Sherrilyn Kenyon - Silent Truth

“Regardless of what you decide, I’d like to attend Korbin’s memorial. I don’t know if he’s got any family, but I’m in if we’re doing something for them.” He wasn’t going to flaunt his money and say he’d cover it all. That would insult the rest of the team. He’d pay his share. That’s what a team member would do.

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” she murmured.

“What? That I could be honest?”

“No, that you could change my mind.” Her lips curved softly into a smile with only a hint of evil hiding. “You’re back on the team, but what about this Abbie? She’s in the media. Not our favorite people.”

“She lost her job with the media.”

“Make sure she doesn’t get another one.”

“How do you expect me to do that?”

“I don’t care how you do it.” Tee got up and walked around the desk, then leaned forward with her hands supporting her. “She knows about you and what you do.”

“She’s not going to say anything,” Hunter argued. “She doesn’t know anything about this location, the name of our organization, nothing that she could tell anyone, even if she would, which she won’t.”

“You sound pretty certain.”

“I am certain. I trust her with my-”

“Life?” Tee smirked.

Hunter didn’t have to think before answering this time. “Yes.”

“Really.” Tee straightened away from the desk and crossed her arms. “Did you get a new safe house?”

“Yes.”

“Going to share that location with us?”

“Not unless you want to be tied to the fallout if the CIA ever finds out about my houseguest.”

“No, we don’t, which is why we never pressed you before. Anyone else know about the location?”

“No.”

“But Eliot knew, didn’t he?”

Hunter shrugged. “Yes. What’s your point?”

“You don’t trust Abbie, so I don’t trust her. How do you plan to assure us she isn’t going to be a threat to our security?”

You need plenty of fluids.” Abbie held the cup so her mother could take a sip of vitamin-infused water. Dr. Murphy had released her mother two days ago to come home.

Abbie’s apartment still stank of tear gas, which reminded her of the deep fear she’d lived through. She’d packed a bag of clothes she washed as soon as she reached her mother’s house.

Her mother took the cup from her hand. “Don’t ignore me, Abigail. This is the first chance we’ve had to talk without Hannah in the room. What happened? Why did you lose your job?”

“Because the station is still spinning this to fix the backlash from me being involved when Gwen Wentworth was shot. They gave me a chance to save my name if I’d write an exclusive on my ordeal. I refused. When I started, I thought I’d like working for television, but I don’t want to share intimate details of what happened to me, so I can’t see myself asking someone else to do that. My reputation is shot in television.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“The only upside is that I hated working for a scumbag.” She smiled at her mother. “But I did hear some good news. Brittany’s grandfather fired Stuey. And I did get an offer from a regional magazine to report on Chicago’s who’s who in business and where they’re seen around town. They seem to think since I was seen with a Thornton-Payne I must be ‘in the know.’ ” She did the air quotes with her fingers. Filming documentaries might not happen in this lifetime with the dark cloud hanging over her television career.

“Oh.”

“Why do you sound disappointed, Mom?” Not that Abbie was doing backflips over this job offer or that she believed anyone in the Thornton-Payne league would ever speak to her, but it was a paying gig if she got it and meant reporting on the cream of the corporate world.

She might run into a Thorton-Payne, as in Todd, but not Hunter. The tug of pain caught her by surprise again.

“What about that idea you had to film children at different times in their lives for a couple-”

“No.” Abbie had once thought about creating video scrapbooks for parents. She’d saved the idea to start with her own family, because filming documentaries had always been her true passion. What was the chance she’d ever have little ones of her own? Zilch if she couldn’t have a family with the man she loved.

Falling for Hunter proved trust and love didn’t go hand in hand as she’d always believed.

Worse, she still loved that bastard.

He’d said he loved her, but he hadn’t trusted her.

She couldn’t accept one without the other and Hunter lived a life that didn’t allow for opening himself up totally to a woman.

“You’re awake.” Hannah strolled into the bedroom eating a dish of ice cream and carrying a second one she handed to her mother.

“I don’t get one?” Abbie asked, annoyed.

“You’ve got laundry to do.” Hannah shoved another spoonful in her mouth and moaned.

“I thought you wanted to stay a size six.” Abbie grabbed for the bowl. Hannah stuck it high in the air.

“Plumping up a few curves didn’t hurt you. I’ll take someone like that Hunter guy you were running around with anytime.”

Over my dead body. Abbie clamped her lips shut to keep from speaking her thoughts.

“Besides, Dr. Murphy said to be careful what you ate for a few days.” Hannah stepped back and lowered the bowl to mouth level, watching Abbie for any sudden moves.

“I’m fine. I didn’t get the crap Mom had. Dr. Murphy meant I shouldn’t eat anything abrasive to my stomach.” She glared at Hannah.

“Okay, all right. I’ll get you a bowl.” Hannah left.

Thin fingers touched Abbie’s hand. She turned to her mother, whose eyes were watery. “I’m sorry you were hurt-”

“Mom, you didn’t do anything wrong. You only gave birth to him. You didn’t raise Royce to be a killer. Sigmund Jack did that to him and he put you in danger. You were set up from the beginning.” Abbie would have nightmares forever about thinking she was going to die with no way to stop the killer or save her mother. “I was more scared for you. I still shake when I think about how close we came to losing you. If they hadn’t sedated Royce so heavily, he’d have committed suicide before Dr. Murphy had a chance to do the transfusion.”

“I would have done anything to keep you safe,” her mother said. “Sigmund threatened the one thing that would keep me from ever telling about him or my son when he said he’d kill you if I did. Or if I pointed a finger at the Kore Women’s Center.”

Abbie couldn’t imagine being given that choice. She’d have fought the world to protect a child… which she’d never have to worry about since she was never getting married.

“Abbie, uh…” Hannah called from the bedroom door.

“I don’t see a bowl of ice cream in your hand,” Abbie pointed out, though she laughed to lighten her accusation.

“Yeah, well, you might not have time to eat it.”

“Why?”

“There’s a man at the door asking for you. When I wouldn’t let him talk to you unless he told me what he wanted, he said there’s a private jet waiting on you at Midway Airport. He’s driving a stretch, and I mean stretch, limousine. He has a sealed envelope for you.”

Hunter paced the tarmac at Lambert-St. Louis airport. He’d never been nervous in his life, but he was damned nervous now.

The limo driver stood at the ready next to the rear door of the black limousine.

The jet Hunter had sent for Abbie was finally taxiing in his direction. He’d debated meeting her at her mother’s house to fly with her. But that would have allowed Abbie to dig in her heels at her mother’s house or at Midway airport.