“The name of the person who was protecting Samuel Valadian. Whoever it was in the Office making sure the information about the size of his organisation was kept hidden. Who redirected any investigations into his activities by domestic law enforcement. There would have been an electronic footprint in the data, small enough to go unnoticed unless someone was looking for it.”
“It would take a team of techs months to go through that much information,” Harraway murmured.
“Twelve months,” McIntosh said just as softly. “Hence the Matryoshka program.”
“Well?” Harraway asked. “Did Blade find his traitor?”
Tan had finished his call and he looked at Jack, eyebrow quirking. “Yes, Mr. Reardon. Do we have a name of this supposed traitor?”
Three pairs of very intense eyes focused on Jack. His back prickled, the ghost of Jimmy coming up behind him again. Only this time, Jack was the architect of the ambush. He just hoped he didn’t fall into his own trap.
“I don’t,” Jack said very clearly, “but Blade does.”
He watched them closely for reactions, getting only a raised eyebrow from Tan and a long-suffering sigh from Harraway.
“You mean, after you broke him out of a highly secure cell,” the Intel director said, “he didn’t trust you enough to tell who he was going after?”
Jack shrugged. “He’s a Sugar Baby. They’re not entirely rational, remember.” And just in case that didn’t do the job, he added, “He’s got this code. Not an assassin’s code, just a personal one. Finish the job, no matter what. Add to that the Sugar Baby factor, and ‘no matter what’ gets doubly scary.”
The silence following his final words was brittle. It was broken by Tan and for once, there was no hint of a smirk in his serious tone.
“Did Omega Subject give you any hint as to whom his target may be?”
“None, sir. Which is why I couldn’t risk him getting free inside the building again. I needed him to think I was on his side to get him back here, but now that he’s confined, we’ll be able to find out who his target is.”
Harraway eyed Jack thoughtfully. “Once he wakes up.”
With an agreeing nod, Jack said, “Of course.”
McIntosh was the first to leave, giving Jack a parting expression full of chilly betrayal. Then Harraway, head down, still frowning. Tan lingered a moment, waiting until the door was closed behind the Intel director before speaking.
“You took a risk.”
They might be alone, but the room was fully monitored, so they couldn’t say anything too revealing.
“Thought it was worth it, sir.”
Lips quirking, Tan said, “Let’s see how it all plays out first.” Then he too left.
On his own again, at least Jack could pace this time. He’d done everything he could. The rest was up to Ethan.
It was fifteen minutes before he got his next visitor.
“Reardon,” Maxwell said gruffly.
“Maxwell,” Jack returned in kind. “Sorry about the nose, sailor. All part of the job.”
The HoS touched his bruised cheek self-consciously. “So Tan assures me. Doesn’t stop it hurting, though.”
“No, I don’t imagine it’s much of a balm.”
Maxwell shrugged, then looked Jack in the eyes. “Before it’s over, I have to know. What was it? Am I not pretty enough for you? Not crazy enough?”
Before it’s over? What the . . . Jack eased out of striking range, saying steadily, “None of those. You’re just not my type, Gerard.”
After a moment, Maxwell nodded. “Pretty much what I thought. Techs say your implant is dead.”
Thrown a little by the non sequitur, Jack felt his stomach begin to churn with that pre-combat queasiness. “Yeah, I killed it so no one could track me. Had to make it look good.”
“Room monitoring is down too,” he said casually, then blindingly fast, his Glock 19 was pointed at Jack’s head. “Sorry, soldier. Orders. You’re not going to get out of this one scot-free. McIntosh isn’t going to save your arse again.”
Christ. What the hell was happening? Maxwell wasn’t a part of this. His name hadn’t been anywhere in the retrieved information.
Jack kept perfectly still, as nonthreatening as he could be. “What do you mean? Save me again?”
“You went rogue in the desert, Jack. They don’t like that. But McIntosh stepped in and said it wasn’t your fault. You were forced into extenuating circumstances. She’s not getting the chance to do so this time.”
“But Director Tan—”
“Is generally full of bullshit. You know it, I know it.”
