Page 45 of Assassin's Heart
She reached for the seat belt and pulled it across her and Brooke’s bodies. “She won’t let me go,” she said quietly. “She should be in the back, in her own belt—really in her booster seat—but when I tried to put her back there, she refused to let me go.”
I took the belt from her and buckled it securely. “I’ll get you both back safe; don’t worry.”
Leah stroked Brooke’s hair back from her forehead, worry lining her face. I’d seen Brooke hundreds of times, but I don’t think I’d realized just how closely she resembled Leah until now, seeing them side by side. The same hair, the same arch to their eyebrows, the same full mouth. What part of Angelo had lived on in his daughter?
“I don’t think she’s really slept this whole time,” Leah said, her voice wobbling.
Likely not. I remembered what that was like. When my brothers and I had been on the street, we always had to be alert to the faintest hint of trouble, always aware that any security you thought you had, could and did disappear in an instant. The difference between my brothers and Brooke was that she’d gotten her security back. She’d sleep like the dead for a while now that she was in her mother’s arms.
I turned the SUV around and headed out.
“What about…” Leah reached up to rub at her eyes. “What about all that back there?”
What we had left behind. “We took care of it.” She didn’t need to know how.
“And…Ross?”
She might find our solution hard to deal with, but Ross was beyond caring. “He’ll be with the others. They’ll find him…eventually.”
Leah took a shaky breath, then let it out. “I should contact my father.”
The man who didn’t know she was alive. He would gain one child back while losing the other. “Not yet. We need time to plan before any of this gets out.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t a Leah answer, but it was one she’d given me too often today. She sounded tired. Not just tired—weary down to her bones. It made my heart ache in a way I’d never experienced before.
It also made me wish I could kill Southerland with my bare hands all over again.
I parked in the front drive almost an hour later. “Wait there,” I told Leah as she stirred. “I’ll come around and help you out.”
Brooke was still asleep. I opened Leah’s door, took her arm to steady her as she stepped onto the running board, then down to the drive. “Need me to take her?” I asked. I knew exactly zero about caring for children, but Brooke wasn’t a baby; I knew she would be heavy to carry all the way up the stairs.
Leah paused, and her eyes met mine. “No”—she cleared her throat—“but thank you, Remi.” She walked toward the door. “For everything.”
It sounded too much like goodbye. I trailed Leah as she walked inside, past Abby holding the door, to the elevator. When she stepped in, I stayed back, uncertain for what might be the first time in my life. “Tell me if you need anything.”
Leah gave me a vague smile as the doors closed, already a million miles away.
That ache in my heart got stronger.
Unsure what to do with myself—and hating that uncertainty—I wandered into the kitchen. Abby was standing at the stove, the rich scent of tomato soup rising from the pot she stirred. She glanced up as I settled on a stool at the center island. “She took Brooke upstairs?”
I nodded. Should I go up there? Stay here and let Leah and Brooke have their time together? Would she turn me away if I showed up? She didn’t need me now that Brooke was safe, did she?
Doubt clawed at me, which just pissed me the hell off. I wasn’t this guy. I didn’t hesitate. Hell, I’d decided to steal Leah from her home in seconds. My life or death had often depended on making split-second decisions under tense conditions. But now?
“Why aren’t you up there with her?” Abby asked.
I glared at my brother’s lover. “Because...” An ache shot through my fisted hands. “Why would she want me with her?” My usefulness was at an end, just like Ross’s. He’d bled out on the cold concrete floor; right now my bleeding out was too damn metaphorical for my taste.
“Remi—”
I shook my head. “It’s over, Abby.”
Her snort jerked my gaze up to hers.
“And men say we’re the dramatic half of the species.” Turning the soup down to simmer, she moved to the fridge and began gathering the ingredients for grilled cheese sandwiches. “Remi, no one could see the two of you together and think this was over. Even if you were separated, it wouldn’t be over. Besides, this thing with the Fioris—”
