by Leigh Tudor
So she maintained a blind eye to the imminent danger.
But why come for her now?
She remembered escaping the lab at a time when a number of jobs had to be executed. And no one was there to manage their execution.
So she decided to make a phone call, play her cards, and strategize her way into a stronger position of power with Jasper.
And getting rid of Alec. He didn’t need to get further involved. It was just too dangerous. Ally needed her brother alive and well. A brother to make sure she got a dress to the prom and had someone to walk her down the aisle.
And it worked.
When she confronted Jasper on searching her out due to a failed mission, the expression on his face said it all. Like he was torn between running for cover and shitting his pants.
On the drive to Findling, she made it clear that this was no longer a coerced situation. They would walk into the lab like partners in crime, or she wasn’t going in at all.
And Jasper knew that she was perfectly capable of doing just that. Without her sisters there for him to use against her, she found herself in a much stronger position of power.
Basically, he had two options. To either concede any degree of power by making her an equal partner or he could figure out on his own how to get himself out of his mess, whatever that was. The information she had gathered was one-sided, and she was biding her time to get his side of the story.
Striding to the front desk, she spotted the familiar security guard she would pass on her way out on to a job.
She smiled. Even though it was three in the morning, she’d never felt more alive.
She eyed his name tag. “Officer Sloan, good to see you again.”
“Miss Halstead. This . . . is a surprise.” His eyes moved from her to Jasper in confusion. Unsure how to properly respond to someone who, months ago, was considered an extremely dangerous patient and never to be spoken to directly.
“I’m sure it is. I’ll be needing a security badge and all access permissions to the facility.”
Officer Sloan slid his eyes toward Jasper. “Dr. Bancroft, I’ll, um, need your sign-off on that.”
Jasper nodded. “I’m sure this seems quite out of the ordinary, but Miss Halstead has just returned from revolutionary shock treatment therapy that has done wonders for her mental condition.”
Officer Sloan pulled out a form, staring at Loren’s moving red lips down to her knotted T-shirt that revealed much of her midsection.
Smiling, she popped her gum, causing Jasper to grimace.
“I’ll also need my own laptop and phone,” she added, thoroughly enjoying the exchange. “Oh, and would you please have the contents of Dr. Bancroft’s office removed as he’s graciously offered it to me as a welcome back gesture . . . of sorts.”
A few veins along Jasper’s neck pulsated as he plastered a smile on his face. “Yes, please see that Miss Halstead receives anything she asks for.”
Jasper signed the document and then handed the form over to Loren for her cursory signature. “See that she’s set up in the biometric system. We should have her fingerprints on file.”
She smiled to herself, enjoying the irony of being back, but this time, in absolute control of her surroundings, if not her destiny.
“Please be sure to change the nameplate on the door to Ava Halstead.”
Trevor stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and his phone to his ear.
“I know, Amber,” he said, combing his fingers through his dark hair that was in need of a haircut. “I know I missed Christmas last year. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” his sister said with frustration. “Just promise you’ll be there this year.”
“I can’t commit to that,” he said, picking up the remote to the TV and pressing the on button. “It’s not like I can hop a domestic flight and be back the next day. You live across the ocean in a foreign country.”
“Don’t be a drama queen. London is not really like a foreign country. We speak the same language, for crying out loud.”
“I just can’t promise you anything right now.”
Nothing.
“Not yet anyway,” he added, checking to see if the unit was plugged in.
“Trevor,” she said with that voice that reminded him of their mother and made his throat constrict. “I know it’s hard without Haley. It’s hard for all of us. Let us be there for you so you don’t have to do this alone.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, noting the retro style of the hotel room. More so defined by years of wear and tear rather than a design aesthetic. The side tables were made of veneered walnut, and the two double beds draped with nubby beige coverlets.
He leaned his elbow on his knee, scratching at his wet head. “I appreciate your concern. I really do. But this isn’t about her.” It was. “It’s work. I’m in the middle of something and can’t commit to being home in time for the holidays.”
“I hate your job,” Amber huffed, and he could imagine the pouty look on her face, and her husband standing there fully prepared to do whatever it took to wipe it off. He was a good man, and no one deserved a better husband more than Amber. “I miss you, you know.”
The door to the room flew open when the storm known as Mercy Ingalls blew in with plastic bags in her hands. Alec followed with less vigor, throwing the key fob on the side table closest to the front window.
Trevor stood, sensing it was time to end the phone call. “Hey, gotta go, Amber. Miss you too. I’ll let you know about Christmas.”
He ended the call.
Mercy glanced at the phone and then him as she dumped the contents of the bags onto the bed. Handing him a set of clothes with the tags still on them.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, removing the tags.
“Um, yeah, I did. Even your dashing good looks aren’t strong enough to compensate for body odor.”
She dumped the contents of another bag next to the Henley shirt and Levi’s. “I also bought sheets for the beds.”
“The beds don’t have sheets?”
