by Cynthia Eden
And the guy could have called first. Why hadn’t Asher just picked up the phone if he was heading her way? Like a normal person?
She yanked open the door. Her brother’s fist was still raised, as if he’d been about to pound the hell out of the wood once more. His face was locked in lines of fury, his eyes were dark and stormy. So much rage. She hadn’t seen that much rage on her twin brother’s face since . . .
Ana grabbed his arms. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to Bailey?”
Asher had fallen hard and fast for Bailey Jones a few months ago. She’d been a client at LOST one moment, and then Asher’s entire life the next. He’d come so close to losing Bailey, and Ana had watched as her brother nearly splintered apart.
“Bailey is fine.” Each word was a dark, rough rumble. “Is that bastard with you?”
“What bastard?” She realized the door was only partially open and that he couldn’t see into the motel room behind her. “Asher, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Then the door squeaked behind her. Cash was opening it up, about to meet her brother, and this was going to be weird because Asher was obviously out of control and—
“Cash Knox.” Asher said the name with fury.
He surged forward, as if he would attack Cash. Ana slammed her hand onto his chest, stopping him. “What in the hell? That’s Special Agent Cash Knox! And why are you trying to charge at him?”
Cash was silent behind her.
The tension notched up. There’s too much fury in Asher’s eyes.
A chill snaked around her heart.
Cash’s hand curled around her shoulder. “Ana, I think I should go.”
Asher’s face changed. Went even harder, darker. His eyes were narrowed and glittering. “Get your hand off my sister.”
Cash’s grip tightened. “It’s not what you think.”
She could feel the tension in Asher’s body. She expected him to explode in a fury at any moment, and Asher exploding? Not a good thing. He’d been a Navy SEAL for too long. When he exploded, people got hurt.
People died.
Cash’s fingers slid away from her.
Ana sucked in a deep breath. “Look, Asher, whatever has you so messed up . . . we can fix it. Come inside. We’ll talk like normal people.” They could do that. They could pretend to be normal for just a little while. After all, they’d pretended for years when they were teens. All the way up to the moment when her father had drunk himself to death.
Then, for a time, we both lost it.
“Can’t be fixed.” He stood in the doorway, a cloud of fury. His gaze went past her and locked on Cash. “What sick game are you playing with my sister?”
“Asher!” She shoved against his chest. Hard. “Are you insane?” Bad question. “There’s no game! We’re working a case. And you don’t say disrespectful crap! You don’t—”
“I know who you are,” Asher continued darkly.
“Uh, yeah,” Ana snapped. “He’s Special Agent Cash Knox. He’s—”
“He’s the sonofabitch’s brother.” Asher’s voice was like a wolf’s growl. “That bastard who took his knife to you? The drugged-out freak who laughed while you bled? He. Was. Cash’s. Brother.”
No. No, that was wrong. Asher was wrong. He was wrong. “No.” The word was too soft, so she said it again, louder, harder. “No.” Because saying it louder would make Asher realize how wrong it was. “Louis Griggs didn’t have a brother. He . . . his father was dead. His mother long gone. He—”
“He had a half-brother, Ana.” Asher spoke grimly. “He had a mother who had a tendency to hook up with losers who left her with kids and didn’t look back.”
Her ears were ringing. “No.”
“Cash is his half-brother. And the sonofabitch . . . Ana, I don’t know what kind of game he’s playing to get involved with you, but it is over.” His gaze was still directed over her shoulder. On Cash. On Louis’s brother? “You won’t hurt my sister again.”
Her knees buckled. Stupid, weak reaction. She locked her fingers in Asher’s shirtfront so she wouldn’t fall.
“Ana!” Asher grabbed her and held tight.
Cash hadn’t spoken. He should speak. He should tell Asher to fuck off. Tell her twin that he was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Cash was the good guy.
Cash was . . .
Her head turned. She stared at Cash.
And she knew her brother wasn’t wrong.
