“I took you for a man who liked a challenge, William Bennett.”
“I do,” he agreed, his thoughts trying to race in far more pleasant directions. He reined them in. For now.
“I can’t crack the encryption, but I know a guy who can.”
If he’d expected that statement to be met with enthusiastic relief, he was sorely disappointed.
“It’s too dangerous.” All the relaxed humor that had lit her face only moments ago flickered and died.
“He’s a friend, practically a brother,” Will offered when she stood, her movements mechanical and stiff as she dropped the empty bottle in the trash. “I trust him.”
“You trust him,” she repeated, as if the concept was something both foreign and bitter. “With your life? Because that’s what we’re talking about,” she said, staring out the open window.
“With mine. With yours.” Will stood, but when Cooper stiffened, he held his ground. She’d put another wall up, though why, he wasn’t yet sure.
“We shouldn’t involve anyone else—definitely not anyone we know.”
“We can’t do it all, Coop.”
“I’ve come this far,” she argued. “I can find someone to break the encryption. Pierce—”
“No.”
“He helped me—”
“He helped himself,” Will ground out. “And he betrayed you in the process. Would have done worse if it had suited his purposes.”
“He wouldn’t have gone through with it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But he thought about it. And that’s more than enough for me to hate him.”
She turned, her expression calm but curious, and too late Will realized he’d shown his hand, in tone if not in words.
“You’re jealous,” Cooper realized aloud. “Of Pierce. For the love of God, why?”
He scowled and looked away. This wasn’t a conversation they needed to have. Ever. Will knew when he’d been provoked. And there was no question in his mind that Pierce had been goading him from the first uttered “love” to the last. Will had resisted the bait then, he’d damn well resist it now. Because whatever Cooper’s relationship had been with the man, Will was happy to leave it in the realm of the hypothetical.
“Not the point.”
“You think I slept with him.” She laughed. “And you are jealous,” she repeated, as if it were the funniest thing she’d heard in a long time. She chuckled, and though it was entirely at his expense, he liked the things that little laugh did to her face. Liked the way it deepened the lines around her eyes and pulled that bottom lip taut.
“Pierce and me? Never a thing.”
“Not my business if you were.” He shrugged like he hadn’t spent a solid half hour wondering just how Pierce had gotten access to her boots to plant that tracker.
She closed the distance between them, bunched her fist in his shirt, and smiled. “You are so good for my ego, Bennett. And while I like the way jealousy makes your jaw tick and your fists clench, let me assure you—there’s no need. Not over Pierce. Not ever.”
“I didn’t like the way he looked at you. The way he spoke to you.” He dropped a hand to her shoulder, let his thumb slip into the groove above her collarbone. “The way he touched you. Like he knew you’d let him. Like he had the fucking right.”
“Pierce likes provoking people. Winding them up just to see what they’ll do.”
“I know,” he admitted. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I’m glad.” He slid his hand to the back of her neck, let his fingers card through her hair.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back with a laugh. “Were you under the impression I was a virgin? That you’d boldly gone where no man had gone before?”
“See? Trekkie.”
She huffed at him.
“You’re not the first, Bennett.”
Yeah, he’d figured. She was too damn confident, too damn self-aware, too damn pleased with herself when he’d fallen to his knees before her. He wasn’t the first, and that didn’t bother him, but fuck he wanted to be the last. To be everything she wanted and more than she could handle. In bed and out.
He wanted to ruin her . . . but he wanted to worship her, too. And any man who wouldn’t do both? He didn’t get to touch Cooper Reed. Not if Will had anything to say about it.
“He isn’t good enough for you,” he ground out through a jaw tight with fury. “You trusted him, and he betrayed you. Used you. Treated you like an asset and a commodity. He saw you as disposable, Cooper. If I knew nothing else about him, that would be enough,” he assured her. “I don’t like him and I sure as shit don’t trust him.” He squeezed the back of her neck, his fingers sliding against her scalp. “Not with my life, and definitely not with yours.”
“Okay,” she said, the word little more than a breath of startled air, her face as close to awestruck as he’d ever seen it. “Okay. No Pierce.”
“Parker’s good, Cooper. The best when it comes to computers and code and encryption.”
“He’ll have questions,” she said, stepping back and slipping away.
“And because he trusts me, he won’t ask them. Not if I tell him not to. But Cooper, you should know that he’ll have answers. I don’t know when he gave Dr. York access, or if he has any idea what it was used for, but the algorithm Mitchell was talking about is his baby.”
“Then how can you possibly trust him?”
“Because I know him. He’s going to be furious, Cooper. And he’s going to be on our side. Let’s get him the files. He can handle the decryption and once we have a name, my team—my family—can take down the people who did this.”
“He’s going to want you to come home,” she whispered, her voice rough with a fear he only now saw lurking beneath that calm exterior.
“And he’ll understand when I tell him I won’t. Not until I can be sure you’ll go with me.”
She glanced away from him, her shoulders bunching, her hands flexing as if she needed something to keep them busy. “I have to go to Mexico City.”
“I know.” Had known from the second that Mitchell had dangled that carrot that she’d have to pursue it. “I’m going with you. Don’t,” he said, interrupting her when she went to argue with him. “Just don’t. We’re in this together. I left that mountain with you. I’m going home with you. End of story.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to stay, Will.”
“But I fucking wish you would, Coop.” He dropped his forehead to hers and relaxed when she took a breath and leaned into him.
“Let me make the call.”
She brushed her mouth against his and nodded. Stepping away from her when she was warm and soft and leaning on him like he was the very pillar on which she built her strength was an agony, but he did it.
“You got a satellite phone, right?”
