by Lora Leigh
Talk about the mother of all fuckups.
Micah wiped his hand down his face before turning and staring at Jordan where he stood in the open doorway. Jordan shook his head slowly. There was no pulling her in on this, but Micah knew there was no keeping her out of it, either. Bailey was as damned stubborn as her cousins were. She’d die herself before she gave up. Orion had taken too large a piece of her. He’d wounded too much of her for her to ever walk away.
“You’re going to have to let the doctor go,” Micah informed her coldly. “As well as Orion. I’m here to kill him, not question him.”
She laughed at that. A strangely hollow sound that sliced across his senses, it was so filled with pain.
“Liar,” she whispered. “You want both of them, Micah Sloane. Because I know what you don’t want anyone to know. You’re in love with the mark. That doctor raped your woman. Everyone in the community knows that Orion’s main employer worked with Jansen Clay and that he was there the night Clay had his daughter and the other girls kidnapped. He raped her, and you won’t rest until he’s dead.”
“Wrong.” It was the truth. Both of them would die before this finished; Micah would make certain of it. “You, Ms. Serborne, will be picked up by two of your fellow agents come morning. Your director will have you locked up for your own protection until this is over.”
He rose to his feet.
“No!” She tried to come out of the chair. Rage tore through her voice, flushed her face, and caused her to nearly topple to the floor as she fought the ropes. “You can’t do that. Don’t you dare. Let me help. I can help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You need me,” she cried out roughly. “I know what you don’t know.”
Micah paused. He knew her voice; he knew when she lied, when she told the truth. He had known her since she was a child, and he knew she wasn’t playing games this time.
“What do you know?”
“An exchange,” she bargained, her breathing rough as she turned her head to his voice. “Let me in on this.”
Micah shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Serborne. The family of Abijah has lost enough of its children. I’d just as soon see you live. You don’t know his identity, or you’d have already struck.”
“He wears a wig.” She spoke quickly, desperately. “I know this. I know how to tell. I’ve seen him twice. I know how he walks; I know his voice. Don’t you cheat me out of this!” she screamed.
“I can find him without your information,” he told her. “Give your director my regards when you see him, Ms. Serborne, and if you want to save your career, you’ll make certain you follow his orders while you’re with him. Because I can and I will have you taken out of that agency, are we understood?”
“I’ll kill you.” She jerked, fought her bonds, and forced John to catch her chair. He received another harsh head butt for his efforts.
“Hell!” John cursed, letting her go. The chair bounced, rocked, and tipped to the floor as she screamed out in rage.
“Gag her,” Micah ordered. “Take her to her friends. And make damned sure they know the consequences of allowing her out of their sight.”
He turned away from her, and turning away tore at him. If she ever learned who he was, she would never forgive him. David Abijah would indeed be dead, because Bailey Serborne just might end up killing him.
CHAPTER 21
HE WAS BALD.
Bailey knew his voice.
She knew his walk.
She knew how he moved. Bailey was the only person to have come against Orion and lived to tell the tale.
“She could be helping him,” John stated, keeping his voice low as they met in the living room of the apartment.
Jordan was silent, as was the rest of the team. Micah stood by the heavily covered windows, his arms crossed over his chest as he considered the suggestion.
He didn’t have the proof to veto it.
“She knows something about the doctor,” he said quietly. “She was too evasive. She kept attention focused on Orion. Whatever she’s hiding, though, we’ll not be able to extract short of drugs, and she’s trained to resist those.”
“How far could she resist them?” Jordan asked, and Micah knew what he was considering.
Micah breathed out roughly as he shook his head. “She was weak in that area. Garren Abijah oversaw a lot of her training. She tested in Mossad laboratories in that area, and we broke her within an hour.”
He watched John wince. They knew the training Mossad went through to resist drugs and their effects. It wasn’t pretty and testing was never easy. The fact that she had broken so easily wasn’t a sign of weakness, but it was a sign that she could be broken. The CIA had known that. They had kept her on assignments with the least amount of risk in that area. There were a lot of CIA agents who broke easily under Mossad testing, though. It was rigorous, and at times it had been deadly.
“It’s an option then,” Jordan suggested. “You could oversee it.”
Micah shook his head. He couldn’t oversee it. It just simply wasn’t in him at this point.
“She’s the last of my family, Jordan,” he told the other man roughly. “There’s not a chance in hell I could do that to her.”
“Were you there during the testing?” Jordan asked, his eyes narrowed.
Micah nodded. “I walked out halfway through it. Even Garren couldn’t stay for the full session. She’s like a sister. I won’t cause her to suffer in the ways it would take to break her and extract the information when I’m almost certain that what she’s hiding, she’s hiding so she can take down the doctor first.”
“What if she’s a liability?” Travis stepped forward, his brooding expression darker than ever as his bluegray eyes flicked to the closed bedroom door.
“The CIA will control her until this is finished,” Micah stated. “Her director can determine after that what she is. I won’t be a party to her torture to find out one way or the other. Hold her until we’re done.”
“She knows more, Micah,” John argued. “You said it yourself: She kept the focus of the questioning off the doctor. What if she knows who Orion’s employer is? What if she’s in league with them?”
