Hard to Protect (Black Ops Heroes)

by Black, Incy

  Bloody Angel. God alone knew what voodoo mind skills she’d used against him that he should now find himself putting her ahead of his career.

  Three hours later, and already in his funeral attire—dark suit, white shirt, black tie—and acutely aware of the all-seeing security cameras tracking every step of his blatant insubordination, Will kept his pace steady and authoritative as he descended the flights of cement stairs leading to the deepest sub level buried beneath the Cube, and then navigated the maze of soulless corridors to Angel’s cell.

  A cell Butters had barred him from visiting on pain of court martial—

  Like he gave a shit.

  He’d find a way to finesse the negative impact on his career of ignoring a direct order, once Angel was safe. Or as safe as he could make her, before facing down the charge Butters was bound to level against him for aiding and abetting Angel’s escape. But Butters would have to prove it, giving him time to somehow neutralize the bastard and his cronies.

  Christ, he hoped he’d read Angel right. That her will to live was fierce enough to see her take advantage of what he was setting up. That she’d abscond the first chance she got and stay gone.

  The skin at the nape of his neck prickled. The barrel of his service weapon felt unnaturally hot against the base of his spine. Would he draw and use it if one of Butters’s bullyboys stopped and challenged him? Fuck, he didn’t know. All he did know was that come hell or high water, he was getting Angel free and clear of the Cube before Butters had her conveniently “disappeared.”

  He cut down a passageway to the left, pulled to a halt beside the steel door to Angel’s cell, and hesitated.

  With the listening devices active in her cell monitored by Butters’s men, he wouldn’t be able to share his plan for busting her free. She’d be scared, bloody terrified. She already believed her death was imminent because she was out of step with Butters and his BT11 program.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing he’d be able to offer her by way of reassurance. Not without confirming his complicity when she took flight. Which she’d bloody better do, given the risk he was taking to get her free and clear while he sorted out the shit storm surrounding her brother and his heinous drug.

  Inhaling deeply, he pushed into Angel’s cell.

  She was sitting on the blue wafer-thin plastic bedroll in the corner. Her spine curved to the undecorated breezeblock wall, head bowed, cheek resting on knees pulled high and close. Her face was hidden by the heavy fall of thick blond tangle.

  Walking forward, he dropped three shopping bags beside her. “Shower. Change. Everything should fit.”

  Her chin flew up as if yanked by a hangman’s noose. Her eyes glittered animosity. Then: “What happened to your hand?”

  He flexed his fingers. Trust her to notice the cuts, swelling, and bruises. “Had a minor argument with a bank of lockers.”

  “That would do it,” she muttered, decanting the contents of the shopping bags. Black jeans. Black long-sleeve T-shirt… “They keep messing with the lights. I’ve lost track of time. How long have I been here?”

  Too long. “Seven days.”

  She upended the last of the shopping bags. A charcoal-color pea coat, socks, and a pair of flat-heel, knee-high black leather boots tumbled out to join the other items heaped at her side. “You’re a dick, Berwick.”

  He nodded, not that she noticed. She was too busy wrinkling her nose at the boring, white, no-nonsense underwear hanging its shame between her pinched thumb and index finger.

  He should have shopped for her, not left it to Fray. He’d have gone way more expensive, buying silk, and lace, and cashmere. Small comforts to communicate she mattered, that someone gave a damn.

  He didn’t like that Angel stubbornly ignored him. His hand pressing deep into the area just right of his navel, he dropped to his haunches so she’d look at him. And near keeled over as pain sawed his side. Sodding gunshot wound. Damn near nine months, it should have healed by now. Grimacing, he tried breathing on what felt like just a couple of alveoli.

  Angel tossed aside a thick-strapped, scaffold-cupped white bra.

  They had taken away her clothes, exchanging them with faded blue scrubs. The deep V-cut of the top drew his attention to the length of her pale throat. The pulse in the small hollow at its base throbbed too fast. She wasn’t as indifferent to his presence as she pretended.

  He wanted to reach forward to soothe that violent beat with his thumb. He hated that she was frightened yet so courageously determined to hide it. “Angel, look at me.”