“Yes, but you can’t really be sure they’re clean. I mean we don’t know who’s slept in those sheets. Could’ve been some dude covered with leprosy or shingles or some other pus-oozing sores.” She removed the sheets from their plastic enclosures. “And the hotel maid who was supposed to wash them? She could’ve been tempted away from by one of the construction workers down the road who wanted a little something-something, and so she decides to leave the pus-covered sheets on the bed and call it a day.”
Alec sat back in the chair with his legs crossed in front of him. “I think you might be missing the mark on what could be on the sheets.”
“Is leprosy even a thing?” Trevor asked.
Yanking the bedspread off the bed next to Alec, Mercy responded, “Of course it’s a thing. It wouldn’t be in the Bible if it wasn’t a thing.”
“Like all those burning bushes and parting seas?” Trevor asked. It was getting more and more difficult to refrain from engaging with her and her inanities.
Mercy straightened and batted her eyes. “Oh, you mean like the wildfires and hurricanes?”
He was the first to look away.
Fuck, those eyes.
He picked up the new pair of briefs along with the rest of the clothes that appeared to be his size. “Did you check with the front desk on getting your own room?”
Mercy pulled one side of the fitted sheet over the corner. “They said everyone has shown up and checked in,” she said, moving to the other side of the bed. “You guys are just going to have to double up.”
The two men stared at one another.
Trevor spoke up. “Not happening.”
“Ouch,” Alec said without any fervor.
Mercy stopped pulling on the opposite corner of the sheet and stood with one hand on her hip. “Is this your subtle way of saying you want to sleep with me? Is that what’s happening here? Because you really need to let this go. Y
ou’re only embarrassing yourself.”
Trevor forced himself to ignore her jibes. He may have been watching her body push and contort while wrestling with the bedsheets, but he had no interest in Mercy Ingalls.
She was too loud, arrogant, and distractingly irreverent.
She may have warm-toned skin and muscles that had their own muscles, but he held no interest in taming this shrew.
Besides, he was bone-tired.
At the crack ass of dawn, he had arranged for a helicopter to fly them to Wilder, arriving by late morning and gaining an hour thanks to crossing time zones. They left the small town by noon and drove over ten hours to Albuquerque, where they lost one woman and were ambushed by another who made his blood boil for more reasons than he cared to admit to. They drove another ten hours to Findling, Utah, checking in at some small hotel chain less than thirty minutes from the research facility.
Dog piling onto a day that was already frustrating as fuck, the lithe but deadly termagant refused to talk. As in refused to answer a single fucking question teed up by either Alec or Trevor the entire drive to Utah.
Adding insult to injury and despite being well past the midnight hour, the emo demon insisted on an impromptu trip to the local twenty-four-hour Walmart for what she called “essentials.”
Thankfully, Alec agreed to go with her allowing Trevor some time alone to take a quick shower and make a past due phone call to his sister, Amber, in London, where she was just waking up.
And now the bane of his existence expected him to sleep in a double bed with his partner.
This was where he drew the line.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Trevor volunteered. “Just hand me a set of those pus-covered sheets, and I’ll be fine.”
“Men are ridiculous,” Mercy said, whipping the sheet open and draping it over the fitted sheet. “Don’t tell me you guys aren’t secure enough in your masculinity to share a bed?”
Alec balked, “We’re two men weighing in at over two hundred pounds each. A double-sized bed is barely large enough for one of us, let alone two.”
“You could always spoon,” she replied with a shrug.
Trevor’s eyes shot up.
“She’s fucking with us,” Alec said, falling on the bed as soon as she was done making it. “Let’s try to get a couple of hours of sleep prior to go time.”
Before Trevor could return to the bathroom to change out his towel with the briefs and jeans, he froze as Mercy began to wiggle out of her skintight pants.
“Whoa,” Alec said, popping back out of bed and holding his hands out in front of him. “You can’t just strip in front of us. Jesus, Mercy.”
She appeared genuinely surprised, bending over to pull out one leg and then the other. “What? I’m wearing underwear.”
She grabbed the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head while she said, “What’s the difference between this and a two-piece bathing suit?”
Alec turned away as if his eyes were on fire. While Trevor’s remained transfixed on the smooth olive complexion that covered her toned body and then became conflicted between the matching lace bra and panties that were somehow both dainty and sexy.
Alec threw a pen at him. “Jesus, man, stop looking at my girlfriend’s naked sister.”
Mercy's eyes flew to Trevor just as he managed to look away as Alec fished through one of the plastic bags and threw what looked to be a man’s large black T-shirt at her.
Her hand flew up and caught the shirt in midair. “Calm down, Grandpa. I’ve got bathing suits that cover less than this.”
“That’s Not. The. Point,” Alec insisted.
She popped the T-shirt over her head. “There, happy?”
No, Trevor thought to himself. Not happy. Not at all happy.
