by Misty Evans
Where was Miles? “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
“The hell you can’t.”
Time to lie. “I don’t have it.”
She could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe her, but he played along for a moment. “And why is that? Your boyfriend has it?”
She could tell him they’d lost the key. That the Gypsies wouldn’t allow her to get to the safe. That someone had stolen the USB. Anything to throw him off.
But even if he did believe her, she couldn’t put her relations in jeopardy or risk him seeing the necklace around Miles’ neck. Renalda had given it back to him as a keepsake. CB would shoot first, ask questions later. “I lost it in the woods.”
“Bullshit. Hand it over Carstons or I’ll kill your boyfriend.”
At that moment, the kitchen door flew open, banging against the wall. Charlotte turned, ready to yell a warning at Miles, when she saw a man crowd through the opening and drop Miles to the floor.
Eyes closed, body limp, he lay unmoving. He was bleeding from a cut over his temple. A lump was forming around it.
“Oh, my God.” Charlotte ran to his side, setting the laptop on the floor as she knelt next to him. Cold air rushed in around them from the open door.
Miles was unconscious. She touched his neck, felt a pulse, saw the slow rise of his chest. “What the hell did you do to him?” she said to the man blocking doorway.
And then she looked up and her heart stopped beating for a second.
He was older than in her memories, but still wore the same mustache that curled at the ends. His dark hair was shot through with gray now, his skin leathery and wrinkled.
But his eyes. She saw the same dead look in them that she’d seen when he’d fixed the plumbing and lighting in her mother’s shop…
Charlotte couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
“You remember Orlo,” CB said.
“You.” She jumped to her feet, hands curling into fists. “You killed my mother.”
“Your mother was a beautiful creature.” CB strolled over to the counter, his gun trained on her as he snagged hers and stuffed it in his coat. “It was a shame she had to be disposed of.”
Wait. Charlotte whirled to face him. “You knew my mother?”
“She was an asset I cultivated back when I was with the CIA. Her gaggle of Gypsy women gathered a lot of information for me working as maids and cleaning ladies for the embassies on the Row. They generously shared it with your mother during their weekly visits to her shop. She, in turn, passed on certain tidbits to me.”
There was no way her mother had been a CIA asset. He had to be making this up.
But his eyes told her he wasn’t lying. The gun he had trained on her was no joke.
Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands as she clenched them tighter. “I trusted you. You were like a father to me.”
“I treated you better than your father. What he did to you, put you in that mental hospital. You weren’t crazy, you know.”
Her glare switched to the man standing behind Miles. His face showed nothing—no emotions, no worries, nothing. “I know.”
“Orlo here was following orders, that’s all,” CB said. “Good old Mum let it slip to your dad that she was working for me. She wanted him to leave the air force, wanted the whole family to go the U.S. of A. because she’d heard about some new facility in Maine for high-functioning autistics like your brother. I’d told her that once I had bin Laden, I’d do my best to help your family move and become U.S. citizens. She was impatient, told your father, and he hit the roof. We’d known each other back in the day. Crossed paths in Serbia a few times, which is how I met your mother. Your dad knew I was obsessed with the Middle East. Bin Laden. Blackwater. He thought I was nuts, that I was wasting my time worrying about them. When he found out your mother was helping me, he wanted to kill me. Of course, I was in Khartoum at the time and he was in India on a mission. Your mother called and warned me that he was gunning for me.”
Charlotte couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wanted to cover her ears, block it out. Gritting her teeth, she stood straight, tall. “I wish he’d gotten the job done. My mother would still be alive.”
CB held up his empty hand in a gesture suggesting he’d had no choice. “I didn’t want to do it. I loved your mother. She was sweet and elusive and quite cunning under all that silly Gypsy shit. But when Orlo went to talk to her, scare her a little, she fought back. That woman had a temper, let me tell you. Things got out of hand. She tried to kill him. He fought back.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“You saw him leave the building. My little Charlotte, the only witness. But he let you live on my orders. I’d told him from the moment I hired him to keep an eye on your mother, that he was never to touch you. And then the irony of all ironies, you and I ended up both working for MI6. Small world, huh?”
