with you.”
“Care, my ass, you punched—”
Dex stood toe-to-toe with him. “Drop the bullshit.” His voice was flat. No emotion. “I don’t have time for it. If I wanted, I could make you vanish from this lodge right now—vanish from the face of the freaking planet—and we both know it. Your bodyguard just tried to kill the fiancée of a high-ranking CIA official. I can have you shoved into a hole so dark and deep that no one will find you.”
Roman licked a drop of blood from his lower lip. “So why haven’t you?”
“Did you order Heather to attack Lacey?”
“No! Of course, not! I didn’t tell her to do a damn thing!”
He already knew that. Back at the cabin, when Roman had thought that Lacey might be dying, the man’s mask had ripped away. He’d broken in front of Dex.
“I didn’t exactly order Heather to knock me out and drag my ass up the mountain, either!” Roman raged. “She’s obviously working for someone else.”
“Exactly. You’re going to help me find that someone else. That’s why you’re not in that deep, dark hole…yet.”
Roman swallowed. “You’re going to send me in interrogation with Heather?”
“We’ll go in together. I want to know who is targeting my fiancée.”
“It’s not real. Stop calling her—”
“I should be clear. I have every intention of marrying Lacey Amari. I don’t know why you think it’s not real, but I assure you, she is mine.” He needed this message to be heard, understood, and taken to the grave. “I protect what’s mine. I guard it closely. And when someone tries to take what I value, I destroy the fool who made that mistake.”
A furrow appeared between Roman’s eyebrows. “You expect me to believe you care about Lacey? You’ve never cared about anyone in your life.”
“What I expect you to do is believe what I tell you. Someone hurts Lacey, I destroy that person. Simple enough.” A pause. “You hurt her in that suite. I let you speak to her because Lacey wanted the truth.”
“Truth freaking hurts, man.”
Dex lifted his hand and pushed the knife he carried—a weapon he’d had hidden until this moment—against the front of Roman’s shirt. Right over his heart.
Roman went absolutely still.
“Oh, do I have your attention now?” Dex asked silkily. “How wonderful.”
Roman didn’t even seem to be breathing.
“You wanted your sister. After your father died, you came to me. You begged for my help because her trail was ice cold. All you had was an old photograph. A twenty-year-old plus photograph. You didn’t even have a name. I told you I’d find your sister. I kept my word.” He pressed the tip of the blade into Roman’s shirt. Let it nick the skin. “Now you get to keep your word. Do you remember the offer you made to me?”
The flicker of his lashes said that Roman did.
“Good,” Dex praised. “So start keeping up your end of the deal. First thing you can do is go downstairs and stay with Larry until I join you. Remember Larry? I’m sure you do. When I come meet you, we’ll head in for a not-so-fun little chat with your bodyguard.” He slowly released the other man. Then Dex turned his back on him. A deliberate move.
“She didn’t know about me?” A rough, angry question. “Lacey had no idea that her brother was out there?”
His hand had already extended toward the suite’s door. Those cracks in the wood were a problem. He’d need to get a new door installed ASAP. “None.”
“You believe her? Or is Lacey lying?” Pain creaked in the words.
Dex couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Roman, growing up as he had. And he knew that Roman blamed his mother for leaving him to that hell. Part of Roman also blamed… “Don’t do it,” Dex warned him quietly as he looked back.
“Do what?” Roman’s chin jutted up.
“I see it in your eyes. The longing for a family. For someone to love you. To accept you, scars and all.”
“Screw you. I don’t need anyone to love—”
“You want her love, but you hate her at the same time, and that’s going to be a major problem. Because I can’t have your hate around her. Lacey is not to blame for anything that happened. She never had a choice. No, I don’t think she knew about you. Lacey values family. She values it one hell of a lot.” So much that he’d been able to use that against her. Fuck me. “If she’d known, Lacey would have been the one