Fire (Deceit and Desire Book 2) Page 7

  Oh…they didn’t know.

  I smiled at him, then slid my gaze to Suria’s father. “You know, you really should find out just what a man wants, what a man knows…” Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to hedge my bets, I added, “Who a man has already told before you go making big decisions.”

  “What does that mean?” Duke asked. He glanced over at Suria’s father. “Gabriel, who is this boy? What does he want?”

  “He doesn’t know.” I moved a little closer, letting my hands fall to my sides. “Now…go get Suria, or I might just change my mind. I’ll go to the police station now…and I’ll be back for her later.”

  Gabriel went to argue, but Vano cut him off. “Get the girl, Gabriel. This boy wants to play his games? Sure, we will let him play his games.” He looked like a snake as he stood there, all menacing, cold eyes.

  But I’d be damned if I let him intimidate me. That shit might work on girls who’d been forced to live their entire lives under his thumb, but that wasn’t me.

  Taut moments of silence passed before the door finally opened again. Suria appeared in it, and when she saw me, her eyes widened.

  “Kian!”

  Gabriel gripped her arm so tightly, I could see the bones of his knuckles jutting out against his skin.

  I held out a hand toward her, resisting the urge to tear her away from him.

  Gabriel hesitated, looking toward Vano.

  Vano eyed me, then shrugged.

  Gabriel let her go.

  “You need to–”

  I kissed her before she could even finish the sentence. She wasn’t telling me to leave. I wasn’t leaving her here to fight this alone.

  Keeping the kiss short, I reached for her hand. Her eyes misted over as she asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Exactly what I said I’d do.” I tugged her in closer before looking over at Vano and her father. “I want you to get Joelle and bring her out here. Do that, and I won’t go to the cops.”

  “You will kidnap one of our children, and you tell me you won’t go to the cops?” Vano laughed, the sound sharp and dangerous like a knife’s edge. “You know, you still haven’t said just what it is you will go to the police over.”

  “Theft, for one.”

  Suria flinched, but I squeezed her arm gently. From the corner of my eye, I saw her father’s face tighten, and I met his gaze with a stare as cold as anybody else’s in the room. “I know how you all work. You used Suria to get to my mother, to steal from her. Suria’s ready to talk to the cops, and I’ve got a friend in the department. They’ll cut her a deal for all the dirt she’ll turn over on you. Or…you can avoid all of that and let Joelle and Suria leave with me now.”

  “And what if we don’t let Suria leave?” Vano took a step forward. “Your plan is no good without her.”

  “Nah. The plan is plenty good. And if she wants to leave and you stop her, then you’re breaking another law there. But I’m sure Suria is the meek and mild type who’d never dare mention that she was forced to do something against her will…right?”

  It might have been funny if the whole situation wasn’t damn near explosive. Just saying meek and mild in the same sentence with Suria’s name was laughable.

  But these goons weren’t laughing. And Vano’s face was no longer set in an unreadable, implacable mask. No, he was pissed, his eyes snapping, a faint red flush burning under the olive gold of his skin. “You seem to know our Suria well,” he said, voice remarkably calm.

  The door creaked open, and several other men trickled into the room, fanning out around us. The biggest of them leaned in to murmur to Vano. I didn’t hear Vano’s reply, but I could tell by the way the big guy smiled that I wouldn’t have liked what I heard anyway.

  The big guy took a step in our direction, and Suria caught my arm, forcing me to back up with her.

  “You heard what he said,” Suria told Vano. “You can’t make me stay here if I don’t want to be here. And I will go to the police if you try. You can’t watch me forever.”

  Vano’s lids flickered, his mouth going tight.

  And the big guy kept coming.

  She looked up at me, and her thoughts were stamped so plainly on her features, they might as well have been written in ink on her forehead.

  We needed to get the hell out of there.

  Fourteen

  Suria

  The sight of Kian caused my heart to leap into my chest, but it immediately sank to the vicinity of the floor when I caught sight of Vano and Duke. I recognized that look on Vano’s face. That flat, implacable mask.

  He was enraged.

  Catching Kian’s gaze, I hurried toward him. “You need to–”

  Kian cut my words off with a quick, hard kiss, one that left my head spinning. Okay, so he wasn’t in the mood to be told to leave. But… “What are you doing here?”

  “Exactly what I said I’d do.” He hugged me in closer before looking over at Vano and my father. “I want you to get Joelle and bring her out here. Do that, and I won’t go to the cops.”

  They began to argue, but I heard very little of it. Instead, I focused on the men’s faces as words like “police” and “theft” echoed on the air. I had to suppress a shiver as I stood next to him, my fingers clutching at his arm tight, as if that connection was all that grounded me.

  The door creaked open, and I had to stifle a moan as the other elders came into the room. The biggest of them, Georgio, went straight to Vano, and they spoke softly. Georgio’s smile was enough to make my blood run cold.

  We had to get out of there.

  I shot Kian a look and hoped he could pick up on what I was thinking.

  As Georgio moved toward us, the two of us backed a step away.

  “You heard what he said,” I told Vano. “You can’t make me stay here if I don’t want to be here. And I will go to the police if you try. You can’t watch me forever.”