Small world. Did he really think she bought that excuse? He was too smart, too calculating, she realized now, to let chance dictate his life. “How long have you been working with Nico?”
“Long enough. He’s been doing deals with terrorist groups for the past couple of years, trying to get in good with them and keep a steady flow of income by supplying as many of their needs as possible.”
He stepped toward her and held out a hand. “I need that video and he wants you in exchange. Kinda pissed him off when you ran away.” CB smirked. “You should have seen his face when his men told him you were missing. Classic moment.”
“You were there?”
He caressed his gun a moment, wiping at nonexistent dust. “I was trying to cut a deal for your life, and then you blew that by escaping minutes before I would have rescued you. You never told me where the USB was, so I had no choice, really, other than to try to save your ass so you could show me. Nico knows where Blackwater is hiding out, but he wanted something in exchange. Once you escaped, that thing became you.”
Think, Charlotte. “I’ll give you the USB if you help me rescue a girl Nico is holding. Blackwater is her father. She knows where to find him. You’ll have the video and his location. You can take down Nicolae Bourean and Blackwater in one swoop.”
“I get the girl and Blackwater. Don’t worry about that. But leave you alive?” He shook his head. “Sorry, that won’t work.”
A soft groan from Miles drew all of their attentions, but he didn’t open his eyes. She had no idea how badly he was injured, so she fished the USB from her pocket and held it up. “I’ll give you the USB and you can take me to Nico—if you leave Miles out of it.”
CB eyed the USB, then gave a jerk of his head to Orlo. Before Charlotte could react, the assassin shoved her sideways, ripping the USB from her hand and sending her to the floor.
Landing on her stomach, her breath rushed out of her chest as Orlo shoved a knee in her back. He yanked her hands behind her and zip-tied them.
“Kill the SEAL,” CB said, stepping over her, “and leave him in the woods for the wolves.”
“No!” Charlotte shouted, bucking under Orlo and knocking him off balance.
He smacked the back of her head with something heavy, causing pain to explode behind her eyes. She blinked, but saw two of Miles lying on the floor in front of her instead of one.
“No fires this time.” CB picked up the laptop. “We don’t want to attract attention. Throw the girl in my trunk so I can get going. Nico’s waiting. You can follow in their truck after you take care of the SEAL.”
“No!” Charlotte yelled again and Orlo’s boot connected with her side.
Her ribs cried in pain, her breath once more lodged in her throat.
CB ignored her, glancing around at the cabin as he hugged the laptop to his chest. “But shoot the SEAL in the woods. I like this place. I might come back here. Blood stains would be a pain in the ass to get out of these wooden floors.”
Orlo grunted and yanked Charlotte to her feet, shoving her out the door even as she fought to get back to Miles.
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MILES’ EYES FLUTTERED open as he woke up to a pounding in his head and pine needles in his nose. One side of his face lay buried in snow, his body shivering against the ground as he blinked his eyes and tried to focus.
The forest floor stretched before him, dark tree trunks, ghostly white snow. Storm clouds blanketed the moon and stars, and with the thick canopy overhead, their light wouldn’t have reached the forest floor where he lay anyway.
Light from the cabin twenty yards away did reach him. Barely. He groaned as he rolled over and blinked up at the tree branches over his head. The pain was instant, agonizing.
Where am I? What happened?
Head screaming, he forced his body up to a sitting position, touched the side of his head where the pain drilled into his temple. The last thing he remembered was lifting the satellite dish onto the base outside the cabin. A blow. Lights out.
Sifting through the fog in his brain, he wondered if he’d lost his grip on the satellite dish and knocked himself out.
No. That didn’t seem right.
Whatever had hit him had done it from behind.
