Oath Bound
Page 15
I turned and pressed my back against the hallway wall so I could see both him and...the old woman asleep in a recliner in the room next to the closet I’d just stepped out of. Her ample chest rose and fell silently. Several melting ice cubes floated in a glass of watered-down tea on the small table next to her.
“Who’s that?”
“My grandmother. She’s a pretty deep sleeper, thanks to her medication, but she will wake up if you keep shouting, and I’d appreciate it if you’d let her sleep.”
“You’re serious?” What kind of armed killer kidnapped strange women and took them home to Grandma? What kind of family was this?
Although, considering the branch of my own family I’d just met, I didn’t really have room to criticize.
He shrugged again and shoved his hands into his pockets, trying to look harmless; but even with his grandmother asleep in the next room, that was impossible to believe. He’d taken down at least four of my aunt’s guards in just a couple of minutes, and his aim at me had never wavered, even with half a dozen guns pointed at him. The man had nerves of steel. He may have been many things—including a devoted grandson—but harmless was not one of them.
Yet he hadn’t laid a hand on me.
“Why am I here? Who are you?” Why would he shoot to wound men who would readily have killed him? Why would he kidnap me at gunpoint, then claim to have no violent motive? Why would he think I knew his name, then refuse to give it to me?
Normally I’d assume I understood the destructive, violent nature of a home invasion. I’d become an unwilling expert on the subject when I’d lost my entire family a few months before, and getting caught in the middle of this one should have sent me over the edge.
But the Tower estate was no ordinary home, and the man in front of me was no ordinary invader. He hadn’t broken in to kill someone, he’d broken in to find someone, and I was inexplicably fixated on the differences between his crime and the one that had shattered my entire reality.
Or maybe I just really needed those differences to exist. Maybe I needed him to have a good reason for what he’d done—what he was still doing—because I hadn’t seen one damn thing in the world worth living for since I’d become an orphan and an only child, well into adulthood.
This man, whoever he was, had something worth living for. Something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for. And I really wanted to know what that was.
“Who were you looking for?” My voice was barely a whisper, but he heard me. In fact, he seemed to hear the need behind the question.
For several seconds he only watched me. Studying me, as if he was trying to decide whether or not he could trust me—an irony, considering that he’d just dragged me through the shadows. Finally he exhaled slowly and met my gaze with a heavy one of his own. “Julia Tower took my little sister, so I broke into the Tower residence to get her back.”
I closed my eyes and an ache radiated from the center of my chest as my own sister’s smile haunted my memory. My next inhalation hurt. I’d never seen his sister and I still didn’t even know his name, but I understood his pain. I would do anything to get Nadia back, if that were possible, but...
“You broke into the Tower estate.” It sounded just as crazy when I said it as when he’d said it. “There are easier ways to kill yourself, you know.” Yet hadn’t I done the same thing—minus all the gunfire?
Another shrug from the man with no name. “I figured that was the last thing they’d expect, thus the thing they’d be least prepared to defend against. Turns out I was right.”
“No, you were lucky.” As was I, but I’d known going in that they’d want to talk to me.
He scowled. “I make my own luck.”
“You nearly made yourself a used-bullet receptacle. When did your sister go missing?” Please, please don’t let his sister be an actual child. Surely he was too old for that. But then again, I’d just met two young siblings of my own...
“She didn’t just ‘go missing.’” He leaned with one shoulder against the wall, two feet from the end of the hallway. “Someone pulled her through the shadows a few minutes before I...met you.”
“Well, then it couldn’t have been Julia. She’s—” At the last second I realized she wouldn’t want me telling strangers what her Skill was. Not that I cared what she wanted, but pissing her off wouldn’t make her any easier to deal with. “She’s not a shadow-walker. Anyway, I was with her when your sister disappeared. It wasn’t Julia.”
“It wasn’t her personally,” he agreed. “She doesn’t do her own dirty work. But my sister was taken on her orders, and Julia knows where she is.”
There wasn’t a single glimmer of doubt in him. Not in his unflinching gaze, his steady voice or the confidence in every word he spoke. And when I considered the bullets flying through that storage closet and Julia’s apparent willingness to slaughter me in cold blood to keep me from inheriting her fortune, it wasn’t hard for me to believe my aunt capable of abduction.
But then, obviously so was the man who’d kidnapped me.
Anger flamed up my spine with the sudden realization of where I fit into his storm-the-castle routine. “So, what, when you couldn’t find your sister, you took me instead? What am I? A hostage?”
