“Carlton sold the information to this Face of Revenge character.” Decker flipped through the laptop. “All kinds of information, dating back a little over eighteen months. Your information. The most recent sale involved something called Project Recovery.”
Which explained exactly how the competition had been beating them for months—by buying stolen advancements in technology and passing them off as their own.
“Fuck me. Any idea who this Face of Revenge is or what he’s been doing with the information he bought? One of our competitors had come forward with a product that’s suspiciously like ours recently—and that’s not the first time.”
“Well, it looks like Carlton was having second thoughts about blindly doing business with the Face of Revenge and started digging. He’s been compiling information about the identity of his contact. After working his angles for a bit, he surmised it was Chad Brenner. Is the competitor you’re talking about United Velocity?”
Decker was good. Xander was always impressed. “The very one.”
“Well, whaddya know? Brenner owns a shitload of United Velocity stock, according to Carlton’s research.”
Yeah? That might be the Holy Grail of information they needed to finally prove that Brenner hadn’t given up seeking his pound of flesh after the courts had sided with S.I Industries and affirmed that the release-of-intellectual-property waiver he’d signed meant that everything he’d developed while employed with them belonged to the corporation. Because he’d been unable to take it with him, he’d been stealing everything the company had developed since and funneling it to the competitor—then bought stock to earn an extra buck.
“Amazing.” Xander’s voice dripped sarcasm. “So why kill Carlton? I mean, your guess. Think Brenner had something to do with it? Maybe he was getting suspicious that the guy was onto him.”
“Maybe. More likely Carlton quitting S.I. Industries meant he was both useless in the future and a loose end Brenner wanted to tie up.”
Made perfect sense. “Anything else?”
Decker clicked around a bit more, then some truly terrible music blasted through the phone.
“What the hell? That sounds like karaoke at its worst.” Xander held the phone away, but the music played on, violating his ears and making him grimace.
“This fucker was weird. He’s got a bottle of rum in one hand and seems to be making his own homemade music video. Wow, he looks wasted.” Decker laughed, then turned dead sober. “Oh, shit!”
“What?” Xander went on alert.
“Stupid bastard was filming himself singing when his killer sneaked into the room, holding a rope. Carlton saw him in the camera, but didn’t turn around in time to fight. As soon as the killer gets the rope around Carlton’s neck, he flips the lid of the computer shut.”
“And the online backup saved that?”
“Yep.” Decker affirmed.
“Did the camera catch the killer’s face?”
“In shadows, but you can see some of his features.”
That was hard evidence that could be used to solve the murder . . . and maybe make a few other breakthroughs. Was this the same professional strangler who’d murdered Fran? If so, he wondered again what the connection between corporate espionage and a bored housewife was. If Brenner was behind all this, what had he hoped to accomplish?
Revenge.
Xander’s heart chugged in his chest. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but his thoughts—and his hope—raced. Maybe this would give Javier the closure he needed.
“Send me what you’ve got. I’ll look at it as soon as I get it.”
“Will do. I’ll shout if I find anything else, but I think we’re onto something.” Before Xander could say a word, Decker hung up.
He sighed, gripping the wheel. The hair on the back of his neck stood up in warning. The day had started badly. London gone. His heart in shambles . . . Carlton strangled. Now this? He didn’t like it one fucking bit. Then he glanced at the still pictures Decker had sent of Carlton’s neck. He liked everything even less.
The ligature marks on Carlton’s neck looked precisely like those around Francesca’s corpse. Carlton’s home movie hit his inbox next, and watching the final frames of it raked an icy shudder down his spine.
With his heart stuttering, he turned to his brother.
Javier frowned. “You look like you’ve seen a goddamn ghost. What’s wrong?”
Not a ghost exactly, but something far worse.
“Recognize the face creeping up on Carlton?” Xander held up the phone, displaying the frame where the victim realized that he had an intruder in his house and a rope around his neck. It was the best picture of the killer in the video. In Xander’s head, it matched the security footage of Fran’s lover from the hotel in Aruba where she was last seen alive.
“Valjean the assassin,” Javier breathed, then frowned.
Bingo. Xander pressed his lips together grimly and pushed on the gas pedal. Every minute they were in the car was another minute wasted.
Javier looked decimated. “Oh my God. And he killed Carlton?”
“Looks like.” Xander dropped the phone on his lap. “We should be asking ourselves why.” The more he thought about it, the more Brenner having contact with Carlton and being offed by the same assassin who’d killed Francesca seemed too coincidental. Brenner had to be the connection. “Did you say you’d hired someone to look into Fran’s death?”
Looking shell-shocked, Javier nodded. “Private investigator. His name is Nick Navarro.”
“Get him on the phone. Brenner had a vendetta against us. He used Carlton to get to us until his usefulness was at an end. Good chance he paid to have Carlton killed. Doesn’t it make you wonder if this is the first time Brenner hired this hit man?”
CALLIE was kind enough to drive her as far as Shreveport, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night. She checked in frequently with her Dom, a Scotsman with a deep, sexy brogue. Thorpe, her boss, called too. Both seemed more than a tad territorial. London stared at her own phone, which she’d powered down as soon as she’d taken it from the hotel room. She wasn’t ready to talk to Xander or Javier. They’d tell her that her failure was nothing, that she was overreacting, that she’d merely panicked during the scene. Maybe she had. Missing all the milestones of maturity between fifteen and twenty-five had, at times, left her both confused and scared. Bottom line, she’d allowed herself to sink into the fantasy that they could accept her, scars and all, just as they’d claimed. That they could love her. But when push came to shove, she hadn’t been able to risk seeing the revulsion on their faces that she’d seen on Brian’s. And they’d never said anything about love. She’d believed it because she’d wanted to, because she’d been surrendering her own heart to them . . . but that didn’t make it so.
