This can’t be happening. This… upending of my whole fucking world. The documents in Mia’s hands are the last thing I ever expected to find.

Did Robert know? Was that why he sent me to Travis’s office? Is it common knowledge among the high-ranking members of the Organization?

Another thought strikes me and I groan. Is this why I’m still alive, despite my sneaking around and asking questions? Is this… is this why my parents were afraid last time I saw them? Afraid of Cronin, afraid of me.

Because they lied to me most of my life? They were going through my office looking for something to hold over my head, because their own lives have little value for Cronin.

Unlike mine.

I did wonder why his cronies went after Storm and Hawk but not me. Never me. It was as if I was untouchable. I thought it was a matter of time, a matter of digging deeper.

But maybe not.

I can’t… wrap my fucking head around this. Around the fact my parents aren’t my parents. The dark basement in my memories… it wasn’t them. Was it? Were they the ones who massacred those people inside the house, who locked me up later, or was it Cronin?

No wonder his face felt so familiar, why it’s stuck in my mind. Why his name makes my stomach twist. Why this feels so damn personal to me.

It is. More personal than ever before.

What now? What do I do?

This changes nothing, Mia said. Doesn’t it?

Does it?

Does it change anything for me?

My hands curl into fists. I feel like I can’t draw enough air, like when the memories of the dark encroach on me. When I know I am alone in the world, the dark filled with monsters and blood.

“Rook. Look at me!” She’s shaking me. It makes my stomach roil. “Snap out of it. You can have your breakdown later, but not here.”

I nod, and then I snort, because she’s so damn cute. So demanding. And she thinks I am bossy? “Yes, ma’am.”

She smiles at me, warm and sweet, and my heart stops trying to pound its way out of my chest. Because you know what? She is right. Nothing has changed. Fuck Cronin. Fuck his agreement. Fuck everyone who made deals with him.

I’m taking that son of a bitch down. Family isn’t having the same blood in your veins. It’s having the same heart, the same mind. And I’ve made my choices long ago. Storm, and Hawk. And now Mia is making her way under my skin, taking a hold.

Together we’ll take the bastard down. I’ve called in my favor, the moment I got into my suite, before Mia arrived. Texted my friends. And she informed her FBI buddies, obviously. Now, like she said, we just need to get out before we’re busted.

But as the elevator doors open, I realize we’re too fucking late.

* * *

One moment the doors are opening, the next something is thrown over my head and my hands are yanked behind my back and tied up.

“Mia!”

She whimpers and gasps somewhere to my right, and I turn toward her, but hands grab me and I’m shoved in the other direction. My back burns, burns.

Fuck. Fuck this shit.

I’m marched away, the air inside this cloth bag stale and dank. I hate the darkness. I fucking hate it, hate the memories it carries, because they’re sharper now, as if knowing what really happened has sharpened them.

My father.

The gun in his hand.

The writhing bodies on the sofa.

The splashes of crimson on the walls.

My father, Ian Cronin. The killer. The monster in my dreams.

Dammit, this is my fault. We lingered too long. The unexpectedness of finding Travis’s secretary, the time it took to get rid of her, waiting for Mia, then the shock of what I read in that document… I should have grabbed her and run the moment I got out of that office.

Thank fuck I let the guys know.

And that’s my last thought before something heavy hits me over the head, plunging me into a different darkness, one that’s thankfully free of dreams.

* * *

Faint light hits my eyeballs as I slowly come awake, lying on my side on the cold floor. I blink crusted lashes, wincing at the dull ache hammering inside my skull.

What the fuck happened?

Trying to sit up tells me my hands are tied at the small of my back, cable ties biting into my flesh. It stings, and a flash of memory tells me the skin is broken because I fought similar ties only last night, when Robert O’Connor left me bound and waltzed out.

Where am I?

The floor is bare concrete, and wet under my cheek. I taste blood in my mouth. Must have bitten my tongue, probably when…

…when someone hit me over the head.

Well, that explains the blinding headache, at least.

“Rook? You awake?”

“Mia?” I draw in my knees and roll until I’m kneeling, bent over. My shoulders feel like they’re wrenched, and my wrists burn as I tug on the cable ties. “You okay?”

