Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(44)

Chapter 11: Apollo





"You did what?"

Dad stares at me, his expression still as cold waters. "It was necessary. If I didn't she would have pulled back. She's a strange woman."

I can't believe this is happening. The last thing I was expecting was for Diana to be my stepsister.

"This changes everything. What are you going to do?"

He's sitting on the sofa in the living room, looking at me calmly as I pace in front of him, scrubbing my fingers through my hair. I feel like I've been stabbed in the gut a thousand times. I'm tearing myself apart from the inside out, and here he comes sauntering in, dropping his bags on the floor, and telling me he got married in Las Vegas to the mother of the girl that I…

Say it, Apollo. Just say it to yourself.

The girl I'm in love with.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't do this to her. I couldn't be her first lover, I couldn't defile her and run away like, well, a thief in the night. It's better this way, I'm sure of it. Better she suffers some small bitterness now than deal with really falling for me just before I destroy her life and disappear. I couldn't live with myself. I can't do this anymore.

"Do?" he says, interrupting my brooding. "I'm going to finish the job, and we're going to disappear."

"You can't!" I below, locking eyes on him.

"Did you do your job? Any progress on the layout of the museum? Any surprises?"

I was supposed to scout. I forgot all about it. I storm away, into the kitchen.

A moment later, he follows, and winces when he spots me pouring some rum into a tumbler. I pour way too much and gulp it halfway down, my eyes watering from the burn. I slam the glass on the counter so hard I swear it will break, but it holds. I look at him and snarl, a vicious edge in my voice.

"You can't do this. This is cruel. We could have found another way-"

"Not in time, and not cleanly. We can't botch this. How many times do I have to f*cking dance around this? The price of this job is our lives. If we botch this, we're both dead."

"We?" I snap at him. The rum goes down hard, I cough, and the glass shatters in the sink. Already tipsy, I grab the other counter. "What the f*ck is we? I don't remember signing up for a job for these people. Who the f*ck are they that have you so f*cking scared?"

His voice never changes. His face is as still as stone. Yet there is something in his voice I've never heard before. What I have taken for composure, isn't. He's so terrified it's frozen him, chilled him inside.

"Their proper name is in ancient Aramaic. It means 'the fangs', as in the fangs of the serpent."

"Oh f*ck me," I moan.

I know that name.

Last year they launched some kind of failed terrorist attacks. Took a bunch of hostages at a school, tried to shoot up some malls. The authorities were tipped off and stopped it. There's rumors in the darker corners of the Internet that they were doing something else at the same time, something big that they didn't pull off. Like, atomic bomb big, or something like that. I can't believe what I'm hearing. My father is working for terrorists.

"What? What is this? I thought we stole from people who could afford to lose it, and worked for ourselves."

"Wake up," he says, and walks out of the kitchen.

"Don't you f*cking walk away from me!" I bellow. "Not this time. I want answers. How did you get involved with these people?"

I follow him into the living room. He walks to the front window and looks out.

"They approached me six months ago when they became aware of certain debts."

"Debts? Debts? What debts?"

"It doesn't matter."

"The hell it doesn't. What did you do?"

His shoulders hitch. "I like to gamble. I enjoy the thrill."

"You lost money?"

"No. I won too much from the wrong people. That's when they found me. Offered to pay back what I won, in advance of the work. The necklace job was just a test. They wanted to see what we can do. They were satisfied."

"Dad, these people are murderers. Don't you watch TV? They were going to kill a bunch of women and children last year."

He turns to face me.

"When the offer is 'work for us and we'll pay your debts and save your life, or we'll kill you right now,'" the offer is tempting.

"I can't believe. There had to be another way…"

"They threatened you," he snaps, moving towards me, fists clenched. "They told me if I turned them down it would be you first, and they'd do it slowly, make sure I watched. Then they'd kill me. I could not allow that. I could not risk that. So I agreed. One job and we're done. This is it, I'm not doing this anymore. I'll take what I have in my holdings and we'll retire, well away from here."

I snort. "Oh my God. Haven't you ever seen a spy movie? They're not going to let us just walk away. We're all dead."

"Maybe. If we get too close to Carol and her daughter, they're dead, too."

"Is that a hint of concern I detect?"

"No. I don't have any feelings for this woman. I'll admit she's a devil in bed, but that's it. Museum curators must be like librarians."