Destiny Mine: Tormentor Mine: Book 3

Chapter 5

5

Peter

The next morning, I wake up before Sara, and as has been my habit lately, I watch her sleep for a few minutes before forcing myself to get out of bed.

I don’t know if it’s just wishful thinking, but it felt different yesterday. It felt like the tentative truce we established at the clinic was still there. Usually, after s*x, I could sense Sara scrambling to rebuild her walls amidst bitter self-recriminations, but not yesterday. Yesterday, I couldn’t feel her inner conflict, and after I assured myself that I didn’t hurt her, I stopped kicking myself for losing control—and for leaving off the condom yet again despite my earlier resolution not to do so.

At this point, filling Sara with my seed is instinctual, and those instincts refuse to heed the reasons for waiting until the Esguerra situation is resolved.

In any case, I doubt we were in any danger yesterday. Sara must be toward the end of her cycle, given when her period was last. Which was when exactly? Three weeks ago or four? I frown into the bathroom mirror as I wipe off the last of the shaving foam and put down the razor. No, that doesn’t seem right. We were away for almost three weeks, and before that, she didn’t bleed for at least—

A knock on the bathroom door interrupts my calculations. “Peter?” Sara’s sleep-roughened voice is strangely tense. “Yan wants to talk to you.”

Fuck. I rub a towel over my face to get rid of whatever foam might still be clinging to my skin and stride out of the bathroom. Sara is standing by the bed, swaddled in a thick robe that she must’ve pulled on to open the door for Yan.

“He said to come down as soon as you can,” she says, a worried frown bisecting her forehead. “It’s urgent.”

I nod, already pulling on a pair of jeans. I figured as much, because my men are not in the habit of knocking on our bedroom door. Something must’ve happened, but for the life of me, I can’t think what. There’s no way the authorities, or any of our enemies, could’ve tracked us here, and that’s the only emergency I can think of that would merit such urgency.

“Get dressed,” I tell Sara as I head for the door. “In case we need to leave quickly.”

Her eyes widen with understanding, and she rushes to put on her clothes as I hurry downstairs.

All three of my teammates are already there, clustered around Yan, who’s peering at his laptop screen. Anton is typing something on his phone.

“What’s wrong?” I ask sharply, and the twins turn to look at me, their faces grim.

“Sara is still upstairs, right?” Yan asks, casting an unreadable look at the stairs, and I nod, closing the distance between us in a few long strides.

“What’s going on?”

“Take a look,” he says and turns the screen toward me.

At first, all I see is the familiar shabby coziness of Sara’s parents’ kitchen, with its well-worn appliances and a windowsill full of potted herbs. Sara’s elderly father, dressed in a robe, is shuffling around the kitchen with his walker, pouring himself coffee and getting a yogurt from the fridge. He’s almost at the kitchen table with his breakfast when a ringing cell interrupts what must’ve been a serene morning.

Charles “Chuck” Weisman carefully places his coffee cup on the kitchen counter and reaches into his pocket to take out his phone. “Lorna?” His voice is strong and steady despite his age. “Did you forget to check—” He abruptly falls silent, and even on the grainy image, I can see him blanch, his mouth opening and closing in wordless shock.

His free hand gropes convulsively at his side but misses the rail of the walker, and I hold my breath as he stumbles. To my relief, he manages to catch himself on the edge of the counter. As frail as Sara’s father is, the fall could’ve easily killed him.

“Where?” is all he asks after a minute of tense listening, and then he slips the phone back into his pocket and stands for a moment, chin trembling, before pulling himself together and walking laboriously to the bedroom to get dressed.

“This was recorded approximately ten hours ago,” Yan says when I look up from the screen, ready to rip into him with furious questions. “We just finished listening to the complete audio of this call. It sounds like Sara’s mother was in a car accident—a bad one. They weren’t sure she’d make it. Our hackers are accessing the hospital records as we speak, but the ER doctors are notoriously slow at adding their notes into the system. The good news is that Sara’s father is still at the hospital—or at least, he hasn’t been home.”

“I just got in touch with the American crew,” Anton says, putting his phone away. “They’re on their way to the hospital, so we’ll get an update on her condition shortly. I told them to be extra careful; I’m sure the Feds will be watching the place, on the off chance Sara turns up.”

Fuck. I close my eyes and rub my temples to offset a burgeoning headache. This is Sara’s worst nightmare come true: one of her parents is hurt and she’s not there. She always feared it would be her father, because of his heart troubles, but this is her relatively young and healthy (for seventy-eight years of age) mother. Sara will be beyond devastated, and all the progress we’ve made in our relationship over the past couple of weeks will be lost.

She’ll never forgive me for keeping her away from her mother’s deathbed. It’ll create another rift between us, one that may be even harder to surmount than the one left by her husband’s death.

I open my eyes, a twisting, sucking pain settling low in my gut. My men are watching me with a mixture of curiosity and pity, and I know they understand. They’ve come to know Sara over the last few months, and to like her. They’ve seen how devoted she is to her elderly parents, how she asks about them every day and diligently watches the videos we provide her.

They know this will destroy her.

She’ll blame herself as much as she’ll blame me.

“Keep me posted on any updates from the Americans,” I order hoarsely and head upstairs.

I have to catch Sara before she comes down.

She can’t find out about this until we know all the facts.