Three.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 5.15 A.M.

'You're here awful early, boss.'

Shock had Marcus jerking his gaze from his laptop to frown at the woman who leaned against his office doorframe looking sleep-rumpled, her curly hair all over the place and her clothes crushed and wrinkled.

Jill Ennis was not supposed to be here by herself. She was not one of his trusted staff. Not yet. And maybe not ever.

She'd never done anything overtly untrustworthy, and her work was impeccable, but she gave off an odd vibe that made Marcus uncomfortable, though he wasn't sure why. He would have fired her months ago, except that she was Gayle's niece, which put him in one hell of a bind. Jill's parents had died five years before, and she'd moved in with Gayle. She had graduated from high school a year ago, and Gayle had asked Marcus if he would give her a job while the girl decided what to do with her life.

Marcus had never been able to deny Gayle anything, so he'd said yes. Jill had been tasked with updating their website, and she did good work. But recently she'd started college and had taken to coming in after hours to finish her work, often having to be almost kicked out when the others went home at two A.M., when the paper went to press.

'Why are you here?' he asked, wondering what Jill had overheard.

'I was working on an ad layout for a new client and couldn't get it quite right. I fell asleep at my desk. I dreamed someone was cursing, then woke up and realized it was you. What's going on?'

Ignoring her question, Marcus refocused his attention on the list of threats that filled his computer screen. The last time he'd seen the list was more than nine months ago, and it was far longer than he remembered with too many totally capable of taking a shot at him. Or at someone standing next to him. He couldn't give this entire list to Scarlett Bishop. She was smart enough to see patterns. To figure out that he was doing a lot more than simply publishing the news.

'You wouldn't keep falling asleep at your desk if you weren't burning the candle at both ends,' he grumbled. 'I pay you well enough that you shouldn't need to go to school after working here all day.'

'You pay me far too well,' Jill said mildly. 'That's never been an issue.'

He looked up from the list. 'Then what is the issue? Why are you killing yourself like this? You know I don't care about any stinkin' degrees.'

Her lips curved, but it was nowhere close to a smile. 'You don't really want to know the answer to that question, Marcus.'

Startled at the anger behind her words, Marcus shoved his own irritation back down, made his voice civil. 'Try me.'

'Okay, fine.' Jill crossed her arms loosely over her chest and gave him a look that reminded him of Gayle when she'd scolded them as children.

'Your aunt could freeze me with that look when I was a kid,' he commented, leaning back in his chair, wondering what could have put that expression on Jill's face.

'I know. She said that Stone was always able to charm her out of it and into giving him cookies, but that you would always confess whatever "misdeed" you'd done.'

'That's pretty accurate,' he said. Of course there was one childhood misdeed that Marcus had never confessed to Gayle or to anyone else, partly because he was ashamed. Partly because he was worried about the impact the truth would have on his mother and Stone. But mostly because he'd only been eight years old at the time, a traumatized little boy in a situation no child should ever need to face.

He hadn't needed to confess to Gayle. She'd seen the whole thing and had kept his secret for the past twenty-seven years. Her love and care had ensured that his eight-year-old self hadn't fallen into the abyss that called to his adult self. He sat here today because Gayle had never given up on him.

Now he faced her furious niece calmly. 'But I'm not a kid, Jill, and you're not Gayle. I'm your boss.' He let the sentence hang, hoping to see some respect in her eyes. When she continued the staring contest, he sharpened his tone. 'Why don't you tell me exactly what it is that I don't want to know?'

Jill squared her shoulders. 'You're looking at the threat list. Why?'

Marcus stiffened in shock, the anger he'd been controlling for hours suddenly collapsing into an icy ball in his gut. How had she known that? He hadn't trusted her with the true mission of the paper, so he'd kept her access to sensitive information to a minimum. 'How do you even know that such a list exists?' he asked quietly.

'My aunt told me.'

Impossible. 'No, she didn't tell you, I'm sure of that.'

Gayle was the only person Marcus would ever have trusted with the task of cataloguing the threats to his life. She would never have told anyone outside their specific small circle.

'Okay, fine, Aunt Gayle didn't tell me. I hacked into her computer and figured it out for myself.' Her jaw jutted out, her gaze daring him to condemn her.

The hairs lifted on the back of his neck. Something was very wrong here. And considering he'd just witnessed a seventeen-year-old girl being gunned down in front of him, that was saying something. Jill's mild manner a few minutes before had been a facade. She was furious with him. He wondered how long she'd carried her rage.

'When?' he asked.

'The day Mikhail died.'

'Was murdered,' Marcus corrected, his words clipped. 'Mikhail was murdered.'

'Fine.' Her tone was as cold as his. 'The day Mikhail was murdered, I came into the office and found Aunt Gayle pale as a ghost, clutching her chest. It was her heart.'

