Between Shadows

by Chanel Cleeton

  Confusion fills me. “How did I end up at the Academy, then? Did something happen to her…”

  Oh my god.

  The look in his eyes is all the answer I need.

  For a terrible, horrific moment that feels like an eternity time stands still.

  My eyes narrow, my gaze raking Luke from head to toe. It’s so subtle; I would have missed it if I hadn’t known to look for it. In most things, he must take after his father. But still, there’s a similarity—in the eyes, perhaps. There is enough of his mother in him for me to recognize it.

  Now I know one thing about the Director’s family—

  She has a son.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You never said anything.” I rise from the bed, moving away from him. He’s a ticking time bomb and I can’t get far enough away.

  Has he been her spy all along?

  Luke’s gaze meets mine, pain flashing in his eyes. “Is that something you would admit? She told me to never tell anyone. She saw that we were close. She said she would kill you if I told you. If I told you any of it. You know what she’s like; she wouldn’t have hesitated. So I never did. And you didn’t remember.”

  I struggle to control the emotions raging within me. I want to flee. I want to scream. I don’t know what to believe anymore.

  Trust no one.

  “Was all of this a ruse, then?” My voice rises in a heady combination of anger and panic. “Just a ploy to get back at me for betraying you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did we just break into your mother’s office?”

  “Because I think she killed my father. And your parents. I think she was the Director back then, too.”

  I sink down onto the bed before my legs give out. Shit.

  “You think my parents were affiliated with the Academy?”

  He looks me dead in the eye as he delivers the final blow. “I think they all were.”

  It explains why they were targeted, the link between my family and Luke’s. But it leaves so many other questions unanswered.

  “I was young, too. I remember things, but I don’t know how much of it’s significant. They never discussed Ares or the Academy in my presence. I was just a kid. But it’s a feeling I have. I know they were all involved in this together. I just need to see how far it goes. I need to know how big this thing is.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “My father was a good man. He didn’t deserve for his wife to have him killed. He deserves justice for what she did to him. Who better than me to deliver it?”

  A chill slides down my spine. “So that’s it? You’re risking all of our lives for revenge?”

  “What lives? We’re never going to be safe here. They’ll never let us. If you want a chance—if you want a chance for Grace—we have to take them down. It’s the only way. Can you tell me you don’t want justice for your family? For all they’ve taken from you?”

  I do, but I’m not wholly convinced it’s worth the cost. Staying alive is the most important concern right now and I have my hands full with that. Part of me wants revenge so badly I can taste it. But the other part just wants to run.

  “What are you hoping to find?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Payments linking my mother and the men. Something. Anything. Evidence of how far this thing goes so I know who I have to kill.”

  “Did you find the men? The ones who killed your father that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they tell you who hired them?”

  “No. They wouldn’t talk.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  Luke’s gaze meets mine. Understanding passes between us. I knew what his answer would be before I even asked the question.

  “Yes.”

  There’s no judgment when I hear his response. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. But now I realize that Luke is driven by his own quest for revenge and that makes everything more dangerous. Things get sloppy when it’s personal, when emotions are involved.

  “Was your father a good man?”

  “The best.” He sits down next to me on the bed. “My mother was gone a lot for work. I barely remember her. He was the one who raised me. He was a good dad. He loved spending time with me; we had these amazing adventures. Looking back now, I think he had to have been an asset before I was born. He had traveled to so many places, knew so much about other cultures.”

  I wonder if that’s where Luke got his affinity for languages.

  “And your mother?” It’s weird speaking about the Director like this. Like she’s a person with a family rather than a stone-cold killer.

  “She wasn’t around much.”

  “How do you know she killed them?”

  It’s not that I don’t think her capable of it. I think her capable of just about anything. But I don’t deal in hunches or guesswork. I deal in proof, and I want answers.

  “I just know. Trusting her was the biggest mistake I ever made. I gave her you and Grace; I went to her because I was scared, and she brought us to the Academy. She killed my father. Family, relationships, none of them mean anything to her. She had me because it suited her purposes. My father was the ideal candidate; he was strong, smart, the perfect asset. They made me the perfect asset. That’s all I was ever meant to be. That’s why she was so angry when we became friends. That’s why she had you try to kill me. She knew—after what happened to my dad—that you would do the one thing I couldn’t forgive. She knew how I felt about you. She knew about us— about that night, about everything.”

  I stare at him, horror filling me.

  “She called me into her office the day after we had sex. She told me I couldn’t afford the distraction, that she had big plans for me and wanted you out of the way. She threatened to kill you if I didn’t stay away. After what she did to my father, I believed her. So I did.”

  I can’t speak. I think back to that fateful day when I received my orders to eliminate Luke. I’ve never told him what really happened that day. Part of me wants to—wants to make him understand. The other part of me? I can’t afford to be close to anyone else. I don’t consider Grace to be a liability; she’s my sister. But Luke is something else entirely. Maybe the Director was right all along—

  People make you weak.

