Unholy Promises (30 page)

“Why would you do that?” I whisper.

“I’m really not the mothering kind. Do you think?” She spreads her arms wide, showing me her nakedness, showing me the marks on her body, bruises of every shade from lightest yellow to deepest purple and every variant between. “Before this, before Lewd Larry’s, I used to think that maybe … someday … if I could fall in love hard enough, if I could be good enough, then maybe God would see fit to bless me with a baby.” She laughs but it is a hard, broken sound. “I am definitely not good.”

I blink at her, seeing a pool of tears she refuses to spill from her eyes.

“Master wants the suburban dream, and that includes children. I see it in his eyes every time he sees a baby.” She swallows hard, fighting back tears. “But how can I give him that dream when I can’t see myself ever being that woman? The problem is—I really wanted a baby—wanted a baby so badly that I would have done anything. Once.” She starts shaking against me and I realize that she is crying. “I love them both too much to destroy what we have together … and a baby would change everything.”

I suddenly wish for all the world that my arms were free so I could offer her some comfort, and even as I think it, that I want to hug her, hold her, take away her pain, I realize that Liam has damaged me irreparably. I am not the same woman I was before he and Daniel tortured me. The realization is all it takes for tears to start falling over my cheeks and I fight to remember the last time I cared about anything. Or anyone.

Dear God, Liam, what have you done?

If I care, if I feel, I am useless to the agency…

I am not an agent in this room. I tell myself this lie again because I want it to be truth. I want to be a real part of this fantasy that makes me feel like I’ve already crossed over to insanity.

I do not expect Celia to lick away my tears, but that is exactly what she does, and then she is kissing me and this time, I don’t pull away from her kisses. I want them. As her arms pull me closer, I want that too.

“If you stay … it must be for love.” She strokes my face. “I won’t let you hurt him.”

My spit dries in my mouth. She doesn’t know … she can’t possibly know.

“If you stay, you will have to love me too. I won’t let you be a wedge between us …

nothing is going to hurt the relationship the three of us have built.”

Is anyone besides me terrified of what this woman would be capable of?

Her mouth closes over mine and her kiss makes me want to cry. I can’t separate from this. I am here to do a job … and now this woman stands in my way. Will I kill her too?

Her mouth moves to my breast and she suckles me, alternating soft licks with hard pulls. The sensation goes straight to my core and suddenly my entire body is throbbing.

There is no doubt that women know how to make love to other women.

Her hand slides between us, finding my clit as she continues to suck my breasts.

“I’ll scream,” I threaten, wriggling to escape her touch. “Let me go and I won’t even tell Thomas what we did.”

She lifts her head and her eyes are dreamy, slanted with pleasure. “The room is soundproof and I’m not sure why you would think Lord Fyre would care.”

I am never afraid of what I know.

~ Anna Sewell, Black Beauty

If I am the Lord overseeing my realm, I don’t feel very lordly tonight. I watch from a shadowed corner near the bar. Just watching … blending into the shadows so much easier for me than actually being out there. Posing.

Garrett and Kitten do it so easily, seeming second nature for them both, he sitting at a table, eating and drinking wine with Jackie, while Kitten, wearing nothing but glitter and her collar, rests on a pillow at their feet. Jackie is alone tonight and although normally I wouldn’t care, I wonder about her lack of accompanying pet.

I watch Kitten smile on her pillow, pretending sleep, but know that she isn’t sleeping. She listens, and whatever Jackie just said to Garrett amuses her.

This is the part of Garrett and Kitten’s life that I don’t share. Socializing isn’t my thing, which is why I am here in the shadows and they are there in the social spotlight, reigning King and Queen of Lewd Larry’s.

It’s a funny thing. A week ago my dreams were filled with Eva. For years my dreams have been filled with her, but now that she is here … I’m not feeling what I thought I would feel. It seems our connection that once was is now gone, or maybe what I felt then was because it was fresh, new, and now, because my life is such that it is … that seems more like an illusion. Definitely now, with her here, I cannot reproduce what once was and it seems unlikely that anything new will come of what we already shared.