I find her kneeling across from me, hands tied behind her back, like me, her dark hair loose around her face, her gaze defiant. She’s dirty, pale, afraid.

Beautiful.

And mine to protect.

Memories roll back in. The bag over my head, the hands shoving me, the panic. “Did they hurt you?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think they consider me dangerous. Unlike you. You fought them.”

I sigh. “I couldn’t fucking see… and didn’t know where you were.”

“I wasn’t accusing you of anything.” She gives me a faint smile that settles my heart. “I was worried. You were out for a while.”

“Any idea where we are?”

“Warehouse. Not far from the water, from the smell. Cronin got his paws on us. He’s been watching us, hasn’t he?”

“I don’t think it’s him.”

“What? Why not?”

“He had us in the hotel. No reason to yank us out of there, if he was on to us. Besides… the document.”

“What did the document really say, Rook?”

Staring across the few feet that separate us, into her eyes, I know this can’t go down well. “I’m Ian Cronin’s son.”

She frowns. “Is this some kind of a joke? This isn’t a movie, Rook.”

“I know that. You think I don’t know it? Dammit.” I bend over, fighting the bile rising in my throat. My head is fucking killing me. “But it’s true.”

She’s silent for a while. Then she says, “And you just believed that document? Just… accepted it so easily.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t easy.” I lift my head, shift on my knees. “Not at all. But I know it’s true. What reason would there be for such a document if it wasn’t? Besides… I feel it. It’s the truth.” I fight the pressure on my chest. “My memories before the age of five are… muddled. Everything that happened is like a dream. But it wasn’t, was it? It all happened.”

“You said your parents did something to you. Never said what. What was it?”

Why are you afraid of the dark?

I should be looking for a way out of here. I should be up on my feet and checking the exits, somehow find a way to check my pockets, see if they forgot one of my knives.

But instead I tell her. If anything, I owe her this. I tell her about what I remember, about the basement, and the threats, and the fear, and afterward the screams coming from above my head, echoing in the house, as I curled into myself in the dark.

Somehow, by the time I’m done, she’s managed to crawl to my side and has laid her head on my shoulder. When I’m finally done and shut my mouth, she looks up at me.

“You watched your parents murder people in cold blood,” she whispers. “Any kid would be scarred by that.”

A scar. I frown at the wet, stained floor. The strain on my shoulders has turned into a dull throb. My hands are numb behind my back. “But it wasn’t them. I remember now… I remember his face. Cronin. And then I was moved into a new house, with new parents.” The memories are like sharp bits of metal moving inside my head. It hurts. “Alma was there. The housekeeper. And the Carters. They told me if I was good and didn’t make a fuss, there wouldn’t be any more dark places. That the bad things I had seen were all a dream. That this was reality. That I was the only son of mogul Abraham Carter and actress Bella Cohen-Carter. But it was a lie.”

“Alma is a housekeeper?”

“Yes. She’s always been like a mother to me. But she was paid to do it.” I wince. That bit hurts the most.

“Are you okay?” she whispers, and I don’t know what to reply.

I am. And I’m not. My parents… no, the Carters and me, we were never close. They were distant, busy with work, and I always hated them from fucking deep inside of me for the memories they gave me.

The memories I thought they gave me, and now… I’m not sad, exactly, because I don’t think they ever were good people to start with—but I don’t know what I feel. I did grow up with them. There was the occasional trip with them abroad, to Europe, to Australia, to Peru. There were family dinners sometimes, and evenings at the theater and the opera.

If they hadn’t been high members of the Organization, one would say they’d been all right, as bland, distant, busy parents go.

Fucking normal.

“So if Ian Cronin is not the one who kidnapped us, then who got us?” she asks softly.

“My guess? My parents. I mean… the Carters. My adopted parents. They didn’t find anything to hold over Cronin’s head. Except me. I’m their insurance.”

“Shit,” she whispers.

Yeah. “Any way to get free from these?” I try to wiggle my fingers, but damn, I feel nothing below my elbows. “My hands are numb.”

