Page 102 of Twisted Ties

“So I’m just a ghost. A nothing. A nobody,” I say repeating those words others have said to me so many times.

“Your aunt kept you well hidden.”

“But my mom?”

“I found a file. In the Chancellor’s office. A file on a woman I think was your mother.”

“The Chancellor? He showed you this file?”

The man in black shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Not exactly. The Chancellor has never given any hint that he considers you anything but ordinary and of little interest.”

“What did the file say?”

“It was incomplete. There were hints there though.”

“Hints?” I frown with irritation.

“Reading between the lines, the file seemed to suggest the woman had remarkable gifts. Gifts that would be useful in the authorities’ continual struggle with the criminal gangs and the threat from the West. Gifts that could be fatal if they had fallen into the wrong hands.”

“What gifts?”

“I don’t know, Rhi.” He swallows. “What did your aunt tell you about your mother?”

“That she was beautiful. Clever. Kind. That I looked just like her.” He nods. “That she loved me. That she’d been so desperate to have me. That I was the …” my lip trembles and a tear rolls down my cheek, “that I was the light in her life.”

The man in black steps forward and cupping my jaw, lifts my face to his and wipes away the tear from my cheek.

“I think you may be the light in mine too, Rhianna,” he whispers. I stare at him. I want to believe him so badly. I want to believe that he’d want me despite the bond, despite fate. “I’ll help you find your answers, Rhianna. If that’s what you want. I’ll help you find them.”

“Really?” I whisper.

“Yes …” He hesitates. “As long as you’re sure. Sometimes it is better not to know. Sometimes the past is best left untouched.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I can’t live like this. The not knowing will slowly eat at me until I lose my mind.” I take an inhale. “Renzo was at the house.”

Azlan’s shoulders stiffen. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, Winnie used a displacement spell and we got away.”

“You were lucky, Rhi. He’s not a man to be toyed with. He’s powerful and–”

“Azlan, there’s more.” I tell him about the men who ambushed me at the cemetery. The men dressed like soldiers.

“Do you think they knew who you were, Rhi?” he says with urgency. “Do you think they were coming after you in particular?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It all happened so quickly.”

“I’ll find out. There were reports of these incursions. The Chancellor wants me to investigate them.”

“It doesn’t make sense. Why would they want to capture me?”

“I don’t know, Rhi. Maybe you ought to let Stone unlock those memories in your head.” His fingers stroke along my jaw and down my throat, setting an ache throbbing between my legs.

“He told you about that?”

“He did.”

“I’m scared to open them,” I admit in a whisper.