Hard to Hold

by Incy Black

  His lips had drawn so tight, it was a wonder he could speak. “I’m doing the right thing. Protecting her.”

  “Then go under the radar with her. It’s not you she needs protecting from. You’re not your father, Nick. He lacked the capacity to love. You don’t. He relished the kill. You loathed it. Why the hell do you think I accepted you’re request for a desk job? Assassins survive what they have to do because they don’t feel. Anything. You’re a man who feels—and thinks—too damned much.”

  Nick held the man’s fierce stare but could do little about the tint of heat flirting his cheekbones. “She’s having a kid. I can’t be around children.”

  “How the hell would you know? You’ve never given yourself the chance.”

  Because he’d been too fucking scared he’d fail to protect them. That they’d suffer. The lightning forks savaging his mind melded into a single illumination. Jesus, it wasn’t his temper, his bad blood, he feared. It was his capacity to love. Too deeply. Without restraint. That he just wasn’t brave enough to risk having his heart ripped apart should anything bad happen to them. He’d have swallowed if he could. “Just make the arrangements, would you? I want her and her daughter untraceable.”

  A long, empty silence fell, broken only by the muted sound of London’s distant traffic.

  “Fine,” his boss heaved eventually. “But you’re an idiot, and you best be prepared to say good-bye to her for good, because I intend to bury Anna Key Marshall so deep beneath myriad layers, not even I will know her new identity. She’ll be gone. Forever.”

  Nick’s blood, already chilled, froze solid. The thought of losing Anna so completely, so permanently, draining his life essence. At the very least, he’d have to know where they located her. That she was coping, that she was happy. “The trouble with Anna is she doesn’t know how to do innocuous. And she’s loyal. Fiercely so. We’ll face a bitch of a job convincing her to give up her friends, let alone her company. We’ll need her full cooperation for it to work.”

  “Yes, and she’s going to fight us every inch of the way, which is the only reason I’m not standing you down from this case. Persuade her, Nick. Make sure she understands I’m throwing her a lifeline. It’s your job to make sure she takes it. And be in no doubt her disappearance will be absolute. Try and find her, attempt to monitor her in anyway, and you will be compromising her safety.”

  Nick accepted the glass of brandy and stared into its amber depths for a few beats. Could he let her go so emphatically? Would memories of her, the knowing she was safe, be enough to keep him warm at night? Fuck if he knew. Double fuck if he cared. This wasn’t about him. This was about Anna. Her future. Not his.

  He tossed the brandy down his throat, the burn searing as it hit his gut.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sweaty palms? Christ, that was a first. Relaxing his fists, Nick shook out his fingers, then reached for the doorknob. He couldn’t put off confronting Anna any longer. He pushed the door open. And gaped.

  She really couldn’t help herself, he realized, Anna had a pathological need to take over and fill empty spaces with her presence and her stuff. Probably, because she couldn’t bear the idea of being overlooked or forgotten. Bloody foster homes. In Anna’s case, they’d done more damage than good.

  What worried him was how the hell she’d cope on her own? And with a baby. Christ, she’d have to microchip her daughter just to be able to find her beneath the paper, magazines, shoes, and cushions that Anna accumulated like a magnet. After two days, she’d forsaken the study and commandeered the dining room as her preferred territory. And, it looked like someone had stuck the room in a giant dryer and then set it on full spin.

  “Well? If you’ve got something to say, spit it out. It’s not like you to be reticent or to worry about causing offense. You’re making me nervous.”

  Watching her uncurl from the small sofa, and arms high, stretch out her spine, wasn’t easy. Not when her T-shirt rode high to reveal her belly ring, the sapphire catching sunbeams filtering in through the window.

  With little he could do to slow his pulse, he schooled his facial expression into what he hoped was unmovable stoicism.

  Any sign of doubt or reluctance on his part, and she’d whittle at him. Chip and carve at his resolve until he changed his mind. She was nothing if not persistent. Frighteningly so. Damn, he was going to miss her. Miss her complete disregard for order. Miss the chaos she so carelessly created. Fuck knows how he’d survived the last five years without her. Fuck knows how he’d cope in the future, because he sure as hell didn’t.