Charlotte.
Miles squinted through the darkness, zeroing in on the cabin. Curtains hid the interior. No sign of where she was or where his attacker might be. Was she okay?
Who had knocked him out and dumped him up here in the woods? The outlaws Charlotte was always talking about? Had MI6 caught up to them?
MI6 wouldn’t have knocked him out and left him in the woods.
Shit. Had to be a criminal. How had the guy snuck up on him? What was he doing to Charlotte?
Miles used a nearby tree to gain his footing, fighting a wave of nausea and dizziness as he stood. He had to get to her. Keep her safe.
Over the pounding of his head, he heard the distant sound of a car engine idling. The sound cleared more of the fog in his brain.
He must have been drifting in and out of consciousness after the blow. Vague snippets of memories—Charlotte’s voice arguing with a man—trickled through his mind. He couldn’t remember what the man had said, but Charlotte’s voice still echoed in his head.
You killed my mother.
How long have you been working with Nico?
Miles!
A gust of wind came up, causing the branches overhead to bob up and down. Snow rained down on him and he had to wipe it from his face.
Drawing in a lung-filling breath of cold air, he shook off the last of the brain haze and started forward, then bent at the waist when another round of nausea cramped his gut.
Breathe, he told himself. Don’t pass out.
Charlotte had recognized their attacker. Was it the man who’d killed her mother all those years ago? He was alive and working for Bourean now? That seemed like one big fucking coincidence.
How had the killer found them? Why had he come after them?
Because Charlotte can ID him.
Between the pounding in his head and the wind, he almost didn’t hear the crunch of footsteps approaching from the west. West, where the trail led away from the cabin and the Land Rover was parked by the fallen tree.
Narrowing his eyes, Miles forced his double vision away. He could just make out a shadow moving near the tree line, headed toward him.
He reached for his weapon, came up empty. Whoever had blindsided him and dumped him in the woods had stripped him of his gun. The only reason the guy would come back was to finish him off.
Hell if he was going to let the bastard kill him with his own firearm. Ignoring the pain in his head, Miles slid around to the backside of a large tree and ran scenarios through his mind.
Evade or engage? That was the question.
He was the evasion god, after all. Disappearing into the forest would be easy, even if he had to cover his tracks in the snow.
No way. Leaving Charlotte behind wasn’t an option.
Engage it is.
Miles saw a fat branch about the length of a baseball bat lying in the snow a few feet away. A tree branch wasn’t much of a weapon against a gun, but it was better than nothing.
Diving for the branch would alert his attacker to his location. Of course, in a few more steps, the guy was going to see that Miles was no longer lying on the ground in a heap anyway.
The footsteps stopped. Miles heard a gun cock.
Yep. Bad guy alert. The killer was onto the fact his quarry was no longer unconscious.
Holding his breath, Miles listened. The wind continued to blow, increasing its speed and whistling through the trees. The car engine in the distance began accelerating. Christ, could there be more than one attacker? Was someone driving away with Charlotte?
Now or never, Miles told himself, and dove for the tree branch.
Gunshots echoed through the forest. Bullets ricocheted around his head, notching the tree trunks and raining wood chips on him as he grabbed the branch and rolled. A second wave of gunshots rang out, bullets ripping through the snow a hair’s breath away from his shoulder and spraying snow into the air like a halo.
He spit a wood chip from his mouth, gained his feet, and whirled behind a massive trunk. Between the monochrome landscape and his head injury fucking with his vision, his eyes didn’t want to focus. But he didn’t need to see to know his attacker had also moved to a more secure hiding place.
With the snow under their feet, if either moved they would make a noise. The tree branches above him groaned as another gust of wind hit them. In the distance, a wolf howled.
He was losing time. He had to get to Charlotte. Had to get out of the woods before the storm hit.
Need a distraction.
Bending down, he released the tree branch and started scooping snow, packing handfuls into tight little balls.
