Hold on Tight (28 page)

“Give me the phone,” she insisted.

“You’re in no shape to speak with anyone but us right now,” Chris reiterated.

“I don’t need you to tell me what to do.” She turned to him then, lashing out with both fists against his chest. “Your life didn’t just get turned upside down. Mine did.”

She punched again and he let her. And then he turned her so her back was against his chest and he wrapped his arms around hers so she couldn’t flail.

She attempted to shrug off Chris’s arms, but he wasn’t having it. Instead, he lifted her off the ground, carried her into Saint’s office and slammed the door behind them.

It was only then he released her, and she pushed away from him, the fury blazing, ready to take out some more of her anger on him. “Keep your hands off me.”

“Pull it together.”

He was so calm, so infuriatingly, stone-statue calm, standing in front of her like an immovable object, and she wanted him as upset as she was. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Chris. Not about this.”

“I’m not telling you how to feel. I’m telling you to cut the shit—put your emotions to bed and figure out what the hell to do next.”

She stared him down, but he was winning. Anger rose higher. “He lied to me. To PJ. For years. If we’d known …”

“If you’d known, what? What the hell would you have done?” Chris demanded. “Kevin did the best thing he knew at the time—he kept you safe for years, Jamie. You’re an adult now, and you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of Kevin’s choice. And that’s what it was, a choice.”

It had been. And yes, Chris wasn’t just talking about Kevin now—his eyes held that faraway look and she knew a part of him was still near that embassy in the Sudan, a part of him would always be in the chaos of that battlefield where he’d also made a decision that left no one a winner.

It didn’t make him any less of a hero in her eyes.

“This situation is so different. Kevin chose to stick his head in the sand.”

“Sometimes, love and denial come hand in hand. It’s okay to be angry with him, Jamie. But he loves you and PJ.”

“I know that.” She squeezed her eyes tight, heard Chris walking over to her. When she opened them, she saw he’d dropped to his knees, was pressing his cheek against her belly.

“We’ll get through it. Come on, we’ve been to hell and back a couple of times already. Don’t give up, okay?”

She ran her hands through his hair. “I won’t. Just don’t leave me.”

“Not a chance.”

Why should this time be any different?

But it was. So completely different PJ felt as if her soul would shatter.

Everyone around her died—but this time, she wouldn’t accept that. Wouldn’t accept being cornered inside the house, sequestered, when she knew she could track this monster.

Right now, she needed some freedom.

She lowered herself off the deck and onto the sand. Once there, she ran fast along the hard-packed sand, water lapping her sneakers.

There was no destination, just a fierce urge to break out and away, to let the anger she felt toward Kevin and her entire life dissipate. And after twenty minutes of running alone on that darkened beach, something inside of her snapped, and then everything lifted, the heavy cloak of grief and guilt and fear, and suddenly as she pushed forward, she was finally, truly alive inside.

She needed to remember this feeling, this freedom, when things around her threatened to grow oppressive. And so she stopped running, simply stopped in her tracks, out of breath but not out of steam, and fighting an urge to let out a deep, primal scream.

She had no other choice but to turn and go back to Saint’s. Wouldn’t have wanted any other option. When she did so, she saw a man’s shadow about ten feet behind her—a big, strong, beautiful man who waited for her. Who’d run behind her the entire time.

A man who would let her run from herself, but who would never let her run alone.
Saint
.

“Saint!”

She ran toward him at top speed, jumped into his arms, nearly knocking him to the sand. He stumbled back but held steady as she wrapped around him, arms around his shoulders, legs around his waist, her face buried against his neck.

Nearly breathless, she still managed to whisper, “I was coming back. I wasn’t leaving. I wasn’t leaving you.”

“I know, PJ,” he told her as he held her as tightly as she held him. “I know.”

He did. Had from the first day she’d stumbled on him. Nothing had changed with Kevin’s confession—she was still a work in progress, still healing.

