twenty-six
The sun was high in the sky when Dylan woke again. The empty pit that was his stomach growled, reminding him that it’d been almost twenty-four hours since they’d eaten. They had to get some fuel inside them before an LCR team arrived. If there was going to be trouble, he’d sure as hell need to have the strength to fight.
Rolling over onto his side, he checked on Jamie. She was still sleeping, but he had a feeling that the moment she smelled food, she’d be wide awake.
He eased out of bed and picked up the hotel phone. Keeping his voice low, he asked for the most Americanized meal they had—steak sandwiches and fries. Sounded damn good to him.
Assured that the meal would arrive within fifteen minutes, he grabbed a quick shower and threw on a pair of pants. After their meal, he’d need to find some clothes for them. As beautiful as Jamie looked in his T-shirt, she couldn’t wear it outside the room.
The instant he walked out of the bathroom, a knock sounded at the door. Checking the peephole, he saw a woman with a tray. He opened the door just enough to take the tray and hand her several bills for payment. She smiled and turned away.
Dylan took the tray of food and set it on the small dining table. And as he’d figured, Jamie began to stir.
She yawned widely and said, “Mmm. Is that food or am I dreaming?”
“Definitely food. Want me to bring it to you?”
“I need to run to the bathroom.” She grimaced and pulled at her hair. “Think I’ll take a quick shower.”
“Don’t take too long. I’m not responsible if your sandwich is still in front of me when I finish mine.”
She jumped out of bed and scurried to the bathroom. “Be right back.”
Since he’d ordered four sandwiches, he wolfed down the first. Before he could get started on another, Jamie emerged from the shower. With her hair once again damp, her face naked of makeup, and in the same T-shirt she’d worn to bed, she looked fresh, lovely, and so damn vulnerable. Beneath that façade of vulnerability lay a steely backbone.
Sitting across from him, she uncovered her meal and began to devour it in that feminine, delicate way that always made him want to smile.
With her sandwich half gone, she finally paused long enough to look at him. “This is delicious.”
“There’s another if you want it.”
She shook her head. “This one will do it for me. You go ahead, though.”
Taking her at her word, Dylan bit into his third sandwich. Halfway through it, he finally began to feel human again.
As Jamie worked on her meal, Dylan went to his backpack and repacked the few things he’d taken out. He’d checked the flash drives earlier and reassured himself that the water hadn’t penetrated the plastic.
He was so intent on his tasks, Jamie’s quietness didn’t strike him as strange until he heard her expel a long, ragged sigh. He turned to find her gaze fixed on the wall in front of her; the desolate, tortured look in her eyes told him that her mind was in another time, another place.
Her voice low and husky, she began to talk: “My first week with Reddington, I went in and out of consciousness. There was a doctor there who treated me. He was the only one I remember from those first few days. Then, as I began to recover and become more aware of things, I would see this man come into the room, several times a day. At first, he just stood there and stared. It was dark in the room … but I knew he was there. I could hear him breathing. I tried to talk to him.” She swallowed thickly. “I begged him to let me go. He never said anything … just stood there.
“Then one day, I woke up and there were two of them. They’d turned the lights on so they could see me. One of them was Lance Reddington. I knew he was the one who’d been coming into the room.” She shook her head. “I don’t know who the other one was. He was young too, about Lance’s age.”
Dylan wanted to go to her and hold her, but he wouldn’t. This ordeal had been weighing on her mind for months, the memories torturing her. The expression on her face, haunted but resolute, made him stay frozen in place and listen.
“They critiqued my body. Talked about what they were going to do to me once I wasn’t so ugly.” She swallowed a sobbing laugh. “Amazing that I was actually glad of all the bruises. No one wanted to touch me because I was so disfigured and ugly.
“As I got progressively better, his visits became more frequent and his words more vile and profane. I knew he was getting turned on. He would rub himself through his clothing as he talked.” She swallowed hard again. “One day, he unzipped his pants and masturbated in front of me. He did that every day … several times a day. And once, he brought his friend back and they both jacked off. I closed my eyes, but I could hear them grunting … hear their filthy language. My hands were cuffed to the bed … I couldn’t cover my ears.
“I made myself laugh at them. Called them perverts, pigs, sleazebags. Every insulting name I could come up with.”
She turned her head to look at him, and Dylan felt her hurt so deep, he wanted to cry. The stark pain in her eyes pierced straight through his soul. He couldn’t stop himself. Maybe she didn’t need to be held—she was so damn strong and brave—but he sure as hell needed to hold her. Striding over to where she sat, he plucked her into his arms, carried her over to a chair, and sat down with her. Holding her close against him, he waited.
“One day, he came by himself and did his usual performance, but he told me that the next day, he was going to make good on all those things he’d been promising me he was going to do. That he and his friends were tired of waiting.”
She stopped talking, and Dylan wasn’t sure he could handle what would come next. She had told him before that the bastard hadn’t raped her, but what he had done was a rape of the mind, of her spirit.
Unable to not know the rest, Dylan rasped out, “What happened?”
“You.”
He jerked at her one-word answer. “What do you mean?”
