Mirabelle’s petrified gaze darted between Emory and Jack. “How?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Emory replied honestly. “All I know is he wanted it this way. He knew we’d drop our guard if we thought he was dead.”
“This was him,” Mirabelle said as angry tears flooded her cheeks. “It’s always been him. I told you he wasn’t gone, Emory! I told you, and you never believed me. Why couldn’t you believe me?”
Emory accepted the blame with a solemn nod. “I will find him and end this for good.”
The assurance fell flat. Ivan promised pain and would deliver in spades. It was only a matter of time. Mirabelle yanked her hands from Emory and cradled her knees, child-like as she rocked in her seat.
“Why can’t he just leave us alone?”
All their lives, she’d asked Emory that same question and always the same way—through tears and exhausted from unrelenting terror. When she was four and Ivan snapped her arm, she asked Emory why. When she was six and found her bunny, Cotton Ball, a mess of blood, guts, and white fur in her bed and Ivan in a fit of laughter, Mirabelle sobbed so hard she couldn’t breathe and asked Emory why. He’d never had an answer.
Emory stood and sat at the edge of the desk next to her. “I won’t let him get to you. He’ll have to get through me first.”
“And me,” Jack vowed on the other side of her. “It’s what’s kept him away. He knows Em and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Emory exchanged a glance with Jack. Neither man really knew what kept Ivan away or why he’d slithered back. Mirabelle nodded vacantly and stretched her legs. Liquid sloshed as Jack grabbed the whiskey bottle.
“You need to tell Em what you told me.” Mirabelle pointed to the bottle at his lips. “And you need to lay off that. You’ve had enough.”
“It’s never enough,” Jack sighed but put the bottle down. “Cal Havick is missing. He hasn’t shown up to work. His phone goes straight to voicemail. Big Johnny said the Portland police can’t reach him. The dude just vanished.”
Emory quietly listened, though a source at the Portland Police Bureau had already slipped him that information.
Mirabelle craned her neck to Emory. “If she lost both her parents…”
Her voice trailed off as if speaking the possibilities might manifest them.
“Someone probably talked sense into him, told him to lie low. Jack, see what else Johnny can dig up, and we’ll go from there.”
“Amelia can’t know about this,” Mirabelle said.
Emory disagreed with a firm shake of his head. “She has a right to know. I’ll deal with today’s fallout first, then see what I can find out about Cal.”
“Em, she can’t?—”
“I said I’ll deal with it!” Emory snapped and shoved off of the desk. “Amelia will stay with us until it’s safe for her to go home. Until then, I’m bringing her into the fold.”
Jack snickered at that. “So, what, she’s one of us now?”
“Jack, stop,” Mirabelle pled.
“No, I wanna know. You brought her here for one reason. Isn’t that what you said? What’s that reason now, Em?”
The tip of Jack’s tongue flicked lasciviously across his top lip, and he winked with no humor, only spite. Emory’s fists clenched until his knuckles popped, and his breaths shallowed to hot spurts through gritted teeth.Keep your head.
“We both know what Ivan would do to her,” Emory replied with icy restraint. “I’m not letting her leave. She’s mine, so she stays with me.”
Mine.
Jack and Mirabelle both pondered the possessive. Emory used it so seldomly to describe women. They were never his; he rarely wanted them to be. He and Amelia had hardly shared a kiss, and yet he’d gone ahead and marked her as his own.
Jack lifted a finger and opened his mouth to spit fire again, but Mirabelle intervened.
“Both of you stop. It’s fine. Amelia will stay here until this ends. For tonight, she can sleep in my room with me. She’s too scared to be alone.”
Amelia was many things—contrite and listless—but afraid to sleep alone wasn’t one of them. Emory let it go and nodded his assent. With a sudden push, Jack hopped from the desk, snatched up the whiskey, and retreated to the door with a sway.
