“The body was the only woman you identified.”
“Joyce.”
Zeke nodded.
“What happened to her?” Nina whispered. Joyce was always nasty, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die. She was the woman tasked with taking care of the girls Gwendolyn kept in her house. She was the one who brought in the doctor when someone needed medical care and delivered the scraps Gwendolyn gave everyone for food. Joyce took care of them, in a way.
“Her body was at Olcott Beach, where we went right after you came back.”
“Oh my God.”
Zeke stopped talking.
“There’s more. Tell me.”
He sighed. “She was dressed in the same thing you were wearing the night I picked you up.”
Nina closed her eyes. “She never dressed like that. She wore plain clothes.”
Zeke didn’t move from his spot near the door.
“What else?” Nina asked.
“She had a coffee cup from the shop where you and Frannie met Robert, and she had been assaulted.”
“No one deserves that,” Nina breathed. “I didn’t like her, but I didn’t want her to die like that.”
Zeke didn’t say anything, and he didn’t reach for her.
Nina needed to feel his strength and comfort. She needed to know she was safe, and that he was there for her. “Can I… Will you let me hug you?”
Zeke swore and crossed the room to where Nina stood. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her body against his from shoulders to knees.
Nina sighed, feeling better with him close. It wasn’t okay for her to take advantage of him like she was, but she needed him. “I hate her.”
“We all do, angel. We’ll find her and stop her.”
Nina pulled back, needing a minute before she admitted the truth.
“We won’t give up until she’s in custody, Nina. I promise you that. There are so many people looking for her. The drawings have been all over the news and people are calling in all the time. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I think I know where she is.”
Zeke stopped, frozen in time, like his brain ceased and the rest of him had to catch up. “What do you mean you know where she is?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but there was this house. It was where I first lived when I was with her. We haven’t been back in years, and I thought it was sold, but I don’t know.”
“You didn’t tell the FBI about it?”
Nina shook her head. “No. I didn’t think about it. It had been so long, and Gwendolyn took me to all her houses, so I don’t think… I don’t know.”
“So, what makes you think she might be there?”
“I don’t…”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Nina. Although, it sounds like you have been. When did you figure this out?”
Nina thought about lying, but she couldn’t do it. Not to Zeke. Of all people, he deserved the truth. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for a while. There were little things, and I felt like I was missing something. Robert said something, and Frannie made comments, and even some of the things Lorelei said. But?—”
“When, Nina?”
“Last night.”
“Last night.” Zeke took a step back. “Before or after we slept together?”
“After,” she whispered.
He nodded. “That’s why you were up early this morning. You couldn’t stay in bed with me when you knew you were lying to me.”
“I was in bed with you and felt safe. I felt like you cared about me and knew you were going to protect me. I was thinking it had been a long time since I felt that way, and I realized it was like that with Gwendolyn when I was seventeen. In the first house she had.”
“Where she would brush your hair at night and you would have dinner together.”
Nina nodded, swallowing to keep the pain inside. “Yes.”
“You need to tell the FBI. They need to know she could be there. So they can capture her before the psycho kills someone else.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I thought maybe she was gone. It’s been a month, and I hoped…”
“You hoped your fake sister was going to move to another city and kill people there instead of continuing to take her wrath out on you? Would that have been better, Nina?”
Nina shook her head. “No. But I hoped she changed. That maybe she would just leave town and not kill people. That maybe she was like I thought when we met.”
“People don’t change, Nina. Not people like her. She’s evil. She’s a murderer. And it doesn’t matter if you have some twisted sense of loyalty to her, she doesn’t feel the same. She will kill you, and anyone else who stands in her way.”
“I know.”
“You need to report this. And you need to do it now.”
Nina nodded. “Okay.”