by Brenna Lyons
He cracked a smile. “You’re not erased. You’re just erased from the DoPT database. Some talents would consider that a blessing.”
“If there wasn’t a fake file in its place. How did you do this?”
“When I looked up Alex’s birth record, I realized there was a child missing from your mother’s file. When I looked up Steven’s, I knew you were twins. After that, it was easy. If you hadn’t been twins, it might have taken me half the night to find that birth record.”
Sarah nodded. “Well, I’m halfway there, I guess. You know who I really am.”
“What else is left?” He seemed nervous.
“Don’t worry. I don’t want you to fight my battles. I just wanted to prove to one person that the whole file is bullshit. I barely pass as talent. That’s why—” She bit off the rest.
Bill took a deep breath. “You’re bait, aren’t you? They’re keeping you on the line to hook the bigger fish.”
She nodded miserably. That described it perfectly.
“If it makes you feel better, I know the file is bullshit. If you were what that file said you were and had done what that file said you had, you wouldn’t be afraid of a keeper at an academy. Would you?”
Sarah shrugged. Alex was afraid, and he blew her away.
“So, which big fish do they have hooked?”
She rubbed her forehead to hide her indecision. “I think, I’ve lost count. At least four that I know of.”
“Is your husband— Is Jonas one of them?”
Sarah pulled the lid off of her plate and picked up the meatball sub, still barely warm. She took a bite, considering the question. Sarah wasn’t comfortable discussing Jonas, though she wasn’t sure why. Something in Bill was too intense when he asked.
He sighed and tried to catch her eyes, but Sarah ducked him and looked down at the plate, at the sautéed sugar snap peas and milk with apple brown betty for dessert.
“I don’t get it. You tell me you’re a Randall. I’ve heard the story of lethal toddlers. Believe me, I’ve got the picture of why the DoPT wants that baby. What I don’t—”
He looked at her in shock as Sarah choked. Her eyes started to water as she managed to swallow the mouthful of meatball. She glanced at him and away again. What would Bill’s reaction be if he knew how bad it really was? She decided not to find out. Sarah took another bite without answering his questions.
Bill’s eyes narrowed. “Your twin brother is one of the most stunning talents alive. Assuming he’s protective of you— I’m assuming he’s protective of you.” He let the statement hang between them.
Sarah nodded, not trusting herself to speak and using the mouthful of sandwich as her excuse. She swallowed and took a bite before he could ask another question.
Bill nodded. “Okay. You have a hyper-protective powerhouse who was lethal at four backing you.”
She nodded again, chewing slowly and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Steven Randall and possibly the entire Randall-Thompson family are looking for blood, and you warn me, not about Steven and the others, but about Jonas. What does that say to me, Sarah?”
Sarah shrugged and forced herself to swallow. Bill blocked her mouth with his hand as she tried to take another bite. She blanched at the intensity in his eyes.
“It tells me that, whoever Jonas is, he’s more spectacular than Steven Randall.”
She stared at the tray, her appetite gone as her stomach rebelled. Sarah dropped her sandwich back on the plate and pulled her knees to her chest.
“It tells me that, of the two of them, you’re confident Jonas is the one I would have to answer to if it came to that.”
He waited for an answer she wasn’t ready to give him. Sarah closed her eyes.
“Is Jonas DoPT?”
Sarah groaned, replaying her last conversation with Jonas. “He was.” She looked at Bill, feeling a cold sweat take hold of her. “He quit for me.”
Bill tried to hide his shock. The realization of what she was saying seemed to sink in slowly. “Oh hell.”
*
Bill chewed two more Tums X-tra, bringing his total so far up to eight. It wasn’t helping. He was running out of time. Griffin would be waiting for an update, and Bill had to decide what to tell him.