I wish I had someone to blame … Liam perhaps, and what he did to her—what he and Nikkos did. I can’t forget that. Dear God, Nikkos would have killed her.

Would she be here if she knew he was my brother?

Could I allow her to kill him for retribution for what he did to her? Would she believe me if I told her that he isn’t evil, he was only doing what the role required?

My infatuation with the past holds her here; maybe her obsession too with my ghost is what brought her back. Was what we felt ever love?

One thing is for certain … I do feel blessed that I have Garrett and Sophia’s love—

especially hers. But doubt has entered too, that because I no longer believe I shared love with Eva, but something else other than love… I let Latisha go, without a fight, her and my children. If I had a soul, how could I let them go, if I had loved them?

Could it be that I loved neither Eva nor Latisha?

Could it be that what I feel for Garrett and Sophia is really something other than love?

It all seems a riddle with no clues to truth.

I am weary of lies.

Flipping open my cell phone, I duck into an empty service corridor to call Henri. Our day is ending, his just beginning. He answers on the first ring.

“I’m tired of these games, dear friend.”

“Ah, Thomas, I was just thinking about you.”

I pace the hallway. It is quiet except for the occasional clang or curse coming from the kitchen on the other side of the wall. “I’m certain you were. What day am I supposed to die, Henri? Today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?”

“Mon ami, what’s this?”

I sigh. “You could have killed me in Paris, you could have had any number of my enemies do it for you by merely leaking that I was alive and in town … but no, instead you’ve sent Eva … why?”

He laughs. “You have no worries, friend. I do not expect you to die. I do not want you to die. After all, you will be here, as my predecessor some day.”

I close my eyes, mouth dropping open as it all becomes clear. “I won’t kill her for you, Henri. You may as well send a car for her … and another thing … call off the investigation of Garrett Lawrence. He isn’t your man, but if you check your email, you’ll find an encrypted file hidden inside your daily horoscope subscription.” I hang up, hating it that it took Garrett being threatened for me to take my job seriously enough to figure out who was behind the trafficking. I hate it that it was Frankie Perez; he’s a nice guy here in the neighborhood, but even nice guys are sometimes guilty of horrible atrocities…

My cell phone vibrates and I see that it is Henri. That was fast.

“It’s rude to hang up. Sometimes you make me wish I’d never sent you to America.

You’re learning very bad habits there.”

I snicker, ducking into a stairwell when the kitchen door opens and a young busboy steps into the hall. “I thought our conversation was finished.”

“No.”

“No?” I ask.

“There is a woman in your life.”

I do laugh outright at that. “There are many women in my life, Henri. You must be more specific.”

“A powerful woman.”

“Ah, I think I know of whom we speak.” I would never say Glorianna’s real name over a phone line and, if he is smart, Henri won’t either.

“Oui, I am certain that you do.” He sighs. “She has become a thorn in my side, Thomas.”

My lips twitch with the thought of Glorianna making Henri squirm for whatever the reason makes me very happy. “I’m not killing her either, dear friend.”

“I would not ask you to.” I hear his fingers tapping on a keyboard. “It seems you have unfinished business that she would like for you to attend to.”

“I told her that I would be unable to do the job she requested.”

A heavy silence wells between us.

“Is that true?” he asks and I think about Nikkos, hating it that I left him behind, wanting desperately to bring him back, but what would I be bringing him back to?

Prison? Death? Only Glorianna knows the answer to that question and I’m not willing to risk it. I was hoping that, with Henri’s blessing, I could separate Nikkos from King Cobra’s operation and hand him over to Glorianna while he was merely a bit player…

But now? Well, he isn’t a bit player is he? And as much as I hate what my brother is becoming, he is alive.

I sit down on a hard concrete stair. “I will call Glorianna and see how she might be best appeased.”

“You’re a good friend, Ari. Your grandfather would be very proud of you.”

I somehow doubt that. “Thank you for saying so, Henri.”

Her back is to me when I enter the playroom. She lies in my bed, still restrained, and I’m not surprised that Kitten left her that way. Hearing me enter, her body goes still, not even breathing, just waiting, listening. I tell her, “It’s me,” and she relaxes notably, rolling onto her bound arms, onto her back. I adjust the lights from no light to low light and walk over to the bed to sit down beside her.

