Chapter 21 NOTHING LIKE COINCIDENCE
"Actually," Jax continued when I remained quiet, his voice thoughtful and border-line suspicious. "You've been acting like you are a 3rd person to your actual self. Is this another side effect of the coma?"
My pulse jumped at how close he was to the truth. “I just meant… I wish things had been different. For all of us.”
Jax didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice had lost its edge. “You still don’t remember anything, do you?”
My shoulders went rigid. “Seems like the really coma messed with things in my brain. It’s a blank slate.”
Jax walked into the room, his heavy boots making no sound on the floorboards. He stopped a few feet away. "You were always the one who kept our heads on straight, Si. When we were at the orphanage, I was the one who cried every night. I was the underdeveloped, clumsy kid who couldn't fight back when the older boys cornered me. You were the one who stood in front of me with a sharpened toothbrush and told them they’d have to go through you first."
I turned to look at him. His eyes were full of a raw, painful loyalty.
"You didn't just get each of us out of horrible situations and lives," Jax said. "You gave us a reason to keep breathing. If you forget that... if you forget who we are to you... Then we really are just street runners with no home."
" I may not remember,” I admitted carefully. “But I remember the feeling.”
“What feeling?”
“That no one was coming to save us.”
His gaze softened. “Yeah,” he murmured. “That.”
The tension between us eased.
"I would do my best to remember it all again," I promised. I had no idea how I was going to do that when the real Sienna was gone, but I felt the truth of the emotion behind it.
I was beginning to care for these people. Not because I was Sienna, but because they were the only ones who had ever looked at me and seen a human being instead of a pawn.
Jax nodded, a look of relief washing over his face. "Don't overexert yourself. It would all come back when the time was right. By the way, Leo said he has sent you the files you wanted."
I nodded.
He let out a tired sigh. "Si, I don't know why you're suddenly interested in the harbingers, but listen to me. Whatever you find in those police reports, don't let it consume you. The Cruz massacre is a ghost story. Don’t lose yourself chasing ghosts.”
My mouth curved faintly at his words. If only he knew he was talking to a literal ghost. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Just be careful. Everyone who ever dug into that case has either disappeared or had their life ruined. From mere reporters to police detectives. It seems like Don Kanan wants that incident to remain buried by all means."
I nodded, agreeing with him, but my mind was on his last few words. Kanan seemed to really be doing his best to keep everything under the lid.
Once Jax left, I went back to the files and searched for the name of the officer who had been the only one to suspect Kanan.
Detective Elias Miller. He was the only one who had dared to write Kanan’s name in the margins.
I pulled up his personnel record, and my breath caught.
Status: Retired. Effective immediately following the closure of Case #4421 (The Cruz Massacre).
There was no pension listed. No forward address. He hadn't just retired; he had been erased.
A man doesn't walk away from a twenty-year career in the middle of a month without a very good reason. Or a very large threat.
"It was a cover-up," I whispered, relieved down to my bones.
This was proof that I hadn’t conjured rubbish in my memory.
The London alibi wasn't just a mistake. It was a manufactured shield. The Chief of Police had stamped it, the manifests had been forged, and the only detective who had sensed the truth had been silenced.
I stood up and walked to the punching bag in the corner of the loft and just started hitting it without wrapping my hands or putting on any gloves.
The pain in my knuckles was grounded. It was real. Every strike was for the housekeeper who had been more of a mother to me than my biological mother ever was…. the woman who gave up her life to buy me extra time to run away.
Every kick was for my mother, father, and sister. Every breath was for the child Kanan had taken from me.
My motivation had shifted. I wasn't just training to survive the Rust Pit anymore. I wasn't just trying to prove I was Siren.
I had to start training to become the shadow that would eventually find its way into Kanan’s close circle.
As much as I hated the thought of working for a woman who treated other women with disdain…. one of the people who made my past life unbearable, if I wanted to get into the Harbingers, I needed to accept Viper’s offer.
If Kanan was a god, then I had to become one of his angels.
I spent the next four hours pushing my body until I was shaking with exhaustion. I practiced the moves I had seen in Sienna’s videos. I practiced the ear lock. I practiced the siren slide, as others called it.
I kept moving until the Elena part of my brain was quiet and the "Siren" part was in full control.
By the time I looked at the clock again, it was four in the morning.
I walked to the window and looked out at the awakening city. Somewhere out there, Kanan Maddox was sleeping in a bed bought with my family’s blood. He thought he was safe. He thought his alibi made him untouchable.
I reached down and picked up the silver pin Viper had left in the box with the severed finger. I traced the shape of the skull wrapped in flaming chains.
"You were in that room, Kanan," I whispered. "I don't care what the papers say. I felt your breath on my skin."
I looked at the phone again, scrolling back to the flight manifest. Something caught my eye.
A name on the passenger list for the London flight, just three rows behind Kanan, was a certain Dr. Julian Vane.
A sharp pang shot through my chest. Dr. Vane was the gang’s doctor.
The one who had probably told Kanan about my pregnancy.
I smirked. I’d just found another lead.