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And in the next instant, I heard a lock engage.
I wasn’t just the woman he wanted to protect. I was also his prisoner.
CHAPTER 21
Diego
After grabbing a shirt from the guest room where I’d relocated some of my things, allowing the defiant, infuriating woman to have the master bedroom so she could recuperate, I’d all but barked orders to have food brought up to Sabrina to one of the two women who kept my house spotless and my meals cooked, since I was lousy at that as well as seemingly so many other things.
Such as understanding and embracing compassion.
Goddamn it. Why was this so fucking difficult. I jerked on the long-sleeved linen, huffing as I rolled both sleeves up past my elbows, barely fastening a single button in front before taking long strides down the hallway.
The woman had a distinct way of crawling under my skin. Damn her. Damn the situation. And damn the fact I couldn’t get her off my mind even for a single minute.
Both Dante and his Capo raised their eyebrows when I stormed into my office. Only Ivan had the good sense to remain benign, his bland expression unreadable. I paced the floor behind my desk for a full twenty seconds before sweeping my arm across the surface, tossing everything on top to the floor. The cracking sound as one of my laptops smashed against the hard surface was not nearly as rewarding as I’d hoped.
Sabrina’s actions had created a primal surge from deep within, the kind of aching need that swept through me like a tidal wave. It was difficult to comprehend why this woman, the very one who’d been able to break through my formidable armor, had ignited the dark passion within me, but there was no denying my intense yearning.
She was mine.
Just thinking the words was ridiculous. Formulating them into a sentence, spouting it off to her while she lay recuperating said something about the heartless man I’d become. As the last of the papers that had been in a stack on my desk slowly floated to the floor, I hung my head. Two days had passed and I was no closer to determining who the hell had been behind the attacks. Two fucking days. I’d lost my edge, the one that had not only boosted my power but up until this point had kept me alive.
“Are you finished throwing a tantrum?” Dante asked quietly.
Ivan choked at the words, taking long strides in front of my brother toward the bar.
“I’m not throwing a tantrum,” I insisted.
Dante snorted as he walked toward my desk, his boots crunching down on broken glass. When he returned what was left of my laptop to the surface, he gave me a stern look. “This is exactly what the fuckers want, to keep us unnerved enough we can’t track their path or determine who the hell they are.”
“Here’s the problem, brother. There is no path. There aren’t any breadcrumbs, for fuck’s sake. Nothing. It’s as if they live in the shadows.”
“They do,” he told me.
Ivan advanced, presenting a thick tumbler of amber liquid. “Drink this.”
“Alcohol I don’t need.”
“Bullshit and you know it. You need to calm the fuck down.”
I snapped my head in Ivan’s direction, snatching the glass from him seconds later. As I stared into the amber liquid, I could see the face of the man who’d almost ended her life all over again. He’d been of Spanish descent, his misshapen features indicating he’d been in a fire or some other brutal confrontation. Even though his fingerprints had been taken before his body had been dumped into the Pacific, we’d yet to identify him. It was as if the man didn’t exist.
That was likely because of the powerful hold members of the Death Squad had on several people running various intelligence computer systems throughout the world. They were able to create or delete anyone they wanted.
“Drink the fucking whiskey, bro. We need to continue working,” Dante advised. He knew my moods and my thoughts as they often mirrored his own. The fact we had what experts called a twinning perception had once irritated the fuck out of me, especially after the fucker had incarcerated me in a goddamn cement prison for several weeks.
That had been years before, our relationship completely changing. The fact we were close was a testament to both our kindred spirits and the twinning thing. I tossed back the entire glass, swallowing hard then slamming the dense tumbler onto the desk.
Everything came back to two questions.
Who the fuck was behind the explosive game and how had they determined Sabrina meant something to me? Add to the mix that she’d muttered something about the murder of her mother in her sleep only the night before, the nightmare violent and terrifying to her. I’d remained in the dark by her side during both nights, doing nothing more than watching her sleep. I’d wanted to awaken her but the words she’d spouted had presented a possible clue that I had to explore.
Her thoughts that they were powerful were spot on and I’d sensed before she’d been attacked, she’d found something that could prove to be helpful. If only she could learn to trust me.
Okay, so I was grasping at straws, but I had no other options at this point. Nothing else was working. Not talking to our informants or storming the streets, which had been done in both LA and San Diego, where I would remain holed up until the people responsible were hunted down like the vermin they were.
“What did you find out on the murder of her mother?” I demanded, glancing from my brother to Bruno Harrison, the recent addition on Dante’s roster not surprising. He’d needed fresh blood. It would seem the word for the year in our organization had been treachery, which could no longer be ignored. It was entirely possible one of our former employees or hell, a dozen of them had been lured into working with the Death Squad, who were focused on learning our most guarded secrets.
