Passing His Guard (Against the Cage #2) (37 page)

CHAPTER

 38 

R
yann startled, slamming the lid shut on her computer. He didn’t blame her for being jumpy, especially after tonight, but something told him it was more than that. Guilt was written all over her gorgeous face. He’d seen that look before, been on the receiving end of it more than once, and Aiden got the feeling he wasn’t going to like it any more now than he had then.

“I thought you were going to sleep,” he commented offhandedly as he closed the door behind him and tugged off his shirt.

“I’d planned to, but . . . I guess I’m too restless to sleep.”

She moved the computer off her lap and set it on the nightstand beside the bed.

“What are you doing?” He stripped off his jeans, leaving his boxers on as he crossed to his side of the bed. Funny how they’d gravitated to his and her sides already, how easily they’d settled into a relationship more seamlessly than he’d ever expected. Aiden wasn’t used to sharing his space with someone. Hell, he wasn’t used to sharing his life with someone, yet now he couldn’t imagine spending it without her. He needed this thing with Moralli to be over—like yesterday. And he needed to be free before he could talk with Ryann about their future, about their next step—which they would hopefully take together. How would she feel about leaving New York? Because there was no way in hell he was staying here. With any luck, Ike would get him that immunity plea bargain, and he could get back to Vegas and resume his fighting career before he lost his position as the top contender for the middleweight title.

“I was reading some files. How is Nikko?”

She was trying to change the subject, clever girl. But he was a lawyer, and a damn good one, too. He was trained to read people. It was what made him so effective in the courtroom, and Ryann was keeping something from him. He shifted tactics, attempting to lower her guard by allowing her to believe her diversion worked.

“Nikko’s fine. A little caught up in his head, but he gets that way sometimes.”

“Do you know why?”

Aiden climbed under the covers and stretched out beside her. “Not really. He doesn’t talk about it and I don’t ask. It’s why we get along so well, when we’re not beating the shit out of each other in the cage. I know he’s ex-marine recon and ended his career in Afghanistan. I can only assume it has something to do with that.”

“Do you think what happened tonight with Henry might have triggered some memories?”

“It’s likely. Again, I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell.” He rolled to his side and faced her, propping his head up with his hand. “I like your shirt.”

She smiled and stretched it out, looking down at it. “This old thing? It’s not mine. It belongs to my boyfriend.”

Yeah . . . he liked seeing her in his clothes. It was sexy as hell, especially when she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “Well, he must have impeccable taste in clothing.”

She shrugged. “Or perhaps a superhero fetish. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Come here,” Aiden growled and grabbed her waist, dragging her across the sheets and rolling her beneath him. He kissed her softly, a gentle brush of his lips, wooing her to lower the last of her defenses. It didn’t take long for Ryann to melt in his arms. Her hands slipped down his back as her lips parted, encouraging him to deepen the kiss, but he knew once he got started, he wasn’t going to be able to stop. And this was too important to ignore. If he wasn’t careful,
he
was going to become the one distracted. “You scared the hell out of me tonight,” he whispered against her lips, growing serious and steering their conversation back on topic. “When those shots rang out and you tried to run toward that guy . . .”

She grew still beneath him. He could feel the tension edging back into her.

Still he pressed her. “Ryann, I’ve lived my whole life embroiled in lies and secrets. I don’t want there to be any between us.”

When her gaze reconnected with his, it was full of uncertainty and regret, making something in his chest tighten with an unfamiliar emotion—dread.

“Aiden, I have something to tell you.”

He thought so . . . “What is it, Ryann?”

“Can I get up, please?”

Aiden rolled to the side and raised his arm, allowing her to rise. He sat as she crawled across the bed to the nightstand, grabbed something, and then came back over to him. “When Henry died, I was holding his hand and this was in it.” She opened her palm and presented him with the flash drive. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to see what was on it first, if what was on this stick was worth dying for.”

He ignored the fact that she’d essentially lied to him for the last ten hours. How easy would it be to let those seeds of doubt begin to take root? If she’d keep something as important as this from him, what else could she be hiding from him? “And is it?” Aiden asked, mindful of his tone and careful to guard his expression.

