Countermeasure (Countermeasure Series)

by Cecilia Aubrey

  Niklas waited for him to recover before he asked the same question again and received the same shake of the head.

  “You stupid schmuck. You have no clue, do you? You have nothing for me.”

  Niklas released the hold he had on him and Carl dropped his chin to his chest, sucking air through his nose. Hope swelled. Niklas finally understood he was telling the truth. Maybe they could bargain after all. Carl raised his head and met Niklas’s eyes. One look into his blank face and Carl knew he’d reached the end of his luck. The seconds passed in slow motion. Niklas reached for his gun again. The barrel dug into Carl’s forehead. Allison’s face flashed in front of him and he heard her plead for help.

  Niklas pulled the trigger with military precision. With no hesitation and a steady hand. One to Carl’s chest and one to the forehead. Carl’s death was quick. His body slumped forward, still held in place by the ties. Niklas shot him again on the back of his skull—a safety measure. Half of his job was finished. He holstered the gun under his arm and contemplated the mess that used to be Carl. Too bad time was short. He would have loved to play longer. Straightening the cuffs of his shirt and jacket, Niklas pulled the cap and gloves off, and, with one last detached look at Carl’s bloodied body, left the room. He hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle and stuffed the gloves and shower cap into his jacket pocket.

  He was back on the hunt. The odds were that Ms. James was in possession of the drive. He pulled the picture from his pocket and studied it as he waited for the elevator. The woman had been caught in a moment of laughter. Brushing his thumb along the glossy finish of the photo, he contemplated what he would do once he had his hands on her.

  Cassandra knew it was over the moment she heard the repetitive muffled gunshots. An eerie quiet was followed by footsteps and the door clicking shut. She didn’t move. She needed to be sure the assassin had truly left before she slipped out of her hiding place. Lying helpless under the bed had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. Her heart still raced and her stomach twisted in knots. She turned on her cell and, shielding the light of her display, checked the time. Less than an hour had passed, but it felt like an eternity since she had entered the room.

  She waited another ten minutes and then inched out from under the bed. She grimaced at the bloody mess that had once been Carl Kenyon. Regret filled her for not being able to do more for him, but at the same time a sense of vindication filled her—vindication for Allison. What goes around comes around, she thought as she stood and quietly walked over to him.

  “You sorry bastard,” she commented under her breath, and, out of habit, checked for a pulse. She knew it was a futile act, given the gruesome wounds to his legs, head, and chest, but her ingrained training compelled her. Shaking her head at the path of destruction the hard drive had caused, she closed the lids of his lifeless eyes and slowly crept to the door, ready to sprint for the bed again at the smallest indication Niklas had returned to the scene of his rampage.

  Cassandra pressed her eye to the peephole to be sure the coast was clear and exited the room. Her blood throbbed in her ears, her heart pounded in her chest. She yanked the surgical gloves off as she walked briskly to the stairwell door. With shaky hands, she pulled out her cell and hit speed dial to call Trevor. She knew he could see her in the video surveillance, but she needed to hear his voice, needed the connection with him re-established.

  ****

  An arctic freeze gripped Trevor’s insides. In a split second, the careful plan they had drafted had been flushed down the toilet with the sudden appearance of a new player in their dangerous game.

  Trevor watched the man get off the elevator on Kenyon’s floor. His heart had all but stopped when he saw the man pull a keycard and enter Kenyon’s room furtively. Trevor was at a loss at what to do. Cassandra was in that room. He was fairly certain the unknown man was not there to make a social call.

  He sent her a text. No reply. His mind spun as he tried to think of what else he could do. He couldn’t call her. He remembered the loud ring of her phone the first night they had made love and the memory of the sound sent shivers through him. Knocking on that door wouldn’t get him anywhere. The intruder would more than likely not answer. His stomach burned when he realized breaking in would put her in more danger. All he could do was watch as the minutes ticked away, trusting her field experience, instincts, and skills would keep her safe.