  “Nope. Trying to pretend you don’t exist.”

  “Angel!”

  The insistent crack of his voice echoed around the small chamber. Her eyes tangled with his. “What?”

  “Be smart. Stay sharp. Trust your instincts.” That’s all he could give her. Bastard electronic eavesdroppers.

  “What— Why?”

  His heart pounding, he pushed upright.

  So did she—though her action was more of a scramble. “What’s going on?” Her eyes were wary, but the whip in her voice spoke brave.

  “Zac and Fray will be by to collect you within the hour. Be ready,” he evaded.

  She folded her arms across her chest and glared. “Why? Where will they be taking me?”

  Pain slashed his chest. He’d miss that—her defiance, her courage, her refusal to be bowed. “To a funeral.”

  Her bravado collapsed “Wh…What? Who? Whose funeral?”

  The blade attacking his chest stopped slicing and started digging. Ignoring Angel, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  She must have moved fast, her hand curled into the crook of his elbow, and yanked. “Whose funeral, Will? Oh God, not—”

  All color drained from her face, her lips turning the same washed-out gray of her eyes as her inner light extinguished.

  “No. Not Rhys’s,” he reassured quickly.

  When her fingers failed to relax their grip, he unpeeled them from his arm one by one, and then hands to her shoulders, set her an arm’s length from him.

  “If not Rhys’s funeral, then whose?” Her whisper was as brittle as dried-out leaves.

  Acid burned a course through his veins as he stepped out of the cell.

  “Berwick, damn it—whose?”

  He already had the heavy metal door in full slide, his heart only kicking back into play when the lock clicked.

  Chapter Eight

  As instructed, she was ready when they came for her. Berwick’s trusted sidekicks, Zac and Fray, who she liked—just not at this moment.

  God, she wanted to resist, to scream, kick, bite, and punch her right to live, but she’d give no one the satisfaction of seeing her fear. No, she’d live up to that infantile sobriquet they’d given her—Ice Queen.

  Didn’t mean she wouldn’t take full advantage of an opening to escape if one arose, though. Didn’t mean she’d go down without a fight if it didn’t.

  Shoulders back, chin high, self-contained, nothing-can-touch-me-dignity at the fore, frost no doubt icing over her footprints, she marched down the corridors out of the Cube.

  Seven months in post as a psychoanalyst at the Cube, and she’d made no friends. That shouldn’t have mattered a damn, but somehow it did.

  She notched her chin a few degrees higher.

  Neither Zac nor Fray spoke while escorting her on the walk of shame to the rear exit. Not a single word. All communication confined to mute elbow touches and head gestures. Not that she’d needed direction. It wasn’t exactly hard to navigate corridors, a few flights of stairs, and yet more corridors.

  The narrow alley at the rear of the Cube was a wind trap, the violent gusts and draughts catching her hair and whipping it in all directions. Maybe Fray would have something she could use to correct the now hedge-dragged disarray—she was off to a funeral, after all.

  She swallowed the flutter threatening her throat. Her giggle? That would be a first. It would probably also earn her askance looks from Zac and Fr
ay. They’d think her crazy, laughing at a time like this. She wasn’t stupid. She’d guessed the funeral she was about attend was her own—given Berwick’s stony-faced refusal to confirm who was being buried when she’d asked.

  Zac held open the car door. She ducked and folded into the parked vehicle.

  She didn’t know where they were really taking her—which admittedly had fire ants of apprehension dancing the back of her neck—but at least she was going out in style. In a sleek black Daimler, no less, with tinted windows and leather seating so comfortable, it hugged.

  Fray slid behind the driving wheel. Zac angled onto the back seat beside her. She looked down at the wide gray strap Zac was adjusting across her chest.

  “Odd wearing a seat belt at a time like this,” she remarked, her throat tight against bubbling laughter. “Hardly seems worth the effort, considering.”

  Christ, she hoped whatever they had planned was quick. That it wouldn’t hurt.

  They appeared to be making good time until the traffic thickened. “Hope we’re not on deadline,” she threw out with a snicker, nerves getting the better of her.