“I should’ve checked on Alek’s father. I used to—every day I used to check, and then it was every week. If I’d known …”

But Saint wouldn’t let her feel the guilt. “We’ll get him, PJ. I’ll kill that bastard with my bare fucking hands to keep you safe.”

She pulled back, stared into his eyes, lit only by the soft moonlight reflecting off the water. “I’d do the same for you.”

“I know that too.”

She thought he’d take her back to the house then, but he didn’t. Instead, he lowered her to the sand—it was cold against her back, but his body covering hers was so warm.

“I want you, want to make you feel better, Patricia. And it’s too crowded back at the damned house.” Protected by the darkness, his fingers found her core, and she forgot about everything else except him.

She wondered how, after only knowing her for less than a week, he could know her so intimately, know where she liked to be touched and what would set her off so that his name would be ripped from her throat, even if she hadn’t meant to call it out. Wondered how his hands felt so right as they roamed her body, finding ways to awaken places she didn’t know could even be erogenous.

After she came twice, he carried her the entire way back to his house.

Kevin was going to make sure that wouldn’t have to happen. First, he’d get Grace to a safe place—she deserved that.

But she wasn’t home. That wasn’t unusual these days—if she wasn’t with her shrink, she was with her friends, and he could see the dissolution of their marriage happening right before his eyes.

Kevin could let it go easily enough, he thought. It couldn’t be any lonelier than being married to her was. The best part of their union had occurred, for him, when they’d taken the girls in. There had been laughter in the house. Love. Warmth.

Now it was cold as hell.

He threw his keys down and headed toward the kitchen, to see if she’d left a note, didn’t hear the man come up behind him.

He felt the sharp sting of darts in his back, stumbled forward as the tranquilizer did its job. His feet went out from under him; he didn’t even feel his body hit the carpet.

Somehow, he shifted onto his back, found himself looking up into a face that was familiar even as it swam in his vision. “You said … you’d stay away. You took their parents. That was good enough. You promised,” he croaked, his breath coming unnaturally fast.

“My word is only good to my family.”

“At one time, I was your family.”

“At one time, you were my brother,” Alek agreed. “But it turns out blood is thicker than water.”

“Leave them alone, Alek.”

“I can’t anymore, Peter.”

Peter
. It had been a long time since he’d been called that. “I saved your life. I thought that meant something.”

“I wish you’d let me die,” Alek practically spat.

“What are you talking about?”

“This.” Alek pointed to his scarred face. “I loved you, Peter, but I also hated you. Because if it wasn’t for you—for this debt, for my honor—I wouldn’t have been cut off from my family for twenty years. I would’ve been welcomed back by the Russian underground, hidden by them. Instead, I kept my promise to you, and I’ve lost everything.”

“I had no choice,” Kevin told him.

“You had a choice—you chose those girls over me, your brother.”

It was the truth, Kevin had. “I looked the other way for so many things, Alek—those years I worked undercover, I never let anything happen to you.”

He’d been so torn then … as torn as Alek seemed now. “I collected my debt, Alek—you’ve kept your honor all these years, don’t do this now.” Kevin breathed the words, fighting unconsciousness as Alek nodded.

“My father died hating me, thinking I was a coward. I put you above my family. I’ve lost everything. If I finish the job, and I kill a U.S. Marshal, the underground might gain some respect for me—I won’t die an outcast. I’ll bring some honor back to my blood family.”

“We were family,” Kevin insisted, saw in Alek’s eyes how much all of this had cost him, how the years in hiding had taken everything and given Alek a sense of desperation he’d never had as a boy or a young man.

Kevin had forced his hand—he was as responsible as anyone for this. “Where is Grace?” he croaked.

“I’ve got her. Soon, it will all be over. First, we need to go back to where it all began.” Alek began to drag Kevin’s body out of the house, hoisted him into the trunk of the car, next to Grace’s unconscious body.

In Kevin’s mind, there were quick flashes of him and Alek running wild through their neighborhood, of him sitting at Alek’s family’s table … of him learning what it meant to be someone’s brother, to be brought into a family.

