Page 67 of Assassin's Mark
Remi shook his head. “Levi already checked his officesafe. There was nothing out of the ordinary there.”
I wasn’t surprised that Levi had been inside my father’s office, probably the same time he’d spied on all my secrets. “Not that safe. He has another one, in the basement.” I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but I’d done a little spying of my own, back when I had cared about why my father couldn’t seem to love me. I’d thought the answers werehidden in his life, but nothing I had found had given me a clue. Now I had one.
Remi’s narrowed eyes made me want to squirm. I held as still as I could, bearing his scrutiny.
“You want us to get into the basement?” he finally asked.
I thought about the numbers on the clock above the stove. “There’s no time for that.”
“Of course there’s time. You make it sound like we have to go today.”
“Wedo.” When Remi seemed about to protest, I rushed on. “He was watching the apartment; he had to be. Anthony Clark wasn’t targeted until he went there. You think he doesn’t know Geneva had visitors today?” He would as soon as he reviewed the surveillance. I was simply betting I could beat him to the punch, so to speak.
“Today is Thursday. He goes to the Patriots Club every Thursday night. It’sa ritual he’s kept every single week he was in town since I was a baby—everyone who’s anyone meets there. It’s where his closest contacts have been made. The southern good-ol’-boy system.” I clenched my fists together. “If I go tonight, I can get what we need with no one the wiser.”
“I?” Remi snorted. “You are not going anywhere. A, what can I do? And B, Levi would kill me—”
“We both know that’snot the case. You mean more to him than I ever will.”
Remi stopped, mouth hanging open, eyes like saucers. Then he did his own leaning forward, his stare boring into me. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve known my brother far longer, understand him far better, than you ever will.” The truth of his words sent a sharp pain through my heart. “I’ve never seen him like this. Ever. You’ve done somethingto him, Abby, somethinggood. He’d never risk you.”
“I’d risk me, damn it!” How could I get through to him? “I haven’t just done something to him. Don’t you get that, Remi? I love him.”
Remi’s eyes went wide, his choked-off gasp echoing my own. I hadn’t known until the words were already out, what I was going to say. Was it even true?
“He’s not relationship material.”
And I, with my screwed-uplife, was? “You don’t see yourselves very clearly, do you? I think he’s had plenty of experience with relationships. Since you were little, in fact. Loyalty, protection, love—what more could a girl need?”
“Are you saying he loves you?”
Was I? He certainly hadn’t said it, might not feel more than lust, but there was something there, between us, that I’d never experienced before.
And really,did it matter if it was love? Whatever it was, I was willing to take a chance on it.
“There’s no risk to me going in there. Not with Derrick gone. There’s every risk to Levi. I can be in and out before he knows I’m even gone.” I hoped, anyway. “But I can’t get there without help. I need you to help me. You’re the reason I’m here, after all. You owe me.”
