Not realizing Rhett was right behind her, she gasped when he grabbed her wrist. Holding his glittering gaze, her legs fell over the side of the roof and dangled there. She glanced back and down to the narrow lane of sand between the house and the fence, gauging the distance. At least the sand would probably help break her fall.
“Wait for me.” Just as Rhett whispered and released her, the sound of muffled gunshots came from the room behind him.
Evelyn let go and landed with a grunt, falling back on her butt. Immediately, she looked left and right for other skulking shapes in the night. She saw none.
Rhett hurtled down like a cat, feet first, and sprang upright with much more balance than she had. When he grabbed for her hand she clapped it into his, biting off a yelp of pain, and lurched to her feet. Running, they came to the side door leading into the garage. Rhett didn't hesitate. With a vicious kick, he shattered the lock and the door slammed inward. He entered in a shooter's stance, gun swiveling left and right in the gloom.
“Get in the car.” Terse and short, he let her go to get in the driver's side.
Running around the front, sure that the intruder would burst into the garage any second, she yanked at the passenger door and fell into the seat. The ends of her fingers throbbed from the abuse she'd put them through.
Rhett started the car and depressed the button on the remote to roll the garage door up. He set the gun across his lap. Reversing at high speed, he backed into the wide alley that ran along the back of all the residences.
Evelyn screamed when a bullet punched through the windshield.
“Get down!” Rhett bellowed. Twisted at the waist, he braced his arm on her seat, looking backwards, and flew in reverse down the alley.
A hail of gunshots pinged off the car; glass cracked, threatened to shatter.
Evelyn hugged the console, hands over her head. Something hard and plastic dug into her ribs.
At a juncture for one of the other homes, Rhett stomped the gas and shot them forward onto the street.
Evelyn sat up, panting. Shaking. “Was that them? How did they find us? I thought that was a safe house?”
“Hell if I know.” Rhett looked annoyed and unhappy. Picking up the gun, he tucked it into the shoulder holster. “I need to get in touch with my boss. We're going to meet up with my partner and leave Athens.”
“Leave Athens? But what about my...friends?” She barely curtailed the impulse to call them her sisters. The thought of leaving them sat ill with her.
“They'd be wise to leave Athens, too. Since you can't get in contact with them yet, let's hope they stay low.”
“Where are we going?”
“Cairo. It's busy and I have contacts there. Maybe these bastards won't be expecting you to leave the country so soon and won't be watching the docks.”
“The docks?” Evelyn watched Rhett instead of the road.
“We'll take a boat over. They could be watching the airport for all I know and I don't want to draw attention to our movements.”
“How do you know they're not following us?”
“I don't.” He dug his phone out, pressed a button, and put it to his ear. After a moment, he said, “Christian, it's me. They found us. Yeah. We're on the road, heading toward the docks. Meet us as soon as you can. You know where.”
Pushing her hair out of her face, Evelyn looked out the window. The hour was late enough for the traffic to run thin on the street and most of the lights they drove through were green. She felt like there was no time to really stop and think. No time to assess her options. She couldn't even consult with her sisters.
Before the start of the Crusades, there had been fourteen daughters of Eve still alive out of the twenty-two their mother gave birth to. Fourteen women skilled in the ways of survival and adaptation. In the very beginning they had only known Eden, that lush, pristine place of surreal beauty and peace. Cast out after the Incident (as Evelyn liked to refer to it), the children of Adam and Eve adjusted to the raw terrain of the earth. They learned to acclimate with each decade that passed, some becoming excellent farmers, others starting societies that would grow and expand through the centuries. The girls had seen endless cycles of evolution, had personally witnessed the death of Jesus, watched invasions and wars and the rise and fall of the greatest empires on earth.
Nothing could have prepared them for the assault they suffered at the hands of the Knights Templar. They hadn't even known they were being hunted until one of the sisters managed to escape and tell the tale of torture and interrogation. The Templars wanted a radical cleansing, a systematic purge. They wanted all the daughters dead.
Evelyn had never understood how the Church could condone such heinous acts and atrocities. But the Templars took their orders directly and thus, the sisters had no alternative than to believe they'd been targeted. Perhaps it was the reason the Knight who had interrogated her gave; the daughters were suspected to be passing evil across the earth. Servants of the serpent.
The first murder—because that's what it was in Evelyn's mind—happened not long after the siege on Jerusalem by Saladin. Eurijah, with her exotically dark skin and sparkling, dark eyes, had been found dead in her humble cottage. Signs of torture riddled her body.
Once living communally in the same city, the sisters scattered to the winds with a plan to meet up in the one place the Templars were unlikely to ever find them: Eden. It became their safe haven, the one place they knew the Knights couldn't follow them into. And so, year after year, they made a pilgrimage to meet there. Over time, when the space between deaths expanded to decades and centuries, they banded together again.
“You okay?” Rhett asked.
Drawn out of her reverie, she glanced over. “I just don't want anyone else to die.”
Chapter Four
The fifteen minute drive to the docks passed without incident. Rhett made two more calls to set up transportation across the Mediterranean and one to his boss. Evelyn listened while she stared out her window, arms protectively crossed over her middle. She half expected men to start running from shadows whenever they stopped at a red light and the tension gave her a headache. The bullet holes in the windshield were a constant reminder of the danger.
