by S. M. Butler
He nodded, but she wasn’t sure if he accepted what she’d said, or he’d found his own answer. His eyes still roamed over her like he couldn’t get his fill of it. Of her.
She squeezed his hand, bringing his attention back to her. “Can we go home now?”
His gaze softened and he pulled her to him, wrapping those strong arms around her like she craved. “Yes, my love. Our ride is on the way.”
What the hell did that mean? He reached over and touched some button on the computer. “Sierra, copy the files and shut down the system.”
The feminine computer voice took her by surprise. “Shut down in progress, Agent Levi. Such a quaint little system. It simply could not handle me.”
As Penny blinked up at him, he winced. “I’ll explain that, too. I promise. I’ll answer it all for you.”
~*~*~
Less than a minute later, movement at the door caught his eye. Jordan pulled Penny behind him, aware that he had no gun to defend her with. Maybe throwing that one he’d taken from Alcott wasn’t the best plan in the heart of enemy territory.
When that familiar shotgun appeared, he groaned. “You scared the shit out of me, Bea.”
Bea scowled at him as she lowered the weapon and surveilled the room. “Had to have all the fun yourself? You look like shit, by the way.”
Behind her, Jack came in, his gun in his hand. He glanced down at Sam the Fucker, who had thankfully stayed put while they’d waited for his team to come through. Alcott cradled his hand and favored his leg on the ground. Jack’s dark midnight eyes cased over him. “That the bad guy?”
“One of them,” Jordan said with a sneer. Penny was trembling again. He pulled her to him, holding her close. His ribs were killing him, his leg aching, his nose throbbing so much his eyes watered. And yet, having her with him… it warmed him.
Jack pointed a 9mm at the man. “Can I shoot him?”
Sam growled something unintelligible. It was obviously the wrong thing to do because Jack stepped on his bleeding leg. Sam screamed.
“Easy, Jack,” Bea said, as she hauled up her new prize, the newly handcuffed guard with the bleeding shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll get to talk with these guys later.” She glanced at Penny for a brief second then to Jordan. “Car’s outside for you. Can you make it?”
“I’ll help him,” Penny interjected.
He glanced down at her, her face tucked against his chest. After all this, she still wanted to help him. By all rights, she should have hated him. She’d been through hell. He brushed her messy hair out of her face. “You don’t have to.”
Even standing there, he could feel the tremble of her body. She was running on pure adrenaline at this point. She was due for a crash very soon.
“Yes, I do,” she whispered.
Jordan wrapped both his arms around her, needing to feel her body. He couldn’t believe she was unhurt after that mess, but he was thankful. She responded by wrapping her arms around his waist. He hissed as she brushed against his ribs.
“Sorry,” she whispered. But as she tried to pull away, he pulled her back against him, tighter.
“No, stay where you are,” he whispered. He couldn’t believe how strong she was, how even though there were dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes, even though her body had numerous scrapes and bruises, she still seemed… truly okay. He kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arms tighter around her small body, holding her as close as he could without sending shards of pain through him.
Sam howled as Jack hauled him to his feet, making Jordan remember where they were. Jack’s grin was almost comic book villain. “Come on, fucker. Let’s go have a chat,” Jack said in his signature growl.
Bea scowled at him. “The car, Levi. Nathan is waiting for a report.”
Right. Back to the real world. He glanced down at Penny. He was going to tell her the whole truth. He was going to tell her everything and then… then he’d do as she’d asked him, and he’d get out of her life. He’d caused her so much pain already.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered to her. “Not now.” Not ever, he added in his head. But he didn’t want her anywhere near Nathan, even if it was a phone call. “But I have to go.”
“There will be time to talk later, right?” Penny asked softly as she extracted herself from him.
He nodded, but he wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not.
“Go, then. I’ll be okay.”
Fuck. She always surprised him. Even though she was shaking, she jutted that chin out like she was the strongest person in the world. He cupped her face and brought her to his lips. It was just a quick kiss, a soft one to let her know that he was a dumb sap and still completely in love with her.
He glanced at Bea as they stepped out of the room. “Will you—”
“Axel is on his way down now. He’s going to take her home,” Bea said. “We thought a familiar face in all this mess would help her.”
Jordan nodded. “Okay.”
And less than a minute later, Axel appeared. He gave Bea a quick kiss and asked, “Where’s Penny?”
“In there,” Bea jerked her head toward the room, because Jordan was having trouble processing what he’d asked.
“Got it.” He glanced at Jordan. “I’ll take care of her and get her home, safe and sound.” Then he was gone, inside the room with the woman that Jordan loved.
“You lied to me,” she said as she urged Jordan forward. As they walked through the hall, down to where he’d been brought in. “You told me you didn’t love her.”
“Yeah, I’m a fucking sap, I guess.” He had a lot to make up for. Not just for Penny, but for his team. He’d been willing to sacrifice everything for her safety, including them.
“Go get fixed up,” she said in that quiet, demanding way she had. “You really do look like shit.”
