Liam's Witness Protection (Man On A Mission 4)

by Amelia Autin

  Cody reached around Liam and shoved open the kitchen door, then pushed him inside. When he did, the blonde turned around, and Liam’s startled eyes met his sister’s beneath the blond wig that was remarkable in its resemblance to Cate’s hairstyle. “Keira?”

  “Damn it, Liam, what are you doing here?” she threw at him. “You’re not supposed to be here. Where’s Cate?”

  Like the wheels on a slot machine spinning round and round, then falling into place one by one, everything suddenly clicked for Liam. “It’s a trap,” he said slowly, knowing the truth of his words even before it was confirmed by the expression on Keira’s face. “You set a trap for Vishenko with Cate as the bait. And you’re Cate.”

  He whirled on Cody. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Cody shook his head. “Need to know,” he said softly. “This is an agency op...and you’re DSS, not one of ours. You weren’t supposed to be here, so you didn’t need to know.”

  “Damn it, you should have told me anyway.” Then his eyes widened and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Cate. Oh my God. Cate.” He spun around to his sister. “Vishenko’s on his way, isn’t he?” He grabbed her arms and shook her hard. “Isn’t he!”

  She didn’t answer his question, just posed one of her own. “Where is Cate?”

  * * *

  Cate’s throat was so dry she couldn’t have spoken even if she’d wanted to. Horrifying dreams of this moment had haunted her for years, nightmare visions of Vishenko finding her. Touching her. Owning her. She would rather die than submit to him again.

  Then she saw the expression in his eyes, and she knew she was going to die. The only thing she didn’t know was whether she would die in time to prevent him from raping her again.

  “No,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head slightly. “No.” Her fingers tightened until they formed fists. “No.”

  * * *

  “I left her on the path...told her to run if she heard gunfire.” Liam made a rush for the back door but Cody blocked him with his body and pushed him backward.

  “Where on the path?” Cody demanded. “Just, wait!” he ordered when Liam tried to fight him off.

  “Right before the clearing. Right beside Callahan’s trap. Let me go, Cody,” he panted, desperate to get to Cate. “She’s out there alone.”

  “No, she’s not. Callahan’s out there. McKinnon, too. She’s not alone.”

  * * *

  “You really thought you could get away with it?” Vishenko asked softly, dropping the hand with the pistol to his side as he took a step closer. As if his ego wanted to control her even without the gun, the way he’d controlled her years ago. “You really thought I would let you testify against me? You?” He laughed sardonically, and she took a step backward as he took another forward. “Ah, Caterina,” he mocked. “I always enjoyed that little game.”

  She found her voice. “What game?”

  “That little game you played, pretending to fight me.”

  Her breath rasped in her throat. “It wasn’t a game.”

  His smile widened. “Not at first, true. You fought me like a woman possessed. Your screams that first time...ahh, I can still hear them in my mind.” The sick, twisted pleasure in his voice, the avid expression on his face appalled and repulsed her, just as they had all those years ago.

  “You should never have run, Caterina. You forced me to find substitutes for you.” She closed her eyes momentarily, sick to her soul, imaging the terror and agony countless other women must have suffered, just as she’d suffered.

  “But none of them were as beautiful as you,” he continued. “And none of them were as satisfying because none of them fought me as you did...until you surrendered.”

  Her eyes shot open and she shook her head. “Never,” she said fiercely. “I never surrendered.”

  He laughed, an ugly, gloating sound. “Oh but you did, Caterina. You can’t have forgotten.”

  “That was the game,” she insisted.

  “Was it? You think a jury would believe it?” When her eyes widened, he said, “I have associates who will testify—truthfully—to what they saw.” He laughed again. “They don’t even need to lie under oath.”

  “Never willingly. Yes, I submitted.” And had despised herself for years because she’d done so. But now—facing Vishenko—she faced the truth. The real truth. And she knew she’d been wrong to blame herself for surviving the only way she could. I did what I had to do, she told herself now. No one else was going to save me back then. I had to save myself. “I would never have escaped if I hadn’t submitted. But I was never willing.”