She nodded.

“What’s on the stick, Ryann?”

“Moralli’s hit list.”

“Fuuuck . . .” Aiden roughly dragged his hands though his hair, locking his eyes on her. “Are you sure?”

Ryann was looking more anxious by the second. “Positive. It’s a list of all the men Moralli has hired my father to investigate and all the dates they were killed. There are fifteen names here that go back as far as four years.”

“Ryann, that’s great news. It’s exactly what we’re looking for. This evidence, combined with what we currently have, should be enough to put Moralli away for life.”

So why was she looking at him like his favorite dog just died?

“That’s not all that’s on this stick, Aiden.”

The knot of dread fisting in his gut tightened, making him want to puke, though he wouldn’t let it prevent him from asking the question he feared would derail his life, confirming the thoughts that had already been knocking around in his head for the last couple of days. “Why . . . ?”

She hesitated, and for a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to tell him. “Before he died, my dad was investigating your dad. It’s all in here—his connection to Moralli and all the illegal activities he’s been involved in. Not only will this evidence ruin him politically, but if you hand this flash drive over to the DA, there’s a good chance you’re going to be sending your father to prison. And if you don’t do it, then Moralli’s going to get away with murder—including my father’s . . .”

Ryann wasn’t sure what she was expecting from Aiden, but his thoughtful silence was not it. Was he angry at her for not telling him about the flash drive right away? Was he upset to learn the truth about his father? No doubt the answer was yes to both.

Either way, Ryann didn’t feel like it was her place to hand over the flash drive to the DA. As much as she wanted her father’s killer to pay, as much as Moralli’s victims deserved their justice, she wouldn’t take it at Aiden’s expense. She would not be responsible for sentencing his father to prison. There were just some things a relationship could not survive, and ruining one’s parent was one of them. She couldn’t handle the guilt, couldn’t be responsible for hurting Aiden, even if it was the solution to all their problems.

“Here.” Ryann held out the stick. “Take it.”

Aiden frowned. Again, not the reaction she was expecting. “Why are you giving this to me, Ryann?”

“Because what’s on this stick could destroy your family, and I don’t want to be responsible for that, Aiden. I love you too much to let that come between us. And you might not think that it would, but blood is thicker than water, and I know what it’s like to have a father taken from you. I won’t be the one to do that to you—even if it means Moralli goes free. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. It’s yours now.”

When she placed the flash drive in his hand, a surprising amount of peace came over her. The closure she felt in knowing the truth was an unexpected burden lifted from her shoulders. She honestly had no idea what Aiden was going to do with the condemning evidence, but she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever he decided, she would support him. She wouldn’t sacrifice her future for her past.

CHAPTER

 39 

A
iden stormed into his father’s office and slammed the door, the wall-rattling bang resonating throughout the entire fourth floor. His father looked up from the pile of papers on his desk. The placid expression on the man’s face fueled Aiden’s fire.

“Aiden, what a surprise.”

He strode over to the chair across from his father’s desk and plopped down.

“Please, have a seat,” his father grumbled, droll sarcasm thick on his tongue. “I assume this impromptu visit is not for pleasure, so it must be business. What do you want?”

“How about the truth? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

His father exhaled an impatient sigh and slammed his pen on the desk with a sharp rap. “And what injustice, pray tell, have I wrought upon you this time?”

“Cut the shit, Dad. I know . . .”

His father let out a derisive snort, full of contempt. “You don’t know anything,” he growled.

“I know you had Ryann’s father killed.”

His expression was completely unreadable, except for the fury sparking in his slate-gray eyes. The seconds ticked by as they sat there in a wordless standoff. After a moment that felt eternal, his father’s top lip curled into a sneer. “What you know and what you can prove are two different things. I thought you were a lawyer. You should know that.”

