Chapter 10 #3
Irritation shot through him like a hot charge. “You told me on what piece of furniture the bastard possibly raped my sister but you can’t tell me what direction they headed from here? Who’s wasting whose time, Vischka?”
She shrugged again, blue gaze skimming over the horizon.
Peter scowled. “Remember that trust thing we’ve had so many conversations about?” He waved his hand at the driver’s seat. “This is a perfect opportunity to improve on the situation.”
“What do you want me to do? Sniff them out?” She curled her lip, chin tilted forward. “I am not a dog.”
Anger rolled through Peter and he clenched his fist. The closer they’d drawn to the Jag’s location, the lower in the sky the sun fell, the snippier Yolanda became.
She’d even stopped those teasing little flutters of her fingers on his thighs that sent his pulse racing and his cock twitching.
He’d told himself repeatedly over the forty-five minutes it’d taken to get here the lack of unprofessional, distracting—no, disturbing—contact made him happy, but deep in a dark, tainted place in his soul, he knew he was lying. He wasn’t happy about it at all.
Jesus, you’re pathetic.
He stared into the empty driver’s seat, looking for anything in the shadows that might tell him something about Reggie’s abductor, trying like hell to shut the traitorous realization he wanted Yolanda to seduce him—wanted her, period—from his mind.
“Where are you, Reggie?” he murmured, crouching down and studying the seat and steering wheel.
The memory of her destroyed sofa and the tuft of grey animal fur he’d found on it crossed his mind and he frowned.
Rising to his feet, he leaned into the wreck, peering at the gloomy area behind the front seats.
Looking for…what? More animal fur? Signs an animal had been in the car? A leash?
His gut sank. Shit. “Nothing.”
“Did you expect to find her there?” Yolanda asked, sarcasm rolling through her accent. “Maybe trussed up, waiting for you to save her, yes?”
He snapped upright, letting her see the cold contempt on his face. “Go.”
She recoiled at the blunt force of the word. “Go where?”
“Away. From me.”
Glossed lips pursed and she shifted her weight, jutting her hip forward—a spark of her old femme flaring like blue fire in her eyes. “Make me.”
Anger exploded in Peter again. “Don’t you get it, Yolanda?
” He ground out. “This is my sister I’m trying to find.
Trying to save.” He shook his head, letting her see his rage and frustration and, yes, even his fear.
“For fuck sake, I don’t know who has her or what he’s doing to her!
All I’ve got to go on is an ambiguous scrawl on a mirror which may or may not be a lie and two names so common I’d be questioning half of the state!
” He dragged his fingers through his hair, wanting to drive his fist through something—anything—in an attempt to destroy the complete and utter sense of helplessness eating at him.
Yolanda gazed back at him, motionless.
“You want me to trust you?” he spat out, knowing breaking point was close but incapable of caring. “You want a relationship with me? Then stop making smart-ass comments and help me find her.”
She stared at him. Stared into him. “You love her, don’t you,” she finally said, her voice free of artifice for the first time since they’d met.
“Of course, I love her,” he snapped. “She’s my sister.”
She tilted her head to the side, unreadable eyes hidden in shadows. “Blood? Is that the only reason? A sense of obligation because she is your kin?”
Peter clenched his jaw, throat tight, gut tighter.
The late afternoon sun bore down on him, sucking the sweat from his body before it could bead on his skin.
Yet he still felt cold. Cold, helpless and angry.
“No,” he said, holding Yolanda’s stare. “I love her because she’s got a heart the size of an elephant, a sense of humor sharper than a knife and a sense of loyalty that would make a Labrador envious.
I love her because she’d give her life to defend those incapable of defending themselves and would do so willingly.
I love her because she never thinks of herself first and has a stronger moral center than every High Court judge, social worker and religious leader I know.
” He paused, dropping his stare from Yolanda’s eyes to the mangled Jag once more, picturing Reggie there in the passenger’s seat, terrified, hurtling toward possible death along a road miles from her home.