  “We will never know who the jury will believe, will we?” He took a step closer. “Beg me, Caterina,” he said now. “I promised myself you would beg me again to let you go, just as you did the first time.”

  “No.”

  He gestured with the gun. “To save your life, you will not beg?”

  “You’ll kill me anyway.”

  He smiled and said softly, “You were always too smart for your own good.” When she didn’t respond, he admitted, “Yes, I will kill you anyway. I need to make an example of you. No one has dared testify against me for years—I can’t allow you to testify either. Even with the witnesses I have lined up to discredit your testimony, I can’t risk it.” He smiled his ice-cold smile. “But first I will make you beg...and scream.” His head inclined toward the dense woods surrounding them. “Go ahead, Caterina. Scream. No one will hear you...except me.”

  He was wrong. If she screamed, Liam would come running, would try to save her. If she screamed, Vishenko would shoot him, too. “You really think if you died I would want to go on living?” she’d told Liam and she knew it for the truth. She couldn’t risk his life.

  Memories of him flooded her consciousness, and as plain as if he was standing next to her, she could hear him saying, “What do you think love is, Cate?... It’s wanting to be with her when you draw your last breath...or when she draws hers.”

  An eerie calm settled over her, almost as if Liam’s arms were enfolding her, holding her safe, and she drew courage from it. She knew she was going to die, but Liam was with her in her mind and that was all that mattered. “No,” she said, shaking her head, determination tightening her muscles. “I won’t scream. I won’t beg. And you won’t rape me, ever again.”

  He cocked his head to one side, considering. “No? Perhaps you are right.” He sighed with real regret. “It is too bad, Caterina. I would have enjoyed having you one last time.”

  “Federal agents! Freeze!”

  The harsh voices came out of nowhere, slicing through the air, just as Vishenko raised his gun once more. But even before that, a hard, male body crashed into Cate’s, knocking her out of Vishenko’s line of fire as he squeezed the trigger.

  Gunshots rang out from several directions almost simultaneously, slamming into Vishenko’s body. He tottered a few steps, a look of utter surprise on his face. He dropped the gun and fell to his knees, his hands clutching his chest, while the small blossoms of red that had first appeared there grew larger and larger. Then he pitched forward.

  Pinned to the ground by the heavy weight on top of her, dazed and confused by everything that had just happened, Cate tried to take it all in as four people swarmed onto the narrow path. The smallest person—a woman she realized, with blond hair similar to her own—kicked the gun away from Vishenko’s outstretched hand while still keeping her own gun steadfastly pointed at him. Another person—a man she’d met when Alec and Angelina found her—knelt beside the body and felt for a pulse.

  “Dead,” Cody Walker said, and by his tone Cate knew he wasn’t sorry.

  A third person, another man she recognized—Trace McKinnon—lowered his weapon, then glanced in Cate’s direction and cursed fluently.

  From behind her, strong hands lifted t
he weight from her body. Only then did she realize something warm and sticky was seeping through her clothing. When she rolled over she saw Sheriff Callahan propping Liam upright against his shoulder. She watched in horror as Liam coughed up blood once...twice...then sagged unconscious against the man holding him.

  “Walker!” Callahan barked, reaching over and ripping Liam’s jacket open, then raising up his shirt to expose the two bloody gunshot wounds caused by the bullet that had entered Liam’s body just above his waist and exited out the other side.

  “Oh no!” The words didn’t come from her own mouth, Cate realized. They were coming from the blonde as she and Walker hurriedly converged on Liam, blocking Cate’s view.

  Gentle hands helped her rise to a sitting position. “You okay?” McKinnon asked her as one hand moved impersonally over the damp patches of blood on her back. “Were you shot?”

  “No, I... Liam,” she said disjointedly. “His blood, not mine.” She clutched McKinnon’s arms. “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

  He didn’t answer her, just tapped an earpiece in his ear. “We’ve got a situation here. We need a medical team, stat. No, sir,” he continued. “It’s Jones—explanations can wait.” Cate couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but even hearing only one side was enough to get the gist. McKinnon glanced around and made a face of frustration. “You can’t land a medevac chopper here at the cabin—there’s no way. The main road’s our only chance. You get a chopper there, we’ll meet you.” He listened for a couple of seconds. “Yes, sir, will do.”

