Double Impact

by Tess Gerritsen

  With as much nonchalance as she could manage, once in the kitchen she sliced a piece of bread from the thick loaf and slathered it with butter. A cup of coffee and she was set.

  Pretending to ignore the murmurings of the men, she strolled back into the great room and peered out the floor to ceiling windows facing the front of the property as she negligently nibbled on her bread. The house sat high on a ridge above the valley below. If she squinted she could see the profile of a city in the distance and the sea beyond that. Miles away, she estimated. But even risking the journey through the unknown terrain that lay between here and there was not beyond her scope of comprehension. Better to die in the wilderness than at the hands of one of these terrorists. She suppressed a shudder. She needed to pay attention. Something was definitely going on. Whatever it was it could be important to her.

  Ami nibbled and sipped and watched the birds fly past outside the windows, but not for a second did her full attention stray from the quiet voices behind her. Some of the conversation was carried on in a language she didn’t understand, but most of it was in English. Kolin and another of the men had gone into town early that morning to deliver a package. God only knew what the package contained. Ami felt certain she didn’t want to know. Kolin had spotted someone. She frowned, rolling the phrase he’d used over in her mind. Traitre. He said it again, with fervor. Another of the men shouted, “Adversaire.”

  Then she knew.

  Traitor. Adversary.

  Her throat went suddenly dry.

  She gulped the cooled coffee. Kolin and the other man had run into an adversary, a traitor. They’d brought him here. Her blood went cold. At least these terrorists she knew, a stranger put a whole new bend in the situation. She trembled with a new kind of fear, but forced herself to pay attention. She needed to know more.

  In English, one of the men mentioned that Michal was interrogating the traitor in the cellar at that very moment. Laughter rumbled through the group. Carlos had gone back into town with three other men to sweep the city just to be sure none of the traitor’s friends were hanging around. Another thought that sent her tension to new heights.

  Slowly, so as not to attract their attention, Ami turned around. The Spaniard, her guard for the day, had joined his buddies in the discussion about the traitor.

  Carefully dividing her attention between the men and her destination, she eased from the room. Once beyond the doorway, she moved faster, heading for the kitchen. She placed her cup and uneaten bread on the table and braced her hands against the smooth wooden surface until she’d fully summoned enough courage to go through with the next step. From the corner of her eye she looked at the door that led to the cellar. Carlos had taunted her with the possibility of being locked down there a couple of times. She shivered again as dread punctuated the thought.

  Sparing one last glance toward the expansive hall that connected the kitchen to the great room, Ami wove her way through the kitchen to the door.

  Her fingers wrapped around the cold brass door handle. She held her breath as she pressed downward, releasing the latch with a click that rent the air like a shotgun blast in her overcharged imagination. One minuscule increment at a time she opened the door, praying the hinges wouldn’t whine. The wooden stairs that lay on the other side of the door dove downward, a bald low-wattage bulb casting their depths in gloom.

  Ami swallowed at the lump of fear clogging the back of her throat. She had to know…had to see if Michal Arad was the ruthless killer Tanner had said he was. Was he the kind of man who would end her life only to assuage his need for vengeance when she clearly had no memory of betraying him?

  Ami closed her eyes and hesitated before stepping down onto the first tread. What she really wanted to know was if the man who’d touched her so tenderly two days ago as he’d seen to her split lip and bruises was really capable of cold-blooded murder.

  Holding her breath all over again, she took the first step. It didn’t creak. Relief made her knees weak. One more step. Then another. And another until she was midway down the steep incline. At this point, if she crouched she could see the dank, musty cellar almost in its entirety. A floor-to-ceiling rack filled with dusty, unopened bottles of wine lined one wall. Storage shelves covered the wall opposite the staircase.

  “You will tell me!”

  Ami almost jumped at the shouted words. She cautiously leaned forward a bit more. In the corner, very nearly behind the staircase, was Michal. He stood over a man who looked to be tied to a wooden, straight-backed chair. Michal moved slightly to the side and her assumption was confirmed. The man, who looked about thirty with blond hair and a light complexion, was definitely tied to the chair. His face was bloody and he wore an expression of infinite pain underscored by blatant insolence. She wondered if Kolin and the others had worked him over or if this was Michal’s doing.

  Just then Michal raised his hand and hit the man across the face; his head snapped back. The sound of the blow made Ami jump as if she’d felt it herself. Blood gushed anew from his nose. Even in the low light and from the span of twenty or so feet Ami could see that it was broken. Her heart lurched when Michal raised his hand once more.

  “You will tell me now!” he shouted.

  “Go to hell!” his prisoner barked then winced.

  To her astonishment Michal lowered his hand. He stepped away from the man and she froze. If he turned around right then he’d see her.

  He moved in the other direction; she released the breath she’d been holding. Taking his time, he unbuttoned the crisp white shirt he wore. Ami blinked, confused. But his movements soon mesmerized her, made her forget all about the prisoner tied up a few feet away. The white shirts Michal wore reminded her of those pirates must have worn as they’d ravaged the ships of old. The sleeves were billowy, the front double-breasted. When he shouldered out of the flattering fabric, her breath trapped in her lungs all over again at the sight of his broad, broad shoulders and back. He laid the shirt aside on a crate and turned back to his prisoner.