“Flesh wounds,” he drawled as he walked into the warehouse. There was a car on the main floor, which looked like it had been brought in through that door on the far side of the place. When he got in, he was half surprised to not see anyone else and Bea didn’t get in either. He glanced up at her. “If this is supposed to be our goodbye…”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get dramatic.”
“Penny?”
“Axel will get her home. I promise.”
Jordan nodded. Maybe she didn’t know, but Jordan’s dead man walking routine had just gotten an upgrade. He’d saved Penny. She’d go back to her life and Nathan promised that she’d be well taken care of. Of all the things that Nathan might be, a liar wasn’t really one of them. No, that was more Jordan’s area of expertise.
The car eased out, and Jordan let himself relax against the back seat. Knowing Penny was safe, that was all he needed. He’d take whatever punishment Nathan wanted to give him. He deserved it all.
~*~*~
They’d taken a car to an airfield, flown in a super swanky plane, and now they were in another car with some silent guy driving on the way back to Jubilee. The partition had been up, and the windows were tinted too dark to see anything outside of the vehicle.
The quiet in the car overwhelmed Penny’s mind. Though considering the bombs he’d dropped, she was sure he was holding back more about it. Jordan was part of this whole secret world. He fought against bad guys like Sam Alcott. It was almost too much to think about.
She had committed what he’d looked like to memory in that room, bleeding and holding his side. He’d come for her. Maybe he’d done it as some kind of weird responsibility angle, since it was his fault, but she also couldn’t stop that warm feeling inside her knowing that he’d come back for her when he didn’t have to. When he could have just cut his losses and split.
Would she see him again? The look on his face when he’d told her he had to go… it was like he didn’t expect to ever see her again.
When Penny stepped out of the car, they were inside some sort of underground garage. Axel took her through a maze of hallways until she was completely and tota
lly turned around. Then into a small medical clinic where a doctor had been waiting for her.
The woman hadn’t mentioned her name, but she had done the job well enough. And she was clean now, thanks to a nice, hot shower, which the doctor had not recommended. Penny understood why once the hot water hit the myriad of scrapes and cuts across her skin. She didn’t even want to think about what had rinsed off of her body in that shower.
Now, she sat in some kind of common room with Axel on the couch next to her. He kept looking at his phone. “So how did you get into this whole thing?”
Axel smiled wryly. “I met Bea. Part of being with her is accepting that she’s part of this world.”
“Is this some sort of secret lair or something?” she asked, looking around at the room. The old worn couch sat before a not-so-old big screen television mounted on the wall. A myriad of DVDs and Blu-Rays sat in shelves along the wall.
“Or something,” Axel said with a chuckle. “I know it’s difficult to know that they have this whole other life. There’s not a minute that goes by that I don’t worry about Bea. I love her.” He sighed. “But they’re really good at what they do.”
“I’m not even sure what they do.”
“They protect us,” he said, smiling tightly. “The world, really. But they aren’t government controlled. They answer only to Nathan.”
From what she understood, Jordan had defied Nathan to come for her. What did that mean for him? She knew he loved her. She saw it in his eyes, in that last kiss before he’d walked out of the room. But was that enough? Obviously, relationships weren’t banned outright, or Axel wouldn’t have Bea. Could she have her Jordan?
The doctor walked into the room; her tanned face grim. Penny glanced up at her as she stopped. “I thought you might like to know, since you were worried about it, that the test was positive.”
Penny felt her lips part of their own accord. Then she forced a nod out of herself. “Thank you.”
The doctor nodded and walked out.
“Test?” Axel asked.
“Pregnancy test,” she confirmed.
“Jordan’s?” Axel asked in surprise.
She nodded. “Couldn’t be anyone else’s.”
“Huh,” he said softly. He glanced away from her. “That’s… interesting.”
“What?”
“They’re supposed to be sterile,” he said, though it took a long pause before that for him to answer. “The procedure they go through to be Reapers is pretty taxing on the body.”
Had that been why Jordan had freaked out so much when she’d told him? Because he hadn’t believed he would be able to have children? Maybe it hadn’t been because he didn’t want them. She missed her sister, suddenly. Tessa had always given her the comfort she’d needed until their break. If she couldn’t have Jordan, would she be able to have her family?
She frowned. “Am I going to be able to go home?” Wasn’t there some code like in the movies that said once you knew things you weren’t supposed to you had to conform or disappear?
Axel nodded. “You will.”
“Even though I know all this stuff?”
“Yes,” Axel said, smiling. “You will. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She wasn’t so sure. This was a huge secret to keep. If she were them, she wouldn’t have trusted her. She was an unknown. A liability. She put her hand on her stomach. She was a weak link, she realized. Sam Alcott had used her because he knew that she was Jordan’s weak spot. How many other Sam Alcotts were there out in the world? How many would crawl out of the woodwork to threaten her or this child inside her to get to Jordan?
“I’d like to talk to Jordan’s boss,” she heard the words come out of her mouth.
