Since when had she turned into a trusting soul where men were concerned? a small voice in her head asked. She had no answer.
“Yeah,” Brennan told her after a beat during which time he appeared to be weighing the pros and cons of answering her question at all, much less truthfully. She might, after all, be trying to trap him. For all he knew, she was allied with Roland and had been sent to test him.
Maybe he was crazy, but he decided to take his chances—up to a point.
“Don’t let your guard down around Roland for a second. He’s a narcissist, but he’s the type who wouldn’t think twice about slitting your throat if he thinks you’re lying to him—or if he believes that you went against him.”
“Doesn’t sound like he’s going to be winning any Mister Nice Guy awards anytime soon,” she quipped drolly.
“That’s not his bottom line, no,” Brennan agreed. He knocked on the door and it opened immediately.
A veritable giant of a man was standing in the doorway, blocking any access to the suite. She guessed he had to be about six foot six at the very least and he looked as though he weighed more than the two of them combined—perhaps even with Janie thrown into the mix. The seams on the suit he was wearing appeared to be stretched to the limit.
“Bodyguard?” she asked Brennan.
“More like all-around everything guard,” he answered, never taking his eyes off the man.
The giant with the close-cropped blond hair regarded her through slits where his eyes should have been. The extra fat he was carrying in his face had all but crowded out his eyes, giving him a permanent squint that made the man’s face look more ominous and menacing than it already did.
Recognition was evident in his eyes when he looked at her companion and he allowed the man to pass, but as she began to follow, he placed one hand against her upper torso, holding her back.
“Just him,” he rumbled, his face unsmiling.
Brennan didn’t attempt to remove the bodyguard’s hand because it would be like trying to move a tree trunk. There was no pitting his strength against the giant’s outright.
Instead, he looked at the man authoritatively and said, “She’s with me. It’s okay.”
The bodyguard appeared to roll the matter over in his head; then he dropped his hand and inclined his head, as if to say she was allowed to pass. This time.
Swallowing the heart that had climbed up to her throat, Tiana glared at the bodyguard and told him in a voice filled with barely suppressed fury, “Don’t you ever lay a hand on me again without an invitation.”
Both men looked surprised at the bravado erupting from such a small, compact source. Brennan allowed a smile to slip over his lips.
“Pretty gutsy of you,” he commented as they moved farther into the suite. “You do realize that he could easily have broken you in half like a twig without even half trying.”
“I realize,” she answered, her voice giving away nothing. She was silently relieved that it didn’t crack and give her away.
The suite, she thought as she got a better look at it, was huge. Bigger than some houses. Definitely larger than the house where she and Janie had grown up. Business had to be very good.
The thought made her sick to her stomach. She wished she could take the man out right now, bring down his operation. But arresting Roland wouldn’t get her anywhere. She needed tangible evidence.
“Should I be dropping bread crumbs?” she asked the man in front of her.
They had taken a couple of twists and turns within the suite and she was trying to commit each step to memory, but she really didn’t like leaving anything to chance in case a quick getaway was necessary. The size of the place was overwhelming.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you back,” Brennan promised in a soothing voice.
She looked at him. He was acting as if they were on some ordinary stroll through the park instead of walking through a very sick bastard’s temporary living accommodations.
“Why should I believe you?” she asked.
That was a simple enough question to answer. “Because you have no choice.”
He was right and she hated him for it. Hated the fact that once again, everything was all on her shoulders and she had no one to look to, no one to trust or share the burden with. Her sister’s life depended on what she did here.
If it’s not already too late, a small, nagging voice whispered in her head. She clenched her hands at her sides as she blocked the voice.
Instead, she made a silent pledge—not her first—to her sister. Hang in there, Janie. No matter what, hang in there. I’ll find you. I swear I’ll find you.
They entered what looked to be a sitting room. It was decorated entirely in stark white, which made the room appear twice as large. The only color in the immediate area was provided by the two men on the opposite sides of the room and the man in the middle who they were obviously paid to protect.
The deeply tanned guards appeared as if they were interchangeable, somewhat smaller versions of the guard at the front door. Both men were wearing dark navy blue suits, white shirts and dark ties. Each had a telltale bulge beneath his jacket, which Tiana assumed was caused by their not-so-concealed weapons.
The suits had to be specially tailored, she guessed, because the twin guards, like the man at the front door, were hulks in their own right.
The man in the center, looking out on the terrace with his back to them, was a great deal smaller heightwise. But he was far more imposing when he turned around to face them. While the guards were a compilation of sheer muscle and brute strength, the thin, dark-haired man had an aura of intelligent evil about him.
His eyes, as they passed over them—or accurately, over her—were flat. They were eyes that might have belonged to a dead man for all the expression that they had in them—except that she was fairly certain this man missed nothing.
Granted she spent most of her time in the lab when she was at work, but she could definitely recognize evil when she saw it. And this was the worst example of evil she had ever seen. It took effort not to shiver in its presence.
“You brought me a gift?” Roland asked Brennan. Approaching Tiana, he circled around her slowly as if she were an inanimate object, like a painting or a vase that had been given to him.
“No, she was in the motel room when I got there. He’s dead, by the way,” Brennan told Roland. “The kid you wanted me to check on. He’s dead.”
“You?” Roland asked, his implication clear.
“No,” Brennan answered, wondering if all this was part of an elaborate game. He was fairly certain that Roland had been the one to have the young man killed. “I didn’t kill him. He was already dead when I got there.”
Roland raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You?” he asked, turning toward Tiana.
She shook her head, hoping she could keep the charade up long enough to find her sister. “No, I found him that way. Someone got to him before I could.”
“The whore has a mouth on her,” Roland announced with a nod. It was difficult to say whether there was admiration in the man’s voice or if what they were hearing was the calm before a storm.
Not taking any chances, Brennan remained alert. He knew that things could turn on the head of a pin at any moment.
“She also isn’t a whore,” Tiana informed him with a toss of her head that seductively sent her flame red hair over her shoulder.
The appearance of amusement in Roland’s features increased. “Oh, really?”
“Really,” she confirmed in a