twenty
I blink awake Thursday morning to find Kayden lying next to me, staring at the ceiling. The room is warm and cozy with the fireplace lit and his leg is aligned with mine. I roll to him, curling to his side, settling my hand over his heart. “Penny for your thoughts.”
He strokes a lock of hair from my eyes. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too. These past two days . . .”
His lips quirk. “I made you love Iron Man, right?”
More like he made me start falling in love with him, but I don’t dare say that. “You made me love Thor.”
“You just like him because he has a big hammer.”
I poke his chest. “That was a horrible joke.”
“We guys love our horrible jokes.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m going to take a quick shower and check for any update on Enzo.” He grabs his watch from the nightstand and glances at it. “Holy hell, it’s already ten o’clock. We need to leave here by eleven-thirty to make our appointment, and I have to make a few calls in advance.”
It’s our appointment at the consulate, where Niccolo will likely be looking for me. Our relaxed days of naked talks, laughter, orgasms, and TV have officially ended. “I’m nervous.”
He kisses my temple. “Don’t be. I have a plan.”
I smile, but it’s not as heartfelt as the many smiles we’ve shared these past two days. “You always have a plan.”
“You’re learning.”
“Good teacher.”
“Your lessons haven’t even begun,” he assures me, no doubt referencing his vow to put “dirty” in a box and keep it there while I fully heal. “How’s your head this morning?”
“Good. Really good, actually. And I’m almost done with my medicine.”
“Then let’s do some shopping today. You need a real wardrobe, not the few things you found to fit in the collection everyone else picked out.” He slides his hand over my naked waist and hip and gives me a wickedly hot look. “Though I prefer you without clothes. And on that note, I had better go before I forget why we need to leave.”
He throws off the blankets and stands, and I raise up on my elbows to watch every moment of that gorgeous, tight ass of his as it leaves the room. I sigh, hating the end of two days of bliss, and the reality that means I have to think about the implications of knowing Niccolo that I’ve managed to suppress. The truth is, I’ve barely thought about the ruthless mobster during our little interlude, nor have I had a flashback, a true testament to just how all-consuming Kayden can be. Or . . . maybe it’s my mind going into overdrive to block out what I know I’m close to revealing. I don’t like that idea one little bit.
The shower echoes from the other room and I down a pain pill with the water I have by the bed. I consider joining Kayden, but decide I’ll only delay his calls. Decision made to give him space, I grab my journal from the bedside, determined to force my memories to ignite again. I start scribbling the butterfly again and make a concerted effort to actually create a drawing of the necklace. I shut my eyes and force my mind back to that hotel room, to the moment after I’d torn the pendant from my neck, and when I’d gone to my knees and picked it up. In my mind’s eye, I can see that note hanging from the edge of the center stone, as if hidden there, but the handwriting is not in English. I open my eyes with this realization. Considering my preference for English, this seems to indicate that the piece of paper wasn’t a love note. Rather than drawing the butterfly, I start writing down details:
—Sapphire stones cover raised wings
—The center is a ruby that is quite large. That’s where the note was
—White gold setting
—Large. About two inches wide
Grimacing, I tap the pencil on the paper. Does this even matter? The note must be what matters and I’ll never figure it out. I set the journal aside and lie down, shutting my eyes and trying to picture that piece of paper, hoping I can make out something that makes a little sense. Instead, I’m transported back to a familiar house. My house when I was a teenager. I inhale, and the scent of chocolate chip cookies is so real I can almost taste them.
“What’s the occasion?” I ask, entering the small, square kitchen to find my mother in an apron, scooping the just-out-of-the-oven cookies off the hot tray and onto a plate.
“You know how your father loves sweets.” She glances at her watch. “He should be back from the shooting range in the next fifteen minutes.” Her hands plant on her slender hips, her red hair falling in waves around her face. “I noticed you dodged going along with him.”
“Dance rehearsal.” I sink into a chair at the simple round wooden table. “And you know how intense he is right after he returns from a mission.”
She sits down with me and brings the plate of cookies. “His life is in danger constantly. He sees horrible things. It’s hard to come down from that.”
“What horrible things, Mom?”