  The slab of concrete that had fallen across his chest made breathing difficult. It was a weight he knew he’d be carrying for the rest of his life. He dug deep for his this-is-not-up-for-debate tone. “I’m going to disappear you, Anna. It’s your only chance. Think witness protection, only a hundred times more absolute.”

  Irritated pink immediately hit her cheeks. “I don’t recall abrogating the right to make my own decisions.”

  “You want to live, don’t you? You want your daughter to at least have a chance?” He instantly regretted the edge to his tone.

  Watching her struggle to contain her temper was like waiting for a volcano to blow. He was only surprised that she succeeded. The tension in his neck eased a fraction when she shrugged and, crossing to the fruit bowl, plucked and popped a grape in her mouth. “Can’t be worse than being confined in this stupid safe house. For how long?”

  He turned his back on her, crossed to the window, and gave his best impression of not having heard her question.

  Something struck the back of his head. A scrunched-up ball of paper. “You know I hate being ignored, Nick. For how long?”

  He turned and held her gaze, unable to think of a single word that would soften the blow he was about to deliver.

  She eased her hip free of the table against which she’d propped herself, her body language no longer simply itchy. “Nick? You’re scaring me. How long?”

  The seconds ticked by, each one longer than an hour.

  He forced his jaw to unlock. “Forever. No more Anna Key Marshall. Once you go in, there can be no coming out. Not for you, not for your little girl. Everything about who you are, who you were, and who you hoped to be, will be erased. It will be as if you never existed. You’ll have no contact with the past. You’ll be relocated, overseas probably, given a new history and some help to start again. But you won’t be able to fly, Anna. You’ll have to keep a low profile. Learn to blend in, be nondescript, invisible. And, God help you, you’ll have to try and be content with being suburban.”

  The way she pursed her lips warned him she was going to be difficult. Christ, he’d prayed this would go fast. That he’d say his abrupt good-bye and make a quick getaway.

  “Where? Where will they send me?”

  He closed his eyes. The strangled tone in her voice was bad enough. He had no wish to witness the quiet appall sweeping her face. “I don’t know. I’ll never know. That’s how it works. Your disappearance will be absolute. Be grateful you don’t have a family, Anna, because if you did, you would never see or speak with them again.”

  She choked. “You’re family, Nick. All I’ve got. And strangely enough, I don’t feel at all grateful. I presume you need my agreement. What…what if I refuse?”

  “Then your worst fears become a reality,” he told her bluntly. “Antila won’t stop until you and your daughter are dead.”

  “I need more time.”

  He shook his head. Slowly. Emphatically.

  “So kill him for me. It’s not as if you haven’t done it before. I don’t care whether it’s justified or legal. When the law is too broken to protect—”

  Crossing to the window, he fixed his attention on the derelict birdhouse that had fallen from its post. He intended to do just that. Antila would pay the ultimate price for compromising Anna’s hopes and dreams, for putting her life at risk, for robbing her of the chance to be all she needed to be.

  Except A
ntila’s death alone wouldn’t save her.

  “The Boroskys will still come after you,” he said. “And there aren’t enough bullets in the world to stop them. I’m sorry.”

  Anna’s only chance at life was to disappear. Completely. Forever.

  “So we could outmaneuver them. You know, force them into a corner so that if they touch me, they all go down, too.”

  He leaned his forehead against the cool of the windowpane. We? She still didn’t get it. There was no “we.”

  “They wouldn’t care. Perversely, it’s a matter of family honor to the Boroskys that you die, and they’ll sacrifice to the last man standing to see that happen.”

  “But we’ll figure something out. Right?”

  That she continued to argue meant she still believed she had a choice. Which was cruel. Ignoring the heavy weight on his chest, the promise of utter loneliness that the future held, he kept his tone dispassionate. “No. And, there is no we. Anna—this is good-bye.”