  Trevor waited anxiously for the man to leave. As soon as he did, Trevor would be down there in a millisecond to check on Cassandra. Suddenly Kenyon appeared in the video feed, walking toward his room. Did Kenyon know there was someone waiting for him? Is that why he was back so early?

  His concern for Cassandra’s safety ate away at him. Glimpses of their time together—the moments they’d had during the last few days, her smiles, her touch—flooded his mind and a fist tightened around his heart. He couldn’t lose her. Not when he was so close to tearing down her walls.

  Trevor was on the verge of losing his mind. He stiffened in his chair when he saw the man calmly walk out of the room, place a sign on the door handle, and stuff something in his pocket as he walked to the elevator. While the man waited for it, he looked at what appeared to be a photograph in his hand. Before Trevor could get a good angle on it, the man pocketed the item and casually stepped into the elevator. Still waiting for Cassandra to exit the room, Trevor tracked the man through the camera feeds until he left the hotel.

  “Come on, come on, Cassie!” His pulse raced wildly and his heart thrummed so hard in his chest he believed that if anybody had looked at him they would have seen the fabric of his shirt jumping.

  He was about to lose his cool and force his way into Kenyon’s room when Cassandra walked out. Her face was pale and her eyes huge, but she appeared unharmed. She was safe. He watched as she pulled out her phone and dialed. A second later, his own phone rang.

  “Cassie!” Tension and anxiety were packed into that one simple word.

  “I’m heading back,” she whispered.

  “Shite! What happened? I saw a stranger then Kenyon enter the room. Where’s Kenyon? Are you okay?” he breathed out in a rush.

  “Yes, I’m okay. Tell me you did get pictures of that man. Anything we can use? His face?”

  “I did. Why?”

  Cassandra pushed open the stairwell door and took the stairs two at a time. “He’s dead, Trev. Carl’s dead.”

  Trevor watched her on the video feed, keeping the connection with her open even though he was only a minute away—a lifeline to her until he could pull her into his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Full Disclosure

  Cassandra ran up the stairs. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest that she thought she would trip over at any minute. The image of Kenyon slumped in the chair burned in her head and all she wanted was to feel Trevor’s arms around her. She was out of breath when she burst through the stairwell door at a run. Before she could take a step out, strong arms wrapped around her like a tight band and swept her up.

  Trevor couldn’t wait in the room a second longer. When he saw her hit the landing of the floor just below theirs, he raced for the stairwell and, when she exited, caught her in his arms. His heart beat rapidly as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. He threaded his fingers through her hair, cupped her nape, and crushed her mouth, thrusting his tongue in her mouth in an emotion-laden kiss. A mix of relief and desperation coursed through him when Cassandra wrapped her arms around his neck and sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth.

  Breaking apart, he scanned her face while brushing her hair back from it. He had a good idea of the danger she had been in and his stomach sank even lower at seeing the paleness of her face. He could have lost her that night. The reality of it all hammered in his head and sheer relief washed over him.

  “Cassie!” Trevor breathed in her ear, hugging her tight against him again.

  Cassandra held on to him just as tightly. She buried her face
in his neck and breathed his warm heady scent, hoping it would erase the smell of gunpowder, sweat, and blood from her senses. Her hands swept under his shirt and dug into his back, gripping him with all her might. The tension in her body eased. As soon as the tight hold she had held over her emotions slipped, her body shook and a sob broke from her lips.

  Trevor caught her sob in his mouth and swept his tongue between her lips, intent on easing her mind. Cassandra’s sobs morphed into soft moans. Swiftly, he lifted her just enough off the floor that he could walk back the few steps to their room. At the door, Trevor quickly swiped it open and, halfway to the large bed, loosened his hold, allowing her body to slide down along his. Before her feet came to rest on the rug, they were already reaching for each other—mouths coming together in a deep wet kiss, desperately nipping and sucking each other’s lips as they struggled from the confines of their clothes.

