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I wasn’t only pissed about this secret woman. Jealousy was beneath me. I was more infuriated over the fact that he’d punished me for leaving the house to meet Gemma. Yet, he was allowed to go and meet another woman. Even if it was for information we so desperately needed, it still pissed me off. If I couldn’t leave, then neither could he. Especially after his whole fucking speech about staying safe and keeping off the Snake’s radar.
Rage coiled low in my belly, mixed with an emotion I refused to address. If Dante wanted to paint me as the jealous wife and ignore the real reason I was pissed off, then so be it. He’d see just how jealous I could be once he returned. I wasn’t about to let him get away with this shit after punishing me for the same crap.
All I had to do was wait.
21
SIENNA
It’s been hours, and Dante still hasn’t returned. I thought he would just make a phone call and come back inside, but apparently, he’d completely disappeared. Still fuming, I couldn’t just stay in the bedroom all night. Pacing could only calm me down so much. Instead, I headed back downstairs to see what Killian and David were doing.
Neither were downstairs. I stopped short in the hall between the living room and the kitchen. The house was eerily silent, though I could still hear the fading echoes of Ivan’s screams. Shivering, I went back upstairs, tentatively knocking on Killian’s door first. There was no reply and, when I finally opened the door, I found the room to be empty. Frowning, I went to David’s door next.
He called for me to enter right away. Opening the door, I stepped into the dimly lit room. The afternoon light was quickly fading, and with the shades drawn, it was hard to see in the room already. David was slouched on the bed, what was left of the liquor sloshing in the bottle between his fingers.
David didn’t look up as I stepped closer. Putting the bottle to his lips, he took a long swig. I could smell the scent of alcohol even from the door and wondered how long he’d been at this. I didn’t know him that well, but seeing anyone like this tugged at my heartstrings. No one deserved to be so desperate that they found solace at the bottom of a bottle.
David had seemed so put together when he’d first contacted me. He seemed sure of himself, confident. But this was a side of David that I hadn’t seen until now, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
“Where is Killian?” I asked.
“He left to go with Dante to meet that friend of his,” David replied, words slurring slightly. Bleary eyes blinked up at me.
I look away, my eyes catching on the sheaths of paper spread about the room. It was a mess in here. Clothes were already piled in one corner, papers littering the floor. A laptop was tossed unceremoniously across the rumpled bed sheets. It looked as if a tornado had swept through the room. Something white flashed in his hand, tucked beside the bottle in his palm. It looked like a photograph.
“What’s that?” I asked, padding across the floor.
He glanced down at the picture, a dark shadow crossing his face. He said nothing, simply handing the photograph to me. I watched him for a moment longer, unsure, before my eyes glanced down. A woman and child smiled up at me, frozen in silent laughter. They looked to be on the beach, their hair windswept and wild from the sea. The girl couldn’t be older than eight or nine. Maybe even ten. And she looked exactly like her father.
“Is this your family?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
“It was.”
I glanced up sharply as his voice broke. “Was?”
He sighed, struggling to his feet before righting himself. His foot lashed out, kicking away the papers scattered across the floor. “I have to admit something.”
Feeling on edge, I managed not to take a step back. “Admit what?”
Watery eyes caught mine. His hair was a mess, sticking up at strange angles as if he’d run his fingers through it too often in the last hour. “This mission…isn’t exactly sanctioned by the FBI.”
I frowned, not understanding. “What? Why?”
“Because I was suspended about a month ago.”
I tensed, staring him down. “Why?”
“Because this case got too personal. I failed to follow protocol. People got hurt.”
It took me a while to figure out what he wasn’t saying. Handing back the photograph, I said, “The Snake got your family, didn’t they?”
He stared down at the photograph, swaying. “I was so close to catching him. So fucking close. We had a plan in place to crash the hideout we believed he was using as headquarters. Except I didn’t find him. I found them.” His head dipped toward the photo. “He’d left their bodies behind. The venom had already done its job.”
Sadness washed over me. I knew what it was like to find your family dead like that. My father had faced the same fate. The anguish of finding him flooded through me.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“That’s why I had to find you,” he went on as if I hadn’t said a word, “I needed someone to help me finish the mission. To catch him and make them pay for what they did without having to worry about losing my badge.”
