Angel glanced at her watch. 10:21 a.m. Kade had dumped all that in her lap last night a little after one in the morning, and she hadn’t seen him since. He’d holed himself up in the office. She knew it was related to the case, but still, some discussion was merited.
He couldn’t just waltz back into her life—no, force himself back into her life—using his badge and her status as a witness, and tell her everything she believed all these years wasn’t true. Did he expect her to forgive him and carry on where they left off like nothing had happened?
And to say he’d looked for her? Sure, he might not have been an FBI agent yet, but he had been a police officer. He could have found her.
The real question was whether she would have listened to him back then. As raw and new as the pain of losing her baby and her brother within hours of each other was, she seriously doubted it. She would have spit in his face and walked away.
She wasn’t that same young girl. She’d grown up a lot, and she understood there were mitigating circumstances. The cartel Peter worked for was vicious. Everyone in Miami knew who they were. Angel had no doubts they would have come after her just to spite Peter and Kade. Could she fault Kade for doing what he’d done? Would she have done the same thing, had their roles been reversed? To protect him? Yes, she would have.
But what she wouldn’t have done was give up on trying to find him once the danger passed. She’d have searched and used every resource available to her. That was what she couldn’t reconcile herself with. He’d given up, stopped looking for her.
And now he expected her to forgive and forget? He was fucked if that was what he thought.
She scrubbed harder at the orange-red stain on Nikoli’s couch, taking her anger out on the poor cushion. How dare he assume he could drop the bomb of the century in her lap, kiss her senseless, and then just disappear? This deserved a conversation, dammit.
Bastard.
The key turned in the lock, and she looked up to see Lily come through the door followed by Nikoli and who she could only assume was Dimitri. Kade said he was coming. Tall, dark, and broody, just like Kade. He had the Kincaids’ signature onyx eyes too. Why the hell did they all have to be gorgeous?
“Angel?” Nik took his jacket off and tossed it on the back of the couch. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning up Kade’s mess,” she grouched and scrubbed harder.
Nikoli squatted beside her and put his hand over hers. “I think it’s as clean as it’s going to get.”
“He ruined it.” She let Nikoli take the sponge. “I was trying to fix it, but why should I fix what he ruined? He’s always screwing up, and then he expects me to forgive him.”
“Okay.” Nikoli glanced behind him. “I take it my brother did something to upset you?”
“When doesn’t he do something to upset me?” Angel stood and stalked over to the kitchen and found a dish towel to dry her hands.
“Where is Kade?” Nikoli’s voice was calm, almost soothing. Angel narrowed her eyes. She got the feeling Nikoli was trying to manage her, like she was some crazy person making no sense.
“In the office. He got a call from that detective last night, and he’s been in there ever since.”
“I’m going to go tell him Viktor’s here.”
“Viktor?” Angel frowned. “He said Dimitri was coming. He never said anything about Viktor.”
“Dimitri?” Nikoli sounded surprised. He probably didn’t know, but then Kade did seem to have a bad habit of forgetting to mention important details to people. She tossed the dish towel on the counter with more force than necessary. It went skidding across the island to land at Nikoli’s feet.
“Damn, girl, he’s really pissed you off, hasn’t he?” Viktor asked, coming to stand beside Nikoli. “I hope you didn’t let him get away with shit.”
Her lips pursed. “He’s hiding in the office.”
“Hiding?” Viktor quirked an eyebrow in question. “What makes you think he’s hiding?”
“He got the call from Barney at three or so last night. It’s now after ten in the morning. What do you think?”
“Did you two have a fight or something?” Lily asked, coming into the kitchen.
“We talked.” Her tone grew darker. “Then he barricaded himself in the office under the guise of work.”
“I’m just gonna go get him, then.” Nikoli made a face and retreated to the hallway.
“I’m Viktor.” The man’s Russian accent was much thicker than Kade’s. She remembered he said something yesterday about just having returned from Russia. Maybe his accent thickened after spending time in the country he grew up in.
“I know.” The surly reply only made him laugh, which served to heighten Angel’s ire. She was not in the mood to deal with more than one Kincaid brother this morning.
“You are a prickly one, sestra.”
“What does that mean?” She really needed to invest in a Russian to English dictionary. Or maybe she’d get that translator app for her phone.
“It means sister.” Lily poured herself a cup of coffee. “Do either of you want some coffee?”
Nikoli came back out, grinning. “He’s sound asleep.”
“Asleep?” Angel couldn’t believe it. He went in the office and went to sleep when she’d been up all night agonizing over his little bombshell. “He’s fucking sleeping?”
