Chapter Sixty-Two

Safiya

T he sudden, hard triple knock on the door startled me so bad, I almost dropped my cup of tea. Then instant panic, as furious and threatening as an afternoon thunderstorm, made my heart gallop.

With a shaking hand, I set the delicate glass in the sink and tried to think rationally past my already frayed nerves.

Grayson had not texted again.

The security system had not alerted on either the main gate or the exterior perimeter motion sensors.

The knock had been firm, and there was not a six-foot-two SEAL standing in my kitchen.

It was not Grayson.

But it was someone who knew how to get past the security on this property. Again.

Another triple knock echoed through the silent house, and my hand went to my chest as my mind flashed to the weapon that an inked and angry SEAL had attempted to give me. Briefly wondering at my sagacity before quickly dismissing the thought, I inhaled twice.

Then, barefoot, I silently moved toward the front door that did not have a peephole because a man who was schooled in all the ways someone could kill you had said they were a disadvantage at night with the lights on. If you looked out, someone on the other side would see the shadow of movement.

Forcing down thoughts of the one man I had been trying in vain not to think about, I quickly used the touchscreen panel on the wall next to the door and brought up the front camera.

Frowning, I cleared the screen, unlocked the door, and opened it.

The man with dark blond hair who was even taller than his stepbrother looked down at me with the unreadable expression of a soldier. "Hey."

"Hello."

Staring at me, he placed his hand on his chest. "Ares."

"I remember." But I did not know what he was doing here or how he had gotten past the security system.

Studying my gaze as if he were looking intently for something, he unapologetically stared at me with eyes so close in color to Grayson's that I would have thought they were blood relations. In fact, everything physical about Ares would have led me to that conclusion. The color of his hair, the size of his muscles, the way he moved, the look in his eyes—hunter, haunted, predator, lethal—all of it warrior and militaristic in nature, it was the same as Grayson.

Unsure if I was making a horrible call in judgment, I stepped back. "Would you like some tea?"

Without comment, he crossed the threshold but stopped two paces inside the entryway.

I closed the door.

Then I broke another one of his stepbrother's protocols and turned my back on a potential threat. The first was answering the door. The second was inviting him in. The third was not one of the protocols that had been drilled into me by the SEAL who had purchased this house. It was one of mine, but it may as well have been his.

Never let another man into his house.

Too late to change any of it, I walked in silence to the kitchen and put my Turkish tea kettle back on the burner.

When I turned, I saw that Ares had followed. "Same as your brother, you do not make a sound when you walk."

"I do, and Ghost is our stepbrother."

So they had all said. "My apologies. I was unsure on the proper or polite manner of reference."

My mother had taught me that a relation was a relation, no matter how they had come about. My aunt had simply been my aunt. It did not matter that she had been the woman who had married my mother's deceased sister's widowed husband, then remarried when he had passed. She had simply been my aunt.

"No apology necessary." Ares continued to stare a moment longer, then he asked the last question I was expecting. "How are you?"

Sudden unwanted emotion welled, and I faced the stove again, blinking rapidly as I turned off the burner. "I am fine. How are you?"

He did not respond.

Armed with eight years of practice in the art of emotional war, I reached for two tea glasses from the cupboard. "Do you take sugar or have a strength preference?"

"However you're having it is fine."

I merely nodded in response. Then, for a brief moment, I lost myself in the ritual that was as old as my memories.

Putting a sugar cube in each tulip-shaped ince belli glass, picking up the double teapot, I poured tea from first the top kettle, then added boiling water from the bottom kettle until each glass was full. Using a small spoon, I gave each a few stirs, then carefully placed the glasses on matching saucers. Picking them up, I turned and put one in front of Ares.

Watching me, he did not touch the glass.

I took a sip.

Picking up his glass by the rim, he followed suit.

His throat moved, his gaze left mine, and he turned to look around the house, then past the glass sliders to the outside grounds as he took another swallow.

It was the exact same scanning glance his stepbrother would have made.

He set his tea down, then looked back at me. "I came to check on you."

My heart beat erratically, but I did not hold back my question. "May I ask why?"

His gaze swept across the room again, except this time, I had the impression it was not related to whatever training he had had. "Has Ghost told you anything about our family?"

I hesitated. "No."

He nodded. "We have a sister." He looked back at me. "You have the same look in your eyes as her."

I did not dare speak.

He watched me for a heartbeat, then he picked up his glass. "You're Turkish?"

I took a sip of my tea as I chose my response carefully. "Does Ghost know you are here?"

"You call him Ghost?"

I did not count on him being as astute as his stepbrother. "I will answer your question if you answer mine."

"He doesn't know."

I kept my promise. "I do not call him Ghost."

Ares nodded again. "I bypassed the security system, but I don't know how long that'll last."

Sudden fear had me choking on the hot tea in my throat. "Bypassed?" Would Grayson show up?

"Tricks of the trade."

My mind spinning into a spiral I was not sure I could come out of, I tried and failed to measure my breath. "I was assured the security system here is very good."

"Best money can buy," he agreed.

"Then how did you get past it?"

"With a little help, admittedly. Do you need anything? Money? Groceries?"

I set my glass down. "Mister…?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Grayson, but call me Ares."

