Mercy

by Dimon, HelenKay

  Their breathing and shifting, the creak of the couch, the grumble of a moan deep in his chest—every sound combined in her head until her body exploded. Through cloudy vision, she watched him. The muscles in his neck strained and his moan turned into a sharp shout.

  Then, for the second time in an hour, she fell over him. Her body draped across his and his staccato breathing echoed in her ears. After the first round, the end came swift but his hips still pressed against her in the aftermath.

  She didn’t try to hide her shortness of breath. “Now I need time to recover.”

  One of his hands rested against her lower back. The other lay open, palm up on the couch beside him. “I think my heart stopped.”

  Seemed liked quite the compliment to her. “You’re welcome.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Natalie walked into the club the next morning wearing a black pantsuit reminiscent of every movie version of an FBI character Jarrett had ever seen. Wade escorted her to the main room, a few feet from the bar, then stood behind her when she stopped at the doorway to the bar.

  She surveyed the room before glancing over her shoulder. “I can walk the rest of the way by myself.”

  He didn’t even look at her. “I don’t take my orders from you.”

  The verbal slams and constant poking. Jarrett smiled at their fighting but hid it behind his drinking glass. He doubted either of them would appreciate his amusement, but some things never changed. These two taking shots at each other was one of them.

  Jarrett put the glass down on the bar and rested his palms against the edge. “We’re okay, Wade.”

  His second-in-command frowned but obeyed. Took his time leaving and Jarrett didn’t say a word until he was gone.

  Natalie wasn’t quite so patient. “Your time is up. Three days, I even gave you a few extra hours.”

  And as expected, no one broke through the club’s front door. Despite ratcheting up security and keeping Bast on speed dial, all was fine. For now. “Should I say thank you?”

  “You should have given Becca to me before now.”

  “I’m continuing to ignore that nonsense.”

  “That’s a poor decision. You should—”

  “You might want to stop using the word ‘should’ since I stop listening when you do.”

  “You continue to think you’re in charge.”

  No way was he listening to that again. “Now you’re wasting my time.”

  Natalie sighed. “In that case I’m here as requested. What do you want?”

  “As always, it’s good to see you, Natalie.” He waved her into the room. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Nothing.”

  Smart woman. Only an idiot lost control to liquor outside of the privacy of his house, and even then. But it happened to many people in this town. His business depended on that simple fact. Men ruled by liquor tended to spend too much and talked more.

  She walked in and stood across from him, matching her pose to his. “You seem to forget I don’t work for you.”

  “And I don’t work for you.” Best to make that clear from the start.

  “Debatable.”

  He felt a kick of reluctant admiration for her. She was not one to flinch. “I’m not going to take up a lot of your time.”

  “Too late.”

  But there was a part of her that reminded him of Elijah. Something about the undercover agent type. They launched verbal volleys, took no shit and bitched about everything that didn’t go their way. Then there was the part where they could kill you. Not a great combination.

  Rather than waste time and tiptoe around, since that wasn’t his style anyway, Jarrett dove right in. “Why is Todd still on the CIA payroll?”

  “That’s why I’m here? Do I look like the human resources department?”

  He swished the water around in his glass and listened to the ice cubes jingle. “Skip the drama and answer the question.”

  For a second she looked as if she were going to turn around and leave, but she sat on the barstool. “Don’t dig into internal CIA business. That can only end badly for you.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  This was usually the point where she started rattling off her credentials. The list of threats came right after. He stiffened, waiting for it.

  Her gaze moved over his face before making eye contact again. “Why do you care?”

  He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Couldn’t read a single expression. He guessed she was sizing him up, but he had no idea what she decided.

  He pulled a clean glass from under the bar and set it in front of her. “Because someone ordered the hit on the Spectrum agents.”

  “We’ve been through that. Becca.”

  “No.”

  “You sound pretty sure.” Natalie pointed at the empty glass and nearby water bottle until he poured a drink. “I thought you didn’t care about Becca or know anything about what’s happening with her now.”

  No way was he getting dragged into that fight. “I care about being roped into someone else’s mess, so I’ve been looking into the entire operation.”

  Natalie’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. “Don’t.”

  Now that was more like the response he expected. Direct and to the point. “Something to hide?”

  “You insist you have a right to know matters of national security. Being nosy here will get you arrested.”

  “You tried that already and failed.”

  She drained the glass in one swallow. “You are alive and free because we decided to allow that to happen. And we can revoke that decision at any time, without warning. You may want to remember that.”

  “More threats against innocent American citizens, Natalie? I wonder what the public would think.”

  She smiled. “Since when are you innocent?”

  “You make it difficult to want to deal with you.”

  “Are we negotiating something?”

