by Lea Griffith
Ella shrugged. “Maybe they were closer than we can imagine.”
Brody’s gaze went dark. “I don’t buy it.”
“Me either,” Chase said. “Micah loved women. I seriously doubt he’d ever settle down, much less with a mouse like Nina.”
“Damn, Chase,” Knight grumbled. “Did you ever really look at Nina?”
Chase shrugged.
Black smiled. “She was actually beautiful underneath that faded-brown, dyed-from-a-bottle hair.”
“I never really looked, I guess,” Chase said, his tone clearly indicating his angst at the oversight.
“Let me run a search, and we’ll revisit this. I just wanted you all to know she’s alive, from what I can tell, and she’s in play again,” Vivi murmured. “Next thing up for discussion…Anna Beth Caine.”
The woman in question kept her gaze on the table, her hands twisting in front of her. Jude felt sorry for her. He wasn’t thrilled with her parental unit, but he felt bad for the daughter. He wanted a few moments alone with the Piper. Just a few.
“Anna Beth has been helping me crack the code for the thumb drive Ella retrieved in Russia. She tells me her sister had secrets upon secrets, and that she doesn’t know what those were because she was locked up in an institution the last four years,” Vivi recited softly.
“There’s a story there,” Brody murmured. “You’ll tell us eventually.”
No question. Brody punctuated his statement with a quick tap of his fist on the table.
Anna Beth Caine jumped and then glared at the big soldier. Well, that’s interesting, Jude thought.
“Anna Beth,” King began. “We need all the information you can give us about your sister, your father, and your brother.”
The woman’s head snapped up at that. “I—”
Ella glanced at Jude, brows raised, a question in her gaze.
“Don’t lie to me,” King said, his voice low with just a hint of a growl. “We know about Drake.”
“How?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter. We figured it out. And I want everything you have on your brother. I know he’s dead. I want to know how he plays into this, and you’re going to give us that information.” King’s tone left no other alternative.
Brody glared at King.
Jude rolled his eyes. So much drama. “Brody, chill out. King, there’s no reason to threaten her.”
King speared Jude with a glare of his own. “It’s not a threat. We are all in play because we’ve been used as the chess pieces in her father’s personal vendetta.” He turned the full force of his gaze on Anna Beth. “I want everything you have, and you’ll give it to me, or I will make the creator of this team suffer. I want to know your relationship to Horace Dresden. I want your sister, I want your brother, and I want you. Soon. I’m giving you another twenty-four hours before we meet again, and, Ms. Caine, if I have to pull it out of you, I will.”
Anna Beth hissed in a breath. “You threaten me and talk crap about my father. But here’s a truth for you. He’s saved all of your asses. None of you would be here without him.”
“You’ll have to expand on that for any believability,” Knight muttered. “Because right now, the picture doesn’t match the sound.”
King glanced at Ella. “Don’t,” he warned her. “Anna Beth, I’m not threatening you. Stand down, Brody.”
Ella went red in the face. Brody’s fists were clenching and unclenching.
Jude thought shit was about to go nuclear, and then Anna Beth Caine defused the situation.
“He’s right, Ella. I know the truth, but you guys don’t. I’ll give it all to you, but I need to get it together in my head. I’ve been…” She trailed off and then seemed to snap back. “Look, just give me another day or two, and I’ll give it to you,” she said clearly.
King nodded. Ella blew out a breath. Brody sat back.
Vivi cleared her throat. She did this for the sole purpose of drawing their notice. It was one of her patented moves. Like Rook grunting, Vivi cleared her throat.
“Tomorrow then,” she said and made a note on her tablet. “Dresden is dead. Gabrielle Moeller is in a safe house outside DC, and now we’ve got Nina on deck.”
“Has there been any significant troop movement along the Russian-Crimean border?” Ella asked.
Vivi gave a negative shake of her head. “Not yet, but there are murmurs.”
