It was only after she’d climbed the stairs, shut her bedroom door, and tossed the book onto her bed that she realized Angel hadn’t answered her question about why he’d been willing to risk himself for the greater good before but wasn’t now.
He said people changed. But something, some sixth sense or niggle of intuition, told her he hadn’t changed at all.
Chapter 3
Midnight…
The witching hour.
Or, in Angel’s case, the prearranged time for him to let all those friendly eyes watching the manor house in on the current plan.
Pushing aside the coverlet in the room Grafton had assigned him, he hopped from the large, four-poster bed and walked to the window to peek through the heavy curtains. One of Grafton’s no-neck hulks trudged by below, his steps sluggish over the well-manicured lawns of the estate. No doubt the guy wasn’t very hyped to have pulled third-shift perimeter duty.
Angel waited until No-Neck passed around the corner. Knowing he only had twenty seconds before the next guard appeared on the circuit—Grafton hadn’t skimped when it came to strong-armed thugs—Angel took off his watch and turned its face toward the window. Depressing the button on the side, he watched the device light up.
Morse code was an old form of communication, but it was an incredibly effective one in situations like this. By the time the next guard appeared from around the corner, he had sent half his message.
He watched No-Neck Number-Two stroll past, thought about all the ways he could render the bastard unconscious, and lifted the watch to send the rest of the message as soon as the guard slipped around the side of the manor.
Then he waited. Waited as a third guard appeared and disappeared. Waited as a cloud passed over the moon, plunging the area into stygian darkness.
Keeping his gaze focused on the rolling countryside, he blew out a sigh of relief when flickers of light far in the distance told him his message had been received. Then, a brief summary of that message was relayed back to him. It ended with three long blinks followed by one long, one short, one long blink.
He responded in kind. The Morse code for okay. That easily, the plan was set.
Excellent, he thought, taking comfort that he was not alone in this. That the badass guys and gals of Black Knights Inc. had his back.
He considered returning to bed. The mattress was soft, the blankets plush and warm. But no matter how inviting it was, he couldn’t fool himself into thinking the sandman would make an appearance. Probably because, with Sonya tucked in four doors down, the sandman had been ditching him for two weeks.
No. Wait.
In truth, it’d been months. Ever since the Black Knights had discovered that Spider, their ultimate quarry, was Lord Grafton and that the hot blond glued to his side was none other than Sonya Butler, the love of Angel’s life.
“For fuck’s sake,” he grumbled into the quiet of his room.
He still had trouble wrapping his mind around it. How could the brave, high-spirited woman he’d known and loved be the same woman who hung her head and kowtowed to Grafton’s imperious attitude and awful demands? How?
The only way he could fathom it was that there had to be more to the story. Besides the evidence Grafton had on her, did the slimeball also have something on the jewel thief? Like, perhaps, the man’s location? Is that how Sonya justified herself? Was she sacrificing her own reputation, her own morals and ethics, to keep someone else safe?
While part of Angel desperately hoped that was true, another part of him let out a low, lethal growl at the thought. Because if he accepted that Sonya had done this, lowered herself to such a degree to save the jewel thief, he also had to accept she didn’t just love the man, she was in love with him.
And that hurt.
Even though it shouldn’t.
Hadn’t he prayed she would move on? Hadn’t he wanted that for her with all his heart?
I did. I do.
And yet, over the years he’d carefully avoided looking her up. In fact, he’d done everything short of shoving his head in the sand where she was concerned.
He popped his jaw, then winced.
His tell from all those years ago kept rearing its ugly head. Thinking back on how Sonya had zeroed in on his unconscious response and then immediately switched to Hebrew scared the living shit out of him. His entire mission hinged on him playing his part to a T, and that meant Sonya Butler could not—no way, no how—know who he truly was.
Blowing out a resigned breath, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a black, V-neck undershirt. Since he was screwed when it came to catching z’s, he hoped a glass of water and a quick snack might provide clarity of thought.
