He takes my hand and turns it over to reveal the newly inked hawk on my wrist, a perfect match for his except for the pink-etched wings. “This says that I will always put you first. It says you will never be my enemy.” He joins our hands and connects our wrists, our hawks. “You are a part of me now.”
“As you are of me,” I say, my voice raspy with love for this man who has seen my worst and barely knows my best, and yet I know he would die for me. That thought brings worries to mind that he doesn’t give me time to express, lacing his fingers with mine.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“What about Blake Walker and his wife?” I ask, reminded of Walker Security, the team Sara had hired to find me. “Did they disappear as quickly as they showed up?”
“They know you’re safe now,” he says. “And at this point, any further conversation needs to come after I’ve had time to check them out. Your friend might trust him, but I also need to trust him, and so do you.”
“Agreed,” I say, and I do not miss the way he makes this about us, not him, never throwing his role of Hawk in my face unless it concerns someone’s safety. “How did he react to you questioning him?”
“He offered me references that he’s sending by email, but what I care about most is what he won’t willingly hand over.”
“The stuff Matteo can find by hacking.”
“Exactly,” he confirms. “I’ve already called him, but my gut feeling is that Blake Walker is legit, right along with Sara’s new husband, Chris Merit.”
“Please tell me you don’t think he’s after the necklace? That can’t be. It can’t. He came into her life after I left.” Yet as surely as I say the words, I know that might not matter.
“I’m just being safe, sweetheart.”
“Right. That’s good. And Blake Walker hiring The Jackals to help find me? How bad is their involvement?”
“It’s not good,” he says, holding nothing back, which I appreciate. “Their leader, Alessandro, is a low-life scum who has no loyalty to any client. He’ll pass the same information he gave Blake on to another paying client if he becomes aware you’re being looked for.”
“As in Garner Neuville,” I supply, now knowing exactly who the man in my flashbacks is. No. The monster in my flashbacks. He is no man. “You can say his name,” I add. “He won’t make me cower, Kayden. I won’t give him that power.”
His eyes warm with obvious pride and he cups my head, kissing my forehead. “Of that, sweetheart, I have no doubt.” He inches back to look at me, his hands settling at my waist. “I’ll handle Alessandro. You have my word.”
“Handle him how?”
“Depends on how dirty he plays—which means I have plans to make, and we need to get out of here.” He folds my arm at the elbow and settles our joined hands between us. “I sent Giada home,” he says, reminding me I was playing big sister to Adriel’s sister when all this happened.
“I’m going to have to make this up to her,” I say, “but getting out of here and forming a plan both sound good to me.”
“Giada will get over it,” he assures me. “I have a car waiting for us.”
I nod, and eagerly let him guide me into the hallway and down the stairs. I want a plan. I want control. I want all these holes in my memories filled in and I need to do whatever is necessary to ensure that happens, and standing in place isn’t the answer. We exit into the hallway and Kayden leads me down the stairs, and while the way our hands meld together so easily speaks of how connected we are, I can’t help but feel that we could be ripped apart at any given moment. And he feels it, too. It’s in the hard lines of his body, in the slight tightening of his grip on mine, as he leads me through the retail area of the shooting range, where he gives several people waves but doesn’t stop walking.
We pause at the exit, where a man hands Kayden his gray and black biker jacket, which he slips on before helping me with my black Chanel trench coat I don’t even remember removing. How very non-CIA of me, I think. But the amnesia and flashbacks of my past seem to remove me from the present, a problem I’m hopeful that I’m close to removing from my life, and Kayden’s. I’m so close to having me back, minus my red hair that will remain dark brown as long as Garner Neuville lives. I want to kill him. Another very non-CIA feeling. But if I am CIA, where were they when I was lying in that alleyway where Kayden saved me? Where were they when I was tied between two poles, being beaten by a whip? But then, maybe I didn’t want to be saved. Maybe I just wanted that monster behind bars. And yet . . . why would the CIA be involved with the mob? The FBI prefers to take the lead on mob activity, despite some crossover. And how do I know that if I’m not CIA?
Kayden grabs the door for me and I exit into the chilly February air of Rome, still trying to make sense of where I fit into that picture. Kayden’s next to me in an instant, his arm draping my shoulders, his big body sheltering me from an early-evening wind, while tourists bustle in the shopping area neighboring the Spanish Steps. He motions forward and to the cobblestone street to our left, where I spot a black Mercedes. Adriel exits the driver’s door facing us, running fingers through his dark hair, and I’d bet he’s hiding a weapon under his sleek, fitted brown leather jacket and another at his ankle.
We’re almost to the car when a limo pulls to the curb in front of the Mercedes, and I immediately know who it is. “Niccolo,” I say as two goons in trench coats exit from either side of the car, a chill of foreboding running down my spine.
“Yes,” Kayden agrees, his hand slipping away from my shoulder, no doubt to free it for his weapon. “He uses impromptu meetings as a way to ensure he’s in control, and that everyone else is unsteady.”
In turn, my hand has settled under my coat where my purse rests at my hip, my fingers tugging the zipper open, then discreetly finding the cold steel handle of “Annie.” Adriel steps to my opposite side from Kayden at the same moment, and one of the men stops a foot in front of us and center, which means directly in line with me, but he looks at Kayden.
“Niccolo would like to talk with you a moment,” he says, but his gaze then flicks to me. “And you.”
“Come with me, Ella,” Adriel orders, his hand going to my arm.
“Ella stays with me,” Kayden says, and I can feel the instant, silent resistance in Adriel. He knows nothing of my involvement with the necklace they all hunt, and Niccolo wants to find it before anyone else. But Niccolo knows, and should I avoid him now, it will look as if I have remembered where it is but wish to hide it from him. The reality is that I have no
t remembered. And while I would never hand it over to Niccolo, at present I am not hiding it from him, and at least for now, that message is one I can look him in the eye and deliver. A message that this meeting allows me to deliver—and, in fact, buys us time to find the necklace and ensure he never gets his criminal hands on it.
I step forward, aligning my boots with Kayden’s, silently offering my agreement, though it’s not needed. Niccolo’s goon has already taken Kayden’s word as gold, and is now walking back toward the limo. Kayden doesn’t look at me, nor me at him, both of us focused on the back door of the limo. We step forward in unison, connected in ways that go beyond our personal bond that I understand now, but hadn’t before; nor, I suspect, had he. We both know danger. We both know the importance of keeping our eyes on the danger ahead, along with who and what awaits us is in this limo. We both don’t intend to be the ones who fall, if someone has to take a hit.