Marcus sat straight up in his chair, his bruised back protesting the movement. But he barely felt the pain because panic had gripped him. 'What? Gayle had a heart attack?'

'Yeah. A "little" one. Not that she'd ever admit it to any of you,' she added bitterly.

Marcus closed his eyes. Gayle hadn't come to see him in the hospital the first week. He hadn't seen her until Mikhail's funeral. He hadn't asked why because he figured she'd been grieving too. She'd raised Mikhail from infancy. His murder must have cut her in two. But he'd never suspected, never even thought that she could have . . .

'Gayle had a heart attack,' he whispered, unable to find any other words.

'I believe that's what I just told you.' Jill blew out an annoyed breath. 'This is where you're supposed to say, "Why didn't she tell me?"'

He opened his eyes, met her angry gaze. Figured that on some level he deserved it. 'I don't have to ask. I already know why. Gayle puts everyone else's needs first. She always has. If you think I don't know that, you're wrong. And if you wanted me to feel guilty for not knowing she'd been sick, for expecting her to come in and work in the office afterward, then you hit the jackpot. I knew she'd be devastated by Mickey's murder, but I never once suspected it had pushed her heart over the edge.'

'It wasn't Mickey's death that pushed her over the edge. She hadn't even heard about that yet. It was you, Marcus.'

His eyebrows shot up. 'Me? She heard I'd been shot and that caused her attack?'

'No. She had her heart attack that morning, hours before you were shot. I found her clutching her chest with one hand and a piece of paper with the other. I called 911 as soon as I realized what was happening, told her to try to relax, to be still, but while I was on the phone with the operator, she closed the document she was working on and hid the piece of paper she'd been holding. All while she was gasping for breath.'

He could see it happening, which just made him feel even worse. 'So you wanted to see what she'd been working on that got her so upset. I guess I can understand that. I take it that she'd been updating this threat list.' He glanced at the screen, searching for a threat credible enough, terrible enough to send a fifty-five-year-old woman into heart failure.

'Yeah,' Jill said flatly. 'She'd been cataloguing the threats to your life, Marcus. For years.'

'I know. I asked her to.'

'I figured you must have. That's why I'm angry with you.'

'I suppose that's fair.' Because he was now angry with himself. 'I shouldn't have put that responsibility on her shoulders.'

Jill's glare could slice through steel. 'No, Marcus, you really shouldn't have. Aunt Gayle is too old to be worrying about you.'

Marcus frowned. 'Wait just a minute. Gayle isn't old. I agree that she doesn't need to be worrying about me, but she's only fifty-five. She's always been healthy.'

'Not anymore, she's not.'

New panic slithered down his spine. 'Just how bad was this heart attack?'

'Bad enough. The doctor told her that she should be retiring soon.'

'She only has to ask. She knows I'll take care of her.' He heard a note of desperation in his own voice, but he didn't care. Gayle was family, his second mother since he was old enough to remember. 'A house in Florida, a nurse to live with her . . . Whatever she wants.'

New ire sparked in Jill's eyes. 'She won't retire. She's too devoted to you and your family. And now that Mickey's gone, she doesn't feel like she can leave your mother.'

'Then I'll tell her that she's retiring.'

'No. You're not supposed to know, and if Gayle finds out that I told you, she'll be angry with me.'

Frustrated, Marcus looked back at his screen. 'She didn't log anything on that day, and none of the threats since then have been serious enough to worry about. Certainly nothing so dire that she had a heart attack. Did you find the paper she was holding?'

'No.'

'And she never mentioned it? If it was so terrifying that it caused her heart to jump its track, I would have thought she would have warned me at least.'

Jill shrugged. 'Maybe in all the chaos of Mickey's funeral and your hospitalization, she forgot.'

'She wouldn't just forget. Not something like that.'

Another icy glare. 'What part of heart attack didn't you hear, Marcus? Heaven forbid that she think about something besides you and your precious family for once like her health.'

The temptation to snap that he was still Jill's boss burned on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back. Because she was right. He swallowed hard. 'How long was she in the hospital?'

'Four days.'

Three of those days he'd been in ICU. 'Where?'

'Luckily not at County. With you and Stone ending up there, it would have been difficult to keep the news of Mikhail's murder from her. When I heard what had happened to Mickey, hell, what happened to all of you . . .'

'You were afraid that she'd have another heart attack.'

'Yeah, and her doctor agreed. We were able to keep her away from the news not an easy feat with Aunt Gayle. I broke it to her three days later, with her doctor present. By then Stone was okay and you were at least out of ICU. I could assure her that you two were going to be all right, so that it wasn't all bad news.'

'She loved Mikhail,' Marcus murmured.

