He patted the bed and she didn’t think twice about plunking down next to him, still in disbelief. “What? Andre bit you? How? When?”
Cormac’s let out a puff of air from his luscious lips. “If he is indeed the same guy who you saw on my computer screen, then it was Andre. This is part of that long story I mentioned. The short of it is, we were in an accident together. A car accident. I was trying to get away from Andre in the rubble of the wrecked car and he bit my calf. I still have the scar, which, incidentally, didn’t go away once I’d healed. How does that work with this self-healing method anyway?”
She almost didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know anyone who’d been turned into a bear—not ever. Everyone she knew, all her family, her friends, were all born bear shifters. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you weren’t born this way? Because you were, in essence, manufactured?”
“I feel like a Lady GaGa song.”
Teddy couldn’t help but laugh but then she sobered. “So how did you get into a car accident with Andre and why was he trying to keep you from getting away?”
“Andre and his Russian mob-leader wannabe, Stas, kidnapped me when they found out my sister Toni shared some sensitive information about them with me.”
On a wince, Teddy asked, “Sensitive how?”
“Murder.”
“They murdered someone?” Things were becoming clearer by the second.
“My sister saw it. She managed to get away and she came straight to me. Unfortunately, they caught up with her at my house. Next thing I remember, they have me in some cellar in some house, threatening to hack off my finger if I don’t tell them where Toni is. Somehow, she managed to escape them.”
His voice held pride at this revelation, pride and love.
Teddy’s eyes went to his missing ring finger, and her fingers moved of their own volition, grabbing his hand. “That’s what happened to your finger. They cut it off…” She swallowed hard, her stomach rolling at what he and Toni must have endured. How horrific.
But at least she knew her gut had been right about Cormac. Thank God she still had an instinct working properly.
Cormac nodded his sleep-mussed head. “They used it as bait to prove to her they had me. They mailed it to her. Then they made a phone call, which is still sort of vague for me, because I was in and out of consciousness. But I assumed it was a call made to Toni, demanding a meet. I get the impression they told her they’d let me live if she’d meet with them. It’s still a blur. I hadn’t eaten in days. Hardly slept. I think by that point, I was delusional. I only know I got it in my head that it was her on the other end of that line and no way was I going to let them near her.”
“Oh, Cormac…” she whispered, reaching out to cup his bearded jaw, the crisp hair tickling her palm. “How horrible. I don’t know what to say.”
His fingers curled around hers and he squeezed, brushing them to his lips. “I knew damn well they weren’t going to let me go, but I was sick with worry she’d actually meet with them. I spent that whole damn ride racking my brain for a way to escape. But fate stepped in. We were, I think, on our way to meet her when we were T-boned. Somehow—and I have no idea how, other than the sheer will to survive—I managed to escape.”
“And you’ve been hiding from them ever since,” she offered in a somber whisper.
“Trying to figure out where my sister went—or if she was even alive—and who they’d murdered that night. I needed some kind of proof to go to the authorities with. I watched the news for days after the murder. It happened at a pretty high-profile car dealership. That was where Toni worked. But there was nothing. Not a single word. No body means no murder.”
“So Toni didn’t know the dead guy?”
“No. Not according to her. I’ll never forget her face when she showed up at my door that night, white as a ghost, shaking so hard I didn’t know if I’d ever calm her down, and verging on hysteria. She’d found out Stas, her boyfriend at the time, was cooking the books at the dealership. She’d called her supervisor, Andre—”
“Andre was her supervisor?” Oh, Jesus.
“Yep. Anyway, she called him with the proof, and he asked her to meet him to straighten things out. When she showed up for that meeting, Stas and Andre were standing around, laughing about the poor soul they’d just murdered. And that’s all I know.”
A shiver of fear rolled over her spine. “Where is Toni now?”
He grinned, warm and fond, making him a million times more appealing than he was before, if that was even possible. “She’s okay. That’s where Nina, Marty, and Wanda come in. They met Toni at a discount designer mall in Jersey where she was working. It gets crazier from there—I’m not sure you’re up for it.”