“And if—no, when, I find the bastard responsible for this, I will make him wish I’d never been born.
” He turned back to Yolanda, jaw clenched.
“Because trust me when I say, partner, you don’t mess with someone I love and expect to walk away from it. ”
Yolanda looked at him, silent, still, her eyes enigmatic pools of shimmering blue. A sad expression flickered over her features and she let out a soft breath. “I wish I’d met you about three hundred years ago,” she said, the words a barely audible whisper.
Peter blinked, tension gripping him in vise. “What?”
Shocked surprise flittered across her perfect face and she gave her head a sharp, violent shake. “Never mind,” she said, contempt so thick in her voice he almost saw it flaying her flesh.
“What do you mean, ‘never mind’?”
“Nothing. It is of no consequence.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. “Who hurt you, Yolanda?”
She froze, shoulders growing stiff. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Who made you this way? You’re like an abandoned puppy, desperate for affection yet scared of the hand that feeds you. Scared it’s going to lash out and strike.” He paused, his pulse pounding, his throat tight. “Who did this to you? Because I’d really like to meet him.”
She cocked a contemptuous eyebrow. “And do what?”
“What do you think?”
For a moment, nothing, and then she looked away. “He would kill you before you had the chance.”
An angry beat smashed through Peter’s chest and he curled his hands into hard fists. “Let him try.”
She opened her mouth, her eyes swimming with uncertainty, shining with barely contained tears, and her cell phone rang.
Snatching it from her pocket, she dropped her head forward, the white-blonde curtain of her hair cascading around her face, hiding it from him as she studied the cell’s small display.
Her shoulders tensed and, without a word, she turned away from him, storming from the crash site, spine stiff, shoulders square, phone still ringing in her hand.
Peter watched her go, blood roaring in his ears, heart pounding in his chest. Everything about her body said, “leave me alone”. Such a contrast to the woman he’d first met, perched on his desk at work, sultry sensuality oozing from her in waves. “What the fuck is going on?”
He turned back to the Jag, wishing to God and Jesus and the Devil himself it would tell him its secrets.
Tell him where Reggie was, who she was with, if she was hurt or not, and while it was at it, tell him who the fuck Yolanda Vischka was, what she had done to him and how he was ever going to survive her.
He gazed blankly at the stolen car, heart thumping, body tense, and for a frozen, split second, the very last wish seemed to engulf him.
He dragged his hands through his hair. “Fair dinkum, I’m screwed.”
Epoc stood in his private office, watching the eastern sky over the harbor turn to a pink and violet canvas as the sun began to sink below the horizon behind him.
He studied a line of seagulls gliding north through the darkening dusk sky, heading, no doubt, to Manly and the hordes of tourists who populated the seaside suburb every night; tourists with too much beer in their bellies to read the signs plastered everywhere on the harbor promenade that read, “Do not feed the seagulls”.
“It’s time,” he said aloud, admiring the effortless way the birds rode the sea breezes, as though gravity was a thing afflicting only man. “Bring him in.”
“But…” A disembodied voice wafted from the telecommunication speakers embedded in the surface of his desk, soft but—unexpectedly—resistant. Defiant.
“Remember who you were before I took you in,” he interrupted.
“A homeless, unwanted female, lost, without family and struggling to survive. Easy pickings for those who may have wanted to do you harm or use you for their own nefarious purposes. Remember how grateful you were when I allowed you to become a member of my clan, when I gave you a sense of belonging. A sense of place.” A small smile of power played over his lips. “You do remember, don’t you?”
Silence stretched from the speakers for a long moment. Epoc’s smile widened. His prick twitched with dark victory.
“I remember,” came the answer. Low. Somehow dejected.
“Of course you do,” he said smoothly. Smugly. “The sun has set, Yolanda. It’s time to bring the brother in. Now.”