Crave (Fallen Angels 2)

"I'm right here," Isaac growled. "And I'm a little twitchy at the moment. So how about you don't handle your daughter like that again, and I'll consider not opening the freezer section with your face."

He expected Grier to pull a let-him-go, but she did no such thing. She just took a box of Band-Aids out from under the sink and fiddled around choosing the right size.

Her father heaved a deep breath. "Get away . . . from my daughter."

"He's just fine where he is," she answered, as she wrapped a strip around her index finger. Then she put the box away and crossed her arms over her chest. "You, however, can leave."

Isaac briefly frisked her father's fancy-ass sweater and superpressed pants, and when he didn't find a weapon, he stepped away, but stayed close. He had a feeling the guy had gotten physical because he was scared to death and about to crack--but no one handled Isaac's woman like that. Period--

Not that Grier was his woman. Of course not.

Damn it.

"You know you're giving her a death sentence," Childe said, his eyes boring into Isaac's. "You know what he's capable of. He owns you and he'll mow down whoever he has to in order to get to you."

"Nobody owns anybody," Grier cut in. "And--"

Mr. Childe didn't spare his daughter a glance as he cut her off. "Give yourself up, Rothe--it's the only way to be sure he doesn't hurt her."

"That man's not going to do anything to me--"

Childe wheeled around on Grier. "He already killed your brother!"

In the aftermath of that drama bomb, it was as if someone had slapped her--except there was no one to hold back from her, no guy to yank free and disarm and immobilize. And as Grier went white, Isaac felt a paralyzing impotence. You couldn't protect people from events that had already happened; there was no rewriting history.

Or . . . people, either. Which was the root of so many problems, wasn't it.

"What . . . did you say?" she whispered.

"That was no accidental overdose." Childe's voice cracked. "He was killed by the same man who's going to come after you unless he gets this soldier back. There is no negotiating, no bargaining, no terms to trade. And I can't--" The man started to break down, proving that money and class were no protection against tragedy. "I can't lose you as well. Oh, God, Grier . . . I can't lose you, too. And he will do it. That man will take your life in the blink of an eye."

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

As Grier braced herself against the counter, she was having trouble processing what her father had said. The words had been short and simple. The meaning, however . . .

She was half-aware that he was still talking, but she'd gone deaf after, "That was no accidental overdose." Stone deaf.

"Daniel . . ." She had to clear her throat as she cut in. "No, Daniel did it himself. He'd OD'd at least twice before. He . . . It was the addiction. He--"

"The needle in his arm was put there by someone else."

"No." She shook her head. "No. I was the one who found him. I called nine-one-one and--"

"You found the body . . . but I saw it happen." Her father let out a sob. "He made me . . . watch."

As her father buried his face in his hands and lost it completely, her vision flickered in and out like someone was playing disco with the lights in the kitchen. And then her knees went loose and--

Something caught her. Kept her from hitting the floor. Saved her.

The world spun . . . and she realized she'd been picked up and was being carried over to the couch across the way.

"I can't breathe," she said to no one in particular. Wrenching at the neckline of her shirt, she gasped. "I can't . . . breathe. . . ."

Next thing she knew, Isaac was putting a paper bag up to her mouth. She tried to bat it away, but her arms just flopped uselessly and she was forced to breathe into the thing.

"You need to shut the f**k up," Isaac said to somebody. "Right now. Pull it together, my man, and zip it up good."

Was he talking to her father? Maybe.

Probably.

Oh, God . . . Daniel? And her father had been forced to see it happen?

Questions that needed answers did more for her than the carbon dioxide influx. Shoving the bag away, she pushed herself up.

"How? Why?" She shot both of them hard stares. "And listen, I'm already pretty damn deep in this situation, right? So some explanations are not going to hurt--they will, however, keep me from going insane."

Isaac's jaw got to grinding, like his foot was being chewed raw by a Doberman but he didn't want to let a scream out.

Not her problem. "I will go insane," she said before turning to her father. "Do you hear me? I can't live like this for one minute, one second . . . one moment longer. Not after that bombshell. You'd better start talking. Now." Her father all but fell into the armchair beside her, as if he were ninety years old and making the descent to his deathbed. But just as he had not cared about the cut on her hand, she didn't grant him any mercies--and that was a shame. They had always been alike, in tune, of one mind. Tragedies, secrets, and lies, however, frayed even the closest of ties.

"Talk," she demanded. "Now."

Her father looked at Isaac, not her. But at least when Isaac shrugged and cursed, she knew she was going to get a story. Although probably not the story.

And how sad not to be able to trust her own father.

His voice was not strong when he finally began to speak. "I was first recruited to join XOps back in 1964. I was graduating from West Point and I was approached by a man who identified himself as Jeremiah. No last name. The thing I remember most about the meeting was how anonymous he was--he looked more like an accountant than a spy. He said there was an elite military arm that I qualified for and asked if I would be interested in learning more. When I wanted to know why me--after all, I was third in the class, not first--he said grades were not everything."

Her father paused for quite a while, as if he were remembering the exchange nearly fifty years later word for word. "I was interested, but ultimately I said no. I'd already joined the army as an officer and it seemed dishonorable to pull out of the commitment. I didn't see him again . . . until seven years later, when I had transitioned back into civilian life and was getting out of law school. I don't know why I said yes exactly . . . but I was getting married to your mother, and I was joining the family firm . . . and it felt like my life was over. I craved excitement, and there didn't seem . . ." He frowned and abruptly glanced over at her. "This is not to suggest that I didn't love your mother. I just needed . . . something more."

Ah, but she knew how he felt. She lived with that same itch for an edge that ordinary life didn't seem to offer.

The consequences of feeding it, however? Not worth it, she was coming to believe.

Her father took out a monogrammed handkerchief and dried his eyes. "I told Jeremiah--the man who had come to see me--that I couldn't disappear from life altogether, but that I was interested in something, anything else. That's how it started. Eventually, I was regularly going on intelligence missions overseas and our law firm gave me leeway because I was the founder's grandson. I never knew the full scope of the assignments I was given as an operative . . . but from newspapers and television, I was aware that there were consequences. That actions were taken against certain inpiduals--"

"You mean murders," she cut in bitterly.

"Assassinations."

"Like there's a difference?"

"There is." Her father nodded. "Murders are purposeless."

"The result is the same."

When he didn't say anything else, she was so not willing to have the story end there. "What about Daniel."

Her father exhaled long and slow. "About seven or eight years into it, it dawned on me that I was a part of something I couldn't live with. The phone calls, the people coming to the house, the trips that would last for days, weeks . . . to say nothing of the consequences of my actions. I stopped being able to sleep or concentrate. And God, the toll on your mother had been tremendous and it impacted the two of you as well--you were both young then, but you recognized the tensions and the absences. I started trying to get out." Her father's eyes flipped to Isaac. "That's when I discovered . . . that you don't get out. Looking back on it, I was naive . . . so damned naive. I should have known better, given what I'd been asked to do, but I'd gotten caught up in it all. Still, I had no choice. It was killing your mother . . . she was drinking heavily. And then Daniel started . . ."