“They searched us both. You had quite the arsenal on you. Lock picks, switchblades, guns. They took it all.”

I had been afraid of this. My cell phone has a beacon, meant to be activated if I get into trouble and notify Storm and Hawk—but was it activated? It should automatically turn on if I don’t use the phone for over ten hours.

Has it been that long? Feels like a couple hours, max, since we were taken.

In my head, I had planned for things going awry. I had my contingency plans, practically forced on me by Storm and Hawk that night before I first started sneaking around the hotel in search of evidence. But nothing has worked. Sometimes you think you’ve thought things out so well, only to discover you were an idiot.

“What about you?” I ask. “Anything we could use? Any hidden knives? Secret weapons?”

She shakes her head. “This isn’t a James Bond film.”

“You disappoint me, woman.”

“Tell me about it. Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

“And that is?”

“Take what we need from our guards when they come visit us.”

She’s never been more intriguing. Full of surprises. “You sound like you have a plan.”

“Of sorts.”

Somewhere deep inside of me, I find a grin for her. “You’re going to inflict lots of pain on those poor guards, aren’t you?”

“You bet. And unlike you, they’re not gonna like it.”

That’s my girl.

* * *

Our main concern is to inform someone where we are. Therefore our first concern is to find out where we are, and second, a way to communicate.

The latter shouldn’t be too hard. The guards have cell phones. No way they don’t. We grab a guard, we grab his cell phone. Simple.

And hopefully there’s reception here so we can find out where we are and let the others know.

But before we make a plan, any plan on how to get that phone, somewhere behind us a door bangs open, and heavy steps approach.

We scramble to turn around. It’s more difficult than it sounds when your ankles are bound and your hands are tied behind your back. Throws off your damn sense of balance.

The guard doesn’t even give me time to take a look at him before he throws me back on the floor and starts kicking me. Thank fuck he doesn’t seem interested in Mia, who’s lying on her side, eyes wide.

“You don’t want to ask me any questions before beating me up? Wait, hey!” But he seems determined to get his kink in, just for fun.

They have no idea how conditioned I am to pain. My threshold is so high it’s ridiculous. Pain is almost pleasure. Sometimes it is pleasure. Guess my nerve receptors are all mixed up.

Or my past made me who I am. Who knows?

But I do feel it this time, and there’s no pleasure in it. I hurt deep inside my back, and I wonder why.

Mia watches as the guard lays into me, paling with every new kick, and I hope to God she won’t decide to try and stop him. Last thing I want is for his attention to turn to her.

“So, what, they sent you in to break me down so that I will answer their questions? Do they have any questions? Because, you know, if they want to keep me as insurance, breaking my bones isn’t—” The kick to my ribs stops my breath. “Motherfucker.”

He knocks me about a bit longer, then turns around and leaves, slamming the door shut behind him.

What the fuck?

“What was this about?” Mia whispers, and to my shock, I find tears standing in her pretty eyes. “He hurt you.”

She starts to move toward me, awkwardly, and I struggle to sit up but my back hurts too much. Feels like those cuts from the whip have reopened from the kicking, and are bleeding into my shirt.

“I’m okay, kitten. You know I’m used to the pain. This is nothing.”

That’s a lie. Sure, I’m used to controlled pain-play, with flogging and some wax dripping, the occasional nipple clamp and even cock ring, but this is different. My ribs hurt when I breathe. My back is on fire. I’m light-headed.

Not good.

It’s been a shitty couple of days. Except for getting to know Mia better. This girl is worth it all. We just need to get out of this alive.

Piece of cake, right?

“Okay.” I sit up with a heartfelt groan. Blood trickles from a cut to my forehead. It’s warm on my chilled skin. “So how do we get our hands on a phone, before tall, dark and silent returns for another visit?”

“Next time he comes in, you bait him. And I tackle him.”

“Tackle him, how?”

“With my legs. Trip him up. He won’t expect it.”

But that could turn him on her. “You know what? We could just stay put, and wait. Let him beat me. Like I said, I’m used to that. And they need me alive, if I’m to be used as a card in this fucking game.”

