The Price of Valor

by Susan May Warren

  Jenny clipped her line into a carabiner hooked into the wall. “He has a cell phone. He can call me.” She found another handhold and pressed out, smearing up the wall before her left foot found a lip.

  “Jenny. Call him. It’ll be easier than trying to climb this stupid wall every night.”

  Jenny traded hands in the crack, then twisted her hips in and reached for another jug. Her right foot found the top of an undercling, and she pinched it with her left. “Listen. I bared my soul to him and the guy just looked at me—”

  “You were being attacked!”

  Jenny wiped her forehead with her arm. “I know. But I used all my emotional energy saying it the first time. I’m not saying it again.” Her arms shook, sweat dripping between her shoulder blades. She reached up for a slope with her left hand and cupped her hand over it. Her hand was slick, though, slipping fast.

  “Why not?”

  Jenny looked down at her. “Really?”

  Aria’s mouth closed. “It’s just . . .”

  “If you tell me to give him a chance, I’m going to—”

  “What? I have your life in my hands,” Aria said, grinning.

  Jenny stuck out her tongue at her.

  “I just think you were both under a lot of stress and—be careful!”

  “I got this!”

  “You’re almost there!”

  She moved her left foot onto the top of an undercling and pivoted to the outside edge, moving her center of gravity in.

  Oh, her entire body had started to shake.

  “You can do it!” Aria shouted.

  Yes. She needed a win today, something to make her stop thinking about whether Orion wasn’t calling her because, well, because she’d been right all along.

  He wanted a wife who didn’t come with her kind of scars.

  Her kind of sins.

  A wife who could give him a family.

  She shoved her right finger into a pocket to steady herself, then moved her right foot out to a slope and used the dynamic energy to grab a jug with her left hand and walk up the wall, pressing hard for the overhanging ledge above.

  Really, she didn’t blame him. He wasn’t the first guy who’d walked away from her. And he probably wouldn’t be the last.

  No, he would most definitely be the last.

  Her right hand closed over the skinny ledge and she wrapped her thumb around her fingers for extra support.

  There, see, she—

  Her foot slipped.

  She careened off the rock, swinging in midair.

  Aria caught her. “I saw that coming.”

  Jenny looked down at her. “I almost had it.”

  “Yeah, you did,” Aria said as she lowered Jenny to the mat. “You okay?”

  “Are you?”

  Aria wore her dark hair back, no makeup, her brown eyes bright despite a full day at work. Jenny blamed Jake for her best friend’s constant happiness. “Yeah. But I promised to meet Jake tonight, so I don’t have time for another go.”

  “Really?”

  “He taught a scuba diving class tonight. I haven’t seen him all week.” She worked off her harness. “I really think you should talk to Orion.”

  Jenny grabbed a towel, wiping her face. “That’s the last thing I’m going to do.”

  “Jenny—”

  “Listen, I get it. I took the chance that he’d walk away from me when I told him, and now I just have to . . .” She blew out a breath, refused to let the ache pool in her chest. “I just have to live with it. I’ll be fine.”

  She made to move past her, but Aria caught her arm. “But he won’t.”

  Jenny stilled. “What?”

  “He’s not okay, Jenny. According to Jake, he really hurt his knee in the assault, and he’s been working out for two weeks trying to get himself put back together.”

  Jenny stared at her.

  “Could it be that maybe there’s something going on inside his head that isn’t about your conversation and might just be about the fact that he didn’t protect you?”

  Jenny could barely form the words. “You think Orion is staying away from me because he thinks he should have protected me?”

  “Heart doctor,” Aria said quietly.

  “Huh,” Jenny said. She picked up her water bottle and headed toward the door.

  Scarlett stood at the glass on the other side. She wore a pair of yoga pants, a workout jacket, and running shoes. Her hair was wet.

  Jenny opened the door. “I didn’t know you worked out here.”

  “Yeah. I just started,” Scarlett said. “North got me fixed up with a membership. I came to swim. But I saw you two climbing. Good job. I’m not much of a climber, but that looked hard.”

