“What makes you think I owe you anything?” Why did everyone seem to think this trip of hers was their business?

“We’re family.”

“Are we really?”

All at once, Andre lunged at her. Before she knew what was happening, he grasped at her neck. She expected to feel the grip of his hand around her throat, but instead, she felt the scrape of fingers and the bite of a breaking chain on the skin at her nape, and then Andre was running toward the exit with her mother’s pendant in his grasp.

Rand was after Andre like a bullet as Kira watched in stunned dismay.

The man never stood a chance against the SEAL, who tackled him and pinned him to the ground. “Who are you?” Rand asked.

Her cousin stared up at Rand in shock and fear. “An-an-andre Stoltz. Kira’s cousin.”

“Bullshit. No one has seen the real Andre Stoltz since January.” Rand’s voice turned soft and menacing. Kira had to strain to hear him. “Eenie meenie, miny, moe, catch a liar by the throat.” His hands tightened on Andre’s neck. “You. Are. Not. Stoltz.”

The scene was surreal, watching the fake author but very real SEAL torment the one person who had been her lifeline in the months after her father’s death.

And yet, the man’s behavior since he’d arrived in Malta backed Rand’s words. She touched her neck. He’d taken her mother’s locket.

A crowd was forming around them—albeit at a distance—and a different kind of fear sank into Kira’s churning belly. She tapped Rand on the shoulder. “We need to go. Now.”

Rand hesitated a moment, then released Andre’s neck. He remained on the ground, straddling the gasping man.

“Who are you?” Rand asked again.

“Andre Stoltz.” He twisted his head to cast a frantic glance at Kira. “She’ll tell you. She knows.”

Anger surged. The liar thought she was so fooled she hadn’t noticed the inconsistencies in his stories. “I know what, Andre? Tell me one thing about my father that only you and I could know.”

“He loved your mother beyond all else.”

“That’s true, but hardly a secret. Try again.”

“Your mother…she could have been a master. Her paintings were magnificent.”

That gave Kira pause. Only she and her father knew of her mother’s skills with a paintbrush. But her mother had had a whole life she knew nothing about. Maybe she’d been a known artist before she escaped to the US.

She reached down and grabbed the locket from Andre’s grasp. “Why did you take this?”

“Proof. To buy time.” He grabbed Kira’s hand. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

She jerked her hand away. “Then tell me.”

He shook his head. “Your father had more enemies than friends, and the friends he had were both. Especially after what he did.” He pressed his lips together as if he were a petulant teenager.

Rand rose to his feet and stepped back just as security arrived. Kira held up the pendant to the guard. “He stole my necklace, but we got it back.”

“Do you want to make a report?” The man addressed all three of them.

Kira shook her head. “It was a family dispute. We’re sorry to have caused a disturbance.”

Andre was certain to have bruises on his neck and elsewhere, but she didn’t see him putting up a fuss. Rand draped an arm around her, thanked the guard, and steered her toward the exit.

Once they were away from Andre and the security guard, she ducked out from under Rand’s arm and took the path toward the Les Gavroches replica. As an art historian, she’d looked forward to seeing this piece by Maltese artist Antonio Sciortino, considered Malta’s foremost sculptor. But now, as she faced the work, she found herself unable to take in the emotion of it, which was a depiction of three Parisian street children inspired by Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

She didn’t see art. She didn’t even see the garden and strolling tourists. Instead, her brain was focused on Rand’s words as he squeezed Andre’s neck.

No one has seen the real Andre Stoltz since January.

Kira turned to face her self-appointed bodyguard and spoke just above a whisper. “How long have you known Andre was a fraud?”

Rand was silent for a long moment, then he said, “Since this morning, when you were in his hotel room.”

Kira could have accepted just about any answer but that one. He’d had so many opportunities to tell her what he knew since then.

She’d been falling for this man and had believed his feelings were along the same lines. But he’d spent the better part of five hours with her, without telling her the one thing she absolutely needed to know.

Anger surged in a way she’d never experienced. It was a raw, violent rage she didn’t know what to do with. Hit something? Cry? Yell? Seethe?

Collapse into a broken heap?

It was as if she’d been attacked with sandpaper and the outer layer that protected her was gone, and now her raw skin ached at the merest touch of air or sun.

It wasn’t fair that he was wound-free while she suffered along every inch of exposed flesh.

She held up the necklace. “Thank you for getting this back, but we’re done. Go home. I don’t need your kind of help.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Kira! Wait!” His shout was a desperate plea, but she continued down the path, heading for the exit.

Dammit, he’d known it was a shit idea to keep her in the dark. Still, he’d done it. He couldn’t blame Freya for this epic fuckup. His desire for Kira messed with his logic, so he’d overcompensated by making the harsh choice—as that’s what he’d do if it were anyone else.

But Kira wasn’t anyone else. He needed to stop pretending his feelings for her were irrelevant when it came to the decisions he made on this op.

No doubt now it was an op. And he’d fucked it up beyond all recognition and been kicked off the team.

“Please, Kira. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t look back. Didn’t offer any sign that she’d even heard him.

The one thing he’d believed from the moment he’d first asked her out and she’d turned him down was that eventually, he would win her over. Even with her father’s interference, he’d held on to the idea that if he didn’t push and was patient, she’d give him a chance.

Now he realized he might have broken her trust beyond repair. And he couldn’t blame her. This trip meant everything to her. She’d shared her fears about what she’d learn, not just about her parents, but herself. And he’d withheld a vital piece from her.

Worse, because he’d messed with her emotions, she was even more vulnerable. Her gait was angry and lacked signs of situational awareness. Because she wasn’t protecting herself, he had no choice but to follow and protect her as best he could from a distance.