So the arrogant bastard wasn’t even going to try to deny it. This man actually thought himself so far above the law that he could sit here in this office and admit to murder. Aiden’s stomach twisted, and he realized a part of him had been hanging on to the slim hope that he was wrong. He’d been struggling with this for days. Guilt had him avoiding Ryann whenever possible for fear she’d see the truth in his eyes. He’d prayed he was wrong. God, how he’d prayed . . . But after carefully reading the files Ryann had lovingly entrusted into his care, and knowing his father like he did, he could no longer deny the man was responsible for Axel Andrews’s death.

Aiden wasn’t sure how much longer he could do it. He’d been avoiding Ryann since she gave him the evidence, and the distance growing between them was killing him. He knew how bad it looked. God only knew what she was thinking, but he couldn’t tell her, not yet. Fuck, he was trying like hell not to lie to her. If she would give him the flash drive for fear that ruining his father would be too great a strain for their relationship to bear, what did he think was going to happen when she found out his father had hers killed?

The what-ifs haunted him, robbing him of sleep at night and torturing him mercilessly during the day. When at home, Aiden sequestered himself in the gym, claiming he needed to train to justify his distance. It was the truth—sort of—but even Nikko was starting to ask questions, pointing out that he hadn’t even trained this hard for his fight with Mallenger. His next fight was in two days. With any luck, this problem with Moralli and his father would be over before then, but if not, he needed to be prepared to step into that cage and win.

Every man had his breaking point, and today, Aiden had hit his when he’d slipped out of bed and snuck from his room, avoiding Ryann like a coward. This wasn’t him, dammit. Aiden Kruze faced life’s challenges head-on. He couldn’t do this anymore. For days he’d pondered his course of action, but the bottom line was he could no longer turn a blind eye to the truth to protect his father—a man who was loyal to nothing but the lure of power. It didn’t matter who he hurt or who he betrayed to get it.

Unfortunately, his father was right: He had no proof, just his suspicions—oh, and the confession of a cold-blooded killer. The lawyer in him knew the evidence he had would never stand up in court—it was his word against his father’s.

“You know what, Aiden? You were always too smart for your own good. Someday”—his father tapped his temple with his index finger—“all those smarts are going to catch up with you if you aren’t careful.”

“Are you threatening me?” It took every last bit of restraint not to leap across the desk and shake some sense into his father before it was too late. But truthfully, the man was too far gone into his hole of self-destruction for Aiden to help him climb out of it now. Someone had to stop him before anyone else got hurt. He just wished it didn’t have to be him.

“Christ, you’re an ungrateful shit, you know that?” Bennett snapped. It was the first true show of emotion, the first crack in his father’s impenetrable armor—and the man was furious. “You could have had it all, you know that? But you threw it all away. And for what?—some cunt and a half-assed fighting career?”

Aiden saw red. Every muscle in his body strung ripcord tight as rage suffused every cell of his body. To keep from saying something he’d regret, he bit the inside of his cheek until the coppery tang of blood touched his tongue. As well placed as those verbal jabs were, Aiden refused to take his father’s bait.

“I can’t believe you did it,” Aiden spat with contempt. “By some miracle Ryann still believes Moralli had her father murdered. What the hell am I going to tell her?”

“You’ll tell her nothing!” his father yelled, slamming his fist onto the desk. “Axel Andrews was a man with a death wish—one that I granted him.”

“Why was he investigating you? Who hired him?”

“No one! The bastard was blackmailing me. He built a case connecting me to Moralli, then demanded a million dollars for his silence. I silenced him, all right. He could have destroyed my career, Aiden. I couldn’t take that chance. He owed Moralli money and everyone knew it. When he turned up dead, everyone just assumed it was a mob hit.”

Oh, my God . . .
Aiden stared at the man sitting across from him, realizing for the first time in his life he was in the presence of a monster. What in the hell was he going to do? How was he going to tell Ryann the truth? In that moment, a single thought resonated deep inside him that chilled him more than the knowledge that his father was a cold-blooded murderer.

I’m going to lose her . . .

I’m going to lose him . . .

