by Pamela Clare
Something inside him hurt to see her like this, the girl whose smiles had made his teenage heart pound harder, now battered and terrified. Again, he found himself wanting to comfort her but not knowing what to say or do. His years in WitSec had been spent shielding criminals, people who'd turned state's witness to save their own hides--drug dealers, thugs, counterfeiters. After a meth dealer he'd protected had taken advantage of a new identity to start a life of crime with a clean slate, Zac had left WitSec and gone to work apprehending fugitives, a job that had suited him better. He had no experience protecting the innocent or comforting the victims of crimes.
God only knew what they'd done to her. In the five days it had taken him to reach her, they could have...
Don't go there, McBride.
Zac reined in his imagination, sickened by the images it conjured. He holstered the Glock and knelt down in front of her. "Hey, there's a shower in the next room with your name on it--hot water, towels, soap."
She shifted her gaze from the door to him, then nodded. "You won't go anywhere will you? I... I don't want to be left alone."
He'd planned on slipping down to the little shop he'd seen in the lobby to buy them both some personal supplies and get her something decent to wear. But he would have room service bring what they needed instead. He took her hand, squeezed it. "I'll be right here."
Natalie willed herself to stand; even the appeal of a shower was not enough to break through the strange numbness that had taken hold of her. For the past twenty-four hours all she'd done is run. Now she could barely move.
She walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light, then shut the door behind her and began to undress, letting her clothes fall to the floor. She heard Zac's voice on the other side of the door, the deep sound of it reassuring. He was probably calling to let his commanding officer know where they were so that someone could come pick them up and drive them back across the border.
Deliberately avoiding the mirror--she was afraid of what she might find there--she turned on the shower, stepped beneath the spray, and let it carry away a week's worth of sweat, dirt, and fear. She shampooed her hair twice, massaged in conditioner, then scrubbed with a soapy washcloth till her skin was pink--wanting to be clean again, needing to feel clean. Then she rinsed her hair and her body, watching the bubbles swirl down the drain.
It's over. I'm alive. I'm going home.
The thought hit her, putting a lump in her throat--but close on its heels came another. So many people weren't going home.
Tears spilled down her face. How many had died on that bus? Twenty-five? Thirty? All of them journalists, all of them there because they wanted to make the world a better and safer place. Killed without mercy. Shot down.
Screams. Flying glass. Blood.
Oh, God, no! No! I've got a wife and--
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The bathroom seemed to dissolve, and she was on the bus again. She didn't hear Zac's knock at the door, didn't hear him call her name, didn't know he was there until he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around her, murmuring reassurances, lifting her into his arms, carrying her to the bed.
He sat down beside her, held her, kissed her hair, his words reaching her, bringing her back to the present. "It's okay, sweetheart. Let it out."
She couldn't have stopped crying if she'd tried, her body shaking as she sobbed out the past week's horror, her face pressed against Zac's chest, the strength of his embrace a sanctuary. How much time passed she couldn't say. Slowly, her tears subsided, leaving her feeling drained--and ashamed.
She sniffed. "I'm sorry."
"You have no reason to be sorry." He handed her a tissue, his gaze soft. "If you want to talk about it, I'm here."
Natalie shook her head. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was to talk about it. But then the words came on their own, slowly at first, then tumbling out of her, bringing a fresh wave of tears. "Why didn't they kill me? Why didn't they kill me, Zac?"
The question haunted her. She needed an answer.
He drew her into his arms, stroked her hair. "I don't know, sweetheart."
"All those people..." Grief tightened its grip on her heart--and some other emotion, as well. Guilt.
"It's not your fault that they died and you lived." Had he read her mind?
She drew back, saw a wet stain on his shirt. "I got your T-shirt wet."
"Tears are probably the best thing this shirt has ever known." He stood and drew the shirt over his head, the bandage she'd made for his shoulder still in place. "You should try to get some sleep while you can."
"When are they coming to get us?"
He frowned. "When is who coming to get us?"
"The other Marshals or the State Department or whoever you're working for. The good guys."
