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She would have shot the fucking stepmother and buried the bitch in the backyard if it had been her. And those stepsisters were just too stupid to live anyway, so helping them out a little wouldn’t have been a problem.
“You don’t understand what’s going on here, Summer,” Raeg protested, pushing his fingers through his hair before staring back at her broodingly. “You don’t know Roberto as we do, or what he’s capable of.”
Her lip lifted in a bitter, sardonic smile. “I believe I was told what he was capable of, Raeg. But I’m not that woman, nor am I that damned easy to kill.”
“Roberto won’t care about facing you,” Falcon continued the argument. “He’ll catch you in his crosshairs just as he caught Dragovich, and then it will all be over with.”
She could only shake her head at them sadly.
The same man who had given her a family heirloom because she was his sons’ lover, who had been a part of all their lives long enough to have realized both Raeg and Falcon’s feelings for her, a man whose obvious fondness for her had been commented on by both of them.
He would put her in his crosshairs simply because she was sleeping with his sons rather than planning to kill them? She didn’t think so. And they should know better.
“Then go,” she told them without anger, without heat, as she waved toward the bedroom door. “Go now, while I can bear to watch you walk away.”
He just stared at her, glared at her actually, the muscle at his jaw pulsing furiously. And for once, Falcon wasn’t cursing in five languages nor was he angry. He was so incredibly somber, not at all the fiery, playful man she so loved.
“I’ll make it easy for you,” she told them then, steeling herself to make the only choice left to her. “I’ll go. Then you don’t have to see what the hell you’re walking away from.”
Turning, she walked away, certain they were going to stop her.
Any second … in the next heartbeat … before she reach the door …
Before she reach the stairs.
When she took that first step down, her breathing hitched and the first tear fell.
She didn’t fight them, she couldn’t fight them. But when she reached the landing she stopped, holding onto the banister as her shoulders shook with her silent sobs and the pain lanced at her senses.
She should just tell them what Steven said, she thought even as she shook her head desperately.
Oh God. She covered her mouth with her hand to hold back the ragged, gasping sounds that came with her tears. She didn’t do crying well, never had. If she lost control of the pain, she’d end up wailing like a five-year-old in the midst of a meltdown.
Finally, she regained control, wiped her hand over her face, drew in a hard breath, and opened her eyes to stare around the dimly lit foyer.
Just before she froze, the breath stilling in her throat.
Chapter
NINETEEN
She knew who they were, or at least she highly suspected. The problem, though, was that two of them shouldn’t be there.
The slender, tall blonde held her finger to her lips in a demand for silence, then gestured to the living area and the other woman standing several feet away, with the weapon she held in her hand.
Dressed in dark jeans, a dark T-shirt, and a leather jacket, the older woman’s coloring and regal features identified her as Raeg’s mother. Selena Raegent was still a beauty, and obviously still in excellent fighting shape despite the fact that she had to be only a few years from sixty.
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The woman leaning lazily against the entrance to the living area was as dark as the other was blonde. Mediterranean features, dark eyes, and shoulder-length black hair shot with threads of silver framed the strong, though still beautiful, features of her face.
She was dressed similar to the blonde, dark jeans and T-shirt, leather jacket and boots. She wasn’t holding a handgun though. No, she’d gone all out and brought a compact assault rifle instead.
She grinned as Summer watched her warily, then nodded into the living area, indicating she should continue moving. Summer passed her, then she and the blonde followed along behind Summer until they reached the kitchen and the man sitting at her counter casually eating the leftover fried chicken her momma had sent the day before.
“Leasa always was a damned good cook.” Steven, or rather Roberto, grinned as he waved a piece of chicken. “I would have joined all of you for dinner the other night, but each time she caught sight of me she did that frowning thing she used to do whenever she saw me in disguise. It was too soon to risk being identified.”
Selena Raegent and Maria Mendoza moved to each side of him behind the center island, watching her curiously.