  Ami shook off the ridiculous curiosity with his male features and focused on the poor man in the chair. If she made her presence known, could she somehow prevent further harm to him? Or would she only call Michal’s rage down on her. Her gaze went back to the man. Before she could decide if he was worth the risk, Michal had his gun in his hand and had pressed the tip of the barrel against the man’s forehead. Her eyes went wide with disbelief.

  “It is my favorite shirt,” Michal explained. “I can see that this is going to get very messy.”

  The man blinked rapidly. The sudden slump of his shoulders told Ami he’d admitted defeat on some level.

  “You think you are invincible,” he said to Michal, sneering in spite of his obvious no-win situation.

  “Enough games,” Michal said wearily. “Give me the information I need and I will make this as swift and painless as possible. Who was behind the Bellatti hit?”

  The man laughed for a moment, then his expression turned somber. “Your old friend Lofgren, for the good that information will do you. He will bring you down yet. My only regret is that I will not be there to see it.”

  The weapon abruptly fired. Fine droplets of crimson spewed from the neat round hole that appeared in the man’s forehead. But the spray of blood and matter across the wall behind him was what startled Ami from the shock that had paralyzed her with the first echo of the blast. She braced to run. She couldn’t let him catch her spying on him like this.

  MICHAL LOWERED his weapon.

  It was done.

  One more name to scratch off the endless list. One more piece of the intelligence puzzle.

  Would it never be enough?

  The empty abyss that was his soul felt suddenly even more hollow than before. There was nothing left that set him apart from those he executed for the good of the world. He was no better than the dead man now taking up space in his cellar. He was a killer.

  He stared at the gun in his hand and then at the spray of blood stai
ning his skin before unconsciously tucking the weapon back into the waistband of his trousers. He had done what he’d had to…what he’d been ordered to do.

  A creak on the stairs jerked his attention in that direction. His gaze locked with Amira’s wide blue one. The fear in her eyes told him that she’d witnessed everything. She looked ready to bolt.

  His last thought evolved into action at the same time that she scrambled to her feet. Michal was charging up the steps before she could reach the door. He grabbed her by the waist and quickly twisted as they went down on the treads, allowing his body to take the brunt of the impact.

  “Let me go!” She flailed her arms, banging her fists against him anywhere she could.

  He jerked his head first left then right to avoid her panicked attack. Before she could get in a proper blow he’d manacled her wrists.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his fury mounting at the idea that she’d not only given her guard the slip, but that no one had come looking for her.

  She swallowed convulsively, the movement of delicate muscles along the slender length of her throat distracting him for one long moment. “You killed that man.”

  The disgust in her voice stabbed deep into his gut. He looked away from her accusing eyes and got to his feet, dragging her upward with him. “This is none of your concern.” He tugged her after him as he headed toward the door.

  She stalled, tried to jerk away from his hold. When he glared a warning at her she muttered thinly, “You are a murderer.”

  In that instant several emotions coalesced at once. The realization that she truly had no memory of their former time together absorbed fully; the depth of her absolute fear of him slammed into his gut with all the force of a physical blow; the undeniable hurt he suffered as a result.

  He yanked her up hard against him. “Unless you want to be the next to die, I would suggest that you obey me.” He snarled the words like a wounded animal. The rage at his own vulnerability-a vulnerability only she had the power to effect-mushroomed inside him with each passing second. The heart of stone that beat in his chest felt strangely fragile.

  “Your wish is my command,” she muttered disdainfully, yet her eyes gave her away. She blinked rapidly, but not quickly enough to hide the brightness that glimmered there. However fearless she wanted to appear at the moment, he knew she was terrified.

  Terrified of him.

  Of what he was.

  He burst into the kitchen with her in tow. She tried to wrench away from him, which only fueled his anger. He didn’t stop, though he knew she could hardly keep up with him, as he passed through the main room where his obviously inept men loitered like the fools they were.

  With his savage glare, a hush fell over the room. He said nothing. No words were necessary. All six of those present understood their error.

  Once in his room he slammed and locked his door. She fought his hold, a new kind of fear apparently taking root. As it should. He clenched his jaw against the rage building, but it did no good.

  He glowered down at her, stilling her struggles in an instant. But his own inner battle would not so easily be subdued. He longed to shake her until she admitted the rightness of his ways. He wanted to make her see the truth. But to what end? What did it matter? “You would call me a murderer,” he roared, arguing the point in spite of the stupidity and uselessness of the effort. He slapped his chest with his palm, as angry with himself as he was with her. “The man in the cellar is a victim of my murderous ways, is that it?”

  She trembled visibly, but did not turn away as he’d expected. Instead she lifted her chin and countered, “I’ve heard your men talking. You’re not just a murderer,” she threw back at him. “You’re a monster.”

  White-hot fury blindsided him, obliterating all other emotion, all other thought. He pulled back his hand but caught himself, shaking with the effort of suppressing the reaction that was far too automatic in this tainted world in which he lived.