  Desperate to know Liam was going to make it, Cate turned back to stare at the knot of people frantically working on him, but she couldn’t see much.

  McKinnon’s voice was sharp and staccato when he told the people surrounding Liam, “D’Arcy’s calling for a medevac chopper. I told him we’d meet him at the main road.”

  Walker stood up, and suddenly Cate could see Liam’s ashen face, bloody lips and the pressure bandage they’d strapped around his body. “The cot,” Walker said, his voice harder than she’d ever heard it. And she knew it was bad. Really bad. “I’ll get the cot from the cabin and we can carry him that way.”

  “SUV,” Cate choked out, unable to tear her gaze away from Liam’s face, willing his eyes to open. Willing him to speak. “The keys are in his pocket. If you get him as far as the SUV, you can save time by driving to the main road.”

  * * *

  Cate sat in the waiting room, apart from the others. Liam had been airlifted to this hospital in Sheridan and was still in surgery, even though it had taken them more than an hour to drive here after the helicopter had thundered away. Still in surgery is a good thing, she reminded herself. It meant he was still alive. She clung to that hope, but in her head she was hearing Liam’s voice telling her, “I won’t let anything happen to you, Cate...even if I die for it.”

  “Don’t die,” she whispered now, wishing Liam could hear her. “Don’t die.” She stared at the scars on her wrists, remembering how Liam had kissed them and called them badges of honor. She would give anything to have him kiss her again. Hold her tight. Hold her safe. But not sacrifice his life for her. Not that. She’d never wanted that.

  Cate was vaguely aware when Sheriff Callahan walked into the room, joining the other three. She knew he’d stayed behind to officially see to the disposition of Vishenko’s body, and to confer with Nick D’Arcy. She didn’t know why D’Arcy had been close by and not in Casper where he was supposed to meet her—and she hadn’t asked. She’d been too concerned about Liam to worry about inconsequential things.

  Since the sheriff was wearing a shirt again—he’d used his for the pressure bandage on Liam—Cate assumed he’d stopped off at his home. But everything seemed so distant, as if she was seeing the world through a camera lens, and nothing around her really reached her. All she could think of was Liam as she’d last seen him, strapped to a gurney, being loaded into the helicopter that just might make it to the hospital in time to save his life.

  Liam. Maybe he’s okay, she thought, desperately wanting it to be the truth. Maybe it’s not that bad. Or maybe he needed a miracle.

  She clasped her hands together and bent her head as a sudden, urgent need rose in her, a need she tried to quash...but couldn’t. She hadn’t prayed for more than eight years. Had thought what she’d suffered at Vishenko’s hands had killed her faith...in God and in the goodness of mankind. But Liam had proved her wrong—there was goodness in the world, and he was a shining example. Her knight in shining armor. If she was wrong about mankind, then...

  At this moment she fervently wanted to believe in a just and merciful God, the way Liam believed. “Don’t let him die,” she prayed. “Oh God, if You can hear me, please don’t let him die.”

  Someone came over and sat down beside her, placing her hand on Cate’s folded hands. She glanced up and saw it was Liam’s sister. Keira had removed the blond wig on the way to the hospital and ruffled her red-gold curls. Now she looked just as Cate remembered her from when they’d met last year.

  “What were you and Liam doing at the cabin?” Keira asked quietly. “You were supposed to be long gone.”

  Cate bit her lip. “My fault,” she said, guilt swamping her. “I left my books behind.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the memory came into sharp focus—Liam turning the SUV around and driving back miles for nothing more than books that were precious to her because... “Liam gave them to me,” she whispered. “I just wanted...just wanted...” She pressed the heels of her palms against her closed eyes to hold back the tears.