Cash’s face had gone stark white. His eyes—they seemed so bright in his pale face. The lines on either side of his mouth were deeper than before, and in those few precious moments that had passed—moments that were causing her world to collapse—Cash looked as if he’d aged ten years.
Her hand lifted and her fingers touched the scar on her upper lip.
Cash flinched.
“No.” Even softer this time. “Cash . . .” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been screaming. “Tell Asher he’s wrong.” A last ditch denial. Because inside, she was screaming. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong! Wrong! Cash couldn’t be Louis’s brother. Cash couldn’t have kept that dark, terrible secret from her. He couldn’t have lied to her. Couldn’t have made love to her and lied.
“Ana . . .” Cash whispered her name. “I am so sorry.”
We weren’t making love. We were screwing. He screwed me and lied.
Nausea twisted her belly and rose in her throat. “I’m going to be sick.” Right there—all over him. All over herself. She jerked away from her brother and shoved Cash out of her way.
His brother. His brother. His—
“Ana!” Cash curled his hand around her arms. “Let me explain—”
“I’m going to be sick.” Those desperate words were all she could manage and she was afraid that she’d vomit, right then and there. Cash must have realized how close to the edge she was because he freed her and stepped to the side. Ana ran to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and fell to her knees in front of the commode. She barely had time to lift up the seat before—
His brother. Oh, dear God, his brother.
“Ana!” Cash heard her retching in the bathroom and he surged after her. Ana was sick. She needed him. She—
A hard hand closed around his shoulder. “Don’t even think of getting near my sister right now.”
Cash whirled to confront Asher Young. They’d never met before, but he would have recognized the guy instantly. Asher had Ana’s dark hair and her dark eyes, only Asher’s gaze was filled with a red-hot fury that promised hell.
I’m in hell. Been there for a while. “Ana is sick,” he bit out. “She needs me.”
Those words seemed to push Asher over some internal edge. He swung out, and his fist slammed into Cash’s jaw. Cash didn’t try to block the blow because . . . This is Ana’s brother. And I fucking deserve the hit.
The blow was strong, powerful, a killer right hook. Cash stumbled back a step and Asher came at him again. A fierce left. He took that blow, too.
But when Asher swung again, Cash ducked. Asher’s fist slammed into the wall. “I’m not . . . going to fight you . . .” Cash grunted.
Asher pulled back his fist, flexed his bruised knuckles and bared his teeth. “Then that will just make kicking your ass so much easier.” Asher swung again. This time, Cash blocked the punch, but he didn’t attack.
He couldn’t.
Ana loves this guy. He’s her entire world. And . . .
Asher saved Ana.
“It’s not what you think,” Cash managed to snap.
Asher laughed. “It’s exactly what I think. I had to dig deep on you—you tried to bury the truth, didn’t you? You and your FBI buddies? Tried to cut all ties. Not like you want word spreading that you had a sadistic killer in the family, am I right?” He lunged for Cash.
Cash caught his arms. “I’m not fighting you.” His head turned and he looked toward the bathroom. He couldn’t hear Ana. Was she okay in there? He tore away from Asher and rushed to the bathroom.
And the asshole
tackled him. Asher took him down with a hard tackle that had them both crashing into the floor.
Growling, Cash rolled and tossed the guy back. Asher was Ana’s brother. He couldn’t, wouldn’t hurt her twin, but he was getting to Ana. She needed him.
“I dug deep and I found out the truth,” Asher snarled at him. “As soon as Ana started talking about you, I knew there was trouble. I knew it. Ana didn’t talk about any other guy the way she did you. And you were just—what? Playing some sick game with her all along?” His own words seemed to enrage Asher even more. “No one hurts my sister.”
“It wasn’t like that. I was never playing a game with Ana.”
Asher gave another grim laugh. “Bullshit. You knew who she was the first minute you saw her, didn’t you? You knew . . . and you couldn’t stay away. Are you as sick in the head as your brother?”
