"But you do?" Twist had been right, was all she could think. He really had been the focus all along. But that fact didn't make her feel any safer, not when Walt had gone from a kindly grandfather type to showing her his Charles Manson crazy-eyes impersonation in approximately half a second.

"Oh, you can bet that I know him. Far better than you." To her alarm, his fist clenched hard around the hammer, before he raised it like he was looking to smash any errant nail he could find. "I hadn't seen or thought about him in years, but when I saw him being a big shot on the TV news, right after they showed the report of that poor little girl in Garfield Park... that's when I knew. I don't hold much with signs from G.o.d, that's a bunch of bull you'll hear from religious kooks. But as I sat there watching it all unfold on TV, suddenly everything became so crystal-clear to me."

The mention of that horrible beating death of a kid in the park made her look to the hammer and crowbar he held. "It made what clear?"

"Oliver Santiago was the one who started it all. He was the beginning of my boy's end. Of my family's end."

And he thought religious people who believed in signs were kooks. "Walt-if that's even your real name-I don't know what you're talking about. I want you to leave this house. Right now."

Something of her tone or expression must have gotten through to him, because he backed up half a step, holding up both hands that still held what she considered to be dangerous weapons. "You don't have to be afraid of me, all right? I'm on your side, I promise you that. My name really is Walt Hildebrandt, and I understand you don't know what I'm talking about. Why would you? I'm sure Santiago hasn't told you the truth about his past, so naturally you don't know the kind of danger you're in."

"I believe I do." Pointedly she stared at the crowbar.

He looked at it too, then dropped it in the toolbox as if it had suddenly gotten too hot to hold. But the hammer he kept. "I'm trying to look out for you."

"Walt-"

"Did you know he went to prison for a violent crime?"

"Yes." It was ridiculous, the satisfaction she took in his blink of surprise. "Twist would never hide anything like that from me."

His jaw knotted, a clear sign that he didn't like that vote of confidence one bit. "Did he tell you what he went down for?"

"He went after a horrible monster for masquerading as a friend-a monster who savagely raped and beat Twist's little sister nearly to death."

"No. No." Walt slammed the hammer into the pantry door, splintering a panel. She yelped because she couldn't help it and her fear was starting to reach critical ma.s.s. "My son was innocent, do you understand?"

Her frantically pounding heart stopped in its tracks, and she stared at him in dawning horror. "Your... your son?"

"Zane told me that he hadn't been there. He told me the Santiago siblings were covering for someone close to the family by blaming him for what happened to that poor girl."

Oh G.o.d, just when she'd thought that monster's evil couldn't get any worse. "Walt, it was Nick and Essie who identified her attacker, not Twist. He wasn't there, so you can't blame him for that. All Twist did was react in grief and despair after he found out who had savaged his baby sister. And even if he beat your son so badly he had to go to jail for it, he didn't even think about backing down from that responsibility. That makes me all the prouder of him."

For a moment she thought she'd gone too far and Walt was going to teach her the error of her ways through a Thor-like hammer swing. Then he blew out a shaking breath. "You don't get it. If my son hadn't crossed paths with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Oliver Santiago, none of this would have happened. I would still have my family. I would still have my life. My wife... she couldn't live with it. She couldn't live with what they were saying about our boy. And when they convicted him, she... she ended her suffering. And she left me alone to bear that weight all by myself."

No matter how indifferent Angel tried to be over Walt's explanation of why he'd chosen to target her and Twist, there was no way. No one with a soul could remain unmoved at how this one horrific event shattered two families. "I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine what that was like, or what you've had to endure alone. I only know that you're placing the blame on the wrong person, and that's only making your wounds bleed more."

d.a.m.n, why mention anything related to blood? She didn't want to give the man any ideas, for heaven's sake.

"Everything Santiago touches gets corrupted. He damages whole lives by simply being there."

"Walt," she said gently, hoping that would soften the blow of her words. "That doesn't make sense."

"He damaged my son's brain."

She blinked. "What?"

