Eagle's Heart (14 page)

The muscle in his jaw ticked, and she knew he was agitated. Bardhyn was usually completely in control of himself, but she wasn’t the only one who had been slipping of late. She had always had to handle him in a particular way, but in the past few months, she had often felt more like a babysitter than a right hand.

“I’m wasting drugs on them, and now I’m supposed to treat them like they’re staying at the Ritz?”

Linda looked at Bardhyn for a long moment. She thought about stabbing him through the heart but knew if she hadn’t done it by now, she never would.

“Do you doubt my assessment?” she asked, her voice edged with steel. He needed to remember who handled this aspect of the business, whether he was having a temper tantrum or not. “I think even you would agree that this is my forte. I’m telling you: even the basest animal works better with the illusion of safety than under the constant end of the whip.”

“They either get used to it, or they die,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Why should I care?”

“Because you’ll be losing money,” she explained softly, as she always had to when he was in one of his moods.

“I don’t care about money!” he sneered, whirling so his face was inches from hers.

She yawned demurely before meeting his gaze.

“I know you’re upset that Alexi didn’t find Julian at his apartment this morning,” she said. “But do remember that you’re an adult in charge of a multinational syndicate, not a five-year-old who’s lost his favorite toy.”

Bardhyn was incredulous. “You don’t care? This piece of shit who has broken the Besa to everyone he ever knew is not only alive but has been trying to take me down, and you don’t care?”

“I care. But I don’t have the luxury of indulging in my emotions, darling,” Linda said. “And if this deal with the West African syndicate is to be successful, neither do you.”

“All these years, sniffing after me like a dog,” Bardhyn muttered, ignoring her. “Now he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

Linda wondered what it would be like to see Julian suffer, and what Bardhyn had in store for him. She wondered if it could possibly be worse than everything she had been through.

“It’s a shame about the teacher, though,” she said absently as she ran her nails lightly over Bardhyn’s neck in an attempt to calm him. He shuddered, exactly the reaction she knew he would have. “She was only trying to help the girl, and now she’s going to die.”

He pulled her close to him, pressing the length of his hardening cock against her thigh. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said with a devious grin on his face. “You aren’t going soft on me, are you, baby?”

“Never. I’ll kill her myself,” she said, meeting his eyes to show him she meant it.

Bardhyn nuzzled into her neck, licking and sucking at it as if she gave him sustenance. She stared past his head at the thick curtains that shielded him from the bustle of city life outside the window.

“Even so,” she said, feeling a surprising sadness for the teacher despite the woman’s stupidity. “I wish I’d had someone who cared that much for me. Enough to risk everything.”

Bardhyn pulled her head back with a vicious tug of her hair. His eyes blazed with anger. “You had
me
,” he growled. “I was the only one who looked out for you. You’d do well to remember that.”

“I do remember,” she said, moving to unbutton his slacks. It was the easiest way to calm him, and she was tired of talking, tired of everything, for that matter. She slid to her knees and looked up at him. “How could I ever forget?”

Chapter Twelve

“Home sweet home,” Salomeh said as they entered the top-floor apartment, the rasp in her voice reminding Julian of the marks on her neck.

He took a slow, controlled breath as he followed her inside. He was very good at presenting a calm veneer when he was feeling quite the opposite. However, seeing Salomeh’s bloodied head and bruised neck was pushing his acting skills to their limits. He had to remind himself that exploding into a howling rage before revealing he hadn’t been honest with her was probably not the best game plan.

“This door is too flimsy,” he announced as he walked in, trying to focus on anything else but her injuries. “You should get a reinforced one or at least some better locks.”

She turned and glared at him.

“But your apartment is lovely.”

The walls of her living room were a warm orange, accented by furniture in various shades of beige and brown. Large windows let in the morning light and provided a homey feel, despite the black security gates over them that could have made the place feel like a prison.

Salomeh shook the metal gates when she caught him eyeing them.

“Remnants of the bad old days,” she said. “The neighborhood is pretty safe now.”

