Shattered Valor (24 page)

“Jesus, Blade. You’re smoking some weird shit. Our tools are cutting edge. There’s nothing yet invented they can’t find.”

Max and Greer came into the den with their equipment detectors. Once again, they swept the room, from top to bottom, checking every surface, including Ty himself.

“Maybe they’re sniffing our network,” Kit suggested.

Max shook his head. “The network is secure. All incoming and outgoing traffic is encrypted and then passed through my nested firewalls. If we were being hacked, Greer and I would know.”

“Besides, he knew about our accessing the bunker,” Ty pointed out. “That wasn’t a network issue.”

Kit looked at Ty. “No one came in while you were working?”

“I already answered that.”

“We have cameras in the hall. We checked the footage. No one’s been in or out of this room except Blade,” Greer told Kit.

“You think I’m a sell-out?” Ty asked Kit in a voice that was deceptively calm.

“No.” Kit’s gaze shot to Ty. “Fuck, no, Blade. I’m just trying to understand how Amir can know what’s happening here.” Kit rubbed his hand over his short-cropped hair then looked at the three men in the room.

“Amir mentioned wanting to collect his possessions from the bunker, but he’s never been specific about whether he means the documents and equipment, the guns, the C-4, or the drugs—which he doesn’t know we’ve found yet. He was fishing before, trying to see what we knew about what he left in the bunker. He only seems to know about things happening in here—or what he can see by watching us outside. He doesn’t have eyes in the bunker. From now on, let’s keep any work concerning the case restricted to the conference room down below.”

Ty came down to supper that evening when he heard the guys gathering in the living room. Mandy was sitting on Rocco’s lap in one of the armchairs. Zavi was sitting on the coffee table playing thumb wars with Kit. Fee and Kelan were playing a game of chess, though it looked as if neither was concentrating very hard on the board.

Eden and Tank crossed the bridge between the two upper halves of the house. She turned to take the stairs. He waited anxiously as her gaze sought him out. They hadn’t spoken since the night before and his asinine freak-out. He looked away, not wanting to force her to face him again after the debacle in his room.

She paused on the stairs. He risked a glance her way. When she smiled at him, he couldn’t tear his eyes from her. She was such a gift, a brightness in his life. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his chest.

She was wearing thin, strappy sandals and skinny jeans. Her top was a patterned silk tunic that split on the sides over her hips, ending in uneven points that flowed about her as she walked. Her face had just a touch of coloring on her cheeks and lips. Dark lashes fringed her beautiful topaz eyes. She was breathtakingly beautiful to him.

She made a beeline for him, smiling as if there was no one else in the room. She came right up to him and set her hands on his waist as she leaned up to kiss his cheek.

“Hi,” she said, then bit her lower lip.

Was she nervous? “Hi.”

“Did you have a good day?” she asked. “I looked for you a few times, but you were always busy.”

“It was a busy day.” She was so pleasant and cheerful. The sunshine to his shadows. He pulled her into a hug and pressed his face to her hair. He sent a look over the room. It had grown strangely silent. He caught the many curious looks sent his way. Kit frowned at him, his expression contemplative. He met Angel and Max’s gazes, his own a bit more challenging than he’d intended. They both smiled at him, then resumed the conversation they were having. The break in noise seemed long to him, but was there and gone before Eden could notice.

He pulled back and looked down at her. “You look beautiful tonight.” He kissed her on the forehead. Her gaze moved to his mouth. Her lips parted. The hard-on he’d been rocking since he saw her cross the bridge tightened a notch.

He took hold of her face, letting his fingers absorb the soft feel of her skin. Unable to stop himself, he bent to kiss her in what he’d intended only as a quick gesture. She leaned into him, her lips soft and inviting. He took the kiss deeper. Her arms moved from his waist to circle his shoulders. He pulled her against himself, momentarily forgetting they had an audience.

“We can skip dinner,” she quietly offered, her mouth only a breath away from his.

“No. I’m starving. And,” he looked at her, “I’m having Carla set up a surprise in our room while we eat. Don’t come up there until eight this evening, okay?”

“Hmmm. A date, huh?”

Ty nodded. “And something, I hope, that’ll make up for last night,” he said quietly so the others wouldn’t hear him.

She frowned. “Last night was amazing.”

“But incomplete.”

She put her hand on his cheek, forcing his gaze to meet hers. “Any night with you is wonderful, Ty. What happens or doesn’t happen, doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you.”

He kissed her again. He was rethinking her offer to go upstairs when Greer whistled for them at the entrance to the dining room. The room had emptied out. “You guys coming? I’d hate for you do something that would live forever in Max’s video library. Like Eddie’s infamous shopping trip with Val.”

Ty glared at Greer. “You deleted that, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Greer slowly grinned. “That’s long gone.”

Ty shook his head. He was going to have to make sure Max had indeed deleted that recording. When he looked down at Eden, she was glaring at him, her fisted hands on her hips.

“They recorded that call?”

“They record all incoming and outgoing calls from our phones.”

“Val knew the call was being recorded?”

“Yes.”

“Who else heard it?”

Ty winced. “Rocco and Kit were in the locker room with me when it came in.”

She pivoted on her heel and started to walk out of the living room, away from the dining room. “Eden, stop. Wait.” He caught her and spun her around. There were tears in her eyes. Her face, so pale before, was now blossoming with angry color.

“I can never face them again.”

“Oh, yes, you can. They’re your brothers now, too. You’re as stuck with them as I am. They do the stupid shit that brothers do. I already gave Val a black eye for his shenanigans. Please, can we put it behind us?”