At the docks, Rhett parked the car and reached into the back for a jacket. As they got out, he pulled it on over the holster, both guns tucked into their sheaths. He scanned the area in quick glances, on the lookout for trouble. Evelyn had nothing but the clothes she'd worn to sleep in. The temperate weather allowed her to go without a coat and not be uncomfortable.
Feeling strangely vulnerable, she met Rhett at the front of the car. The vehicle looked like they'd just been through a minor war zone. More bullet holes riddled the wheel wells and hood. She thought they'd been lucky not to get hit.
The sensation of being hunted by unseen things in the night made her crowd closer to Rhett. She hated not knowing where or when someone might strike.
He led her along the swaying dock past anchored boats and bigger yachts, some with low running lights outlining their shape. Water lapped lazily against the hulls, a deceptively soothing sound that might have lulled her into complacence if they hadn't just been shot at.
Rhett stopped in front of one with tiny blue lights affixed to the decking. “Aristo?”
She stood beside him, glancing warily up and down the dock. It seemed empty of everyone but them.
The yacht, with the name Selena Marie scripted on the side, had three decks and appeared well kept. It gave Evelyn the impression of comfort and speed rather than bloated luxury. Blue and white striped deck chairs lined up near a table with an umbrella that had been closed and tied off. Smoked glass sat beyond that, hiding any inner layout and décor from view.
A dark haired man, buttoning his shirt with haste, pushed through one of the glass doors. He blinked in a way that made her think he'd just tumbled out of bed.
“Mister Nichols. Ma'a--” Aristo cut his greeting short when he saw Evelyn's battered state.
/> Even in the dark, she knew her bruises were easy to see.
“I need you to take us to Cairo,” Rhett said, ignoring the man's reaction. “Christian should be here any minute. This is Miss Grant. Evelyn, Aristo.”
Evelyn smiled a tentative greeting. Aristo speared a hand through his thinning hair and bobbed a polite nod. He reminded her of a bird; tall, thin, somewhat angular, with a hook in his nose and overly prominent features. Countless hours under the sun had baked his skin into something of a mahogany hue.
He gestured for them to board the yacht.
Rhett helped her onto the lowest deck while keeping a sharp eye on the night around them. She noticed he grimaced twice and questioned him when he hopped aboard behind her.
“What's wrong? Is someone out there?” She felt like her words echoed over the water even though she whispered.
“I don't think so.” With a hand guiding her at the low back, he urged her past the lounge chairs and in through the glass doors.
Done in a black and white theme, the spacious parlor sported couches arranged in a square. Striped pillows adorned the cushions and swags of alternating material covered the ceiling. Warm yellow light glowed from miniature lamps and several original looking paintings lined the wood paneled walls. Glass made up one wall by itself, overlooking the lowest deck and part of the dock. It was more lavish than she would have guessed.
Rhett stalked to a wet bar set up in the corner and fished around the cooler for water. He brought her a bottle and had one in hand for himself.
She noticed a streak of red on the plastic and raised it for a better look. Frowning, she asked, “Is that...blood?”
“Don't worry about it.” He cracked the cap off his water and tipped his head back for a long drink.
“What do you mean—is it yours?” Her gaze snapped from the bottle to Rhett. He looked like he always did in the short time she'd known him. Strong, whole, hale.
After he swallowed, he met her eyes. “We'll be leaving the second Christian gets here.”
There was another streak on his bottle. Evelyn's eyes narrowed. “You're bleeding. Where?”
“I just said it's fine.” Capping the bottle, he turned away and set it on the short, glossy counter. When he stretched his arm, it pulled the coat open just enough for the light to glisten off a damp spot on his shirt.
She tugged the edge of the jacket aside to get a better look. A swatch just above his hip stuck to his skin. A tear in the material exposed an oozing wound.
“Oh my God. You've been shot.” She felt a stab of instant guilt. He'd gotten this because of her.
“It's just a graze. No need to think twice about it.” Rhett brushed the injury off like it was nothing.
Evelyn didn't let him off that easy. “I'm sure Aristo has a first aid kit--”
“I don't need anything--”
“Stop interrupting me. Yes you do. It'll get infected and if you don't peel the shirt away, it'll dry like that and then you'll have to rip it off.”
She set down her water. Snagging the top of his jacket, she peeled it off his shoulders and down his arms. He exhaled in exasperation but allowed her to do it. Maybe he realized she wouldn't leave it alone until he caved to her demands. Tossing the coat over the bar, she went around behind it to search for a kit. Barring that there was whiskey. At least it would clean the wound.
“Take off your shirt,” she ordered.
Rhett arched his brows. “You don't need to be so push--”
“Take off your shirt.”
The holster slid down his arms first, and he put that on the floor. Then he stripped the snug shirt up over his head. It smeared small stripes of blood across the hard plane of his stomach and up his side toward his armpit. “If you wanted to see me half naked, you could have just asked.”