“But you can bet your sweet ass Russia will begin making military moves to protect that oil. Dresden never got his money, but someone wants it. Which brings me to some information I need to share,” Ella stated.
She took a deep breath. Jude rubbed her leg under the table. Any comfort he could give her, he would. “I was with Dresden for a year, trying to gather information on the group he worked for or with. I still don’t know the specifics. I did things I can’t take back. Saw things that will haunt me for eternity. But it wasn’t until right before he shot me that I got a name I’d been seeking for a year.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Anna Beth Caine interrupted Ella, fear a tattoo on her face. “Not yet. That name is too dangerous.”
Ella looked at Anna Beth, clearly not surprised the other woman knew the name she was about impart. “It’s okay, AB. We’re team. We’ll protect you.”
Silence reigned as everyone waited.
“William Ricker,” Ella said in the quiet.
Anna Beth shook her head. King hung his. The other men and women around the table frowned.
“Okay, this seems a little melodramatic, but who’s William Ricker?” Black asked.
“I don’t know,” Ella said.
“I don’t either,” Vivi stated. “But I will soon.” She gave Anna Beth a pointed look.
“How do you know Dresden wasn’t lying?” Knight asked.
“Because he gloated. He knew he was going to shoot me. The dead don’t tell tales,” Ella reminded him.
“Unless they’re not dead,” Chase said. When everyone looked at him, he threw up his hands. “Look, I’m just saying.” He pointed at Knight, Ella, Madoc, and the board that held Nina’s picture. “Dead, then not dead. Seems to me Dresden made a horrible miscalculation.”
“True that,” Jude bit out. “And I’ll thank God every day for it.”
Ella grabbed his hand, interlocking their fingers and holding on.
“The Alliance,” Anna Beth whispered. “William Ricker has ties to the Alliance. Ricker owns a global conglomerate that contains everything from the largest pharmaceutical company in the world to an automaker. And I can’t tell you more, because I don’t have it. I can help you crack the fail-safe, but I don’t have any more than that. Please don’t ask.”
“Vivi, get on it,” King ordered.
“That’s the group,” Ella said aloud, reaching for Jude’s leg and squeezing, her worry and fear communicated clearly in the gesture. “The Alliance. That’s the group the Piper is hunting. It feels right.”
“Or he’s running from it,” Black threw in. “I’ve heard of them before, a splinter group, real Illuminati-type stuff, that’s been talked about for years now. Just hints and rumors, nothing concrete. Let me tap some of my resources in London. I’ll get back to Vivi with what I find.”
King nodded. “Okay, so everybody knows the balls we’re juggling—Nina Lassiter, the Piper’s location and story, and now William Ricker and his Alliance. We all need to be ready to move. Black, I need you on Dr. Moeller. Can you bring her to base so we can pick her brain as well? I think Anna Beth would like to see her friend too.”
Black nodded but not before glancing at Chase, a question in his gaze, almost as if he was asking permission. Chase just shook his head; his face hard, his eyes even harder. Anna Beth didn’t say anything, and Jude thought that unusual. Jesus, there were too many secrets. They’d spend eternity digging out from under them.
“I say a couple of us head to Alaska, see if we can’t find Nina Lassiter. Who’s in?” King asked.
“Me,” Jude offered immediately.
“I’m in,” Black said right after Jude. “I’ll grab Dr. Moeller and be back tomorrow.”
“Get on it. Brody, you and Rook are here. Chase, I need you and Knight back on Nadege. Take him out. It’s what you do; handle it. No capture. Straight kill order.”
Chase and Knight nodded. Brody looked pissed. Rook looked bored.
“We good?” King asked.
Everyone affirmed.
“Don’t be brave,” King said into the sudden silence.
“Be accurate,” the team responded automatically.
Jude helped Ella up the stairs and to their room. He helped her shower, making sure her wound was covered so she could get in the water. He stood behind her, washing her body slowly and thoroughly. He was as clinical as he could be, considering she was his woman and he loved her body.
