Maverick

by Lora Leigh

  As John spoke, he was rubbing a long swath of Bailey’s thick black hair between his fingers, pulling at it just a little and causing her to make another of those enraged little snarls of fury.

  “You’re here for Orion,” he began.

  “I’m not worried in the least about fucking Orion,” she snarled. “Not now.”

  Micah’s brows lifted. “Why not now?”

  “You’re the bastard sleeping with his mark, aren’t you?” A satisfied little smile curled at her lips. “I’ve been trying to figure out who the hell you were for a week. I finally recognized your voice. Where did you pick up your buddy?” She tried to slam her head into John’s when he blew into her ear.

  “And you heard my voice where?” Micah asked, neither confirming nor denying the charge.

  “At the nightclub the night you picked up the Clay girl,” Bailey sneered. “She was rather easy, wasn’t she, bub?”

  It was a damned good thing Bailey was family; otherwise, he might have to kill her for that.

  “Now, you should have warned me that you wanted to play hardball,” he said coldly. “I could have let my friend here take some hide off your arm just to prove he could do it.”

  She stilled as John ran a finger slowly down her arm.

  He was going to have to have a talk with John about his chair-side manner here any moment.

  “Sorry. Maybe she wasn’t so easy after all.” Her smile was tight. “But you are the man that moved in with her. I know you are. You’re after Orion, aren’t you?”

  “So what makes you think you shouldn’t have to worry about Orion now?” he quizzed her curiously.

  “Micah Sloane, age thirty-two, Navy SEAL, my ass,” she snorted. “You’re a nobody, Mr. Sloane. You have a very impressive record, and you just happened to be listed as working with the Durango team in the Middle East. Sorry, sweetcheeks, that doesn’t jife with me. You’re no SEAL.”

  “Then what am I?”

  “A nightmare,” she said with a strange sense of private satisfaction. “I wondered if you were with Orion, or Orion himself having fun. But Orion doesn’t work with a partner.”

  “Ow. Shit.” Score one for Bailey; her hard head met the equally hard forehead of Heat Seeker. “Now dammit, you didn’t have to do that,” the other man laughed as he backed away a safe distance.

  “You’re working with a moron,” she sneered. “Couldn’t you find anything better?”

  “Not on such short notice,” Micah said coolly. “Why were you checking me out?”

  Bailey remained silent.

  “Let’s not go through the whole song and dance again,” he sighed. “Just tell me.”

  “Orion killed family,” she finally stated. “I want a piece of him.”

  “You and about a dozen other families,” he grunted. “What makes you so special?”

  “What makes you so special?” she countered. “How did you figure out where to get in and how so quickly?”

  “My business,” he informed her. “Answer the question.”

  Her teeth snapped together as John blew another puff of air at her ear.

  Bailey had some damned sensitive ears, and Micah knew it. He’d watched her nearly break a man’s neck ten years before when he’d dared to blow in her ear.

  “He killed my family, my partner, and he scarred me,” she raged. “What other excuse do I need?”

  Did she need more? She had more than he did, but he knew Bailey. She had more.

  He shook his head again. “I’m going to start skinning you myself,” he told her. “I’m running out of patience. Why do you want Orion?”

  “Because he knows the identity of a monster,” she spat. “The doctor that worked with Clay’s father. A scientist. He’s responsible for the rapes and horrific mutilations of several teenage girls in Ukraine. Girls I knew.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Girls I promised to protect.”

  Micah closed his eyes and breathed out roughly. He’d had no idea that Bailey had been part of the group of agents that had escorted four teenage girls to a private clinic on the Ukrainian border. Those girls had been taken from the clinic that night by a doctor who had “bought” them from the nurses there. The girls had been found three weeks later in St. Petersburg in a cold dark alley, naked, mutilated, tortured beyond belief.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said softly.

  “We were supposed to protect them,” she breathed out roughly. “We swore we would. One of those girls was a damned genius in math. Another was an artist. The youngest wanted to be an astronaut; the oldest just wanted to be safe.”

