Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) - By Unknown Page 0,111
her eyes.
“They said Leila disappeared,” her mother suddenly said. “The TV said it.”
Leila let out a sigh, half relief, half pain. At least her mother’s words meant that she still grasped something. “Leila is here, Mom, I’ve come back. The TV was wrong.”
Her mother turned her head fully back to her. “Leila is back?”
Stifling her tears, she answered, “Yes, Mom, Leila is back, and she loves you very much.”
“Why doesn’t she come and visit then?” Her mother’s eyes stared right at her, but still there was no recognition in them.
“She will, Mom, she will very soon. Your daughter loves you. She wants you to know that.”
“I love her too.”
Leila released her hands and rose, turning away in order not to show her tears. Aiden put a comforting hand on her forearm.
“She might not know who you are, but she knows you love her. Isn’t that most important?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. It will have to be enough.”
When she turned back to her father, he was sitting in his chair again, reading the paper.
“Dad?”
He didn’t look up this time, almost as if he was in his own world, too engrossed to hear anything else.
“I have to go,” she whispered, knowing he didn’t even hear her.
As they left the house only moments later, saying their goodbyes to Nancy, Aiden took her arm and led her back to the car. She lowered the window all the way and waved at the caregiver from inside the car, making sure Nancy would later recognize the fancy Ferrari.
Leila reached for the seatbelt out of habit, but Aiden’s hand stopped her.
“Maybe it’s better that way,” she mused, looking at Aiden who put the car in gear and drove off. “Maybe she’ll never find out that I died today.”
At the next intersection, the light was red.
“Time to go, baby,” Aiden instructed. “Hamish is waiting on the sidewalk for you. You’ll be cloaked all the way.”
She nodded and heaved herself out of the car window as they’d practiced the entire week. Then she gave Aiden another look. “Be careful.”
When the light turned green, he took off like a rocket. There was no other traffic. The Stealth Guardians had made sure of that. She watched as Aiden’s car ran a red light at the next intersection.
The crash could be heard in the entire neighborhood. Moments later, it was followed by an explosion. Aiden’s car had crashed into a gas truck that had come from the right. Everything went up in flames, the gas from the truck spilling everywhere, spreading the fire to engulf the entire intersection, incinerating Aiden’s sports car.
“Be safe,” she whispered. “Please be safe.”
“He can’t be killed by fire,” Hamish murmured behind her.
“Where is he? I can’t see him.” Nervousness crept up her spine. What if Hamish was wrong? What if an explosion could kill a Stealth Guardian after all?
“He would have dematerialized at impact and emerged behind the gas truck,” Hamish tried to calm her. “At worst he would have gotten singed a little.”
“But what if—”
Bare arms closed around her, pulling her into the hard muscles of a naked man she would recognize anywhere. Naked, because the fire had burned the clothes off his body, yet left him untouched.
“I’m here, baby.”
FORTY-ONE
Deirdre had organized everything perfectly. Nobody had gotten hurt. The Stealth Guardians had made sure no innocent bystanders were anywhere close enough to the accident to get injured. Yet the demons who’d followed Aiden and Leila from her parents’ house had seen what they needed to see: Aiden and Leila crashing into the gas truck and being incinerated.
A body that, thanks to dental records, would be identified as Leila’s, would be found in the wreckage. Deirdre had made sure there would also be a dead body behind the wheel of the truck. She had driven it herself, but gotten out the same way Aiden had escaped the flames. To ensure that the authorities’ investigations led to a dead end, the Stealth Guardians had transported a recently deceased man from a Middle Eastern war zone through the portal, guaranteeing there was no chance the charred body could ever be identified in the US. They’d placed him in the stolen gas truck and rigged it to explode when Aiden’s Ferrari hit it.
There was no body for Aiden. It didn’t matter what the police thought of that inconsistency, but the demons, who knew that Stealth Guardians couldn’t be killed by fire, would be satisfied. Add to that the eyewitness account of Nancy seeing them get into the very recognizable sports