Grayson? "Your last name is the same as his first name?"

He chuckled. It was deep, but hollow and full of irony. "He really didn't tell you, did he?"

Averting my gaze so he did not see the slurry of hurt, embarrassment, and anger-laced insecurity, I picked my tea back up. "I do not pry."

"Wouldn't matter if you did. He'd only tell you what he wanted you to know, and even then, chances are it wouldn't be the truth."

I did not like how he was speaking about his own brother, step or not. "And you would know the truth?"

"Most of it." He looked at me over the rim of the glass as he took a swallow. "What do you want to know?"

Everything. Nothing. I did not know. But I thought I knew why he was here, and it was not for this. "You came here to answer questions about Grayson?"

"If that's what you want."

"Why would you do that?" I did not have any experience with men beyond his stepbrother and men in the village growing up, but I was a child then, and this conversation was anything but a friendly greeting from a neighbor.

He tipped his chin toward the kitchen table. "Want to sit?"

I preferred to stand. "Do you plan on staying long?"

He smiled. "Got somewhere to be?"

The fear that had blossomed earlier at the notion of Grayson showing up because his stepbrother had overridden the security system grew to what it should have been the moment Ares had told me he had bypassed the safety measures.

Not trusting his smile, suddenly not trusting anything about him, I lied. "I do."

"Got it." Finishing his tea in one swallow, he then walked around the kitchen island barrier I had purposely kept between us. As if this were his house, he set his glass and saucer in the sink.

"I'm heading out anyway. I have somewhere I need to be. Just wanted to check on you first." He turned to face me, but not before I saw the telltale bulge under his T-shirt at the small of his back.

I did not know if it was true fear or nerves or instinct, or if it was the loyalty I felt toward a SEAL who had said he would help my mother right before he saved my life instead, but I stepped back.

Ares immediately put his hands up in supplication. "You're good. You're safe." Echoing words his stepbrother had said to me, he slowly retreated one stride. "Just clearing my dishes."

My reaction, his response—all at once it was as if I were watching the entire scene from a distant perspective, and that was when I understood. "Your sister was taken."

His expression turned to stone, and he dropped his hands before shoving them into his jean's pockets. The way he stood, the tension in his shoulders, his exhale—it was at odds with the mask he was putting forth.

I knew that kind of mask. "I am sorry."

He looked at his large, booted feet. "Not as much as I am."

"You are not responsible." Whatever had happened to her, whoever he was, whatever he had or had not done, I was sure of that much.

"Doesn't matter." His hands came out of his pockets, and his shoulders straightened. "Thanks for the tea."

I thought about not saying what was on my mind, not freeing the words that were on the tip of my tongue. A week ago, I would not have said anything. For the past eight years, I did not say anything. I had remained silent in my true thoughts. But Ares had come here, he had helped Grayson come for me, and I did not want to be the fatherless, frightened, sheepherding girl who was always looking over her shoulder anymore. I did not want to be afraid, period. But until this moment, other than walking away from a SEAL, I had not known that not being afraid started with the simplest of actions.

I spoke my mind. "I think it does matter." I understood how guilt grew like the roots of a tree you could not kill no matter how much you starved it of water and sunlight. "I do not think you were responsible for whatever happened to your sister."

"You don't think Ghost's responsible for what happened to you?"

"No." The instant and sure thought—that I was alive because of Grayson—made me feel as guilty as the haunted look on all of those women's faces.

"You know what I've learned about responsibility?" Ares did not wait for a response. "It's a throwaway word. You either hold yourself accountable for your actions, or you don't. Calling something a responsibility, saying you have responsibilities, claiming you're responsible or denying it altogether, none of it makes a damn difference unless you back it up."

I had a degree in literature in a language that was not my own, but even in my native tongue, I did not have the words to disagree with him. "I cannot argue with that."

His demeanor and his body language changed almost instantly, and the same stoic impassiveness I knew his stepbrother to have descended over Ares, even though he looked younger than Grayson by a couple of years. "I didn't come here to argue. You said you were going out. Do you need a ride?"

I remembered my lie, and the very guilt I had been thinking about grew a new root. "No, thank you."

"Roger that." He scanned the house again, then tapped the kitchen counter twice with a closed fist. "Okay, heading out." Turning, he walked around the kitchen island, strode toward the front door, and opened it. But before he stepped out, he glanced back. "If you need anything, or just want to shoot the shit, give me a call."

I did not understand his second statement, but I did not have his number, and I would not call him even if I did. "I will be fine, thank you."

"I get it. The setup, the house, why he's protective of you." The corner of his mouth tipped up in what looked like genuine affection. "Good to see you again, Safiya Savas." The almost smile dropped and was replaced by his seriousness again. "For real, though, you need something, text or call me."

"I do not have your number."

"Yes, you do." He pulled the door shut behind him.

I glanced at the kitchen counter.

Right where he had been standing, where he had rapped his knuckles on the polished stone, was a matte black business card.

I walked over and picked it up.

On the front, in shiny black font, there was a single word. A word I knew.

Paragon

On the reverse, in smaller silver font, was a number.

The same number I had seen on Grayson's phone that night before he had left me at that cabin in the woods.