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Blaze shot him a self-deprecating smile. “I’d question your supreme confidence, but the truth is, I couldn’t find much on my end either. I’d rather believe there simply isn’t much there to find than that we’re both incompetent.”
As Garrison glowered at him, Blaze scooped my socked foot into his hands and started massaging the arch absently. I welcomed the gesture, but it wasn’t enough to take my mind off the issue at hand. “You couldn’t track down any leads at all?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” the hacker admitted. “Nothing substantial enough that I’d want to put ourselves at risk pursuing it. I’m still looking at everything I uploaded from his computer. There was a lot to scan through, but so far no indications that he had any idea an attack was coming or records of previous hostility. I tapped into the security cameras in the building where the bombing happened, but with the angle the guy was standing at, the hood of his jacket hides his face. All I could tell you for sure is that it was a man, he was pretty average in height and weight, and no one in the office appeared to recognize him. He was a total stranger.”
“That’s the same impression I got from the footage,” Garrison said in grudging agreement.
I let out a huff of frustration. “Why does this have to be so hard?”
“Well, either it was a random lunatic, in which case there’s nothing else to find,” Julius said with his usual strategic precision. “Or if it was connected to your ‘household,’ we’re dealing with people who have a lot of power and resources. They couldn’t have pulled off all this without a hell of an advantage.”
“Great,” Garrison muttered. “Someone with power and influence right outside of Washington D.C. That sure lowers the suspect pool.”
The pressure of Blaze’s massaging fingers started to make me tense up more than relax me. I eased my foot away and sat up, my hands curling into the blanket on the bed. There was too much I didn’t know, even more questions hanging over me than ever before, and who knew how many lives hung in the balance while we searched for answers?
Talon walked over and rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’re not going to get any farther into this right now. Do you want to spar and let out some of that tension?”
I looked up into his steady ice-blue gaze. He was trying to help me the best way he knew how. We’d blown off plenty of tension in the past with our fists, sometimes leading into… other activities that could provide an excellent release. Not that I was feeling at all turned on while I had this ball of stress in my gut.
But it was a good suggestion. Maybe a workout was exactly what I needed—to burn away all of my energy and emotions before revisiting the situation. I needed to think about it with a clear mind, and right now my thoughts were muddled with uncertainty and self-doubt.
I was just standing up when my phone rang. My pulse hiccupped. The number on the display wasn’t one I recognized.
My hand shook as I raised the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Is this Rachel?”
My immediate reaction was to say no, but I caught myself just in time, recognizing the voice and understanding why he’d used it. “Y—yes. That’s me.”
The sound of Malik’s joy carried through the connection. “It didn’t take long for my people to run the DNA test, and the results couldn’t be clearer. I’m sorry for keeping you waiting while I verified it. You really are my daughter.”
There was so much awe in his words that my chest constricted. I struggled to find the right way to answer. This was exactly what I’d wanted to hear, but now I had no idea what happened next.
“I’m so glad to hear from you,” I managed after a moment. “Where do we go from here?”
“We have so much to discuss, and I’d prefer not to do it over the phone. Now that you’ve come back to us, I want to really be there with you as much as possible. If it wouldn’t be too much all at once, I’d love for you to meet the rest of the family. I’ll be home for the day tomorrow. Maybe we can spend some time getting to know you and the young lady you’ve become.”
If I’d had any doubts about that plan, the eagerness in his tone—eagerness to get to know me—would have dissolved it.
“Yes,” I said, a smile crossing my face. “I think I’d like that a lot.”
He gave me the address and the time I should arrive. I could barely keep up with his enthusiastic voice when my entire world and everything I knew seemed to be heading in a direction I’d never have expected it to go.
I had a family—one who couldn’t wait to meet me. I wanted to believe it would go well, but there were so many factors that could make everything fall apart.
What if I was too awkward after all my time shut away from the regular world? What if they realized that I was nothing like them and hated me?
I dragged in a deep breath as I said my goodbyes and hung up. I had to go and face this new challenge no matter how nervous I was.
But I couldn’t shake the looming sense that if I screwed things up tomorrow, I’d lose my family all over again, and that would be all my fault.
