Oxblood

by AnnaLisa Grant

  “Can’t sleep?” Ian whispered from behind me. I turned around and he was standing there, shirtless. A few days ago, it wouldn’t have meant anything. But since Ian’s kiss and our conversation about feelings, I knew I’d never look at him the same way. My heart caught in my throat, and my eyes hovered over Ian’s bare chest and defined abs. I was happy for a revised shirtless memory of Ian to replace the one I had of him hanging in the old factory.

  Ian cleared his throat and my eyes darted up to his.

  “In my opinion, red is the better cure for insomnia,” he smiled.

  He took the bottle from me. Turning on a small light under the cabinet, he opened the bottle and poured two glasses. Then he picked up both glasses and motioned for me to follow him. As we approached the back bedroom where Ian had been sleeping, or not sleeping, butterflies swarmed my stomach.

  “Did Damon ever hear back from Command?” I asked as Ian set both glasses on the small table in his room. I sat in the chair with my back to the wall, crossing my legs as Ian pulled a T-shirt over his head.

  “No,” he said, taking a seat in the chair across from me.

  “Can’t you email or call or something?”

  “I left a message for Director Thatcher when I was out. I told her about Bianca and the ambush and that we were getting close to Paolo,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you just tell the team that instead of telling them it was an unsanctioned mission?”

  “Whether I left a message for Thatcher or not, the mission is still unsanctioned. Thatcher isn’t going to call me back and suddenly give me approval for a mission that she has no intel on.”

  I nodded, still confused. I would have asked for a better explanation of how things worked in Rogue, but I would be leaving soon and it seemed like wasted breath.

  “How are you feeling about tomorrow?” Ian asked, redirecting the conversation.

  “I feel okay, I guess. I wish I was doing more. I just want to be useful, Ian.”

  “You are useful. And if you were going to be here much longer, I’d really train you,” he said. There was sadness in his voice. It was funny, really. All that time he’d spent trying to get me to leave, and now it seemed like he wanted me to stay. “I wanted to thank you for whatever you did to get Carter on board.”

  “He just needed to feel like a hero,” I said.

  “You did well. Carter is a hard nut to crack.”

  “That’s an understatement. I think we came to an understanding last night, though. We were actually a pretty good team.” I took another sip of my wine. “But kudos to you for working with someone who doesn’t care for you all that much. I think he respects your position, but—”

  “But what? He thinks Command babies me? They do,” he said.

  He looked past me and through the open doors to the balcony to a clear, still night. The stars were scattered across the sky, and I could just make out a cathedral’s spire in the distance.

  “What happened, Ian? Why has Command restricted the types of cases they give you?” Working at the diner taught me that secrets had a way of coming out at night. They say hairdressers are like therapists, but I can’t tell you how many stories about successes, failures, and regrets I heard at the diner, especially during late shifts. I poured coffee and customers poured out their hearts.

  Ian covered his mouth with his hand as he leaned his elbow on the table, unsure of where to start. “My mother didn’t always make the best choices in life. She got pregnant with me during a one-night stand, and by the time I was six, I remember at least four different men living with us. A few of them were nice to me, a few of them knocked me around, but they mostly just tolerated me.”

  “Oh, Ian. I’m so sorry.” I reached across the table and took his hand in mine.

  “But it also meant Mum ignored me because they required her full attention. If they didn’t get what they wanted, she paid for it.

  “When I was around ten, Craig appeared out of nowhere. Like a knight in shining armor. He treated Mum with love and respect. He showered us with gifts. Pretty soon he moved in and I was getting a baby sister. When Jacqueline was born, it was like seeing an angel. She was perfect in every way. It didn’t matter that I was ten years older. I loved her so much. We immediately had this incredibly strong bond.”

  I sat in silence while Ian spoke and took breaks to collect his thoughts. I watched his face twist in recollection and tears pool in his eyes.

  “Craig was always nice to me, but we never really connected. As I got older, there were a few times I heard him accuse my mother of cheating on him, which was crazy because she worked two, sometimes three, jobs. As if she had time to cheat. It wasn’t long before Craig’s accusations escalated to shoving my mother against the wall or slapping her across the face. I tried to get in between them a few times, but Mum would send me to take care of Jacqueline. I was fourteen, but she was just so little . . . and so scared. I would take her upstairs and we’d hide in her closet with all her toys. We’d play with her dolls and I’d make up funny voices to go with them. Those were frightening times, but we bonded during them.”

  Ian swiped his thumb across his eyes and breathed deeply.

  “It’s okay, Ian. You don’t have to go on,” I told him.

  “I want to.”

  I nodded and sat back, waiting for him to continue.

  “When I graduated, I wanted to join the Royal Marines. Things were worse at home between Mum and Craig, and I didn’t like the idea of leaving her and Jacqueline with him, but Mum said she wasn’t going to let me give up my dream. So I joined and then a year later I volunteered for training and became a Green Beret. When I accomplished the rank, I wrote home and told Mum, and she wrote back and told me how proud she was. She also told me that things had gotten so bad between her and Craig that she had to move out. She and Jacqueline were staying at a client’s home while they were away on holiday. Mum cleaned homes for some wealthy people and, because she was Mum, they adored her and treated her like family. So it didn’t surprise me that one of them had offered their home as a place of refuge.

