Chapter Twenty-two
Grey sat in the near darkness, across from Jonah. Their only light was a lamp in the far corner and the dying fire. He had been relieved when Jonah suggested that they get started early in the morning instead of continuing tonight. Gabriella had some hard news to face very soon. She would need all the rest she could get.
Besides, he had a damn hard task ahead of him tonight. He’d put off the telling for as long as he dared. He glanced over at the man sitting so quietly in front of the fire. He was so deep in thought, he’d barely said a word since Gabriella had left them.
Wondering what was going on with the two of them, Grey said, “She’s quite different than what I anticipated. There’s a depth I didn’t expect.”
“You didn’t tell me you’d met her.”
“Just an introduction once, and I’ve seen her at various functions over the last few years. She attends the McGruder Art Show each year. The only event she attends in the US. I’ve spotted her a couple of times at charity auctions in France. Other than the goons surrounding her, she was always alone.”
“She’s strong. A helluva lot stronger than her grandfather could ever guess.”
“She’s going to need to be.”
“You have more information?”
“Yes, but you said you wanted to talk with me about something?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute. Show me what you have.”
Grey stood and went to a desk in the corner. Removing two folders from the top drawer, he put one of the folders on the coffee table in front of Jonah, and sighed. “It’s as bad as we thought.”
In silence, Jonah reviewed the material. Grey knew the moment his eyes hit upon one of the most horrific pieces of information they’d uncovered.
“Son. Of. A. Bitch,” he snarled.
“My words exactly,” Grey said grimly. “Along with a few more.”
“You’re sure?”
“One hundred percent. Seems he’s been bragging about it.”
“This is going to destroy her.”
Before Grey could agree or argue the point, Jonah shook his head, refuting his own statement. “No, it won’t. She’s too damn strong for that. She’ll make it through, no matter what happens. She’ll make it through.”
“You know her better than I do. Should I stay around? Should we tell her together?”
“No. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll let me know her decision?”
“Yes. It may take her a few days to come to terms with everything.”
“Understood. She can take all the time she needs. Be sure to let her know she has our full support.”
“I will.”
“So you wanted to talk?” Grey prompted.
“You need to get someone else to stay with her. Maybe a woman this time. I know you have trained female operatives who—”
Grey raised his hand to stop him. “You’ve established a rapport. She’s given you a boatload of information I’m not sure anyone else would have been able to obtain so soon. She trusts you.”
“She does, but I’m concerned she’s projecting something onto me I don’t deserve.”
Grey cocked his head, genuinely confused. “How’s that?”
“I think she’s got some kind of hero complex about me. Sees me as something I’m not. I just think it’d be easier if she’s not attached to the person protecting her.”
“Easier for her, or easier for you?”
“Both.”
“Well, God knows we wouldn’t want her to see you as a hero or anything.”
Disgusted with the conversation for some reason, Jonah asked bluntly, “Can you do it or not, Justice?”
“I have numerous men and women who could do this job. I still think you’re the best one for it, though.”
Restless and frustrated, Jonah rose from his seat and paced around the room. He felt like shit for doing this. It was going to hurt Gabby, and she had been hurt enough, with more to come. But if he didn’t get out of here?
He whirled around, blurted, “I should be out looking for Teri’s killer. We’re close enough that I can go to—”
Justice blew out a heavy sigh, nodded toward the sofa. “Sit down.”
His eyes drilled into Justice’s. “You have other news.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
Jonah swallowed a bitter laugh. Since he hadn’t liked any news in the last few years, that didn’t surprise him.
Instead of answering right away, Justice dropped another folder on the table in front of him. This one was thinner. A thick, ominous feeling settled in his gut. His eyes never leaving the folder, Jonah ground out the words, “Spit it out.”
“Peter Tinsley was the name of the hired killer who murdered Teri.”
“Was?”
“He’s dead.”
“How?”
“Bullet to the head.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have an idea.”
“Yes.”
“Irelyn?”
“Yes.”