He ran a hand over his unshaven jaw, looked down at the floor. "No one is coming to get us."
She felt a little spike of adrenaline. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not working for anyone." He met her gaze. "I didn't come here for the U.S. Marshal Service, and I didn't come here for the State Department. I came for you, Natalie."
Keep reading for a preview of the next romance from Nina Bruhns
A KISS TO KILL
Coming April 2010 from Berkley Sensation!
Manhattan April, present day
THEY WERE USING her as bait.
Dr. Gina Cappozi could feel them following her. All day she'd had that peculiar sensation of eyes on her back, the spill of goose bumps on her flesh for no reason, a tingle in the hairs on her neck... obviously the STORM Corps special ops guys must be doing what they did best--lurking in the shadows, watching her from doorways and alleys, scanning the busy Manhattan streets for danger. Always there for her. Always watching her back. Waiting patiently for their mutual enemy to appear.
She wished they would just go away and leave her the hell alone.
Their constant presence was meant to be reassuring. It should be a comfort knowing they were there watching out for her. But it wasn't. Because even though STORM Corps once heroically saved her life, and was now supposedly protecting her, she also knew those spec ops guys had an agenda--to get their hands on him, their hidden enemy, any way they could.
And she was their Judas goat.
Well, too bad. They'd have to wait their turn at the bastard. Because she wanted him even more than they did.
Her nemesis. Captain Gregg van Halen.
Gina glanced around as she quickly took the steps down into the black maw of the Lexington Avenue subway tunnel. No familiar faces lingered in the crowd as the crush of mindless, homebound humanity carried her along in its wake. Would she be able to give her babysitters the slip this time?
Or maybe they'd tired of her game of hide-and-seek, and had already gone away and left her on her own. Maybe it was van Halen she could feel stalking her.
Good. Let the bastard come.
Just let him try and hurt her. She was ready. Her body was healed. And her mind... well, her mind was as healed as it was going to get. For now.
She was armed, of course. She never left her Upper East Side brownstone without her weapon of choice. Hell, even inside her home, she was never without her knife. Nowhere was safe for her, indoors or out. Not as long as van Halen still drew breath.
She wrapped her fingers firmly around the handle of the razor-sharp KA-BAR knife tucked in her coat pocket. Oh, yes. She'd been practicing, all right. Lunging and plunging it into the heart of a straw target, over and over, until little piles of cut straw lay scattered on the ground all around and its cloth covering was sliced to ribbons. Day after day, week after week. She'd decimated a hundred targets or more, much to the chagrin of her self-defense instructor.
She was confident now, no longer terrified of the mere thought of coming face to face with the man who'd haunted her nightmares for the past six months. The man who had sold her to terrorists and walked away without a backward glance.
Really, what could he do to her that she h
adn't already endured? He couldn't hurt her. Not this time. Not her body. Not her heart. He wouldn't take her by surprise again. He wouldn't get the chance.
No one would. Not ever again.
Because Gina Cappozi was taking her life back.
And Gregg van Halen was going to die.
That was for damn sure. The very hand that had lovingly stroked his skin and caressed his body to fevered arousal was going to be the same hand that ended his miserable life for good.
And if she was very, very lucky, it would happen tonight.
FUCKING HELL, NOT again.
STORM operator Alex Zane struggled to take a breath. Frantically, he fought against the menacing desert mirage as Afghanistan closed in all around him, binding him in a breathless straightjacket of horror. Desperately, he tried to block the piercing screams.
"No!" he cried. "Get the fuck away!"
Too late. No way out of the nightmare now.
He hugged his rifle to his body and burrowed his back into the rocky hillside above the Afghan village where he'd been sitting for hours, waiting for the signal to attack. Screams of pain echoed through the heat-shimmering air like sirens of death.
His comm crackled and his team leader's urgent voice broke over the headset. "Zero Alpha Zulu, this is Zero Alpha Six, do you read me?" Kick Jackson sounded urgent. But competent. In control. Unlike Alex.
