SiNN (6 page)

Jake had no chance to explain that he needed the man’s love
and protection. He wasn’t allowed the time to beg for it. His father closed the
door, the lock’s metal click all too final. With nowhere else to go, Jake had
returned to the reservation as his mother had so many years before, though not
to stay. An athletic scholarship had seen to that, along with a desire to
escape his stepfather’s continued abuse.

Lea pulled in a shuddering breath.

Starting at the sound, Jake turned to her.

“It can’t be true,” she said, as though speaking to herself.
She glanced at Toby, then back at him. “You have the wrong person. I’m not who
you think I am.”

Although it killed Jake to see her anguish, he couldn’t
rewrite history. “There’s no mistake about this.”

“There has to be,” she argued, her words trembling with a
combination of hope and doubt. “You’re saying my parents went into witness
protection when I was three because of what my father did, the drugs he sold,
the people he murdered, and then they decided they wanted to abandon me?”

“No one abandoned anyone,” Toby said, looking at her in the
rearview mirror. “Your mother put you in foster care under an assumed name,
just like Jake told you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lea said. “I lived those fifteen years in
the homes of strangers, without any real family anywhere, all right?”

Toby fell silent.

“I’m sorry,” Jake murmured, picturing her as a
three-year-old, her face wet with tears, blotched with color as she sobbed for
her mother. It took all the control he owned to keep from pulling her into his
arms.

“She left me with people I didn’t know,” Lea said, as though
she simply didn’t understand. Clearing her throat, she spoke in that same
mournful tone. “As I got older and started to question, everyone told me it was
my grandmother who had put me into the system.”

“I’m certain that’s the story your mother wanted them to
tell you,” Jake said.

Lea lowered her face. Her slender fingers tightened into
fists. “She never came by. Not once. I had dreams of looking for her.” Pausing,
she lifted her shoulders, her brows drawn together in a frown. “Maybe they
weren’t dreams after all. I recall running to the window of a house I knew
wasn’t mine. I kept slapping my hands on the glass, calling for her, wanting to
see her coming down the street. I listened really hard, hoping to hear her
voice.” Hers fell to a whisper. “She never came back for me.”

“Your mother did it to protect you,” Jake explained. “Even
with the program, she always feared that Cubrero would catch up with your
father and it would put you at risk.”

Lea shook her head as though it was too much to comprehend.
“I don’t believe it.” She tightened her fists to a point that her knuckles
blanched. “No one—
no one—
carries a vendetta this long.”

“Not in your normal, everyday world,” Jake said, “but we’re
dealing with a drug cartel here. They need to control their members and do so
through fear. As I said before, your father was facing life in a federal
penitentiary for his crimes unless he testified against his superiors. That’s
simply not done in the Colombian cartels.”

She gave him a look that said he was crazy. “Neither is
going after me. I was a child when all this happened. I didn’t know anything
about what he was doing. I don’t have any knowledge that can harm them.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Jake said. “Your father
broke rank. His testimony put Cubrero’s father in prison for life. The man died
there in a riot a little over a year ago. For that and your father’s betrayal
of the cartel, Cubrero vowed to murder him, along with all of his family.
That’s the way these people work, Lea. They’re not the Mafia where wives and
children are off-limits. These animals slaughter everyone they can to get their
revenge, to control, and they don’t give a fuck how long it takes. With your
father’s death, Cubrero can boast about how he finally caught up with the man,
even though he was in witness protection. It’s a miracle your mother wasn’t
there when the execution went down.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s safe,” Toby warned, turning to the
side before he glanced back at the road. “Cubrero will continue looking for
her. Only through her murder and yours can he can prove to his subordinates
that no one—no matter who they are, no matter how long they tried to run and
hide—can get away from him. Cubrero won’t stop until both of you are dead.”

Lea’s features went slack.

“That’s not going to happen,” Jake said quickly, trying to
convince her even as he shot a frown at Toby’s reflection. Did he have to be so
fucking blunt? “We’re going to protect you and your mother.”

Her attention darted from him to Toby and back. “Where is
she?”