  She used me against Luke years ago. I can’t afford to keep giving her the tools to destroy us. I can’t afford to give him the tools to destroy me. I want to trust him; I am trusting him. More than I’ve really trusted anyone. But that doesn’t mean I know how to trust him with everything.

  “What do you want? Really? What’s your endgame here?”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “Revenge. Freedom.”

  Freedom. It’s too much to hope for, but it tempts me to risk it all. What would it be like to give Grace a normal life? Is it even possible?

  “And you want me to help you get it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because they killed my parents.”

  He nods.

  “And you really think they’re going to kill us?”

  “I do.”

  There’s nothing left to say. I may be making a deal with the devil, but in this I’m willing to compromise. There’s no way Luke’s lying now; he means to do this and I want to be there when he does. We both have a score to settle and I need to protect my sister. It’s time to choose a side.

  I can’t stand with the Academy anymore.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “We take them down. All of them. Anyone peripherally involved with running the Academy. And then we torch the place.”

  I can see the trajectory of his plan; I know exactly how it would go down. It won’t be easy. In fact, the odds that we’ll survive are slim. But the alternative? This isn’t much of a life. And if Luke is right, it definitely isn’t the life I want for Grace.

  “I’m in.”

  A slow smile spreads across Luke’s face, dimples I forgot he possessed winking back at me. Something in that smile sends a
memory fluttering through me. A memory of us—just a boy and a girl—hatching a plan. There’s a lightness in the moment; I’ve lived far too long in the dark to not want to grasp it, to hoard it greedily and clasp it to me.

  Luke extends his hand to me. I hesitate before taking it, our palms and flesh meeting. We shake. I pull back, but Luke doesn’t release my hand. Instead he holds it in his, turning it over, his fingers tracing the curve of my palm, traveling toward the puckered scar on my wrist.

  I stiffen.

  His finger traces the scar softly, reverently. “Remember the day this happened?”

  We were training together in the gym—practicing with knives. I was sixteen. Luke had been teasing me about something and I lost my balance. My body was too close to his, and even though he’d tried to move away, the knife grazed my skin. I can still see the look of horror on his face, still remember the gentle touch of his fingers on my skin after the bleeding stopped. Maybe that was the day everything changed, the day I stopped seeing Luke as just another asset.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  My head jerks up, my gaze meeting his. I’m trapped by the weight of his stare. He’s measuring, assessing, deciding whether or not I’m all in. I know because I’m doing the same to him. I try to hide the feelings lingering in my eyes, afraid of the emotion in his.

  “You still don’t trust me.” His fingers stroke back and forth, holding me in place next to him.

  I pull my hand from his, barely resisting the urge to rub my fingers over the spot he touched. I don’t trust myself, don’t trust how much I want to trust him, how much he makes me feel.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask.

  Luke’s lips quirk into a half-smile and the moment is broken. “Of course not.”

  ###

  We spend hours going over the Director’s files. Some of the files—like Luke’s and mine—are partially encrypted beyond anything we can break. Others contain basic information about day-to-day operations at the Academy, but nothing stands out as particularly helpful.

  “We’re missing something.” Luke pushes back from the desk, frustration etched over his face.

  “I know.”

  “I was so sure there would be something here.”

  I scan the screen, stopping on the list of assets and their locations. Some of the names I recognize from my earlier years at the Academy. Most are unfamiliar. There are so many of us, spread out all over the world. We all have our own skills, our own specialties. We’re basically the Academy’s private army.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this on our own,” Luke suggests.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just can’t help but think that I’m not the only asset who may know something. Maybe if we could get in contact with these other assets, we could put the missing pieces together.”

  “And if we trust the wrong person? Then what? The Academy finds out we’re trying to take them down and then they kill us.”

  “Who says they won’t kill us anyway?” he asks.

  “True. I wouldn’t even know who to go to for help. It’s not like we’re all friends.”

  Luke gets up from the chair, walking over to the window. He leans against the glass, his forehead resting on the pane. His black T-shirt rises several inches above where the fabric meets his trousers and an inch of skin stares back at me. I can’t look away as a familiar heat settles low in my belly.

  Luke turns, his gaze meeting mine. “There’s one guy. Maybe. I met him on one of my assignments after I went out on my own. He may be willing to help.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I saved his life.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s a tech guy. He’s a little eccentric. Lives off the grid. But he’s not a bad sort. And like I said, he owes me.”

  I hesitate for a beat. I mostly trust Luke’s judgment. After all, getting caught isn’t in his best interest, either. And still, I’ve ventured way out of my comfort zone. Running a mission like this is a far cry from living within the Academy’s rules and constraints. This will never work without Luke. If I don’t trust him, we’ll both fail.

  “Okay. Where is he now?”

  Luke flashes me a grin. “He’s a bit reclusive. British. Hates the cold. Loves the beach.”

  “Where?”

  “Cuba.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Luke checks in with the Academy, telling them we’re working on the Arnoff job. The silence from the Academy makes me think they haven’t discovered the intrusion—yet. The fact that my sister is missing also hasn’t seemed to register.