“Travis.” Jordan addressed the former MI6 operative though he kept his gaze on Micah. “Take her to our secondary location and get the information we need.”
“Jordan.” Micah stepped forward warningly.
“Is Risa’s life worth this risk, Micah?” Jordan asked, bringing him to a full stop. “Travis won’t kill your cousin, but he can and will get that information. It’s too important.”
Micah’s jaw clenched. Was it worth Risa’s life to let this go? It wasn’t. Risa’s life was everything to him, but Bailey was the last of the family of Serborne. Her parents were dead. Micah’s parents were dead. They were all gone but Bailey and Micah, and he could never claim that relationship again.
“Travis, John. Go,” Jordan ordered them. “Transport her to the secondary location and see what you can find out.”
“Travis.” Micah stepped forward, then stopped. His jaw clenched because he knew he was about to go against every iota of training he had ever been given with the Mossad. He was going to ask for mercy.
And he couldn’t.
“When this is finished,” he said instead, “if she carries more nightmares than she carries now, then I’ll know who to blame.”
Travis shook his head. “If she carries more nightmares, then it will be her own fault, Micah. She’s an agent. She knows what we need. I’ll make certain she’s given every chance to understand we’re on the same side. After that, whatever comes down on her is on her head, not mine.”
Jordan continued to stare back at him. Micah was the interrogation specialist. He knew the drugs needed. He knew her breaking point. What was more, he knew the drug required to break her.
He inhaled roughly.
“Now is the time to speak, Micah,” Jordan warned him.
“Traditional
drugs won’t work,” he told Travis quietly before giving him the name of the hallucinogenic guaranteed to break her. She couldn’t fight its effects. She was particularly susceptible to the drug. It was her weakness.
Travis stared at him for long moments. “It’s a hard one,” he finally said. “Are you sure?”
Micah nodded. “Mossad doctors are damned good. It took them a week to come up with the drug that would break her the fastest. As I said, it took less than an hour.”
Travis nodded.
“John, call her director. They can pick her up when you’re finished at a location of your choosing. Get what you can as fast as you can.” Jordan turned to Micah. “You’re going out tomorrow. Risa has an invitation to a ball being thrown to raise money for area hospitals. She and her grandmother have yet to attend one of these parties because of Risa’s reticence. The two of you will be there. See if she recognizes anyone.”
Micah nodded. He dreaded it, but he realized the importance of it. There was no way to shield Risa from this, as much as he needed to for his own sake. When this was over, his time with her would be over.
“Micah.” He turned back to Jordan as the other man continued. “You’re getting personally involved here.” Jordan glanced at a silent Noah. “I thought we all agreed the rest of you were going to keep that from happening?”
Micah glanced at Noah as he watched Jordan silently. The commander’s nephew was no one’s fool, and he was one of the few men who had a chance of influencing Jordan.
“Dead men don’t have a weakness,” Micah said tonelessly. “But even dead men have a conscience, Jordan.”
With that, he left the apartment. There was no argument here, just as there was no denying the guilt Micah knew would lie against his soul for what Bailey would endure.
He stepped across the hall, knocked softly, then used his keys to let himself in.
He stepped inside, closed the door, and came to a stop. Kira was watching television, her weapon lying on the arm of the chair at her side. Risa was asleep on the couch. Morganna and Emily were stretched out on the floor.
“One of us should call Clint and Kell,” Kira said softly as she rose to her feet.
Micah nodded as he felt his throat constrict. Risa slept with comfortable innocence, her expression serene as she lay on her side, her head propped up on one of the small couch pillows.
As Kira made the call to the two men on backup, Micah moved to the couch, picked up his woman, and carried her to her bed. He tucked her beneath the blankets before returning to the living room in time to see Morganna rising groggily from the floor while Kell lifted his wife in his arms.
The two men nodded back to Micah soberly as Kira went to the door, checked the hall, and gave the all-clear nod. They moved from the apartment as Micah caught the door. Closing it behind him, he checked the locks, then made his way through the other rooms to test the windows and the security there.
He couldn’t still that ragged voice inside him that reminded him of Bailey’s grief at his parents’ funerals. He couldn’t still the memories of the child she had been or the decision he had made tonight.
He was getting old, he decided as he moved back to the bedroom and stripped his clothes off wearily. He had just spent the past eight hours tracking Bailey’s movements over the past few years, as well as any connection she could have had to Orion other than the Russian mission. Then, Micah had questioned her. His sin was in allowing another man to break her reluctance to tell them what they needed to know.
Why would she hide it?
Micah crawled into the bed, his eyes closing as Risa rolled to him, reaching for him even in sleep.
His arms surrounded her, his hold almost desperate as he buried his face in her hair and fought every instinct he could feel rising inside him to take her and run. He could hide her, he told himself. He was Mossad. He wasn’t just an agent; he was every second of training he had absorbed during those years. Every instinct honed to lethal sharpness. He could protect her.
Unless something happened to him. Unless he blinked and the worst happened. And then he would be without her.
He kissed her hair.