If Baker was going to this much trouble to keep Jonas, the guy was a hot ticket for whatever side held his cards. For the first time, Bill wasn’t sure he should file his report. If Griffin decided the best course was to nullify the hold Baker had on Jonas, it was a death sentence for Sarah. Bill didn’t doubt that Griffin was capable of making that call. A dead or alive was serious business, and Griffin wasn’t the type to end up dead.
There were rumors about the power Griffin had. Only the Randalls put him to shame. The Randalls and some guy named Jonas who was DoPT until he quit for his wife who happened to be a Randall? What kind of a powerhouse was capable of infiltrating the Randall defenses? Even Griffin had failed to make it inside. Bill shuddered.
He pushed the thought away. Griffin wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake. He’d rather deal with Jonas and the Randalls while they had a common enemy than make an enemy unnecessarily, especially that dangerous an enemy.
He let himself out into the garden and kicked back on the same bench he’d shared with Sarah earlier. Bill pushed the new information to the front of his mind, replaying conversations and discoveries without adding any of his own thoughts to the feed.
Griffin touched his mind. “So, Baker finally managed to get something on Jonas.”
Bill remained passive. Asking anything would mean using telepathy.
“Keep her safe, Boyonton. That woman and her baby are the keys to bringing down Baker’s whole scam.” He hesitated, and a wash of amusement came over the connection. “Yes. This will work out well. Paige will owe me one for keeping her safe, and that’s a good way to start our association.” Then Griffin was gone.
Bill sighed. “Paige. Shit. It had to be Paige.”
Paige was a legend, the youngest operative that ever hit the field. He was the talent who killed thirteen shielded terrorists and a renegade in less than five minutes in Lauderdale. He was second only to Griffin, but Griffin was getting old, and Paige was in his prime.
“In his prime and with good incentive to crush Griffin for Baker.
“Protect her,” he muttered. “Let’s just hand out impossible tasks.” How much protection could he honestly be if push came to shove?
Bill was a keeper, more or less. He had a shield weaker than Sarah’s. Well, whose isn’t weaker than Sarah’s? She’s a powerhouse in that. He had weak telepathy and decent mind reading. Bill could only affect class two emotional touches and weak class three illusion. He couldn’t get past even a 3000-series shield. In a pinch, his bare hands and stun-spray were all he had going for him. If anything substantial went down, Bill wasn’t sure he would do Sarah any good.
He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. At least setting himself up as Sarah’s bodyguard meant Steven Randall and Paige wouldn’t be gunning for him when they finally did make it this far. Someday soon, there would be a war over her, and Bill had no doubts he was on the right side.
*
Steven smiled as he felt Sarah drop her shield for him. She hadn’t dropped it all day, and she’d buffered it several times. Her distress was evident to him even through her shield at times, but Sarah wasn’t being hurt and she didn’t ask for his help, so Steven kept that to himself. The last thing he wanted to do was slow Jonas down on this manhunt.
“Steven, are you there?”
“I’m here. Are you better, now?”
“Yes.” She said it too quickly for his comfort.
“What’s wrong?”
“Long day, but ending on an up note.”
He fisted his hand. “Why a long day?”
“Well, when you get dragged out of bed to have breakfast with Andrew Baker, things can only go uphill from there.”
“Christ!” Steven rubbed his n
eck roughly.
“What?”
His head shot up at the note of panic in Jonas’ voice. Steven waved him off, closing his eyes to the hotel room around them. “Are you okay?”
“Peachy. I’m the damn belle of the ball, though he’s pissed off that I won’t dress up for him and call him Drew.”
Steven groaned and swallowed a sour wave at the thought. “He’s coming on to you?”
“Not yet. We’re going head to head a lot.”
“I thought I told you to stay out of iso.”
“Some things are non-negotiable.”
“Like?” he asked.
“I’m not letting his precious OB touch me. There is no way, Steven.”
He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “It might come to that, Sarah.”
“I’ll handle it when I feel it’s necessary and not before.”
“Understood. What did he want?”