  The word choice was careful. Natalie didn’t just throw terms around. She analyzed and assessed. He’d called her here and she came without argument. That meant she knew this was big.

  He gave her a peek at his cards. “A disappearance.”

  “Becca?”

  Jarrett shook his head. “We’re not talking about her.”

  “Then explain.”

  Everything rode on the next few minutes. On piquing Natalie’s interest and getting her mind spinning. Jarrett depended on her shark instincts. He didn’t trust people in government and pretty much despised anyone related to the CIA, but he believed he could count on who she was—someone who deserved to manage and delegate but ran into a wall of less intelligent good old boys.

  It could turn out that she needed him as much as he needed her. Or she could be the CIA official who fucked everything up and called for the killings. If so, he was a dead man.

  Jarrett hoped his gut read this one right. “I have information that could be vital to you.”

  “Hand it over and I’ll decide.”

  “Because I’m that fucking dumb.”

  “What are you looking for?” She tapped her fingernails against the side of her glass in a steady rhythm.

  “Some help.”

  It almost killed him to say it. He’d learned long ago never to look to anyone else for anything, even food and a roof over his head. He trusted few and confided in two. With Becca, three. He never imagined eight months ago that he’d be thinking of adding her to that short list.

  “I’m going to need more information if you plan to negotiate with me,” Natalie said as the clicking against the glass continued.

  “You’re not getting any details now.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not important.”

  She gave a laugh, hollow and tense and not even a little genuine. “How
exactly am I supposed to help then? I don’t even know what the hell we’re talking about.”

  That would come later. She had to know what type of intelligence he could bring to her. He had to entice her and get her thinking. By the time she craved the information, she wouldn’t balk at handing him what he needed. “In return, you get to be the agent who brings in names and dates on the China issue.”

  “The property.”

  Sounded like she was a step behind. For some reason, that surprised him. “The weapons.”

  Her hand flattened against the table. “You lost me. Explain.”

  “Spare me the bullshit.”

  “You understand that by telling me this, even hypothetically—”

  “I haven’t told you anything.”

  “—I can bring a team of agents in this building and tear it apart board by board? I can get warrants and install listening devices, to the extent I haven’t already.”

  “You haven’t.” And he knew because he swept the place all the time. Wade had many uses. His tech aptitude and training in detection were just two.

  “My people could say anything about you and we could make it stick.”

  The comment sounded like a threat but her tone suggested something else. Damn if she wasn’t warning him. Jarrett hadn’t seen that coming. Still, he decided to give her a harsh reminder. “Again, you tried that and failed.”

  “This is the kind of issue that allows us to put you somewhere, locked away and quiet, where Sebastian would never find you.”

  “What version of the Constitution are you reading exactly?” But her bosses could and they would, which is why Jarrett kept the leverage in the first place. Now he toyed with the idea of turning some of it over and that risk could cost him everything.

  “This isn’t a game.” She rolled the glass between her palms. The heavy bottom thudded against the wooden bar.

  “No, Natalie. It isn’t.”

  “Tell me what you have.” She sent the glass spinning.

  He grabbed it before it slid off the edge of the bar. “First, we figure out what you can do for me.”

  • • •

  Becca stared at Elijah across the second-floor conference room. Jarrett wandered off downstairs to work. Wade had disappeared. This might be the best time to get some answers. Private ones.

  She leaned back and eyed the man she once trusted to keep her alive. “Of all the places and all the safe houses, you came here.”

  Eli didn’t look up from the pages of redacted files in front of him. “So did you.”

  “But I had less to lose.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I had a relationship with Jarrett once. There’s a connection here for me.” Talk about a loose definition of the word “connection.”

  Eli’s head slowly rose. He pinned her with a furious stare that matched the red stain of anger on his cheeks. “You fucked him as part of a job then screwed him over. I’m not sure you had the high road here.”

  The harsh words hit their target. She felt the blows land but refused to flinch. Pushing her foot against the floor, she continued to rock her chair back and forth as if she didn’t care about the barbs and how perfectly they landed. “At least I didn’t have him arrested.”

  “You’re the one who asked Todd to move up the timetable on the operation that led to Jarrett’s arrest.”

  Seemed everyone had heard that story. Shame it was only partially true. “No.”

  “I was there, Becca. You can fool Jarrett long enough to get his pants off, but I remember.”

  “I told Todd to pull the plug on the operation and move on.” Using all her hours of training, she forced her body to stay still. No fidgeting. No useless hand movements or twisting of hands. That all showed weakness and Eli would move in for the kill. “Something you should have done as senior officer in the field.”

  “There’s no microphone in here. At least I don’t know about it if there is.” Elijah pointed around the room. Even yelled the last part of the sentence to the far corner. “No need to lie to impress your bed buddy.”

