His to Take (Wicked Lovers #9)(114)
Author: Shayla Black

Still, did she have a choice? And didn’t he have a point?

“All right. Can I have my phone? My music is on there.”

“If you promise to ignore the twelve voicemails.”

She blinked as if he’d gone crazy. “Twelve?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re all from Blane, except one from a number that’s not in your contacts. That one I’m still tracking down, but coming up empty so far.”

She blew out a breath. “Fine. But Blane has to be freaking out by now.”

“Blane will live. In fact, he’s more likely to live if he knows nothing of your whereabouts.”

Joaquin had another good point, damn him.

Bailey held out her hand. “All right. I won’t listen to any of the voicemails or try to return the calls.”

“I’ll be watching.” He smiled tightly as he slid the mobile into her palm.

“You’re being like an overprotective older brother. I’m not Kata.”

He shot her a sidelong glance. “If you think I’ve behaved like your brother lately, then I need to strip you down and fuck you again because apparently you’ve already forgotten.”

She’d never forget. “No, I haven’t.”

“Good to hear.” He winked.

Their camaraderie relaxed her, and when she curled her fingers around her phone, another notch of tension eased inside her. She flipped through the screens, noting the almost full battery. “You’ve been charging it?”

“Just in case anyone interesting calls.”

Bailey didn’t love that he’d invaded her privacy, but she understood that he’d done it to try to catch the murderous crazies after her. So she held her tongue and started her music. One of her favorite instrumental tunes had always been a great warm-up song, so as the opening notes filtered through the air, she began stretching and moving, bringing her body back to life. She thanked goodness that Callie had given her stretchy clothes she could be free in.

That song flowed into the next. She lamented the absence of her toe shoes, but she could do plenty without them. So when her muscles felt loose and the music started calling to her soul, she slipped into the vast, empty middle of the room. Industrial carpet wasn’t her favorite surface to dance on, and when she found a few dozen wooden parquet floor tiles meshed together with a brass border to resemble a dance floor, she ran, leapt, and executed a jeté onto the hard surface. She immediately stepped into a series of pirouettes . . . and then let the music overtake her body and mind.

One song bled into the next. She tried to open her mind without focusing on the fact that Joaquin watched her. But she could almost feel his fascination emanating from across the room. It bolstered her. For the first time, she felt beautiful and feminine dancing, sort of like a little girl living her fairy-tale castle dreams.

She remembered the times Viktor would let her take over Mikhail’s fort with Annika and play. She and her sister would be princesses locked away in a tower. Her biological father would pretend to ride to her rescue. Then he would tickle her. They would all giggle.

The “vacation” he’d taken them on shortly before the murders hadn’t been fun at all. No laughing or tickling or levity. She remembered her parents arguing the night before Viktor had taken her to the lake. They’d been to see a big outdoor field earlier that day. But not just a field. There had also been a museum. She frowned, trying to bring the memory into focus.

Another song began. She performed an arabesque, then brought her leg in front of her body in a slow développé. The museum . . . it depicted a time when photography had been very new. Lots of grainy black-and-white photos of dead bodies lying in fields. They’d worn uniforms of different colors and—

“Gettysburg!” she shouted over the music, then flipped it off, shoving the phone into her front pocket as she ran toward him. “We visited Gettysburg.”

Chapter Seventeen

LIKE the battlefield?” Joaquin asked.

“Yes.” She explained her memories to him, and as she did, the pictures in her head became much clearer. “We left the battlefield in the early afternoon. I remember my siblings were hungry for lunch, and Viktor was frustrated with everyone wanting to leave before he’d seen every inch of the place.”

“Civil War buff?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so. He seemed more interested in the grounds than the exhibits.”

“Like he was looking for a place to bury his research?”

“It’s possible. But why on federal land?”

“Maybe because if he could get it buried there, he thought it would be safer. Again, we’ll never know. But you think he abandoned the plan?”