His to Take (8 page)

“That’s what Joaquin thinks.”

“Yes,” he answered Sean.

“Did you see any evidence of anyone else pursuing you before yesterday?”

“No.”

“Were you watching for that?” Joaquin challenged.

“Why would I? I never imagined anyone would be after me. I was an ordinary woman living
an ordinary life. I just did my thing.”

“If you’re Tatiana Aslanov and LOSS is onto you, that’s not the case anymore.” Sean
tried to soften his warning with a compassionate stare. “Even if you’re not the missing
girl, they believe you might be. So you’re still very much in danger.”

His words reverberated through her system, echoing the worry in her head. Bailey sat
back in her chair and blinked. Confusion, anxiety, horror—it all hovered just under
a blanket of smothering shock. Everything was coming at her so fast . . .

She jumped out of her chair and paced away, not caring that Joaquin stared after her.
She didn’t even want to think about how surreal all this was again. But that part
was becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Heels clicked across the floor. Bailey tensed just before someone laid a gentle hand
on her shoulder. She whirled to see Callie standing beside her.

“I know this is difficult. They’re so focused on the who, when, why, what, and how
to crush the danger that they forget we can be overwhelmed and scared.”

Bailey nodded. The woman appeared so collected. Not just that, but whole—both inside
and out. Looking at her, no one would ever guess that she’d run for her life for almost
ten years, that as a teenager she’d been hunted from state to state, identity to identity.
But Callie had overcome and found her future.

Whether she was Tatiana Aslanov or not, if anyone believed she was, they would hunt
her. She had to focus on that now. Hopefully, the rest would sort itself out.

Pressing her lips together to try to keep her composure, Bailey blinked away more
tears. “When you were running from these killers, did you ever have anything that
felt like a normal life?”

Callie opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “I’d love to make you
feel better, but I would rather prepare you for reality. No. I was always looking
over my shoulder.” With a squeeze of her arm, the woman went on. “We can hide you
here for a while. Sean, Thorpe, and Axel will move mountains to keep you safe.” She
glanced back at the three men, now in deep discussion about LOSS and how to keep them
off Bailey’s tail. “I think Joaquin would do the same and more.”

“I-I don’t even know him. We were ‘introduced’ when he stuck a needle in my neck to
drug me and bring me here.”

“He did it to keep you safe,” Callie pointed out. “That’s a tough way to meet, and
I’m sure it doesn’t inspire confidence. But if it makes you feel any better, the men
he knows, Logan and Hunter Edgington, they’re protectors through and through. They
saved my friend, London, from someone trying to kill her. They’re both former SEALs.
You don’t know them or me, but I swear if they have anything to do with Joaquin, then
you’re in no danger from that man. Besides, I see the way he looks at you . . .”

Bailey glanced past Callie and found Joaquin’s stare drilling into her. Protective.
Hot. Full of unspoken intent. As their gazes locked, it impacted her somewhere in
the middle of her chest, then boomed uncomfortably lower. Taking a breath got difficult.
As she fell into his green eyes, a wave of dizziness floated through her head.

She jerked her gaze free. God, she sounded like an idiot swooning over a good-looking
man. He was a dangerous stranger dragging her into dangerous crap.

“I’m focused on staying alive,” she told Callie. “But hearing that I might not be
who I believed . . . That’s a lot to accept.”

“Of course it is! My situation was different because I voluntarily changed identities,
but the result was the same. Lots of new towns, new lives, new . . . everything.”
Callie shrugged. “The important thing is stopping these guys so you can be you again,
whoever that ends up being.”

Digesting those words, Bailey chewed on her lip. Callie understood what she was going
through probably better than anyone else; she’d cut through all the emotion and gone
straight for the heart of the matter. She’d given what sounded like good advice.

“Yeah. Me.” Whoever that was. “If I’m that girl, I don’t know anything.”

“At least not that you remember now.” Callie sent her a soft expression of sympathy.
“Give yourself a break. Everything is happening quickly. You can’t expect to just
snap your fingers and accept that homegrown terrorists are out to get you, that your
family may not have been your biological relations at all, and that people you have
virtually no memory of may have given birth to you.”

