Page 106 of Girl Anonymous

She’d had to kill. That was an ordeal he’d never intended her to face.

He leaned back, stroked her hair, looked into her face. “You killed Jack.”

“I’m not sorry.” Her voice trembled.

“It’s not easy to take a life.” He knew that better than most.

“No. The sound and feel…the blood on my hand…to see life leave his eyes…” She breathed deeply as if she wanted to vomit. “That will live in my nightmares. But, Dante, he held me close, and Isawhim. Inside him. He was willing to threaten me for the opportunity to kill you. He wanted to murder you first so I would suffer. After that, he meant to use and kill me. All his life, he dreamed of blood and death and pleasure and vengeance.” She caressed his cheek. “Dear Dante, I’m so glad I ended him. He was Èrthu Arundel returned to life. Mad with rage against the world that didn’t provide him with everything he wanted. Furious with his mother for depriving him of his father. Cruel to his bones.”

Holding her, hearing her, he saw with her eyes into the past and to the French lord who had started this vendetta with his warped and vicious malice.

“Besides, better me to kill Jack than you, Dante. I had nofraternal feelings toward him. You do. I feel the devastation of ending a life, but no guilt. The man deserved to die.”

This was not the time to grin—but he did. Her voice had changed, had become brisk with practicality. She would be changed by the morning’s events, but her mind wouldn’t linger over them. No wonder fate had chosen her for him.

Still in that no-nonsense voice, she said, “I can go forward with this wedding today, if you can.”

He put his forehead against hers. “Yes,” he breathed. “Please, yes.”

CHAPTER 51

Behind him, Dante heard a limping step and the sound of a walker, and Alex cleared her throat.

He turned, and Maarja peeked around him.

Octavia and Alex had returned, and Alex pinned him with a pointed stare. “With all your security measures, how did two killers get in our home undetected?”

As his sister-in-law and the woman who’d been knocked down by an intruder, he acceded her the right to question him. He didn’t like it—but he accepted it.

Maarja slipped from his arms and sat on the edge of the mattress. “And did the other one get away?”

Dante looked sharply at her. She sounded a little slurred. But she looked better, less tearful, with more color in her face and a sparkle of interest in her eyes. “He escaped out a window in the…studio?” He didn’t know what room he’d been in, but there had been half-painted canvases and tools, pigments and brushes that had been put down and never again picked up.

“Mom’s studio,” Maarja told him.

“I should clean it out,” Octavia said. “I’ve never been so hopelessly blind that I could convince myself to do it.”

“Those wood prints. On the cloth. You have great talent andvision,” Dante told her sincerely. “You must have made quite a name for yourself.”

“I was on my way as an artist and a teacher. My husband got jealous and…” She shrugged. “My mistake for accepting less than the best.”

“He hurt you?” Dante was outraged.

“Rather badly.” Briefly Octavia covered her eyes with her hand. “But Maarja isn’t making the same mistake.” She was willing to let the intruder question go.

Not so for Alex. “How did they get in? Your cousin whose body the Oakland police are currently removing from Maarja’s bedroom? And his accomplice who jumped into our backyard and…vanished?”

“That scene in my office and the foyer was unusual behavior for Jack.” Dante had been over the scene so many times in his mind, and now he understood what had niggled at him. “He’s controlled, might lose his patience but doesn’t lose his temper.”

“He was a cop. He had access to drugs.” Alex wavered. She’d been pushing herself ever since she’d left the hospital. Today she’d been knocked down, she was worried, and she had a role to play in the wedding.

Dante strode to her side and helped her lower the seat on the walker and seat herself.

“I hate this,” she muttered.

“I know.” He touched the scar on his face to assure her he had reason.

She nodded in appreciation. “Misery loves company. But…Jack?”

---