  Once free of them, Cassandra’s hands captured Trevor’s face and she continued to taste her fill. Trevor’s hands dug tightly into her hips, pressing her groin to his. Kissing Cassandra hard, Trevor turned them around so her back was to the bed. Without ceremony, he pushed her onto it and followed her down, covering her body with his. On contact, both groaned and hands were a blur as they touched and caressed each other.

  Foreplay was forgotten in a wave of need. Trevor, supporting himself on his hands, eased back from Cassandra, held her gaze, and filled her with one swift deep thrust. They came together as one and quickly fell into a fast-paced rhythm. Cassandra’s legs wrapped around his hips and her arms around his back, holding him tightly as his hips pistoned against hers. The friction and grinding of their bodies pushed them into a fervor neither of them wanted to smother. They needed it to burn, to burn high and bright. It did. Their loving took on a life of its own.

  ****

  Trevor and Cassandra lay sprawled on the bed trying to catch their breaths in the aftermath of their wild encounter. Trevor was unhinged, reduced to raw emotions he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. The night’s events had brought clarity to his feelings. He loved her. He just never imagined that it would be to the depth and intensity he felt at that moment—to the center of his being. The idea that he could have lost her brought reality to the surface. He could no longer keep it to himself. As he had gazed into her eyes during their lovemaking, he accepted he had to risk it all if he wanted to win it all.

  He turned on his side to face her. The vision of her lying naked beside him caused his heart to lurch a second time.

  “Cassie?”

  “Hmm,” she whispered without opening her eyes.

  “We need to talk.”

  Cassandra’s body tautened and he truly hoped his next words would smooth the feathers he had just ruffled. She turned her head and looked at him, but the little glimmer he saw in her eyes was not easy to decipher.

  “About?”

  “Us. The future.”

  Cassandra scooted off the bed, searched the floor for her clothes, and, finding Trevor’s shirt, pushed her arms into it while she walked toward the sitting room.

  Trevor jumped out of bed, threw on his pants, and followed after her. Not willing to let her ignore his words or put more distance between them, he grabbed her by the arm, spun her to face him, and locked eyes with her.

  “We need to figure out what this all means, Cassie.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out.”

  “Oh yes, there is, lass. I can’t go on ignoring what I feel for you or waiting patiently for you to realize that you feel the same way.”

  Cassandra jerked her arm but he held on to her just like he intended to do for the rest of his life.

  “I love you, Cassandra.”

  His voice trembled as he looked deep into her eyes and bared his soul. “I’m scared shitless of where this is going, but I can’t ignore that it’s there anymore.” He took a deep breath, “You love me, too. And you are just as scared as I am.”

  Cassandra pulled from his grip and stepped back. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. She couldn’t deny it any longer either. She had known it as soon as she had heard him exclaim shite at the surprise of having been caught red-handed.

  When she had been stuck under Kenyon’s bed, Cassandra had come to realize that all she really wanted was to survive, to return to Trevor, and to hold onto him with everything she had. She could clearly remember the one thought that had slipped into her head: if she was destined to die then and there, she was grateful for their short time together these past few weeks, and that Trevor had been hers, at least for a little while.

  Cassandra had battled her weakness for him and lost. He already held her heart, but she wasn’t sure she could give him what he wanted—a long-term relationship. She knew what it was to love someone so deeply that your lives became intertwined, interdependent, like two supporting beams in a structure, and when that person was gone your soul crumbled, unable to withstand the weight of life without the other weight-bearing beam alongside it.

  Her parents had been that way, complementing and supporting each other. One lending the other the strength to deal with events and situations they wouldn’t have been able to handle on their own. She had memories of when her mother was still alive. Good memories. Her father smiled a lot back then. And then the void, the emptiness of life after her mother was gone. Her father had become a shell of a man. No smiles. Only order kept him from losing his mind.

