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He should have. He’d fought alongside her and her brothers, he’d met their parents, and he’d even vacationed with them in Bermuda.
“I had enough to ensure the truth was backed up,” he admitted. “Something you should have done. Instead, you threw the information at her as though it were a grenade ready to explode.”
She turned her head, staring through the window at her side and, hopefully, hiding her expression. “It was what she wanted. It was what she demanded.”
And she’d never imagined she’d be turned away. At the very least she was certain someone would demand DNA. Question her, maybe. Give her the smallest benefit of the doubt. Ask for proof. Ask her why she hadn’t come forward sooner maybe. She hadn’t expected a complete denial, though perhaps she should have.
“Or was it what you demanded?” The question had anger flaring inside her. “Why didn’t you tell her sooner, Angel? Years ago?”
Because she’d known, she had already known her mother didn’t want her. That wound was still too deep, too agonizing to allow anyone to delve into it.
“This isn’t a conversation I want to have with you.” It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with anyone. “It was a mistake and I should have kept my mouth shut. . . .” She snapped her fingers and turned toward him with mocking innocence. “Oh yeah, that’s right. You just handed over the information, right? I should have just waited for you. Funny that, considering how well you hid the fact that you were a Mackay from me.”
Turning his head, he just stared at her, the deep, bright depth of his green eyes gleaming back at her.
“You shouldn’t have ditched me when you found out who I was.” His expression, shadowed by the night and the interior of the vehicle, gave away little as to what he was thinking. Or what he was feeling. If he was feeling anything. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”
“Yeah, I should have just gone to my knees and thanked you for finding me,” she drawled with heavy mockery, the insult stinging more than she would have liked. “But I guess I just didn’t consider myself lost, now did I?” She gave a little wave of her hand. “But you Mackays, just so certain you know every damned thing, right?”
Silence met her words.
Turning back to stare out the windshield as he rested his arm on the steering wheel, Duke seemed to be glaring out at the scene.
“You’ve known who your mother is for a while, haven’t you, Angel?” he asked softly. “Well before I showed up in Uzbekistan.”
Angel clenched her teeth; the memory of being trapped, held beneath that steel beam as the weight of the debris above it tried to crush the life from her, was just an added nightmare in her life.
She was going to die there. That certainty had filled her, a knowledge she hadn’t been able to escape from. And she’d begged Tracker, made him swear to watch out for Bliss for her.
That was the moment Duke and his brother had arrived. When no one else outside the bombed hospital would enter for fear of collapse, Duke had rushed inside. There was no panic, nothing but sheer confidence as his brother, Ethan, moved to her to assess her condition, and Duke moved to Tracker and Chance as they fought to hold the weight from her body.
And somehow, through some miracle, Duke had managed to find the one place where that beam could be lifted just enough for Ethan to drag her free of it.
“I knew.” There was no point in denying it. “I’ve known since I was fifteen years old. There’s very little of my time in Iraq that I don’t remember now.”
“You were only three.” The question in his tone was unmistakable. How could she remember what had happened when she was only three?
“I remember my first birthday party,” she said softly, the memory, though not as clear as others, there all the same. “The faces of the children that attended, the clown that scared the hell out of me. I remember Chaya dancing in the backyard with the knife she kept on her. I remember when she pushed that knife into a pocket she’d made in the teddy bear I loved.” She blinked back the emotions the memories always brought. “I’m a little fuzzy on what happened after the world shattered around me, but according to Tracker’s father, I had a concussion and several broken bones, so I’m going to excuse myself for not remembering that time clearly.”
She’d existed in ignorant bliss for twelve years after the hotel explosion, though. She was Angel, Tracker and Chance were her brothers, and she had to train, and learn how to survive. That had been her world. Until the day Brutus, J.T.’s huge war dog, had died from old age.
She remembered the horror, the abject certainty that without Brutus, she would die. She’d sobbed until she fell into an exhausted slumber, and when she’d awakened, she knew who she was, where she came from, the mother that had betrayed her. And the sister that had died in her arms.
She could feel Duke, waiting silently, certain he’d gain more information for the family he was apparently so damned loyal to.
Not that she could blame him, really. The Mackays were good people for the most part, especially the three older cousins, Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches. They were more often than not referred to as brothers rather than cousins.
Hell, she was as jealous as she could be of the father her half sister, Bliss, had been born to. Natches loved his daughter, protected her, would die for her, but even more, he’d kill for her. But he’d never use her to save himself as her own had done. And after watching Bliss’s mother, Chaya, Angel suspected the same of her. Which only bred the anger inside her because Chaya hadn’t felt that same loyalty for her first child, or for the niece who had died waiting for her.
“You’re going to have to talk about this eventually,” Duke warned her when she didn’t say anything more. “If not to me, then to Natches and Chaya.”
That was something she hadn’t even done with Tracker, no matter how often he encouraged her to, or how deeply she trusted him.
“I don’t have to talk to anyone about this,” she stated coolly despite the burning emotions searing her. “And calling Tracker won’t change my mind. If he wants to fly back here because I refuse to discuss this with you then it’s his choice. I won’t be blackmailed further.”
“What do you think is going to happen when you refuse to give Natches answers?” Was that amusement in his voice?
She turned her head, narrowing her eyes on him as their gazes met, and she detected a gleam of humor.
