Martha Abell

CHAPTER 1

“Kenzie!”

Kenzie Walker turned her head toward the familiar voice. A brilliant smile bloomed on her mouth. Rosetta Bushman, the tail of her black braid bouncing against her butt, slithered around people huddled in groups. They stood at counters or rummaged through bins on tables. They hoped to find a bargain in the ritzy Moonlit Blossom store. The specialty store occupied the first three floors of a thirty-story building which consumed an entire block of prime real estate in the heart of New York.

Kenzie laughed, backing up several steps. Rosie advanced; her arms wide. “No, no, no. I’m not fit for a hug from such a prestigious and well-known personage.”

Rosie swept her into a vicious hug. Her face slammed into Rosie’s breasts. Kenzie’s laughter continued, swelling around her. She threw her arms around Rosie and squeezed her. Tears gathered at the edges of Kenzie’s eyes. She must be more tired than she realized to be so emotional. Or it was just so damn good to see her friend, to feel safe again.

Was Hiro and Eli Redstone and Eli’s Clan nearby? She would love to see Hiro and Eli. Six-foot-four-inch Eli, with lean, solid muscles. His golden-brown hair caught in a queue at his neck rather than flowing to mid-back. He always exuded strength, patience, and an abundance of confidence. A woman magnet. Sexy, sexy man. Yum.

Dragging her mind away from the man she lusted after every time she saw him, Kenzie gave Rosie a last squeeze and stepped back. “Is Hiro here?”

What she didn’t say but wanted to know more than anything was: is Eli here? She had missed him so much. Her body craved his touch. She missed the feeling of safety being held in his arms, against his solid body, surrounded by the beauty of his aura.

With a twinkle in her eyes, Rosie kept a grip on Kenzie’s arm. She hunched the canvas bag on her left shoulder back into place, glanced around the area, and tugged Kenzie toward a pocket of calm in the chaos surrounding them.

“I know who you’re really asking about,” her laugh erupted at Kenzie’s shaking head, “and, yes, Hiro is here with Eli and all his out-of-control nitwits. Bay Grantham was killing time watching the security feeds while Eli took care of Hiro and who should he see? Our family member who disappeared from the Clan for two years, nine months and thirteen days. We’ll leave the hours, minutes and seconds out of the equation… not that we were counting.”

“Aw, Rosie, you know it wasn’t me who disappeared. The Clans’ Council called Hiro back to the Clans’ headquarters for some super-secret meeting. All of you had to go with him… no exceptions. I returned from a weekend trip, and everyone was gone with no message left for me. That’s okay. Really. I found out where all of you were when the media reported about the head honcho dying… or was he murdered?” Kenzie hitched in her breath.

Whoa! Where did all that spew come from? She had thought she was okay with the quick leave-taking, but it appeared she harbored some anger about the lack of contact.

Rosie rubbed her right hand up and down Kenzie’s arm. She squashed the anger that flared on hearing the trusted contact hadn’t followed through and told Kenzie what was happening. All of them, Hiro, and Eli, in particular, had wondered why Kenzie didn’t get in touch. They had left cell numbers and secure email addresses for her. They had arranged transport for Kenzie to come to them.

Rosie knew Janus Thurgood was alive, well, and benefitting greatly from his supposed follow up with Kenzie. He reported Kenzie had said she had her own life and refused to become involved with Clan politics. Anger swelled again, but she throttled it back.

“That’s not what happened, Kenzie.” Rosie lifted a hand to the Bluetooth in her ear, sliding a finger along the button connecting her to her team, not the main security control center. “You know Eli, at the least, would have done everything possible to take care of you, make sure there was a way for you to come to us. And don’t ever doubt that Hiro and the rest of us would, and now, will, take care of you.”

Kenzie pulled her emotions behind the wall she had learned to build over the last… two years, nine months, thirteen days, nine hours, eleven minutes and eighteen seconds. She could count, too. She smiled at Rosie, only the smile never reached her eyes. “Hey, girlfriend, it’s okay. I took care of myself… I’ve been doing it since I was ten.”

She huffed a breath. “Anyway, I just flew in from out of state and I stopped in here before heading home because I’m out of moisturizer and I really, really need it after being out in the sun. I ran out of Hiro’s company’s products about a year ago. What they have here is not as potent as the creams Hiro gave me, but I make do. So. It’s been fantastic seeing you, Rosie. Tell Hiro and Eli I’m doing fine… great even.”

Adjusting the earbud in his ear, Bay Grantham stood, nodded to the Clan Lord’s flunky and walked out the door. He nodded to several other members of the Lord’s security personnel as he strode down the hall toward the elevators. Rejecting the elevators, he opened the door to the stairwell and let it slam behind him. He trotted down the first stairs. “Rosie, I’m on my way down. What the fuck is going on with Kenzie? Don’t let her leave.”

Flicking the button on his com to change to a fresh setting, he bounded over a railing, bouncing onto the stairs below rather than using the landing.