“You know this unit he’s in is top secret and elite. He can’t tell us what he does or where, but he has nightmares, honey. I think he pushes you because he’s always afraid he won’t come back and there will be no one to take care of you. He wants to be sure you can take care of yourself.”
“And you. He always tells me to take care of you.”
She smiles. “Good man.” She hands me a cookie. “Good cookie.”
“Ella.”
I blink to find Kayden leaning over me, the light blue shirt he’s wearing turning the gorgeous in his eyes up a notch. “I love your eyes.”
He smiles, and it’s really a wonderful smile. “Thank you, sweetheart. Why were you lying here smiling?”
I take a deep breath and let it out. “Chocolate chip cookies.”
He laughs. “What?”
“A memory of my mother baking cookies. Do you think Marabella could make some?”
“She’d be beside herself to get a special request from you.” He pulls me to a sitting position. “Go get ready. We have to leave in forty-five minutes.”
“Danger, Will Robinson! We must face our world of danger.”
He arches a brow. “Isn’t that from a movie?”
“Lost in Space, and don’t ask me how I know that. It was way before my time.” I frown. “Or maybe there was a remake?”
He clunks my chin. “Get dressed, silly woman, and I’m going to leave the room before you do or I might not let you. I’ll make coffee. Hurry before I drink it all.”
“And you will,” I tease, having witnessed him down about two pots yesterday.
“That’s right, so like I said, hurry the hell up.” He heads for the door and I sit up to watch the way he owns his walk and everything around him, deciding he makes jeans and boots look like sex, when my hand hits the journal, and my memory jolts.
“Kayden.” He stops at the door and turns to me. “I remembered something while you were in the shower,” I say. “The note in the necklace wasn’t written in English. I couldn’t read it.”
His chest expands and he gives me a barely there nod, facing the door again, but he hesitates with his back to me, as if he wants to say something more. I wait, adrenaline rushing through me, and I’m not sure why, but he doesn’t speak. He just . . . leaves.
I dress in black slacks, boots, and an emerald-green sweater, and take extra time with my makeup and hair, because a girl wants to look good if she’s going to be assassinated by a mobster at the consulate’s office. The burn of that fear is only slightly cooled by my ending up in a sexy ice-blue F-TYPE two-seater Jaguar and discovering that the wall of the garage moves to allow our exit. A sexy car and a sexy man is as sweet as it gets, but there is nothing sexy about my worry that Kayden shouldn’t be seen with me at the consulate. The problem disappears when I discover we’re meeting the consulate agent at a coffee shop, which means neither I nor Kayden will be spotted by Niccolo. Even better, the meeting is a good distance away in the Piazza di Spagna region of the city, which turns out to be an absolutely delightful area where cobblestone streets are lined with shops, food, and history, like the Spanish Steps I can’t wait to explore. Surprisingly the meeting is short and easy, and Kayden explains the paperwork to me while I nibble a pastry. Once we’re done, Kayden hands the agent a thick envelope that the man inspects before grinning ear to ear.
A few minutes later, Kayden and I exit the coffee shop into a chilly day, our arms linked, me in my trench coat with a scarf, him in his fitted black leather jacket with a scarf as well.
“The envelope you gave that man had a ton of cash in it, didn’t it?” I ask as we pass a horse and carriage.
“Convenience has a price. That meeting otherwise could have taken hours, and the good news, as I explained inside, is that one of those forms extended your stay in Italy for a year. You just have to agree not to work.”
I stop and look at him. “You didn’t tell me I can’t work. I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”
“You don’t need to work. I have more money than I know what to do with.”
“You do. Not me.”
He reaches in his pocket and holds up a credit card. “Now you do, too. This has your new name on it, and it’s impossible to max it out.”
“I’m not taking that.”
“Yes. You are.” He shoves it in my coat pocket. “Whatever you want or need is yours.”
“Kayden—”
He kisses me. “I’m taking care of you, whether you like it or not.” He links our arms together and launches us into a stroll again.
“Then you have to let me help you with something you do to make money. Research, maybe? Or whatever I can do. Please, Kayden. I need to have a purpose. And not only do I not want to live off you, I don’t want you to feel I am, either.”
“I don’t, and I don’t want you to feel that way.”
“Then let me help you in some way.”
“I don’t want you involved in The Underground.”
