Page 16 of Assassin's Heart
Her eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”
For a moment I wished I didn’t have to do this, wished Leah and I could somehow disappear to a place where the world couldn’t touch us and we could just be normal, have a chance at something beyond secrets and the danger they brought with them. But normal had passed me by as a child, and I was beginning to suspect Leah hadn’t been far behind. I held up the printout. “Care to tell me about him?”
Her gaze dropped to the paper. Had I not known his background, I still would’ve known the man was related to her—it was in the shape of their eyes, the fullness of their mouths that was too feminine on Ross and just right on Leah. The chin that was slightly squared off, heavier on Ross than his sister. Even their coloring favored each other.
There was no doubt they were related; I simply needed Leah to admit it to me herself. But she stood, frozen, eyes transfixed by the sight of the man in the picture, her mouth open as if to speak.
Nothing came out.
Something snapped. My hands fisted, my knuckles slamming into the wall on either side of Leah’s head. A strong arm snaked around my throat, yanking me back—one of my brothers; I didn’t care which, only that their grip jolted me out of my rage. Out of the need to get in my woman’s face and roar until she told me why she’d lied to me. I needed to force the truth out of her, one way or another—
And that lack of control was completely unacceptable.
The grip on my neck tightened, an anchor grounding me when I felt lost in the sea of emotion. I focused on it, on now, on reality. Leah was a threat, and I knew how to deal with threats.
A double tap to the arm had it easing off. Eli, I realized. Giving him a nod of thanks, I turned back to Leah. “Sit down,” I barked.
Hands gripping her elbows, face white, Leah complied. She didn’t look at Abby or my brothers, her dark eyes riveted solely on my face, waiting for my next command. I’d let her wait.
When the silence had stretched to the breaking point, I spoke. “You are going to tell us everything you know, Leah. Everything. Start with your real name.”
Abby’s gasp echoed the shock I’d felt earlier. I wasn’t shocked anymore; I was pissed.
Leah’s hard swallow was audible. “Leah is my real name.”
“You don’t want to play games right now,” Levi said next to me, his words arctic. “Tell us what we want to know.”
Leah’s wide eyes shifted to him for a long moment before she slumped back in her seat. “My name is Leah Windon.”
“Why isn’t there any record of a name change?” I asked.
“You already know why,” she said wearily.
I did. I knew she was on the run. The question was, from what.
“This man”—Eli waved a hand at the paper I still held—“is your brother, Ross Windon Junior.”
A statement. We knew he was; she couldn’t deny it.
She didn’t try this time. Instead she stared at the face, shadows drifting in her gaze. “He is.”
The short answer gave away nothing. She was going to lead us around like dogs, barely giving anything away, wasting time we didn’t have. I was done.
“Enough!” I yelled, satisfaction seeping in when Leah’s eyes became saucers. “Stop fucking around and tell us the whole story, or I’ll escort you to the gate and you can find Brooke on your own.”
It was an empty threat; even with my head filled with a red haze and a fucking two-ton anvil sitting on my chest, I knew that much. My mother had been taken from me when I was ten. I could never leave a child separated from her mother if I had the power to fix it.
That didn’t mean threats weren’t effective every once in a while, no matter how empty. As Leah proved.
Her entire body rounded in on itself, her gaze dropping to the hardwood floor. “Yes, he’s my brother.” She paused, cleared her throat. “We were raised in DC.”
“By the police commissioner,” Levi pointed out.
“He wasn’t the police commissioner when we were kids. That came later.”
“But Ross is a cop as well.”
“He is.” Leah shook her head. “My dad has nothing to do with this, I promise. If he knew…” She raised beseeching eyes to me, eyes that touched me despite my efforts to block them out. “This would kill him.”