  “It is,” Aria said. “You headed home?”

  “Actually, no. I need to talk to Ham, but I don’t know how to get ahold of him. I’ve called a couple times, but his phone goes to voicemail.”

  “He’s up north, at his cabin,” said Jenny. “I think it’s off the grid.”

  “Jake says he has a sat phone,” Aria said. “He can probably get you the number. Why?”

  Scarlett made a face.

  “We know about the NOC list, Scarlett,” Jenny said. “And that you were working on decrypting it.”

  “That’s the thing. I gave it to a hacker friend of mine who worked on it.”

  “And?”

  “I think Ham’s in danger.”

  Jenny looked at Aria. Back to Scarlett. “What do you mean?”

  “That woman who had the list—”

  “Signe? His wife?”

  “Yeah. His wife.” Scarlett shook her head. “She’s lying. And not just about Jackson. Signe Jones is a terrorist, and Ham is in serious trouble.”

  “Come at me again.” Orion’s voice emerged on a hard breath. Sweat dripped down his face, his back. He took a step back, shook the acid out of his arms, facing North, breathing hard.

  “Seriously, Ry. You got this—”

  “Again!” Orion’s voice nearly thundered through the MMA arena of the downtown GoSports location. While a pair of boxers worked on one of the center rings, North and Orion grappled on one of the massive mats. Night poured through the tall windows that surrounded the building. The entire place contained a Gold’s Gym vibe, with a loud weight-lifting room, a sauna, and plenty of hanging bags.

  Orion preferred a real human being coming at him. Someone he could grapple with, someone he could fight.

  Someone he could pretend was an angry Russian thug.

  North wore protective gear—a padded head wrap, shin guards, body protection. Orion too wore gear, especially since his nose still hurt. He’d wrapped his knee and padded his hands, but mostly he wanted to be free to move.

  He had to figure out how they’d taken him down so fast, and how to never, ever let it happen again.

  He couldn’t get Jenny’s scream out of his head.

  “Ready?” North asked.

  “Just—”

  North rushed him, and Orion sidestepped him, pivoted, and slammed his fist into his ear as the man went by. Shot his knee into his leg, then swept it.

  North hit the mat. Stared up at Ry. “I think you got this.”

  Orion danced back. “Again.”

  North got up. Unclipped his head wrap and dropped it on the mat. “Nope. I’m tappin’ out. You’re a lean, mean, fightin’ machine, and I need a burger.”

  Orion picked up his water bottle and squirted water into his mouth. His knee hurt tonight. But he needed a little hurt in his life to remind him of his stupidity. He’d been off his guard, a little lovesick, thinking way too much about Jenny and her arms around him as he’d driven them through the city on that Vespa. Thinking about their future and whatever it was that still stood between them.

  Then, Bam! He’d been flattened and—

  “Shake it off, Starr. You’re okay. Everybody lived.” North tossed a towel at him.

  Orion looked at him. North had a quiet, almost lethally cool ma
nner about him. He never got rattled. Not even in Afghanistan with his buddies dying around him.

  If it hadn’t been for North, Orion might not have made it home, so he respected the guy. But it was still a little unfair that North didn’t walk around with any demons.

  North peeled off the rest of his gear. “Is this about Jenny?”

  Orion was unwrapping his hands. “It’s about me being off my game. Letting a couple Russians jump me. I know better. I trained better.”

  “You’re not a one-man army,” North said.

  “What you mean is that I’m not a SEAL.”

  North grinned. “Yep.”

  Orion threw one of his gloves at him, and North ducked, but he grabbed his water bottle and headed toward the locker room.

  Jerk. Especially since the PJs went through Hell Week and spec ops training too.

  But Orion was trained to save people under fire. Not to start the battle. Still, he should be able to take down a couple untrained street fighters from Moscow. Sheesh.

  Orion followed North into the locker room. North had already stripped down to a towel and was heading to the sauna. Orion joined him.

