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  If he had a plan how to eliminate the Treno threat and keep himself safe, she had to believe it was going to be risky and complex. Max didn't seem to have a simple thought process. It seemed like everything, from going to the store to pick up some fancy clothes, to what harbored in his head, was more complex than anything she could dream up. It was one of the things she couldn't help but admire about him. No one would ever describe him as superficial.

  She couldn't help but wish she had the opportunity to see Mick in person. To give him a hug until he pushed her away. Despite what she might have said a month ago, she even missed his teenage angst. No doubt he was giving his handlers Angie and Lucien a whole lot of trouble, being cooped up like that. But she suspected it would take days for the boredom to set in. He'd be good for at least a while, relishing in the fact that he was out of harm's way. Or maybe that was her? Who knew? All she knew was that her brother was alive. And right now, that was all that mattered.

  The lull of the open road and the security she felt was a nice respite. In fact, this was as close to nirvana as she'd likely get for the time being.

  Max pulled into a parking garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and drove up a ramp. At close to four-thirty, the city was still asleep this early hour. Even though the structure was deserted, he rode to the lower level and kept circling downward, circumventing construction cones along the way.

  A part of her wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing. The other part knew better than to second-guess his decisions.

  When he got off the bike, he smiled, removed her helmet, and dipped his head to kiss her. "Our home away from home for the time being."

  He grabbed stuff out of the saddlebags and went toward an empty wall. At least, it seemed like an empty wall—until he found some kind of scanning gadget and placed his hand on a monitor.

  A door that wasn't there a few seconds ago appeared. He pushed the bike inside and closed the door behind them. When he flipped open another compartment on the wall, he pressed his forehead against a screen and two steel doors slid to the side, revealing an apartment.

  "Amazing. I never would have…well…you make a strong case for working for this Alliance place. No red tape. Amazing technology. What's not to love, right?"

  "It's stocked with food, movies, creature comforts to make your claustrophobic stay tolerable." He used the handprint to gain access and slid his arm about her shoulders.

  "Is this a place like where they have my brother?"

  "Identical." He grabbed her hand. "I hope you're suitably impressed. Nobody's getting through to your brother. And more importantly, no one's getting to us until we're good and ready."

  "I'm okay with that." She walked around the place that seemed to hold all the comforts of home, including a big-screen TV, more videos that she could watch in a couple of months, and a well-stocked kitchen and bar. She felt safer than she had in a very long time. Or maybe it was about knowing her brother was similarly situated that assuaged some of the fears she'd harbored. Nobody would get to him.

  All in all, it was a good place to be. She pulled open the fridge to find fresh pasta, sauce, and Italian sausage.

  "You told them my preference."

  He nodded. "I wanted you to be comfortable while you're here."

  "Or you're buttering me up for something." It felt like it had been years since she'd been able to do something as mundane as laugh.

  "Well, there's that too." He nuzzled her neck, and she started to forget the who, why, when, and where of it all. All she knew was that her brother was safe. And so were she and Max. Everything else could fall by the wayside for a bit while they got down to business.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  "Only one bedroom, though. How's that going to work?" Gianna turned toward Max and smiled.

  "Get you naked and tell you all my secrets. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?"

  "Hmm…I think I've heard mention of that a time or two in passing."

  "Well, now's the time to pay the piper, so to speak."

  "I'll admit I feel confident about my brother and everything else, but this thing between us is complicated, isn't it?"

  "You might say that." And about to get a whole lot more. Right now Max figured she had no idea.

  She wound her hands around his neck. "Are you really an assassin?" When she peppered him with kisses, it took a bit of the sting out of the question.

  "No. But a long time ago, I used to be."

  She sucked in a breath and stared at him as she tried to decipher whether he was telling the truth. "You're only thirty-five. I guess you need to define 'a long time ago.'"

  "I need a drink. How about you?" Without waiting for her response, he walked to the fridge and pulled out a beer. When she nodded, he opened one for each of them. "Let's sit down." He led her to the couch in the corner of the room and sat, pulling her down next to him. After taking a swig of beer, he settled in.

  Memories from so long ago scattered through his mind. He'd never told anyone about the demons of this past—hadn't even come clean with Jake and Sabrina. Maybe he'd reached a point where it was more cathartic than painful. Maybe it was the circumstances. But right now it felt like the right thing to do.

  "I grew up in Serbia in the middle of farmland. My parents were Max and Marina Milosevic, but they legally changed their name to Shaw before I was born. They worked for a man named Goren Petrovich, who taught them to be assassins." He drew in a breath. "They wanted out when my mom got pregnant with me. So they escaped, changed their name, and had three children before he caught up with them."

  A picture of their home and that sense of peace that surrounded it flittered through his mind. They'd been so happy. He didn't believe it was magical thinking when he remembered only good things. The smell of his mom's home cooking. His dad planting a small garden in the back. The old truck he used to drive them back and forth to school. The times they would laugh so hard they would cry when Sabrina would try to imitate her big brothers. A tomboy from the youngest of ages, she always preferred trucks and playing in the dirt to playing with dolls.

