He wasn’t stressing. As he watched her twist her skirt so the slit was back against her left thigh, he couldn’t help but imagine her with a family. A kid. A dog. A house on the beach with a white picket fence. She’d told him once she loved the beach. She could do anything she wanted if she put her mind to it. If she wanted it enough. He just couldn’t see himself in that picture with her. And wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be there or not.
His chest tightened as she turned to face him. “Eve—”
“Okay, that?” She pointed at the bed. “Clearly not happening again. Once we get out of here and I get in touch with my director, we’ll get this all straightened out, and you can go wherever the hell it is you go.” She picked up his shirt from the floor and flung it toward him. “We’ll just chalk that up to stupidity and not talk about it again. God knows we were stupid before.”
He caught the shirt in both hands and tugged it on, but something inside him didn’t want to drop the subject, even if he wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted it to go. “Eve—”
Gunfire exploded from the back of the house, the sound of wood and glass shattering drowning out his voice and thoughts and reactions.
He dropped to the ground behind the bed. Eve hit the carpet next to him and rolled to her back. In her hands she held both guns from the dresser. “Holy fuck. How did they find us?”
He plucked the SIG out of her hand and checked the magazine, then snapped it back into place. “Miller was right. Your call to the Agency—”
“No way they tracked us from that call.” She ducked her head as the doorjamb to the bedroom splintered into a hundred pieces. “I know how long it takes to track a call.”
Zane angled his head around the leg of the bed and looked toward the open door. He couldn’t see anything besides carpet, walls, and splintered wood. “Then how the hell did they—” Understanding hit, and he froze. His eyes fell closed. “Oh shit.”
“What?” Eve asked.
More glass exploded in the other room. From the direction of the kitchen. He ducked his head back behind the bed and looked her way. “I called Carter’s cell. Outside. Before I came back in.”
“You son of a bitch.” Eve smacked the butt of her gun hard against his bad arm. “Are you fucking brain dead?”
“Son of a—” He shoved her hand away. “Knock that shit off. Carter would never rat us out.”
“No,” she snapped. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not monitoring him to get to us.” She moved to her belly and stilled. The gunshots had stopped. “How many do you think there are?”
Zane tuned in to his hearing. Footsteps were moving around the side of the house. Faint ones. “From the number of shots fired,” he whispered, “five. At most.”
“They’ve split up,” Eve whispered back.
He nodded and pointed two fingers to his right.
“Fuck that,” Eve whispered. “I’m a better shot than you any day. You get the two moving around the south side of the house; I’ll take the other three.”
She was gone before he could stop her, sliding around the end of the torn-up mattress and disappearing into the hallway without a single look back.
“God, you’re a moron,” he muttered to himself. “Why can’t you be interested in a normal girl? One whose idea of an adrenaline rush is parasailing on some Mexican beach? But no, you gotta go and fall for Jane fucking Bond.”
He ground his teeth while he pushed to his feet. Then wished for a dose of that Dilaudid again. He had no idea where those stupid syringes had even gone.
Pausing near the doorway, he waited and listened. A quick shot of remorse trickled in when he thought about the fact these could be fellow agents, but it faded when he realized they weren’t here for a garden party. They were here to kill them, no questions asked. There was no remorse on their side, and if he wanted to stay alive, there couldn’t be any on his.
Fear gripped icy fingers around his heart and squeezed when he realized Eve was somewhere near the kitchen, walking into . . . he didn’t know what. If she got herself killed right now, before he’d decided what the hell to do about her—about them—he’d never forgive her.
A twig cracked just outside the window at the end of the hall. He swiveled, lifted his gun, and fired.
The gunshots echoed a split second before Eve cursed Archer for his bad timing.
The soldier decked out in black ops gear with an assault rifle poised at his shoulder swiveled in the kitchen and aimed her way. Her fingers closed around the knife she’d quietly pulled from the butcher block, and she hurled it hard.