“You came that night and rescued me.”
A burning sensation started behind his eyes. Pressing his face against the top of her head, Dylan said a prayer—his first one in a very long time—of thankfulness that he and LCR had been there to save her from further hell.
As a shaky breath whooshed through her body, she straightened in his arms and looked up. “I knew that going after Reddington might do nothing to hurt Lance, other than take away his opportunity to carry on the family business. But if bringing Reddington down saves one woman from being sold or going through what I went through, then the risk was worth it.”
He was once again reminded that he’d never known anyone like Jamie Kendrick, and hidden deep, where he didn’t want to consider the consequences of the truth, his chest ached with the certain knowledge that he never would again.
The cellphone buzzed, giving him a welcome relief from that painful truth. Since it was on the bureau across the room, Dylan had no choice but to move.
Feeling the awkwardness that’s often the aftermath of baring your soul, Jamie rose from Dylan’s lap. For just an instant, she’d felt a closeness with him that had exceeded even the physical intimacy they’d shared. Almost as if something within him had touched her heart. But now reality had reared its ugly head. The fact that she’d shared everything really meant nothing. Once again, he knew everything about her … and she still knew almost nothing of his past.
She returned to the table, where the remains of her meal lay, suddenly unappetizing and unappealing. Covering the food with a napkin, she turned and listened to Dylan’s side of the conversation with Noah.
“No, tomorrow is fine. Yeah, I understand.” His gaze locked with hers, he said something she’d never thought she’d hear from him: “I’m not worried about her. She’s proven she can handle anything.”
The knowledge that she’d earned Dylan’s respect and endorsement went a long way in soothing her jagged and fragile emotions.
Dylan finished the call with “Will do” and closed the phone. His eyes still on
her, he said, “They’ll be here early tomorrow morning, about an hour before dawn. LCR had no contacts here on La Rosa, so McCall had to send for some operatives. They arrived last night and have the hotel under surveillance. They’ve spotted three men who are trying to keep a low profile—probably our friends from yesterday.”
“So if they know we’re here, why haven’t they tried to get to us?”
A broad shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Could be Reddington told them to just keep an eye on us. Those men were close enough yesterday for some of their bullets to hit me, but they didn’t. I don’t think Reddington wants us dead … I think he just wants us. With us staying in the hotel and not coming out, he might think we really did just run off together for some hot and sexy alone time. I think they’re going to wait us out, until we make some kind of move.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Since we still don’t want Reddington to know we’re anything more than two horny lovers, LCR’s going to have to stay low-profile. An army of operatives descending on the building will tell him there’s more to our game.”
He grabbed a yellow notepad from the desk and a pen. As he began to draw, Jamie stood beside him and watched a surprisingly detailed sketch of the hotel emerge on the page.
Once he’d finished, he pointed at the three entrances to the hotel. “There’s one guy here, at the main entrance. One is at the back, in the parking lot. And there’s one at the service entrance, where only employees can enter.
“One operative will cover each entrance. I’m going to take the man at the main entrance. While I deal with him, you’re going to jump into a car; as soon as I’m done, there will be another car waiting. We’ll meet at the airport and be on our way.”
It sounded easy, but anything could happen. Volunteering to take out one of the men herself would be foolish—no matter how much training she’d had, the LCR operatives were much better qualified. More importantly, someone had to protect the flash drives. They’d risked their lives for them. If the drives were taken or damaged, everything they’d gone through would have been for nothing.
“What about clothes?” She glanced down at the large T-shirt she’d borrowed from Dylan. “Not exactly dressed for a getaway.”
“I’ll call down to the lobby and see if anyone’s willing to bring us some clothes.” He tore a piece of paper from the notepad and handed it to her with the pen. “Write down your clothing and shoe sizes.”
While she did this, Dylan called the front desk. She was amazed at the difference in his tone when he spoke. Masculine charm oozed, and she knew that if she were the one being asked the favor, she’d do just about anything to please the owner of such a sexy, persuasive voice.
In minutes, there was a knock on the door. After checking the peephole, Dylan opened the door only slightly for the woman who had agreed to buy them clothing. Handing her the page listing their sizes and several twenty-euro notes, he thanked her in a silky, sexy tone and then closed the door.
When he turned to face her, the tough-edged, hard-assed LCR operative was firmly back in place.
“Wow, you can turn the charm on and off in a flash, can’t you?”
He answered her with the raising of that arrogant brow—the one that used to infuriate her. And now her silly, foolish heart thudded against her chest in excitement.
He held his hand out in invitation. “You want charming?”
With her body heat increasing by the second, Jamie moved toward him, loving this playful side of Dylan. When she reached him, he grabbed her hand and pulled her against him. Stopping his mouth a hairsbreadth from hers, he growled, “Just how charming do you want me to be?”
Since he could charm her with a raised brow and a growl, she sincerely didn’t know if her heart could handle anything more. The man was beyond lethal already. Still, being a risk taker, she whispered, “Show me what you’ve got.”