"There's no official medical proof of it, but I know. Santiago somehow damaged my boy's brain in the beating he gave him, so that Zane now acts like the monster he'd been accused of being."

"Oh G.o.d, no." She couldn't stop the horror from washing over her as she put a trembling hand to her mouth. "What has he done?"

Walt's eyes filled with heartbroken tears as he stared at her. "It's not his fault, you have believe me on this. He doesn't know what he's doing, because of the damage he got from that beating. That poor little girl in Garfield Park... Zane had only been out a week or so before he actually did what he'd been wrongfully convicted of doing eight years earlier."

The sick churning in her gut froze over. "The fourteen-year-old who was beaten to death? That was Zane?"

"My boy got twisted by your Twist," came the bitter reply. "And now my son is what he was made to be. As I sat there watching the news and dreading the moment when the media released his name yet again to the public, I knew that I had lost Zane forever. But then I saw Santiago in the very next segment. There he was, enjoying the limelight, enjoying a beautiful life that's the exact opposite of what my son now has. That was when I knew I had to do something to balance the scales."

She was so afraid to ask, she could barely find her voice. "What did you do?"

"Picked up the phone. Made the appointment for an in-home concierge session with Santiago as my tattooist. I was going to make him pay for what he'd done to my family."

Oh, G.o.d, no.

"But my plans changed when I saw you."

She loosed a breath she hadn't been aware of holding. No matter how scared she was at the moment, she was beyond grateful Walt had changed his mind. If she lived through this insanity, she'd point out that the concierge service wasn't just dangerous for pet.i.te women like her. "You'll have to forgive me, I don't remember meeting you."

"I got one of those parabolic listening dish things as a gag gift a few years back, but the thing works well enough. My plan was to find out all that I could about Oliver Santiago and his life, to see how best I could hurt him the way he'd hurt my family. I already knew where he lived, so I waited for him to show up, and he did. With you. You said he'd bullied you, and he wouldn't admit it but I could tell he knew he'd treated you poorly. Then he hauled you over his shoulder and hit you like some caveman, and wouldn't let you down even when you told him to, and he took you inside. That's when I knew I had to protect you from him. Even more than making him pay, I had to look out for you."

Walt had once been one of the good guys, she realized with a stab of painful, eye-stinging dismay. Before his son's actions broke this poor man into pieces, he'd been a good guy. "That's when you heard about the doorframe, and what time it was supposed to be switched out."

He looked at the partially removed frame, and the saddest smile appeared. "This only proves to me that you're too good for him. You're such a good daughter to care about this."

"I don't know if you'll believe me, but you should know that it was Twist's idea to preserve it. And like you, he also called it a labor of love."

The smile vanished. "There's nothing good that can come from him, young lady. I know he's a bad influence-"

"No, Walt."

"And I know this because it was his introduction into Zane's life when everything changed. Zane changed. If he had never crossed paths with my son-"

"Then it would have happened to someone else, because what happened had everything to do with Zane and nothing to do with Twist. I know you've been searching for a reason why things happened the way they did, but Twist isn't it."

"You're wrong."

"And you're not the reason, either," she added, and wanted to cry at the ragged grief that tore through his whitening face. "What happened had nothing to do with you, or your wife. You're one of the good guys. Your natural instinct is to protect. That's the way the Santiago boys are too, because they managed to stop Zane before he went too far that first time-"

"I am one of the good guys," he said so fiercely it was almost as though he was trying to convince himself. "I am, I promise you that. I'm trying to save you from a man who will bring nothing but misery to you. I don't want you to wind up like me, regretting the day he entered your world. Let me save you by taking you away from him."

"She doesn't need saving from anyone, except you."

Angel's head snapped around to find Twist standing in the doorway. Relief flooded in, so strong it nearly took her knees out from under her, and it was all she could do to stop herself from running to him.

He'd come for her. She'd never doubted it.

He'd come for her.

The shock that rippled over Walt's expression was galvanic, before it filled with a terrible, unreasonable hatred, and he took a step toward Twist.