Nodding along to show compliance, Jack risked raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. “Who gave you the orders to do this, Gerard?” Did this whole mess go further than the single traitor? Or was it really policy to kill assets of doubtful loyalty?
“Not that it matters, but—”
The door opened behind him. “Jack, we need to—”
Maxwell spun towards McIntosh. Jack threw himself across the room and tackled Maxwell. They hit the ground and the gun skittered away.
It was over quickly. Between Jack wrestling him and McIntosh pulling her gun while kicking Maxwell’s firearm further away, the HoS surrendered rather than get his face smashed in again.
“What the hell, Maxwell?” McIntosh demanded, keeping her gun on him as Jack scrambled back to his feet.
“Orders, ma’am,” he growled, slowly getting to his knees. “Reardon should never have been allowed back in after he went rogue in the desert. You know that as well as I do.”
Jack picked up Maxwell’s gun. “Is it true, ma’am?” God. If he’d been living on borrowed time for a year, then he’d made the wrong decision. He should have agreed to run with Ethan.
“Of course not.” She blasted Maxwell with the full force of her icy glare. “Who told you that? It’s never been Office policy, and never will be.”
Maxwell suddenly looked sick. Pale and sweaty, a tremble in his hands as he held them much as Jack had a minute before, open and empty. “It was Harraway, ma’am. He wanted me to take care of Jack eleven months back, but you kept him under review for so long I couldn’t get to him. Then Harraway said not to bother. Jack was your problem; you could take the fall for him.”
McIntosh went even chillier. Slowly, she lowered her gun. “You’re an idiot, Maxwell.” To Jack, she said, “You got a name, didn’t you.”
Jack nodded. Then it hit him. If Maxwell was in this with Harraway and was here . . .
Without a word, he sprinted past McIntosh, out of the room, and headed for the stairs.
Two days he waited, sleeping through the hot days, working at night. Sheila followed him around like a lost puppy. She butted his back if he didn’t pat her at least twice a minute, occasionally galloping off, only to return to her pestering after an hour or so. Jack started the buggy up every evening, making sure it was ready for a quick getaway.
It wasn’t that he thought Blade would lose. He just had to be ready for every possibility.
There was no coffee in Blade’s stockpile, but there was tea. Jack did without caffeine rather than drink it. He was leaning against the stable wall, mug of water in hand, watching the sun come up on the third day, when he saw him.
A thin spear of darkness against the rising sun, slowly growing into the shape of a limping, weary man as he got closer. Sheila, who’d been dozing under the tail of the chopper, came awake at some unknown signal. She galloped off excitedly to greet her master. Blade had an arm slung over her neck when they reached the stable.
The assassin was dirty, bloody, exhausted, and a sight for sore eyes.
Wordlessly, Jack took his weight from the camel and steered him into the stable. He shooed a worried Sheila out, then cared for Blade as Blade had once cared for him. Laying a mostly clean, bandaged, and dehydrated assassin down on the bed, Jack was caught by his hand.
“Thank you,” Blade rasped.
“Just repaying a favour.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”
“Couldn’t get much further. I busted up the chopper again.” He loosened Blade’s hand from his arm and put a bottle of hydro-lyte into it. “Drink slowly.”
Blade was up that night, still a little dizzy, but awake and rational. So they talked, and as they did, Jack came to a bittersweet conclusion. Yes, Blade’d had his ulterior motives for getting close to Jack, but not everything had been made up. Here and now, with no need for deceit, Jack found the truths amongst the lies. Blade’s cars were all real, lovingly described in detail and all named—all of them female. How he’d found Sheila wandering alone and starved of attention, an instant devotee the moment he patted her. His sweet tooth and his dislike for being subject to the controlling whims of a bureaucracy. They didn’t talk about the immediate situation at all.
The next night was different.
“You killed Valadian?” Jack asked softly.
Cup of steaming tea in hand, Blade nodded. “He died before he could tell me anything, though. Threw himself on my knife. I guess he had some courage about him, at the end.”
“I guess.” The question he really wanted to ask burned his throat, but he pushed it down. “So, what’s next?”