  For once, luck seems to be on our side.

  I stare down at the thin gold band on my ring finger. Our cover is simple, procured with phony passports produced by a guy Luke knows. We’re a young married couple, traveling to Cuba on our honeymoon. My name is Sarah Blight and now Luke has a Scottish accent. Thankfully, it’s marginally better than his American one.

  The flight is filled with tourists wearing brightly colored clothes. In an effort to blend in, I’m wearing a bright yellow dress and thong sandals. I feel a little ridiculous but it’s perfect for Sarah, the happy teacher, completely in love with her husband. At least that’s what I tell myself when I want to jerk my hand away from Luke’s. The touching is driving me nuts, made worse by the fact that he’s playing the role of devoted husband to the hilt.

  Luke’s been surprisingly closed-mouthed about the guy we’re going to see. His silence—and the fact that there’s clearly no turning back—accounts for the nerves rolling around in my stomach. Everything has changed now.

  The flight is bumpy. All of my jobs have been within London, so I’ve never been on a plane. It shows. Luke, on the other hand, falls asleep almost instantly.

  I turn, studying his sleeping profile. He looks softer like this, the edge he carries with him momentarily erased. A lock of brown hair falls forward, brushing his forehead. My fingers itch to push it back in place. I take the opportunity to study him instead.

  Now that I know of his relation to the Director, the resemblance is a bit clearer. His skin is the same pale color, but unlike the Director, Luke’s face is an interesting combination—high cheekbones, full lips. There’s a tiny dent in his nose marring the perfection of his face, the break not quite perfectly healed.

  Luke stirs, a sigh escaping his lips. His eyes flutter open. My cheeks heat.

  “We’re almost there,” I blurt out, tearing my gaze away.

  He’s silent for a moment.

  “Did you sleep?” he finally asks, his voice still slightly drowsy.

  “I’m too wired to sleep.”

  “We should go over the mission again. When we get to Cuba let me take the lead, okay?”

  I run through the plan we’ve developed in my head. “Do you really think this guy is going to help us?”

  “I think he’s the best chance we’ve got.” He stares down at my hands clenched in tight fists, my knuckles nearly white. “You okay? The claustrophobia thing?”

  I nod.

  “Does anything help?”

  “I count.”

  A smile tugs at his lips. “I’ve noticed.”

  Of course he has.

  We spend the rest of the flight in silence, only hitting minimal turbulence. When we land I stare out the window, surprised by the amount of activity I see.

  We carried on bags, careful with what we packed lest Cuban officials search them. I can’t help but be a bit nervous as we go through customs, hoping our passports will hold any inspection. We’re waived through with barely a glance—welcome to Cuba.

  We take a cab to our hotel, my nose pressed to the glass as I stare out at the sights of Havana. It’s like we’ve traveled back in time. The cars are ancient, their bright colors attention grabbing. The streets are filled with a sort of ruined beauty. The buildings are remnants of their former selves, their elegance offset by crumbling structures and peeling paint.

  I just wish Grace w
ere here to see it with me. She would love this.

  Luke handles our hotel check-in with a sheepish smile and broken Spanish. He’s slipped into his role perfectly. His arm drapes around my shoulder casually, his hands constantly grazing my body with little touches.

  I’m a mass of nerves by the time we reach our hotel room.

  I follow Luke through the doorway, surprised at the simple elegance of our suite. It’s not fancy, but it’s clean. I walk over to the large glass-paned window and look down at Havana.

  “Nice view?”

  I turn to face him. “It’s gorgeous. Have you been here before?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “For jobs?”

  “Yeah.”

  How much of his life have I missed in the time since he left the Academy? Do I know him at all?

  “So what’s on the agenda?”

  “We’re meeting Oscar for drinks. I’d like to do some recon beforehand.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  Luke shrugs. “About as much as I trust anyone.”

  Translation: No.

  ###

  We walk through the streets of Havana, our gazes darting down alleyways, searching the crowds. I’m probably safer here than in London, but that still doesn’t mean I’m stupid.

  Night is beginning to fall on the city, dusk darkening the horizon. The sky is a stunning palette of pinks and blues, the tops of the buildings blending in with the background. The people themselves are a fascinating contrast from what I’m used to. Here people take their time walking down the street, their gaits a movement with its own rhythm. It’s nothing like London where everyone hurries to wherever they’re going, their eyes trained to the ground or to some imaginary point off in the sky.

  We get our fair share of stares. With our pale skin it’s obvious we haven’t spent much time in the warm Caribbean sun, but there’s enough of a mix of European tourists that we don’t totally stand out. Thanks to Luke’s wandering hands and the sunglasses covering my own horrified expression, we look like a young couple on a honeymoon.

  I can’t wait to get to the restaurant.

  I follow Luke through the winding Havana streets, darting in and out of crowds of people meandering on the sidewalk. He stops short in front of a bright yellow sign hanging above a worn door.