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She shook her head. “I’ve compromised myself and Jack. Not going to compromise my parents. They’re the real targets of the threats. Jack and I are just the means to get them to cooperate.” Her voice sounded rusty, as if she never talked about her family.
“You think the Bratva is involved in whatever’s going on with you and Jack?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I thinkthey’retied up in the mess that Alex’s ex-husband stirred up. If anyone knew my real name, they wouldn’t send a pair of Russian thugs after me. They’d send an army.”
Cody studied Sierra with new respect for her smarts and resilience. “You must have been quite the twelve-year-old.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Our parents spent a lot of time with us, playing games that I now realize were drills in case something went wrong. How to get out of the house. How to hide in the woods. How to cut ropes off our hands, even when they were tied. How to use a cell phone. How to use the stars to navigate. How to walk quietly in the woods. Jack and I both took karate and Krav Maga. All kinds of stuff.” Her lip quivered for a moment, as if she’d stirred up painful memories and had to force the words out.
Then she forced a smile. “I can kick just about anyone’s ass.” But her eyes were wary. Watchful.
“Any other kidnapping attempts?” he asked. He hated stirring up these memories for Sierra, but he needed to know what they might face.
“None that I know of. But we were pretty sheltered after the kidnapping. Both Jack and I had close protection. They didn’t come into school with us, but they drove us both ways and waited outside the school. We participated in school activities, but our bodyguards were in the stands for everything.” Her eyes got a faraway look, as if remembering things she’d rather not dwell on. Finally she sighed. “I had a bodyguard at USC, and I hated it. I put my foot down about law school. Told my parents I was old enough to be on my own. Knew enough self-defense to protect myself. They finally agreed.”
Cody watched Sierra as he thought. Finally he leaned closer to her. “Has anything ever happened to your brother?”
“You mean like kidnapping attempts?”
“For starters.”
“No. But until he started grad school at Northwestern, he had a bodyguard, too.”
“I thought you said he was six years younger than you.”
“I did. He’s super smart. Finished college when he was nineteen. He’s twenty-two now, and close to finishing his PhD.”
“In what?” Cody asked.
Sierra rolled her eyes. “Something in computers. He’s explained it to me, more than once, but it’s so complicated and esoteric that I don’t understand it. He’s…” She stopped abruptly, as if catching herself at the last moment. She ran two fingers through her hair, then down the edge of her ear, a tell he’d noticed when Sierra talked about something difficult. “His field of study has something to do with computer security and making systems impenetrable by hackers. Cutting edge stuff. I know because when he talks about it, I don’t understand a thing.” Her breath shuddered out.
“Does Alex know about your brother?” he asked.
Sierra shook her head. “She’s met Jack once or twice. I told her he was a friend. I’ve come close to telling her, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I trust Alex completely, but…” She shook her head. “Sharing secrets puts my whole family at risk. I’ve spent most of my life hiding.Keepingsecrets.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Secrets are second nature to me, and it’s a hard habit to break.”
But she’d trusted him with her secrets. Or at least a few of them. An emotion he didn’t want to name, something he’d never felt for a woman, moved through him. Once again, he started to reach for her, then dropped his hand in his lap. Touching her now would lead to places he couldn’t go.
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said. “Especially since I’ve only known you for a few days.”
She held his gaze. “I didn’t tell you the important stuff,” she reminded him. “Not our real names, and not who our parents are.”
“But you told me things you haven’t told Alex, who you’ve known for years. That means a lot, Sierra.” She’d trusted him with a very private part of herself, and it brought him to his knees. He wanted to wrap her in his arms. Promise her no one would hurt her again.
But he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t make that promise. He was a temporary presence in her life.
And he had to stay that way.
Hearing Sierra talk about her family, it was obvious they were close. That they loved one another. He couldn’t help compare her family with his own. His parents’ unhappy marriage. Their constant fighting. Ranting at one another. The physical fights that became more frequent as he got older. And they’d used Cody and his brother as pawns in their fights.
After he escaped when he left for college, Cody had sworn he’d never fall in love. Never let himself get trapped in a relationship. If he could walk away from a woman, he wouldn’t get hurt.
It might be lonely, but lonely was better than constant misery.
Hearing about Sierra’s family made his chest hurt a little. What would it have been like to grow up with parents who loved each other? Who cared about their kids?
He’d never know.
Shoving away the unwanted, terrifying emotions, and the regret that it was necessary, he said, “We’ll figure out how to keep Jack safe. I’ll check with Mel.”