  "Wait a minute. Back up. How did you find out they used to be assassins? Did they tell you?"

  He nodded as the weight of their confession on that day resurfaced in his memory. At first he thought they'd been joking. Assassins didn't fit into the kindness and love he felt from them. Then he began to think. Why didn't they work, like other kids' parents? Money never had seemed to be an issue, unlike for a lot of his friends at school.

  "Shortly before they died, I think they might have been worried they'd been discovered. They were making plans for a family outing, as they called it. Looking back on it, I think they were looking for a new place to hide. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but when I examine the time more closely, I realize they were anxious about something." The guilt of not being able to prevent what happened to them remained so fresh in his mind it practically seared through him like a red-hot poker. "But it was never articulated to me until…I was twelve at the time, and they told me of their past. They revealed to me what they'd done to survive at the hands of Goren Petrovich. They spoke of him with reverence combined with fear. They talked about how lucky they were to be able to escape him, because no one escaped the clutches of mighty and powerful Goren Petrovich."

  "But they didn't escape. And neither did you, since someone's still after you." She sighed and gave him a small smile. "This is complicated, isn't it? But I still don't know how my brother is wrapped up in this."

  "Mick told Angie and Lucien that he ran into Joey and Frankie the night Damon was killed. They coerced him into going into Manhattan with them. It started out fine, but then they started drinking, and things got out of control. They said they were going to make a quick thousand dollars just for hassling somebody, which is when they cornered Damon. That's when things went downhill. Joey had a knife and thought he'd show it—yeah, I don't know why, except maybe to up his street cred—but then Damon fell toward the knife and things disintegrated
from there. They didn't find out he'd been shot until later."

  "Who killed Joey? And what happened to Frankie?"

  "Mick thinks that Frankie's on the run. Joey somehow figured out the guy had been shot and was pushing for more money from whoever hired them in the first place. Mick was trying to steer clear of the whole mess, when Anthony Falcone texted him and told him to come to his house to discuss a problem. That's when everything started to unravel. At that point, Anthony threatened you and told Mick he had 'people who could make you die in the line of duty and make Mick rich.' He mentioned he'd only ask for a percentage of what Mick got from your death. That's where the argument came in, and then Mick was running scared because things were spiraling out of control."

  She shook her head. "Amazing. They roped Mick in and then wanted to cash in on me. So sick and twisted. Does Mick have any idea who's after you?"

  "Apparently a string of people. I need to trace it to the source. I have a feeling it's much bigger than Cleo, the woman who went after my brother. Some of the recent attempts on my life"—he cleared his throat—"mirror cases I'd been involved with in the past. This is not a one-person operation, for sure." Going back to that way of life was never something he'd wanted to do. But he'd been forced due to circumstances.

  "When you say 'mirror cases,' what do you mean?"

  Digging deeper and telling the truth wasn't something he'd planned or thought about when he began this alliance with Gianna. But somehow things had evolved differently than he'd anticipated. "Some of the assignments I've had in the past"—he gulped back the wall of fear that had settled inside his throat—"have been similar to what has been attempted on me."

  She rubbed her hand down his arm, signaling to him she didn't expect any more from him, even though he suspected the cop in her was itching to know. "How did the whole thing with your parents happen? That had to be frightening."

  Max rubbed his hand against his forehead. "Maybe they knew they'd eventually be found out, or they were being proactive and realistic about the power Petrovich had at the time in Europe. They wanted to make sure Jake and Sabrina were safe, so they instructed me on where to hide in case something happened."

  "What happened in the end?"

  Relief spread through him inch by inch. Somehow she grasped what had been going through his mind at the time.

  "Sabrina, Jake, and I were in the woods playing games while we were supposed to be gathering wood for the fire for dinner." He shook his head. "I guess it was good we were dragging our heels, or we might have been killed as well. Or worse yet, would have been captured." That had been his parents' worst nightmare, and it had come about anyway because of decisions he made. They'd given Max the responsibility of keeping them safe, and it hurt like hell he hadn't.

  "Your parents were murdered?" Her fingertips danced along his forearm.

  "We were on our way back, and I spotted an unfamiliar car in the driveway." The sensation inside his chest nearly stopped his breath as the memory crawled through. "I can't tell you why, but what the three of us now refer to as the Shaw itch trailed up my back, and I knew right away something had happened and brought my siblings back into the woods to play hide and seek some more. I heard the shotgun go off, and our fate was sealed by that single sound. My parents had money hidden. But the men set fire to our home. Everything was gone."

  Memories bombarded him. He closed his eyes to temper some of the pain.

  Terror slowed his pace. His bones felt like they were melting away as moving seemed nearly impossible. Tears stained his cheeks as flames licked high in the sky. He rushed home even while he knew the truth.

  He fell to the ground outside what used to be his bedroom and wailed, the sound reverberating through the air until the air seeped out of his chest. The certainty of their death couldn't be changed or deleted. In his young mind, he could have sworn he saw his parents' bodies floating above his head, giving him words of wisdom to survive. "You know what to do, Max. You are a Shaw. We're so proud of you. We'll always be proud of you. You are good and wise and smart. You'll do well with your siblings." Their constant reminders of his ultimate responsibility burrowed through his brain.

