Leopard 02 - Wild Rain

not leaving Rachael’s side.”
    Rachael sighed heavily. “Do you see where I get words like ‘imbecile’ and ‘idiot’ in my vocabulary?
    Elijah, just this once, please, for me, listen to what Rio has to say.”
    “What do you know of this man, Rachael? You’re betting your life on him.”
    “I know that. And if you’re insisting on staying, maybe both of our lives, and that ought to tell you all you need to know. I left home rather than put you in a position of having to . . .” She trailed off. Only Rio knew she jammed her fist in her mouth to choke back the words before they could be said.
    Elijah sat up straight. “I never wanted you dead. Never, Rachael. It was always the two of us. Hell, without you, what did I have to fight for? Why would I bother? I would have disappeared into the jungle and he would never have tracked me. But I didn’t think you could.”
    “Because I couldn’t shift?” She turned her head to look at her brother. “I didn’t even know we were capable of shifting. How did you know?”

    “It just happened. When I was young, a little boy. Mom told me not to say anything. We always spoke of it in whispers.”
    Rio brought up his hand to the nape of Rachael’s neck in a slow massage. “Of course. She was still trying to hide it from her new husband. He didn’t know until later. And then the elders of your mother’s lair found out an outsider knew. It had to have happened that way.”
    “Something went wrong. Mom and Dad were very nervous until we reached Florida. They were nervous for a couple of years. Mom wouldn’t allow me to shift and said I wasn’t to tell anyone.” Elijah sighed. “They were trying to protect us from our own kind. They should have been looking toward Armando.”
    “He knew, though.” Rio said. “He used to take you places and let you run.”
    “If I had just told Mom right away—but I didn’t. Just once, if I had said something to her, they might still be alive.” Elijah fell silent, listening to the soothing rain. “And then when I did tell her, I should have kept my mouth shut. Armando already had made his plans and he killed them.”
    “Their deaths had nothing to do with what you didn’t or did tell our parents, Elijah,” Rachael denied.
    “You can’t take on the responsibility. You did everything you could to keep us alive.”
    “I didn’t kill Armando, Rachael.”
    “Killing him might set the two of you free, Elijah,” Rio said, “but it won’t bring anyone back, and it won’t make you feel any better.”
    “I’ll settle for making certain Rachael is safe. Even if we could find a way to put him in jail, he’d send someone after her and he’d never stop until she was dead. It doesn’t matter if I went against the laws of our people and got a conviction, he’d find a way to kill her. I know him. Armando is vindictive and he hates me. In his mind, I betrayed him. He offered to make me his son. I was the heir to his empire and I went along with it for years. I had to make him believe it.”
    Elijah looked into Rio’s eyes with the focused stare of his kind. “You probably can’t understand that kind of twisted hatred, but he wants to kill Rachael more than he wants anything else. I chose her over him. That’s the way he looks at it. She held some kind of power over me, otherwise, I would have become his son.”
    “But you made your move too soon and you couldn’t get him. Why?” Rio returned the focused stare, every bit as unblinking and merciless.
    “He came to me one night and told me it was time to clean house. He wanted Rachael dead. He said he knew I couldn’t do it, so he wasn’t asking me to kill her, he didn’t need a sign of loyalty. He told me he was going to do it himself, that he wouldn’t take the chance that any of the men would dishonor her first.” Elijah drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “That’s exactly how he put it to me. He was casually talking about killing my sister, but not to worry, none of the men would be allowed to rape her first.”
    “So you had to make your move.”

    “I had my men in place. I had a loyal following. I got Rachael to a safe house and made my move.
    Unfortunately, he was still too strong. He knows the way to defeat me is to get to her. She’s everything I care about. You know that, don’t you, Rachael? I swear I don’t know what I said to you when I pulled you out of that car, but Tony was taking you to Armando, and you would have been