Tommy waited for Killian to go, then he fell back into his story. “I went, when he threatened my wife’s life. I knew he wasn’t bluffing. We all know he doesn’t bluff. And he’s done it before, killed the spouses of those who pissed him off.”
I startled. “Whose?”
“Zee’s wife,” Tommy said. “Her name was Alma, and she tried to get Zee to leave Romano’s employ. At least, that’s what I understood.”
My heart lurched with more than a wisp of green jealousy. I hadn’t known about Zee’s wife.
The killing of spouses was not new to me, even if the loss of Zee’s wife was. Our father had Justin, my husband, killed in a car accident that was anything but an accident. Bear and I had been in the truck with him, and while I’d been injured, Bear had been snatched away before he knew I’d survived, or I knew he had. He’d been taken, and I was left believing he was dead for nearly six months before I found out the truth.
I frowned, pushing my own feelings aside. Abe curled in tightly so he lay across my lap, all eighty pounds of him. I stroked my hand through his fur. I made myself go back to the important information. “And when you were gone, that’s when he raped her?”
My older brother shook his head. “No. He waited until I came back, like the asshole he is. I was home a week, and I walked in on him with her. She was crying, tied to the bed, begging him to stop. He rolled off her and I shot him. You know how that goes. No bueno.”
I nodded. I did know. Our father had made a deal with the devil. We’d thought for so long that the deal only entailed him gaining power, prestige, and money, but there had been an additional bonus. He was no longer mortal, and wounds that would kill anyone else didn’t even register on his radar as a damn scratch.
“And, after that?” I prompted.
Tommy shrugged and stared at his feet. “He took my gun from me, turned it around and held it to my head. It scared her so badly, Whitney was never the same after that. I tried to help her. I tried to get us both away from him but . . . the Hider I employed wasn’t like Zee. He didn’t have the ability to keep us Hidden for more than a few days before the shaking sickness took him. I had the money to pay him; he just didn’t have the ability he’d claimed.”
I kept my jaw clenched tightly for a moment. There were no words I could offer. “After that, after she killed herself, that was when you tried to stop him?”
He blew out a slow breath. “I reached out to a few low-level contacts I had in Mancini’s employ. Noah was one of them, and he was nervous to let too much show, but I knew I had him from the first day. He said he knew the man who was married to my sister, to Bianca. I never believed she was dead, you know. She was too fucking smart to die easy.”
I nodded. “That was the trail I laid. I let Justin believe I was her. Simpler that way. Zee hid my tattoo, and that was that.”
Tommy snorted. “You didn’t want your husband to know you were the abnormals’ boogeyman?”
It was my turn to snort, deliberately mimicking him. “Something like that. I wanted a normal life. Can’t have that if your partner thinks you might off them in their sleep, or if he’s wondering just how many people you’ve killed.” Justin had thought the Phoenix was a monster, and maybe he was right. I didn’t want to burst the bubble on the life I’d created.
“What happened to Bea?” Tommy asked, and it was my turn to sigh softly.
“I found her dead in her room that weekend you all went to Miami for business. It was just the two of us. I heard her cry out. I went to investigate and she was dead on the floor. There was a note for me and in it she begged me to hide her body.”
Tommy frowned. “Why would she want that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just did it.”
His jaw ticked. “You were a better sister to all of us than we deserved.”
I blinked a couple of times before I responded. “I think we were all fucked over, coming from Romano.”
Tommy barked a laugh. “There is that. Surprising we turned out as well as we have.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You think we turned out well? What mirror have you been looking in lately?”
Laughter crept up my throat and I let it out, and Tommy joined in. Maybe for the first time, I felt a connection with one of my siblings other than a passing indifference or, worse, outright hatred.
The helicopter tipped to the side and began a descent, the blades slowing.
I frowned and grabbed a handle over my head and Abe curled his front legs around my thighs, digging his claws into the far side. The blades should not have been slowing, this wasn’t like a plane making a landing.
“Killian?”
“We got problems,” he yelled back. “You’re making nice with your family, and mine . . . well, mine has just shown up to the party.”
I reached around Abe, tucking my arm under his belly, tight behind his front legs. “Hang on, buddy.”
He let out a whine and pushed his nose under my arm, hiding his face as if he at least knew what was coming. I yanked a harness on around me, tangling it with Abe in the hopes we’d both make it through.
There was a moment of absolute quiet as the engine of the helicopter flicked off and electricity crawled over the metal, creeping toward me and Tommy. I took one look at him and grabbed a parachute from my side and flung it at him as the helicopter flipped sideways and the door clicked open. We spun hard, he stumbled toward me, and his hands jammed against my sides, pushing Dinah and Eleanor against my ribs. They squawked and I shoved Tommy with the parachute.
“Jump!” The engines flicked on as suddenly as they’d gone off, and we were thrown hard to the right as if a giant fist had slammed into the metal. My last thought as the lightning crawled over my body, as Abe howled for all he was worth, was that I didn’t think I liked Killian’s family any more than I liked mine.
2
Crashing metal, the howl of my dog, the loss of oxygen as I tried to pull all the electricity away from Abe and take it into myself.
Bits and pieces of the fall from the sky flicked through my mind like chunks out of a movie. The rotor blades slowing, Tommy flipping out with the parachute, Killian leaping to cover my body with his own.
And then the electricity as it had slammed through us, knocking me out no matter how hard I’d pulled it away from Abe.
Abe.
“Assholes.” I groaned the word as I came fully around, my hands searching for my four-legged companion. His fur was as soft as ever, but I felt nothing moving under it. Panic set in as I scrambled to get myself out of the straps. “Abe.”
His body was limp as I got myself unbuckled and went to my knees beside him. The helicopter was on its side, the open door buried in the ground, my knees pressed into grass and dirt.
“Abe, don’t do this to me.” I took his long muzzle and lifted it to my face but there was no warm breath escaping his nose.
“Here.” Killian pushed me aside and his hands crackled. “It’ll help or it won’t.” He put his hands on Abe’s side and a pulse of electricity jumped through him. Once, twice, three times.
My jaw ached from holding it so tightly. I knew we were wasting time. I knew that whoever had downed us was waiting on us to come out and face them, or maybe they thought we’d be dead.