“Forgive me if I don’t quite believe that,” Julian said with a glance at her bruises. He made a quick circuit of the apartment. Small kitchen, walls lined with copper-bottomed pots and other cooking utensils. One good-sized bedroom with clothes strewn about, and the scent of lavender in the air. One office that was in need of a paper shredder.

When he started pulling the closet doors open, Salomeh cleared her throat loudly. “You know, I offer a guided tour in case you’re interested,” she said, swiping a towel irritably through her hair and drawing attention to the way her wet T-shirt clung to her body. “Otherwise, feel free to continue completely invading my privacy.”

“Sorry, the assurance of safety requires that you relinquish a bit of your freedom,” he said as he held up a stuffed animal that had fallen out of her bedroom closet. Their Homeland Security joking had been fun the night before, but it fell flat for him now, knowing he was about to do what he should have done from the beginning—tell her the truth.

She rolled her eyes and left the room just as his phone vibrated in his pocket.

What happened?

Yates checking in. It seemed like ages ago that he had texted her about Salomeh.

I’m at her place. She’s been roughed up by someone, not sure who but possibly by Bardhyn’s men. I’m getting the story now.

The phone buzzed so quickly he didn’t know how Yates had possibly already read and replied to his text.

Working that old Tamali charm, are you? ;) I’m heading your way to assist.

Great. Now he had a time limit.

Julian made a pit stop in her bathroom to get some first-aid necessities before joining her in the living room. He found her sitting on the long beige couch. Her legs were curled up under her and her eyes were closed, her head leaning back into the couch’s soft pillows. She looked utterly exhausted.

He walked over and sank into the comfortable couch, reaching out instinctively to take her hand into his. She didn’t move to look at him, but her fingers gave his a slight squeeze. He allowed himself the pleasure of pretending just for a moment that they were a normal couple enjoying a Saturday morning at home before heading out to do something mundane like going to the grocery store or picking out new tiles for the bathroom.

“I guess you want to know what happened this morning,” she said.

“Yes. I want to know who I have to kill later.”

She gave him a wry smile, but he didn’t return it. He wasn’t joking this time.

“A Russian thug who I was stupid enough to try to intimidate. He threw me up against the side of a building and choked me,” she said, pulling her hand from his and bringing it to her throat.

Instead of punching a hole in the wall, Julian reached for the bottle of peroxide he’d placed on the coffee table. He poured some onto a cotton ball and dabbed delicately at the abrasion on her head. A small knot had formed beneath it, and she winced at his ministrations.

“Ah,
zemer
,” he murmured and then froze. His shock must have been apparent, because she scrutinized his face as he finished cleaning her abrasions.

“Who’s Zemer? Your last conquest?” she asked, and Julian was happy to hear a note of jealousy in her tone. Anything that distracted her from being frightened was a plus in his book.

“No, it’s Albanian. It means ‘warrior princess.’ Like
Xena
. Remember that show? I used to watch reruns of it to practice my English.”

“Sure. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible liar?” she asked irritably, but her hands dropped from their defensive position at her neck, and a hint of a smile lifted the corner of her mouth.

“Actually, no,” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

She gave him a dubious look.

“Trust me, it would be impossible for me to confuse you with anyone else, Salomeh,” he said.

“Why? We’ve only known each other for a few hours,” she said.

He glanced over at her, unable to stop a wolfish smile from forming on his lips. “You’ve left quite an impression on me,” he said, trying to make her smile. “On my back in particular. Your fingernails should be classified as deadly weapons.”

Salomeh’s cheeks flushed the color of dark rose petals, and Julian fought the urge that had become so familiar over the brief time he’d spent with her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her, to feel her warm skin against his.

But before that he had to tell her who he was. And after that, she’d probably want nothing to do with him. Romantically at least.

“Actually, about that whole knowing-each-other-for-a-few-hours thing—” he began.

“Are you reconsidering your offer to help? I had good reason for leaving this morning,” she said.

