Page 149 of Lamb

“BETA CONFIRMING ONE DOWN. I REPEAT ONE DOWN.”

“Beta!” the man yelled back into the radio, his finger tight on the button. “Do we need medical attention?”

A short pause.

“BETA CONFIRMING, TARGET IS DOA. NO MEDICAL ASSISTANCE NECESSARY.”

“No,” I breathed, and even Hunter went rigid behind me. His grip fastened tight like a noose as those words rang over and over in my head.

TARGET IS DOA.

Dead On Arrival.

It felt like nails had been hammered through the soles of my feet, staring at the traveling fog. Noise shifted into the background as my brothers moved in a compound mass around me. I was an immovable rock in a turbulent tide as icy-cold rain hammered against my skin and skies blackened around me. I felt cold. I felt heavy. I felt …wrong.

Ash was dead.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

ASH

Two Weeks Later…

“It was a good move,” Anna said, rounding the metal table, her voice bouncing off the silver-panelled walls, “bargaining your father’s secrets with Interpol.”

Unlike ordinary police rooms, there was no camera, nor a big two-way mirror lining the walls. I could not be confident that there was not some listening device planted somewhere, but it was nice as far as interrogation rooms went.

“I could not keep running from them forever,” I mused, picking at the skin around my nails. “A dam is bound to break eventually. Better to be on my terms than theirs.”

Anna nodded, pulling out the steel chair on the opposite side of the table. She rested a red briefcase by her bloodred dress shoes. Her lawyer attire toed the line of business casual, with a black satin suit and a sinfully red blouse with lace and diamonds studding the collar. As always, she was the beautiful demon, ready to make a devil’s deal to save her client.

Her baby blue eyes, cool and calm, roamed over me from head to toe before settling on the white bandage plastered at the top of my arm. “Are they giving you proper medical care?” she asked, red nails rippling over the steel surface.

I did not look at my arm. The small sting where my father’s final bullet had nicked my skin was healing nicely. “The doctors said that it is not likely to leave a scar,” I mused, feeling the small smile pull on my lips. When the doctors had said I was lucky this time, I could not disagree. My father’s final parting gift to me had missed, and there would not even be a mark to show for it. Even though I would be left with all the marks he had made before, the scars I would never be able to erase, it felt sweet knowing I had never let him mar me again.

“Good,” Anna sighed, reaching down to unzip her briefcase and pulling loose a thick stack of papers. “I only represent the club for free,” she began, unfurling folders, and files, and clipped sheets.

“I know,” I said, watching her nest herself. “I did not call you to represent me.” I had been able to use one phone call for legal aid, and calling her had been my only thought. But it was not to ask for her to be my lawyer. It was to see her again. One last time.

Anna paused, her fingers pressed flat over her growing pile. A manicured blonde brow crooked in my direction, her eyes demanding an explanation.

“I just thought this might be my only chance,” I explained, my eyes searching hers. The familiar blue that transformed like the sky; I had seen them stormy and raging, had seen them sad and raining, and more importantly, had seen them clear and bright. I would miss them. “I wanted to tell you that, once all of this is done, I will fix things. Between us, I mean. Even if things will never be the same as they once were.”

Anna’s blue eyes were still. No weather roiled in their depths, but something shifted, something I could not piece together. Something strange and new. “You’re aware you’re looking atyears, right?”

“I know.”

When I reached out to Interpol and informed them of my name, my whereabouts, and my plans to hand over both Maximus Rothwell and all the information on his estate and operations, as well as myself, I had expected this.

Lamb had wanted to use the FBI. He would turn over the information he had gathered from his old contact on Maximus’ estates in exchange for asylum for me and Maximus’ permanent arrest. Time had been of the essence, and rather than letting a slow case build, we had to use the party and the conflict between us to pressure them to move and seize an opportunity while they had one. Even orchestrating Lamb’s betrayal had been to lure Maximus to attack and catch him in the act.

But my plans were different.

Contacting Interpol would guarantee my arrest and my extradition back to the United Kingdom where I would be tried and charged with my stepmother’s murder. Lamb would never allow it, but I knew there was no point in removing my father if my stepmother’s ghost would still haunt me. This was what needed to happen. Even if it was not how Lamb, nor I, wanted it to go down.

“It is worthwhile,” I said, my resolve still firm in my chest as I looked at her. “For a clean slate.”

Anna calculated my response. I saw it moving in her mind the way Lamb’s often would. They were alike, the two of them, more than either would care to admit.

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