Lost and Found (Masters and Mercenaries: The Forgotten Book 2)

by Lexi Blake

She looked up, and his face was an icy mask. “Owen?”

  “Dr. Walsh, if you’ll take your seat we can continue.”

  She stepped back, feeling the tears coursing down her cheeks. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  His voice was as cold as the look in his eyes. “I didn’t want to give up my cover, but it’s obvious to me you won’t cooperate until you realize no one is coming for you. I know you won’t believe me, but we saved you earlier today. You might deserve prison, but we won’t be the ones to put you there. You have information we need. Cooperate and this will be over soon.”

  “I don’t understand.” She didn’t seem capable of moving past those words.

  He took a seat beside Erin. Like the redhead, he held a file in one hand. He placed it on the table in front of him. “Sit down, please. You won’t be allowed to leave. I’m with a group investigating Dr. Hope McDonald.”

  “You said you were with a security company.” The words felt dull in her mouth. She had to force herself to say them. Her whole body felt numb in a way that had nothing to do with the sedative she’d been given.

  “I am,” he admitted. “And I’ve certainly done bodyguard work before. However, that wasn’t the focus of this job.”

  It was beginning to penetrate her brain. “No, I was the focus.”

  “Yes,” he agreed as though he’d never touched her, never put his mouth on her, never held her all through the night.

  He’d done all those things, but now she understood that she’d been a job to him. Nothing more.

  She was still sleeping. That was it. This was a dream and she would wake up and Owen would be beside her in bed. She would tell him about the dream and they would laugh. He would make love to her again and she wouldn’t go to Casa Loma. She would stay with him.

  She would wake up soon.

  “Dr. Walsh? Becca?”

  She turned to him and sat down. It was okay because this was all a dream and she had to get through it. “Why are you here?”

  “Because you worked with a woman named Hope McDonald. Because she was working on a drug that erased memory and acted as a time dilation mechanism. Because Hope McDonald tortured at least fifteen men, ripping their memories and lives from them, and I think you helped her do it.”

  “Time dilation?” It was a theory, that drugs could trick the brain into thinking more time had passed than had in reality.

  If someone was administered a time dilation drug, he or she could be tricked into feeling as though days had passed in a moment’s time. Whatever was being done to them under the influence of the drug would seem to go on forever.

  Like what had happened to her.

  She couldn’t stop it now. She wasn’t dreaming and she hadn’t been back then. It had all been real. What she’d gone through had been real.

  Pain flared through her as she hit the floor hard. She crawled to the trash bin in the corner and emptied her stomach.

  “Fuck,” Erin said before the door opened and slammed closed again.

  “Becca? Becca, let me help you.” Owen was on his knees beside her.

  But she wouldn’t accept his help. She wouldn’t accept anything from him again.

  She was alone, and she had no idea what he was going to do to her.

  Becca held on to the trash bin and prayed she made it through the next couple of hours.

  * * * *

  Owen had never felt so helpless. He tried to touch Becca, wanted to help her, but she shrank back from him.

  She’d gone so pale. What had he said that made her go so pale?

  You told her everything was a lie, arsehole. You ripped the rug from under her feet and you’re surprised she fell?

  She looked up at him. “Get out. I don’t want you here.”

  He stared down at her. “Rebecca, you’re sick. It could be a reaction to the sedative. I’m sorry about that. He wasn’t supposed to do that unless it was absolutely necessary.”

  “It’s not the sedative,” she said, her skin pale. “It’s being kidnapped. It’s finding out you’re an asshole. Go away.”

  “I’ll get you a cold rag.” Wasn’t that what she needed? Nick’s wife Hayley was pregnant and he always got her a cold rag when she was feeling sick to her stomach.

  He turned and walked out the door, careful to lock it. She was sick, but she was strong, too, and he wouldn’t put it past her to try to run.

  “I need Tucker,” he said. Becca was sick. She needed a doctor and they were three hours away from Toronto. Tucker would have to do.