“To offer me anything in exchange for a smooth ride until he tries to take super baby from me. I have carte blanche. I’ve only used it to demand fresh air and sunshine so far.”
“He admitted that?”
“Why not? What does he have to fear from me? You and Jonas— That he has to worry about, but why would he worry about me?”
“What else?”
“We didn’t make a mistake. We were sabotaged somehow.”
“We know. Baker rubbed it in when he told Jonas you were pregnant.”
“He’s awfully damn proud of it.”
Steven grimaced at her frustration. “There was no way you would have known. It was pretty damned ingenious.”
“And effective.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. I owe Jonas a kick in the pants.”
He opened his eyes and shot Jonas a startled look. “For?”
“Alpha one,” she exploded in his mind. “I will kill him for this.”
“He didn’t tell you? He told me when I asked.”
She hesitated, and a wave of embarrassment washed over her. “Maybe, I didn’t give him the chance. He showed me the damn badge. I— I guess I didn’t look.”
“But you’re still mad?”
“Yes! He has no idea—” She seemed to be fighting something out with herself. “Never mind. He doesn’t need that stress right now.”
“What? If something’s wrong, we need to know.”
“It’s nothing. It’s just something Baker has been lying to Jonas about, but it would only hurt him. I think it would. I don’t know anymore.”
Steven shook his head. Maybe a change of subject would help. “What’s the up note? After that, I think I could use some good news.”
“I proved to my guard that the file is a fake.”
“How?”
“I sent him to Mom’s file. I figured out that they re-wrote hers for me. My file— It’s been deleted from the DoPT database, but Bill tracked down my birth certificate. I don’t know what good this will do me, but at least he knows I’m not a former renegade now.”
Steven furrowed his brow. “I thought you said they used Mom’s file.”
“I said they changed Mom’s file.”
“Those bastards,” he spat through gritted teeth. He waved Jonas off again. “Who is Bill?”
“My keeper, Bill Boyonton. He— I trust him, but I don’t know why.”
“How much do you trust him?”
“Not as far as I can throw him, which is about a thousand times further than Baker. He hasn’t gotten anything but proof of my innocence from me. That’s all I need him to know.”
“Maybe you should keep it that way.”
“I plan to.” He could feel her exhaustion beating at her.
“Go get some sleep. This has been too much.”
“Good night, Steven.” He felt the touch of her mind as she faded away.
Steven glanced at Jonas. The larger man moved his hands nervously, his arm muscles bunching while he weighed every move Steven made.
“She’s fine,” Steven assured him before Jonas could ask.
“Don’t give me that. What’s wrong?”
“Baker came to visit her, and I’m sure he’s less than impressed with her level of willingness to be a good little soldier.”
“He didn’t—”
“He doesn’t dare. Besides, he’s too busy trying to win her over to piss her off now.”
Jonas’ eyes narrowed, and Evan moved away from him. Steven had seen that move before. Evan thought Jonas was about to blow.
“Win her over? In what way?” he demanded.
Steven scowled. “Does anyone call him Drew?”
Jonas uttered a long string of explicit curses.
“Don’t worry. Sarah doesn’t call him that, either. She also refuses to dress up pretty for him and accept his offers of any little bribe she wants. Color her less than impressed.”
“If he touches her, I’ll kill him whether I have Griffin or not.”
“If he touches her, we’ll form a line.” Steven glanced at him. No. This is the wrong time to tell Jonas about Baker’s plans for his baby. “She says she owes you a kick in the pants for being Alpha One.”
“She didn’t let me tell her,” he groaned.
“She didn’t say for not telling her. She said for being Alpha One.” He cracked a smile that Jonas didn’t return.
“She’s not going to forgive me.”
“Sure she is. You two never got a chance to work this out.”
“I need to talk to her, Steven.”
“You want me to play go-between?”
“No. I want you to link to me and let me channel through you, so I can talk to her directly. I need this, Steven.”
Steven shook his head. “There will be no secrets, Jonas. I’ll see everything in your mind. You can’t shield me out of anything if I do this.”