He grasped at Kick's voice, clinging to it like a shipwrecked sailor. "What's going on out there, Alpha Six?" Alex asked, fighting the panic. Fucking breathe, soldier!
Kick's voice barked out, "Do not move in! It's a trap. Repeat, do not--Goddamn it! Drew! Get back here!" Kick swore again, and Alex could hear his sharp breaths, like he'd taken off at a dead run. In the background, the terrible screams grew louder. "Abort and withdraw!" Kick yelled, cursing. Then the comm went dead.
Suddenly, an explosion ricocheted off the mud walls of the village below. Alex flung his rifle onto his back and scrabbled up the rocky hillside to take a look. No way was he retreating, leaving Kick and the others to--
A dozen village men surged over the ridge just above him, pointing their weapons at his head and shouting. His pulse rocketed out of control. Fucking hell! He spun in the dirt and launched himself down the slope. He hit the comm. "Zulu under attack!"
His assailants swarmed after him. He had to lead them away from the rest of the team.
No! Don't do it! his mind cried out. Don't--
Gunfire erupted all around. More screams.
Fire scorched across his temple and pain burst through his shoulder. He jerked and stumbled. The world tilted, then went black. But miraculously, he was still conscious. Terror crushed his chest. He scrambled up again and ran. Blind. My God, he was blind!
He ran straight into a human hornet's nest. Vicious hands grabbed his arms, fingers yanked painfully at his hair, gun butts slammed into the soft organs of his body. He cried out in agony, striking back, kicking with all his blind fury.
His captors just laughed. And beat him until his flesh turned to red oatmeal.
Then they bound a rope around his ankles and threw him to the ground.
A raw sob escaped his throat. Fuck, no! No. No. Fuck no!
"Alex?" Kick's reassuring voice floated in on a cool breeze.
Alex tried to yell an answer. But his throat had strangled closed on a mute cry. He knew all too well what came next. And there was nothing to do but endure it. Again.
Or go completely insane.
Which he might do anyway. Again.
"Alex?" Kick called from far away. Too far. He'd never reach him in time.
The motor of a Jeep roared and gears ground. He thrashed against his bonds. Fucking damn it to hell!
The rope around his ankles yanked taut. Oh, God, this was really happening. He tensed his body. Prepared himself for the hideous pain.
"Alex!"
The Jeep jerked forward. So did he. A bloody layer of skin stayed behind on the ground.
He screamed.
"Alex!Wake up!" The order was firm and clear, like the voice of God. It would not be disobeyed.
Alex surged out of his nightmare, wrenched upright with a lurch, and hit his head on the solid roof liner of an SUV.
Jesus!
He looked around frantically as he shook off the dregs of an illusion so real it made him doubt his own sanity. Tall buildings crowded around the vehicle. Horns blared on the busy street. Men in suits chatted on their Bluetooths.
He was back in Manhattan.
"Shit!" he cried, gulping down a painful gasp of much-needed air. "Shit." He grabbed the steering wheel and gripped it to steady his throbbing, reeling head. Harsh breaths stung his lungs as he forced himself to calm his raging insides.
Just another damn flashback...
On his first op for STORM Corps, he'd spent the day sitting in an SUV on a stakeout--not on some godforsaken mountaintop fighting insurgents. Thank God.
All too slowly, the debilitating panic and adrenaline subsided. Until, finally, he was able to haltingly unclench his fingers and stomach. Fuck. He'd never been claustrophobic before. But then again, he had never been a lot of things before... until the events of the past two years had taken their heavy toll. He shouldn't have been particularly surprised when the insidious panic swept over him, stealing the air from his lungs and thrusting him into a living nightmare of hallucination. But he always was.
"You okay?" Kick asked at length.
Alex exhaled heavily. Looked up into the worried face of his best friend, who was white-knuckling the edge of the open SUV window, leaning in. Not touching or reaching for him. Just observing, at the ready. He'd been through this before, the debilitating flashbacks. They both had.
"Fuck," Alex said aloud, shaking like a goddamn leaf. "Fucking hell."