“No, Rook.” Tears stills spangle her lashes, and fuck, I want to hug her so badly. “I can’t just sit and watch this crazy asshole hurt you.”

“Ooh, love it when you curse, kitten.”

“It’s not funny!”

“I know.” I close my burning eyes. I’m so damn tired. “Say this works. We also need something to cut these cable ties with. Have you seen any knife on him?”

“He has to have something. Guy like him. Bastard.”

Damn, I love how she hates him for kicking me around. How she’s one hundred percent on my side, despite the bomb that exploded over us. So I’m the son of the king of corruption, of Ian Cronin himself, and she hasn’t batted an eye. Hasn’t started questioning my loyalties, testing me to see if my end mission has changed.

Nothing has changed. Not for her. She said so. She’s showing me so.

I think I’m in love with this girl.

I’m still reeling from the realization, because hell, I never thought I’d recognize the feeling if it bit me in the ass—when the door opens again and my so-called parents walk in.

Looks like I guessed our kidnappers’ identity right. Woohoo, how fucking exciting.

What do I win?

* * *

“Roderick.” Mom—okay, what do I call her in my head? My adopted mom? My paid mom? Bella?—approaches me, her heels clicking on the bare cement, her shoes splashing in the puddles of cold water. “Look at you. Poor baby.”

I don’t reply. She’s so concerned about me, she stops a few feet away and makes a face, probably at my dirty, bloody state. I doubt she ever cared much for me, and she grew considerably colder since I gave them up to the police, and they spent a few weeks in jail. Nothing new there.

I tell myself it doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t hurt me.

The gun my adopted father lifts and holds to my head is nothing new, either. Not reassuring, though. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Dad,” I say flatly. “Fancy meeting you here. Were you passing through?”

“What are you doing?” Mia hisses at him, and fuck, I hope he ignores her.

“And who are you?” he asks.

“What do you want from me, Dad?” I have to get his attention back to me. “What is this whole theater all about? A bit melodramatic, if you want my opinion. Couldn’t you come up to me and ask me?”

“Nobody asked for your opinion, boy.” He actually has the safety off. Christ. “Just tell me this: have you talked to Ian?”

The barrel is cold against my temple. “You think I’ve sided up with Ian Cronin against you? What are you, crazy? You’re the one who works with him.”

“He hasn’t killed you yet. You’ve been in his face for months. Turning us in. Putting Sandivar in prison. Hanging around his hotel. Investigating. You must be working with him.”

“Or maybe he has another reason to keep me alive.”

His eyes narrow. “Now that is interesting. You know the truth? How?”

I stare right back at him. I say nothing. Let him guess. His turn to play.

“And this little slut?” Mom pokes Mia with the point of her shoe, and if my hands weren’t tied, I’d have decked her.

The woman I grew up thinking of as my mom. Apparently she’s a real bitch.

“She just happened to be there. Cleaning staff. She has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Mom gives Mia a suspicious look, and I glare at my girl for good measure, hoping my gaze tells her not to even think about talking back. She’s still in her skimpy hotel uniform, and that probably serves to convince dear Mom I’m telling the truth. “Slut,” she says again, and I can feel tendons standing out in my neck from the effort of reining my anger in.

“So you telling us you’re not working with Ian. That he spared you because you’re his son.” Dad looks pensive, his thoughts turned inward, and I take the moment to absorb the words.

It was one thing when I thought them, and spoke them.

It’s quite another to hear the man I always thought of as my father speaking them.

Holy shit.

Dad straightens, lifting the gun off me and clicking the safety back on, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fucking relieved. “Let’s say we believe you. It doesn’t really matter anymore. Either way, you’re staying here until Ian talks to us.”

“He stopped trusting you, huh? What did you do, spill his secrets to save your hides?” When he doesn’t reply, I swallow a sigh. “In any case, what are you planning to do with me? You can’t keep me here forever.”

“That’s none of your concern,” Mom says and turns on her heel and goes, my dad following her.

“Your adopted parents are adorable,” Mia says dryly, then actually spits in their direction right after the door closes. “Frigging assholes.”

It makes me smile. My chest swells up. Hell, I’m head over heels.

It’s official.