Garrison's Creed (Titan) Read Online Free

brotherly badgering or angry demanding changed her response.
    Cash’s head spun in circles. She was alive. Alive and armed, even though they’d buried her a decade ago.
    His senior year of college, when they got the news, seemed like yesterday. But it was a lie. She was a liar. The only woman to steal his heart was a liar.
    Liar, liar, girl on fire.
    ***
    They eased into the driveway at the suburban safe house. Rocco hadn’t breathed a word since they’d peeled out miles ago. Roman gave up his interrogation, looking distraught and angry and yet… hopeful. If there were seven phases of grief, how many for shock?
    And Cash stayed mum. Hadn’t done anything other than strip off his ghillie suit, wipe the face paint off, and pull his cowboy hat on. But hell, it hadn’t kept him from watching her in the side view mirror.
    Rocco jumped out and popped the trunk. He grabbed a bag and beat feet to the door. “Good night, good luck.” He went inside.
    The three of them sat in the car. Silent. Cash closed his eyes, remembering the last day, their last conversation, the horrible ache that ate him alive when he lost her.
    “Cash?” she whispered into the dark.
    Her voice made his spine tingle.
    “Oh, screw that, Nicola. Talk to me first.” Roman had every right to be pissed. And if he knew the half of it, he’d be pissed at both of them.
    She opened her car door, and they did the same. Three doors slapped shut, one right after the other.
    Suburbia was scary quiet. She took a step and tripped. As swift as he could, Cash stepped in, catching her. Nicola’s body fit just the same in his arms as it always had. His muscles remembered how she felt against him. A shudder shivered up the nape of his neck and down the arms wrapped around her torso.
    She locked eyes with him. Older. Wiser. And somehow more beautiful than ever. He should hate this woman. He did hate her, but until she looked away, he was stuck in a trance.
    Relief and emptiness swirled in his chest. He rubbed his sternum with his free hand, wishing the feeling away.
    Instead of focusing on the old Nicola, he needed to look at this one. “How bad’s your ankle, Nic?”
    She didn’t answer, instead trying to right herself, smoothing the sexy dress that softly clung to her curves. Christ, he didn’t remember a tenacious streak. But then again, he didn’t really know the Nicola who pulled from his grip.
    She hobbled toward the front door, the dress dragging behind her in a grand, out-of-place fashion, and turned to the stupefied men in the driveway. “I need a secure phone. Can either of you help me with that?”
    A secure phone? On top of asking if they were going to kill her? Make that stupefied squared. Cash looked at Roman, who looked just as confused with a little “what-the-fuck?’ painted across his forehead.
    “Yeah, we’ll help you.” He looked at Roman, mouthing, “what’s happening?”
    The door shut. Cash and Roman stood unmoving in the driveway.
    “That’s my baby sister, and hell if I know.” His voice trailed off. “We buried her body. There was a body. My mother cried for months.” Roman’s voice bottomed out.
    They leaned against the Range Rover. Two men and too many emotions. Roman dropped his head into his palms, and Cash stared into the night sky.
    No big brother should go through what Roman did, holding his mother’s hand, consoling her alongside his upset father through a closed-casket funeral. There had been little choice when her body had burnt to smithereens. Check that. When they’d thought her body went up in smoke. Turns out her tall, lean body had just left them in the dark driveway.
    Cash wanted no part in remembering that awful day. How he’d said he loved her, how they were going to tell Roman that his best friend was nailing his little sister. That’s not what it was, not at all. Not even close. But that’s how a dude would see it. Roman was gonna flip, and Cash was going to explain that she conjured up images of