  Keira didn’t say anything, just waited patiently for Cate to regain her composure. Cate breathed slowly, deeply, until she had herself under control, then dropped her hands in her lap and looked at the woman Liam called his baby sister. Remembering everything he’d told Cate about her. Remembering Keira had been shot a few years back, had deliberately stepped in front of someone to take a bullet meant for him, to save his life. The same way Liam had done for Cate.

  In her head she could hear Liam saying, “What do you think bravery is, Cate? It’s conquering your fear and doing what you have to do in the instant you have to do it...”

  “Were you afraid?” she blurted out, needing to know what Liam had felt when he’d thrown his body over hers, shielding her from harm. When Keira’s brows drew together in a question, she rushed to clarify. “When you were shot. When you put yourself between a bullet and someone else, were you afraid?”

  Keira considered the question for a moment. “If I’d thought about it, probably. I’d probably have been terrified. But I didn’t have time to think about it—I just did it. It was something I had to do...because I was the only one who could do it.”

  “That’s what Alec said last year about my cousin, Angelina,” Cate whispered. “She saved his life, you know.”

  Keira nodded. “I know.”

  “Liam said—” She swallowed hard to keep her emotions at bay. “Liam said you have to go on instinct. You don’t have time to consciously think about what you’re doing. You just have to pray your instincts are right.”

  “He’s right.” Keira was silent for a moment, watching Cate with those soft brown eyes so like Liam’s, then shattered the last remnants of Cate’s self-control. “You love him.”

  Cate caught her breath on a sob as tears welled, but she fought them back. “How could I not?” she asked, choking a little. “You...he’s your brother, so maybe you don’t see him as I do, but...”

  “He’s my brother, but I know he’s pretty special. All my brothers are.”

  “Alec is a wonderful man, and I admire him, too. But Liam...” Fresh tears threatened. “I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to love anyone because I don’t des—” She broke off as she realized what she was saying. Who she was saying it to.

  “Because you don’t deserve to be loved?”
Keira asked, her voice steady. “Is that what you were going to say?” When Cate didn’t respond, just turned her head away, Keira said softly, “You’re so wrong about yourself, Cate. If Liam loves you—and he does love you, doesn’t he?”

  “He thinks he does.”

  “I know my brother. If he says he loves you, he does. And if he loves you, then you deserve to be loved.”

  “He doesn’t know...” Cate’s voice trailed off miserably.

  “Doesn’t know what?”

  “That I... I wasn’t Vishenko’s prisoner for the entire time I was with him.” The confession poured out of her. “Yes, he raped me.” She shuddered at the memories she would never be able to completely suppress. “And yes, he kept me a prisoner for...it seemed like forever. And I did fight him...at first. But eventually I realized the only way to escape was to...to pretend. To let him think he’d won. To let him think I was...willing.”

  Keira’s next words dropped like a bombshell. “I know. We heard.”

  “What?” Suddenly light-headed, Cate stared at Liam’s sister in incomprehension.

  “When Vishenko confronted you on the path, we heard everything he said. Everything you said.”

  The constriction in her throat only allowed her to utter one rasping word. “Liam?”

  Keira nodded. “All of us. But, Cate,” she said, placing a comforting hand over both of Cate’s hands again. “He already knew.”

  She shook her head in denial. “He couldn’t. I never told him.”

  “He had to know, because he wasn’t shocked. I saw his face, Cate. He... I’ve never seen him so angry. But he wasn’t shocked.”

  She couldn’t take it in. Liam had known? Had he known all along? Did Alec tell him? she wondered feverishly. Then she remembered Liam denying Alec had told him anything except who she was running from when she went underground. That Alec had said anything else should come from Cate herself.

  She breathed a quick sigh of relief that Alec hadn’t betrayed her trust. But the pain returned sharp and deep when she realized somehow Liam had known the truth anyway, even though she’d never told him. Had he known when he said, “You can tell me anything. Don’t you know that by now?” Had he known when he said, “What do you think love is, Cate?... It’s a choice. A commitment...” Had he known when he said, “I haven’t just fallen in love with you. I choose to love you...”