  Risa’s rapist definitely got around. “And how will killing Orion help you to find him?” Micah asked. “He was no more than an employer if he’s involved with Orion.”

  “He’s involved,” she answered wearily. “It’s the same doctor one of my family members was tracking. Orion killed her.”

  “Ariela Abijah,” Micah said softly.

  Bailey stilled as John watched curiously.

  “Yes.” She finally nodded, swallowing tightly. “He killed Ariela. Six weeks later my cousin Garren all but killed himself when he rushed a suicide bomber. Two years later, their son, David.” She pronounced his name “Da-Veed,” a sound Micah hadn’t heard for six years. “He was killed two years later when he tracked Orion down to a freighter off the coast of Tel Aviv. Two years later, Orion was hired to kill a Russian double agent I was protecting. He killed my partner and nearly killed me.”

  “And six months later you lost the girls from Ukraine,” he stated.

  She nodded wearily. “It’s the same man,” she breathed out roughly. “The doctor that hired him to kill Ariela is the same one that tortured those children. And Orion can lead me to him. I’ve been following rumors for two years. It led me here. I almost had him when he attempted to kidnap her.” She shook her head. “In the confusion another vehicle side-swiped mine and I lost him.”

  Talk about the mother of all fuckups.

  Micah wiped his hand down his face before turning and staring at Jordan where he stood in the open doorway. Jordan shook his head slowly. There was no pulling her in on this, but Micah knew there was no keeping her out of it, either. Bailey was as damned stubborn as her cousins were. She’d die herself before she gave up. Orion had taken too large a piece of her. He’d wounded too much of her for her to ever walk away.

  “You’re going to have to let the doctor go,” Micah informed her coldly. “As well as Orion. I’m here to kill him, not question him.”

  She laughed at that. A strangely hollow sound that sliced across his senses, it was so filled with pain.

  “Liar,” she whispered. “You want both of them, Micah Sloane. Because I know what you don’t want anyone to know. You’re in love with the mark. That doctor raped your woman. Everyone in the community knows that Orion’s main employer worked with Jansen Clay and that he was there the night Clay had his daughter and the other girls kidnapped. He raped her, and you won’t rest until he’s dead.”

  “Wrong.” It was the truth. Both of them would die before this finished; Micah would make certain of it. “You, Ms. Serborne, will be picked up by two of your fellow agents come morning. Your director will have you locked up for your own protection until this is over.”

  He rose to his feet.

  “No!” She tried to come out of the chair. Rage tore through her voice, flushed her face, and caused her to nearly topple to the floor as she fought the ropes. “You can’t do that. Don’t you dare. Let me help. I can help you.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You need me,” she cried out roughly. “I know what you don’t know.”

  Micah paused. He knew her voice; he knew when she lied, when she told the truth. He had known her since she was a child, and he knew she wasn’t playing games this time.

  “What do you know?”

  “An exchange,” she bargained, her breathing rough as she turned her head to his voice. “Let me in on this.”
<
br />   Micah shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Serborne. The family of Abijah has lost enough of its children. I’d just as soon see you live. You don’t know his identity, or you’d have already struck.”

  “He wears a wig.” She spoke quickly, desperately. “I know this. I know how to tell. I’ve seen him twice. I know how he walks; I know his voice. Don’t you cheat me out of this!” she screamed.

  “I can find him without your information,” he told her. “Give your director my regards when you see him, Ms. Serborne, and if you want to save your career, you’ll make certain you follow his orders while you’re with him. Because I can and I will have you taken out of that agency, are we understood?”

  “I’ll kill you.” She jerked, fought her bonds, and forced John to catch her chair. He received another harsh head butt for his efforts.

  “Hell!” John cursed, letting her go. The chair bounced, rocked, and tipped to the floor as she screamed out in rage.