I step in front of him, forcing him to halt. “You are The Underground. There is no way I can be in your life and not have it be in my life. And besides, how dangerous can research be?”
He studies me, his expression an impassive mask. “This really matters to you.”
Like he does, and I wonder if he knows that, or if I should tell him. I want to tell him. Instead I say, “Very much so.”
He kisses my forehead. “We’ll figure something out.”
He tries to move me and put us in motion, but I plant my hands on his chest, heat radiating up my arms, his credit card burning a hole in my pocket. “Just to be clear. That means we’ll figure something out.”
He laughs. “That is what I said. Now.” He turns me to face our left and the Spanish Steps that seem to climb a mile high.
“Wow. They’re magnificent.”
“Like you,” he murmurs near my ear, and it is becoming clear he has as much charm as sex appeal. “During the warmer season they have flowers everywhere,” he adds. “Do you want to walk up them?”
I face him. “That would be fun. Probably exhausting, but fun.”
He closes my hand around his. “Better now than when we have shopping bags.”
We spend a good hour milling around the steps before starting our door-to-door shopping expedition, and I soon learn the man is truly determined to spend his money on me.
We end up with so many bags we have to drop some off at the car. “You know,” I say as we exit a little pizza joint where we’ve just had marvelous pizza, my hand stuffed in his pocket, a confession on my lips I’ve had on my mind for hours, “when I realized I knew about Niccolo, my first thought was to run.”
“And now?”
“I don’t want to run.”
He turns me to face him. “Running isn’t the answer anyway. I’ve told you that.”
“The idea of anyone else getting hurt because of me guts me, Kayden.”
“You know me well enough to know that I’ve taken precautions. You need to stay in one place, and that place is here with me. Every time you move around is a chance to be seen by the wrong people.”
“What about when they look here?”
“There is no red-haired Ella to be found here. Besides, I have a man inside Niccolo’s operation. I’m going to find out why he’s after you. If you were a carrier, I might be able to pay for your freedom and give my guarantee of your silence as the Hawk for The Underground.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that. What about your man’s safety?”
“He’s a mole in Niccolo’s operation, not a Hunter, and he doesn’t even know it’s me paying him. We’re okay there.”
I slide my arms under his leather jacket and tilt my chin up to whisper, “Thank you.”
He leans in and kisses me. “Thank me when we get back to the castle. And be creative about it. That’s an order.”
I laugh and assure him, “I’m more creative than you might think.”
“I can’t wait to find out,” he replies, draping his arm around my neck as we fall into step together, and I am thinking about how he says “the castle,” rarely calling it “home.”
I crave home. He has to as well, and some part of me thinks it’s not the walls that make that word meaningful. It’s people, and maybe we can be “home” to each other. For some reason, that stirs a few flickering images of me with my friend Sara and a knot forms in my chest.
“I’m concerned about my friend Sara, Kayden. My gut feeling is that she would file a missing persons report. What if she finds out my existence was wiped out and she starts digging?”
“That’s doubtful. Once she files a report it goes in a computer, and a grown woman who apparently eloped isn’t likely to get attention over the long list of missing children in the world.”
“But if she was to push, she’d be in danger, right?”
“Doubtful, but possible.”
“We have to find her, and I’ll make up some happy story to keep her from digging around.”
“We’re trying to find her. But we have to tread cautiously, or we could bring attention to her ourselves.”
My gaze catches on a sign hanging above a store, and my thoughts shift abruptly. “La Perla,” I say, tugging Kayden forward. “That’s the lingerie I was wearing when you found me. I want to see if it strikes a memory in me.”
“You won’t get any complaints from me,” he says. “As long as you promise to buy something.”
I don’t laugh, focused on one thing: that store, and remembering who I am and how I got here. If anything helps me protect Sara and everyone else around me, it’s that. “I’ll stay out here and make some phone calls,” Kayden says at the door.
I nod and enter the store, noticing mannequins here and there, and long leather benches separating rows. It’s not even slightly familiar. I browse the store and choose several bras, panties, and a few sexy outfits I think Kayden will like, before pulling that credit card he’d given me from my pocket. I stare at the name. Rae Eleana Ward. This is me now. Ella doesn’t exist. I shake off the whirlwind of emotion threatening me and hand the card to the clerk, making this the first time I have freely spent Kayden’s money. I console my guilt over doing so with the idea of him enjoying the purchases I’m making.
