“Because all of the men--including the one who came here last night--had a similar mark on the backs of their right hands.” He took out his comm unit and brought a photo up on the display. “This tattoo, Nova.”
She didn’t want to look, but there was no avoiding it. Glancing down, she saw the heavy black shape of a tattoo she recognized instantly. “It looks like a beetle. A scarab.”
“Yes,” Mathias said grimly. “Ever seen it before?”
She shook her head, preferring his suspicious gaze over the sight of the dead man’s washed-out skin and its ugly mark. “I told you earlier tonight, in my line of work, it’s best not to pay too close attention to what people have on them.”
He made a dubious sound in the back of his throat. “I know what you told me. I also know there were six unidentified bodies chilling in the morgue with bullets in their heads before we pulled up their friend tonight. If you can shed some light on where they came from, or who they are--”
“I can’t,” she blurted.
Too fast, because his shrewd gaze went a bit colder then.
“I trusted you tonight, Nova,” he said after her silence stretched out between them. “I want you to know that you can trust me too.”
She scoffed and went back to straightening her station. “Is that what this was about--some kind of exercise to win my trust? You don’t have enough time or skin for that, vampire.”
He moved so fast, she wasn’t even aware he was on his feet before his strong hands took hold of her shoulders.
Gently--so tenderly, it shocked her--he turned her around to face him. His pale green eyes flashed with sparks of amber as his temper spiked. “If I wanted to force you into coming clean with me about anything, I have far more effective methods than letting you scrape me with needles and ink for the past two hours.”
She let her chin lift, defiance surging through her, almost as powerful as the sheer panic that gripped her at his threat. But he’d never see her fear. She’d give that to no one ever again. “I’m not afraid of anything you can do to me. Believe me, it’s already been done.”
She’d run too far, worked too hard to start over. She’d left all of the pain and horror behind her, refusing to let the demons she’d barely escaped ever have the chance to catch up to her again.
But they had.
They’d caught up to her last night, when a drunken thug wandered into the shop and threatened to tear open the vault of awful secrets she’d carried inside her for most of her life.
And she had to remember that someone like Mathias Rowan could smash that door open in ways no other man could. For all she knew, he could be playing her now, trying to make her trust him only so he could betray her when it served him.
If he found out the truth, he could send her back to that place. Back to the monster who had taken so much from her--everything, in fact.
Nova would die before she let herself fall back into her tormentor’s hands.
She would kill before she let that happen.
The body retrieved from the river last night was proof enough of that.
“Christ,” Mathias murmured softly, as if sensing the burden she carried. “Who was it that hurt you? Tell me, and I’ll make them pay.”
He reached out to her, his blunt fingertips lightly grazing her cheek. She pulled away at once. “I think you should leave now, Mathias.”
He didn’t speak for a long moment. Didn’t move.
Then he blew out a rough curse. “Yes, it will be for the best if I go now.”
He moved away from her and put his shirt back on. As he dressed, Nova walked to the shop’s front door and opened it. If he didn’t leave soon, she wasn’t sure she could trust herself to let him go.
He crossed the room, pausing in front of her. His sensual mouth was tense, amber light still glowing in irises.
He wanted her, possibly as much as he wanted the truth.
The knowledge should have terrified her. Instead it left her heart pounding frantically in her breast, all the air in the room charged with a current of anticipation. Of heated understanding.
When Mathias spoke, his deep voice was thick, little more than a growl of sound. “What do I owe you for your work?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, forcing herself to hold his knowing gaze. “I don’t want anything from you.”