Jake shook his head. “We can’t tell you. It’s for her
protection and yours.”

“For how long?” She lifted her brows. “Are you saying you’re
going to keep me in the dark forever? You’re going to be able to protect me
forever? Have you even seen this Cubrero around me? Have you been tracking his
movements? Why haven’t you simply arrested him?”

“We don’t know what he looks like,” Toby said.

Jake kicked the back of his seat, wanting him to shut the
fuck up.

Unfazed, he met Jake’s eyes in the mirror. “She needs to
know what we’re up against.”

Not like this. Not all at once. Scaring the shit out of her
wasn’t going to do any of them a bit of good, especially him. He didn’t want to
see her so damn hopeless. He liked her other persona—SiNN—a deliciously assured
woman. The one who’d looked at him so directly at the club with longing and
arousal. The one who hadn’t seemed afraid of anything, especially his unashamed
lust.

Those moments might as well have been a lifetime away.
Again, her worry swung from Toby to him. “How can you not know what he looks
like?”

Jake spoke before Toby could. “No pictures were ever taken
of him or his immediate family. It allows them to move around freely without
identification by the authorities and to avoid being murdered by their
competitors. We suspect Cubrero will have some of his father’s features, but to
what extent we can’t possibly know for sure.”

Unclenching her fingers, Lea wrapped her arms around herself
and pushed back in the leather seat. “He could be anyone?”

Jake wanted to lie, but could not. He nodded.

She drew her shoulders in as though trying to protect
herself. “He knows I perform as SiNN at The Second Circle?”

“No,” Toby answered.

“How can you be so certain?” she asked.

Swapping a glance with Toby, Jake finally said, “You’re
still alive.”

Lea’s arms tensed around her torso. It did little to stop
her shivering.

“Turn down the air-conditioning,” Jake ordered Toby. He
leaned forward, extending his hand. “Give me your jacket.”

A muscle ticked in Toby’s jaw at Jake’s command. Offering no
comment or complaint, he checked the traffic on all sides before cutting the
air and handing over the garment.

“Here,” Jake said, his movements gentle, nearly tender as he
draped the jacket across Lea’s chest. “This might help.”

She caught a hint of Toby’s scent on the fabric—clean and
soapy—then a trace of Jake’s remembered fragrance, a perfect combination of
leather and musk.

Lifting her face, she studied them both. In the lights from
the oncoming cars, Toby’s blond locks had a silver cast, while blue shone in
Jake’s raven hair. Colors at each end of the spectrum, so different, the same
as their features.

Toby’s cool looks belonged in a boardroom, while Jake’s
rugged appearance would have gone unquestioned and unchallenged in the wildest
roadhouse. Yet each of them was so powerful and masculine. Large men who exuded
strength.

A crazy urge to be close to them flooded Lea. She ached to
wreathe her arms around their shoulders, drawing them close, sandwiching
herself between their big bodies, comforted by their warmth and scents, content
in the fact that they wouldn’t let her go. They would keep her safe.

“Better?” Jake asked.

His vibrant voice was so tamed with concern it stirred
something within Lea. She’d lived so long in a world where no one except
Danielle had ever cared. Turning her face to his, she saw kindness in his dark
eyes along with naked lust.

If Jake worried about her reaction to his desire, he didn’t
show it. He was a man comfortable in his own skin, no doubt used to breaking
the rules. Toby, on the other hand, had serious reservations about Jake’s
feelings for her, not to mention his own. Lea had seen that unease flash
continually in his eyes.

It didn’t stop her from wanting him and Jake.

“What now?” she asked.

Neither man answered. They looked at each other in the
rearview mirror.

Lea’s stomach clenched. “What now?” she persisted.

Jake spoke first. “Our first priority is getting you to a
safe location.”

Lea watched the cars and landscape whizzing by. They’d left
the populated areas a long time ago, before Jake had even begun revealing the
full truth about her parents. As far as Lea could see, there weren’t any motels
in this desolate location or even a community airport for them to whisk her out
of state.

“Where?” she asked.

“A place where you’ll be safe,” Toby said.