  He turned to face her. His expression dead so she wouldn’t doubt. Wouldn’t hope. The silent tears coursing her cheeks unchecked told him she known this was coming all along. Just as the tilt of her chin told him she wasn’t finished yet.

  “I hate good-byes. What’s good about them? Say auf Weidersehen. That way I know I’ll see you again.” Oblivious, or probably uncaring, that her midriff would be on full display, she yanked up her T-shirt and swiped her cheeks with its hem. “Say it, Nick. Say it.”

  He wanted to pierce his own eardrums at the desperation in her voice. Fierce and urgent. “I can’t. Because it would be a lie,” he rasped hoarsely.

  “So lie to me, Nick. At least, give me that. One little lie. Where’s the harm in that?”

  Though he’d promised himself no touching. He couldn’t stop himself. Crossing to her, he balled her small shoulders in his too-big hands and gave her a gentle shake. “Look at me. Look. At. Me.” He waited for her head to rise, her eyes to meet his. “Because in the end, it would destroy you. You’d never give up hoping. You have to let go, sweetheart. I’m a part of the past you have to leave behind.” He couldn’t tell her he was going after Antila. Despite what he’d said about the Borosky family, he couldn’t tell her he was going after them, too. A warning to them all to leave her the hell alone. His hands would be awash with blood. His soul, too. He couldn’t return to her like that.

  She wrenched herself free of his grip. “Don’t you dare sweetheart me, when you’re slamming the door on us. And, don’t kid yourself that you’re doing this for me. What’s it going to take to convince you? You can’t run forever, Nick. For Christ’s sake, take a real risk. Grow some balls, and for the first time in your life, take responsibility for who you are. Stop hiding behind your fucking father. You are not that man.”

  No, he wasn’t. He knew that now. His father had lacked all capacity to love. He had it in spades. But the chance of him surviving an assault on Antila and the Boroskys was next to zero. Better to make a clean break now. He stepped around her and crossed to the door, his gut twisting. He paused on the threshold, looked back over his shoulder. “Good-bye, Anna Key Marshall.” He said it so quietly, she’d have missed it if her furious attention hadn’t been riveted on him.

  Quietly, softly, he pulled the door closed against her.

  …

  In pitch blackness, Anna sat stiff and upright on the edge of her bed. A position she’d held for an hour or more, waiting. Waiting for the house to quieten. For her guards to settle down for the night shift.

  They’d informed her that two men would come for her in the morning. She wouldn’t know them, and once they’d handed her over to yet more strangers, she’d never see them again. She had no idea where they would be taking her, no idea of her future name. It was the appalling finality that got to her, the complete loss of freedom. The knowing that, for the rest of her life, she’d be little more than a puppet on someone else’s string.

  Her one regret was that she no longer wore her wedding ring, so she couldn’t leave it on the side in a final gesture of defiance and good-bye. It would have hurt Nick, even if only a little. And she wanted him to hurt, to feel just one iota of the sense of abandonment she carried like a dead albatross slung round her neck, its carcass banging against her ankles.

  She had fleetingly considered leaving her belly ring instead, but common sense had prevailed. She might have to sell her sapphire in the future. Accessing her considerable funds was out of the question. Any withdrawals would be too easily traced.

  She wasn’t leaving a note. She didn’t think one was merited.

  She was disappearing. But on her own terms. Not Nick’s. Not the Service’s. Her’s. She had the skills—mostly illicit—to create her own damn new identity and with it, the savvy necessary to build a new life. And she wouldn’t be answerable to the Service for every damn choice she made, a big plus. Nor would she have to live with the constant fear of betrayal, an even bigger plus. And Nick? Well, that was the biggest plus of all, neon bright, glitter-covered. He’d quit on her for the very last time. With nothing in her future to remind her of him, she’d forget him eventually. Not forgive him, but forget him.

  That’s what her head told her. She wasn’t convinced her heart was listening.

