The Golden Blood Husband

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE HANDLER

For a long moment, Lorcan didn't answer. Rain ticked against the window, and the house was silent in the way only very large houses are before dawn. He closed the door, hung his wet coat on its hook as carefully as he did every night, and sat in the wooden chair across from her.

"I found out the night it happened," he said. "I woke up before your mother's doctor finished."

Annika's hand went to her mouth.

"And yes, I'm still here." He kept his voice low. "Leaving would put someone I love in danger. Someone who doesn't deserve any of this."

"Who?"

He looked at her and said nothing. She waited, and he let the silence answer for him.

"You can't just..." She stopped, and the composure that had held through the bridge and the police and that whole terrible night finally broke. She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice was ragged.

"A billing clerk called me at the airport. Some poor man from the hospital's accounts department, double-checking a charge. He wanted to confirm I'd authorized a cardiac procedure under my name." She laughed without humor. "I didn't understand at first. Then I did, and I got off the plane and drove straight here. I found this in my mother's desk."

She set the form on the bed between them.

"Those divorce papers were never meant to humiliate you, Lorcan. They were meant to get you out of this house before my family finished what they started. I thought if you signed, if you were gone and legally nothing to us, they couldn't touch you." Her voice dropped. "Do you know why I've spent three years on Aurum? So nobody in this family would ever need your blood again. So you could walk out that door and never come back."

Lorcan stared at her. For three years he had watched this woman pass him in hallways without a glance and eat dinner at the far end of a long table. He had thought he understood her, and he had been wrong. Something in his chest that had nothing to do with stitches pulled tight, and without thinking, he reached for her hand.

For one heartbeat, she let him. Her fingers were cold, and they didn't pull away. The ice between them cracked, and underneath it he saw a woman as tired and frightened and stubborn as he was.

Then she stood and stepped back, out of reach.

"I don't know what you're hiding," she said, wiping her face as her voice steadied into its usual cool control. "Maybe I don't want to know. But I want you gone by Friday, for your sake and for mine." She folded the form in half. "Please."

The door clicked softly behind her.

Breakfast was already laid when Lorcan came down, his knuckles hidden in the long sleeves of his sweater. Annika's chair was empty. She had gone to the lab without eating.

Uncle Clement stood at the head of the table beside a man Lorcan had never seen before. He was perhaps fifty, tall and lean, in a charcoal suit cut with quiet precision. His silver hair was swept back from a handsome face, and his gray eyes were pale and pleasant.

"Everyone, this is Dr. Adrian Stroud," Clement announced, beaming. "One of the finest cardiologists in Europe. Since Dr. Voss has been called away, Adrian has kindly agreed to evaluate Crispin for transplant."

Gloria's teacup rattled against its saucer. She set it down quickly, but not before Lorcan heard it.

"A pleasure," Stroud said. His gaze traveled slowly around the table until it settled on Lorcan at the far end, and it rested there a beat too long.

Lorcan lowered his eyes, but he had already seen enough. He had met men like Stroud in a dozen ports. Voss had been a tool, a frightened surgeon who did what he was paid for. Stroud was something else entirely. He was a handler, the kind of man an organization sent when a job had gone wrong once and could not be allowed to go wrong twice. The Circle had sent him to guarantee Friday.

"I'll need to examine the donor this morning," Stroud said, unfolding his napkin. "Purely routine."

The family clinic was a bright white room on the ground floor, the room where Lorcan had given blood every month for three years. Stroud closed the door and asked him to remove his sweater. His fingers were cool and dry. They traced the stitches down the center of Lorcan's chest and lingered there, then moved without hurry to his hands. He turned them over and studied the fresh bruising across both sets of knuckles.

"Healing nicely," Stroud murmured. "Remarkably nicely." He reached for his stethoscope. "Did you hear the news this morning? Someone broke into a private clinic in the north district last night. Several staff injured. Very professional work." He smiled faintly. "And whoever it was left a little brass compass hanging on the door. Isn't that strange?"

Lorcan kept his face blank. "I don't watch the news."

"No," Stroud agreed. "I suppose you don't."

The door banged open, and Crispin stormed in, still in his silk robe, his pale face flushed with anger. "There you are. You skipped this week's draw, you useless Blood Bag. Do you have any idea how I felt last night?"

Lorcan began to stand. Crispin snatched a heavy crystal paperweight from the desk and swung it at his head.

Lorcan saw it coming. He could have caught Crispin's wrist and snapped it before the paperweight moved six inches. Instead, he let it land. The crystal cracked against his temple, the room swam, and warm blood ran down the side of his face and into his eye. He had to stay weak and harmless, exactly where the Circle expected him, until Friday. Esme's life depended on it.

Crispin laughed and tossed the paperweight onto the desk. "Today," he said. "Don't make me come looking for you again." He stalked out, still laughing.

Lorcan wiped the blood from his eye with the back of his hand. He hadn't flinched, and he hadn't even blinked.

Stroud had watched the whole thing from the counter with his arms folded, and now a slow smile spread across his elegant face.

"Fascinating," he said softly. "Our donor heals fast, sleeps little, and doesn't feel pain." He took out his phone. "The Shepherd will want to hear about you."