she was a child. She knew the set of numbers that would open a vault in a Swiss bank and give the bearer a fortune unimagined.
It wasn’t worth dying for, but neither would she, could she, give them the satisfaction of ever acquiring it.
She turned back to the cousin and the great-uncle whose family she had once dreamed of being a part of. Ached to be a part of with a hunger that nearly had destroyed her.
“I never knew the key to the account,” she whispered, and it was nothing less than the truth. “I couldn’t remember it.”
Anger flashed in Stephen’s face. “Don’t lie to me, bitch,” he snarled, his fists clenching now as though the urge to strangle her was barely held in restraint. “She would never have let that fortune go.”
“Because you wouldn’t?” she whispered. “Her safety and mine was more important or she would have come home. She would have taken what she thought was hers and she would have hired enough bodyguards to ensure no one touched her again.”
So why hadn’t she done it?
Tehya didn’t have the key. What she did have was the safe deposit box where her mother had hidden the paper she had placed the key on. She made Tehya swear she wouldn’t attempt to access the money until she knew that not just herself, but also the family would be safe.
Bernard Taite’s death had terrified Francine and she had believed that the rest of the family could be in danger. She’d had no idea the family was in on it.
Stephen sighed before his fist clenched and he came closer.
Just that quickly Beauregard stepped in front of her.
“Journey’s mine,” he told the other man harshly. “I won’t have what I want from her affected by your treatment of this one.”
Amazement filled Stephen’s face as Tehya tensed, preparing for a confrontation and, hopefully, a chance to escape.
Just as she thought she would have it, a heavy knock sounded on the door, jerking her attention behind the two men.
“What do you want?” Stephen barked.
The door opened and two male figures stumbled into the room and collapsed to the floor.
Tehya stared at them in amazement, blood clotting at the side of Rory Malone’s face and at the back of Turk Gillespie’s head.
“Who the hell is this?” Craig Taite stood almost frozen, amazement filling his voice as it filled Tehya’s mind. “What’s going on here?”
Stephen turned back to Tehya, and before Beauregard could stop him, before Tehya could guess his intent, he struck her hard across the face, throwing her back against the couch as hell seemed to explode around her.
The lights went out as flash explosions took out the far wall and lit up the darkness outside. Shouted orders began to echo around her as she jumped across the couch and threw Journey to the floor seconds before she felt the bullets whiz past them.
Stephen was screaming at Craig and Beauregard, demanding they get him out of there. As Tehya’s eyes opened, though, she knew her cousin wouldn’t be going anywhere.
He stared back at her from his position on the floor as she felt Rory and Turk suddenly moving.
Journey was lifted from the floor along with Tehya and ran for the door.
“No! No, you won’t,” Stephen was screaming in outrage as Ascarti suddenly stumbled in front of them, the handgun he carried slapping against Tehya’s head as Rory came to a hard stop, his arms holding her tight around her waist as Tehya clutched the derringer she had managed to slip from the garter holster she had worn.
“Not her,” Ascarti rasped, a crazed smile at his lips as Tehya lifted the derringer to his chest and fired.
She wouldn’t see another die. She wouldn’t hear of it. She wouldn’t know of it. She wouldn’t allow it.
It ended here.
She watched as a look of amazement came over his face. Shock.
Rory knocked the gun from his hand and Tehya watched as he fell, sinking to the floor as Rory and Turk rushed them out.
Behind her, Jordan and his men and only God knew who else were swarming into the office and kicking ass.
He had sworn he would protect her, and he had.
He had promised her it would end here, and as Rory pushed her into the back of an Elite Ops med-van, she knew, it was definitely ending here.
She watched as, a black-masked, medical operative cut the bindings from Journey’s wrists and pulled the tape gently from her lips.