"You ruined everything in my life. I won't let you ruin anyone else's. I won't." Teeth bared in a grimace that was borne of pure agony, Walt lifted the hammer and lunged for Twist with surprising speed.

Angel couldn't stop from screaming at the two men collided, her heart in her throat as Twist was slammed back against the wall by the door. The hammer in Walt's hand was held aloft in mid-swing, Twist's hand wrapped around the older man's wrist, his other hand planted in Walt's chest while Walt's free hand tried to grab onto Twist's neck. Frantically she ran to the toolbox and s.n.a.t.c.hed the crowbar out, hauling it over her shoulder like a half-sized baseball bat. She maneuvered behind the struggling men even as the sound of sirens wailed faintly in the distance. All she could think was that if Walt would just be accommodating and hold still for a second, she'd be able to clock him a good one and all of this would be over...

Walt's head, her target, refused to play along and hold still. It lurched forward suddenly and she heard Twist's grunt of surprised pain as the older man's headb.u.t.t hit home. Then he emitted a p.i.s.sed off growl before giving a headb.u.t.t of his own. The sharp crack of it made her wince before Walt's knees buckled and he went down hard, the hammer slipping from his slack fingers.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Angel's shaking had all but subsided by the time she and Twist walked into House Of Payne less than an hour before their shift was scheduled to begin. This was a monumentally good thing. Combining a tattooist with a wicked case of the shakes was just about the worst idea in the world, second only to Mr. Magoo getting his driver's license.

To her surprise, the police had been called by none other than Scout, who had apparently been an ear-witness to the entire event, while Twist raced to her parents' house. By the time the police had arrived, both Twist and Walt had b.l.o.o.d.y noses-with Walt's being clearly broken-Angel had kicked the hammer far from the older man's reach, and was seriously considering the merits of sliding headfirst into a first-cla.s.s bout of hysterics.

Payne arrived a minute or so after half a dozen cop cars to check out the damage to his friends and employees. A couple minutes after that, a ma.s.sive moving truck pulled in to ensure the entire street was jammed both coming and going. Angel didn't care. Huddled under Twist's arm and clamped good and tight to his side with Payne hovering close on her other side, she watched as paramedics wheeled Walt into an ambulance, one limp hand clearly cuffed to the gurney. He was crying without making a noise or showing any expression, or even speaking when spoken to. Tears simply flowed continuously from deadened eyes that started blankly ahead.

It was the saddest thing she had ever seen.

The ambulance had one h.e.l.l of a time getting out of the narrow, clogged residential street, and eventually a couple of uniformed officers had to wave it carefully onto a sidewalk area for a few feet in order to get out. After contacting his brother to let him know what had happened, Twist then went about getting the movers on their way, with orders to reschedule with her parents at a date that was convenient for them. When the driver tried to give him lip about this, he stated loudly that he didn't give a flying f.u.c.k if the moving company charged Jackson and Emily Taylor a hefty service fee, manual labor for work that wasn't done, overtime, or even a king's ransom for all he cared, because any idiot could see that now was not the time to move furniture out of a G.o.dd.a.m.n crime scene. Then, without a qualm he went back inside to the kitchen, pulled the remainder of her growth chart off the wall on which it was barely hanging, and stowed it in his car before the police asked them to come down to the station to make their statements.

By this time, the ever-efficient Scout had also contacted Twist's parents, who in turn had reached out to Nick, who had finally arrived with his wife Kara and kids. As such, the entire Santiago family eventually wound up in the chaos in front of her parents' house, just as Twist was loading her into the pa.s.senger seat of his car. Since there was no time to tell them everything that had happened, Twist instructed them to follow them to the station, where they could be filled in. Payne headed back to the House, telling them not to worry about getting in on time, and that he was glad they were both okay.