After completing my transaction, I step outside the store to find Kayden leaning on a pole, iPhone to his ear, in what appears to be a deep conversation. My gaze shifts from him and lands on a store directly across from us with a ballerina logo on the window, and my stomach somersaults, my throat thickening.
Dance. I am drawn to dance.
I close the distance between me and Kayden, tapping his arm and pointing to the store. He nods and leans down, kissing my temple, and that easy show of affection I know he has shown so few people these past five years steals my breath and curves my lips. I cross the narrow street and enter the store.
“Ciao!” the clerk greets me, and I murmur the same reply, but I am already distracted by a row of shoes in the back of the store.
I weave through the racks of clothes and reach the display of ballet slippers. I reach for the classic pink I’ve always loved and freeze. Always loved. Images flicker in my mind and I shut my eyes. I am on a stage, rows of empty seats before me as I perform, while a line of judges sits at a table front and center. It’s an audition for a school, I think, and my mom is there. I can’t see her, but I feel her support and nerves. She is excited for me and proud of my accomplishments. It’s a good memory. A happy time, but as I choose my size of ballet slippers to purchase, the warmth of moments before is gone and a cold, dark sensation rolls through me, a warning of what is to come, and even the hair on my arms stands on end.
My eyes start to blur, spots forming in my vision, and I grab a garment off a rack and rush to the dressing-room area. At the back I open a door and shut it behind me, my hand shaking so hard I can’t get it to lock. I give up and walk to the farthest wall, leaning against it and clutching the slippers to me. Images start to flicker in my mind and I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m back in the kitchen with my mom, and I’ve just finished a cookie when my father walks in.
“There are my two girls.”
I glance up as he enters, and he is big and broad, his hair buzzed, his green Army T-shirt a second skin. It’s weird when he’s home and empty when he’s gone, which was six long months this time. He’s intimidating, a hero who expects me to be more than I often think I can be. And I love him. He sits between me and my mom. “Hi, Dad. I was just sampling your cookies. Making sure they were up to standard.”
“I’ll have to test them myself,” he says, snapping one up and tasting it, giving a thumbs-up before kissing my mom, who glows when he’s around. He shifts his attention back to me. “You skipped out on me today at the gun range.”
“Dance rehearsal,” I say.
He grimaces, proving he’s still not a fan of my dancing, and yet, he’d married a dance teacher. Sometimes I think he wants me to be the son he never had. “Have you been going to the gun range while I was gone?” he asks.
“Twice a week,” my mother assures him.
He arches a brow. “That means once a week, right?”
“Some weeks,” I admit.
A glass shatters somewhere in the house, and my father is on his feet in an instant. “Get in the pantry,” he orders softly.
“Dad—”
“Do it,” he hisses, pulling a gun from under his pant leg that I didn’t even know he carried, and judging from the stunned look on my mother’s face, she didn’t either.
She grabs my arm and drags me with her to the pantry and inside, shutting the door. We huddle together. “Mom—” I start, but she covers my mouth. Once she knows I’m quiet, she digs her phone from her apron and dials 911 but doesn’t speak. She sticks the phone back in her pocket, no doubt hoping someone comes.
There are crashing sounds and muffled gunfire, like a silencer is being used, and my mother and I both jump. And then there is silence. Oh God, the silence is deafening and I wait for my father to come to us, but he does not. I can’t take it anymore. I jerk away from my mother, every instinct I own telling me my father needs help. I open the door and gasp at the sight of him lying in a puddle of blood. I dash forward and fall to my knees.
“Dad. Dad.”
My mother drops down beside me, bursting into tears as she starts begging him to stay alive. “Gun,” my father murmurs. “Ella . . . Get . . . gun.”
I look down to find it at his fingers and I take it. “I have it.”
“Two . . . men.”
The kitchen door bursts open, a man in a mask and all black appearing, and my father hisses, “Shoot,” and instinct takes over. I raise the gun and fire at the man in black, and he tumbles forward. Another man follows him and I fire again. And again. He drops to his knees and falls face first. Sirens begin to sound and my mother is shaking my father.