Now she had to face the fact that Javier was too tormented by his past and Xander simply too wild to be hers forever. Time to get out now before it hurt too much to do the right thing. Alyssa had tried to warn her, but no . . . She’d had to feel this terrible, wretched fear and pain herself before she’d understood that she couldn’t possibly help to either heal or hold them. Pressing sadness suffocated her, and the years of being alone stretched out. The accident had made her a freak in so many ways—a scared girl in a woman’s body—but for this one week, she’d felt normal. And loved. She’d always treasure that.
Refusing to impose on Callie, despite the woman’s repeated assurances, London had swallowed her pride and called her cousin. Alyssa’s husband had groggily answered the phone, listened between her tears, and agreed to meet her and Callie halfway between Dallas and Lafayette. Every mile she’d put between herself and the Santiago brothers was a fiery stab burning down her heart. Only ashes remained now. They’d move on. But London knew she’d never be the same again.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Luc said beside her.
“Thank you for coming to get me. I’m sorry. I know it’s incredibly bad timing.”
“You’ve already apologized twice.” He sent a dark glance her way as the morning sun poured in through the windshield as they headed southeast. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing.”
“That’s crap,” Luc said. “Tell me what Xander and Javier did to you. I need to know how painfully they should die.”
“Don’t even joke about that!”
Luc raised a brow. “Who said I was kidding?”
She glared at him, then rolled her eyes, feeling a bit like a teenager talking to her dad. “It’s not their fault.”
“Really?” Skeptical would be a kind description of his scoffing tone. “So they were the innocent ones at the beginning of the relationship? They completely gave their hearts to you? But you pushed them too hard, too fast?”
London gaped at him. “How did you . . .”
“Oh, come on. I could have written this script without any imagination at all. You had absolutely no experience with men, did you?” When she shook her head, he went on. “So you fall for a bad boy and a tortured drunk.”
“Don’t call them that! They’re way more. They can be so tender and—”
“To get what they want, of course. They’re your first loves. I get it. You fell hard, but they’re still playing whatever games they always play. It could only end one way.”
“You have it all wrong. I’m the one who walked out. They’ve been demanding, yes.” She blushed and squirmed in her seat, knowing that Luc could read between the lines, but she pressed on. “They’ve also done their best to take care of me and make me feel good about myself. I’m just not ready to open up in every way they want. I can’t show them my scars. They weren’t going to accept that.”
“Because they’re perfect?” He rolled his eyes.
“Of course not. They wanted trust I couldn’t give them. That I can’t give anyone. They deserve happiness, and I love them enough to let them find it without me.”
“At the expense of your own? Don’t you think you’re being a little rash? You had to have been more than a tad overwhelmed by the speed of this relationship. Trust doesn’t develop overnight.”
“It doesn’t change the facts.”
He sighed. “I’ve been against this relationship from the beginning, but I tried not to stand in your way. You’re an adult and you need to experience real life, so I let you. Their problems are pretty damn real. But if you really love them and you’re sure this is more than a hit-and-run on their part, then we should talk about this. Sweetie, because of the accident you haven’t had past relationships to learn from like most women. That’s a lot of growing up to miss. You’re overwhelmed, and it’s understandable. They are light-years ahead of you.”
“They deserve someone who can keep up. Besides, it was probably stupid to think I could handle one man, let alone two. I mean, it didn’t work for you, Deke, and Kimber.”
“You heard about that, huh?” Luc tightened his jaw. “Different circumstances. Deke wasn’t going to heal with me willing to be his crutch. Kimber didn’t love me. Everything worked out for the best. Do you love Xander more than Javier? Or vice versa?”
“No!” The idea was preposterous.
“If not for your fears, would you want to try living without one or the other?”
London saw where Luc was going with this logic. “No. And I know you’ll probably tell me that I should get over the scars and take the risk that they might accept me as is. But what if they don’t? I don’t know if I’d survive the hurt, Luc.” She buried her face in her hands. “God, if anyone could hear me now, I’m sure they would tell me to get over myself.”
“You’re right. Some people wouldn’t understand, but they obviously can’t admit to ever feeling in over their heads and must be absolutely fabulous at conquering their fears. I hope they enjoy their perfect lives. The rest of us mere mortals deal.”
She smiled at Luc’s sarcasm. “Yeah, it’s always easier to judge someone else, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. For all intents and purposes, you’re a girl in a woman’s body. You’ve got to cut yourself some slack.”
London wanted to, but . . . “At the end of the day, I’m doing them a disservice if I can’t get over my anxiety and fully trust them. Besides, they never said it was more than a fling. Javier only hired me for five weeks. I think I’ve let everything mean far more to me. It’s time to get out before they break my heart.”
Luc hesitated a really long time. “If that’s really want you want, I support you. But I’m going to say that I’ve wondered more than once if Lys can really love me as much as she claims to, even though I probably can’t give her more children. I could doubt her, sure. It would be easy. And her assurances are just words, right? And those are simple, both to speak and to blow off when they’re spoken. But if it’s truly love on all sides, do you really want to give that up? Think about it. Don’t make decisions too quickly.”