“Next, I will have to find another way to discover who his protector was.”
Jack snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Blade smiled. “I have my means.” He put aside his cup and stood, stretching.
Jack tried not to look, but his gaze caught on the exposed strip of lean, pale skin between top and pants. Too late he realised Blade was watching him, as well.
“Jack,” he murmured, coming closer. “I did mean it, you know. I don’t regret it.”
“Do you regret letting Valadian fuck you?” It was out before Jack could stop it.
Blade’s advance stalled. He looked away, his strange gaze taking in the night outside the stable. “No.”
“I see.” Jack pulled his sleeping bag around his shoulders. “I think that closes that conversation.”
“No, Jack, it doesn’t. I don’t regret Valadian for entirely different reasons. He was just part of the job.”
“And I wasn’t? Isn’t that what this whole bloody mess was about? Me?”
“Will you let me explain?”
“You can try.”
Blade’s shoulders stiffened briefly before relaxing. “I needed Valadian to trust me, and with his personality type, he only trusts those he controls. I had the rumour planted I was submissive in bed, and he did only what came naturally to a man of his type. He tried to dominate me. I can’t regret that because it was part of the plan and it went perfectly.”
“Brilliant. And me? What does my personality type respond to?”
“Respect,” Blade said immediately. “You will only trust those you respect, but they must earn your respect and if they lose it, then you will be merciless with them.”
Jack felt like a fly pinned to a board. “Yeah? So you think you earned my respect?”
“Not entirely. You don’t trust me, Jack, and I don’t blame you for that. I treated you very unfairly in this.” He swallowed hard. “But I do trust you. And that’s why I don’t regret that night.”
“Liar. You hated it. I drove you beyond your control and you don’t like that.”
“That’s true. I don’t like losing control. There is so much about my . . . about the world I have no control over, that what control I do have, I won’t give up.”
Blade came a step closer, so Jack could smell him—sweat, tea, and antibacterial cream. Tentatively, Blade nudged at Jack’s knees.
“What you did, that’s never happened before. And . . . I liked it. An awful lot.”
Jack really wanted to believe him. “So the awkwardness after, the way you turned away, that was . . . you realising you still had to betray me to Valadian.” Involuntarily, his knees parted.
“Yes.” Blade eased between his legs and, after a moment’s hesitation, took off his shirt. “I’d like to make it up to you.”
“No.” It was out, like his knees parting, without a thought.
The assassin slowly ran fingers through Jack’s hair. “Why not?”
So many reasons why not, but what Jack said was, “That’s not a good reason to have sex.”
Blade’s lips twitched. With deliberate slowness, he shifted one leg to outside Jack’s, then the other. He sank down to Jack’s lap. “Then what’s a good reason?”
Carefully keeping his hands to himself, Jack asked in what he hoped was a level tone, “What are you doing?”
The smile almost reached those impenetrable eyes. “Seducing you. Turnabout is fair play, after all.”
Jack’s laugh was as involuntary as everything else he’d done in the past five minutes.
“So,” Blade said, sliding an inch closer, “a good reason?”
Why was he fighting this? Wasn’t he already drowning in all the bad things? What was one more wrong decision?
“Well,” he said, drawing it out as he put his hands on Blade’s hips. “One I’ve always found to be good is . . .” Fingers tightening, he pulled the man closer so their erections met. “Mutual attraction.”
Ethan slid a hand around Jack’s neck, his fingers questing up into his hair. The other he pressed to Jack’s chest, right over his heart. The assassin smiled almost shyly when the beat tripped and then pounded harder. It was echoed in Jack’s dick as Ethan rocked against him slowly. Looking up into those strange, empty eyes wasn’t quite the disturbance it had started out as, not now Jack knew to look beyond them. The gentle dip of stupidly long lashes, the flush on his pale cheeks, the way his full lips parted on a low moan. Ethan’s dick rubbed over his own, hard and insistent.
And this, too, wasn’t a lie. This wasn’t retribution or returning a favour. Ethan wanted him. Maybe even as much as Jack wanted him right then.
“I think,” Ethan murmured, tilting his head towards Jack, “that requirement is fulfilled.”