“Wake up!” she shouts. “Wake up!”
“Ella. Ella. Holy hell!”
Kayden’s worried voice brings me back to the present and I blink to find myself sitting on the floor of the dressing room, clutching the ballerina slippers to my chest, Kayden squatting in front of me. “I’m okay,” I rasp out, but I’m trembling all over, deep, hard shakes that I feel clear to my soul.
Kayden doesn’t hear me though. He’s on his phone. “Nathan,” he says. “Ella passed out. She’s—”
I grab the phone and put it to my ear. “Okay. She’s . . . I’m okay. Don’t worry.” I drop the phone, dampness clinging to my cheeks. “I’m okay.”
His hands pat my arms. “You scared the shit out of me. Your teeth are chattering.”
“It was a . . . flashback. I just . . . I . . . It was bad. Give me . . . a moment to get past it.” I inhale, and I swear the breath feels like glass cutting my throat.
“We need to get you out of here,” Kayden says. “Can you stand?”
I grab his shirt and twist it in my fingers. “I need to tell you what I remembered. I just . . . I need to say it so I don’t forget it. Well . . . no. I won’t forget it. I just need to say it.”
“I’m right here, sweetheart. I’m listening.”
“My father . . .” I inhale and try to calm the trembling running through my body. “Military. He was military, but I think some sort of special unit.” My words are stronger now. I feel the edge easing. “The memory,” I continue. “My father was home for once. I was seventeen.” I swipe at a tear dripping down my cheek and a cold, cold calmness begins to roll through me. “Men came into the house and my father made me and my mother hide in the pantry, like you hid in the closet, Kayden. No wonder you’re so familiar.”
He cups my cheek and I lean into the touch as he says, “You were right. We do know each other. You don’t have to talk about this now.”
“I need to. I can’t explain it, but I need to.” I pause to let the images solidify in my mind. “I heard the struggle between my father and the men in our house. There were shots, but they were muffled. Silencers. I knew they used silencers. After that, there was quiet, and I had the feeling my father needed me. I fought my mother to be free of her hold and I got out of the pantry and he was lying on the ground, bleeding. Dying.” My fingers dig into Kayden’s arms, which I didn’t even realize I was holding. “My father was holding a gun, and the two men who attacked him were still in the house.” My eyes meet Kayden’s. “I killed them, and my only regret is I didn’t do it sooner.” I push to my feet and Kayden follows. “I don’t regret it, the way you said you wouldn’t regret it if you found the people who killed Kevin and Elizabeth.”
His arm wraps my waist, and only then do I realize I was wobbling and he’s kept me from falling. “You saved your mother’s life.”
“But not his. Not my father’s.”
“And no one knows what that feels like more than me.” He wipes the tears from my cheeks. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Now he says home and I want to be happy about that, but there is the ball in my chest that demands answers and actions. “We’re supposed to see the profiler.”
“It can wait, sweetheart.”
“It can’t wait. My father raised a fighter, and I’m going to fight.” I shove against him. “Let go. I need to stand on my own.”
He hesitates, but he releases me and I’m steady now, rejecting all weakness. I hold up the slippers. “I need these. Apparently I’m good with a gun and in ballet slippers. And I want to go to the shooting range, Kayden. Can the profiler meet us there?”
“Ella, I don’t think—”
My hand flattens on his chest. “I need to do this now. Please.”
His hand covers mine, his look probing, concerned, and whatever he sees, the result is his agreement. “I’ll have him meet us there.”
Thirty minutes later, after a silent drive to the outskirts of the city, in which I replay my father’s death far too many times, we arrive at the shooting range and sit at a small cafeteria-style table in the snack area. Tyler, a good-looking thirty-something blond American man, sits across from us.
“I’m ready when you’re ready,” Tyler says, opening his sketch pad, and it’s then that I notice the tattoo on his arm. “You’re a Hunter,” I say.
He glances at Kayden, who replies for him. “He transferred from a division in America.”
“And now you have resources inside the FBI,” I assume, shocked at just how far The Underground’s reach truly is.
“We always have,” Kayden surprises me by saying. “That’s how I met Tyler in the first place. Let’s get this drawing done.”