Angel still wasn't convinced she was going to be okay by the time she'd met up with the officer who had taken the note left on her car outside of the House. And after he'd led her to a serious, dark-eyed man by the name of Detective Dyre, she gave considerable thought to putting her head on the desk and bursting into tears. But the detective's calm demeanor and ready acceptance of her description of what transpired in her parents' kitchen soothed her jangled nerves. Far from being blown away by who her poisonous pen pal was, Detective Dyre confided that they were already leaning in Walt's direction as the one behind the anonymous notes, since the timing of the letters showing up and the death of poor little Daphne Nester in Garfield Park had been right on top of each other. That was when she recognized she could never be a cop; to be able to make that leap was to have an understanding of a dark mindset that she wanted nothing to do with.

She and Twist probably could have gotten out of the police station sooner if Angel hadn't been so determined to make everyone she spoke to understand that Walt wasn't a bad man. He simply needed help, and a lot of it. She was no psychologist, but it seemed obvious to her that there had been some kind of mammoth-sized break with reality somewhere along the way for Walt. She personally suspected it came about the day he'd been told of his son's arrest and saw the successful image of Twist on TV. In that moment, even if it didn't make a rational bit of sense, Twist became easier to blame than his son.

Nevertheless, when she was asked if she was okay with Walt being back out on the streets by refusing to press charges, she knew what she had to do. Currently Walt was a danger to himself, to her, and most definitely to Twist, and since their corner of the world had had enough of dangerous Hildebrandts, both she and Twist pressed the appropriate charges. The ache weighing on her heart lightened when she was a.s.sured that a thorough mental evaluation would undoubtedly be the first thing Walt's attorney would ask for.

As she wrapped up all the necessary paperwork, her mind inevitably turned to the little girl in Garfield Park-Daphne Nester. As she headed toward the knot of Santiagos that were already ringed around Twist, she changed course and headed for the duty sergeant at the window and asked if she knew anything about Daphne's funeral expenses, and if they had been paid yet. The duty sergeant blinked her startlingly lush false eyelashes at her and announced that Twist had beaten her to the punch, paying the balance of the expenses in full just minutes before.

If Angel hadn't loved him before that moment, she would have fallen hopelessly for him then and there.

That was when she began to notice something had shifted in Twist, though she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. Part of it was that his reaction to the morning's events was nowhere near what she'd thought it would be. She'd had angsty visions of him brooding over how he'd brought danger into her life, and throwing himself into an ocean of self-punishment that she'd have to spend the next year fishing him out of.

That was a fishing expedition she'd been dreading more than a little.

But there were no signs of retreat from Twist. On the contrary he stuck to her like glue, keeping in constant physical contact with her as she signed out, then while she spoke with each of his family members to make sure they were all right. She was keenly aware that the Santiago clan had noticed his hand on her back, which eventually slid to her shoulder to pull her flush against him. His hold loosened but didn't disconnect when he led the way out into the parking lot, waved his farewells to his family, then deposited her in the pa.s.senger seat of his car. Even on the way to House Of Payne he either held her hand, or when he had to shift gears, rested her hand on his thigh, then held it once more.

The biggest clue that something had changed, though, was when she looked into his eyes. They had always been dark, relentless and intense since she had known him, with a dash of shadow that she'd found a bit intimidating. But there was something new in them now that had swallowed that shadow completely, something that was soft and melting and did funny things to her stomach. Whatever it was, she had no idea how it got there, but she would do just about anything to keep it around.

Scout wasted no time in hauling her into a bone-cracking hug the moment they walked through the door, then shooed them up the stairs and into Payne's office before the rest of the curious employees could pounce on them for details. She could have kissed Payne and Scout when she found the conference table laden with thick, juicy burgers, seasoned fries, and crisp deli-style pickle spears in clamsh.e.l.ls from the diner across the street.

As she and Twist plowed through the food, they filled Payne and Scout in on the details, and Angel said goodbye to the last of her tremors. If anything, she was ready for a nap, having unwound enough from the morning's high tension to curl up in her seat and rest her head on her propped-up hand.

"You don't have to try and work today if you're not up to it," Payne announced, seated across from her and shrewdly taking in her drooping eyelids. Beside her, Twist brushed a hand over her hair, his arm on the back of her chair with apparent permanence, while he continued to eat one-handed.