Lea dug her fingers into her arms and stated the obvious. “There
aren’t any towns around here. No motels.” Nothing.

Without warning, an image flashed in Lea’s mind of her
grandmother—or rather her mother—leaving her, accompanied by a sense of loss so
great it made her nauseous. Jake and Toby were going to do the same. They were
bringing her to a stranger who would then bring her to another stranger until
people she didn’t know surrounded her, leaving Lea alone once more.

“Where are we going?” she cried. “Dammit, tell me.”

“Easy.” Jake rested his hand on her knee. “We’re not leaving
you.”

His words and restrained strength broke her panic, sending
ripples of warmth through Lea’s body, making her limbs sluggish and her lids
heavy. She leaned closer, irresistibly drawn to him as she’d been at the club.
“Then tell me where we’re headed. Please,” she begged.

After exchanging another glance with Toby, Jake murmured, “A
location Cubrero doesn’t know about.”

Too quickly, the blessed heat receded from her body. Why was
he being so fucking cryptic? Lea twisted her torso to face Jake, sending the
jacket tumbling from her shoulders. Goose pimples rose on her arms from the
SUV’s cool air and her renewed worry. “Who else is going to be there?”

Cops? More marshals? Their superiors? All of them discussing
her life, changing it, while she was supposed to stand by and accept whatever
they decided unless she wanted to be murdered? Wasn’t that what Toby had said
earlier? It was her right to refuse all of this—if she wanted to die.

“Who?” she insisted.

“No one,” Toby answered. “Like Jake said, we’re staying with
you. Just us.”

Lea’s heart leapt with foolish hope, which didn’t last. Past
experience taught her not to trust promises. So few people actually honored
them. “For how long?”

“The next few days,” Toby admitted.

And then? she wondered, but didn’t ask.

“Once this is all settled, you will be all right,” Jake
said.

Lea heard his doubt. Or was it regret that their time
together was far too short and would soon be at an end? Forcing down a swallow,
she looked at him. Something flickered in his eyes, only this time he pushed it
away, not letting her see it.

Too weary to question him, Lea pulled Toby’s jacket back
over her shoulders and turned to her window. Dread sapped her strength, making
her sleepy, encouraging her to escape. Closing her eyes, she breathed as deeply
as she could and surrendered to exhaustion.

Her dream came swiftly.

She was back at The Second Circle, kneeling on a large,
circular bed that took up most of the stage. Jake’s weight and Toby’s shifted
the mattress as they crawled onto it, joining her, each of them nude and erect,
their expressions predatory.

Lea’s body weakened, making breathing difficult. Heat rose
to her face, the flush hidden by her feathered mask. She stared at their
ponderous balls and rigid cocks, knowing before the night was over, each of
their shafts would slide over her tongue, filling her mouth, both would burrow
into her cunt and anus, obligating her openings to accommodate their savage
male strength and need.

Her thoughts grew lethargic, her manner submissive. Facing
them, she displayed her nudity, letting each man know her acceptance of
whatever he wanted to do with her. Nothing would be too lewd. No act
prohibited. Lea’s breasts quivered with her unsteady breaths, her nipples
puckering in the room’s coolish air. The delicate chains she wore rolled gently
across her torso and over her cunt, taunting Jake and Toby to remove them from
her.

Neither advanced as they studied her flesh, their cocks
thickening in response.

Deep within Lea’s pussy a pulse beat hard, arousal
moistening her opening. Parting her legs, she encouraged them to view her dewy
cunt. She pulled back her shoulders, further exhibiting herself.

A horn honked. Tires screeched.

Lea froze, confused by the sounds, her heart tripping on
several beats. Glancing over, she saw men without faces reclining in the
leather chairs surrounding the platform. Their excited breathing was oddly
noisy, their words hurried as though they were arguing, drowning out the Latin
music.

Lea frowned, wanting them to be quiet. Turning away, she saw
the look on Jake’s face—unbridled lust mingled with a measure of affection.

“There’s no reason to be afraid,” he murmured. “I won’t
leave you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Liar,” she whispered, unable to
help herself. “You will.”