Nikoli’s eyes widened when she yanked open the fridge door and took out an ice cold bottle of water. He was on her heels when she marched down to the office where Kade was sprawled out in the office chair, head hanging to the side, feet propped up on the desk. And snoring.
The fucker was snoring!
She opened the water then turned it upside down right over his face. He came awake spluttering, and she continued to pour it on him until every last bit was gone.
“What the hell, Angel?”
“Good morning, husband dearest.” She smiled her nastiest smile, the one she reserved for customers who thought she was a hooker back in her stripping days. “While you were in here sleeping, I had all the time in the word to think about everything.”
Kade stood up, alarmed, completely ignoring the water dripping down his face. He knew that sugary sweet tone. It meant trouble for him. “Angel, I know you’re pissed…”
“Oh, no, sweetheart, I’m not pissed.” She smiled, but it was nothing but teeth. “I’m so far beyond pissed, you’re lucky you still have your balls attached.”
Shit, she was mad. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He’d been on the phone with Bailey. They’d found the girl who’d been taken. The one who looked like Angel. They’d all agreed it was better for Jeremy to take the lead and for Kade to keep an eye on his wife. They’d keep him updated and only call him in if it was necessary. The unsub had sped up his timeline. It could only mean he was starting to unravel, that he’d make another mistake soon. No one wanted that mistake to be at Angel’s expense.
After he hung up with Bailey, he’d closed his eyes for two seconds then woke up to a face full of ice water.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep.” He wiped the water out of his eyes. “I didn’t mean to…”
“But you never mean to, do you, Kincaid?” Her green eyes were spitting fire. “You didn’t mean to make me love you, you didn’t mean to knock me up, you didn’t mean for the baby to die, you didn’t mean for Peter to die, you didn’t mean any of it, did you? Well, how about not looking for me? Did you mean to look harder, to track me down? No, you went on about your fucking life and forgot all about me. That’s what you told Barney, wasn’t it? You forgot you were married.”
“Bailey,” he corrected her.
She shot him a glare. “Whatever.”
“Angel, if you just calm down…”
“Oh, I am calm.” She tossed the empty bottle on the desk. “And right now, if I have to look at you a second longer, I am going to do you serious physical harm.” She turned and pushed past Nikoli and Viktor, who were staring at them, open-mouthed.
“You’re fucked,” Viktor said as he watched her disappear down the hall toward the main room.
Kade sank back down in the desk chair. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“She’s a firecracker.” Viktor sat in one of the chairs facing the desk, and Nik took the other. “So, you want to tell us what’s going on?”
Kade snorted at Viktor’s mild tone. The man was dying of curiosity and trying to conceal it to weasel information out of Kade. He knew his tricks.
“Met a girl. Knocked her up. Married the girl. Busted her brother on drug charges, and it all went downhill from there.”
“She lost the baby?” Kade’s attention swiveled to Nikoli. He was frowning.
“Yeah. I thought she’d be out of the house, but she hadn’t left yet. When they broke down the door, she got startled and fell down the stairs. The doctors did what they could, but it was too late. She was only twenty weeks along. The baby was too little to survive a torn placenta.”
“I’m sorry, brat.” Viktor shifted in his seat. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you.”
“It’s a long story.”
“We got the time.”
Kade sighed. There was no getting around this, and they might actually be able to help him. So he settled himself and launched into the whole story.
***
Angel paced back and forth across the living room, her anger hitting new heights. Sleeping? He’d been sleeping! While she sat out here and agonized over every minute of the last six years, the what ifs torturing her. And he’d been sleeping!
Bastard.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked.
“Hell fucking no, I’m not okay. That…that…”
“If he’s even a tenth as bad as Nikoli, you probably want to wring his neck.”
“More like cut off his balls and feed them to him,” she muttered.
“Ouch.”
“Why are men so stupid?” She flopped down on the dry section of the couch. “Are they born with a stupid gene, or is it a learned trait?”
“I have no idea, but it would make for a great study.” Lily walked over and sat on the coffee table. “Or a good book.”
“Maybe we should have Dimitri write it.” Angel huffed out a long breath, trying to calm her temper.
“Dimitri?”
“The brother who writes romance novels.” She sat up and looked over at Lily. “Nikoli didn’t tell you?”
Lily shook her head, frowning. “No, he never said a word.”
“Kade said they all like to torment him for his chosen profession. He should be here sometime today.”
“Really?” Lily started twisting her fingers. She sounded anxious.
“You okay?”
“Me? Yes.”
“Then why are you mistreating your poor fingers?”
Lily looked down and let out a small chuckle. “I didn’t realize. I get anxious meeting new people, especially people who might want to touch me.”
Touch her? What was she talking about?