A grunt echoed as the blade sank into his neck. His finger hit the trigger as he fell backward, and gunfire lit up the kitchen, tearing into the ceiling.
Eve ducked behind the cabinet. Plaster and wood rained down around her. She bit her lip and kept her curse to herself while chunks of wood cut into her shoulder. Her pulse raced. As soon as the gunfire cut off, she pushed to her feet. Broken glass dug into her foot, but she tiptoed through the kitchen as carefully as she could and stepped over the man choking on his own blood. He was wearing a black ski mask—not that she’d expected to see his face—and she wasn’t tempted to look beneath it. Averting her gaze, she holstered the Glock at her lower back and picked up the rifle.
Footsteps pounded from the direction of the living room. Adrenaline surging, Eve opened the steel fridge door, slung the strap of the weapon over her shoulder, and reached for the chilled bottle of champagne.
Not the welcome-to-your-vacation gift the management company had anticipated, not that Eve cared. Backing into the cold chill, she grasped the top edge of the open fridge door for balance and lifted her feet onto the bottom ledge, out of view, and waited.
Glass crunched under boot steps, and Eve tensed. When the tip of a rifle passed the edge of the open door, she shoved the door open hard with her shoulder, then swung out with the bottle.
Glass shattered against bone. The man grunted. Arms flailed out as his body weight pitched backward. Dragging her arm away, Eve shoved her fist into the man’s throat, collapsing his windpipe. He dropped to the ground with a thunk.
Eve stepped over him, shifted the first rifle to her back, and picked up the second.
Glass crackled from the living room, and Eve froze.
Her pulse shot up all over again. She ducked behind the edge of the wall and lifted the weapon.
“Don’t fucking shoot,” Archer announced. “It’s me.”
Eve released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and lowered her weapon. “Dammit, Archer,” she whispered. “There’s still another one lurking.”
“No there’s not.” He rounded the corner into the kitchen and glanced down at the two unmoving bodies lying among broken glass and splintered wood on the kitchen floor. “I got the other three.”
She wasn’t going to be impressed. She straightened and frowned. “Just had to show me up, didn’t you?”
His dark gaze lifted to hers. Blood splatters stained his cheek, sweat beaded his forehead, and his shirt was torn at the shoulder. And though he had two weapons slung over his shoulder, much like her, and was holding one assault rifle in his hand, his feet weren’t torn to pieces from the broken glass like hers. The man hadn’t just taken out three black ops assassins in the time it had taken her to drop two. He’d already snagged their combat boots. “It’s not a competition, Evie.”
“Everything’s a competition, Archer. Especially when you’re a woman.” Why was she so irritated? She’d worked with men on ops before. She’d even worked well with Archer—and not just in the bedroom. She didn’t have to prove herself to anyone. But the way he was looking at her set the fine hairs on her nape standing straight, and something uncomfortable rolled through her belly.
She shook off the strange feeling, slung the second rifle over her shoulder, then knelt and tugged the boots off the closest body, refusing to look at the soldier’s face. “That was a wet team. Not the same untrained thugs who chased us
at the docks.”
“Yeah. But this insignia isn’t US government.”
She looked down at the patch on the sleeve of the man at her feet. A wolf encased in a circle, surrounded by stars. “I noticed that too. Hired mercenaries?”
“Could be. Or something else.”
The “something else” didn’t leave Eve feeling all rosy inside. “The Agency wouldn’t have sent a wet team just for you. They’d have sent the Feds in, along with the press to catch it all on camera so they could brag to the world they caught the mastermind behind the Seattle bombing.”
“I know.”
Eve’s stomach tightened as she pushed her feet into the boots. That meant someone besides the US government and a group of terrorist thugs was after them. She cringed at the pain in her left foot. There was still glass in there. She’d get it out later.
“They came in by boat,” Archer said. “There’s a Bayliner tied to the dock.”
Eve knelt to tie the laces. The boots were three sizes too big, but big was better than nothing. “That’s probably our easiest way out of here.”