  “He’s about fifteen minutes out. I just got off the phone with Sasha and he said there’s something wrong with Tucker.” Jax glanced up from his laptop. He’d set up in record time. The living area of the cabin they’d rented was covered in high-tech stuff. The minute they’d gotten here, they’d set up security equipment and then the interrogation room where Becca was currently shaking.

  He’d made her sick. He’d seen the minute she’d realized he hadn’t come for her, that he was the enemy. A light had died in her eyes.

  Ezra strode in from the kitchen carrying a can of soda. “Erin wasn’t lying about the sympathetic nausea thing. Theo’s locked up in the bathroom with her. Where is everyone?”

  When they’d realized what Green was planning, they’d scattered. Erin and Theo had gotten the cabin, and along with Jax and River, had gone out to open it up. He and Ezra had gone to the Huisman building to collect Becca. Dante, Sasha, and Tucker had handed her over and then gotten in their own vehicles to throw off anyone who might be following them.

  “Robert’s driving Ariel and Nina in, but they’re about an hour out. Tucker dumped his truck. Dante and Sasha have him. They should be here any minute.” Jax stood up, looking at Ezra. “You know we don’t have long. Green is going to figure out where we are and he’ll come after all of us. If it comes down to it…”

  Ezra put a hand on Jax’s shoulder. “If it comes down to it, you take River and that big mutt of yours and you run. Go to Bliss. They’ll protect you.”

  Jax took a deep breath. “Ezra, I don’t…”

  The boss shook his head. “You owe your wife everything. I know these men are your brothers, but you made vows to River.”

  Hadn’t he made vows to Becca? Not the legal kind, but his body had made a promise to hers. He’d made promises to her. He’d done it with kisses and caresses and words. He’d told her he would take care of her.

  And he’d fucking done it. He’d ensured she didn’t end up in Levi Green’s hands. What else was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to forgive her for what she’d done?

  “I’m not going anywhere,” a soft voice said.

  Jax turned to where his wife stood, Buster sitting at her side. “You damn straight will if this goes to hell. I might have to stay. I might have to deal with the fallout of what McDonald made us do, but you will be safe in Bliss if I even get a hint that Green is on his way.”

  River simply joined him. “I believe the words for better or worse were spoken. You’ll find I take those words seriously.” Her face fell as she looked at Becca. “Oh, what did you guys do to her? I told you putting Erin on her was a mistake. Can I go talk to her?”

  Ezra shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’m not happy that Owen went in there. We have no idea how she’s going to react or how deeply she’s involved in this. Until we figure out her place and where that box is, I would prefer we keep her exposure to the team to a minimum.”

  “She has to know Robert’s involved,” River pointed out. “And if you’re planning on questioning her and letting Ariel talk to her then she’s going to know Jax and I are involved, too. Or we just had a dinner party where we happened to invite the whole team investigating her.”

  “She’s got a point,” Jax said.

  Ezra cursed under his breath. “Fine. You can talk to her, but later. We need to ask her about the box, but first I would like to know why she mentioned the name Reasor and what she knows about him.”

  “D
amn it. Does Tucker know she mentioned that name?” Owen asked.

  It was Tucker’s greatest fear, that he was the man mentioned in Hope McDonald’s private notes, the man named Reasor. The trouble was Reasor apparently had a nickname among McDonald’s less savory associates. He’d been called Dr. Razor because he cut so deep. Ever since the day a mercenary had called him that, Tucker had been dreading finding out anything about his past.

  “I don’t know,” Ezra said. “He didn’t say a word when we picked her up, but then we had to move quickly. I assume we’ll discuss it when he gets here. Now, we have to go back in there and get her talking. So unless you want Dante or Sasha in here questioning her, it’s got to be you and me. Can you handle this?”

  No. He wasn’t at all sure he could. He’d nearly broken down when she’d asked for him, and when she’d shuddered in his arms he’d felt her relief at seeing him. It had taken everything he had not to wrap his arms around her and tell her it would be okay. It had been easy to be cold until he’d seen her in Dante’s arms. He’d carried her out the back even as the police had walked in the front, and that fucker Green had been with them. They’d managed to get her out with mere moments to spare.

