Storming His Heart (17 page)

Much later, he found what he’d come for. After stowing his tools, he returned to take what belonged to him. When he had everything settled, he drove out of the cemetery toward his home.

“His home, our home. We are one, in life and in death, aren’t we, brother?” He glanced up and grinned. His brother’s corpse smiled back at him from the rearview mirror.

Once he’d reached his destination high in the mountains of northern Georgia, Richard did what he’d promised. He laid the corpse of his brother upon a great wooden platform. He didn’t move when the first spark of flame blazed into an all-consuming fire. As in life, his death was magnificent. No matter that a bullet had long ago stopped his heart. This death, this great burning conqueror that ate at decaying flesh and bone, had been expected and even anticipated.

Richard watched the orange flames pierce the black darkness just before dawn. As children, he and his brother had shared everything. Every waking moment had been a dream of togetherness. Two bodies, one mind. The experiences one twin felt were automatically processed by the other, making their limited entities a combined, infinite one.

“Unto glorious death, brother. But not until what was stolen from us in life has been avenged.” A solemn tear fell down Richard’s dirt-streaked face. Though a year had passed, it seemed like only yesterday when the wrenching emptiness had torn through his soul. One minute he’d been sleeping, and the next he’d been jarred awake by bloody images and the solemn echo of his heart.

Richard’s delirious excitement in finally replacing Rafe Savage as the top agent at Westlake Enterprises had come to a grinding halt. Jurek’s prodigy had always been a thorn in his side, as great a pain as the one delivered by Storm Buchanan, the only woman to ever reject him.

His brother had nearly ended Savage’s life. Except, instead of killing the bastard in that dirty little alley, his brother had bled to death, killed by Savage’s gun. And now Savage had the woman Richard had longed for when alive. The injustice of it all burned like acid in his gut.

He waited and watched as the fire cleansed his brother’s body of its impurities. “Soon, I will finish our task,” he murmured. He continued to stare into the flames, searching for the peace he’d lost with his twin’s passing.

They’d shared everything. Sentences, thoughts, their very lives. Through school and college, the pair had enjoyed one persona. While one of them engaged with life outside their home, the other remained secreted, protected. Their guardian had always been too drunk to realize he had two, and not one, nephew living with him in his rundown house outside of Clayton.

The golden boy at school, Richard had earned accolades and awards, scholarships and notice as the best and brightest. Men wanted to be him, women wanted to fuck him.

And then Jurek had come along and truly appreciated his hidden gift, a psychic tendency to avert trouble. When Jurek had offered him a job at his elite firm, the twins had been overjoyed.

Richard Glass had been the sole agent, but in actuality both twins completed every assignment and shared every tribute. Sometimes they even worked simultaneously to bring down the vilest of criminals. But no matter what they—
he
, Richard reminded himself—did, it was never enough. Rafe Savage continued to outshine them.

Jurek liked Savage best. Jurek Westlake, the father he’d never had, preferred a dumb cop to the genius of twin minds so connected they could act as one person. It didn’t matter that Jurek didn’t know the two existed, his love should have been there regardless.

Instead, Savage had taken most of Jurek’s time and energy. It grew worse when Savage’s stupid friends followed suit, sucking up to Jurek, demanding his attention with first this then that. That miserable J.D. Morgan, with his amateur computer hacking, thought he had what it took to become a field agent. And Hunter Greye, an animal with little regard for rules and regulations, started watching him a little too closely.

Those problems he might have handled, but Storm Buchanan’s rejection had cut to the quick. Richard had experienced an immediate obsession with the woman, despite the fact she worked for that little nothing investigation agency. The fucking bitch had the nerve to say no. To
him
.

As the funeral pyre dimmed, Richard blinked up at the dawning sun. Not far away sat the deserted cabin he’d inherited when his uncle died. Set high up in the mountains on twenty acres of land, away from prying eyes, the cabin afforded the privacy he needed to reconnect with his brother. He felt some small peace that part of him was now at rest.

“Don’t worry, brother,” he said to the smoldering husk atop the ebbing flames. “Once Savage and the woman are dead, I’ll come to you. Then we’ll never be apart again.”