She quirked a lip at his hard cock, and he shrugged, completely unrepentant. Ella laughed, and Jude smiled at the sound. He dried them off, dried her hair, and got them both dressed.
He settled her in their bed and climbed in behind her, her body curving into his as effortlessly as always. Her cat, Chica, jumped lightly on the bed, walking in a circle before she curled into a ball at Ella’s feet. Jude shook his head. Only Ella could find a goddamn cat in the middle of a snowstorm.
“Will we rebuild in New Mexico?” she asked softly, twining her fingers with his.
“Maybe,” he murmured at her neck.
“Have you talked to Tia Rosa?”
“She’s fine. She knows the house is gone, and she knows you’re alive. Says she can’t wait to see you again,” Jude told his lady.
“She wasn’t shocked?” Ella asked, worry in her tone.
“Nah. She’s the one who taught me that not everything is as it seems,” Jude said into her hair.
“Hmmm,” Ella mumbled as she turned over in his arms and rested her head on his chest.
Long moments of silence passed, while Jude soaked up the fact that she was with him, alive. He listened to her breathe and drank in her scent, running his fingers through the silken strands of her hair, basking in her presence.
“You’ll be careful.” She wasn’t asking; she was telling him. He, King, and Black were heading out late tomorrow to Alaska. Nina Lassiter had to be brought in.
“Only way I can be when I know I have you to come home to,” he assured her.
Ella yawned as she settled into his body.
“My heart never gave up on you, El,” he whispered.
She kissed him right over the organ that had never let her go. “I know,” she replied sleepily.
He felt her breathing even out and her body settle into the pattern of sleep. But he had one more promise to make before sleep took him.
“Safe, baby,” he said so softly it was barely a breath. She was already out, and he didn’t want to wake her.
But Ella smiled, her lips curving against his skin, and he realized she wasn’t as asleep as he’d thought. She raised her hands from under the covers and rested six fingers on his chest. “I’ve got your six, Jude.”
Joy lit the last dark corner of his heart. She’d come back to him. Or maybe he’d chased her down. Either way, she was his, heart and body—and Jude would never take that for granted again.
“Always,” he said.
Epilogue
Nina was tired. It felt as if grains of sand had embedded themselves in her eyeballs and no amount of rubbing helped ease the discomfort. She’d been up for two days straight. Fear and adrenaline continuously punched through any attempt at rest, not allowing her a respite. She’d gone through Ranger training and not had this much difficulty staying on top of things.
And now the car she’d purloined in Anchorage, the Honda she’d thought would run for miles and miles and miles due to its Japanese engineering, had met its match—Alaska.
She groaned as she shoved the car door open and stepped out. Steam rose from the front of her vehicle, the ghostly tendrils of gray mist startling against the backdrop of a brilliant pink-orange sunset. The sight held her attention for a long moment. It really was pretty in a this-sucks-ass kind of way.
Somewhere, a tree limb cracked and fell to the snow-shrouded ground, disturbing the sudden silence. At least, she hoped that’s what the noise had been. She didn’t know if she could protect herself from anything other than a stick right now.
The car must have become motivated by the sound of the limb falling because it chose that moment to creak ominously, the engine coughing and hissing before the whole body shifted, sinking into an impressive gangster lean.
Then, right before her eyes, one of the wheels fell off and rolled down the road. “Well…damn,” she whispered.
She had driven the wheels off the car. Literally. Apparently not finished with its sighing and groaning, the Honda shuddered violently and gave up the ghost. The steam billowing out from under the hood stopped, and she was left once more with silence.
Losing the tire must have broken its heart.
She had no idea where the first laugh came from. It startled her, made her question her sanity. Because sure as hell, none of this was funny. Her gaze caught on the animal moving over the snow ahead of her. The cause of her current trouble trotted up a steep hillside as if it hadn’t a care in the world.