I see that she has been crying, her cheeks still wet with tears.

“I want to go home,” she says.

“I know.”

“I do love you.”

I smile weakly, wondering if it is truth or just something she feels that she must say.

I cannot return the endearment, although I do love her, just not in the way we are speaking of, and that is what has become clear.

“Will you let me leave?”

I tip my face, smiling, “You’re no prisoner here.”

“I know,” she answers. “It’s just games here. All of it … games and masquerades …

smoke and mirrors … no truth to the horror … but is there truth in the love?”

“I love Garrett, I love Kitten, I love our life together. I don’t see smoke and mirrors in that.”

“Does Garrett love her?”

“Yes.”

“Does he love her enough?”

I frown, bending over to reach a drawer built under the platform bed. I retrieve a pair of paramedic scissors to cut free her hands. Seeing my intent, she wriggles to sit up and I free her hands and feet in two cuts. She rubs her hands and arms while I put the scissors back into the drawer, asking her, “Does anyone ever love anyone enough?”

I pivot to look at her, she inches closer, pushing my hair away from my face so that it hangs straight back over my shoulders. “Will you be there to love her even when Garrett stops loving her?”

“Yes, but Garrett will never stop loving her,” I answer without having to think about it. In Kitten, I have found someone so like myself that we anticipate each other’s thoughts, each other’s needs. I have found what I have been looking for all along … and almost gave it up for the fantasy of what was Eva.

She looks at me, but it seems as if she is looking through me. “I believe you are wrong about that.” Her eyes suddenly focus on mine with a quick iris dilation. “You should have never left me alone in this room with her. Everything is different now.”

I squint at her, trying to read between the lines, because I know that she is trying to tell me something.

“You aren’t going to kill me, because you met Celia?” I ask, shocking her. I watch her mouth open and close, wanting to deny, but wanting to be honest. She settles on staying silent. It is a subtle thing, but I feel her defenses go up around her, and it makes me laugh. “Are we all so transparent as this? It seems we should all be dead if so.” I stroke her cheek. “I’m not going to kill you, if that is why you came here … if that is what you wanted. I’ve seen your file. I know you have a death wish, although the why eludes me. You will have to find somewhere else to die … someone else to do it. It won’t be me.”

She hugs me, her arms going around my neck gently. I hug her back, but it is a restrained hug and, regretfully, now that I have faced the reality of why she is really here, I don’t trust her.

“I love you, Luka.” She tightens her hug.

“Yes. It was Luka you loved … but I am not Luka here. I am Thomas and I don’t think you could love the man I really am.”

Pulling back from me, her gaze seeks mine. “I guess we’ll never know.”

“Can I be certain the next time I see you that you won’t try to kill me?”

“Life brings no certainty, but I can assure you that you will not die by my hand … or my knife … or my bullets.” She smiles and I recognize the smile as her agency-issued smile, the one she was taught to make others feel safe. She succeeds in making me nervous.

I stand, crossing the room. Hitting a hidden lever, I open a small closet and pull out a bag of her belongings. I toss it on the bed, “A car is waiting out front for you.”

“A car?”

Leaning forward, I kiss her cheek. “I called Henri, of course he would send a car.”

Terror fills her eyes and she reaches for me again, trying to pull me to her, fresh tears forming in her eyes. “Can we try this again?”

“I think we’ve run out of time and chances, love.”

“I’ll die if I go back,” she tells me solemnly.

“Isn’t that what you’ve wanted? You’ve been chasing death for so long.”

She turns her back to me. Slowly she crosses the room and picks up her bag. Without looking at me, she says, “I was so empty when I thought you dead, yes, I wanted to die, then you returned … miraculously from the grave … and I felt something stir inside of me, nothing real, just a memory of something that was once real.” She turns to face me,

“I came here with the order to kill you and, for a second, I thought I might be able to, but no … I’ll leave here without killing you.” She walks toward me. “Though I could have,”