“Yeah. Miller left his truck, but it’ll take us twice as long to get to Everett that way.”
Eve stood and ground her teeth against the pain. “What’s in Everett?”
“My car.” When she stared at him, he added, “Supplies.”
Money, ID, passports, fresh weapons. Eve knew the drill. “Fine. Let’s go.”
She turned for the back door, but Zane’s hand gripped her T-shirt and pulled her back. Before she could catch her footing, he pushed the weapon to his side, shoved her up against the wall, and closed in at her front. Then his mouth was on hers. Hot. Hard. Demanding.
He kissed her with those sensuous lips and pressed his muscular, sweaty body into hers until all thought slipped from her mind, then pulled back. “You’re not alone, and you don’t have to do everything on your own. I’m here with you in this. Try to remember that.”
He stepped past her, out into the morning light, and, dazed, Eve stayed right where she was, pulse racing and mind spinning.
He was offering help. Help for something she’d dragged him into. No, she corrected herself, for something he’d stumbled into all on his own. He could leave, take off and get his team at Aegis to help him clear his name, but he wasn’t. Her gaze strayed out the shattered window toward the dock. He was staying. Waiting for her to join him.
Her heart picked up speed, and pain gathered beneath her ribs, where it beat hard and fast. Their rendezvous—okay, fuck session—in the bedroom replayed in her mind, and her stomach and chest grew tight all over again, just like it had the moment she’d realized what she’d done and climbed off him.
Sweat broke out all along her forehead, and she swiped at it with a shaky hand. A pissed Archer she knew how to handle. One hell-bent on revenge and retribution? Way easier to deal with than the one currently standing out on that dock. Offering to help. Trying to protect her. Because he cared.
“Tell me I never mattered to you and it was all about the job. I’ll walk away and you’ll never have to see me again.”
She squeezed her eyes tight. Stupid, stupid—so fucking stupid. He’d given her an out, and she hadn’t taken it. And now he knew her biggest weakness.
She braced a hand against the wall and tried to settle her quaking stomach. But it didn’t work. Because what waited for her out there scared her more than anything the CIA could throw her way.
Metal scraped metal, and Olivia braced a hand against the cold, dingy floor as she pushed up from where she’d been trying to sleep.
Bright light blinded her as the door to her cell was pulled open. A silhouette blocked part of the light, and she blinked several times to see more clearly, but she couldn’t make out any distinguishing features. “Who—who’s there?”
Fresh, blessed air drifted to her nostrils, pushing aside all the stale filth she’d been wallowing in these last days, and she drew it in deeply, as much as she could before they closed her in again. Heavy footsteps crossed the dirty metal floor as she was filling her lungs, and then a firm, large hand wrapped around her biceps and hauled her to her feet. “Time to go, little lady. The powers that be have decided you just might be useful to us after all.”
Pain raced down her arm and back up again. She yelped as she was dragged across the grimy floor and tried to find her footing. This wasn’t the same man who’d brought her food before. It was someone else.
Bright sunlight washed over her, blinding her, bringing her limbs to a stop in the warmth, and halting all questions about who had her now.
Freedom. Her body shook with sweet relief. The sun was still there. It hadn’t disappeared. There was still hope. Her legs went out from under her.
“Son of a bitch,” the man holding her arm muttered in a thick accent. He tugged hard again, and pain spiraled through Olivia’s body, but she couldn’t move her legs. They weren’t working. And the sun felt so good. She didn’t want to leave it. Couldn’t . . .
“Get up.” He yanked hard again.
Olivia yelped. Tried to stand. But her legs felt like Jell-O, and the sun . . .
“Fucking bitch.” He hauled her up and tossed her over his shoulder like she was nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
Pain echoed all through her weak body, but Olivia braced her hands against his back and lifted her head, blinking into the sunshine as he moved, trying to see—see something, anything.