"Yup," Kick said. Perfect understanding weighted his intense gaze. That day in A-stan when Alex was captured, Kick had been half blown up by a land mine and left for dead. It had been a long, long road back for both of them.
And it wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.
But hell. Alex had really thought he was ready to go back to work. After all, the injury-induced blindness was gone, his body weight was back up to where it had been before the tender loving care of his al Sayika terrorist captors had starved it in half, his muscles were again firm and rippling... if under a web of angry red scars. He no longer flinched at sudden sounds or movements.
Much.
It was just the fucking claustrophobia that still got to him. Who'd have thought simply sitting in a closed vehicle would trigger it? He sighed. More damn fodder for his damn shrink.
He steadied his fingers and slashed them through his hair. "I don't know how long I've been out. Did I screw up? Is she home? Did I miss her?"
Her being Dr. Gina Cappozi, the object of the surveillance he may just have goatfucked all to hell. Gina Cappozi had also been a captive of al Sayika for three months, but here in the States, and for entirely different reasons than Alex. They'd brazenly captured her, beaten her, and compelled her to produce a horrific biological weapon to use against her own country, hoping to kill millions in an attack on U.S. soil. But she'd outsmarted them and foiled their plans.
After her rescue, the decimated terrorist organization was out for vengeance and had put a price on her head. A big one. Double the price they'd put on his and Kick's after his own rescue. Everyone, including Alex--hell, especially Alex--was expecting some fanatic jihadi to show up and collect on it any minute.
Thus Gina's protective detail, of which he and Kick were part. The operation was being run by STORM Corps--Strategic Technical Operations and Rescue Missions Corporation--Alex's and Kick's relatively new employer. STORM had been contracted for the mission by the Department of Homeland Security.
Initially, Alex had been on Gina's tag team, but he'd kept jumping at shadows, absolutely certain she was being followed by someone other than STORM. But no one else on the team had spotted any kind of tail, or danger, or anythi
ng suspicious at all. It was just him being paranoid.
Big fucking shock.
So he'd been reassigned to watch her brownstone--a throwaway job no one had thought he could possibly fuck up ... though no one had actually said it aloud.
How wrong they all had been.
"No worries," Kick told him now. "Dr. Cappozi's fine. She just got on the subway to come home."
It suddenly dawned on Alex that Kick was supposed to be on tag duty today with Kowalski. "Then what are you doing here?" he asked. "Are you sure nothing's happened?"
"Gina's safe," Kick reassured him. "But there's been a development. NSA picked up some interesting chatter overnight."
Alex was instantly alert. "What kind of chatter? About al Sayika?"
Kick nodded.
Alex narrowed his eyes. For many years both he and Kick had worked as operators for an outfit called Zero Unit, which was an ultra-covert black ops unit run from the deepest bowels of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But after the deadly disaster in A-stan, and another near-debacle six months ago in Sudan, Kick was convinced al Sayika must have a mole working for them--either within Zero Unit itself, or for someone higher up, maybe in another government agency with close ties to ZU. How else could the terrorists have obtained such accurate details of both ill-fated operations? Details solid enough to sabotage the missions and leave most of the teams dead. When Gina had been taken right from under their noses at Zero Unit headquarters, there had been an investigation. Everyone had been cleared. But Kick still had his doubts. Someone had betrayed them.
Alex agreed. They were dealing with an inside traitor of the worst ilk.
So they'd both quit Zero Unit and joined STORM, a similar but non-governmental spec ops outfit. They were fairly certain that STORM had not been infiltrated by the terrorists. Last year, the organization had staged Dr. Cappozi's rescue in Louisiana, as well as Kick's retrieval of Alex over in Sudan--all without leaks from their side.
Dr. Cappozi's current protection detail was just part of a bigger mission: to find and eliminate the scumfuck traitor working as a mole in the U.S. government for the al Sayika terrorists. Dr. Cappozi was convinced the man they were looking for was her former lover, Captain Gregg van Halen, a Zero Unit operator who'd gone rogue shortly after her capture. The evidence supported her belief.