"No, it's good." Another gentle brush over her hair made her smile. "I've finally stopped shaking, and if I go home now the only thing I'll do is think about it." And another, this time gently draping her hair over a shoulder so he could slide his hand along the exposed side of her neck. "So, if it's all right with you, I'd rather work today."

"It's great with me, considering I've been juggling your schedule for a week now in the desperate hope that you'd find it in your heart to come back to us." Scout smiled at her, then when her gaze shifted to Twist's possessive hand on her neck, she grinned all the wider.

"Just go nice and easy, little girl," Twist murmured, his tone so soothing she wanted to lay her head in his lap and drift off to sleep. "You've been amazing throughout this whole mess, but you're not Superwoman. If you get tired, just let someone know and as soon as I can, I'll take you home."

She couldn't stop herself from leaning against his hand. "Weren't you going to give me back my keys today? I am capable of driving myself home, you know."

"Yeah, I know, but that's still not going to happen. Maybe tomorrow, when I'm not feeling like we just dodged a bullet."

"Control freak," she muttered, but it held no heat and she knew it. Apparently he knew it too, because he grinned and leaned to the side to touch his mouth to the side of her neck before nuzzling his nose against her ear.

"Not a control freak, baby. I just can't stand being away from you right now. Deal."

Payne cleared his throat to gain their attention, and when Angel turned back she found that he was watching them with an almost gleeful expression. "If you're up to hanging around, Angel, I was hoping we could talk some business."

Yep. That was Payne in a nutsh.e.l.l. First, last and always, his focus was the House. "Business?"

"Scout showed me the practice skin you were working on, and it blew my mind. I need to see what you've got in your freezer at some point this week."

Good grief, she'd forgotten all about those. "Oh, my practice skins. Okay, if I remember, I'll bring them in tomorrow."

"Uh-huh, right. Do me a solid, brother," Payne said, pointing at Twist. "Make sure she doesn't forget them, yeah? Just toss 'em in a cooler or whatever."

Twist nodded. "Cool."

Angel didn't know whether to laugh or roll her eyes. If this was what it was to become one half of a whole-to have others naturally turn to Twist for something that had to do with her, and vice versa-it was weird and wonderful all at the same time.

Payne aimed his attention back at her. "Once I see what you've got cooked up, I'm going to want an entire line of what you've been working on, starting with some watercolor ombre tats, and I'll want it by the end of next week. No pressure."

"Right," she said faintly. Twist squeezed her neck in support.

"If those designs are half as good as what I've already seen, this is what I've got in my head. I want a ma.s.sive, star-studded red carpet reveal of your new coloring technique to coincide with... s.h.i.t, what'd you call that dumba.s.s thing that's going on next month, Scout?"

His a.s.sistant sighed, looking aggrieved. "For the third time, Fashion Week. Designers the world over will be showing their spring and summer collections."

"In f.u.c.king autumn," Payne sneered, exchanging looks with an equally disdainful Twist. "Whatever. All I know is that a lot of skin's gonna be on display during this fashion gig, and a lot of media's gonna be zeroed in on that skin. I want a piece of that media action for the House."

Beside her, Twist ran a thumb in a lazy rhythm along her nape. "What are you thinking?"

"Scout's going to contact some local talent from the fashion sector here in Chicago to put together a show of a new clothing line-I dunno, something we can sell in our store and online, nothing too fancy."

"I want it to be fancy," Scout added, and shot Payne an arch look. "If Ed Hardy can do it, we can do it, too. And way better, I might add."

Payne rolled his eyes. "This is why you're the one who's going to choose the fashion designs and I'm staying the f.u.c.k out of that. Whatever we do come up with, though, it'll compliment your designs, Angel. That's going to be how we're going to do a huge reveal for your newly invented coloring techniques. With the full-on media glare of Fashion Week on what you come up with, it should be the biggest reveal the House has ever had."

"Holy cats," she murmured, staring at him while Twist chuckled. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. Now, of course I'm gonna need you front and center when-"