“You got that right.” She didn’t see the humor in this situation, but she tried to
smile. It was either that or cry again. Besides, Callie understanding her plight was
somehow really reassuring.

Bailey hadn’t experienced a lot of empathy growing up. Her father had often been distant,
her mother flighty. Sometimes, she’d felt like a stranger in her home and wondered
why she was so different than her parents, why they had nothing in common.

Maybe now she knew.

“It’s equally hard, I imagine, to know that you lost a biological family you don’t
even remember to the same violence hunting you now. I remember my dad and my sister
really well, obviously. But to have them gone in an instant and still have to elude
killers in the middle of my shock and sadness, to find safety . . . It took me a long
time to feel as if I’d grieved properly. Longer still before I finally believed I
could start looking forward, rather than back.”

“I can imagine.” And Bailey had a terrible suspicion that her own life could be one
giant mirror of Callie’s years on the run if she couldn’t direct these dangerous killers
away from her. But how?

“Don’t forget, though. You have an advantage,” Callie added. “I had no one for years,
not until I came to Dallas and met Thorpe.”

The woman turned to glance at her former boss and . . . whatever else the man was
to her. He met her gaze with a reassuring nod before turning back to the men’s conversation.

A flicker of regret crossed Callie’s face. “Even when I came to Thorpe, I didn’t tell
him who I was. I didn’t trust anyone. Eventually, he figured it out, but I’ll always
wonder if my life would have been . . . I don’t know, easier? Fuller? Less terrifying,
maybe, if I’d opened up sooner. Sean came along about four years later. Same story.
They had to pry everything out of me.”

“And now you’re with them both?” Bailey blurted the question. “I’m sorry. It’s none
of my business.”

“It’s fine.” Callie grinned with a little wince mixed in. “Our relationship isn’t
conventional, but it works for us. Thorpe and I tend to butt heads. Sean is the calming
influence we both need.”

“The referee?”

“Something like that. I love them both so much and I’ll be forever grateful that they
fought to save me.” Callie leveled her with a serious stare. “Joaquin is fighting
to save you. I’m not suggesting you should fall in love with him or anything, but
you have someone on your side already. Be grateful. It can make a huge difference.”

“Ultimately, I have to get myself out of this mess.”

“You do, but fighting this alone is over your head, just like it was over mine. We’re
talking about terrorists and killers. Me trying to do everything without help cost
me a lot of years of misery, not to mention that I’m damn lucky to be alive. Sometimes,
helping yourself is figuring out who might stand beside you and make your world a
safer place.” Callie glanced at Joaquin.

Bailey mulled the woman’s words, then glanced at her captor. Or was he her savior?
She really didn’t know anymore.

Suddenly, Sean rose. “I’ll see what I can find.” Then he looked Callie’s way. “I’ll
be right back, lovely.”

She smiled. “I’ll be here.”

“Why don’t you go eat something?” He frowned at her, concern settling over his face.

“I will.” When he sent her a skeptical glare, Callie grinned. “I promise.”

With a squeeze of Bailey’s hand, she strolled back to Thorpe and settled beside him.
He curled her against his side and held her close.

“You’re still not eating, pet?” Thorpe asked gently, but he didn’t sound pleased.

“I’ve just been so busy.”

He leveled her with a demanding stare that said he refused to let the subject go.

“All right. I’m going.” She gave a long-suffering sigh and rose.

Thorpe swatted her ass. “A meal, Callie. Not an apple. Not a cup of yogurt. I left
you several choices in the fridge. Warm one up.”

The gorgeous brunette looked like she really wanted to protest, but she didn’t. “Yes,
Sir.”

At the reverence in Callie’s tone, another pang of envy pained Bailey. The heiress
had found her place in this world, people she belonged with and to, men who watched
over her. Looking back on her childhood, Bailey realized that she had shared a name
and a house with her parents . . . but no real bond. And she hadn’t connected with
any boyfriends, never felt the sort of love flowing between these three. So she’d
focused on her dance and tried to use it as an outlet for her yearning.

