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She paled. “W-why?”
“Ask your dad.”
“You’re not going to convince me my father was up to something.”
Roger ticked off the points on his fingers. “He lied about the city where your mother was killed. He deleted all references to Miami. You know how you all have kept up with practically everything that goes on in the world. Are you going to tell me he didn’t know Deveron was back in the U.S. and living in Miami? The very place one would think he’d monitor because experience dictated more shifters arise in places where they thrived previously.”
Sakura sank down on the side of the bed and put her hands over her face. “You’re right. I know he was grief-stricken to lose my mother, but this isn’t grief. This is suspicious.”
“Good. My work here is done,” Roger announced. With a cheerful wish that they have a good day, he turned and left. Adam sank beside Sakura and drew her into his arms. She moaned and clutched him tight, but no tears wet her face. He waited in silence, stroking her back until she was ready, and then she picked up her cell phone to dial her dad.
* * * *
Adam leaned against a wall outside of the room where Sakura met with her dad. Kasen, Sr. rented the mansion and then insisted they meet there. Adam had slipped away while Sakura slept to give the place a once over and to determine that her dad hadn’t set a trap. Avoiding the guards since he had no idea whether Kasen, Sr. had given the order to have him killed, he had cased the house and found Gladys, but he hadn’t approached her yet. Adam watched the woman with Kasen, Sr. through a window. He heard her words with ease as she comforted him in his agitation about being back in the “hated city.”
“Don’t worry, honey bunny,” she purred to Kasen, Sr., “this nightmare will be behind us soon, and you can have Sakura back home again.”
Adam gagged at the endearment and missed Kasen, Sr.’s response. He considered it enough to know the woman who wanted them both dead was in town. They could deal with her later.
Coming back to the present, he listened to Sakura speaking in the other room, her tone deceitfully calm, but he didn’t sense her about to fly off the handle. “Dad, I wanted you to come down here because I want you to tell me to my face what happened to my mother. I know she died in Miami and not in Las Vegas, so don’t start feeding me a bunch of bullshit.”
“Young lady, you will not talk to me that way,” was the heated response.
“We’re not going riding a merry-go-round, Daddy Dear!”
“Sakura, this is my final warning.”
Her caustic laughter filled the air. “Okay, I see I’m going to have to be first in laying my cards on the table.”
Adam shook his head. He knew what was coming. Sakura intended to reveal the thing Kasen, Sr. feared the most—that he would lose his last daughter to the shifters. Knowing what was coming, Adam turned away and walked down the hall, pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he went. He found a room no human guards occupied, or were close enough to overhear, and dialed the number he had programmed into his phone.
A deep voice sounded across the line on the second ring. “Adam, how’s it going outside?”
For a moment, Birk’s choice of words threw Adam off, but then he recalled a fact he had learned not long ago about Alaskans. Any other place outside their state was termed “outside.”
He shook his head. “Everything is…I guess you can say up in the air at the moment. What I do know is Sakura needs her sister. She needs her family, so I’m calling to invite you to bring Shiya to Miami. It’s not any kind of trap. You have my word.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Birk assured him, sounding amused. “I talked to Laila.”
Adam winced.
“She says you’re one of us now. I’m glad. What about Sakura? She accept you?”
“Uh…well…we’re mated, anyway.”
“What aren’t you telling me, buddy?”
Adam ran fingers through his ha
ir and paced the room. “She’s a shifter.”
“That’s fantastic!”
“She’s not a bear.”
The line went silent.
“Birk, are you there?”