  “Gag her,” Micah ordered. “Take her to her friends. And make damned sure they know the consequences of allowing her out of their sight.”

  He turned away from her, and turning away tore at him. If she ever learned who he was, she would never forgive him. David Abijah would indeed be dead, because Bailey Serborne just might end up killing him.

  CHAPTER 21

  HE WAS BALD.

  Bailey knew his voice.

  She knew his walk.

  She knew how he moved. Bailey was the only person to have come against Orion and lived to tell the tale.

  “She could be helping him,” John stated, keeping his voice low as they met in the living room of the apartment.

  Jordan was silent, as was the rest of the team. Micah stood by the heavily covered windows, his arms crossed over his chest as he considered the suggestion.

  He didn’t have the proof to veto it.

  “She knows something about the doctor,” he said quietly. “She was too evasive. She kept attention focused on Orion. Whatever she’s hiding, though, we’ll not be able to extract short of drugs, and she’s trained to resist those.”

  “How far could she resist them?” Jordan asked, and Micah knew what he was considering.

  Micah breathed out roughly as he shook his head. “She was weak in that area. Garren Abijah oversaw a lot of her training. She tested in Mossad laboratories in that area, and we broke her within an hour.”

  He watched John wince. They knew the training Mossad went through to resist drugs and their effects. It wasn’t pretty and testing was never easy. The fact that she had broken so easily wasn’t a sign of weakness, but it was a sign that she could be broken. The CIA had known that. They had kept her on assignments with the least amount of risk in that area. There were a lot of CIA agents who broke easily under Mossad testing, though. It was rigorous, and at times it had been deadly.

  “It’s an option then,” Jordan suggested. “You could oversee it.”

  Micah shook his head. He couldn’t oversee it. It just simply wasn’t in him at this point.

  “She’s the last of my family, Jordan,” he told the other man roughly. “There’s not a chance in hell I could do that to her.”

  “Were you there during the testing?” Jordan asked, his eyes narrowed.

  Micah nodded. “I walked out halfway through it. Even Garren couldn’t stay for the full session. She’s like a sister. I won’t cause her to suffer in the ways it would take to break her and extract the information when I’m almost certain that what she’s hiding, she’s hiding so she can take down the doctor first.”

  “What if she’s a liability?” Travis stepped forward, his brooding expression darker than ever as his blue-gray eyes flicked to the closed bedroom door.

  “The CIA will control her until this is finished,” Micah stated. “Her director can determine after that what she is. I won’t be a party to her torture to find out one way or the other. Hold her until we’re done.”

  “She knows more, Micah,” John argued. “You said it yourself: She kept the focus of the questioning off the doctor. What if she knows who Orion’s employer is? What if she’s in league with them?”

  “Travis.” Jordan addressed the former MI6 operative though he kept his gaze on Micah. “Take her to our secondary location and get the information we need.”

  “Jordan.” Micah stepped forward warningly.

  “Is Risa’s life worth this risk, Micah?” Jordan asked, bringing him to a full stop. “Travis won’t kill your cousin, but he can and will get that information. It’s too important.”

  Micah’s jaw clenched. Was it worth Risa’s life to let this go? It wasn’t. Risa’s life was everything to him, but Bailey was the last of the family of Serborne. Her parents were dead. Micah’s parents were dead. They were all gone but Bailey and Micah, and he could never claim that relationship again.

  “Travis, John. Go,” Jordan ordered them. “Transport her to the secondary location and see what you can find out.”

  “Travis.” Micah stepped forward, then stopped. His jaw clenched because he knew he was about to go against every iota of training he had ever been given with the Mossad. He was going to ask for mercy.

  And he couldn’t.

  “When this is finished,” he said instead, “if she carries more nightmares than she carries now, then I’ll know who to blame.”

  Travis shook his head. “If she carries more nightmares, then it will be her own fault, Micah. She’s an agent. She knows what we need. I’ll make certain she’s given every chance to understand we’re on the same side. After that, whatever comes down on her is on her head, not mine.”