“They’re laughing at me, Ty. No, I can’t put that behind me.”

“They’re not laughing at you. They’re laughing at me.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“Because Val was right. I’m crazy about you. And he gave you something that I didn’t.”

“What?”

“This new confidence you have. You were always beautiful to me, but now I think you’re beautiful to you, too. You have a new joyfulness about you. I’m grateful to him for that. But still mad as hell that he saw you naked.”

Eden sighed and leaned her head against Ty’s chest. “You guys are idiots.”

“I know.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “I hope you can put up with us for a while.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.” He swiped the tears from her face with his thumbs. “Want to sneak some food from the kitchen and go watch a movie?”

“No. You’re right about them. I’m not going to start hiding from them.” She wiped her face. “They’ll have to be man enough to deal with a few tears.” She looked up at him. “And for the record, it isn’t Val who gave me joy. It’s you. I don’t know what you see in me, but I am so grateful that you see it.”

Ty felt gut punched. He was speechless. He felt the exact same way about her. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“I don’t come from money. My parents are broke and crazy.”

“My father was rich and crazy.” He shrugged.

“My credit sucks. I have student loans up to my eyeballs.”

“I’ll pay them off for you.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll pay them off. It’s my debt. I’ll take care of it.”

“Eden, I don’t care about money. I have lots of it. It’s never made me happy. You make me happy.”

“Then why did you leave last night?”

He considered her question. What happened to him was so ugly, he didn’t want it in her consciousness. “There are some things I’m working through.”

“Okay. But if we’re going to have a relationship, and I sincerely hope we are, we need to work on things together.”

“Not this.”

Eden pulled away from him. Something cooled in her eyes as she straightened her shoulders. “Well, should we go eat, then?” He followed her into the dining room, feeling the distance of a million miles separating them. Secrets like his should never be shared. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t. It was so goddamned awful.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Eden rifled through her drawers later that night, intent on finding just the right outfit for the special surprise Ty was having set up in his room. She held a few different pieces up, then chose a sexy push-up bra and matching boy-cut panties. She was nervous about tonight, worried about Ty. She’d known he was working through something long before he’d said so earlier, but his comment made all the little facts she’d picked up on coalesce in her mind.

The house haunted him. Something had happened to him in the basement, something so terrible that he didn’t want her to know about it.

She pulled on the short, silky wrap Val had bought her and slipped into those silly fuzzy slippers. She wished she knew what the right approach was to help Ty’s scars heal. Perhaps the best she could do was to prove to him he didn’t have to face his nightmares alone.

Eden hurried from her room to Ty’s, hoping no one would see her in her sexy clothes. Tank followed her at a much more sedate pace. She stepped inside Ty’s room, then held the door for her tired dog. The delicious scents of warm chocolate and hot coffee perfumed the air, inviting her deeper into the room. The table between the two wingback chairs was set with a platter of cut fruit, brownie wedges, pretzels, and halved marshmallows next to a fondue pot sitting over a small flame.

Ty had set more than a dozen candles around the room, filling the space with their warm, flickering light. He was standing by the window. When she entered, he dropped the drape and turned to her. He was barefoot and wore only his jeans. His heavy-lidded gaze moved from her face to her toes then leisurely tracked its way back up again.

She smiled nervously. She was beginning to feel that she was the dessert, not this scrumptious fondue. “What’s this?”

“My surprise.” He looked away from her as he gestured toward the table. “Would you like some coffee?” He held a chair out for her.

The long dipping forks for the fondue were on his side of the table. She unfolded the linen napkin in her lap and waited for what he would do next.

“What’s your favorite fruit?” he asked.

She looked at the sliced kiwi, deep red strawberries, and bananas. “I like all of them.”

He speared a kiwi and dipped it in the heated chocolate, then lifted it and blew on the dark coating, watching her as if she were as delectable as the bite on his fork. He held the treat out for her across the small table. She took the fork from him. She couldn’t help groaning in delight as she tasted the dipped fruit. Ty looked up from the coffee he was pouring.

“This chocolate is divine,” she told him.

“It’s from Holland. They make the best chocolate in the world. Dennis keeps a supply of it.” Ty remembered Dennis sitting with him on the stairs in those lonely, early years. He’d tried to get Ty to talk to him, but Ty knew there wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t get him a beating later from his dad. So they sat there, in silence. Sometimes Dennis would do the talking. That was safe. He’d tell him stories about a boy who grew up to be a warrior. Ty would ask questions about that boy, about what it was like to be a warrior, dreaming of that future for himself. After a while, Dennis would break out the chocolate bar. Dennis showed him on the globe where the chocolate came from, showing him there was a world beyond the house where he lived.

Ty had achieved that goal. He’d left this house of horrors to become a warrior. It didn’t matter that he’d come back here, he told himself. He was stronger than the house, stronger than the memories.

Ty looked at Eden, forcing himself to stay present. For her, he would face the demons of his past. Starting right here, right now.

He set her coffee cup in front of her, along with the cream and sugar.

She dipped a banana slice. “Oh, God. You’ve got to try this.”

He leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. “I will. Save me some strawberries.”

“You shouldn’t have done this. I’m a slave to chocolate.” She dipped a strawberry. They were ripe and juicy and oh, so sweet.

“You’ll burn it off in tomorrow’s run. Besides, it’s dark chocolate and fruit. Both are good for you.”

Eden indulged in several more bites of chocolate covered fruit before she realized that he wasn’t eating. She speared another banana, dipped it, then leaned forward to feed it to Ty. He took it from her fork, his gray gaze entirely focused on her as he chewed.

“Good, huh?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Good. Yes.” He didn’t smile.