  “I wrote back and told her that was probably for the best and that I would see her in a few weeks for the Christmas holiday.” He stood and took a breath. “I never saw them again. I got word a week later that my mother and sister had been killed. That my stepfather had shot them both and then killed himself.”

  “Oh my God.” I covered my mouth in shock.

  “According to the report, forensics believed he held my sister and made her watch him shoot our mother. Then he shot her in the head before he did the same to himself. He killed his own daughter. And based on all the scarring and bruises covering her body, she had a history of being abused. She was just a little girl. . . . Coward.” Ian gulped down his wine and walked out to the balcony.

  I sat there, frozen in place. For years, people had been saying trite, patronizing things to me about my parents’ death. It was a game I had to play over and over. Sounding concerned always seemed to make them feel better about themselves. Who cared if some old acquaintance of my father’s told me that they didn’t suffer? Nothing changed. My parents couldn’t come back, and I wasn’t going to magically not feel sad anymore. I didn’t want to do that to Ian. I didn’t want to be someone else reciting the inside of a Hallmark card and expecting him to get over it.

  I joined him on the balcony. The quiet reminded me of the first nights I was living with Gil. It had been a year since my parents’ death, but starting over, just me and him, seemed to rehash all the horrific emotions I’d buried deep while in foster care. We hardly spoke; we were too afraid to say something that might make the other sad. Gil coped by diving into his studies. I coped by crying in the fetal position with my head on Tiffany’s lap. Good friends simply let you cry and don’t say anything at all.

  It was probably a good five minutes with just the sound of the crickets pla
ying the only song they know before I spoke. “I’m so sorry,” I said gently.

  “No one here knows, so please don’t say anything.”

  “I would never say anything. It’s not my story to tell.”

  It was a few minutes before Ian spoke again.

  “About a year after I joined Rogue, I was on an assignment in Thailand,” Ian began. “We were taking down a sweatshop that was committing all kinds of human rights violations, even for Thailand. I didn’t have it in my initial intel, but among the men and women, there were five long tables of kids working until their fingers bled.

  “The men in charge would beat the children with reeds when they didn’t work fast enough. The workingmen would cower, too, as the reeds went up. And I watched the kids cry as the reeds made contact with their tiny bodies, their clumsy little fingers moving as quickly as possible. I will never forget that sound. But that wasn’t the worst part. Some of the children didn’t react at all. It didn’t matter how hard they were hit, they didn’t make a sound or even flinch. The constant pain and fear had forced them to numb themselves to their world. That’s what broke me.”

  Ian shook his head.

  “So I pulled my gun and killed anyone with a reed in his hand.” Ian looked out into the empty street while he spoke.

  “You saved lives that day. Who knows how many women and children the families of that city had buried already.” I put my hand on top of Ian’s and wrapped my fingers under his palm. He closed his hand around mine and squeezed.

  “Command doesn’t necessarily see it that way. They think my past makes me too fragile to handle an assignment where children are involved.” Suddenly, Ian’s body stiffened and he dropped my hand.

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t do that thing where you shut down when you get scared. I can appreciate your need to be unemotional, but geez, Ian, you’ve faced some serious crap in your life. And you watch terrible things happen to people all over the world. You can’t experience the things you have and not feel something. And it doesn’t make you any less strong.”

  A sweet breeze swirled around us, giving me goose bumps.

  “You’re cold,” Ian observed, apparently ignoring what I just said to him. He rubbed my arms.

  “Ian,” I began.

  “Can you just . . . come here?” Ian pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me, his mahogany and lavender scent arousing my senses. I melted into his body and wrapped my own arms around his waist. I could feel his body relax instantly, the tension dropping out of him like he just released the weight of a thousand mountains. “I wish you couldn’t read me so well. Hiding is so much easier.”

  “Aren’t you tired of hiding?”

  Ian didn’t answer. We stood there in each other’s arms, letting the insanity of the world happen around us.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve held someone like this,” he said after a while, whispering in my hair.

  “You can hold me all night,” I said softly. I leaned my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes. I was scared and overwhelmed and anxious for tomorrow, but right here, with Ian’s strong arms protecting me, I felt like everything was going to be all right. Like I was in the safest place in the world. Tomorrow could wait.

  “That is a very tempting offer, Miss Asher.” Ian’s cheek was resting on the top of my head and I felt him smile. “I was already convinced that you were going to be my undoing. It seems I’m beginning to unravel. How is it that you see me so clearly?”

  I lifted my face from his chest and gazed up at him.

  “Maybe it’s because I’m looking.”

  Ian stared at me, caught off-guard by my answer. After a moment, he leaned down and kissed me. This time, it wasn’t for show. There was no one watching. It was just the two of us, alone on a balcony in a beautiful Italian city.