“Ani ohev otach, Risa,” he whispered on a nearly silent breath. I love you, Risa.
He loved her.
She was his heart.
And Micah feared he would never survive when he was forced to walk away from her.
“Micah.” She breathed his name against his chest.
Her hand smoothed down his torso until it lay on his abdomen, inches above the thickly erect cock that rose from between his thighs.
He ached for her; he hungered for her. But as much as he wanted her physically, tonight he simply needed to hold her.
There were things he had never expected to face when he had signed his life away to the Elite Ops. He hadn’t expected to find a woman who touched his soul, just as he hadn’t expected to face the last remaining blood relation he had or to allow her interrogation.
Now he had to face what he was losing, and he admitted the cost was much too high.
“Make it stop.” A whisper of fear in Risa’s voice drew him back to her.
She didn’t scream the words; she didn’t cry out in fear or in pain. The sound was broken instead, a drugged hiss of agony that tore through his soul. “Daddy, please, make it stop.”
Micah tightened his arms around her, desperate to awaken her but knowing that each dream could hold the key to saving her.
He clenched his eyes closed, held her closer to his body, and swore if he ever got his hands on the last living demon that had touched her, then he would kill.
Risa hadn’t dreamed much once Micah had invaded her bed. But as she slipped into the warm soothing tide that came whenever Micah held her, she felt her defenses against those dreams slipping.
She was safe in his arms. She could feel them surrounding her, his presence almost a shield between herself and the pain.
This time, when the dream came, it was as though she were watching herself, rather than being herself within the dreamscape.
She stared at the girl strapped to the gurney. Wild light blue eyes were wide, panicked, as the two male figures stepped to the narrow bed.
She saw Jansen Clay, his blond hair perfectly styled, amused derision on his face as he glanced at the man on the other side of the bed.
Risa couldn’t see his face from where she stood. Only his back. And no matter how badly she wanted to stare at him, to memorize whatever she could of this dream, still her attention was held by the woman who whimpered in distress.
“I don’t know why you don’t just kill her.” Risa flinched at the cold disgust in the other man’s cultured voice. He spoke as though his mouth was pursed and wouldn’t stretch around the words.
“She serves a purpose for the moment.” Jansen shrugged. “Besides, if I kill her, I’ll no longer have access to the trust fund her mother and grandfather left her. She does have an incredible amount of money. It returns to her grandmother if anything happens to her.”
“So kill the grandmother,” the other man ordered callously. “What good is she to you?”
“Matricide?” Jansen mused. “I’m not quite ready to step over that line as of yet.”
Yet he’d had no problem in his attempt to slowly kill off his daughter.
“Matricide would be the least of your crimes, Clay.”
Jansen laughed. “And what of your crimes, my friend? I may have no love for my daughter, but neither have I allowed her to become part of the horrific experimentations you so enjoy with the little girls you buy. Really, one shouldn’t cast stones.”
The other man’s back stiffened. “Science,” he stated. “I’ve made breakthroughs with those girls. They’ve contributed to science. Your victims have only contributed to your own wealth.”
Jansen’s expression was filled with skeptical mockery.
“Spare me the condescension and get on with this little experiment,” Jansen ordered. “I have a party to att
end later and I’d prefer not to be too late.”
Large hands reached for her arm. Risa focused on those hands even as she tried to stare up into his face. She whimpered desperately as the girl in the dream tried to fight those beefy hands as they lifted her arm.
“I’ll remember you.” The dream Risa stared into his face. “I’ll remember you.”
He snorted as he laid the needle of the syringe against the vein in her wrist. “You’ll be lucky to remember your own name once we’ve finished this.”
“I’ll remember you.” Risa felt the words coming from her own lips even as she watched her dream self. “Your hands hurt me. They’re too big for surgery. Do you kill your patients?”
The hand paused. The syringe pricked at her flesh as the dream self glared up at him.
“If you do your job right, then she’ll never remember who you are,” Jansen chuckled.
“Do your job right,” Risa whispered as she stood behind him and focused on the hand, on the nipple. “Scars, like tiny lines in your hands. I know your hands. I’ve seen them before. They frighten me. I’ll remember you.”
She watched as her dream self tugged at the hold he had on her arm. The flesh trembled with the effort she exerted.
Yet she couldn’t escape. The syringe bit into her flesh and a second later boiling lava was fed into her veins.
She tried to scream. Risa watched herself. She didn’t feel the pain, but she saw it in the light blue eyes that suddenly rolled back in the dream Risa’s head. Her body jerked against the restraints that held her to the gurney as a strangled scream tore from her lips.
Risa watched herself. She watched as she bucked and heaved against the thin mattress. She couldn’t scream, but her lips parted as she tried. She fought to focus on Jansen. Risa knew she was fighting to beg, to plead with him for mercy.
“Daddy, please,” she wheezed. “Please, Daddy.”
And he laughed at her.
He was her father. He had never been a loving father, or an affectionate one. But until that kidnapping, she hadn’t thought he was truly a monster.
She watched, unaffected as her dream self writhed on the bed, trying to scream, lost in an agony Risa only dimly remembered.