  Those memories brought back her fears in a rush. She shook her head and took another step back, creating the physical distance she needed to keep her thoughts straight. As much as she loved Trevor, she wasn’t sure she could allow herself to have him—wasn’t sure she had the guts to take a chance on that type of a bond that would leave her debilitated, even handicapped, once he was gone from her life.

  She tried to analyze the pros and cons of a relationship, but the pros became eclipsed by the biggest con of all—the unavoidable certainty that one day one of them would die first. In her heart she knew she would never be able to handle losing him. She now understood the sheer strength of mind it had taken for her father to have lived through something like that.

  Cassandra struggled to find anything, any small thing, to keep Trevor at bay, so she latched onto the one thing she knew he couldn’t refute: “I don’t know you well enough to love you. You’re a stranger with your secrets and Trevor-classified information. It wouldn’t work, Trevor.”

  Cassandra’s heart wept when his face blanched and his eyes darkened to the blackish-blue color of a turbulent sea.

  Trevor had expected her to fight the truth, but he had never foreseen that she would use the one thing he was not ready to disclose as the excuse for not being able to love him wholeheartedly. They had been on this adventure together for only a couple of weeks. In reality, they really didn’t know each other, but they did know what their hearts were telling them. Their hearts had been speaking loud and clear from the first time they had laid eyes on each other. Trevor and Cassandra belonged. That was all that mattered.

  Silence stretched between them. From the way she was studying him, Trevor knew his emotions were an open book shining through his eyes as he analyzed his own reasons for concealing part of his past.

  He didn’t want her to see him as a complete lunatic, obsessed about something he couldn’t change. He feared that she wouldn’t understand his motives or all the time and effort that would be tied up in finding the truth about his parents’ disappearance. He was lucid enough to know that no woman could be satisfied with taking second place to ghosts.

  The many small but meaningful times over the past few days, when they had disclosed bits and pieces of themselves to each other, flashed in his mind. The strength and determination she displayed at completing her tasks, the vulnerability showed at the thought of failure, the many amazing skills she had honed over the years, drilled into her by her father and her CIA training—she was his woman, he was certain of that. She was his match and counterbalanc
e. She was his other half. He couldn’t picture himself going back to his desk job and living life without her. He made his decision—one that would make or break their future together.

  “My parents disappeared off the coast of Africa four years ago.”

  The first sentence was the opening of a dam. The whole story poured out of him—his past, his origins, who he really was, and his connection to Brennan Enterprises. He talked about his parents’ lives in Sligo, their love of sailing, their disappearance, the ridiculous assumptions made by the investigators, his many questions and doubts about the case, and finally, the nightmare from a few months back that had set him on his collision course with her. All of it tumbled from him in one gigantic tidal wave, the images in his head still as clear as the day they had startled him from his sleep. The weather conditions, the state of The Morrígan—his parents’ yacht—and the items found in its interior. That nightmare had been an exact replica of the Gárda’s inquiry report—with one difference: in his nightmare, his parents had still been on board.

  When The Morrígan had been discovered adrift in high seas after a major storm, the authorities had found the spare beds unused and the possessions his parents had taken with them—laptops, cell phones, house and car keys, clothes—untouched. The yacht’s lifejackets and the emergency raft had never been deployed. His parents had seemingly vanished into thin air.

  Trevor disclosed to her what he had been told. There was no sign of a struggle or any destruction of property. Even though some items were strewn around, the disarray had been attributed to the violence of the storm. No sign of foul play. No DNA or items not belonging to the couple were ever uncovered. The only logical explanation was that they had been either knocked overboard in the violence of the storm or had committed suicide together, their bodies most likely never to be recovered.

  He knew that both his parents were confident sailing the seventy-foot yacht. His father, an old seadog, was a very experienced sailor. To think that Conor Brennan would make such a serious mistake was almost too incredible to believe. He winced at the thought of his parents meeting such a horrible demise, but he knew deep inside that it could be the harsh reality.