Overture (North Security, #1)(56)

Growing up isn’t about learning something new. It’s about unlearning the fairy tales you believe as a child. Elijah offered to take me away from here, but I won’t put that between the brothers. Instead I call a cab and pack a single carry-on suitcase. A flight leaves Austin in a few hours that will take me to Chicago, and then on to Tanglewood. I can start my new life there, a little earlier than I had planned. I’m ready.

I put my suitcase in the car and step into the back of the cab. The front door opens, and Liam strides toward me. Don’t ask me to stay, I beg him silently. I’m not sure I can say no. It’s not because I stopped loving him. I think I love him even more now, somehow, seeing him battered and broken against the obstacle course he built himself, beating himself against his own guilt. But he will never see me as a grown woman while I stay here. He will never accept me as an equal while I remain in his custody, if only in body and not spirit.

The only choice is to leave, which means it’s not really a choice at all.

His silhouette breaks from the house, and I realize he’s holding the violin. The Stradivarius. I hadn’t brought it with me. There are violins everywhere, and societies and museums would be happy to loan me a great one. It wouldn’t equal the Lady Tennant, but nothing would.

“Why did you leave it behind?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want me to have it. After everything that happened.”

His green eyes are lighter than I’ve ever seen them, almost see-through. This is the most he’s ever shown me of him—his past, his emotion. All it took was for me to leave.

“Bullshit,” he says.

“Fine. Maybe I wasn’t sure I still wanted it. After everything that happened.”

“Take it. That is, if you want to play this violin, then I want you to have it.”

I swallow hard and take the case, my fingers brushing his on the wooden handle.

“And if you ever need me—” His voice breaks.

“I know where to find you,” I finish for him.

He shuts the door and slaps the top of the cab so we move forward. I watch my home disappear through my tears. Only when we get to the airport do I realize that it’s Josh driving the cab. “What the hell?” I say as he steps out to squint at a parking meter.

“Do you have a quarter?” he says, digging through his pocket.

With an exasperated sigh I reach into my jeans and find a dollar bill. He plucks it out of my hands. “Thanks. You have now officially hired North Security as your personal bodyguard.”

I cross my arms. “Pretty sure that’s not legally binding.”

“And I’m pretty sure Liam North would shit a brick before he ever let you leave without adequate protection. The guy in the Crown Vic may be dead, but someone else ordered the hit. You’re not safe until we neutralize them for good.”

A rush of emotion wells in my throat. I know I need to leave Liam, but it hurts worse than anything I can imagine. I could turn Lady Tennant into firewood, and it still wouldn’t break my heart as much as this. A sob escapes me, and Josh’s face blurs into a thousand pointillism dots. Through the tears, I see him open his arms. I let him hold me as I break apart. He has the same build as Liam, the same coloring, and I feel close to the man I love—and so far away I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to cross the distance.


LIAM

I sit in the armchair in my office, the fire blazing. It can’t penetrate the chill. Samantha took any warmth from the house, and I don’t expect it to return.

That doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility where she’s concerned.

I should probably feel guilty about defiling a priceless violin with a micro-tracking device, but there is nothing I won’t do to keep her safe.

Elijah enters the room, his face implacable. He wants to kick my ass, but it’s a testament to how terrible I look that he doesn’t bother.

“You’re a bastard,” he says instead, no heat in his voice.

“Are you more angry that I failed in protecting Samantha—or that I failed in protecting you?” I enlisted the day I turned eighteen, leaving my brothers behind. Josh was old enough to defend himself by then, at least. Elijah had no such power. It took years before I had the money and the strength to return home to get him out of there.

“You didn’t fail,” he says. “That’s not giving Samantha enough credit.”

No, she became a strong woman with fierce loyalty. No thanks to me. I don’t expect I’ll ever get to touch her again. Won’t get to see her except from afar. But I can damn well protect her. “A drug lord?”

A humorless smile. “That was an unexpected detour.”

“Christ, Elijah.”

“We found the target and confirmed his identity.”

I flip through the pages in a manila folder, proof that one Kimberly Cox never actually existed. She has a convincing portfolio of freelance articles, an apartment in Brooklyn, a 401K. She had a contract with Classical Notes to interview the performers on tour.

Except that she’s not a real person.

The woman who came to our house that day was a fraud.

“Did he make you?” I ask.

“Negative, but he knows someone’s after him.”

A few months ago I heard whispers that Alistair Brooks survived the assassination.