Stupid elk. The animal didn’t look any the worse for wear after meeting her borrowed Honda ass to fender. The Honda?
Yeah…it was hurt. It was hurt real bad.
With the rapidly falling snow and not a soul in sight she knew, real bad was a death sentence for the car. Probably for her too. She was so close to her destination. Even though she felt like she’d traveled to the end of the earth, she had to be close.
The frigid breeze reached under her knit top and sank fangs into her skin. She blew roughly on her hands as her toes curled inside her fur-lined hiking boots. She had to get moving. Too long out in this weather, and she’d die. She hadn’t survived hell to die frozen in Alaska. Contemplation made her angry, so she shoveled that energy into pulling on whatever she could find from the backseat of her car. Layers for warmth because it was damn cold here, and it appeared she had a long walk in her near future.
“You just couldn’t pick Tahiti, could you? Had to pick Alaska,” she grumbled aloud. “Who picks Alaska to set up their retirement home? You had to be crazy before Ricker got hold of you. That’s got to be it.”
She rubbed her chest because the pain that settled in her heart when she thought about Micah had the ability to take her to her knees. She breathed through it. He was gone. She was going to have to make peace with that eventually. But not before she destroyed the man who’d taken him from her.
After putting on every last bit of the clothing in her go bag, she decided she resembled a vagrant marshmallow woman. She shrugged. It was irrelevant. She gathered together as much of her stuff as she could, cramming her laptop, satellite phone, and a small notebook into her go bag before she punched the key fob lock. She shook her head, sighing loudly as the car alarm snort-wheezed and then let out a last mournful wail. Why she was attempting to lock it was a mystery.
The car she’d appropriated—okay, fine, the car she’d stolen in Anchorage—was over fifteen years old. The beating it endured during her cross-Alaska flight, followed by being smacked upside the head by that damned elk’s behind, had relegated it to toast status. It wasn’t salvageable and would probably be consumed by the forest surrounding her. The car mimicked her sigh and then deflated, the other front tire going flat with a pop and hiss.
If cars had a soul, this one’s had just crossed over. She stared at the gray hunk of metal, and tears pricked her eyes. If she could make it to Micah’s hideaway, she’d buy herself some ti
me to research and plan. She’d waited for a year to make this move. Making it to his place would allow her safety and access to the high-tech systems she knew he had hidden in his war room.
She’d never been here. But he’d promised that one day he would bring her.
Wiping away a tear, she wanted to scream at the agony racing through her. He should be here with her.
Goddamn Dresden! Goddamn Ricker! Goddamn the Piper!
She glanced up at the sky again and forced air through her lungs. She could do this. She’d baited the hook for Endgame. She’d used burner credit cards and shown her face on closed-circuit television. They’d come looking for her as she wanted, but they’d struggle to find her so she’d bought herself some time. Micah had given no one the location of his house. Not even Jude, his best friend. Eventually, they’d find her, but she estimated she had at least a month or two before that happened. And that was plenty of time to plan.
She gazed around at the majestic beauty of the scene before her. No doubt, Alaska was gorgeous, but she could not, for the life of her, figure out why a man born and bred surfing in the waves of the Pacific off the Southern California coast had wanted to live in the vast, cold wilderness that was Alaska.
Then again, once upon a time she’d wanted to hide as far away from civilization as she could get. Become lost in a tourist town and not come up for air. Instead, she’d entered the CIA and found herself smack-dab in the middle of international espionage and intrigue.
She hitched her go bag over her shoulder. The last sign she’d passed had said the big city of Nikolai, Alaska, population ninety-four, was approximately ten miles ahead. Somewhere on the periphery of Nikolai was where she was headed. It was as remote as anyone could get, and right now her target location seemed farther than the moon.
She had a hell of a walk in front of her. She recalled the coordinates on the handheld GPS she’d purchased in Anchorage and cursed when the battery went dead.