  Vano’s expression tightened, but Georgio kept coming.

  I shot Kian another look, and I saw the moment he understood my meaning. As if we were both one person, we turned on our heels. Papa yelled out behind me as we took off for the door, but I didn’t stop.

  The table near the door held my heavy purse. I grabbed it, reassured by the weight of it. The money was still inside.

  We made it to the car before the rest of them caught up, and as I locked the doors, Kian demanded, “What about your sister?”

  My heart hammered in my chest, fear and total despair filling me. But underneath it all was…hope. I wasn’t alone now. Kian was with me. I had help.

  “We’ll figure out another way,” I told him. “They’d never just let her leave.”

  He nodded and jammed the key into the ignition, starting the car with a savage twist of his wrist. But he didn’t pull forward. With his eyes on the rearview mirror, he backed up, moving with a speed that had my heart lurching in my throat.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Making sure they don’t see my license plate,” he replied. Once he reached the end of the street a few hundred yards down, he did a three-point turn.

  The elders and Papa were still running after us, but Vano just stood there.

  By the time I caught sight of them in the side view mirrors, they were so small, I couldn’t make out who was who, except for Georgio and that was just because he stood head and shoulders above the others.

  “Where are we going?” I asked softly.

  “Away from here.”

  Well, that was vague.

  But it was good enough for me.

  Closing my eyes, I slumped in the seat. “I can’t believe you came for me.”

  His hand covered mine and tears thickened my throat as he laced our fingers together. “I told you I’d help you. I meant it.”

  We left behind the run-down neighborhood that had been my home for the past several years. I couldn’t stop myself from shooting furtive glances at every car we passed, at everyone who passed us.

  “You l
ook like you’re expecting the hounds of hell to come chasing after us.”

  “If Vano thinks it will do him any good, he’ll call out those hounds,” I told him. Turning my head, I looked at his profile, watching him as he wound in and out of the LA traffic. He handled the car with supreme confidence, his eyes roaming from the road in front of him to the rearview mirrors and back in a never-ending pattern. “You’re watching to make sure we weren’t followed, aren’t you?”

  He hitched up a shoulder in a shrug. “Keeping an eye out, maybe. So far, I don’t see anything that worries me. Should I be concerned?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” Nibbling on my thumbnail, I went back to staring out the passenger door. “Vano has a personal rule about not involving the gadje in anything that has to do with the clan. He’s fine with suckering outsiders for money, but that’s the extent of the involvement. He doesn’t trust them and the more involvement there is, the more likely something like…” I glanced at him and passed a hand back and forth between us. “Well, look at you and me. You made the scariest threat he could imagine, going to the police. He has a few cops on his payroll, but none of them are very high up the food chain, I don’t think.”

  Kian slanted a quick look at me. “I know a cop or two. And the one I mentioned talking to is damn high up on the food chain. If we need to go to the cops, we’ll go to him.”

  I resisted the urge to ask who it was.

  I didn’t want to involve anybody else in the drama that was my family and clan. And if part of it was out of loyalty, then…well, it was hard to cut the cords so completely, even if all they had done was raise me and feed me. Very little love had ever been involved in my childhood. Maybe my mother had loved me, but she’d been gone so long, even the faintest memories I had of her were more like impressions.

  “Suria.”

  Kian’s voice came to me in the quiet cocoon of the car, and I looked over at him. He still held my hand, and as I watched, he lifted it to his lips, kissing the back.

  “This is all going to work out, baby. Okay?”

  I gave him a weak smile. It was all I could summon up right then.

  Fifteen

  Kian

  “Hey, have some faith,” I told her, injecting a teasing note into my voice as I merged into the fast lane. Traffic was moving at a somewhat decent pace, and the drive had helped clear my head.

  Suria’s frustration and her obvious fear was clouding it again, though.

  That fear was enough to gut me.

  Nobody should have to carry the burdens she did.

  “I promise you,” I said, squeezing her hand. “We’re going to help Joelle.”

  I just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

  Pushing that thought aside, I put my thoughts on the concrete instead and asked, “When do you think they’ll try to make this wedding happen?”

  “In the next few days,” Suria said and shot me a look. “She’ll need a dress, they need food…they couldn’t do any of that until they had Joelle back, but once they had her, they would have kicked everything into overdrive.”

  “You’re sure they won’t do it today?” I asked her.

  “Not positive,” she hedged. “But pretty sure. The clan likes to make everything into a party. A big party is hard to do in a matter of hours, even if one of the bigger families are calling all the shots.”

  “Is yours one of the bigger families?”

  She snorted. “Hell, no.” She shot me a dark look, one lightened only slightly by the smirk that curled her lips. “We’re bottom of the barrel. Papa never had much to offer to the clan, and it’s all about power and money to Vano. But he did have something to offer a man looking for a bride.”

  “Your sister.”

  Her mouth tightened. So did the hand still gripping mine. “Yes. My sister.”

  I gritted my teeth, my fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “Damn them.”