Irelyn Raine, Grey’s former business partner, had disappeared almost two years ago, but somehow always seemed to be in the background, inserting herself when needed. This was one time she hadn’t been needed. It had been his right and responsibility to take down Teri’s killer. Irelyn had taken that away from him.
“Did she know the bastard?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then why?”
“I would imagine to keep you from having to do it yourself.”
“Dammit, that wasn’t her place.” Jonah dropped onto the sofa and sent Justice a steely glare. “Did you tell her to do it?”
“No. I won’t deny that I didn’t want you to have to kill the man. Killing a man, even one this evil, takes a toll on a soul.”
Jonah didn’t bother to ask Justice how he knew this.
“If Irelyn had asked, I would have told her to leave it alone. I didn’t want her involved. But, as you know, Irelyn goes her own way.”
“It was the one thing I wanted. The only thing.”
“Yes, I know.”
Jonah stared down at the innocuous-looking folders lying on the table. Two of them held offensive information. One could destroy Gabby’s future, and the other just destroyed the promise he had made to himself and to Teri. He had sworn he would take down the bastard himself.
He heard Justice get to his feet. “I understand this is difficult for you. Just remember, there’s more to you than vengeance, Jonah.”
When Jonah didn’t answer, he heard the man walk away. “I’m staying at a hotel in town. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
Rage and pain slammed into him. The only thing he’d been living for had been done for him. He would never get the satisfaction of seeing death come to the man’s eyes…the evil bastard who’d ended Teri’s life.
The door closed quietly behind Justice and Jonah was left alone with his demons.
Hours later, the fire had long gone out and only cold ashes remained. He’d thought about getting up and starting a new fire, but hell…he didn’t care. He was frozen on the inside. A fire, no matter how hot, would never penetrate the solid block of ice he had become.
It was over, finished. His goal, his purpose, was no more.
Peter Tinsley. An ordinary enough sounding name for a not-so-ordinary scumbag. According to the single sheet of paper inside the folder, the man had been forty-eight years old and, for over half those years, had been an assassin. A monster who hired himself out to the highest bidder to end another person’s life. How did a person get to that point? Money for murder? When did life become so worthless, so valueless, that taking the breath from someone’s body was an acceptable thing to do? Did the act become commonplace, like swatting a fly?
He let his mind wander. Focusing on the abstract was much more pleasant than accepting the inevitable. Cold, hard hopelessness was zooming toward him, and he fought it the only way he knew how, with cold, hard facts.
According to Justice’s findings, Mathias’s henchman, Cyrus Denton, had hired Tinsley several times over the years to do away with people who got in Mathias’s way. One of those people Tinsley had been tasked to kill was Teri.
Why the hell had he allowed himself to fall in love with her? The minute she’d approached him about what she had found at Adam’s office, he should have told her to quit and walk away. Should’ve told her that he’d handle things on his own. If he had, she’d still be alive.
Back then, he’d been so stupid, barely knowing his head from his ass. He’d been working for the Slater Corporation and feeling as useful as a knife at a gunfight. He’d been on the verge of leaving the family business altogether when he’d stumbled on something hinky on one of the shipping reports. He’d started an investigation. The more he dug, the more suspicious he became.
In his gut, though, he had known that the biggest reason he was digging was just to get dirt on his old man because he’d hated him so much. What a clueless fool he’d been.
Teri had been funny and sweet, and despite working for the second-biggest asshole in Texas—Mathias being the biggest—she’d been the most upbeat person he’d ever known.
They’d kept their relationship a secret for a long time. Adam had a tendency to want what his brothers had, and the last thing either of them wanted was for him to get interested in Teri. If he’d detected any kind of relationship between Jonah and Teri, he would have gone after her full force. Wanting what he couldn’t have or what someone else had was just Adam’s way.
In the last few months before it’d all turned to shit, their romance became secondary to the investigation. Looking back on it now, he could see that. All he’d been able to see, to concentrate on, was the dirt Mathias and Adam were embroiled in. The focus had been on digging up enough evidence that would bring them both down.