“I don’t care. I’m not proud of my life, but Sarah means more to me than any of it. I have to touch her mind again.”
He nodded. “Okay. We’ll try it on Mom after we eat dinner. We have to get it down first. Sarah doesn’t have time to waste when she links. It tires her too fast.”
“Tell her to request a standard pouch. Extra carbs and a Porta-meter can’t hurt.”
“Next time I talk to her.”
“I don’t think they’ll refuse her unless they’re worried she’ll carb up to cause damage or injury.”
“If it’s up to her guard, she won’t have to worry.”
“Why?”
“She proved the file a fake.”
*
Steven took a deep breath. He was entirely certain that he didn’t want to take a stroll in Jonas’ mind, but he had agreed to try. Steven had agreed for Sarah. He owed her any measure of comfort he could provide. He had promised to keep her safe. Worse, he kept information from his family that might have kept her safe.
He linked to Jonas, carefully avoiding his memories until after he’d shown him how to speak to Katie. Steven retreated further into Jonas’ mind, registering the background conversation as he scanned memories. Thousands of images surrounded him, stacked like building blocks in intersecting rows like city streets. Steven wandered through, touching on scenes from Jonas’ life.
Steven only lingered on memories of Jonas’ early days at Clinton for a moment. It was too painful to watch and too much like his own time in the academies with one difference. Jonas had no loving family fighting to free him. He had no brother to room with once the injunction passed. Jonas had nothing better to hope for than a DoPT contract.
Steven didn’t linger much longer on his life as an operative. Jonas’ life had been pressured and frightening. He was good at what he did, better than Steven would have been. Still, Jonas was worn and jaded. He couldn’t trust his co-workers, and he lived under orders never to get close to anyone.
The few times a year Jonas managed the time and desire to find a woman, it was a shallow encounter, meaningless because he wasn’t allowed to care as much as because it was record
ed. How could a man ever care for a woman and allow bets like the ones placed some of the women Jonas picked up over the years?
Steven sped through the memories, praying he’d never allowed Sarah to be treated that way. If Jonas had, there was no way Steven would ever link Jonas to her. He touched the early interactions Jonas had with Sarah and about Sarah, marveling at Jonas’ attempts to protect her from the DoPT.
Jonas refused the monitoring sensor. He was terrified and sickened when they forced him to kill for her. He was furious that they put her in danger. Jonas tried to pull out of his mission several times only to be blackmailed back in by his concern and growing love for Sarah.
He was well and truly trapped. Jonas loved her so much that he tried to walk away rather than do what they wanted. When she pursued, he caved, but Jonas hated what he was allowing to happen even as he acknowledged that he couldn’t live without her.
Steven tried to ignore the time Jonas spent with Sarah. It was too private, too personal. Still, he couldn’t help but feel the passion mixed with the regret. Sarah was everything Jonas lacked for twenty years. He desired her on a level Steven had yet to encounter.
Steven turned from the scenes of Sarah in Jonas’ arms. Watching would make him no better than those DoPT freaks. Beyond that, one look at the expression on his sister’s face told Steven that Jonas had become the center of her world.
He turned his attention to the moments when Jonas learned Sarah had been taken. Steven experienced his fear and remorse, his rage, his resolve to get her back— Jonas was shocked to learn that she was pregnant, but discovering it only fed his guilt at playing into their hands and his determination to convince her to stay with him once he freed her. Jonas had planned to ask Sarah to marry him before she was taken.
“Steven?” Jonas’ voice bordered on terror.
He released Jonas and opened his eyes to give him a sheepish nod.
Jonas looked away. “I’m not proud of my life, Steven.”
“You should be.”
*
May 17th
Katie reached for the phone beside the bed with a grumbled complaint. Steven and Evan had gone to pick up food while Katie recarbed and recharged. “What?” she barked into the receiver, grimacing at the thought that it might be Keith.