Hold on Tight (27 page)

And Chris … well, he could never sit still to begin with when he wasn’t sniping. This situation was more extreme than most, and while he was quick to note that he hadn’t rubbed the fingers on his left hand together since earlier, when he’d gotten the sense his brothers were at the cabin waiting for him, he couldn’t sit the hell down, or stop moving, to save his life.

No one commented, though, or told him to stop. His brothers knew it was useless anyway, and he couldn’t stand to see the look in Jamie’s eyes—nearly defeated again.

The anger was so raw and fierce, rose up from a dark place in his heart and made his fists curl and his jaw clench so hard he was sure it would break.

He wanted to kill Alek. With his bare hands. No mercy. Kill him, leave him on the side of the road for putting Jamie through this, for threatening her and their baby … for doing so much harm to the woman he loved.

Even without speaking, he could see Saint was feeling the same. His CO had been uncharacteristically quiet, his eyes constantly checking the perimeters as if he expected someone to come in any minute, which was why PJ had dragged him into the kitchen, for distraction, Chris assumed.

They typically didn’t work like this—they were the hunters. People ran from them. But this man, Alek, he was inching closer and closer and he didn’t have anything at all to lose.

That made Chris the most worried of all.

He started when Jamie’s hand went around the back of his neck and began to massage it with firm fingers. “Close your eyes. Try to relax,” she whispered.

“I’m supposed to be telling you that.”

“Yes, well, you’ve got the next five minutes off.”

He didn’t argue, put his palms against the wall and attempted to relax the muscles in his neck, which now felt as if they were made of steel. “Was all my moving around freaking you out?”

“No. I love watching you move,” she admitted, and smiled a little wickedly, and suddenly he knew it would all work out. The fingers on his left hand still weren’t tingling, but for once he wasn’t grateful that his gift had decided to leave him alone.

Be careful what you wish for, Christopher
. His momma’s favorite lesson to him when he was young, because he was always wishing for things to be different, trying to change outcomes.

But he felt nothing—no tingling fingers. No flashes. Absolutely fucking nothing to tell him exactly how much danger they needed to expect. His body was a giant nerve, even under Jamie’s touch, his mind going back constantly to the question she’d almost asked him earlier.

Do you see me dying anytime soon …

He shook his head to stop hearing those words, and in the process, shook her hands from him. But before she could ask anything, Jake, who’d been staring nonstop at the monitors for the driveway, called, “Car.”

Chris looked over his shoulder. “It’s Kevin. He’s coming in.”

Jamie’s body was strung tightly as she waited—the entire room seemed to have stilled, and she fought for control. It seemed to take forever for Kevin to walk into Saint’s house, but in reality, it was probably under a minute.

There were dark circles under her foster father’s eyes. She’d seen him like that before, after brutal cases and long nights, but this … this was much different.

He looked haunted.

She wanted to give Kevin a hug, but something stopped her, and instead when she spoke, the anger in her voice was unmistakable. “We know that Borya Frolov died. I’m sure you’ve known since it happened—why didn’t you tell us?”

Kevin grimaced. “When the stalking from Handler started, I didn’t want you to be unnecessarily worried.”

“We might’ve been able to make the connection between Gary and Alek sooner,” Jamie told him. “I had a right to know.”

PJ was standing next to her. “Who is Peter Romanov?”

Kevin’s eyes shifted to her quickly. “How do you know that name?”

Chris handed him his phone, the one Jamie had used to snap a picture of the birth certificate at the crime scene. “His birth certificate was stuffed into Gary’s shirt pocket.”

Kevin stared at the phone for a long time.

“Is that Alek’s real name?” Jamie prompted, but Kevin shook his head and paced, as if weighing something heavily.

Finally he stopped. “No. It’s mine.”

“What are you talking about?” PJ asked.

“I’m Peter Romanov.”

PJ stared at Kevin as if seeing a stranger. Everything was starting to unravel, and Jamie had a sick feeling they hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface.

Her voice shook when she spoke—anger, fear, grief all rising up inside of her, yet she’d never felt stronger. “You need to tell us everything. Immediately.”