And then there was the start of the darkness, bleeding into the pictures in his mind.

Yes, blood was thicker than water. He wondered why he hadn’t figured that out sooner.

An hour later, Jake announced another car coming up the driveway.

Chris moved past Jamie and toward the screen. “Not Kevin’s.”

“It’s probably David,” Jamie said.

Jake had already pulled his gun and was headed toward the door. “We’re not taking any chances. Jamie and PJ, go upstairs.”

Chris saw Jamie was ready to argue. All he could say was, “Please,” and suddenly PJ was taking Jamie’s hand and tugging her up the stairs.

He waited until he heard the bedroom door close before he went out into the garage and let the door open slowly. The man, who’d gotten out of his car and was walking toward the front door, immediately stopped short and waited.

“Hands up,” Chris ordered, his rifle trained between the man’s eyes.

The way the guy complied instantly, showing his palms, made the tension in Chris’s body ease. Whoever this was, he wasn’t the threat. “I’m a U.S. Marshal—David Yager. I work with Kevin. PJ gave me this address.”

“Tell PJ to come down and ID him,” Chris told Jake.

Moments later, PJ was at his side, her hand on Chris’s arm to lower the rifle. “He’s okay. David, come inside.”

David nodded, lowered his hands and walked quickly into the garage. Chris stuck his hand out. “Sorry about that.”

“You did the right thing,” David said.

“Did you find Kevin?” PJ interrupted, and David looked pained.

“He’s missing. So is Grace.”

Jamie, standing on the other side of the half-opened garage door, heard what David said.

Instinctively, Saint held her arm, led her over to the couch, and yes, sitting was a good idea.

She watched the door, a thousand things running through her mind—calling Lou chief among them, but she sat on her hands so she wouldn’t dial the phone prematurely.

She’d hear David out, but she had little doubt as to what his theory would be. Alek was definitely back in their lives, and if he had Kevin and Grace …

My God
.

Gary wasn’t an innocent man, but he’d simply been a pawn, if her theory was correct. Kevin and Grace had done nothing but protect her and PJ all these years—and now what Grace had most likely always been fearful would happen had.

Even though David was the man she and PJ were supposed to call if something went wrong and Kevin wasn’t available, that had never, ever happened before, not in twenty years. And now he was coming to them with news she didn’t want to hear.

She rubbed her fists along her thighs as PJ sat on one side of her, and Chris, the other. Bolstered by the dual support, she finally leveled her gaze at David.

He looked wiped. “I went to the house. The front door was open and there was some blood. Neither are answering their cell phones. No calls from Alek or anyone claiming responsibility, but in light of what PJ told me on the phone …”

“How much blood?” PJ asked quietly.

“Not much—they were probably alive when they were taken,” David said. “CSI are at the house now—they’ll test the blood to determine more. But I want you two in a safe house tonight. Let us handle this. You know that’s what Kevin would want.”

“No,” PJ said flatly. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Chris’s cell phone rang, preempting the argument that was sure to follow. At first, Jamie simply stared at it. The incoming number was Kevin’s, but she knew who would be on the other end of the line.

“Where are you, Alek? Tell me now and save yourself some time,” she said, forgoing saying hello to the bastard.

“I know where you are. That’s the important thing,” Alek said. “There’s no safe place for you—there never really was.”

She was frozen, anger and grief boiling at the surface, hand on her gun as if Alek could get to her through the phone. “What do you want from us?”

“I’ve already started with Peter and Grace. Oh, don’t worry, they’re alive. For now. There’s so much more that I want. Make no mistake, we’re back to where we started, and this time, I’ll take it all.”

The words came out before she could stop them: “Not if I get to you first, you bastard.”

Alek chuckled. “Well, now it’s finally getting interesting. I’m almost glad I waited for you to grow up. It’ll be much more satisfying.”

He hung up and she listened to the dead air for a few seconds and then clicked Chris’s phone shut. The anger, pure and fierce, overtook everything else, and she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would never again live her life hiding from Alek.