“What?” Eli Redstone swore if he had to listen to any more of the drivel spouting out of the marketing woman’s mouth he was going to draw the sword strapped to his back and do some stabbing.

“Kenzie is in the store. Rosie has her… for now. From what brief conversation I’ve heard, Thurgood didn’t connect with Kenzie. She didn’t know. She’s going to bolt. I’m headed to the first floor myself.”

“Fuck!” Eli looked around the room until his gaze connected with one of his Enforcers. “Andrew, get the fuck over here and protect Hiro. Call in your full team.” Eli didn’t couch his words in diplomacy as he usually had to do. He didn’t care. He twisted around and headed toward the door.

“Eli.” The soft but commanding voice floated across the air.

Eli would only stop for one person. They had been together since they were six years old. Hiro and he had sworn blood oaths to each other, the scars across the palms of their hands testament to their commitment, brother to brother rather than Lord to servant.

Hiro Nagawa pushed away from the conference table, overwhelmingly relieved to be doing something… anything… but continuing to listen to the inane plans his half-brother was forcing him to consider. With a small nod of his head to his half-brother, Tappu Kinyata, he lithely rose and walked to his closest friend, his family, his blood brother.

Eli tipped his head to Andrew and opened the conference room door. He waited for Andrew to step outside and confirm the area was as safe as possible. Motioning Hiro out, Eli stepped out and closed the door behind him. He knew Andrew would have Hiro’s back as he hurried toward the elevators. A hand grasped his forearm, drawing him to a halt.

“Not here, Hiro.” Eli knew Kinyata had the hallways and elevators mined with cameras and audio. Hiro appeared to trust his half-brother, but Eli had learned the hard way that biological family could be more dangerous than the baddest bad asses in the streets. Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out a small packet and handed it to Hiro.

Hiro opened the packet, plucked out the Bluetooth bud and inserted it into his ear.

Foregoing the elevators, Eli stepped into the stairwell, paused to listen, and heard the echoes of footsteps at a lower level. Elevator or stairs? A door slamming filled the stairwell; silence followed. Stairs it was. His computer techs had combed the stairwells while he was in the meetings with Hiro, so he knew they could stop… long enough to give Hiro a piece of what he knew.

With Andrew leaning against the closed door, Eli turned to Hiro. The urge to run down the stairs as fast as possible warred with the overwhelming desire to pound something or someone. “By some phenomenal stroke of luck, which has flowed erratically in our direction recently, Kenzie is downstairs. Rosie has her in hand for the moment. Bay is heading to the place.”

Hiro pushed past Eli, bounding down the stairs.

CHAPTER 2

“Baby girl, do you really think you’re going to get out of this store without a butt-load of people surrounding you? By lucky happenstance, this morning we visited the lab which makes our favorite moisturizer.”

Rosie slipped her bag from her shoulder and shook it in front of Kenzie. “I filled this sucker full of moisturizer before we left. Our doctors created a new formula that I know you’re going to love. Let’s take a walk to the restaurant, order a batch of margaritas and some snacks. I want to know where you’ve been staying, what you’ve been doing.

“We’ve been looking for you since we got back into the states. About three months ago, an art gallery sent Hiro a brochure featuring some mediocre artist. Hiro flipped it to Eli expecting him to toss it into the trash, but he missed the catch. Yeah, an unusual occurrence which we later blamed on serendipitous luck. It fell to the floor and splayed open. Eli saw several of your photographs. How would Eli be able to recognize your photographs, you might ask? He knows you. He knows your style.

“The Clan, and I mean all the Clan which included Hiro, traipsed off to the Gallery. The assistant was a rail-thin squealy woman on six-inch heels, and you know all those things irritate Eli to no end. She kept saying we needed an appointment to meet the owner. Really? Some two-bit gallery owner is going to snub Hiro Nagawa, much less Eli Redstone?

“The gallery owner’s security personnel were on the ball. The head of security kept up with current events and knew about Hiro. The owner rushed into the main gallery after the man contacted him. The owner told Hiro and Eli your photographs appear sporadically, carefully packaged, delivered by a shipping company.

“He’s enamored with your work. He went on and on about the shadow effects, the action that comes through, the colors, the locations, the little weird mistakes that appeared in some, but fascinated his prime collectors. He appeases his regular artists by not featuring your work on the front of the brochures, but he makes sure they appear in prominent places in the brochure and the gallery.

“He personally supervises the framing of your photographs and arranges them on the walls… with sold signs prominently displayed so no one gets offended when he tells them they are for viewing only. He notifies his clients some of your pictures have arrived and emails pop back right away. He doesn’t even need to have a showing. Your art sells within hours. The collectors’ wire the money into the company’s bank account within an hour.”

Kenzie cocked her head to the side. That was more words spewing out of Rosie’s mouth at one time than she might say in a week… even a month. Kenzie’s eyes widened, her body readied for movement. Oh, crap. It was a delaying tactic. Lady and Consort help her. She knew for sure Eli was coming, possibly Hiro, even some or all the Clan. She had to move her butt.