Storm felt warm every time she thought about making love with Rafe. Even as they sat with the others in the conference room at Buchanan Investigations, she couldn’t help dwelling on her lover.

When in private, he continued to make references to places he wanted to take her, things they’d do next week or next month. She didn’t know if he realized the impact of what he’d said, but she couldn’t ignore that he implied a future for the two of them. What scared her was how much she didn’t want them to end.

“Jennifer Barnes, our logistics coordinator, is behind most of our problems,” Jurek was saying. “Thorne found our mole. And thanks to J.D., we now know Richard Glass had a twin.”

Rafe leaned forward, his eyes wide. “The bastard had a twin? How did we miss that?”

Jurek shook his head. “The Glass brothers’ birth records were either entered incorrectly or purposely falsified. I’m still not sure how J.D. found it, but he located documentation that Mary Shannon Glass gave birth to identical twins thirty-seven years ago—to Richard and Jonathan Glass. Oddly enough, there’s only ever been record of Richard Glass, no mention of Jonathan throughout their growing years and schooling.”

“Creepy and psychotic. Great,” Storm murmured, remembering how much Jonathan Dasher had disturbed her.

“How is Jennifer involved, exactly?” Rafe asked.

Thorne answered. “That woman has some major issues. One, you never gave her the time of day. She has a real thing for Agent Savage. Two, she wanted a promotion someone named Katy received.”

“She is totally out of her league with Katy,” J.D. muttered. “Jennifer’s got a screw loose. Promotion? Katy’s been with us longer and does a hell of a better job.”

“Yeah, and supposedly Katy’s a good friend of yours,” Thorne added. “She thinks you’re biased. Jennifer’s also into whatever Richard wants to do to her.” He coughed to cover what Storm suspected was discomfort. “She sleeps with him and tells him stuff, thinking he’s still a legitimate agent.”

“She ought to know better.” Jurek looked grim. “The accounts she supervises are extremely sensitive. We’ll have to remove her immediately.”

Max interrupted, “Just as soon as we nail Glass. Thorne’s meeting her tonight at the Royale Hotel.”

Thorne nodded. “I’m hoping she’ll give me a little more to go on.”

Storm was agog at the thought of her brother playing smooth and sophisticated. Luc, she could see pulling it off. But not Thorne. “Okay, James Bond. I’ll bite. How exactly are you going to get the information from her?”

Luc laughed. “Yeah, ’cause I don’t see you charming it out of her.”

Thorne glared. “I can do charming. Trust me, I’ll get her to lower her inhibitions—”

“I could do that with a few beers,” Luc offered.

“Then I’ll mindread what she likes and find us information we can use,” Thorne said with a glare at his brother.

“The sooner the better. My visions are getting worse. People are dying.” Rafe glanced at Storm with real worry in his eyes. “No way in hell can we let that happen.”

He hadn’t mentioned any new visions to her.

“Rafe?”

He glanced away from her and described his dreams. Floating bodies, women in red, black water, dark hair—all of it seemed pointed at her. But had Rafe seen her death as a future they couldn’t fix, or was it a warning of something they could prevent?

Rafe cleared his throat, his voice gruff when he spoke. “I think maybe it’s time Storm stayed with someone else. I’m too close to the investigation, and I have a bad feeling that being near me might be her death sentence.”

She wanted to protest, but her family’s intense scrutiny kept her mute. She’d talk to Rafe in private, after the meeting.

Unfortunately, Jurek agreed with him. “We should play it safe. Glass has issues with Westlake, with Rafe in particular. Now that I think back on it, Richard used to mention Rafe quite a bit.” He turned to Rafe. “I think he saw you as competition. Maybe that accounted for his subtle animosity.”

“Why me?” Rafe asked.

“Who knows?” Jurek shrugged. “You’re a stellar agent, but so is Hunter. Hell, even J.D.’s been improving.”

J.D. snorted. “Thanks for the glowing recommendation.”

Max added his own two cents, but Storm had a hard time concentrating on anything but Rafe, who’d conveniently turned to J.D. To avoid looking at her? Storm wondered at the legitimacy of his excuse to part ways. Rationally, his decision made sense. If only she could be sure he wanted her gone to keep her safe. Or was it because they’d grown so much closer and it scared him? The sheer heat they generated wasn’t just sexual, it was emotional as well, and he knew it. A small part of her even thought about what it might be like to have a baby with him, to celebrate their ties with new life. Talk about the wrong time for her biological clock to start ticking.