'I know,' Jill said, her tone softer. 'She was devastated when I told her. But her heart didn't fail again, so I was relieved.'

'Didn't she wonder why we didn't come to visit her in those first few days?'

Jill's tone hardened again. 'No. She didn't want me to tell any of you that she was ill. She made me promise to tell your mother that she'd taken a little vacation. But by the time she was stabilized, I'd gotten the news about Mikhail's murder and that you and Stone were hurt, so I didn't say anything to anyone. Nobody even asked where she was.'

'My mother did.' The words came out in an accusatory tone, which was okay because Marcus was now pissed off with Jill, and to some extent with Gayle too.

Gayle had mothered him when his own mother had fallen into such a deep depression that she hadn't been able to care for him and Stone herself. It was Gayle who'd put Band-Aids on his skinned knees and elbows, helping him with his homework and teaching him to ride a bike.

And when he was eight years old, it was Gayle who'd sat beside his bed night after night when the nightmares would wake him up men with cold eyes and big guns, the terrified sobs of his brothers, the gunshots that somehow sounded even louder than they'd actually been. He'd woken scared and screaming for months and months to find Gayle sitting beside him, crooning soft promises of safety. Until he'd told her he'd grown out of the dreams. In reality, he'd just learned how to lie quietly in his bed, pretending to sleep. But he'd always had the assurance that if he called out to her, she would come.

She'd been there for him for almost as long as he could remember. But he hadn't been there when she'd needed him. He'd been in the hospital, true, but Gayle hadn't known that. She had denied him the opportunity to take care of her, and that stung. But he was far more upset on his mother's behalf than his own.

'My mother called her phone, looking for her,' he added harshly. 'When Gayle didn't answer, Mother sent someone to her house to find her, but there was no one home.'

Jill's chin lifted, her lips pursed thin. 'Sorry, but that wasn't my problem. Your mother had lots of people waiting on her hand and foot. She didn't need Aunt Gayle fetching and carrying for her too.'

Wow. This Jill's contempt for his family was the bad vibe he'd felt all along.

'My mother didn't try to find her because she needed her to fetch and carry,' he said evenly. 'She did it because she didn't want Gayle to hear about Mikhail on the news. From a stranger. She was worried because Gayle had simply vanished. Because Gayle is her friend, despite what you seem to think.'

Jill glared at him a moment longer, then looked away, her jaw still squared and angry. 'I'm sorry,' she said stiffly. 'I was trying to do right by my aunt. Working for your family has required her to sacrifice her own needs and wants too many times. Certainly more than you all deserv-' She drew a deep breath. 'More than she should have,' she amended.

More than we deserved? Marcus had never looked at it like that before. Gayle had always been there. She'd never complained, never behaved like it was a burden or a sacrifice, and he'd never questioned her presence or her motivation. She loved them. That was all he'd needed to know. But now he wondered . . .

Shit. I do not need this right now. He'd promised Scarlett Bishop the list of the people who'd made threats on his life. He owed it to Tala to find out who she'd been and where she'd been living, because despite what Deacon and Scarlett had theorized and everything he'd just learned about his threat list he still didn't believe the shooter had been targeting him.

The man and his wife, they own us. Discovering where Tala had lived would likely lead to her killer. Help. Malaya. Malaya. Freedom. She'd feared for her family. Marcus hoped it wasn't already too late to save them.

But this thing with Jill, this simmering contempt, it was important too. The young woman obviously did not like him or his family, which made Marcus wonder why she'd wanted to work for him to start with. Which made him remember how all this had begun.

Jill had known about the threat list.

'How did you know I was looking at the threat list, Jill?'

She blinked at the subject change, surprise displacing the anger in her eyes for the briefest of moments. But the surprise was quickly quashed and the anger was back. Anger and defiance . . . and fear. She was afraid of him. Yet she stood steadfast, her body language that of a soldier prepared to defend to the death.

What the hell? What the hell did she think he was going to do to her? What did she think they'd done to Gayle all these years?

'I put an alarm on the file,' she said. 'Whenever anyone opens it, I get an alert sent right to my phone. The buzz from the alert woke me up.'

He regarded her cautiously. 'You're handier with a computer than you let on when I hired you.' It made him wonder what else she'd seen in the year she'd worked for him.

She shrugged. 'I wasn't expecting you to access the file, if that makes you feel better. I was watching over my aunt. She had a heart attack when she was looking at that file. She hasn't had any issues since, but if she did, I needed to know. I caught the first heart attack in time out of sheer luck. I can't count on being that lucky twice.'

That made a certain kind of sense. 'I guess I can respect your reason.'

Her lip curled in a slight sneer. 'But?'

But . . . he didn't believe her. She was too quiet. Too careful. She'd had access to Gayle's files for nine months.