  And this was why people hated Elijah. He was relentless. He found a weakness, figured out the words that would hurt the most, and then poked until you broke. The win meant everything to him.

  She understood it. Didn’t mean she liked it. “I see getting shot and almost killed hasn’t stopped you from being an asshole.”

  He rapped his fist against the table. “I’m a survivor.”

  “You can throw around whatever name you want.”

  A strange calm washed over him. The tension left his body and he slumped in his chair. “How about I throw one out for you.”

  He swung right back to the same topic. Approached it from a different angle, but was ready to cut her down with a verbal assault that would have her doubting.

  If he expected her to sit back and take it—to weep—he had the wrong woman. She did some poking of her own. “Right, because I’m the only one of us sleeping with someone in the building. What’s the endgame with that, Eli?”

  “That’s none of your fucking business.” Except for the words he chose, he sounded bored.

  “No double standard there. I’m the whore but you’re innocent when you use Wade and sleep with him.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  He said the words, but the slight break in eye contact told another story. They underwent the same training. She knew the signs. He had to know she’d push until he cracked.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “I needed somewhere to go. This building made sense. Hell, I was bleeding right outside so crawling here was basically my one option. I had information and thought Jarrett and I could use each other.”

  “And Wade?”

  “Wade was convenient.”

  That fit with Elijah’s past practices. But it clashed with what she knew about Wade. He was gay. Didn’t talk about it, but didn’t hide it. She’d seen him with a man kind of steady right before she left. He wasn’t the type she’d expect to welcome just anyone into his bed and life for an extended period of time. He was too private. Too careful. She guessed that stemmed from his difficult past.

  “So, you’re pretending to be gay?” She said it because she thought it was the only thing that made sense. Even then, just barely. “This is all some scheme to have a warm body—any body, male or female, whatever’s handy—close while you wait out your potential death sentence?”

  “Save the labels and your attempts at analyzing me.”

  She didn’t know what to make of that nonanswer. Picking up a pen, she scribbled a circle in the blank spot at the top of the page. “Who are you lying to here, Wade or yourself?”

  “No one. It’s sex. It means nothing.”

  “Of course it means something.”

  “Bodies and getting off.”

  In the last few months he’d become even more detached from his humanity. When she waded through and figured out everything else, she’d try to get an answer to that, too. Until then she could work on his attitude so that he was at least tolerable to be around. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re not very convincing.”

  He sat up, shifting to the front of his chair. “Not every roll on the sheets is a big deal. The sex I’m having now is fine, but it’s about release and that’s all. A body to satisfy me.”

  A blur moved behind Eli. The shadow grabbed her attention but she kept her focus on Eli, not wanting him to know there was someone else out there. She guessed Jarrett until she saw a flash of dark pants and bare arms sticking out from under a T-shirt.

  A second later Wade stepped into the doorway. The grim line of his mouth and bleakness in his eyes were almost too much for her to witness.

  She tried to steer the conversation somewhere
else. Anywhere else. “Eli, I think you should—”

  “No.” Wade’s rough words broke through her plea. “Let him talk.”

  All the blood drained from Eli’s face. He stood as he turned. “Wade.”

  “I can leave.” She rose to her feet as well, but what she wanted to do was close her eyes. The stark pain on Wade’s face and shock on Eli’s had her wishing she’d never engaged in this verbal battle. The moment struck her as too personal, too intimate for her to share.

  And bullshit Eli wasn’t involved with Wade. She recognized panic when she saw it and Eli was sporting a huge case of it right now.

  “Don’t move.” Wade pointed at her but his gaze never left Eli’s face. “You’re fine where you are.”

  “I didn’t know you were there.” Each word sounded as if it were ripped right from Eli’s gut.

  “Obviously.”

  Eli shook his head. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Sounded pretty fucking clear to me.”

  Tension pounded off of Eli. “No.”

  “The mindless release portion of your stay here is over.” Wade brought his hand out from behind his back. “Move your things back into the crash pad.”

  For the first time, she noticed the gun. Looking at Wade’s cold eyes, she didn’t doubt he could use it, which was the last thing any of them needed. She also saw something else. Something that became clearer with every second. Through the layers of crushing pain radiating off Wade and the strain around Eli’s mouth there was a connection. Eli might claim they only had sex, but whatever flew back and forth between these two went deeper than that.

  “I’m not sure this is the best time for this.” She preferred anytime she was not in the room.

  “It’s the only time.” Wade tapped the gun’s barrel against the outside of his thigh as he continued to stare at Elijah. “You have an hour. After that, I ask Jarrett to kick you out.”

  Wade’s pain pulled at her. It filled the room until she choked on it. “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head but didn’t face her. “Don’t be. There’s no reason for us to pretend. Not really my style anyway.”