Page 54 of Bad Blood
Even you. Those two words belied the gentleness in his tone. He was already undermining her, already sowing the belief that she was less, that she was unworthy, but thathecould believe in her despite her unforgivable flaws.
For a brief instant, Lia’s eyes met mine.You know exactly what you’re doing, I thought.He’s a doll-maker who likes broken toys, and you know how to play the shattered, broken doll.
Agent Sterling almost certainly saw that as clearly as I did, but she had no interest whatsoever in allowing one of her charges to play this game. “Lia, you have two choices. The first is to get your ass out here in the next five seconds. And the second choice?” Agent Sterling took a single step forward. “It’s one that you’re really not going to like.”
Lia—being Lia—heard the truth in that statement. I expected her to bait Agent Sterling further, but instead, she shrank back.
Vulnerable. Broken. Weak.
Holland Darby held up a hand. “I will have to ask you to moderate your tone.” He stepped in front of Lia, blocking her bodily from Sterling’s view. “This is a simple place, and we abide by simple rules. Respect. Serenity. Acceptance.”
Agent Sterling stared the man down for a moment, and then she reached for her back pocket—for her badge, I realized. Dean’s hand caught Sterling’s before she could pull it out. He looked toward Lia, who stepped tentatively out from behind Darby, every motion, every gesture of vulnerability a lie.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Dean told Lia. There was anger in those words, but also a message. He was telling her that he saw through her act—that he knew why she was here, and he knew that it had nothing to do with finding serenity and everything to do with finding out what Holland Darby was hiding.
Lia smiled sadly before retreating behind Darby’s form. “I hope so, too.”
The second we walked past Agent Starmans, who was stationed in the hallway, and into the hotel room, Michael scanned our faces. “You spoke to Lia,” he concluded. “Where is she?”
“She infiltrated Serenity Ranch.” Sterling addressed those words to Judd, who didn’t look any happier about Lia’s absence than we were.
“Lia infiltrated a cult,” Michael repeated. He shot an incredulous look at Dean. “And you didn’t drag her home kicking and screaming?”
“Don’t start with me, Townsend.” A muscle in Dean’s jaw ticked.
“Consider me warned.”
Judd ignored the tension brewing between Michael and Dean and focused his attention on Agent Sterling. “Is Lia in any immediate danger?”
Agent Sterling’s answer was as terse as Judd’s question. “I don’t think Darby has avoided formal charges for this long by overtly abusing newcomers before he’s had a chance to fully indoctrinate them.”
In other words, as long as Holland Darby bought the persona Lia was presenting to him—the lost lamb in need of guidance—she was probably safe.
For now.
“Will she be discreet?” Judd addressed that question to Dean.
“Discreet?” Michael repeated incredulously. “Are we talking about the same Lia Zhang here? The one who expresses her displeasure with relationship partners by threatening to duct-tape them naked to the ceiling?”
“Lia knows how this game is played,” Dean told Judd. And then he turned back toward Michael, the muscles in his neck and shoulders as tense as his jaw. “Sonowyou and Lia are in a relationship?”
“Excuse me?”
“You weren’t ‘in a relationship’ in New York when we went to find Celine,” Dean said. “The second things got tough, you pushed Lia away.”
“I’m confused, Redding,” Michael said, taking a lazy step toward Dean. “Is talking about our feelings something you and I do now?”
Leaving Lia at Serenity Ranch had taken everything Dean had. He’d done it because he trusted her, because trusting Lia and offering her honesty in exchange for every lie was the way he’d made it past her walls. But walking away had cost him. His temper was already frayed, and Michael’s flippant tone wasn’t helping.
“You’re not good enough for her,” Dean told Michael, his voice low. “If you were even the least bit capable of caring about anyone but yourself, Lia wouldn’t have gone in alone. She did thistoyou as much asforthe rest of us.”
“Dean,” I said sharply.
Michael held up a hand. “Let the man speak, Colorado. I do love it when he-who-has-literally-tortured-someone-in-this-room casts stones.”
“Michael.” As the person Dean had tortured, back when he was a child trying to help her escape his father’s grasp, Agent Sterling didn’t appreciate the reference.
“You should have known,” Dean told Michael between gritted teeth. “If Lia was on the verge of taking off, if this case cut too close to home, if she was itching to get out of her own skin, if sheneededto fight back—you should have known.”
