Page 42 of Wraith
“Hell to the yes!” Tex exclaim. “The rest is really up to you and her.”
“Let’s get through this debacle first, huh?” Wraith asked. “Afterward, I’ll sit her down and have a talk—see where her heart is.”
“Good man.” Tex encouraged.
“Listen—Cuzo’s body…”
“I took care of it.” Tex’s voice was sad. “He is in the care of one of my Canadian buddies. Once we wrap this up, we’ll get together and give him a proper send off.”
“Thanks. Tex.”
“Anytime. I know how much it killed you to have left him.”
“Yeah.”
“Beauty is already on the move...”
Amelia tuned out the rest of the conversation then. The happiness she felt inside was something she never imagined. Wraith was willing to try for more. He was willing to want more and would put the ball in her court. She wanted to do backflips and leg clicks and all those happy things people did in the movies when their hearts were close to bursting.
When she returned from the bathroom, Liam was standing by the window looking out. The storm whistled through the house, reminding her the world was being buried outside and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Liam’s shoulders set, rigid as if he carried the world on them and Amelia knew then, it was her fault.
The knowledge broke her heart.
Still, she swallowed the lump in her throat, blinked away the burning in her eyes, and cleared her throat. Liam twisted slightly to look at her over his shoulder.
“Tell me about my father,” she said softly.
“Like what?”
“What did he do? Who was he?”
He dragged his palms along his thighs while staring at her, almost as though filtering through the information in his head. Eventually, he walked toward her and helped her into the tattered sofa.
“Personally, I didn’t know him very well.” Liam admitted. “I knew him through Tex and his team. But your father was what we call a handler.”
“A handler? Like a bookie?”
Liam chuckled. “No. Like—what I say to you stays in this room, do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Okay. He oversaw missions—rescue missions of Canadian soldiers kidnapped or captured abroad. I did an operation with him once, but he was merely a voice in my ears. He was pretty good at what he did—but when it came to his personal safety, he was a little reckless.”
“What do you mean?”
“Declining patrol—if anything goes wrong, the rule was to keep some protection close. He never wanted…” Liam exhaled loudly. “Listen, Hummingbird. I don’t know what kind of father Leonard was. But I could only guess he stayed away from your family for such lengths of time to keep people like me away.”
“Like you? But he sent me to you.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.” Amelia told him. “Actually, I don’t.”
He dragged a frustrated palm over his face and when he looked at her again, Amelia was terrified by the darkness shadowing his gaze.
“People who can kill like breathing. People who are dead inside. People who already have a first-class ticket to hell and dropping one more body means nothing—people like me.”
She shook her head. “No. You’re not like them—you cannot touch me the way you have and be the devil.”