  His lips were soft and moved gently with mine. He combed his fingers through my hair and gently cupped my head with his palm, pulling me to him. Somehow kissing Ian felt natural. I knew it was ridiculous, but how could I explain feeling so connected to a man I had only known for such a short time? This wasn’t a silly summer romance, something Tiffany and I could giggle about during slow shifts at the diner. This was real. My entire body was lit up like a Christmas tree, like the sky on the Fourth of July. There was something real between us, something earth-shattering.

  “I don’t even know what to say to you right now.” He smiled as he pulled away and gently brushed my cheek with his thumb. “These feelings, it’s secondary school behind the library all over again.”

  “I don’t know what to say, either.”

  “And tomorrow?” He tried to step away, but I wouldn’t let him.

  I took his face in my hands to make sure he was looking at me. “Tomorrow doesn’t change right now.”

  Ian searched my eyes before he kissed me swiftly and then wrapped his arms around me again. I had never felt like this with anyone before, or so quickly. When I looked at him, it was easy to forget where I was or what I was doing. But it scared me. I was scared because the thought of leaving him broke my heart. I was scared because Miami didn’t feel like home anymore. I was scared because I had never wanted anything more than I wanted Ian Hale.

  “Do you want to go back to sleep? You can have my bed if you’d like. I’ll take the couch,” Ian offered.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all,” I told him. I tightened my grip around his waist and he reciprocated.

  “Good. Because what I really wanted to ask was if you would stay out here with me a little bit longer.”

  “I would stay out here with you all night.”

  Chapter 19

  Morning came and everything seemed normal in a strange sort of way. The team milled around the apartment like it was a normal day and they were all getting ready to go to work. The fact that work meant making sure guns were cleaned and loaded and surveillance and tracking equipment was online and ready made for an interesting “normal.”

  Adam and Claudia sat at the kitchen table calmly eating toast and drinking coffee; Carter and Eva were in their bedroom “getting in the zone,” and Ian was in the back bedroom putting together fake driver’s licenses and passports for identification purposes.

  “You want something to eat?” Adam asked. “Some coffee maybe?” He held out the French press before pouring himself another cup.

  “No, thanks,” I answered. “Too nervous to eat.” I sat down at the table across from Claudia.

  “That’s normal,” she said.

  “Yeah. I threw up three times before my first assignment,” Adam said.

  “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you’re doing. Putting yourselves out on this shaky limb means a lot to me.”

  “Hey,” Claudia said as she covered my hand with hers. “Despite what Ian says about family, we are one. You, Victoria Asher, are totally legit, which means I’d walk a hundred miles in stilettos for you.” She gave me a sweet, crooked smile, and I felt some of my anxiety melt away.

  “You guys really are the best.” I myself was beginning to get choked up. I would miss Adam and Claudia. When I left Italy, I’d never see them again.

  Of course, the preemptive good-bye sentiments were all contingent on finding Gil during the mission—a hope I couldn’t help but hold on to, even though I knew there were no guarantees.

  “Everything is set,” Damon announced, coming through the front door.

  “Good,” Ian said, joining him in the living room. Damon had been gone since the early morning hours, even before Ian and I left the balcony. Ian said it was protocol for Damon to check the meeting point and make sure everything was clear.

  “How is everyone this morning? Feeling good? Ready?” Ian asked.

  “Uh, good?” Claudia said curiously.

&nbs
p; “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “In all the time I’ve known Ian, he’s never asked how we were doing before an assignment,” she explained with a smile.

  “Victoria? May I speak with you for a moment, please?” Ian asked.

  “Sure.” I followed Ian into the kitchen. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been thinking, and I’m not so sure about you being involved in this. These guys are much more dangerous than your average Mafia families. If Gil is there, I promise you, we will get him out, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be with us.” Ian’s eyes pleaded with mine.

  “I’m going to be fine,” I said. I appreciated him being concerned about me, but I had come too far to not go. “I know where I’m supposed to be until you call for me. I’ve been practicing my poker face if Gil is there when I walk in. I can do this, Ian. And I trust this team to do what they’re supposed to do to keep us all alive.” I took his hand in mine and squeezed. “We’re R-14, led by the Ian Hale. What could go wrong?”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he whispered.

  “I know I’m safe as long as you’re leading this team.”

  He sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to change my mind.

  “You have to promise me that you’ll stay in the surveillance van with Claudia until Carter calls you,” he said forcefully.

  “I thought you said we didn’t hide out in unmarked laundry vans.” I smirked, but Ian was less impressed by my humor. His glare said as much. “I promise,” I conceded.

  When everything was packed and ready, we left for our assigned locations in Venice. Adam and Damon left first and took their places on opposite rooftops of the meeting point, a pastry shop known for being controlled by the mob. Claudia and I took the surveillance van that Damon had acquired for us and parked a block down from the shop. Finally, Ian, Carter, and Eva got into position for their meeting with the child-selling scum.