  She averted her gaze. Softly, she said, “I told Papa I’d do it. I’d marry the bastard if he would just leave Joelle alone. But Papa liked the money I made a little too well, and he wouldn’t risk sharing it. If I were to marry, my husband would get the larger cut instead of my father.”

  “Why aren’t you getting the larger cut?” I asked, irritated by the idea even as I understood the cut she was talking about had to do with the money she conned people out of.

  “Because I’m a woman.” She shoved a hand through her hair and shot me an edgy look. “It’s not like this with all of the Rom, but my clan is incredibly backward. Women are tools to be used in marriages between the families. We’re bartering chips. It’s like the past century hasn’t even happened. I’ve heard that many other clans are different now, but Vano likes things the way they are. Hell, he’d still be all for marrying thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds off if he thought he could get away with it.”

  The very idea turned my stomach, but I kept silent because she was still talking.

  “A lot of the people my age can’t read anything over a ninth-grade level. They were homeschooled, and the word inadequate comes to mind. Joelle and I went to public schools, but that’s because Papa didn’t want to be bothered with having us homeschooled, and we didn’t have a mother around.”

  “What happened to your mom?” I asked.

  “I told you. She died when I was very young. Papa doesn’t talk about it.” She tugged her hand free of mine and reached up to swipe under her eyes. When she linked her hands together in her lap, I let it go although I missed the connection. “I’m the closest thing Joelle has to a mother. Fuck, I can’t let this happen.”

  “We aren’t going to let it, Suri,” I said.

  She sniffed and rested her head on the padded headrest. After a few moments of silence, she said, “There’s something I want to take care of. I’d like to talk to your mother.”

  I tensed. “Why?”

  “Because I need to,” she said simply. “I have to fix what I did. Will you take me to her?”

  My gut instinct was to say no. Even though I understood her reasons, even though my mother seemed to do the same, my gut wanted to say no.

  But sometimes, the gut doesn’t speak the same language as the heart. Shooting a look at the clock, I said, “It will take close to an hour to get to her place from here. That okay?”

  She gave me a wan smile. “I don’t have any place to go, Kian. And I mean that…literally.”

  Mom was out in front of her condo, working on her small garden when Suria and I approached.

  She rose, spying me first, and a smile lit up her face.

  Then she saw Suria, and the smile faded.

  Another one took its place, the polite, guarded smile she reserved for strangers.

  At least it was a smile.

  Suria didn’t let it affect her. She edged past me on the sidewalk and approached my mother as Mom rose and took off the gardening gloves. “Hello, Ms. Robson,” she said, her voice level, no longer the quiet, uncertain tone she’d been using with me. “I hope you don’t mind that Kian brought me over without calling first. I needed to speak with you.”

  “Is that a fact?” Mom looked over at me, a brow cocked up in an elegant arch. She studied me a moment, then looked back to Suria.

  “Yes.” Suria’s shoulders went stiff, as if she were bracing herself. Then she continued, “I want to apologize for what I did. I could tell you a hundred reasons why I did it, but none of them are good enough and I–”

  “I know why you did it,” Mom interrupted. She dropped the gloves down on the wrought iron table next to where she stood and folded her hands in front of her. “Kian told me.”

  “He…” Suria shot me a look. “He told you.”

  “Yes.” Mom angled her head to the side, her gaze insightful.

  I knew what it was like to be the recipient of that look, to feel like she could see clear through you. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

  Suria looked away, and I could see the hot flush coloring her cheeks.

  �
��Would it help if I told you that if I was in the position you were in, I think I likely would have acted the same way?”

  Suria’s head flew back around, and she looked at my mother, surprise all over her face. “You…no. No, you wouldn’t.”

  “If I was in your position, I likely would have,” Mom said again. She shrugged and moved over to one of the chairs at the table, sitting down. “I’ve never been in your position, but I know what it’s like to be without resources, to be without choices. It’s not a good feeling. It can make a woman feel quite desperate.”

  She flicked a look at me, a faint smile curling her lips now. “And I know what it’s like to have somebody in my life that I’d do anything to protect, Suria. And I’ve been desperate before. If lying, stealing, cheating…any of that would have let me save my brother?” She shrugged. “I would have done it in a heartbeat.”

  Suria shook her head. “I don’t understand you.”

  “There’s not much to understand. I simply put myself in your shoes and tried to imagine what I’d do.” Mom shrugged, still smiling that same small smile. “And I found that I couldn’t blame you. So…” She held out a hand, and I watched as Suria moved close enough for Mom to take hers. “I forgive you.”

  Suria’s shoulders jerked, and panic hit me hard and fast. Please don’t let her be crying.

  Mom rose from the chair and wrapped an arm around the smaller woman, hugging her in tight. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

  Pained, I fought the urge to disappear inside the condo so Mom could handle this, but Suria had just sucked up her pride to apologize. I could suck up my discomfort at the sight of a woman close to tears – or maybe even crying – and just stand there like a useless asshole.

  A faint sniffle sounded in the air, then Suria pulled away. “You’re very kind, Ms. Robson.”

  “It’s Tamara,” Mom corrected. She laid a hand on Suria’s cheek. “Sweetheart, you look exhausted. When was the last time you had a good night’s rest?”