His green eyes flared with something hot and potently wild, and then his mouth was on hers. Plunging, devouring, his tongue slashed and licked against hers. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the bed and followed her down. Jamie closed her eyes and allowed Dylan to charm her with his body, taking her to the idyllic place where nothing else existed but heart-pounding, body-clenching pleasure.
Sated and so relaxed he could barely move, Dylan held Jamie’s silken body close in his arms. How was he going to let her go? And yet what choice did he have? She deserved a normal life. And she deserved a good man to share that normal life with—one who didn’t risk his life on a daily basis and one who was worthy of her love.
She deserved the very best of everything, and that meant she needed to learn why he wasn’t that man. Her accusation yesterday that he knew everything about her and she knew almost nothing about him had slashed deep. The courage it had taken her to share the most painful moments of her past humbled him. He had done nothing of the kind for her … and it was way past time for her to know.
Opening his mouth, Dylan began to share a story he hadn’t told in almost two decades: “My mother and father were both drunks. From what I remember, my mom wasn’t a bad person … she just had an addiction she couldn’t control. She’d get drunk, cry about her lot in life, apologize for not being strong enough, and then pass out. My old man was a whole different kind of creature. He was a monster.”
She stiffened in his arms, so he knew she was listening intently. Dylan forged on, determined to get it all out in the open. “He wasn’t evil just when he was drunk, he was evil all the time. And when my parents were drunk together, which was often, what happened was violent, sickening, and wrong. I don’t know how many times he beat and raped her in front of me.”
“How old were you?”
“Hard to say how old I was the first time I witnessed it. The first time I remember vividly was when I was five years old.”
“Oh God, Dylan.” Her voice was thick with tears.
“I remember that one time so well because I tried to stop him and he knocked me out. I woke up in my mother’s arms. She was crying and apologizing.” He shook his head in amazement. “She had bruises all over her and a bloody, swollen lip and she was apologizing to me.”
He paused for a few seconds, needing the time to confess the worst sin he had ever committed. “And then one day it all stopped, because he killed her.
“I saw him do it. They were in the kitchen—he’d been slapping her around. She grabbed a knife off the counter and went after him. I’d never seen her try to defend herself before. I don’t know if she just got tired of him hurting her or she wasn’t as drunk as usual. Anyway, she got one good stab at his arm. Before she could pull back and get him again, he grabbed the knife, twisted her arm, and broke it. She was holding her arm, crying, when he took a heavy cutting board from the counter and slammed it over her head. She didn’t get up.”
Jamie didn’t know when she’d started crying. Maybe it wasn’t even the words as much as the hollow pain in his voice. She had suspected that he’d had a rough childhood, had known that his father had killed his mother. Never had she imagined how horrific his life had been. And she had a feeling the worst part hadn’t come yet.
“How old were you then?”
“Seven … I think. After she died, time sort of stopped. I lost count of birthdays.”
“What happened after that?”
“He dumped her body in a large garbage can and put her in his truck. He drove a semi for a living, so on his next load—which happened to be the next day—he made an extra stop to unload her corpse.”
A ragged sigh went through his big body. “Only problem was, when he went to dump her, she wasn’t dead. I heard her whimpering. I screamed at him and tried to get to her. He threw me down … God, I don’t know how many times. Finally, I couldn’t get up anymore. I lay on the ground, watched him lift the can and roll it into this giant hole. It was a well … though I didn’t know what it was at the time. I heard the thud when it hit the bottom, and then nothing else.
“H
e said if I ever told anyone about what I’d seen, he’d kill me. I knew he was telling the truth, so I didn’t.”
Seven years old. Jamie’s heart shattered for that terrified, traumatized little boy.
“From then on, my old man made sure I stayed close to him. He took me on the road with him. Hid me when anyone came around. Fed me when he remembered and beat me when he was drunk.”
“But what about school? Didn’t social services come looking for you?”
“We lived in a Podunk little community in Ohio. I hadn’t even started school, so if anyone knew I existed, they forgot about me.”
“What happened next?”
“A whole lot of nothing. He continued to work, I traveled with him. That lasted for years.” He paused for a second and then, his voice holding a warm affection, he added, “And then I got lucky.”
“What happened?”
“We were at a rest stop. The old man always parked as far away from all the other trucks as possible. Which was a good thing, since that meant he’d let me walk around outside. That night, as I was walking around, stretching my legs, I heard something whimpering in the weeds. My dad was on the other side of the truck, so he didn’t hear. I went into the weeds and found a small puppy. Apparently someone had just dumped her there. She was skinny, terrified, and starving. I had some peanut butter crackers in my pocket I was saving for later. She ate them up like they were ambrosia.
“I knew it was dangerous to take her with me, but I couldn’t leave her there. So I hid her under my coat and snuck her into the truck.”
Jamie could see Dylan as a little boy, finally finding his first real friend—one that had so much in common with him.
“I managed to keep her a secret for almost a week. Most times, I stayed quiet and out of the way to keep from irritating my dad. So, since he rarely looked at me, my only real concern was keeping Lucky quiet.”
A smile lifted her mouth at his name for the dog. That’s what he’d meant—“I got Lucky.”
Sweet Revenge Page 31