He heard something behind him and stopped dead. Had his attacker snuck up on him? He held his breath, slowly grasping the branch again, as long seconds ticked by. He peeked an eye out and looked toward the last place he’d seen the killer.
Movement on his left caught his attention. Something small, sprinting at full speed across the forest floor was kicking up snow and snapping twigs as it bolted toward him. The rabbit was in an all-out panic, which meant only one thing.
Either the storm had unnerved the animal…or something bigger was chasing it.
Miles waved the branch, startling the rabbit into veering right, heading toward the man. He picked up one of his tightly packed snowballs and threw it as hard as he could at the tree next to where the man had taken cover.
Sure enough, shots rang out as the man thought Miles was coming for him. Miles lobed another snowball off to the man’s left, and while the man turned and fired off several rounds, Miles pocketed his hard-packed snowball and ran behind the tree closest to his attacker.
Before he could swing to the side and charge the guy, however, a pack of deer emerged from the same direction the rabbit had emerged from, their hooves sounding like thunder on the snow-packed ground. Four does and one buck, tearing up the ground as they dodged trees and ran like their lives depended on it.
Whatever is coming is big, and I sure as hell don’t want to be here when it arrives.
Miles used his last snowball to keep the man’s attention on the direction he’d come from, throwing it hard and nailing a tree high up in some branches. A bird gave a distressed cry, lighting off the tree, apparently done with all the commotion. As the thing flapped and continued screeching through the canopy above them, Miles stepped out from behind his cover and attacked.
The man was under six foot, but solid. He turned at the precise moment Miles swung his make-shift bat.
Crack. The bat connected with the man’s gun hand, knocking it from his grasp. The gun went off, a bullet whizzing past Miles’ head as he let the bat’s momentum carry him around for another swing.
The man lunged at the same moment Miles’ swing came back around, the bat glancing harmlessly off the his back as he locked his arms around Miles waist and took him to the ground.
They both let out
a grunt, the air was knocked out of them. The man landed a blow to Miles’ ribs; Miles smacked the end of the tree branch bat into the guy’s forehead.
The hit should have sent the guy into Loolooville, but the bastard was tough. They continued to scuffle in the snow, trading blows and wrestling to the death.
The storm broke open, the wind driving pellets of sleet into them as they rolled down hill. Miles lost the bat after banging into a trunk, his attacker’s body pinning his arm against the rough bark. The sleet was forming a layer of ice on the snow, creating a skating rink effect. As the two slid down the hill, Miles managed to knee the man in the groin, causing him to go fetal.
Still sliding, Miles came up onto his knees, grabbed the man’s shoulders, and used the momentum of their slide to whirl him around and slam his head into a rock outcropping.
The force of impact caused Miles to lose his grip and sent him heading straight for a huge tree, ice balls stinging his face like buckshot.
If he hit the tree going this fast, he was going to do some damage. He tucked and rolled, barely missing the trunk as he sped by, bark scraping against his backside.
He spun like a top, finally coming to a stop a few feet from the cabin’s back door. For a second, he lay there, breathing hard and looking up at the angry sky as the sleet turned to snow.
He needed to know the killer was dead. He could really use the gun, too. But hiking back up the hill would take too much time and might be somewhat impossible considering the ice.
Slowly, Miles rose to his feet. The fight hadn’t improved his headache, but at least his guts were no longer cramping.
Find Charlotte.
Miles scanned the back door, the windows. No sounds came from inside, no activity. He made his way inside to double check, bracing himself in case her dead body was waiting for him.
Empty.
Dammit. On the one hand, Charlotte wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. On the other, she was gone.
The killer in the woods had had an accomplice and they must have driven off with Charlotte.
Miles’ backpack was on the kitchen counter, sitting next to Charlotte’s. His laptop was gone, however. Snatching up both backpacks, he headed for the door, praying the Land Rover, or whatever vehicle his attacker had been planning to use to get away, was still by the fallen tree.