“Uh, Rosie. You’ve given me a lot of information to digest. I’m leaving now. I have an appointment tonight I can’t miss.” Yeah, an appointment with a sandwich… maybe. She had had little appetite for a while now, about as long as she sensed the lurker following her. Since it wasn’t Clan, which she had hoped it was, her stomach churned, threatening to spew bile out of her mouth and onto the floor since she had eaten little to nothing for seventy-two hours.

Could that have been because of the SUV that tried to run her down while she was in the tiny town in the backcountry she just came from? Naw. Why on earth would that bother her when the almost nightly silent phone calls didn’t? Or maybe knowing someone had been inside her apartment, although the cops said she was imagining things? Even opening packages to find macabre “gifts” among the items she ordered.

She knew better now not to contact the police. They thought she was doing it to herself to get attention. Who would do that shit? Enough! She inched away from Rosie, stopped. Waited until Rosie shot a look of warning at three women heading for the racks of clothes a few feet away, then whirled around and shot for the door.

Oof. She pushed her nose into the hard chest she had smashed against and inhaled… deeply. Home. Love. Security. She loved his scent. The soft T-shirt she wore to sleep in carried his scent, although it had almost completely dissipated, making it impossible to get a decent night’s sleep.

Her arms automatically circled the muscular body. She gripped the back of the shirt covering his male form. Her dormant nipples rose to hard peaks. Her sex clenched. Moisture flooded her panties… and was she glad she put on panties to get her through the plane trip back to New York. Her eyes shot up to navy blue eyes with just a touch of gold here and there in the irises. “Hi, Eli.”

Eli’s arms surrounded Kenzie, sweeping her close to his body. He lowered his head, pressing a kiss against her head before resting the side of his face against it. His Kenzie. His love. His security. His Home. His HEART. Their auras became one.

He had missed her; pined for her. Never again. Nothing mattered but Kenzie. He loved Hiro like a brother and BK, before Kenzie, would have given his life for Hiro. Now. His priorities had changed. Kenzie was the other half of his soul. If she died, he would follow and find her in the Afterlife.

Eli had left Hiro six months after their recall by their Clan’s Pre-emptor. The Pre-emptor had refused Eli permission to leave, citing the turmoil rolling through the Clans because of the death of their Clan Leader. Hiro was as worried as Eli about Kenzie. He had created a misdirection allowing Eli the opportunity to sidestep outside the compound.

Within an hour of Eli’s appearance outside the walls, five warriors attacked him. He got a message to Bay Grantham, then he fought and ran. It was a running battle through the side streets, across the rooftops. Eli’s body sustained multiple cuts, slashes and stabbings. He was losing too much blood, but his attackers were bleeding more than him.

At the appearance of Bay and his squad of highly trained warriors, the attackers broke away, taking the lifeless body of one of their group with them. They splashed oxygen-producing detergent on their trails or pools of blood, destroying their DNA. There was no way to identify which Clan attacked Eli.

Hiro met Bay, his elite warriors and Eli at the entrance to the Compound where they were staying. Eli allowed Bay to bandage his wounds. He slung his arms across Bay’s and another guard’s shoulders, and with guards in front of and behind their group, they headed back to the Compound. Seeing Hiro, knowing he was safe, Eli succumbed to his injuries, collapsing into Hiro’s arms.

Hiro refused to allow the Pre-Emptor or any of the Pre-Emptor’s Clan’s healers or leaders to see or question Eli. Hiro refused Eli’s continued requests to return to the states to find Kenzie. He promised Eli they all would go when they had more information about Kenzie’s location. Then the brochure arrived, coinciding with Tappu’s request for Hiro to visit and approve a new business venture.

Hiro watched his brother and little sister, saw the bond that was in tatters but in a few places had already started to knit together. He gestured to Bay Grantham.

Bay, standing just behind Eli, saw Hiro’s signal. The Clan’s Bluetooth system was wide open to all the Clan members, but secure from everyone else, even elite hackers. Bay could feel the Clan headed, en masse, toward the building. Jesper Rawlings, Kagan Withers and Tall Madison appeared at his left side.

“Jesper, Kagan, Tall. Stay here with Eli and Kenzie. Pull in Roo, Savant, Danny and Oscar as soon as they arrive. I’m sure Homer is already launching multiple drones to cover the area. Be sure to get him some help to handle the Scrappers and the big ones. I need to see what Hiro wants. Get us an exit strategy.”

With a nod, Bay laid his hand on Eli’s arm, tapped out a message with his fingers. He stepped away upon receiving a slight nod of Eli’s head in acknowledgment. He hurried to Hiro’s side, absently counting the Clan members pushing through the front doors, appearing from the back and sides of the store. Bay bowed upon reaching his leader. “How may I be of service, Akihiro?”

“Find Thurgood. I want to hear the words myself when he explains the reasoning behind the lies he told.” By the end, Hiro was hissing in rage. Hiro swallowed several times, each time tamping the anger back inside its container in his stomach.