But none of that mattered now. Someone wanted to kill her because she might be a long-lost
Russian child. Until she could shake them, she couldn’t figure out who she was, where
she belonged, and who she belonged with.

As Callie let herself out of the room, Bailey made her way back to her seat and sank
onto the cushion, feeling more alone than ever.

“You okay?” Joaquin asked.

He didn’t have to care at all. She resisted softening toward him for asking.

“I’m all right. Where did Sean go?”

“To see what other information he might be able to dig up to assist you,” Thorpe offered.
“He’s still consulting with the FBI on this case. They might have some background
that will help. If nothing else, he’ll get the murder of these women on their radar
so they can start investigating possible tie-ins.”

A good thing. Even if she never came within sneezing distance of danger, these madmen
needed to be stopped so no one else faced this fear or endured the dead women’s horror
again.

To Thorpe, she just nodded.

He frowned at her. “I’m working some angles from here, too. Joaquin and I have been
talking. I’ve sent Axel, my head of security, down to Houston.”

“He’ll see if anyone is looking for you and make sure that no one messes with your
boyfriend because they’re looking for you.”

Joaquin must mean Blane. Bailey opened her mouth to explain that he was just a friend,
then stopped. The man who’d taken her from her house had tried to kiss her. Worse,
she’d nearly let him. If he believed that she was taken . . . well, she didn’t really
expect him to keep his distance because of it. After all, a guy willing to pluck a
sleeping woman from her bed might not have a lot of scruples, but at least she could
use Blane as an excuse if Joaquin tried to kiss her again. It wasn’t much, but it
was all she had now. And she needed a boundary between them. She had enough on her
plate trying to decipher her real identity and hide from killers. But that wasn’t
all. Joaquin oozed this sex vibe that told her he’d been around the block. She, on
the other hand, was still taking baby steps down the driveway. He’d chew her up and
spit her out. The last thing she needed was to get emotionally tangled with someone
like him.

“Thanks,” she said to Thorpe. “Blane will appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sean opened the door a minute later with a piece of paper in hand. With a purposeful
stride, he headed in her direction. “Joaquin said you don’t remember anything before
you were five. And that you only dream about being picked up bloody on the side of
the road. Is that right?”

Where was he going with this? “Yes.”

“Do you have a vivid image of the little girl in the dream?”

“No.” Bailey frowned, trying to remember the nightmare in detail. “Parts are fuzzy,
but I don’t see the girl’s face. I
am
the girl, so I see a shirt, a hand, a pair of bare feet. Nothing else.”

He glanced down at the paper he carried. She saw now that the back looked glossy.
It was photo paper. He glanced between the page in his hand and her a few times, then
whistled. “I used my FBI contacts to get this from the sealed police files in Crawford
County, Indiana. Not many have ever laid eyes on this picture. Take a look, Joaquin.”

The other man took it from Sean’s hand. After the merest glance, he swore. “What color
shirt are you wearing in the dream?”

Dread sliced through Bailey. “We’ve been over this.”

“Remind me.”

She clamped her lips shut and leaned toward Joaquin, trying to peek at the photo,
but he turned it facedown on his lap.

“I want to see,” she demanded.

“Answer the question first. What color is the shirt?”

Why did she get the feeling that answering would open a Pandora’s box of crap? That
it would rain a bunch of shit down on her head? Even if it did, she couldn’t afford
not to face it. “P-pink.”

“Is it clean or dirty in your nightmares?”

“It’s stained with blood.”

“Tell me this isn’t you.” Joaquin shoved the photo in her direction. “Look me in the
eye and tell me you think this is some other little girl.”

With shaking fingers, Bailey took the eight-by-ten and forced herself to look at it.

In the image, there sat a little girl staring at a wall in what looked to be a police
station. Her eyes appeared vacant, her face whiter than pale. A paramedic hovered
beside her, draping a gray industrial blanket around her shoulders in an attempt to
keep her warm. Underneath it, she wore a pink pajama top smeared with blood. The face . . .
she couldn’t deny that it was hers.

With a cry, Bailey dropped the picture from her numb fingers.