“He was The Hawk. You weren’t.”
“But I was the successor and she was supposed to be my wife.”
“What are you saying?”
“He called her a delicate flower and said delicate flowers don’t survive. She didn’t survive.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“You didn’t cry from the adrenaline rush,” he says, giving me whiplash with the apparent change of topic. “Most people would have, especially with the baggage you’re carrying.”
“Most people didn’t have a father who made a habit of screaming in their faces to shoot straighter, run harder, and suck it up.”
“I don’t want you to have to shoot straighter, run harder, or suck it up—but the truth is, I need you to do those things.”
“I am those things. Kayden.”
“I know you are.” He holds out his right arm, displaying the tattoo of a box with the king’s chess piece inside, reading the script tracking a line up his powerful forearm. “?‘Once the game is over,’?” he says, “?‘the king and the pawn go back in the same box.’?”
“In life and death we are equal,” I say, and realize I said once before.
He catches my arm at the elbow, resting my bare skin on top of the saying on his arm. “How did you know that?”
“My father,” I say, once again knowing something for no definable reason.
“How?”
“I don’t know.” My brows furrow. “Wait. Do you think he had a connection to The Underground?”
“It’s a long shot, and I don’t have enough to go on. Just the year that he died, and that he had a wife, and a daughter he left behind, with red hair.”
“Would that make me a Hunter?” My eyes go wide, and I dismiss the fleeting memories of being a teacher that just didn’t feel right. “Could David and I have been on a hunt for another division of The Underground, and I was never really engaged to him?”
“I’ve made absolutely certain that you, or any incarnation of you, have no connection to The Underground prior to meeting me. Could you have been working for someone else? I’ve considered it, but turned up nothing.”
He stands and takes me with him. “I need to throw on some clothes and be ready to debrief with Matteo before we go to bed. I’ll have him cautiously do some digging around about your father. But grab some slippers. There’s something I want to show you.”
sixteen
“What is it?” I ask, concerned that the bombshell of Niccolo showing up tonight isn’t the one I face.
“Relax,” he says, brushing my hair behind my ear. “It’s just something special to me.”
“Now I’m really curious,” I say, letting him lead me to the closet. “Where is it? What is it?”
“I left it in my jacket in the other room,” he says, grabbing a long-sleeved gray T-shirt from a hanger and pulling it over his head. “And you have to wait to see.”
Eager to find out what his version of “special” is, I ditch my robe for black leggings and a black sweater, while he pulls on sweats, and it’s not long before we’re stepping into the chilly, creepy hallway.
“I swear I hate this hallway,” I murmur, snuggling close to his side, his arm wrapping my shoulders. “It always gives me a haunted feeling.”
“Ghost and goblins are part of the charm of the place,” he teases. “As is a great kitchen stocked with food, where we are headed. I haven’t had anything I’d call a meal since lunch.” He glances at his watch. “And it’s midnight. No wonder.”
“My stomach is actually growling,” I reluctantly admit, letting him turn me toward our kitchen, but hating that our “special” something is delayed by food. We make it all of two steps through when it hits that I would have noticed the kitchen light being on as it is now, earlier. “Wait,” I say, stopping us, and turning to face him. “You said the kitchen light was on when you got here?”
“Yes. It was.”
“It wasn’t on when I got here,” I say. My brow furrows. “And our bedroom door was open and the light was off when I got here, too, and that didn’t feel right.”