  Cocking her head to the side, she pricked at the silence, her ears on alert. All quiet. Deathly so. She pushed to her feet. It was time.

  She held her breath as she inched open the window. Disconnecting the alarm earlier in the evening without getting caught had been a war of nerves. She wasn’t infallible, and the risk that she’d get something wrong had been huge.

  She slid one leg through the narrow gap, angling low so her breasts brushed the base of the window frame and she was able to slip the rest of her body through.

  At least, that had been her plan.

  Fingers laced tight into her hair and tugging so savagely, she was lifted clear of her escape hatch and dragged back into the room.

  Her Achilles tendon snagged the bottom of the window frame, sending a bolt of pain the length of her leg. She tried to scream, but the ability to make sound had deserted her. That didn’t stop her from twisting to claw at her assailant though, and didn’t stop her knee from rising quickly and driving home.

  Her assailant went down with a dull grunt.

  Stumbling over the prone figure, she threw herself toward the door. Flinging it open, she raced down the dimly lit corridor toward the wide-open space of the living room. Her voice unfroze. A banshee scream escaped her throat.

  In the dark, the toe of her sneaker caught on the edge of a Persian rug and sent her sprawling. There wasn’t time to catch her breath, so she used her elbows to crawl forward, terrified that any minute now, she’d feel the curl of fingers around her ankle.

  An urgent whisper called to her. “Anna, over here.”

  She changed direction pushed into crawl position and scrambled toward Rob Bates, the agent who had taken such good care of her and made her laugh with his silly card tricks. He was crouching low behind the arm of the sofa, a knife the size of a small ax in his hand.

  He reached for her and dragged her to his side, shifted his hand to the back of her neck to keep her head down. “We’ll have to get out through the kitchen. There’s an alley that runs the rear of the property. We can escape that way.” His whispering made the absolute silence more foul. More terrifying.

  “Where are the others?” she hissed.

  “Dead.”

  His answer, short and curt, knocked her on her ass. Literally. Seth and Mike had shown her the utmost courtesy. They’d laughed with her, made her feel safe, lent her silent comfort after her run-ins with Nick. Christ, Seth had kids, a son and daughter. She shook her head, refusing the brutal tragedy, her entire body following suit, little shivers quaking her frame.

  Death in photos was foul enough, but death so real, lying so close—

  She turned and dry-gagged, her throat as arid as the ashes clogging the base of an ashtray never washed.
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  The man in her room! She’d felled him, but for long?

  “Rob, a man…my bedroom. He’ll be coming. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod—”

  “Shush, that’ll be Fleiss, one of Antila’s men. Idiot, he’s gonna get a skinning if he hurt you.”

  “The bitch was going out the window; she’s probably triggered the second alarm,” defended a bulky shadow, emerging from the mouth of the corridor from which she’d crawled mini-moments before.

  Anna pressed her vertebrae into the wall behind her, hard enough to leave a permanent impression. Sure, the man was walking with a lopsided gait, one hand clutching his groin, but in the other he held a gun. A big, evil-looking gun, the length of its barrel glinting nastily in the moonlight filtering through the slatted blinds.

  She clutched Rob’s biceps, digging her nails deep as the man limped forward.

  “We’ve got to get the fuck out of here right now before reinforcements arrive. I’m not using kid gloves on her if she’s difficult, not with half the Service about to descend on our asses,” the shadow continued.

  We? Anna quickly scanned the darkness for a second shadow. Who the hell was he talking to?

  The man reached for her, his sausage-like fingers again finding her hair.

  Rob didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, plunging his knife into her assailant’s throat, and sliced sideways. “Antila’s orders were not to hurt her, not under any circumstance.”

  A warm mist hit Anna’s cheek; she swiped in panic then stared at her palms. Blood. Not even the dark could hide the deep magenta, and the smell—rich, raw, sweet. This time her scream was that of a felled angel.

  An arm braced round her midriff, hauled her upward, and dragged her, her heels scuffing and jarring through the thick pile of the rugs scattering the floor of the living room.