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I got in the driver’s seat, and as I pulled out, I kept my gaze trained on my surroundings and the rearview mirror, looking for any unfamiliar vehicles that might be following us. It was a short drive, but I took a roundabout route, just in case I was being followed. I glanced over at Diana, happy to see that she was still sleeping soundly.
When she woke, she might not be too happy with me, but for now she was safe and content. I could relax once we were at the penthouse. Nobody was getting in there.Except me that one time.
The information that Diana had on me could have only come from two sources: ORUS or the FBI. They were the only ones who would have known about my presence on the Vandergraff job that put me in close proximity to that damn diamond.
Plus with Alan’s little visit, hell, that couldn’t be a coincidence. I wasn’t sure whom I could trust right now. And until I was sure, I was only going to trust family. Even if that family included a few trained killers.
So that was where I was heading. To family. To home.
It took us an hour to get there because of the traffic and all the evasive maneuvers I took to make sure we weren’t followed. By the time I pulled into the underground garage at Noah’s building, I was a nervous wreck. Inching along in traffic had made me feel like a sitting duck, and I’d been looking over my shoulder the whole time, hoping I hadn’t missed anything. Now that we were on familiar territory, I finally took a deep breath.
When I parked, I saw Jonas waiting by the elevators. Jonas might not be happy I was here, but I knew all Noah’s guys were loyal. We’d had a rocky beginning ever since almost-murder-gate last year. Even if the help was begrudging, I would take any help I could get at this point.They’re our guys now too.
“Heard you were coming to stay for a while. And that we have a new client.” Jonas’s hard gaze softened when he took in Diana asleep in the front seat. “Need any help getting her in?”
I nodded toward the back of the SUV. “I’ve got her. But I could use some help with our bags.”
“Of course. You take the pretty lady and leave me with the menial labor. Bastard.”
But it was said without malice, and I had to acknowledge that it was an improvement over how I was usually greeted by Jonas.
I truly was home.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
Rafe
When Diana finally woke up an hour later, I was watching. I got to see it all, the soft trusting look in her eyes as she surfaced from sleep.
Then the exact moment when she remembered everything that had happened, and fear reentered her beautiful brown eyes.
I had no idea what to say to her. I needed her to trust me. And the way we were going, one of us was going to die either trying to run or trying to save the other one. I reached out my thumb and swept a tear off her cheek.
“There are some things that we need to talk about. Things I need to tell you.” I sat next to her on the bed, taking her hand. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Diana shifted so she was on her side facing me. “Start at the beginning.” She hesitated. “I want to understand you, Rafe.”
The soft whisper hit me right in the chest. Maybe it was an impossibility, but having her understand me was what I wanted most in the world. To have her look at me the way Lucia looked at Noah. To have someone see me, all of me, and still look at me like a hero despite the things I’d done.
“I was a wild kid. Really wild. My parents had just died, and I left my home and everything I knew. I was thrust into a neighborhood that, let’s just say, wasn’t great. My grandmother was awesome. But all of a sudden, I had to be a man when I knew nothing about being a man, and in reality, I was just a kid. I fell in with the wrong crowd.”
She reached over and squeezed my hand. The gentle pressure gave me the courage to continue.
“There was one particularly bad time. I thought I was this big man. Like all the things that I brought with me from Connecticut mattered in that neighborhood. One thing that did work out was this deep sense of justice I had. I was like a teenage vigilante or something.”
“That sounds like a TV show.”
I shrugged. “Hell, it might make a great TV show one day. Problem was I was also a hustler. I sold a little weed on the side, but before I knew it, I was running pills and then hard stuff. The kind of people that I associated with, they were the worst of the worst. I saw a friend of mine killed in front of me.” I scrubbed my hand over my face like I could wipe the memory away. “That was the wake-up call I needed. I knew if I kept going the way that I was, I was going to die.”
Diana put her hand over her mouth. “That must have been awful. I’m so sorry, Rafe.”
“I was sorry too. I hate thinking about what I would’ve put my grandmother through if I’d been arrested, or worse. But after that, I straightened up my act. Focused on school. Went straight to school and straight home. Then I enrolled at Fordham. You know, I thought I was going to have the normal life. Go to school, get some kind of job that paid decently. I worked part-time. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to be enough. And then I was approached by the FBI.”
Diana froze. I swallowed hard. This was going to be the hard part. Telling her that I’d lied to her. It was going to get much, much worse when I had to tell her about ORUS.
“The FBI recruited young for those that show exemplary skills and aptitude in certain fields. I was a good student. Always had been. That was why Nonna never seemed to know about my extracurricular activities. Because no matter what else was going on, my grades stayed up. I was also a good athlete. Good reflexes. I went through a special training program at Quantico primarily for undercover work. They wanted me to go undercover in a government organization, one that had once worked for the US government but the FBI suspected were taking their own contracts.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