Axel frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t care.” She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to say but fuck it. She’d have her conversation.
29
Jordan had been stuck in this godforsaken room for a week. The only one he’d seen was the doctor who’d stitched him up, cleaned his boo-boos and then had left. And of course, she couldn’t tell him anything. Not that the woman would if he’d asked.
He knew he was in the Jubilee lair. He recognized it, but he hadn’t been allowed to leave the damn room. Nathan hadn’t seen him, or Bridget, or anyone else. Though it was likely Nathan had secluded him on purpose. His meals were delivered through the small opening in the floor. And he’d have laid odds it had been done by a Ghost rather than anyone on the team.
By the time Scott Muldoon came through the door, Jordan was about out of his mind. Jordan didn’t move from his spot at the table, sitting on that damn metal chair. And Muldoon didn’t say anything for a long moment. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
“Is this my punishment, death by silence?” Jordan asked.
Scott’s frown deepened. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
Jordan looked at the man, who was but a shadow of the man he’d used to be. He supposed all of them in a way changed when they became Reapers. And their experiences only deepened that change. Scott’s experiences had dimmed what once had been a bright light. Sort of like Penny in a way, except he wasn’t innocent.
“I get it now,” Jordan blurted. Scott stared at him, that frown unmoving. “Why you did it. Why you betrayed us.” There was only one thing it could be, only one thing that would make him so crazy, so anxious that he’d do just about anything.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know that some I loved was threatened, in danger, and I had to do something. All that mattered was her. All that matters now is her.” Jordan sighed and looked back at his former teammate. “So, I get it.”
Scott’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever. You don’t know anything.” He sighed and his body tightened, pulling into itself like it was trying to shrink. “I’m not here to apologize to you for the past.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Fuck if I know,” Scott spat out. “He said I had to come here and talk to you.”
“Nathan?”
Scott nodded. Jordan wasn’t completely sure what the deal with him was. He knew that Muldoon had betrayed them once, been punished for it, and somehow was different now. He didn’t want to be here, but in the end, they all followed Nathan, didn’t they? They’d bargained away their lives.
“But I don’t know what to say.”
“Am I…” Jordan didn’t want to ask. It wasn’t that he wanted to be dumped into a deep, dark hole, but he didn’t want Penny to have to suffer for his mistakes. He just wanted to know that Nathan would take care of her as he promised.
“I don’t know,” Scott said. “I really don’t.”
Scott sat down across from Jordan at the table. He sighed.
Neither of them said anything more. They just sat in silence. Funnily enough, for the first time in his life, the silence was enough for Jordan.
~*~*~
A week later, Penny had cleaned out her apartment. She used the last of her savings to buy herself out of the lease. She no longer had a job, seeing as the gallery had shut down. Not that she’d have gone back there if it hadn’t. Reilly had said nothing to her. He hadn’t called her or answered the phone when she’d called at Nathan’s office.
She wasn’t even sure why she tried. After that last interaction, she knew who he really was now. A man that could employ people like Sam Alcott was no one Penny wanted to be associated with.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling the light nausea that pretty much stuck with her every second of the day. The doctor she’d seen the day before said it was normal, but man, Penny was going to be glad once she was past this part.
Penny glanced up at her childhood home. It seemed like a million years since she’d been in this house, though Christmas was only a couple weeks ago. She knew she couldn’t tell Tessa about what had happened, but for some reason, she needed to be with her sister. She needed her family and Tessa was all she had.
That hurt all the more.
She’d wanted so much to get out of Jubilee, to see all the things that didn’t exist here. Then she’d rebelled against her mother, against everything the woman had wanted for her. Art had been something she wanted, but it was a far cry from the real thing she missed.
Her mother. Her family.
That second one was one that she’d fix today. She blew out another breath, gathering courage as she stepped up the porch steps. The swing where her mother used to sit looked like it had been fixed recently, with brand new chains holding it up. Even the porch looked newer. Had it been painted recently? Was it like that at Christmas? She couldn’t remember. She’d been so wrapped up in her own life.
She stopped at the front door. Her nerve was leaving her. More like she wasn’t sure what to do now. Did she knock on the door? Or just walk in? Did she belong here at all?
“Penny, I didn’t know you were back in town so soon.”
Penny turned as Sheriff Hannigan walked up the steps, like he’d done it a hundred times before. He wasn’t in his uniform today, though. Dressed in just a navy-blue t-shirt and jeans, he stopped next to her. Those warm eyes regarded her like he was dissecting her, or maybe she was just paranoid of being dissected.
“I… Um… Is she here?” Penny stammered out the words.
“She’s inside,” he said. He tilted his head at her. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Well, I will be. Soon.”
“Well, she’ll be glad to see you,” he said, putting his hand on the door handle.
“Will she? I didn’t call.”
The sheriff smiled. “Well, sure. You’re her sister.”
He pushed open the door, holding it open for her. So simple, that phrase. You’re her sister. She hadn’t acted like one, had she?