Everything was at stake—she’d settle for nothing less.

“Jamie—” Kevin started, but she interrupted him.

“As far as we can figure out, Gary Handler was working for Alek. Alek killed Gary—he painted my mother’s name in blood on Gary’s chest. And then he called me … Alek called me.”

She realized she wasn’t letting Kevin speak—was stopping him because he was going to tell her something—tell all of them something—she didn’t want to hear. And so she played him the message from Chris’s phone and watched Kevin’s face go pale.

“Why did you change your name? Are you under protection, like we were?” PJ demanded. “Have you been hiding from Alek all this time too?”

Both she and PJ knew that Kevin had met Grace when they were in high school. She’d stuck by him in his early days as an undercover detective in the NYPD. She knew that Kevin had studied the inner workings of the Russian crime syndicate. Had gone undercover. That because of his knowledge, he’d have an ear to the ground in both that community and with the undercover detectives who still worked that area.

He’d moved to the Marshals after five years of doing that. Right before he’d gotten involved in their case. And now, he stood there and Jamie wondered if they’d ever really known Kevin Morgan at all.

“I’m not under protection. Not really. After I joined the U.S. Marshal’s office, they decided it was safer all around if my name was untraceable. I never thought it would be a problem because Alek and I … we had a pact.”

“‘Alek and I’?
‘Alek and I’
?” Jamie heard her voice rise to a near shriek as the ground seemed to tumble from under her feet. Chris’s hand, strong and reassuring, clamped to her shoulder and she calmed some, but her next words sounded strangled. “You know Alek?”

Kevin took a deep breath. “I’ve known Alek since I was fourteen years old. I met him the day I saved his life.”

It was the Russian way, the way Kevin had learned all those years ago.

“Come on, sit down,” Saint was telling him, and yes, his legs felt as if they couldn’t support him much longer. His body was racked with chills—guilt and conscience teaming up to overpower him—and he could barely look at Jamie and PJ, who sat across from him at the table in the kitchen, as though judge, jury and executioner.

They had every right to be that. The men—four of them standing on the periphery—looked so fucking young, and still Kevin knew they understood somewhere deep inside, understood what he’d done and why.

And so he sat there and he told his story to the women he thought of as his daughters, had protected them as fiercely as he would any blood relative.

As fiercely as he’d once protected the man who wanted them all dead.

His fingers drummed the table as he thought back to his days in high school, suspended between boy and manhood. A place he’d felt forever trapped, thanks to what he’d done on that fateful September day so long ago.

“Alek was a tough guy, always. A year older than me and he was running half our neighborhood. A rough one. I tried to stay out of the way as much as I could, for my mother’s sake.” He could still see his mom at the stove, hair pulled back into a neat bun, too thin, face sallow, all the laughter gone.

Promise me, Peter …

I promise, Mama
.

Until that day he’d happened on the fight between Alek and the rival gang of Russian boys, always vying for more of the neighborhood power between them. “At the high school, they’d gotten Alek alone somehow—his usual gang was nowhere to be found. I tried to stay out of it, hid in the stairwell … until one of the boys poured the gas and then threw a match.”

Kevin had watched with a sickening horror as the match caught—he could still smell the burning flesh and hair, could still hear the screams. “I rushed out, put the fire out with my jacket, my hands.” He stared down at them as if expecting to see the scars from the second-degree burns he’d gotten. “I waited with him until the ambulance came. He told me,
Tell them you didn’t see who did it. Do that for me
. And I did that.”

“He was indebted to you,” PJ said, and Kevin nodded.

“Alek was born into a rich family—and a tough one. The fact that I fought the way I did to save him meant that I was one of them. He was my brother. Once we stood together like that, we were bonded for life.”

He’d been made part of a family he’d later betray.

The favor … if you ever need anything
, Alek told him.

Kevin remembered insisting he didn’t want anything, but Alek remained indebted. Kevin never would have collected if the girls hadn’t come into his life—that’s when he finally drew on the debt.

Leave the girls alone, Alek, and we’re even
.

