Page 8 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)

Fool Me Twice

Cobra

Someone had hurt her. She’d flinched when I moved, as if I was going to strike her. She’d panicked and crumbled in front of my eyes. Then, she’d collected herself. She’d shut her eyes and built herself back up from the inside out. It was fascinating.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her face was a mask devoid of expression. A clear sign that she was lying. “I began kickboxing to stay fit. That is all.”

She’d blocked me out like an enemy prisoner, prepping for my interrogation.

“Kickboxing?” Bull-fucking-shit.

That wasn't jazzercise-Tae-Bo nonsense. She was trained to fight. To close the distance, to defend against a real attacker. She wasn’t trained in some “That’s my purse!” self-defense class either.

If I didn’t know better… I’d think she was an operative. But there was something off about that conclusion. Something about that, and her, didn’t fit. So, what did that leave? I wasn’t sure yet.

“At my age, I have to work harder to stay in shape.” She doubled down on her lie. Un-fucking-believable. “I can’t stay slim with just Pilates and Yoga anymore.”

That voice of hers did something to me, still.

It was gentle, with a light, French accent that was even more alluring now, than it had been thirty years ago.

My eyes flowed down her gorgeous body and my cock stood at attention, trying to bust through my zipper, wanting to say hi to his old playmate.

I groaned, took in a breath to calm myself, and shut my eyes.

Down, boy.

After the blood returned to the head on my shoulders, rather than the one that dangled between my legs, I forced myself to look at her with a more objective gaze.

Her slender, elegant neck, her sloped shoulders, toned arms, tiny waist. Thirty years ago, I was able to encircle her waist with my two hands, she’d been so slight.

She’d been a model during the heroin chic era.

I’d never liked it, and when she quit modeling after I got her pregnant, she got more and more beautiful.

She had to eat to take care of our baby, and the extreme diets of high fashion weren’t going to work with the kind of mother she wanted to be.

She’d given it all up for the little bun we were growing.

What changed between the woman who wanted her daughter to be her best friend, to the woman in front of me who was frozen out of our baby’s life?

“Well,” I cleared my throat. “You and I have a wedding to go to.”

“Excuse me?” That haughty raise of her brow ripped right through me.

I felt like I was twenty years old, smitten, and willing to do absolutely anything to impress a pretty girl I’d seen posing by the Seine in haute couture.

“We have to go to a wedding,” I said, slowly as if I was talking to a very small child. A very small, stupid child.

She let out a quiet snort. “What does your wedding have to do with me? I’m not your wife.”

Did she think I was the one getting married? Cute.

I chuckled, ran my hand over my lips to wipe away a smile.

My last few decades had been empty, to say the least. I had no Mama, no Papa…

just ol’ Uncle Sam. My pain in the ass half-brother, and rather indifferent half-sister, were the closest thing I had to a home.

That emptiness was more obvious in the idleness of retirement.

So me, getting married? That wasn’t anything close to a possibility.

“The bride wants you there,” I quipped.

Her eyes flared wide, with an anger that should have melted me on the spot. “Your bride means nothing to me!”

Her fists clenched. Oh, she was jealous! That was delightful.

“You sure about that?” Was I being an asshole? Yes. But I liked her jealousy.

I bit my lip when I couldn’t help the smile from forming. Ah, fuck it. I’d put her out of her misery, and get to the point.

“Trinity wants you there. As the father of the bride, it’s my job to make sure my little girl gets everything she wants on her big day.”

Whatever arrogance had kept Teresa upright melted to nothing. Her shoulders slumped. She searched my face for something—maybe for signs that this was a joke.

“Trinity?” she asked on a breath.

She was devastated. I felt for her.

I thought that I would feel triumphant after telling her I was invited, and she wasn’t. After all, she’d divorced me. She was the reason I had no home, and had been frozen out of my family.

I looked into her blue, almond-shaped eyes. I felt sorry for her. I wanted to protect her.

“That can’t be true.” She shook her head.

“It is.” I stepped forward, unsure if I wanted to tower over her and bellow, “What have you done to my kid?” or if I wanted to wrap her in my arms and comfort her.

Teresa flinched away. Her eyes shut, her arms came up as if to protect her from me. Like I was going to hit her. Hit her!

I froze mid-step.

“I would never strike you, Teri.” My heart stuttered. “I would never hurt you.”

She had been struck before. Probably more than once. Probably too many times.

Once was too many.

I’d taken hits before. I’d been in plenty of fights where life and death were on the line. But that wasn’t what this was. This was the reaction of someone who’d been tortured.

“Never.” I swallowed the venom in my voice.

Who did it, Teri? The urge to demand a name was so overwhelming that it burned like acid in my throat.

“Our daughter is getting married in six days.”

“What do we know about that man? The one she’s marrying?” Her voice cut through me, angry. But beneath the anger was that undercurrent of fear that made my hair stand on end. “She’s too young to marry!”

And just like that, any promise I’d made to stop spying, and respect the privacy of those around me evaporated like smoke. Who do I have to kill, Princess?

I had to tear apart the last three decades and figure out what had happened.

“She’s over thirty,” I countered. “And I know the groom. He’s a good kid.”

“Well?” She sat ramrod straight, her chin high. “Who is he?”

“Kai Griffith.”

“And?” she pushed, frustrated by my clipped answers. “Who is Kai Griffith?”

“You should ask Taz.” I had no idea what Trinity had or hadn’t told her. I didn’t know what she’d want me to say.

“For God’s sake! Will he hit her? Is he a violent man?”

Who hit you , Teri? The words rang out in my head, but I didn’t ask out loud. I knew she would not tell me.

“Is he the kind of man that will isolate her from her friends? Will he harm her? Is he a good man? Is he… is…”

She swallowed. I felt the pinch between my brows as I stared, reading far deeper into her words than what she meant.

“If I had any inkling he would harm our daughter, do you think I’d let her get married?” A need to protect flared in my chest.

“ Let her?” she scoffed. “No one lets Trinity do anything. She does whatever she wants. She always has.” Then her nostrils flared with a deep inhale. “Or is it because you are the same kind of man? Are you and he friends? Is that why you defend him?”

Her voice faded out, quieting from the strength of righteous indignation to one of complete and abject defeat.

“I don’t know what kind of man you are…” I did not like that thousand-yard stare, or the sudden frailty in her tone.

Not one fucking bit.

Quietly, she added, “I never knew you.”

This fucking woman…

I was stuck, vacillating between two extremes.

A part of me wanted her in my arms, my fingers tracing over her skin to coax out all the pain that was clearly etched behind the mask of anger.

Another part of me wanted to scream at her, to make her cower and beat my chest until she choked out answers.

Why did you hurt our daughter? Why did you do this to us? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?

In the end, anger won out. “I suppose you didn’t. You don’t know me, and I sure as hell don’t know you. The woman I married long ago would have known about her kid’s wedding. You? You’re a stranger.”

I would send her phone and wallet with Yuliya, so that they could hack into her information.

They’d let me know if there was something in her history I had to know about, especially if it had to do with Trinity.

My moral compass was a bit warped, and hadn’t pointed north in at least thirty years, but I knew this was wrong.

But I had to know what turned a model who had the world bowing at her feet into this hard-as-nails knock-off Laila Ali.

She was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. A puzzle I had to solve before I fell in too deep. I’d seen it hundreds of times with other agents. They got fascinated with their target and all of a sudden, fell head over heels. I’d never made that mistake before. I wouldn’t do that now.

“Where am I?” she asked, softly. She was in for a rough day…