“If I had tried to go to the police…” She trailed off.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Two reasons. Armando had police working for him and we didn’t know who they were, and of course, Elijah was heavily involved in the business. That’s how Armando thought to trap him. If he made Elijah dirty enough, he would never be able to get out and they would need one another.

Armando was willing to kill his brother, but he genuinely wanted his brother’s son. It made no sense to me. I’ve never understood it. I would never betray Elijah for any reason.”

“And you think I wouldn’t forgive you that? There’s nothing to forgive, Rachael.” Rio lifted his head from hers, drawing in his breath. “He knew. Your uncle knew about your mother being a shape-shifter, and he must have known about your brother.”

“Idon’t know about my brother.”

“You said they were close, Rachael. Antonio and Armando. If Antonio had discovered that his wife was a shifter and they moved the family from South America in order to protect them from the elders, then he may have confided in his brother. Why wouldn’t he? Antonio would have told his twin brother why he had to move his family to Florida so quickly, especially if he needed help fast and if he was leaving the running of the plantations to Armando or hired help.”

“I suppose so. But I don’t know if my brother can shift shape. Why wouldn’t he tell me? We talked about mom and dad a lot. Wouldn’t that be a rather large piece of infor mation to leave out?”

“Not if he was protecting you. You say your uncle took him out all the time alone. They spent a great deal of time in the Everglades. What were they doing there?”

She shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. I was a little child. I thought they were fishing or scuba diving or watching alligators. He never came back upset.”

“If you were a kid and you could run free in the Glades, shifting shape and becoming something as powerful as a leopard, wouldn’t you do it? And if you did things for your uncle, such as pick up packages, wouldn’t that be a small price to pay? Armando would have realized the potential of such a gift. He would have a trained assassin, as silent and deadly as they came and no one the wiser. We can swim great distances and get into places humans can’t. Elijah would have welcomed the trips in the beginning. He would have felt the freedom of running and becoming something so powerful. Do you see that?”

Rachael thought of how it felt to be in the form of such a powerful creature. A teenager would have found the excitement of it a heady and addicting experience. Add in the thrill of secrecy and it would have been too much for a boy to pass up. “I remember him coming home and being so excited after his trips with Ar mando he could hardly contain himself. He’d lock his bedroom door and play wild music for hours.”

“Your uncle was probably training him then, but Elijah didn’t know what he was carrying, or even doing. It was all a game. He loved and trusted your uncle. Finding your parents murdered must have been a terrible shock and betrayal to him. He loved Armando and he had to have realized what his uncle was and what he’d been doing all that time. The guilt must have been unbearable.”

That brought a fresh flood of tears. Rachael clung to him, weeping for her lost brother, for their childhood, for all the things they had done and couldn’t change. Rio held her in his arms, offering comfort and acceptance. He rocked her gently back and forth, crooning some nonsense, anything at all to console her. It had been years since she’d allowed herself the luxury of tears. She had worked so hard to be like her brother, not giving Armando the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

She rubbed Rio’s strong jaw. “Thank you for not condemning us. We probably did ever ything wrong, made every mistake, but I was a child and he was thirteen. We had no one to go to, no one to tell. Of course Armando had custody of us, and from the moment we went to live with him, we had nothing but each other. I don’t think I could bear it if you despised him.”

“Rachael, love of my life, how could you think I, of all people, would presume to judge another? All one can do in this life is to try to do their best in any given circumstances.”

She lif ted her head and stared into his face, his eyes. “I don’t deserve you, Rio.”

He fought back the strange lump in his throat. His people wouldn’t see him or speak with him, yet she thought she didn’t deserve him. His hand went to the nape of her neck, held her still for his kiss. He put every bit of tenderness he could find in himself in that kiss, tasting her tears, her sorrow, tasting love.

“I think you’re an amazing woman,” he mur mured when he lifted his head.

She managed to smile at him. “It’s a darned good thing because it might be difficult to get rid of me.”

Rachael slowly uncurled her body. She had cried so much her eyes burned and her throat ached. She was deter mined to pull herself together before Rio grew impatient and tossed her over the railing. “You know those little leech things you love so much? They just sink their teeth in and hold on, well, that’s me with you.”

He made a face at her, reluctantly allowing his arms to drop away as she stretched and stood up to limp across the room to open the door.

“Isn’t it strange how the house can feel so small at times?”

He smiled at her, knowing she was trying to regain some semblance of control. “Why do you think I often leave the door open?” Her body was supple and strong with generous feminine curves, a body a man could lose himself in. He liked watching her move around his home. She touched a candle, her fingers gliding gracefully over it. She picked up his clothes and tossed them in the small box he never used for dirty clothes.