  She cowered in anticipation of the blow, but she did not run from him.

  He blinked and dragged in a ragged breath. It took a full ten seconds to master the beast inside him and lower the hand with which he’d intended to punish her. Never once had he laid a hand on her in that manner. Even though she had betrayed him, sentencing herself to death from more sources than one, he could not bring himself to do this.

  He leaned closer to her, using his size and physical strength to intimidate her instead. “You call me a monster,” he growled back at her. “That rotting bastard in the cellar was instrumental in the deaths of dozens of women and children. He cared not who got in his way.” He pressed her with the fiercest glare he could summon. “He will harm no more innocents. His reign of terror is over.”

  Still she didn’t back down. “What about yours?” she snapped right back at him. “When will your reign end?”

  Something shattered inside him…some protective mental barrier that allowed him to ignore what the world thought of him. That made him oblivious to it all. He snagged her wrist and jerked her close…close enough to feel the heat of his breath on those luscious lips parted by her abrupt, fear-inspired gasp.

  “I am fighting a war,” he murmured harshly. “You will treat me with the respect of a warrior or suffer the consequences.”

  She tugged at his hold, his threatening words only making her more visibly determined, infuriating him beyond all reason. “What’re you going to do, Michal?” she demanded consciously, or perhaps not, putting emphasis on his name the way she had before. In a single heartbeat his fury morphed into need, pooling in his loins like a sea of fire.

  “Are you going to kill me, too?” she taunted. “You’ve been tiptoeing around it all week. Why don’t you just get it over with?” She moved in on him, eliminating the few centimeters between them. “Just go ahead and kill me and give your men a new subject to speculate about.” She glanced at his chest and then his hands. “You already have blood on your hands, what’s a little more?”

  Her insolence maddened him so completely he could not form a coherent thought. He looked at his hands and then at her and said from between clenched teeth, “You will honor my victory over my enemy by cleansing this tainted blood from my body.”

  Her lips thinned into a grim line, but she said nothing as he hauled her into the bathroom. He waited, impatience pounding inside him, as she turned reluctantly to the sink. Her movements stiff and jerky, she dampened a cloth and waited for him to move nearer. He saw her breath catch as he did so. Was true fear for her life only now sinking in?

  A definite tremble in her touch, she smoothed the cloth over his flesh, slowly but surely cleansing away the blood and, at the same time, somehow converting his fury to something hot and wild, sending it pulsing through his veins, only to reignite the heat still smoldering in his loins.

  Over and over she rinsed the delicate white cloth and moved it across his skin, her fingers kneading, gliding, until he was rigid with need. The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered frantically, whether from fear or her own desire, he could not say. Michal only knew that he could not bear her touch a moment longer.

  “Enough.” He flung her hand away when she reached for him once more. If she touched him again…

  Glaring at him as if she wished the blood had come from his body, she threw the soiled cloth into the sink but said nothing.

  Michal closed his eyes and took in a long, deep breath. He brutally squashed the softer emotions that tried to surface. Those feelings had no place in his life now. He set his jaw hard against them. This was his life now. Even if this mission ended today, he wasn’t sure he could ever go back to being the man he once was. That man was gone. Lost to the unfeeling monster he had become.

  She had been right when she’d called him a monster.

  He was that and worse.

  “Are you finished with me now?”

  Rage renewed inside him ending his moment of self-deprecating reverie. She stood right in front of him, arms folded ov
er her breasts, staring directly at him with utter disgust.

  “There is nothing else I will ever need from you.” He hurled the words at her, making her flinch, but to his surprise, she quickly recovered.

  “Then why don’t you let me go?” she challenged.

  He could almost believe the bravado and arrogance she flaunted, but then he saw a flicker of the truth. She was playing him…trying to trip him up. The momentary glint of fear in those blue eyes gave away her true self.

  She was still afraid of him. Didn’t trust him. Didn’t remember him…

  “Answer me, dammit,” she demanded sharply, a definite quiver in her voice now. She knew he’d seen the truth and her frustration made her weak. “Why don’t you let me go?”

  “Because I cannot bring myself to let you go.”

  Her heart slamming mercilessly against her rib cage, Ami saw the truth of his statement in his eyes a fraction of a second before he moved. Those strong arms snaked out and hauled her up against him, pressing her breasts against the solid wall of his chest, rendering any thoughts of escape futile.

  “Is that what you wanted to hear?” he growled savagely. “That I cannot bear to exact the revenge you deserve?” The troubling emotions straining his voice swirled and darkened in his deep brown eyes. “That killing you would be like cutting out my own heart-the heart that I had thought dead these two long years?”

  Her brain told her to push him away…not to believe the need-filled words he spoke, but her heart wouldn’t let her. “Yes,” she whispered instinctively. Some part of her that she either didn’t understand or didn’t remember wanted to hear exactly that.

  His mouth claimed hers before she could take back the solitary word that revealed far too much of the confusion and fear twisting inside her. His kiss was hard and punishing and at the same time incredibly needy. She flattened her palms against his chest to push him away, at that same instant she felt him tremble. Just once. And her internal battle was lost.