Then, without even a hint of thunder, the shitstorm arrived in torrents. Jonah had been framed for smuggling drugs into the country. Arrested, convicted, and sentenced in an extraordinarily short period of time. Mathias, with his money and influence, had made sure it was an open-and-shut case.
And then Teri disappeared.
It twisted his insides to think about how naïve they’d been. Without an ounce of training between the two of them, they’d thought they could bring down an empire. Justice had warned them to take all precautions. By then it had been too late. Mathias had somehow discovered what they’d been doing. And just as he had so many times before, he’d taken care of the problem in the cruelest way possible.
The day Eli had arrived at the prison to deliver the news that Teri’s body had been found would rank as the worst day of his life, bar none. In his heart, he had known she was dead. Still, there had been that small kernel of hope that he was wrong. Eli’s words had erased all doubt. But the agony wasn’t over. That was the day he’d learned that there was devastating news and then there was pure, unadulterated hell. Only half of her body had been found. The fucker had decapitated her.
With a low, anguished growl, Jonah covered his face with his hands. Darkness descended, and grief overwhelmed him.
“Jonah? Is everything okay?”
Aw, shit.
Wiping his face with the backs of his hands, he cleared his throat, then winced at the huskiness of his voice as he said, “Go back to bed, Gabby. Everything’s fine.”
“Everything’s not fine. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I—”
She came to stand before him. “Please, Jonah. Let me help.”
“You’d better get back to bed before you freeze.”
Instead of doing what he asked—hell, that was no surprise—she held out her hand. That was it. Such a simple gesture, but one filled with compassion.
She was dressed in a long white nightgown that should have made her look like either a child or a spinster in a Victorian novel. Unfortunately, it did neither. Gabriella Mendoza looked both intensely beautiful and heartbreakingly innocent.
When he didn’t take the offer of her hand, she dropped onto the footstool in front of him and spoke in a soft voice, as if she were talking to an injured animal. “You can trust me, Jonah. We’ve been through a lot together over the last couple of weeks. I’ve told you things I’ve never told another soul. There’s nothing you can’t share with me.”
“Got some shitty news from Justice.”
“Is your family okay?”
That she didn’t assume the bad news had anything to do with her was a testament to this woman’s nature. Considering what she’d been through, it would’ve made sense. Although his tears were probably a dead giveaway.
“My family is fine. I just—” He could tell her so many things. That it was none of her business. That he would be out of her life in a few days and they didn’t really need to know anything more about each other. Or he could lie, come up with something vague.
Instead of doing any of those, which probably would have been the smart thing, Jonah opened his mouth and spilled his guts.
As Gabby listened to Jonah’s heartbreaking story, tears filled her eyes. She had known most of it. That he’d been in prison and finally exonerated. That his father was behind everything. She also already knew that his fiancée had been murdered. She hadn’t known the details, though. Death was sad at any point; murder was hideous. But the way the young woman had been killed was horrific.
“You feel guilty,” she said softly.
“Of course I feel guilty. I am guilty.”
“How?”
She knew she was treading on thin ice with him. This was a man in agony, consumed by guilt. Challenging him might not be the smartest course to take, but she couldn’t stand seeing his pain. If she could help, even in some small way, she had to try.
“How am I guilty?” His eyes still glittered with tears but there was fury there, too. “It was my father who had her killed. How the hell could I not feel responsible?”
“But it wasn’t you. Do you think I’m responsible for every person my grandfather killed?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“No, but—”
“But nothing, Gabby. If I hadn’t gone after Mathias, none of this would have happened.”
“Wasn’t Teri investigating on her own?”
“I should’ve told her to back off. Should’ve pushed her away. Made her leave.”
“Would she have obeyed if you had?”
His mouth twitched with an almost smile. “Of course not. She had a mind of her own.” Any humor vanished when he added, “It doesn’t matter. I should have found a way to stop him on my own.”
She would let the matter drop for now but hopefully she had given him something to think about.
“The authorities could do nothing to help?”
The bitter twist of his mouth told her how he felt before he even said the words. “The same ones who tried and convicted me based on my father’s planted evidence?”