Of their own accord, Jack’s hands slipped from Ethan’s hips around his back, running his fingers over all that smooth, warm skin. Over the faint scars that had broken Jack’s restraint back in the cave.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “More than.”
In his position, Ethan had the chance to take charge, to direct and dictate. The fingers in Jack’s hair curled and tugged, lifting Jack’s face up to Ethan’s. His white eyes fixed on Jack’s mouth. Chest heaving, Ethan licked his lips, then lowered his head.
Jack didn’t move. Couldn’t move. The image of Ethan kissing Valadian flashed before his eyes, and yet he didn’t move. There was still anger at that moment. At Valadian for taking something he should never have had in the first place. At Ethan for letting it happen, for encouraging it, even. But here and now, all Jack could think was it had looked like kissing Ethan Blade had been amazing. Of all the wrong, bad decisions he’d already made, this would be the worst, but he didn’t move.
Ethan kissed Jack’s jaw.
Relief and regret warred for a nasty moment, and then Ethan nipped his skin before licking away the sting. He pressed his body to Jack, sleek and limber, thighs clamping tight to Jack’s hips. Jack forgot the moment, forgot the bad decisions, forgot the world, and wrapped his arms around Ethan, moaning as the man devoured his stubbled jaw on his way to Jack’s ear, to his hair, to his neck, and back again.
“Jesus,” Jack hissed as he turned to give Ethan access to the other side.
“Should I stop?”
“Hell no.”
“Good. Shirt off.”
Between them they wrestled Jack out of his shirt. Then Ethan was draped all over him, skin to skin, his mouth working across Jack’s shoulders, his throat, his biceps. Ethan touched and traced every inch of his chest, then skimmed over the desperate bulge in Jack’s pants, never quite getting there.
Deciding he needed a lesson, Jack slid a hand between them and cupped Ethan’s dick through his pants. Ethan ground into his hand, then g
roaned and melted when Jack squeezed.
It was all too much and not enough.
“Goddamn,” Jack muttered as he went for the fastenings of Ethan’s pants.
Chuckling, Ethan helped him and retreated long enough to shuck the pants. Then he was right back, straddling Jack and holding on for his life as Jack wrapped his dick up again in his hand.
“Jack,” seemed about the only word in Ethan’s vocabulary as he writhed on Jack’s lap. All of his coordination and control was lost as he clutched at Jack’s shoulders, back arching as he thrust into Jack’s fist roughly.
And still, nowhere near enough.
Ethan let out a startled yelp when Jack pushed him off his lap. Jack stood and caught him around the waist, then pulled their bodies flush. More contact, more skin, more of everything.
“Bed,” Jack growled.
With a huffed laugh, Ethan agreed, and they stumble-danced into the other room of the stable. Thankfully, Sheila was out roaming. Jack was so desperate, however, he probably could have lifted her physically and thrown her out.
There was a sleeping bag already on the bed and, after Jack all but dropped him onto it, Ethan watched avidly while Jack stripped in record time. By the time he tumbled down on the bed, Ethan had produced a condom and lube from somewhere. Now that he knew why Ethan had them on hand, Jack hesitated, but a single stroke from the assassin obliterated his doubts. He took the gear and put it aside for later use. Right this moment, he needed to touch, to taste, to drown.
Christ. So much of everything, right here. Hot skin and sleek muscles, dextrous fingers and strong hands, debauched moans and wanton kisses. Everything was in motion, falling into rhythm, and Jack lost himself in listening to Ethan losing control.
He fell so deep into it that when he reached Ethan’s dick, he had no capacity to tease or linger. He just swallowed him down and sucked long and hard. Ethan bucked and writhed, begging within minutes, coming with a strangled shout minutes after that.
Jack barely stopped to lick his lips. He grabbed the gear off the crate, covered two fingers in lube, and slid one into Ethan’s relaxed body. Ethan submitted with a throaty purr and hooked his ankles together at the base of Jack’s spine. Jack tried to take it slow, to make sure Ethan was ready, but the man under him was impatient.
Where Death Meets the Devil Page 31