“No, I...” His cheeks flushed, and for the first time since he’d dragged me through the shadows, he seemed unsure of what to say. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Who’s that?”
“My grandmother. She’s a pretty deep sleeper, thanks to her medication, but she will wake up if you keep shouting, and I’d appreciate it if you’d let her sleep.”
“You’re serious?” What kind of armed killer kidnapped strange women and took them home to Grandma? What kind of family was this?
Although, considering the branch of my own family I’d just met, I didn’t really have room to criticize.
He shrugged again and shoved his hands into his pockets, trying to look harmless; but even with his grandmother asleep in the next room, that was impossible to believe. He’d taken down at least four of my aunt’s guards in just a couple of minutes, and his aim at me had never wavered, even with half a dozen guns pointed at him. The man had nerves of steel. He may have been many things—including a devoted grandson—but harmless was not one of them.
Yet he hadn’t laid a hand on me.
“Why am I here? Who are you?” Why would he shoot to wound men who would readily have killed him? Why would he kidnap me at gunpoint, then claim to have no violent motive? Why would he think I knew his name, then refuse to give it to me?
Normally I’d assume I understood the destructive, violent nature of a home invasion. I’d become an unwilling expert on the subject when I’d lost my entire family a few months before, and getting caught in the middle of this one should have sent me over the edge.
But the Tower estate was no ordinary home, and the man in front of me was no ordinary invader. He hadn’t broken in to kill someone, he’d broken in to find someone, and I was inexplicably fixated on the differences between his crime and the one that had shattered my entire reality.
Or maybe I just really needed those differences to exist. Maybe I needed him to have a good reason for what he’d done—what he was still doing—because I hadn’t seen one damn thing in the world worth living for since I’d become an orphan and an only child, well into adulthood.
This man, whoever he was, had something worth living for. Something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for. And I really wanted to know what that was.
“Who were you looking for?” My voice was barely a whisper, but he heard me. In fact, he seemed to hear the need behind the question.
For several seconds he only watched me. Studying me, as if he was trying to decide whether or not he could trust me—an irony, considering that he’d just dragged me through the shadows. Finally he exhaled slowly and met my gaze with a heavy one of his own. “Julia Tower took my little sister, so I broke into the Tower residence to get her back.”
I closed my eyes and an ache radiated from the center of my chest as my own sister’s smile haunted my memory. My next inhalation hurt. I’d never seen his sister and I still didn’t even know his name, but I understood his pain. I would do anything to get Nadia back, if that were possible, but...
“You broke into the Tower estate.” It sounded just as crazy when I said it as when he’d said it. “There are easier ways to kill yourself, you know.” Yet hadn’t I done the same thing—minus all the gunfire?
Another shrug from the man with no name. “I figured that was the last thing they’d expect, thus the thing they’d be least prepared to defend against. Turns out I was right.”
“No, you were lucky.” As was I, but I’d known going in that they’d want to talk to me.
He scowled. “I make my own luck.”
“You nearly made yourself a used-bullet receptacle. When did your sister go missing?” Please, please don’t let his sister be an actual child. Surely he was too old for that. But then again, I’d just met two young siblings of my own...
“She didn’t just ‘go missing.’” He leaned with one shoulder against the wall, two feet from the end of the hallway. “Someone pulled her through the shadows a few minutes before I...met you.”
“Well, then it couldn’t have been Julia. She’s—” At the last second I realized she wouldn’t want me telling strangers what her Skill was. Not that I cared what she wanted, but pissing her off wouldn’t make her any easier to deal with. “She’s not a shadow-walker. Anyway, I was with her when your sister disappeared. It wasn’t Julia.”
“It wasn’t her personally,” he agreed. “She doesn’t do her own dirty work. But my sister was taken on her orders, and Julia knows where she is.”
There wasn’t a single glimmer of doubt in him. Not in his unflinching gaze, his steady voice or the confidence in every word he spoke. And when I considered the bullets flying through that storage closet and Julia’s apparent willingness to slaughter me in cold blood to keep me from inheriting her fortune, it wasn’t hard for me to believe my aunt capable of abduction.
But then, obviously so was the man who’d kidnapped me.
Anger flamed up my spine with the sudden realization of where I fit into his storm-the-castle routine. “So, what, when you couldn’t find your sister, you took me instead? What am I? A hostage?”
“No, I...” His cheeks flushed, and for the first time since he’d dragged me through the shadows, he seemed unsure of what to say. “It’s more complicated than that.”