“I’m sure you did,” he said. “But first, I should—”

“There’s a girl. One of my students,” she said, cutting him off again, her voice urgent. “She’s more than a student, really. We’ve become so close over the last two years that she’s become much more. She’s in trouble…and I’m to blame.”

The girl she tried to protect, Julian thought. “Why would you be to blame?” he asked.

“Because I tried to help, but I just made a huge mess of everything,” she said sadly. “I’d worked with her a few times during my teaching internship and at a camp I helped run at the local YMCA. She was a good kid but
so
shy. When she landed in my high school lit class two years ago, I started trying to engage with her, and she responded. She came to my class after school to talk about what we were studying and life in general. After that she joined my writing club.”

Salomeh sighed.

“It seems that you had more than a teacher/student relationship,” Julian noted.

“She looked up to me, and I grew to care for her,” Salomeh said. “A lot. Her mother was horrible to her, so she spent as much time away from home as possible, often with me. She came to be more like an apprentice, or a d—”

Salomeh sucked in a breath and focused her gaze on him, a challenge in her eyes. “I can’t have children.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Julian asked and then added, “I’m sorry, if that’s something you wanted for yourself.”

He could see the tension ease from her face.

“Some people think I care so much for my students and mentees because I can’t have any children of my own. That’s not true of any of my kids, especially not Yelena. But I’m human. I did sometimes wonder why someone like her mother was blessed with a wonderful child when I could never have one of my own.”

“Hey, I’ll be the first to tell you that life isn’t fair,” he said. “Tell me what happened.” His prod was meant to bring her back to how she had gotten involved with Bardhyn. He knew it must have taken a lot for her to share her history with him, but he needed something more tangible if he were going to help her.

“Yelena wouldn’t say anything, but she started missing school, quit the clubs she had joined. And she started to pull away from me too. A couple of months ago, the heating system was going haywire, and the class was sweltering, but she just sat there with this sweater on. One of her friends pulled at her sleeve…”

Salomeh paused, and Julian already knew what was coming. Child abuse wasn’t his specialty, but the people he dealt with weren’t usually up for parent-of-the-year awards either.

“Her arms were mottled with bruises. Old and new.”

“Did you ask her what happened?” Julian’s fingers curled into a fist and uncurled reflexively, and something in the motion seemed to fortify Salomeh. She took his hand again.

“First, she said she fell. Then she said it happened during gym class. I kept pressing her. And she finally told me about her mother and the mother’s new boyfriend. All I knew about Yelena’s family to this point was that her mom was Russian and loved getting drunk and telling Yelena what a mistake it was that she hadn’t aborted her. Her mother was dating some guy who claimed he was a gangster. When Yelena’s mother wasn’t home, he thought he was entitled to try to get a piece of the daughter too.”

Julian had already known where the story was going, but even so, it sickened him. He had never stopped seeing Ryli’s smiling face in the teenage girls he met, as well as her lost potential. He knew more than anyone how easily a young flame could be snuffed out at the whim of a monster.

Julian leaned forward and cupped Salomeh’s face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away her tears.

She looked up at him.

“I went to talk to the mother to try to figure this out, to ask her to go to the authorities,” she said. “But she already knew what I was there for, and she told me to mind my own business. When I got there, she was high out of her mind on who knows what and started telling me how Yelena was a little bitch who was asking for it. She even had the boyfriend, Alexi, try to intimidate me.

“I ran to the nearest police station and reported that fucker,” she said angrily. “They said they would notify child services and be in contact with me.”

“Did anyone do anything?” he asked.

“Nothing. I repeatedly called the officer I had spoken to, and he kept assuring me he was looking into it, but also hinting that maybe Yelena was confused, and I should just drop it. And after that… I don’t even know how to talk about what happened next,” she said, obviously distraught from rehashing the events that had set her on a path to ruin.

Julian heaved a sigh.
It’s go time.

“I have something to tell you,” he said. “And it’s going to upset you.”