  They sat in the heat for a while. Then, as the steam rose, “Jenny had to negotiate. She traded our lives for the kid’s and his mom’s freedom. But she was ready to die—”

  “That’s not on you.”

  Orion leaned back on the cedar bench, let the sweat drip down his face. “Who else am I supposed to blame?”

  “Royal climbed back inside your head, didn’t he?”

  Orion lifted a shoulder.

  “I knew it. Your knee went out on you, and it only brought back the fiasco with Royal and Logan on the mountain.”

  Orion drew in a breath of hot air. “We should have never left them behind.”

  “We couldn’t get to them, man. Don’t you think I still have nightmares about leaving them?”

  Orion looked at him, met North’s dark eyes. Huh. So maybe North did have a few chinks in his cool Viking armor. Still, “You went in after them. I sat in a German hospital and tried to walk again.”

  North hung a towel over his head. “You gotta make peace with it, Ry.”

  “Royal’s still not home, is he?”

  North leaned forward, his arms on his knees, head down. “I guess not.”

  A beat. Then, because North wasn’t looking at him, “I thought I made peace with it. Or at least learned to live with it. I even convinced myself that by proposing, I was moving on.” Orion scrubbed his hands down his slick face. “But the truth is, I’m not at peace. Not until I find him.”

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know. I keep hearing her scream, you know? And I’m just sitting there, trussed up like a pig, unable to move, listening for you guys to save us. It sits in my gut every night. I haven’t been able to face Jenny.”

  “You think she blames you?”

  “I would.”

  North nodded, pulled off the towel, and leaned back.

  “She was talking with Martin—I can’t wait until we find him—and I told her to wait for my signal and all the while I was thinking, What if one of the Russians comes after her? My stupid knee was twisted, and I was working my hands loose, but I knew I couldn’t stop them. And it made me crazy. If you guys hadn’t showed up—”

  “But we did.”

  Orion shook his head. “I nearly lost her, now, twice, because I couldn’t take care of myself. And there’s no guarantee that my knee isn’t going to crap out on me again.” He got up. “I’m an invalid. I wouldn’t want me either.”

  North made a noise of disagreement, but Orion ignored him and pushed out of the sauna, headed toward the showers. Yes, he probably owed Jenny an explanation. But the last thing he wanted was her pity. He made himself a little sick thinking about the conversation. She’d tell him she loved him, that it was okay, that they made it and that was the important thing. And maybe it was.

  He still couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. Or dial her number.

  He finished the shower, wrapped his knee, and dressed. “I’m headed home. Thanks, North.”

  “Anytime, bro,” North said as he packed his gear.

  Orion walked out into the cool night. Overhead, the stars hung bright in the cloudless sky. The wind lifted the collar of his jacket.

  Let it go.

  Not hardly. Because North was right. Royal had climbed into his brain like a specter, and Jenny’s screams only kept it alive.

  If he wanted freedom, he needed to find Royal. Then maybe he and Jenny had a chance.

  If she could forgive him for not protecting her.

  Orion got in his Renegade, threw his workout bag on the passenger seat, and headed to the three-bedroom house he shared with Jake. The guy had purchased it only a couple months ago, on his sister’s recommendation, but it sat in a quaint St. Louis Park community, right across from a park, and Orion figured Jake had Aria on the brain when he’d put in his offer.

  Jake pretty much always had Aria on his brain.

  Orion lived in the basement bedroom, with Jake in the finished attic bedroom. So far, neither of them had killed the other.

  But Orion had been thinking about houses too, before the trip to Italy.

  Now he was just thinking about ice for his knee and maybe a bowl of cereal.

  He pulled up beside Jake’s Subaru in the alley garage. So, back from his date with Aria.

  The back light was on over the deck and Orion came in the back entrance. Set his bag on the floor.

  Heard voices and froze.

  Oh no.

  He closed the door just as Jake came around the corner. “Hey. Took you long enough. We gotta talk to you.”

  We? His gut tightened as he walked into the front room.