Thorne started coughing. He drew in air in great, heaving gulps, and she had a bad feeling she hadn’t shielded that last part well enough. Her brother stared at her, wide-eyed.

“What?” she snapped.

The others continued to discuss the matter of her new accommodations.

In a low voice, Thorne offered, “You can stay with me and Luc. While I’m working Jennifer over, he can keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t need an eye on me.”
Not unless it belongs to Rafe.
She started to rise from her chair when Rafe grabbed her arm, effectively stopping her.

He turned away from J.D. midsentence. “You need as many eyes on you as Buchanan can authorize. Westlake will help. We have men to protect you.”

“I’m just a distraction. Glass wants you. I don’t need protection.”

“Yes, you do,” he said quietly.

All talk in the conference room ceased.

Storm wanted to know what Rafe thought as he watched her. Not for the first time, she wished she had Thorne’s ability.

“No, you don’t,” Thorne growled. “We need to go. We have some things to talk about, you and I,” he said to her. “Luc, come on. Uncle Max, we’ll be at our place.”

Thorne pulled her out of her chair and practically dragged her out of the conference room, Luc trailing. At the elevator, he lowered his voice and whispered, “I’m going to be an uncle?” His glance at her belly embarrassed the hell out of her.

“No! Would you please stop eavesdropping on minds you shouldn’t be reading?”

“Trust me, I wish I’d never seen half the things that asshole in there was thinking.”

“Ah, seen?” She blushed bright red. She knew he sometimes caught both images and thoughts from the minds he read.

“I don’t want to talk about this here.”

Luc nudged her to follow their brother into the elevator.

The three of them traveled home together in silence. Storm tried to maintain the shield over her thoughts, but her erratic emotions made it hard to hold tight. Already she missed Rafe. He’d talked about a future without saying those exact words. She wanted very much to believe they could be together. But who knew what the future held?

Actually, Luc did. She looked at the back of his head and wondered.

“Don’t even think of asking him,” Thorne warned.

“Would you stop doing that? You don’t like what you see, then keep out.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared unseeingly out the window at the passing scenery. “So what was Rafe thinking about in the conference room?”

“Yeah, what made you almost burst a blood vessel back there?” Luc asked. “Or don’t I want to know?”

Thorne sighed. “Aside from what would burn your eyes and ears out, the man is pretty smitten.”

Luc turned to her brother and frowned. “Smitten? Who the hell talks like that?”

“I don’t. But Jennifer likes the thought of a man
smitten
with her. Apparently, she’s not the only one.” Thorne exhaled a long, drawn-out breath.

Storm flipped her brother the finger, exhilarated at the thought that Rafe really did want her around.

She still didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but the connection she and Rafe shared refused to leave her thoughts. The intimacy between them may have started with the physical, but it had definitely transcended into an emotional bond she didn’t want to lose.

Though he had yet to admit anything of his feelings, she knew, deep down, that he was the one for her. They hadn’t been together long at all, but she could feel the rightness between them. Rafe made her happy, and not because she wanted him to, but because
he
wanted to. They had so much in common in addition to killer physical chemistry.

The integrity, force of will and psychic strength the Buchanans prized resonated in Rafe as well.

“Okay, this is bad.” Thorne sounded put out. “I’m not even trying, but you’re broadcasting something fierce. Storm, please. You’re giving me a headache. Rafe this, Rafe that. I think I’m gonna puke.”

Luc chuckled. Storm smiled with him, because Thorne sounded less annoyed than resigned.

“I can’t help it. I think I love him.”

Luc stopped laughing and slapped a hand over his eyes. “Hell. Don’t tell me we’ll have to welcome another one of Westlake’s guys into the family. Alex’s husband is bad enough.”

“Trust me. Savage is feeling a lot more than brotherly toward our sister. But it’s more than physical, and just saying that makes me want to rip out my own tongue,” Thorne grumbled. His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror before turning back to the road. “He’s really scared for you, Storm. If anything happened to you, I don’t think the guy could go on.”