Evelyn, minutely distracted by his physique, found a first aid kit in a lower cabinet and brought it with her around the bar. Setting it on one of four stools, she opened it and took out the antiseptic and a folded wad of gauze.
“I'm not green, Mister Nichols. I've seen many half naked men, most of them in better shape than you.” It wasn't true and it galled her when he scoffed.
“How many? And I'm not talking about trips to the beach. That doesn't count. I'm talking personal, one on one encounters.”
He hissed when she dabbed the moist cloth against the wound. She dabbed it again.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked through clenched teeth.
Hunched over at his side, she glanced up. “You'll thank me when this doesn't fester and get infected. And I don't keep a tally. Enough to know that yours isn't something special.” Another neat lie. Rhett inspired her in ways a man hadn't in a long time.
“You really know how to kill a man's ego,” he said with just enough droll sarcasm to suggest his ego wasn't anywhere near threatened.
She laughed because she couldn't not respond to the gleam in his eyes and the tone of his voice. “Would you rather have me starry eyed and stuttering?”
“Yes,” he said without one second of hesitation. “You didn't answer the question.”
“What question?”
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
His back, broad and powerful with sinew flexing under the skin, also had several streaks of blood that she cleaned. The graze of the bullet had been just deep enough to make quite a mess. Evelyn didn't realize she'd automatically checked for an iron cross between his shoulder blades until she found herself staring at it. There was nothing but smooth flesh. No ink, no tattoo. He had none anywhere that she could see.
“Of course I'm not enjoying myself. You could have been killed.” The thought upset her more than she wanted to admit. Evelyn didn't want people dying to save her.
“I knew what the dangers of this job were long before I got into it, Miss Grant.”
She straightened and found a fresh bandage from the kit. “Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I want to see you die.”
“Go and get yourself shot, Rhett?” a voice said from the direction of the glass doors.
Evelyn whipped a look over at the man standing there watching them. Shorter than Rhett by an inch or two, with a slightly leaner build and ink black hair, he wore a dark suit and blue patterned tie. His eyes, also blue, surveyed the situation with sharp attention. He carried two bags; a black duffel and a grocery-store variety with the top rolled closed. Like Aristo, he did a double take at the black and blue bruises on her face.
She finished putting the bandage over the injury and gathered the bloodied gauze. Taking it behind the bar, she threw it into the trash and washed her hands in the tiny sink.
“Just a graze. This is Miss Grant. Miss Grant, this is my partner, Christian,” Rhett said, gesturing between them.
Christian walked over when she came out from behind the counter and offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Evelyn shook it, making eye contact for a brief moment. “Nice to meet you Mister—Christian.”
“Miss Grant. I believe this belongs to you.” He took a small, glossy black clutch from the brown bag and handed it over.
In all the chaos, she'd almost forgotten they'd retrieved it from the abduction scene. Evelyn took the purse and worked the clasp until it popped open. Inside were all her belongings: I.D, two credit cards, cell phone and a small bit of cash hooked together by a silver clip. The purse wasn't big enough to hold a traditional wallet.
“Thank you. I didn't think I'd see this again.”
“We're trying to extract your luggage from the hotel. When we get it, we'll have it sent to Cairo,” Christian said.
“That's great, thank you. I'm going to see if I can contact my friends.” She glanced between the agents and stepped away with her phone in hand. Anxious to get in touch, she pressed the number for Genevieve's phone. Out the glass windows, she saw they had already pulled away from the docks and were cruising at a low speed through the harbor, headed for open water. Another stab of guilt swept through her when she reali
zed she hadn't even had a chance to arrange a funeral for Galiana.
Each phone she dialed went straight to voicemail. Frustrated, she left messages on each one with instructions not to return to the hotel under any circumstances. Instinct prevented her from saying where she was headed. She knew she didn't have to tell them to check their email account and as soon as she had access to a computer, she'd leave a message there as well.
Evelyn watched the glittering coastline of Greece recede as the yacht picked up speed.
The cabin on board the Selena Marie wasn't as small as Evelyn thought it would be. Situated on the second deck, it had a full bed, a dresser and nightstand, and its own bathroom through a rather narrow door. All the furnishings were newer and clean with a modern flare to the design.
With just a few hours until sunrise, Rhett had urged her to rest. While it was still dark, and while he and Christian patrolled the decks of the yacht. Isolated on the boat crossing the Mediterranean, they were about as safe as they were likely to get.
Still, she couldn't bring herself to take off her shoes when she laid on the bed. Closing her eyes for longer than a few minutes at a time proved difficult. Tension that she'd stored in her system unraveled slowly, like honey through a sieve, pooling in the pit of her belly.
Running the pad of her thumb across her fingertips, she discovered that they didn't hurt quite as bad as they had earlier. The tingling and swelling had diminished a little. By tomorrow, there would only be minor puffiness and red skin. If she could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, the process would go faster.
She considered covering her hands and then decided against it. That might draw more attention to the issue than if she just went on as normal. She couldn't do anything about her face and hoped the speed of her recovery would be overlooked. By the morning, her bruises should be less stark and the split in her lip would be a sliver of a scab instead of a fat one.
Sin and Sacrifice Page 5