  He’d taken her from Dante’s arms and held her in the back of the van Ezra had driven. All the long drive, he’d held her close and gone over all the reasons he should strap her in and stay away from her. She’d lied. At best she’d been quiet about a project that hurt people. At worst, she’d known exactly what she was doing.

  It hadn’t mattered. He’d been the one to carry her into the cabin they’d found. He’d been the one to lay her down on the bed, and he’d sat there until he’d noticed she was starting to wake.

  Now he was the one who couldn’t stop wanting to hold her.

  “She needs some time.” He looked down at Jax’s screen. She was sitting with her back against the wall, tears streaming down her face, but there was a stubborn set to her jaw. She was weak but she wasn’t out. If he had to bet, he would say she was scared.

  “We don’t have time. I think we need to be ready to move in forty-eight hours tops,” Ezra said. “If we decide she’s worth the risk, we’ll take her with us. If she can’t help us, we’ll leave her behind.”

  “For Levi Green?” The thought sent a wave of anger through him. “I’m not allowing him to arrest her. We have no idea what he’ll do to her. Or rather we do. He’ll take her someplace where he doesn’t have to follow Geneva Convention rules.”

  Ezra’s gaze was steady on him. “Then we should get her talking.”

  He got it. He had a day or two or Ezra would force them to leave her behind. Just moments before he might have agreed with that plan, but seeing that look in her eyes…he wasn’t sure what he was doing. He needed to be cold.

  “Be honest with her,” River said. “I’ve been where she is, and Jax didn’t win me back by being a bastard.”

  “I did it with sex,” Jax admitted with a grin.

  River’s eyes narrowed on her husband. “You did it by convincing me you loved me.”

  “I don’t love her.” Owen couldn’t love her. It would be dangerous to love her. Dangerous for her. Damn dangerous for him. He couldn’t love the woman who’d had a hand in doing this to him and his brothers. She couldn’t love a man who’d betrayed his team.

  River looked at him, disappointment stamped on her features. “Then be kind to her because it’s the right thing to do. Having some kind of revenge on her won’t help any of us now, and yes, it’s easy for me to say because I’m not the one who lost her memory. But it’s still the truth. I know that if I was in her position, you would have two choices. Convince me to help you by showing me your cause is just. Or torture me until I have to talk.”

  “No one’s bloody well touching her.” The words came out before he could think about them.

  River and Jax shared a look. Yes, he’d just given away more than he’d wanted to.

  There was the sound of a car coming up the gravel drive and it had Owen reaching for his pistol.

  Buster sat there and thumped his tail.

  “It’s fine,” Jax said, looking down at the monitor. “It’s the boys.”

  Ezra unlocked the door and Dante strode in followed by Sasha and Tucker.

  “You will have to talk to him,” Sasha said, shaking his head. “He’s now absolutely certain he’s a serial killer.”

  Dante huffed. “So much drama. If you were a serial killer then be happy that now you are not. Stop whining about it or I might become the serial killer.”

  Tucker’s jaw was tight. “She knew me. She took one look at me and she ran. How could we have been wrong about that? She called me Reasor.”

  “Hutch checked on the passports Hope might have used on each of you,” Ezra said. “It’s obvious we missed something. But we couldn’t find any evidence that a doctor named Reasor ever set foot in Kronberg. That name isn’t on any accounting or human resources documentation. As far as we can tell, Dr. Reasor never existed.”

  “Except I did,” Tucker insisted. “McDonald erased me. She erased my memory and then she got rid of my existence.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Ezra replied. “She didn’t have that kind of power.”

  “But she worked with people who did.” Tucker was pacing the floor, his hands shaking slightly. “She worked with The Collective. They could do things.”

  “It’s very difficult to completely erase a person,” Ezra said quietly.

  “You don’t think we’ve pointed this out to him?” Dante sank down to the couch. “We spent hours on the road trying to explain this to him. But he’s right about one thing. She was terrified of him.”

  He had a few words to say to Dante. “Maybe she should have been terrified of you. Did you even think before you sank that needle into her neck? You had no idea what kind of reaction she would have to that drug.”

