Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(21)

He was left in the huge foyer with Addy’s fuming older brother. Owen grinned, feeling like he was standing on top of the world.

Jax stepped into his path. “Maybe you need a cold shower before you go in there?”

Owen gave a quick shake of his head. “Nope. That’s not it. More like an entire night with your sister. I’m going to marry her, Jax. She’s my heart and holds my soul. And she loves me. Did you hear her?”

Jax didn’t look happy for them. What was his deal? Owen’s joy slowly dimmed. As it did, Jax turned and went into the family room ahead of him. Fuck the bastard. Owen had waited years for this day. So had Addy. They were going to be together tonight, her family be damned.



Addy had just turned off her light when she heard a small knock on her door. She never locked it because she wanted Troy to be able to come in if he had a bad dream. That was happening less and less often, which she hoped meant his spirit was healing from their time with Cecil. He’d seen the beatings she’d endured, though he was very young at the time. She’d tried to shield him from everything, but some stuff still got through. Like her illness. Like losing his older brother.

Troy would not have knocked. Wendell was gone. The butler would have announced himself directly after his knock. No. There was only one person on the other side of her double doors.

Owen.

Her heart jumped, and not in a good way. She fisted the covers she’d just pulled up over herself.

“Addy? Are you awake?” Owen quietly called through the door.

“No.”

“Come talk to me.”

“No.”

“Laidy. Please. We have so much to talk about.”

How she wished things, lots of things, were different. Most of all, she wished Owen was just Owen, the boy she’d grown up with, the man she’d fallen in love with. She knew that no matter what evidence she presented to the contrary, he would stick with his false persona, insisting he was just the boy who was so familiar to her.

But she knew differently…knew him for the monster he was, despite what Jax now claimed. The fact that Wendell had brought him here even made her doubt her brother’s innocence. It was hard to know where one evil ended and another began. Maybe it didn’t matter. She’d been working on a plan for her own disappearance—but that was something she couldn’t execute until she had Augie back.

“May I come in?” Owen asked from the hallway.

“No.”

“Then come out and talk to me. Answer my questions. Tell me what’s going on. After that, I’ll leave you alone.”

How she’d ached for Owen in the beginning, before learning what she did. Knowing he was out there was the only thing that helped her through the early years. She’d dreamed he’d find her. Then she’d dreamed he’d never find her. And finally, she’d learned everything that had happened to her had been at his command.

Even knowing that, some part of her still wanted him, wanted to pretend his truth had never been revealed to her.

She went over to her door, dragging the coverlet from the foot of her bed. She heard a sound against the door, as if Owen had slid down it to sit on the floor. She knelt on her side of the double door and held her hands to the wooden panels. All he had to do to invade her sanctuary was turn the knob and come in. That he didn’t just meant he was playing some game with her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come for you,” he said. “Jesus, Laidy, I never even looked for you.”

Addy leaned her face against the same wooden panel as Owen. She closed her eyes, wishing she didn’t know what she did about him. You couldn’t walk back that kind of knowledge. For someone who was all-knowing, Owen should have accepted the fact that she knew who he was. They were well beyond innocence…so why did he keep pretending things were pretty much as they’d left them ten years ago? Did he think her a fool?

“I went to my grave,” she said. She didn’t bother speaking up, as she really didn’t care whether he heard her.

“God. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

“It was like I didn’t exist. Like I’d never existed.” It was laughable that she thought to make him feel guilt. Him, of all people.

“Addy, tell me about your toe. How is it that it could heal so quickly?”

Of course that was what he was most interested in…the experiments his people did on her. Had they sent anyone else from the Omni world, she would have had them physically removed without delay. “I have no idea.”

“Please come out and talk to me.”

She considered it. They would wake Troy if they continued talking through the closed door. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and opened the half of the door that Owen wasn’t leaning against. She closed it behind her. He was not welcome in her room. He moved aside to lean against the far doorjamb, making room for her. Her feet and legs were covered by the blanket. She was glad it was too dark for him to see her very well, though the darkness wasn’t an issue for her. That was another of the changes she’d noticed about herself. Her vision was changing.

She tucked her knees up close to her body, then waited for him to make the next move.

“I hope that, one day, you’ll tell me everything that happened to you when we were apart.”

And that didn’t surprise her in the least. Of course, he’d had his minions report back to him on everything at the time. They probably still did. He’d been there for her initiation, coward that he was, dressed head to toe in a robe and hood. How arrogant was he to want to hear all of that again? Addy began to shake. She’d been wrong when she thought she could be his equal in manipulation. She never had been and she never would be. She wasn’t a psychopath.