“Tell me about the shape of David’s face,” Tyler instructs, and I hesitate, suddenly reminded of how much Kayden hates the topic of my ex-fiancé, or whatever David was.
Kayden’s hand settles on my leg, a silent show of unity and understanding, just as his silence on the ride over here had been strength and comfort, rather than demand and questions. “Square,” I say. “Or his jaw was square and his cheekbones very defined.”
I watch as Tyler starts drawing, showing me his efforts, and when I give an approving nod, he asks, “Nose?”
“Straight, but not large.”
We go on like this for fifteen minutes, until I am staring at a picture of the man from my memory. I glance at Kayden. “That’s him.”
Kayden eyes Tyler. “Scan that and send it to Matteo.”
“Will do, boss.” Tyler pushes to his feet.
“Wait,” I urge. “Can you draw a necklace if I describe it?”
Kayden gives him a nod and he sits back down. “I’m ready.”
I describe the butterfly, and in a matter of minutes he’s drafted an exact duplication of my memories. I am cold inside. So very cold, and the pulse in my temple seems to grow faster and deeper.
“The necklace is the key to everything,” I say, staring at it, not at either of the men. “Find it, and you’ll find out why Niccolo is after me.” I stand and walk to the shooting range’s registration counter, filling out my paperwork with one of the few English-speaking attendants.
“Gun preference?” the man asks when I return the forms to him.
There is no hesitation in my reply. “Do you have a Ruger LC9?” It’s the gun my father had me practice with.
“We do, and I must say that’s an excellent choice for a petite woman like yourself.”
I don’t reply, remembering a similar comment from my father. The attendant hands me earphones, safety glasses, and a small box with my weapon inside, and while I am aware of Kayden’s continued absence, I am focused on one thing. I need a gun in my hands. Adrenaline surges through me, and with it, a whirlwind of dark, edgy emotions. Anger. Loss. Guilt. More anger. I walk to the shooting area and stop at the first booth available, setting my box down and putting on my glasses and earphones.
Kayden steps behind me, but I don’t turn. I grasp the gun and aim at the target, and for a moment I’m back in that kitchen, firing at those men. I picture the man in black falling face first. I picture my father lying in his own blood with my mother sobbing over him. My finger comes down on the trigger and I empty the gun, every shot hitting within target range.
Then I settle the gun back inside the case, seal the lid, and take off my gear, tossing it into a basket next to me.
I face Kayden. “Is that accurate enough for you?” I don’t wait for an answer. “I’m done being afraid. I’m going to get answers about who I am, and I’m going to do it with whatever force is necessary.”
“I’m taking care of this for you,” he insists.
“Not anymore. You can stand by my side, step aside, or try to lock me up—but you’d better be sure I don’t have a gun if you do.” I shove the box at him and take off walking. He falls into step with me but doesn’t speak, dropping the gun off at the counter as we head to the door. We exit the building, gravel crunching under our boots, neither of us in a coat. I barely feel the rapidly dropping temperature, but I am aware of the unison of our steps. I stop at my side of the Jag and he opens my door, but before I can enter, he pulls me against him.
“I’m standing in front of you, protecting you, whether you like it or not.” He releases me and all but sets me in the car, shutting me inside.
My heart is racing, a new rush of adrenaline assaulting my body, and the instant he is in the car, the door sealed, we whirl on each other, our gazes colliding in a battle of wills. “I don’t need you to protect me,” I grind out through clenched teeth.
“Too fucking bad.”
“I am not your responsibility.”
“Yes. You are.”
“Says you.”
“That’s right. Says me. And if you think that because you can handle a gun, you can handle the mob, you’re sadly mistaken. You’re running on heartache and adrenaline right now. And you need to come down.”
“I just remembered killing two men, and watching my father die in a pool of his own blood. How the hell am I supposed to come down?”
“The same way I do. Sex.” His fingers twine in my hair and he drags my mouth to his, his tongue licking into my mouth, a hot rasp of demand. I lean into the kiss, needing the outlet, needing it so damn bad.
“Don’t you dare coddle me,” I hiss when his mouth leaves mine.
“You want dirty, sweetheart, I’ll give you dirty.” He releases me and starts the car.