“I have a phobia of being touched,” she explained. “It used to be really bad until Nikoli. He helped me learn to deal with it. Before he came along, I couldn’t even hug my mom. I’m not cured, but at least I can handle my family touching me.”
That would explain the way Nikoli had come up behind her yesterday and waited a moment before he touched her.
“So, meeting his family has you nervous because they might want to hug you?”
“Yes.”
“Then talk to Nik about it. Have him explain it to them.”
“But I don’t want them to think I’m weird.”
“They won’t. You’re a good person, Lily. I barely know you, and I can see that. Anyone who doesn’t, well, they can just fuck off. They aren’t worth your time.”
“I see why Nikoli likes you so much. You’re blunt and to the point.”
“He’s a good kid. I’m happy for you both.”
Lily blushed and stared at the ring on her finger. “I don’t know if agreeing to marry him was the right thing to do. It was spur of the moment right after the car crash.”
“Do you love him?”
“More than anything.”
“Then it’s the right thing to do. If he makes you happy, don’t worry about anything else. Life is short, Lily, and love is rare. That boy loves you. I see it every time he looks at you. Don’t doubt it. Just be happy.”
“What about you and Kade?” Lily leaned forward.
“The man who forgot he was married?”
“What?” Lily gasped. “He forgot?”
“Yup.” Angel snorted. “He forgot. Now he says he loves me, always loved me. But if he did, how did he forget he was married?”
“Yeah, I’d be pissed too.” Lily looked so indignant it made Angel giggle. “So, what, he just expects you to forgive and forget?”
“In a nutshell, I think so. It’s not that simple, though. There’s a lot of pain there, on both sides.”
“I don’t know what happened between you two, but I’ll ask you the same question you asked me. Do you love him?”
She wished she could say no. It would be so much easier if she could say no, but she couldn’t. “Sadly, yes.”
“Then is it worth trying to sort through the pain to see if there’s something left?”
“I don’t know.” It was a question she’d asked herself all night.
“My mom is a huge believer in fate and true love. She says sometimes fate sets us down a path that will lead to what makes us the happiest, but that being human, we tend to fall off the road or sometimes get enticed down a side path. When we do stupid things like that, fate usually kicks us in the ass hard enough to land back on the right path.”
Was Lily really trying wise old lady wisdom on her?
“Look at me and Nikoli. We almost lost each other. He was a manwhore. Plain and simple. He threw women away like most people did leftovers. He didn’t respect them, and he had serious commitment issues. I made the mistake of falling in love with the manwhore. He broke up with me, and it nearly killed me. We stayed away from each other. If it hadn’t been for me walking in on him at a party and seeing him groping some blonde, I would never have run away from him and gotten kidnapped. His fear made him realize how much I meant to him. We fell off the path. Whether his kick in the ass was me seeing him making out with another woman or the crazy guy who threw me in a trunk, I don’t know. But fate got what she wanted.” Lily waved her ring finger at me. “We ended up on the right path.”
“So, you’re saying me seeing a serial killer is fate’s way of kicking me and Kade in the ass and putting us back on the path we fell off?” Oddly, it made sense. Weird and bizarre, but it made sense.
Lily shrugged. “Maybe. If you love him, then maybe give fate a chance. Would you be so upset and angry right now if there wasn’t anything left worth saving?”
“I should just forgive him and move on?”
“I didn’t say that.” She looked affronted. “You’re right. Men are stupid and need to be taught a lesson sometimes. Make him work for it. You deserve some serious romancing. He did forget he was married, after all.”
He definitely deserved some payback.
Nikoli strolled out, and the smile that graced Lily’s face was all Angel needed to know how much the girl loved him. It was the same smile she used to give Kade when he walked into the room.
“We’re gonna take off, Angel. You and Kade need to talk, and then he said something about taking you Christmas shopping. I did get him to agree to go out to dinner. Joe’s is a little Cuban place Lily and I go to a lot. Do you like Cuban food?”
“Yeah. We had some really good places down in Miami.”
“Great. I’ll see you and my brother at about eight?” He held out his hand to help Lily up. “Viktor. Get your ass out here and let’s go!”
Lily leaned down so only Angel would hear. “Feel free to use the closet to make him suffer.” When she pulled back, Angel laughed at the wicked glint in her eyes. She and this girl were going to be very good friends.
“What’s so funny?” Nikoli asked.
“Nothing.” Lily slipped on her coat. “We’ll pick you guys up at eight.”
Angel locked the door behind them then leaned against it, staring at Kade, who had followed Viktor out to say goodbye to his brothers.
They stared each other down, one burning question on both their minds.
What the hell were they going to do?