  A snicker that refused to die, growing instead into an unstoppable fit of laughter. How embarrassing. Hysteria? She had her reputation to consider. A thought that bowed her in half, she was laughing so hard.

  “S…s…sorry,” she spluttered, trying to straighten. “It’s…it’s just—” She folded forward again, her whole body shaking. God, when had she last laughed like this? Not since her mother and father had jointly tickled her and pretended not to hear her gasped pleadings to please stop.

  A hand on her shoulder, gentle but insistent, tugged her upright. Her hair was smoothed to the side. A silver hip flask nudged into her hand. “Here,” Zac said softly.

  Christ, I hope they’d do it when I’m not looking. That one moment I exist, then poof, I don’t. Nothing in between. No fear. No pain… No time to regret.

  What was that expression? What goes around comes around. How very apt, considering the blood on her hands. “To karma,” she toasted and then laughed.

  Hip flask to her lips, she tossed back a hefty swig. Fire shot down her throat, igniting a furnace in her chest. She breathed a choked wheeze. “Wow,” she said, her eyes still watering as she went in for another hit. Then another. “Double wow.” Her free hand fanned her face madly.

  “Jesus, Zac, we deliver her half wasted, and he’ll kill us,” Fray warned from the front.

  Angel had no doubt who “he” was—Berwick, the bastard.

  “It’s just a couple of mouthfuls. Besides, when have you ever seen the Doc laugh? She’s clearly in shock,” Zac defended, prizing the flask from her fingers.

  “No,” she protested, entering a tug of war with Zac over who should hold the flask. “I’m not in shock. Rhys warned me not to get careless. That I’d find a kill-order hung around my neck if I did. So, no worries—I’m ready. Just make it fast.”

  Fray swore like the trooper she was.

  Zac let her have the hipflask and hissed something even filthier, along with some muffled muttering about meting out punishment. Whatever the hell that meant?

  She belted back another mouthful of the gullet-stripping alcohol. Truth was, carelessness was a particular forte of hers. As evidenced by her inviting Cymion Gray into her family home.

  And then, again, when she’d almost allowed herself to be seduced by another man—that wily bastard Will Berwick. She’d come within a whisker of falling for his wicked grins, his teasing, the hint—even when he was deliberately needling or trying to manipulate her—that he might actually care. God, talk about gullible. An al fresco hamburger dinner, and a few naked moments in a shower, was all it had taken to tempt her into trusting that man.

  And then, of course, there was Rhys. She should definitely have watched him more closely. Maybe asked a few more questions, listening more acutely to his answers. Funny how the truth could be so strong and yet so vulnerable to abuse.

  She knocked back another glug of the bracing alcohol.

  “Kicking Berwick’s ass for not telling her what’s going on,” Zac promised through what sounded like gritted teeth.

  Fray swerved the Daimler sideways to avoid clipping a cyclist. “He’ll have his reasons. You know how tight-lipped he gets when putting together an operation.”

  She’d drink to Berwick being tight-lipped… And did.

  They traveled across Westminster Bridge into south London. She kept only half an ear on the verbal exchange between Fray and Zac, preferring instead to enjoy the warm glow infusing her body. Also, she wanted one last look at the Thames.

  “She has a right to know,” Zac insisted.

  “That’s his call, not yours,” Fray countered.

  His hand on the seat beside her, Zac’s fingers curled into a fist, his knuckles turning white. Jeez, the man was strung tight. If she had more time, she’d insist he visit her for a professional assessment. She reached to the side and squeezed Zac’s fist lightly, giving him the most reassuring smile she could muster.

  Zac glared at her, snatched back the hip flask, hammered the stopper back on, and tossed it onto the front seat out of reach.

  Typical. An agent—Zac—on the wire close to falling, and even the tiniest gesture of support from her was refused. Well, on the Services’ head be it when the man blew. It wasn’t like she’d be around to ensure all that pressure got released in a way that was safe and non-destructive. But she hoped to God someone would be, for the sake of all innocents out there.

  She turned her head away and looked out the window, the stucco facades of Camberwell’s formal architecture giving way to uniform streets of less grand Victorian houses as the car sped to wherever they were headed.

