“Are you okay?” he asked again, still gruff, but quieter. His chest rose up, jerking, and it held a second before lowering.

He wasn’t mad at me. I felt it then. He was scared for me.

That realization opened a floodgate inside of me. I crumbled before I knew it, and I closed my eyes, tears slipping down my face as I leaned into his chest.

“No.” I sobbed.

He cursed and lifted me in the air. He cradled me against his chest, walking back out to the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of my bed, he held me as if I were a child, pressed my head to his chest, and tightened his hold on me.

I tried not to completely collapse. But I did.

Kai was the enemy, or I’d thought he was. Now I didn’t know.

I didn’t know what was going on with me.

I didn’t know if I should’ve helped Brooke as much as I had.

I didn’t know anything, and I really didn’t know why I just wanted to curl up in his arms and never leave again.

“No.” I pulled back.

I could never go there, do that. Ever.

He didn’t respond, but he did let me go and stand up. His hand ran through his hair, and he tipped his head up and turned slightly to face away from me.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

I answered him truthfully. “I broke. You broke me.”

He glanced at me. “How?” His eyes were sharp.

I shrugged, sighing. “I don’t know.”

But I did. I felt it swirling inside me, and for some reason, I heard myself saying, “Protecting whoever I hide is a part of me. It’s ingrained in me. I cannot break that vow. I was that vow. My mother is a vow. Do you get that?”

His nostrils flared, but that was his only response. His head hung low.

“I didn’t hide her, but I did help her.”

He lifted his gaze, and I swear, he stopped breathing. He went so still.

I couldn’t look at him, not with what I was about to say, because this would destroy a part of me.

“It’s exactly how you said. My roommates went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep, and Brooke found me. She showed up at my door, drenched. It’d been raining that night. I gave her a ride to a train station three hours away. I hugged her, gave her papers for a new identity, and that’s it. When I said I don’t know where she is, I don’t. She mentioned meeting someone, but I watched her get on a train.”

“Where was that train going?”

“It was going to Winnipeg.”

“You drove her to Edmonton?”

I nodded. “I took back roads. The kind that wouldn’t have gas stations with security cameras.”

“She’s not in Edmonton. I had people check that place. They combed everywhere.”

He began to pace, his head down, rubbing his forehead. His shoulders bunched tight, his shirt stretching over them.

“If she got off the train, there would’ve been video footage of her somewhere,” he said, mostly to himself.

There wouldn’t have been. Not if she moved the way I told her to move, head down, new hairstyle. New clothes. A hood or scarf or a hat to cover her face as much as possible. She needed to stick to far corners, move as little as possible. Use cash. And the other piece of information, the fake passport I gave her.

“You have to tell me where you think she is.”

“That’s all I know.”

“You’re lying. I can see it on your face. I know how to read you by now, very well. Please, Riley. No agenda here. No calculation. I’m not manipulating, threatening, nothing. I’m asking as an older brother. The longer she stays away from me, the more likely an enemy will find her. If she’s with Levi, they will be found. His family probably knows by now he was turning evidence on them. They’ll be out in full force too.”

There was a nagging.

If she was with him, and he was working with the government… But no.

Or could they have?

“What?” He saw. He knew.

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I frowned. “I mean, it can’t…”

“What?”

“Just…” I still couldn’t quite grasp it. “I know you have men in the FBI. Can you see if there’s actually an active investigation into the Barnes family? Not where they’re just taking what information they can get from him before deciding to open a case against them?”

His eyebrows lowered. He was deep in thought. “You think if there is, the government is hiding him.”

“Which means they’re hiding her.”

“If they’re together,” he added.

No, the pieces were falling into place.

“Why would she go to you to hide if the US government was hiding her as well?” he asked.

This was not good. So not good.

“To either further hide her tracks or because they don’t know they’re hiding her.”

Kai sank down on the bed next to me. Bending over, his elbows rested on his knees and he caught his head in his hands.

“Shit,” he breathed.

My heart tugged. I didn’t want it to, but it did.

“Call whoever you have in the FBI,” I said softly. “Don’t ask for her. Ask about him.”

He didn’t move at first. Silence filled the room for a few seconds, and then he reached over. His hand grabbed mine and squeezed, just for a moment, before he stood.