I won’t let that happen.
Liam calls me on the fourth day. “I found something you might be interested in.”
“Don’t tell me someone was fencing a handful of rare diamonds on La Villette because I already heard about that. And questioned the owner of the pawnshop.”
“By questioned do you mean kicked his ass? Because he’s a son of a bitch.”
Yeah, Clef Augustin is a dirty bastard who makes his money selling crack in secondary schools. I made sure to knock him out before I left, but that won’t stop him. He’ll be back on the street corner tonight. “It shouldn’t be possible for a travel blogger to stay this invisible.”
My brother has been helping me look for her from Texas using his contacts. “That’s what I was thinking. So I started asking around about Adam Bisset instead.”
Unease turns my stomach. “Don’t trip the wrong wire, Liam.”
“I’m careful. Anyway, apparently he’s a golden boy at Interpol. Awards and honors, all that shit. No hint that he’s done a damn thing wrong, except that he’s missing.”
I remember his fake French accent. “Make her come,” he said. “Make her come and you can have this.” Then I remember Holly’s voice, small and hoarse. “I’m thirsty. Please.”
He’s a dead man. I promised to kill him, and I will keep that promise.
I let him live in a moment of insanity, but I won’t make that same mistake again.
“What does Bisset have to do with anything?”
“Do you know that he went missing the same time you escaped? The cell phone you’d placed a tracker in went dark. Three of his men turned up dead.”
“Hell. I guess he got spooked and decided to run.”
“That’s good news for the arms deal.”
“The Russians will be pissed. Adam’s made himself powerful enemies.”
“What if he didn’t go on the run alone?”
“You said he killed his men. Three. That’s all of them. Unless… no. You mean London. That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“What if he used her to test your loyalties?”
“There’s a flaw in your logic. Adam kidnapped Holly because he wanted to find the diamonds. Why would he do that if he already had them?”
“For leverage over London? Who knows?”
Holly comes downstairs, and I speak quietly, “I have to go.”
“Be careful. I’ve only just found you. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re just trying to protect your investment,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’m going to work for you.”
When I hang up the phone, Holly comes over to me. She usually only comes down for meals, and then to eat in silence. We ate dinner a couple hours ago. I was about to go upstairs to sleep before my brother called.
“You were talking to Liam?”
“He has some theories about your sister.”
“Do you swear that you’ll keep her safe if you find her?”
I don’t make promises lightly. When I swore to kill Adam Bisset, I meant it with every fiber of my being. I would come back from the grave to complete that. So I won’t promise not to harm London until I’m sure she’ll hand over the diamonds without a fuss. “No.”
Tears swim in dark eyes. “She’s my sister. Please.”
She says please the same way she said it before, when she was held captive in a dank cell. I’m thirsty. Please. Adam Bisset was a monster for making her kiss me to get water. And I’m a monster for making her beg for her sister’s life. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes close, and when she opens them again, there’s a new resolve. “Then I’m asking that you sleep on the couch tonight. Not upstairs. Not in bed with me.”
I want to refuse, to demand rights to her body, to demonstrate my mastery over her. If I can just make her come, I can prove how little her words mean. Except her words mean everything. If she denies me access to her pretty pink cunt, I don’t have the will to force her.
“Holland,” I say, my voice rough.
She shakes her head and turns away.
It feels like I’m losing something precious. Like holding a diamond and watching it dissolve into sand. I catch her before she returns upstairs.
I’m inches away from her.
“Hi,” I say, desperately, half begging. Waiting for her to say, hi back.
Instead she turns and climbs the steps, her shoulders down, her sobs like knives in my ears. This woman is crying because of me. I’m a dragon who flew her to the top of a mountain, far from the water she needs to breathe.
She should hate me. She does.
This is a war that neither of us will win.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Holly
When she wrote the last symbol, all four pages of it, the desk shook.
Such a small victory. Everyone else could make things move without having to work out the mathematical formula. Then again, everyone else wasn’t ordinary. She had lived with her parents’ disappointment for so long, this almost felt like a betrayal.
Why didn’t they teach this in the School for Ordinary Children?
Her textbook contained regular formulas. Only in the margins could she find the ones that made magic. Not only for a single element. For all of them. According to whoever wrote the notes, she would eventually be able to accomplish it without actually writing them down. Thinking would be enough. That made her like her family, didn’t it? She would get to go home.
The next page dashed her hopes.
Don’t tell anyone, the student wrote. They don’t want you to know.
This was strange. She was a disappointment to her family. A mark of shame. Why wouldn’t they be pleased to find out she could make magic, too?
I put down my pen.
Elijah climbs the stairs. I turn my face toward the window, attempting to ignore him. It’s like trying to ignore a hurricane while you stand in the middle of an open field. He batters my senses. I can feel, smell, taste every inch of his muscled body. Memory is a cruel companion.
He appears on the landing, and I spare a glance.
Black slacks and a white button-down. He looks dressed for a date. That’s my first thought. Next I realize how ridiculous that is. This man doesn’t take women on dates unless he’s trying to steal diamonds back from them. “My contact came through,” he says, his voice even. He doesn’t seem affected by my animosity. He’s still as pleasant as ever. “The hacker. She found traces of your sister in east Paris.”
“What does that mean, traces?”
“A digital footprint.”
“Can I come with you?”
A firm shake of his head. “No, I don’t think I could manage both Frank sisters. At least not without hurting you, and I refuse to do that.”
“What a gentleman,” I say, my voice dry.
He’s already hurt me more than I would have thought possible. It seems like my heart would know better than to love a man who’s a thief and a liar. The fact that he does those things in the name of the greater good doesn’t make him any less dangerous to me. His methods don’t take into account the emotions or safety of a regular person.