“Isn’t that more your father’s fault than the authorities? All they had was the evidence they uncovered. How could they have suspected your own father would set you up like that?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair. She could feel his frustration and hoped he wouldn’t shut her out. It felt good to be discussing his situation with him. He was treating her like her opinions mattered. She was so used to having men, especially the ones in her family, dismiss anything she said. Jonah might not like what she was saying, but at least he treated her as a thinking adult with a right to her own views.
“If I’d had the chance to kill Mathias, I would have and saved my family a lot of heartache.”
“You would have killed your own father?”
“Without an ounce of remorse.”
Her mind veered away from similar thoughts. Yes, she’d been abused, both physically and mentally. Locked away, treated like a prisoner. Everything she held dear had been taken from her. She hated her grandfather with every fiber of her being. Yet the very thought of ending someone’s life, even his, was a distasteful thought. Becoming what she knew him to be would be the height of hypocrisy, wouldn’t it? In every way possible, she had strived to be the very opposite of what her family stood for.
Did Jonah really have it in him? He was a hard man…that was evident. But talking about the deed and actually carrying it out were two different entities. How did one get to that point? When did talk become action? When did hatred become an all-consuming goal to destroy? Had she been headed in that direction without even knowing it?
“You’re freezing.”
She jerked as Jonah’s voice brought her back to reality. He thought her shivering was from lack of warmth in the room, but she knew it was more than that.
“It is a little chilly. The fire has gone out.”
He stood and pulled her up with him. “We both need to get some sleep.”
In a move that seemed like the most natural thing in the world, she went into his arms, and they held each other. The embrace was one of comfort. One damaged soul giving ease to another. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so safe and secure, so in tune with another human being.
She leaned back in his arms to say those exact words and caught her breath. Jonah’s eyes glittered with heat, his expression one of need and desire. The thought of denying him never entered her mind. She lifted her hand and gently touched his cheek.
Jonah took her mouth with his, devouring her lips and taking her breath. Had he ever tasted anything sweeter? He heard a whispered warning in his head, telling him he was about to make a monumental mistake. He ignored the warning and shut down everything but the wild, hot need rising within him.
Gabby wanted him, he could feel her passion, the heat blooming within her. She was soft and pliant, pressing into him as if she wanted to get as close as possible. His body hardened, throbbing with lust, as a blazing heat threatened to explode. He needed. He wanted. He had to have her.
Gripping the nightgown, he pulled it up and slid his hands beneath. The soft cotton of the gown was no match for the silkiness of her skin. She moaned beneath his lips, and the fire burning within him heated to an inferno. His hands roamed over soft hills and silken curves. Had he ever wanted anyone more than he wanted this woman?
Trailing his lips down her neck, he breathed in the soft, subtle scent of aroused woman. Gripping her tighter, his mouth latched on to a taut, firm breast, and he suckled deeply. Her little groans of pleasure ramping up his own need, the soft sounds urged him on, telling him to take, to devour.
His hand swept up her side, pulling the gown up with him. He wanted her naked, on the sofa, on the floor, wherever he could get her. He would take her, ease the ache in his body, the deeper ache in his heart. She wanted him…she wouldn’t deny him.
His fingers stuttered as they encountered an anomaly in her soft skin. The bandage on her hip, where she had courageously cut out a tracker. A tracker put there by evil men. Men who had used her, abused her.
Holy hell, what was he doing?
Releasing her abruptly, he backed away. His breath rasped from his lungs, and his body burned with desire, but he found the strength to say, “Go to bed, Gabby. Now. Please.”
“But, Jonah, I—”
“Now!” The word was a command, a bark. She didn’t deserve the treatment, but she had to go before he did something they’d both wake up regretting. She deserved better.
The hurt on her face almost made him change his mind, but no way in hell was he about to use her. People had taken advantage of her all her life. Damned if he would be one of them.
“Please, Gabby. For me.”
She nodded and practically ran from him. He watched until she was out of sight, and then he dropped back onto the couch. What the hell had he been about to do?