Large shapes closed in around her. Blocking out the sunlight. She blinked over and over, trying to get her eyes to work, and then, slowly, the shapes came into focus.
Large metal containers. Hundreds of them, all around her. And above, angry-looking claw-like hooks. Big ones.
A seagull cried somewhere overhead, and Olivia realized it wasn’t just sunlight she was drawing in; it was salt as well. From seawater. They were at a port of some kind. And around her . . . those were ConEx containers. The kind that were shipped on barges from one country to another.
Gravel crunched under the man’s feet below her. He spoke to someone nearby in a language she didn’t understand. Spanish? German? Arabic? She couldn’t tell.
Focus, Olivia. Focus on anything you can so you can remember.
She was a teacher. Nothing special. And she was too weak to try to overpower these two and still live. But she’d watched enough crime movies to know that when she got out of this—if she got out of it—she needed to pay attention to every detail if she wanted them to be caught.
The man carrying her stopped. Words were spoken—more she couldn’t make out—then a car door opened, and the man holding her set her down on her feet.
He let go of her for a split second, and her legs wobbled, but she braced a hand on the edge of the white van to steady herself.
Then she realized he’d let go of her.
The flight response kicked in without her even searching for it. She shoved her arms hard into the cargo door. It hit one of the men, knocking him off balance. She turned and pushed her legs forward as hard as she could.
She was a runner. She might be weak from days in isolation and very little food, but she dug deep for the strength she’d gained from hours and hours running trails back in Boise.
“Dammit. Get her!”
She darted around a car. Didn’t even care that her feet were bare or that gravel was digging into her soles. She pumped her arms and ran as fast and hard as she could. Away. She had no idea where she was going—just away.
She scurried behind a truck and turned to her right. A body slammed into her hard. She grunted, sailed through the air, and hit the packed gravel on her side, sliding through rocks and dirt that embedded into her skin.
“Stupid fucking bitch.” A man—not the same one who’d carried her, this one was smaller—grabbed her by the front of her blouse with both hands, lifted her upper body inches from the ground, and then slammed her back into the gravel.
Blinding pain ricocheted through Olivia’s skull, and she gasped.
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“You’re gonna pay for that.” Chest heaving, he yanked her from the ground and tossed her over his shoulder.
Stars fired off behind Olivia’s eyelids. And the pain . . . She groaned as he jostled her bruised and bleeding body.
When they reached the van, he tossed her into the back. She hit the floor with a grunt and tried to pull her legs up to her chest to alleviate the burning pain in her hip and shoulder. Only nothing helped. She breathed through her mouth and cradled her aching arm close, but then he was there, climbing into the back, pulling the cargo doors closed, and yelling, “Let’s go!”
The van’s engine turned over, and Olivia braced herself as the vehicle whipped around and bounced over the uneven ground, but it did nothing to stop the pain thrumming through every cell in her body.
“Stupid bitch,” the man growled. “We were nice to you before because of your sister. But not anymore.”
Olivia’s eyes tore open, and she stared up at his dark face, twisted in a fury she’d never seen before.
“My—my sister?”
He chuckled, a dark, menacing sound that condensed into a knot of terror in her belly. “What? You thought this was all for fun? No. You’re leverage now.”
He dropped to his knees and leaned over her, and his scent—sweat, spice, and danger—filled her nostrils. A scent she’d never forget. “Too bad she won’t find you in one piece. Not after that little stunt.”
It took Landon longer to locate Archer’s warehouse than he’d thought. The ferry system had been shut down, which meant he had to drive all the way down to Tacoma and back up and around. Then, when he’d finally made it back to Seattle, the damn traffic was being rerouted all over the place because of the ongoing investigation.
Frustrated, he climbed out of the rental car he’d picked up on Bainbridge Island after leaving Archer and slammed the door shut. An abandoned warehouse stood to his right, the skeleton of a building under construction on his left, and between the two a tower crane sat unmoving, its long arm angled out toward the waters of Puget Sound in the distance.