  Jordan continued to stare back at him. Micah was the interrogation specialist. He knew the drugs needed. He knew her breaking point. What was more, he knew the drug required to break her.

  He inhaled roughly.

  “Now is the time to speak, Micah,” Jordan warned him.

  “Traditional drugs won’t work,” he told Travis quietly before giving him the name of the hallucinogenic guaranteed to break her. She couldn’t fight its effects. She was particularly susceptible to the drug. It was her weakness.

  Travis stared at him for long moments. “It’s a hard one,” he finally said. “Are you sure?”

  Micah nodded. “Mossad doctors are damned good. It took them a week to come up with the drug that would break her the fastest. As I said, it took less than an hour.”

  Travis nodded.

  “John, call her director. They can pick her up when you’re finished at a location of your choosing. Get what you can as fast as you can.” Jordan turned to Micah. “You’re going out tomorrow. Risa has an invitation to a ball being thrown to raise money for area hospitals. She and her grandmother have yet to attend one of these parties because of Risa’s reticence. The two of you will be there. See if she recognizes anyone.”

  Micah nodded. He dreaded it, but he realized the importance of it. There was no way to shield Risa from this, as much as he needed to for his own sake. When this was over, his time with her would be over.

  “Micah.” He turned back to Jordan as the other man continued. “You’re getting personally involved here.” Jordan glanced at a silent Noah. “I thought we all agreed the rest of you were going to keep that from happening?”

  Micah glanced at Noah as he watched Jordan silently. The commander’s nephew was no one’s fool, and he was one of the few men who had a chance of influencing Jordan.

  “Dead men don’t have a weakness,” Micah said tonelessly. “But even dead men have a conscience, Jordan.”

  With that, he left the apartment. There was no argument here, just as there was no denying the guilt Micah knew would lie against his soul for what Bailey would endure.

  He stepped across the hall, knocked softly, then used his keys to let himself in.

  He stepped inside, closed the door, and came to a stop. Kira was watching television, her weapon lying on the arm of the chair at her side. Risa was asleep on the couch. Morganna and Emily were stretche
d out on the floor.

  “One of us should call Clint and Kell,” Kira said softly as she rose to her feet.

  Micah nodded as he felt his throat constrict. Risa slept with comfortable innocence, her expression serene as she lay on her side, her head propped up on one of the small couch pillows.

  As Kira made the call to the two men on backup, Micah moved to the couch, picked up his woman, and carried her to her bed. He tucked her beneath the blankets before returning to the living room in time to see Morganna rising groggily from the floor while Kell lifted his wife in his arms.

  The two men nodded back to Micah soberly as Kira went to the door, checked the hall, and gave the all-clear nod. They moved from the apartment as Micah caught the door. Closing it behind him, he checked the locks, then made his way through the other rooms to test the windows and the security there.

  He couldn’t still that ragged voice inside him that reminded him of Bailey’s grief at his parents’ funerals. He couldn’t still the memories of the child she had been or the decision he had made tonight.

  He was getting old, he decided as he moved back to the bedroom and stripped his clothes off wearily. He had just spent the past eight hours tracking Bailey’s movements over the past few years, as well as any connection she could have had to Orion other than the Russian mission. Then, Micah had questioned her. His sin was in allowing another man to break her reluctance to tell them what they needed to know.

  Why would she hide it?

  Micah crawled into the bed, his eyes closing as Risa rolled to him, reaching for him even in sleep.

  His arms surrounded her, his hold almost desperate as he buried his face in her hair and fought every instinct he could feel rising inside him to take her and run. He could hide her, he told himself. He was Mossad. He wasn’t just an agent; he was every second of training he had absorbed during those years. Every instinct honed to lethal sharpness. He could protect her.

  Unless something happened to him. Unless he blinked and the worst happened. And then he would be without her.

  He kissed her hair.