Cash heard a soft click behind him. The bathroom door—opening? He whirled and, yes, the door was opening. Ana stood there, her shoulders stooped, dark shadows—almost like bruises—under her eyes. Her skin was pale, making her eyes seem darker, bigger. Sadder.
And she wasn’t looking at him. “Ana?” He stepped toward her.
She shook her head.
“Ana, let me explain.” He could fix this. Couldn’t he? He had to fix this. Ana . . . Ana mattered to him. She had, for far longer than she realized. “Please, Ana.”
“Asher . . .” Just saying her brother’s name seemed to tax her. “Normally, I handle my own business. I kick ass on my own.” She looked so small, so delicate in that doorway. “But this time? Do me a favor . . . just . . . get Cash out of here. I don’t . . . I don’t want to hear anything else right now. I can’t.”
No. “Ana!”
Asher grabbed him.
And . . . despite Cash’s intention to not hurt her brother, he just—he couldn’t leave Ana. Asher wasn’t going to make him. So when Asher grabbed at him, Cash hit back—just hard enough to stop the guy’s attack. Hard enough to show that he wasn’t some pushover. Just enough to get Asher to back off—
“No!” Ana’s cry. Desperate. Hurting. “Not my brother! No!”
Her eyes—her gaze—tore Cash apart. Asher swung at him again, and Cash didn’t fight. He did get a black eye. Then Asher locked his hands around him and shoved Cash toward the door. Cash didn’t fight. Right then, he couldn’t.
Because Ana was crying. Strong, beautiful Ana was crying . . . and it was his fault.
Asher opened the door. Tried to haul him out, but Cash locked in tight. He needed Ana to hear him before he left. “I’m fucking ashamed that bastard was my brother. I don’t ever talk about him because it’s easier to pretend he wasn’t my family.”
She flinched.
He was making this so much worse. Hell, was there any way to make it better? “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to look at me—the way you are now.” The way that was ripping his heart right out of his chest. “I’m not him. I never meant for you to be hurt. I never meant—”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. “You mean you never meant for me to find out who you were.”
He’d actually tried to tell her. Even though he’d known the truth would wreck everything they had. “I wish I’d killed him,” he said.
Ana’s lips parted, but she didn’t speak.
Was she remembering the story he’d told her? About his bastard of a brother? About the time he’d fought back? He’d fought and fought and fought—
Until his mother had pulled him off Louis. Louis, the sick twisted addict who’d made their lives hell.
“If I’d killed him when I had the chance,” Cash said grimly, “your life would be so different, Ana. And I am sorry. I’m so sorry for all that you went through. I wish you’d never known a moment’s pain.”
Asher jerked him close. They were similar in height. Similar in build. And while Asher might have learned plenty of tricks while he’d been a SEAL, Cash damn well knew how to fight, too. He’d been trained at the Academy—Krav Maga was second nature to him, and back in the day, he’d done his time as an army ranger.
After all the abuse he’d taken at his brother’s hands . . .
I learned not to let anyone else ever get the better of me.
If he and Asher had really fought, they both would have wound up in the hospital. But with tears in Ana’s eyes, that shit wasn’t happening. Cash just couldn’t hurt her.
Not anymore than he already had.
“She knew plenty of pain, you sonofabitch,” Asher rasped. “Two hundred and fourteen stitches. That was the damage your brother did to her. He cut her again and again, and I was tied to my chair, helpless to stop him. He cut her while I begged him to stop. While I offered my life. While I offered him anything. And he kept cutting her. Two hundred and fourteen stitches.”
“Stop it, Asher,” Ana pleaded. “Stop!”
But Asher wasn’t stopping. “When I got loose, I got his knife.”
Cash knew how this story ended. He knew—
“I enjoyed killing him.” Asher’s voice was ice-cold. And Cash knew Asher was speaking the dead truth. “I dislocated my shoulder so I could get out of those ropes. When Louis came back into the room—still high as a freaking kite—he didn’t even look my way. He had the knife in his hand and he was ready to use it on Ana again.”
“Asher, stop,” Ana said, swiping at the tears on her cheeks.
