Saint (A Dark Mafia Romance)(51)
“I need you to check in first thing tomorrow morning, Ms. Hammond. I want to know where the hell Roarke takes off to next. Shit, I want to know what he has for breakfast, how he takes his coffee, and how long he brushes his fucking teeth for. Understand?”
I close my eyes again, shaking my head slowly in the dark and wishing this would all go away.
Wishing I had all the answers.
“Ms. Hammond, let me remind you of your pending-”
“Okay,” I snap, the anger welling up inside at being played like this. At having my emotions pitted against each other for sport.
“I’m glad we had this talk.”
I grit my teeth.
“Oh, and Sierra, one more thing.” Agent Marlow takes a beat. “I know you don’t believe a fucking word I’ve been saying, but if you somehow need more convincing that Roarke isn’t the man you think he is, go ahead and ask him.”
I frown. “Ask him what.”
“Ask him about Sheila.”
The line goes dead, leaving me standing naked and alone in the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Connor
“Hey.”
She doesn’t look up as I drop down the last step into the living room.
“You’re up.”
She nods. I frown, furrowing my brow as I click with the fact that something isn’t meshing here.
“And something’s up.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Sierra.”
I wondered when this would happen. The thing is, this might not exactly be my usual day-to-day but it’s not wildly outside the norm. Dodging heat, running, carrying a gun.
Using it when I have to.
Yeah, this is me, but it ain’t her, and I wondered when she might break under it. I shouldn’t have brought her into this shit. I should have stuck her somewhere safe. I should have driven her ass to Mexico, or fuckin’ Montana, or wherever she could just disappear and avoid whatever Anton and his guys want to do with witnesses who see too much.
And for the hundredth time, I can’t decide if I wish she’d never stepped into the back room of that bar or not. If she hadn’t, well, this gets simpler.
Noncomplex.
Unmessied.
Organized, how I like it.
But then, I like that she stepped into that room. I like that she fell into me.
I like it even if it’s fucking with my head on a very core, fundamental level.
“Hey.”
She flinches away when I step towards her, and my eyes narrow at her.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Sierra-” I raise my hand to touch her, but she shrugs me off.
“The fuck is your prob-”
“Who’s Sheila?”
My heart drops.
“What did you say?” I growl.
She finally turns towards me, her eyes wavering as she tries to make a show of keeping a bold face on, despite clearly being scared.
“Sheila, who is-”
“None of your goddamn business,” I snap.
Her brow arches at the ferocity of my response, but then she scowls right back. I don’t know how she knows about that, but it’s nothing I need to get into with her. It’s nothing I will get into with her.
I look away.
The buried past is just that: buried, and in the past for a reason. My eyes travel the room, looking for whatever put Sheila into her head. She must have seen something around the house - an old picture with names on it or something.
But then, she’s asking me about it, specifically, which makes me think it’s probably more than a picture. And there’s that edge to her voice, like she-
“Who told you.”
She freezes. “No one.”
My jaw clenches as I step towards her. “Sierra-”
“What happened to her?”
“She died,” I spit venomously. “She was someone I knew a lifetime ago, and someone I never should have gotten involved with, and what we had was fleeting.”
I don’t blink. I don’t look away. I keep my eyes locked with hers because I want her to feel this.
“We were a couple of young kids not knowing what the fuck we were doing, and we stopped doing it because stopping was the right thing to do, and then she fucking died, okay?”
I whirl, my eyes finally squeezing shut and my hands pushing through my hair. The rage and the heat of those days comes roaring back inside, burning me, flames licking at the edges of mental photographs and memories I buried deep a long time ago.
“Connor, I-” I feel her hand on my back. “I’m sorry,” she says softly.
“Yeah, well, me fucking too, princess.”
I turn back and her whole face is different - softer, crumpled, pained.
“I- I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”
She steps towards me and I bristle for one more second before my shoulders deflate.