This was the only thought that played through Ryann’s head as she woke to find herself alone. He was gone again, and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. For three days she’d barely seen him. He slipped into bed well after midnight, long after she was supposed to be sleeping, and he was gone again before she woke. Had she erred in giving him the flash drive?—in trusting him? In placing his father’s future in his hands, had she pushed him beyond the breaking point?

Though there seemed to be no love lost between him and his father, still the decision he faced was monumental. Once decided, it wasn’t something he could go back and undo. She refused to ask him about it. When and if he was ready, she hoped he would talk to her about it. But until then, all she could do was support him any way she knew how. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to want comfort from her. He’d withdrawn into himself, falling back into a pattern of coping she suspected had sustained him all these years—physical exhaustion. Even Nikko had tried to talk to him last night, but Aiden had responded by telling him to either spar or get out of his gym. The flurry of activity she heard coming from the gym had gone on well into the night.

“You okay?”

She looked up from her oatmeal, long gone cold, as she stirred random designs in the mush with her spoon. Nikko shuffled past her on the way to the kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of black sweats with
Cage Fighting Association
running down the leg. She heard the suction break on the fridge, and a minute later he came walking out with a protein bar in one hand and a tall glass of orange juice in the other.

“I think I should be asking you that,” she said, nodding at the dark purple bruise over his left cheek. “It sounded pretty intense in there last night.”

Nikko shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Disco just needed to blow off some steam.”

“Have you noticed he’s been acting different these past few days?” she pressed.

“Of course I’ve noticed, but you gotta understand, Gingersnap, we’re guys. This isn’t
The Vagina Monologues
. We don’t talk about our feelings.”

“Well maybe you should.”

“Uh-uh. That’s what you’re here for. I fight with him, you fuck him. That’s just the way it works.”

“Well, it’s not working,” she grumbled under her breath. If he heard her complaining, he didn’t press it. She was just glad Nikko was talking to her again. At least whatever dark place he’d slipped into had been a short-lived trip. He’d pulled himself out and brushed himself off as she suspected he’d done many times before.

“What are we doing today?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I’m finishing the dossier for Aiden on Lucas Machio. You want to watch some MMA videos with me?”

He gave a wicked smile that would someday melt some lucky lady’s panties. “Hell yeah, let’s do this.”

The afternoon passed uneventfully, and by late evening when Aiden had yet to come home, Ryann was starting to get restless.

“You’re pacing.”

“Am I?” She halted midstride and glanced at Nikko, stretched out across the couch in a lazy sprawl, his silvery gaze following her as she trekked back and forth in front of the Manhattan skyline. But tonight she was too anxious to appreciate the view. “How can you sit there and be so calm? It’s almost ten o’clock and Aiden isn’t back yet. He should have been home hours ago, and he’s not answering his phone.”

“Relax. Disco’s a big boy, not to mention a world-class MMA fighter. He can take care of himself.”

Nikko’s negligent attitude gave her no comfort. It did, however, piss her off. “What if something happened to him?” That was the closest she would come to voicing her truest fears. Nikko didn’t know about the flash drive. She and Aiden had agreed that the fewer people who were aware of its existence the better.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know!” She threw up her hands in frustration, never feeling more helpless. “I’m going to go find him,” Ryann declared, marching toward her purse. Nikko was off the couch faster than she thought humanly possible and halting her retreat with a firm grip on her arm.

“Sorry, Gingersnap. I can’t let you do that.”

“Let me? You can’t
let
me?! I have news for you, Nikko, you do
not
get to tell me what I can and can’t do. If I want to walk out that door I’m going to, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

His brow rose, the
oh, really?
an unspoken challenge she wasn’t sure she wanted to test. There was some serious
I’m not fucking around
determination flashing in those silver-hued eyes. But she’d never been one to back down from a fight, and Ryann was just worried enough about Aiden to test him.

“Let go of me, Nikko.”

They stood there a moment, staring at each other in a wordless standoff. After several tense seconds ticked by, he muttered a foul curse and released her arm. “I’ll go find him,” he grumbled. “As long as you promise to stay put.”

“I promise,” she agreed. At this point she’d say just about anything to know Aiden was all right. Now whether or not she actually did it was another story.