  Something caressed the back of her hand, the touch hesitant. She glanced down. Zac’s forefinger sliding to and fro, returning comfort. She damn near slipped from her seat belt in shock.

  Lifting her chin, she smiled at the agent, uncaring of what he might make of the tears escaping her eyes. She waited a long time to feel anything but redundant, and in that short instant, Zac had made her feel a part of the team.

  Her delight dimmed when he then threaded his fingers with hers in a way that was suddenly too presumptuous, and unwelcomingly intimate.

  She tried easing free her hand. Zac tightened his grip. Shit.

  “I still think Angel has a right to know this funeral is just one almighty sham to draw her brother out into the open,” Zac said, speaking slowly. “So we can get a fix on him. While he gets to see that she’s still safe… At least, I think that’s the plan. Berwick wasn’t exactly in a sharing mood. She thinks we are going to kill her. Not so. An hour, maybe less, and she will be back in that containment suite, safe, sound, and protected.”

  Safe, sound, and protected? Hardly. Once Rhys was in custody, the MoD would want her dead. And with her locked up beneath the Cube, they’d know just where to find her.

  “Jesus, Zac,” Fray snapped. “Berwick’s going to go ballistic that you told her. What if she causes a scene?”

  Zac lifted their entwined hands and settled them on his thigh. Double shit. She wasn’t completely clueless. She was pretty damn certain she’d never directed any mixed messages at the man. But this handholding business, what on earth was that all about?

  “I didn’t tell her. I was talking to you. Hardly my fault if the Doc’s eavesdropping.”

  “Bollocks. You knew exactly what you were doing,” Fray retorted, jumping a fast-changing amber light to the sound of brakes screeching and horns honking furiously.

  “I’m not convinced any of us know what we’re doing,” Zac argued. “Why the last-minute decision for Angel to attend the funeral? Something for which, I’d stake my life on it, Will doesn’t have Butters’s approval. What if someone recognizes her? That’ll go down well, the bloody corpse arriving to shake hands with the mourners. None of this makes any sense.”

  Angel shook away the woozy fog—part fear, part alcohol-induced�
��slowing her brain. Hang on— This drama was all a ruse? To draw Rhys out into the open? She leaned her forehead against the glass of the side window in the hope its chill would dull the fireworks going off in her head.

  “No one’s going to recognize her.”

  Sadly, Fray probably had that right, Angel realized. The long hours she’d put in at work meant the phone calls to catch up with her few close friends had soon given way to short hasty emails, and finally, little contact at all beyond the exchange of Christmas and birthday cards.

  “The pictures in the press were taken when she was nine years old. And as for the bunch of operatives ordered in to swell the ranks of the mourners, what do they care if she’s dead or alive?” Fray reasoned. “Besides, Will’s probably counting on Rhys recognizing her so he’ll put up less of a fight when captured. Makes sense to me.”

  Angel zoned out the argument, pieces of the puzzle slowly falling into place. Berwick had set this up. Set her up. To lure Rhys out of hiding. Of course Rhys would show at her funeral. If only to verify she was indeed dead.

  And as for her presence being required? That was probably Berwick meting out her punishment. For daring to file an adverse psych report on him. For leading him on and then daring to skip out on him while he was still in the shower. Yeah, he would definitely want retribution for that.

  The alcohol she’d poured down her throat sloshed, corroding her stomach lining. She’d told Berwick the history behind the scar on her hand. He knew the agony it would cause her for Rhys to believe she’d betrayed him. Which Rhys would, if he caught sight of her all civilized and cordial, in the company of spies and secret agents and probably the very men trying to kill him.

  White fire engulfed her mind. She wanted to flail at her escorts. To punch Zac. To cause Fray to wreck, so she could escape. But most of all, she wished she had a gun to blow Berwick’s fucking head off.

  The Daimler swept through two ornate stone structures marking the entrance to the cemetery. Surrounded by thicket and woods, beautifully Gothic with crumbling burial vaults and soaring angels on high granite plinths. Lovely. A perfect place for her brother to die.