  Jenny sat on Jake’s sofa, next to Scarlett, peering into a computer open on the coffee table.

  When she looked up, she wore the same stripped, panicked look he was probably giving out. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” His throat tightened. I’m sorry I didn’t call—the words lodged in his throat.

  Thankfully, Scarlett spoke up. “We need to contact Ham.”

  Oh. Orion looked at Jake, who was standing near the fireplace, his arms folded. Aria came out of the kitchen, holding a glass of water.

  “Hey, Ry.”

  He nodded, then turned to Scarlett. “He’s still up north, at his cabin. But he has a sat phone. We can call him if we have to. But he’s trying to reconnect with his family—”

  “We think he’s in danger,” Jenny said.

  Orion frowned. “Why?”

  Scarlett scooted back and turned the computer around to face him. “This is the NOC list.”

  She could have punched him with less effect, until—

  “And Signe is not on it.”

  “Are you sure?” Orion sat on a nearby chair and pulled the computer toward him. “Did you check aliases? She came into the country as Stephi Jones.”

  Scarlett nodded. “Ford’s sister, Ruby Jane, is a CIA analyst. She was able to get a list of all Signe’s known aliases. We ran it through the database. And yeah, we got a hit, but not on this list.”

  Quiet. Orion looked up at her. Then Jenny, Jake, and back. “What?”

  “She’s on the disavowed list,” Jake said quietly. “The CIA issued a burn notice on her over a year ago.”

  “Basically, it means to disregard all intelligence gathered by her,” Scarlett said. “Because she’s untrustworthy.”

  “Then how did she get through passport control?”

  Scarlett raised a shoulder. “Maybe they saw Ham’s name, and hers matched, so it didn’t raise any flags.”

  “Which means she used Ham to get into the country,” Jake said, his expression grim.

  “And what about the story about Jackson?” Orion asked.

  “There’s no decryption signature package in the coding, so that was a lie, according to my hacker source,” Scarlett said. “Ruby Jane said that they were sending s
omeone to take her into custody.”

  “Ham is going to lose it,” Orion said quietly. “We need to warn him.”

  “And what if she runs?” Aria asked. “Who knows what her plan is, and if she takes off, we’ll never know.”

  “You really think she’s a terrorist?” Jake said. “Ham seems to trust her.”

  “Ham wants very desperately for his family to be put back together,” Jenny said quietly. “That can cause you to make bad decisions. Overlook truths.”

  Orion looked at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “She did run, in Italy,” Orion said. “What if Martin was telling the truth?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I don’t believe it. There was something about him that just . . . it didn’t feel right.” Now she met Orion’s gaze. “Didn’t you sense that?”

  He had nothing except a siren of panic resounding in his head. “Jenny, the truth is, I wasn’t really paying attention to him. I was just thinking about how we were going to survive.”

  She just looked at him. “Really?”

  “It’s all a big haze to me. I do remember you offering to let him kill us, though.”

  And that shut down the room. Jenny’s mouth tightened. Then, “Truth is, in the back of my mind, I thought . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I guess I thought you’d save us. You were acting so weird, though, I couldn’t be sure . . .”

  He stared at her. Swallowed. And he knew it. He’d failed her.

  “It could be that this Martin guy thought you were in league with her,” Scarlett said.

  That broke the spell. Jenny turned to Scarlett. “What are you going to do with the list?”

  “Ruby Jane works for Isaac White, on a special task force, and she’s already handed it over. He’s sending someone here, right now, to meet us.”

  “And they want us to lead them to her,” Jake said. He folded his arms. “I don’t like it.”

  Orion looked at Jenny. “What do you think we should do?”

  “I’m not sure we have a choice. If Signe has been using Ham to get into the country, then she’s betrayed all of us, especially him.”

  Orion nodded. “We need to get there first. At least Jake and I do. And we’ll keep her there until you guys show up.”

  “I’ll give you directions, Scarlett, but try to delay them,” Jake said. “We need to give Ham time to figure this out.”