The cool night air gripped Mercy as she silently closed the door to the hotel room. Alec had parked the SUV a couple of spaces down, so she tiptoed in that direction, wearing nothing but the men’s size large T-shirt Alec had thrown at her the night before. She had her clothes wadded under her arm and her boots dangling from her fingertips.
She shivered as goose bumps erupted on her bare arms and legs, the security lights leaving off a pale cloud of light to illuminate her way.
It had taken longer than expected, lying in bed and waiting for Alec’s and Trevor’s breaths to grow deeper and steadier.
She attributed Alec’s insomnia to the anticipation of saving Loren and doing some pretty serious groveling.
What caused Trevor’s constant shifting and resettling was no mystery either, as it didn’t take a genius to deduce that saving professional face and maybe garnering a promotion along the way, the cause for his tossing and turning.
And then there was Amber, the girlfriend on the phone.
Another likely incentive for wrapping this up and making it home in time for Christmas.
You know, just your typical win-the-day, screw-the-girl and make-a-few-more-bucks-for-a-job-well-done kind of day in the life of a mercenary man.
Unfortunately, what Amber didn’t know was she was just one of many gullible and unsuspecting women who thought she was the “only one.” In reality, she was just one in a large pool of play toys for him to choose from on any given day on a number of continents.
Mercy stared at the back of his head, laying on one muscled bicep. Her eyes traversed over the rest of his body, the sheet coming just to his waist, her breathing becoming more labored and restricted at the thought of joining him beneath that sheet.
She wondered what it would take to make him lose his mind. To be that one person to make him wild with desire and lust. And to watch him, firsthand, totally irrevocably lose his ever-loving shit.
Oops, ever-loving feces.
Mercy thought she’d lose her own mind waiting for both men to fall asleep, patience not being one of her strengths.
Finally, they drifted to sleep, and she grabbed her clothes with her heart beating like a drum in her chest and her lungs pounding out breaths and made it outside with them none the wiser or awake.
She gently laid her boots on the ground and quickly shimmied into her snug leather pants from yesterday, leaning on the Range Rover for leverage.
She removed the extra-large men’s T-shirt and pulled on her much smaller shirt and camo jacket. Hopping up and down as she pulled on her snug leather pants, she glanced at the Rover and considered fishing through some of the weapons in the back. Maybe tucking a knife in her boot and a Sig Sauer in the waist of her pants.
As difficult as it was, she decided against it, knowing the only chance her plan would work was for her to walk in unarmed and contrite.
She pulled on her boots while leaning against the Rover and gathered the weapons out of the back of the SUV, tossing them behind a dumpster sitting along the side of the parking lot.
Her plan was that with no wheels or arsenal of weapons, the former soldiers, now company men, would give up and go home like good little corporate soldiers.
She could only hope. If there was one thing Alec and Trevor had in common, it was tenacity.
During yesterday’s drive, they all but assaulted her with their interrogative skills but had no luck. What they didn’t know was that nothing short of physical torture could’ve compelled Mercy to spill information. Information that could potentially serve to get them hurt rather than to assist her efforts.
She also knew that the plan they devised to storm the lab was fraught with failure and, more importantly, potential harm. But she went along with it, providing entry and exit points that didn’t exist and agreeing to a plan that would never work.
The best chance they had for all of them to remain breathing and get Loren out was for Mercy to go in solo.
Zipping up her cropped camo jacket, she pressed the key fob to unlock the driver’s door and slowly opened it, hoping the dinging noise wouldn’t be heard from the other side of the hotel door.
She pressed the engine button, and it began to hum.
Leaving the men
behind with no transportation or weapons was a dick move. She reasoned that, at the very least, they had the pistols that were strapped to their waists.
Not enough to storm the castle but plenty to protect themselves.
But of all her options, she knew that this was the one Loren would approve of the most because she would rather cut off her own arm than put others in harm’s way.
Loren had often said that being self-sufficient was the key to success. And that together, the sisters had a much better chance at solving problems and removing obstacles than relying on others.
She pulled out of the parking lot, glancing at the hotel room door through the rearview mirror, and released the breath she’d been holding like a safety net.
Making her way to a deserted parking lot, she pulled into a space far from any security lights and grabbed her phone, sending a text with a brief update to Cara and Madame Garmond and then inputting the address of the Center into the GPS app.
In the past, she hadn’t paid much attention to the roads to and from the lab as their rides consisted of going over the details of the upcoming job or providing Jasper and Dr. Halstead the postmortem updates.
She glanced at the approximate arrival time.
In twenty-six minutes, she’d be back to the one place she swore she would never return.
But at least she’d see Loren again.
Assuming she would even appreciate it.
In fact, she’ll probably be seething with anger.
The very thought brought on an onslaught of nerves sparked by a lethal mix of anticipation and retribution.
Finally having the chance to prove herself.
And maybe even relinquish some payback for that one starry night on the coast of Italy when Mercy had made the hormone-riddled decision to believe the smooth words of a very charming and dangerous man.
Chapter Four
“Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.”
― Claude Monet