“I took that knife from him. I covered his mouth with my left hand. He didn’t even realize what was happening as I slit his throat and his blood poured out. I let him fall and he was jerking and pissing himself on the floor and I was glad he was dead.”
“Asher!” Ana ran across the room. “Stop it, stop it! He’s an FBI agent! You can’t say anything else! Do you understand me?” Desperate, she shook Asher’s shoulders. “Stop it!”
What did she think? That he was going to somehow turn on her and Asher? Try to press charges? No way. No fucking way.
“It was self-defense,” Ana cried out. “That’s what it was! Not murder! It was self-defense.”
Cash’s heart felt as if she’d just cut it from his chest.
Ana stood in front of her brother, protecting him. “I will swear that to my grave. Louis had his knife—he had to be stopped.” She drew in a shuddering breath and her eyelids flickered. “As for his partner . . . same thing with that asshole Wayne. Same thing. Self-defense. Self—”
“I waited for him,” Asher said.
“No! Asher!” Ana was nearly screaming.
“I knew he’d be back soon. The sonofabitch who’d helped to carve up my sister . . . he’d be back.”
Her eyes closed.
Cash couldn’t move. He was right in front of the door, but his body was too heavy. His mind too wrecked.
“We could have run,” Asher admitted.
Ana swayed.
“But I wasn’t leaving that pit of hell while he still lived. I waited, and when I heard him coming . . . I hid behind the door.”
Ana was shaking her head. “Self-defense. Asher, stop. Self-defense.”
“And I slit his throat, too.”
Ana started to crumple. Strong Ana. Falling. Cash grabbed her. “Ana?”
Her lashes covered her dark gaze. He wanted her to look at him. To see him, and not just her attacker’s brother.
Cash’s hold tightened on Ana. “Ana, no court in the country would ever convict your brother for what he did.” Was that what scared her? She feared it hadn’t really been self-defense? Because it fucking had been. He’d touched her scars. Kissed every one.
Louis and Wayne—they’d needed to be stopped.
“I just wished I’d killed him first,” Cash said. “I will go to my grave wishing that.”
Her long lashes lifted. She stared into his eyes. Seemed to be searching for something. It’s me, Ana. I’m the same man. The same man you wanted less than thirty minutes ago. The same man you gave yourself to so beautifully last night. I’m the same. I’m not a monster, A
na. I’m not. I’m—
“I need you to leave now, Cash,” Ana whispered. “Just . . . go, okay?”
His hands slid away from her. He gave a grim nod. “I’ll leave now, but we’re going to talk in the morning, Ana.” They had to talk. This thing between them—it wasn’t over. They weren’t over. “You still have to go to D.C. You’re still a material witness.” The case would bind them, for a time. And it would give him a chance to convince Ana that he wasn’t the sick bastard she feared. He could explain more.
Try to explain.
I just needed you so much, Ana. I know it sounds crazy but . . . I think I started falling for you when you were just fourteen. I saw you on the news. A beautiful, strong girl. A girl who’d survived so much, and I just wanted to keep you safe. I wanted to take away all of your pain.
But he wasn’t going to push her, not then. He didn’t want to push to the point that Ana shattered. He wanted Ana strong. He wanted her tough.
He just . . . he’d always want her.
Cash turned away. He opened the door and left Ana. And even though it ripped his guts out, he didn’t look back at her.
Mostly because he’d just realized something important. He couldn’t stand to see Ana cry. Her tears tore him apart.
When Cash left, Ana leapt forward. She slammed the door shut. Locked it. Then drove her fist into the wood, over and over again as pain racked her.
Louis’s brother. His brother. His damn brother!
Her skin was crawling. The nausea was rising again. And—
I think my heart is breaking.
Because she’d made a terrible, terrible mistake. She’d let Cash Knox get past her guard. She should have known better. Why hadn’t she learned? But he’d been so gentle the night before as he kissed her scars. As he told her that she was perfect.
I’m not perfect. His brother made sure of that.