He’d been asking a lot, he knew that. Alek had already been living in hiding after his escape from prison—if he didn’t finish the job of killing Sophie and Ana, his father would disown him.

Kevin knew Alek was caught between a rock and a hard place, but he hadn’t come near the women in all these years.

“So because you saved his life, he spared ours.” Jamie spoke softly, but the hard edge of anger still tinged her voice.

“I believed that, yes.”

“So why come after us now? Because his father died?” Jamie asked.

“I’m assuming it’s tied to that—I’ve got no other explanation,” Kevin admitted, although he certainly planned on finding out.

“Grace knew about this?” PJ asked.

“Grace knew—she never trusted Alek, though.”

“Does Alek know where you live?” Jamie asked.

“He’s always known. He’s never done anything about it. I saved his life and he gave me his word he’d let you live yours—gave me his word, swore on our brotherhood. The way we grew up, that means something. But now he wants to make sure you know who I was, what part I played. Wants you aware that he knows exactly where you’ve been all these years. Wants you to feel betrayed.” Kevin’s voice almost broke, but he held it together. “You weren’t in danger as long as you were with me. You have to believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Jamie said hoarsely, while PJ simply stared at him, her eyes void of emotion.

“Have you known where Alek was all this time?” PJ asked angrily.

“Not for sure. But I knew he wouldn’t come after you, knew it was better if I simply didn’t search,” Kevin admitted.

“And you risked our lives like that?”

“If you didn’t grow up that way, you can’t understand.” Kevin wrapped his hand so tightly into a fist he swore he’d break his own fingers. “He promised to stay away from you. He promised me.”

“So now what? Because he’s broken his promise.”

He stared at Jamie steadily. “Now it’s time for me to break mine.”

“Jamie, please—”

“Everything was a lie. From the beginning. Bad enough to live a life in hiding, but this … My God, how could you have kept this from us? How could you trust our lives to be safe with a promise from a killer? All my mother did was put a guilty man in jail and we’ve all been paying the price for it.” The tears rose but true to form, Jamie pushed them down, even as Kevin stood and walked toward the door, his gait unsteady.

“You should be in a safe house,” he said, without turning around.

“Screw you and your safe house,” Jamie choked out as she stared at his back, her arms folded tightly against her body.

PJ remained seated at the table, so fucking still, like she was made of stone.

Saint hadn’t moved from the corner, the look on his face a cross between fury and compassion.

None of this was good.

“A lot of fucking drama, but he shouldn’t leave,” Jake was muttering under his breath as Chris moved to catch Kevin before he reached the door.

Nick and Jake joined him on the other side of the marshal. “They don’t mean it, Kevin,” Chris told him. “They’re in shock.”

“Stay here—he’s not getting through us,” Jake said.

But Kevin was shaking his head. “I need to take care of this now. Brother to brother.”

“You need help,” Chris insisted.

“He’s one man. And I know how he operates.”

But the brothers understood all too well how one man could rip apart a woman’s life. Jake had helped Izzy put the pieces back together—he and Nick had taken care of the man who’d haunted her, at significant risk to all their lives.

Alek was one man, and he’d already done a hell of a lot of harm.

“They’ll never forgive me,” Kevin said gruffly. “The least I can do is stop him. I’ll kill him, or I’ll die trying.”

“This isn’t the time to work alone,” Chris argued, even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Kevin’s mind was made up, and he had one foot out the door. “We need to stay together.”

“You need to stay with Jamie. Promise me you won’t leave her,” Kevin said fiercely.

“You have my word.”

Kevin shook his hand and left the house, closing the door quietly behind him.

Chris turned to his brothers. “You don’t have to do this.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Jake told him roughly, a phrase Maggie had used on a regular basis.

“I’ll call Max, make sure Jake and I get the leave,” Nick said, but his attention turned sharply as voices raised.

PJ was pushing Saint’s hands away from her and heading to the deck.

“Let her go,” Jamie told Saint sharply. “Just let her go! I told you, she always leaves. Why should this time be any different?”

Angrily, she picked up his phone and Chris wondered what the hell it would take to make any of this right.