  If it bothered Dante at all, he didn’t show it. He merely shrugged and sat back. “I decided she would react more poorly to being taken into custody.” He frowned suddenly, looking to Ezra. “I had no choice. I had very little time to make a decision, and if you’d seen her, you would have done the same thing.”

  “She wasn’t in her right mind.” Sasha backed up his friend. “I’ve seen people with that look in their eyes. She was ready to fight like a wild cat, and she wouldn’t have listened to reason. Dante did the only thing he could.”

  “Don’t do it again,” Owen warned.

  Dante’s eyes flashed. “You’re not in charge of me.”

  He needed to make a few things clear to the man. “I’m bloody well in charge of her, and you’ll do well to remember it.”

  Dante sent him his middle finger. “Fuck you, Shaw. You shouldn’t be here in the first place. I should have known you would take her side.”

  “She was there,” Sasha argued, pointing toward the screen that showed Becca staring at the door as though wondering when they would come back, what they would do to her. “She was in that lab. No one who wasn’t there would have said those things. She worked with McDonald. Hell, she worked on Theo and you’re defending her?”

  “We don’t know what she did there.” It was perverse, but he couldn’t call back the words. He was well aware that moments before he’d made those arguments himself, but that was before she’d cried in relief at the sight of him.

  “We know that she ran away and never spoke of the experience,” Sasha said. “If she found out what was happening and she didn’t tell the world, she’s just as guilty as McDonald.”

  “We have no idea why she ran, if she ran,” he shot back.

  “He learns,” River said.

  Those words seemed to stop everyone in the room. They all turned and looked to River.

  “I’m the only one here not so involved in this that I can’t see straight,” River said, her arm going around her husband’s waist. “I understand that you heard a couple of sentences she said, and you’ve found her guilty without even asking h
er the questions. Ask her why she walked away, and don’t do it like you’re the damn police. You’re not. Tell her who you are. Explain to her why it’s important that she tell you the truth.”

  “And if she’s still working with them?” Ezra asked.

  “Then we’re not any worse off than we were before. If she’s working with them it doesn’t matter if I walk in there and offer her a drink because they already know who I am and whose side I’m on.” River looked to Owen. “I understand that I’ve never been in your position. I haven’t been through what you have. I didn’t lose what Erin did. But I do know where Becca is, and if you want to have any chance that she’ll end the night helping us, don’t walk in there as avenging angels. Owen, walk in there and explain why you did it. Tell her you didn’t mean to hurt her, but you got in deep with her. Let Jax explain how he lost his family. Let Robert talk about how hard it is to have no idea who he is. Tell her your story. And then listen to hers. That’s the only way we’ve got a shot at getting that box.”

  “She was terrified, Owen,” Tucker said, his face grim. “Have we considered the fact that it might not have been McDonald and the drug who made her run? It might have been me. I need to know. I need to know if I’m some kind of monster.”

  He turned to his friend, trying to let what River had said sink in. He’d gone about this all wrong. He’d heard a few words and declared her guilty without even asking what had happened and why. Tucker couldn’t make the same mistake about himself. “You are not a monster.”

  “How can you know that?” The question sounded tortured coming out of Tucker’s mouth.

  “Because I know you. I can’t begin to understand the forces that shaped you before you lost your memory. I can’t say who you were then, but I know the man you are now. I know the man who those forces didn’t touch. This is who you are without the influence of anything else. That’s not right. This is who you chose to be despite the pain she put you through. When you had your mind erased, when you were tortured and forced to do another’s will, this is the man you chose to be. Kind. Helpful. Hopeful in a way I try to understand so I can find it for myself. Tucker, we need to figure out who you used to be but only because it could help us move forward in clearing your names. Not so you can pay for some crime you committed for reasons you’ll never remember. This is who you are. That person, Dr. Razor, he’s dead and he’s not coming back. You’re Tucker. You’re who you are right now, and that’s a man I’ll fight beside. That’s a man I’ll let watch my back. That’s a man I’m proud to call my brother.”