  "They burned the house and everything in it. The money my parents had stashed. All our clothes. Everything, including our parents." The words spilled out of him.

  "Stop beating yourself up. You were twelve." She stroked her hands down his face, grasping his cheeks as she stared into his eyes. The sense that somehow she understood the turmoil circling around inside him became clear. With that simple gaze, she conveyed her thoughts in a way no one had ever done before. "You couldn't have won a fight against grown men. It would have only gotten you killed, and then Jake and Sabrina would have truly been alone. Your parents would have wanted you to do exactly what you did."

  He gave her a weak smile as a smidgen of peace settled inside his chest. She had made him feel less damaged with that simple gesture. He couldn't even explain it in logical terms, but somehow she had. Now that he'd started, he couldn't think about stopping. She was safe. She made him feel safe. But there was so much more she needed to hear.

  "At first I made Jake and Sabrina believe leaving the house was an adventure. And they looked to me for guidance and protection. But in the end, I failed them." He sucked in a calming breath. There was so much he wanted to say still, but could he ever let the words of self-loathing spill from his lips? "We lived on the streets. Sabrina cried for our mother every night. We were cold and scared, and eventually Sabrina got sick." He shook his head. "That's when I made a pact with the devil."

  "Wait a minute. What do you mean? You must have had family somewhere—aunts, uncles, grandparents."

  "That's what I'm trying to tell you. My parents had isolated themselves in order to fly under the radar. They wanted to live a life that kept us safe. We had no one to help us. We were street urchins, living by the pickpocketing skills we'd learned along the way and a whole lot of luck. Until it ran out."

  "And the devil came calling."

  "By the name of Petrovich." That fateful day played like a bad record in his head. Could he have persevered, gotten a job, and kept his family intact? He'd never know now. "I sought him out. I couldn't handle the responsibility or the worry any longer. Sabrina got sick, and I thought she might die. It was probably just a virus, but she was shaking and hot with fever, and it scared the hell out of me. She was a kid, and I had to do what I could to make her better. I couldn't let her death fall on my shoulders."

  The blackness that had surrounded his decision shimmied through. Jake's questioning expression. Sabrina's pale skin. The tremors that tore through her little body until he thought she'd hurt herself. A wandering band of gypsies had given him a salve to help her, but that hadn't worked. If he went to a hospital, he didn't know what might happen to them as a family. He'd heard stories. If the authorities intervened, they wouldn't necessarily keep the three of them together.

  He didn't know what to do and was scared to death. The idea that she might die hit hard that last day. She had trouble waking up, and even as young as he was, he knew she needed a doctor. He thought about stealing something from a pharmacy, but how would he know what to give her or how much? She needed an antibiotic to get rid of whatever had invaded her system. Had she not gotten sick, he always wondered if he would have been able to make the leap to go to Petrovich. Would he have done it anyway, but her illness caused it to happen sooner than anticipated?

  "You did what you had to do. There's no shame in that." She slid her hand along his until she tucked it inside his and squeezed. "Tell me about it. What was it like living there?"

  "At first, it was good." And it was. After worrying about everything for so long, it felt like he could let go of that guard that he'd built along the way. The selfish part of him was relieved to be a kid again. "We were all so very young. He gave us our meals, made sure we got an education, and we were warm and had a roof over our heads. But as we got older, it became clear he wanted somethin
g in return. Something I should have known was inevitable, given his history with my parents. It was subtle at first. But then it became clear there was no going back." Did he really expect it would be forgotten? Never. But he had held out hope for the longest time.

  "He wanted you to kill people?" Her voice squeaked at the end. Disgust played across her face. He regretted his decision to tell her, even while unburdening himself felt cathartic.

  He'd started this conversation. Now he had to finish it. "He said we needed to protect ourselves. He trained us in weaponry, self-defense, including Krav Maga and other martial arts, safecracking, B&E—you name it, we learned it. He kept saying how gifted we were. How we must have come from talented parents, even while he would give me this look that made me know somehow he'd been the one to train and then kill my parents." Even now, he could see the man's snarky grin. Bile surfaced inside his throat as the memories became fresh again.

  "What you mean?" She sucked in her bottom lip and worried it.

  "He never flat out said, 'Kill this person.' He would say this person is bad. They've done this and that. They've hurt other people. They need to be punished. And for a long time, we believed him. When I started to question, he upped the ante." Brainwashing at its finest. He'd made them want to do his bidding. Both Sabrina and Jake nodded in agreement every time Petrovich spoke. They had no clue of the depths of the man's evil.

  "How?"

  "He would say they are going to hurt Jake or Sabrina if you don't stop them. He'd make stuff up, like this person was watching Sabrina, and he was fearful of what might happen to her. That kind of thing. It took me a while to figure out he'd been creating that sense of paranoia in me until I felt like I had no choice but to act on it."

  "What happened to make you recognize he was lying to you?"