“Yeah,” Rowan agreed. “It is the only reason he would let her go. He’s never left a victim alive.” Mia’s soft snores filled the air, and Rowan assumed if she’d slept at all while captured, it was her body giving out on her. “But his plan has failed.”
“How so?” Alex asked, crossing her legs.
“This changes nothing,” Rowan answered, letting all the fury fill his voice. “I will never stop hunting him.”
Alex didn’t even pause. “And you won’t be alone.”
Christ, he should want that. Having Alex close had meant more to him than his life since they’d left each other in Paris, but he hesitated. He let his head fall back against the wall and with Mia back in his arms, he didn’t feel the need to hide anything. “This is not your life,” he said. “Hunting serial killers. The danger that presents. That is what I do, not you.”
“Actually, you’re wrong,” she countered. “This is exactly what I do. Sure, it’s not usually involving a serial killer, but I do hunt people.”
“Not people who will do”—he gestured at his sister?
?s injuries—“this.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed as they searched his. “Whatever you’re thinking, Rowan, stop it. I told you, I’m all in on finding this fucker. He’s still got one other woman in his grips, and I’m your best shot at finding him. I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together.”
He held her stare for a long moment. This incredible woman who once turned him so inside out that he ran from her. Now, he no longer wanted to run. He saw into the dark bowels of life. Alex was a bright spot he was determined to make permanent. “Are we in this together?”
Color rushed into her cheeks. She glanced away for a moment before looking at him again. “Rowan, I—”
The door swung open, and Rowan stiffened, his muscles seizing to unleash his wrath as Carl Lewis entered the room.
Alex slowly rose and turned, placing herself next to Rowan, with her back to the wall.
“I’m aware my timing is terrible,” said Lewis, entering the room, as cool and collected as he always was when he appeared at a news conference.
Rowan’s arms instinctively tightened around Mia, keeping her safe and far away from this animal. Lewis’s hard stare swept over Rowan then Alex before he looked at Mia with pity. “I’m so very glad to hear of Mia’s safe return to you.”
Rowan had to swallow the rage rising in his throat and keep himself from lunging at Lewis. Until Alex slid a hand on his shoulder, and a warm comfort washed over him. Her touch reminded him he needed to play the game smart. Lewis had a brilliant mind; they needed to be smarter to catch him. Rowan couldn’t bring himself to say anything in response, so he gave a firm nod.
Mia stirred then, and Rowan clamped his arms around her, waiting for her to lose it at the sight of the man who brutalized her. She slowly lifted her head and then looked right at Lewis.
He gave her a tender smile. The motherfucker. “Hello, Ms. Hawke,” Lewis said in a gentle, soothing voice. “I’m FBI Director Lewis.”
“Hello,” Mia said in a sleepy voice.
Rowan caught Alex’s brows furrowing with the same confusion of his own. Why didn’t Mia recognize Lewis?
Lewis took a step closer toward the bed, shoved his hands into his pockets, and jingled his keys. “Under normal circumstances, I would never be here, but with a woman still missing, I’m afraid I must press the matter. Is there anything you can tell me that will bring us closer to finding her?”
Rowan let the prick come, hoping if he got close enough that Mia would recognize him. By scent. By familiarity. By anything. Then Rowan could kill him.
But Mia didn’t even flinch, relaxing more into Rowan’s hold. She looked up at Rowan, and he gave a soft nod for her to speak. Maybe her memories were blocked. If she spoke, perhaps she’d remember Lewis, then.
“I was kept underground somewhere,” Mia explained with a slight quiver to her voice, and Rowan tightened his arms around her when she began trembling. “I couldn’t tell you where. Just that I was underground.”
“And what of the person who took you there?”
Alex snorted, outright snorted.
Lewis lifted an eyebrow at her. “Problem, Ms. McCoy?”
She covered herself by rubbing her nose. “Sorry, it’s the smell here; it’s terrible.”
Lewis’s eyes narrowed enough for Rowan to know that Alex got under his skin, though it was gone so fast that if he hadn’t been looking closely, he would have missed it. Lewis’s mask of concern was put firmly back into place when he addressed Mia again. “You couldn’t identify him or her?”
“Him,” Mia said, her voice squeaking slightly, the harsh memories obviously hitting her.