“You’re going to call him now?” she asked, her fingers sliding up beneath the hem of his t-shirt to explore the skin above his jeans. “It’s the middle of the night.”
He pulled away, laughing when she let out an indignant huff. “Mid-afternoon Parker time. Trust me.”
She caught him square in that deep blue gaze and said, “I do. More than anyone. Maybe even more than myself.” She walked away before he could say anything. Before he could reach for her, drag his mouth over hers. She came back with the phone in her hand as if she hadn’t just fused so many of his fractured pieces back together with a single sentence.
Because he didn’t know what else to do and didn’t have any reply that was worthy of her, Will accepted the phone and dialed a number he and the rest of the team had memorized a lifetime ago.
And his heart stopped in his chest when a sleep-roughened voice answered, “It is three o’clock in the fucking morning, that better be you, William Bennett, or I swear to God someone’s about to die.”
Will choked on a laugh tinged with the salt of a sob. “Georgie?” Two seconds after the warmth of her voice slid over him, r
eality caught up. “Wait. Better question. Why are you answering Parker’s phone in the middle of the night?”
And as if desperate to prove that some things never changed, his baby sister laughed at him.
Chapter Twenty
Cooper envied the smile Will wore, and worse, the woman who’d put it there.
She’d figured out early on that Will’s sister had been the one who’d answered the phone. The one to dodge his questions and blast him with her own, and though Cooper wasn’t privy to the back and forth, she could guess well enough.
Where are you?
When are you coming home?
What do you mean “soon”?
And once, when Will had demanded for the third time that his sister explain why she was answering one of his best friend’s phones in the dead of night, Cooper could have sworn she’d heard a barked “Because I like the way he fucks me, okay?”
Cooper had laughed, and Will had sworn and cut her a look that said agreeing with—never mind defending—his sister would be a very bad call.
Still, Cooper liked what little she’d gleaned of Georgia. Loved the smile she’d brought to Will’s face. Something warm and comfortable and familiar, like a faded, threadbare t-shirt; the colors muted but the memories attached to it still vivid. It was a good look on him. Wiped away so much of the hurt and fear that lingered, even when he wasn’t aware of it.
So yeah, Cooper liked the woman who’d put that look on his face. And hated that she’d accomplished what Cooper could not.
She stood and stretched, her back popping and her muscles aching. Pink wasn’t yet tinging the horizon, but it would be soon, the darkness already less inky black and intense.
She grabbed another beer from the fridge, wandered out onto the deck, popped the cap on the edge of one of the wood chairs, and watched as a bright green lizard scurried toward the railing.
She sat and sipped and wondered how hard it would be to convince Will to go home. Easier now that he’d had a taste of it. She envied him that first, brief taste of familiarity if only because he could take another. She, on the other hand?
She couldn’t risk a phone call or a letter or even a brief peek at Facebook to see how everyone was doing. She’d learned the hard way that it hurt too much to see her family at a distance. She’d caved once in an Internet cafe in Istanbul. Five minutes of weakness only to face the brutal reality that they’d grieved—and slowly begun to build a life that didn’t include her.
But that had been over a year ago and she’d learned her lesson. No sense wishing for things she wasn’t sure she could ever have.
Her family deserved to move on, and she deserved to let them.
And he, Cooper thought, as Will stepped through the screen door, phone gone, his own beer clutched in his fist, deserved to go home.
But she didn’t say anything as he joined her.
Couldn’t find her voice when he sat.
Bit back the words she knew she should say when he reached for hand.
“You’re quiet,” he said, lacing their fingers together and taking a pull from the bottle. “Nothing to say?”
Did he expect her to say it? To give him an easy out and send him home with a sweet smile?
Probably. She’d tried, more than once already. But this time, she just couldn’t do it. Didn’t have the strength or the courage or the grace.
She wanted him here. With her. And if that made her selfish, well then so be it.
“It’s late.” She stood, tried to shake her hand free from his. “Or early, I guess. We should get some sleep.”
“In a minute.” He pulled her back until she stood between his knees, then down to sit on the footstool in front of him. “Want to make sure you’re not going to disappear on me in the middle of the night in a not-so-subtle demand that I go home.”
She shook her head, her hair brushing the back of her neck. “You should, though. I can see that you want to.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I do.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
He grinned around his beer. “Fishing for compliments is beneath you, Coop. Especially when all you gotta do is ask.”
She huffed and tried to stand, only for him to curl his fingers in the waistband of her cotton pants and yank her back down.
“I want to make sure we’re clear on this point.” He set the bottle on the table next to him. “I want to go home—and I want to take you with me.”
When she tried to pull away, he wrapped his free hand around the base of her neck and pulled her face close to his. “Come home with me, Coop.”
Temptation had never been so terrible, so real, so potent. “I can’t,” she whispered, breaking beneath the weight of her loyalty. “Not yet. I have to try.”
“I know that.” He pressed his forehead to hers, his breath ghosting across her lips as he spoke. “You have to exhaust every option, because that’s what he would do for you.”
Biting her lip, she nodded.
“Parker’s working on decrypting the files, but he’s also looking into Alonzo Pérez —”
Cooper opened eyes she hadn’t realized she’d allowed to fall shut. “I thought we had everything we needed to blackmail the lab director into helping us?”
“More can’t hurt, and Parker is a pro when it comes to digging up dirt. When we make the call, we’ll do it knowing that Pérez has to meet with us.”
“Us?” she asked.
“Us. I told you once, Cooper. I’m not going home until you can, too.”
She leaned away, putting space between them before his heat could sink all the way into her bones. But with his hand at the back of her neck, he didn’t let her go far.
“We’ll go to Mexico. And then we’re going home. Together.”
She shook her head.
“Yes,” he argued. “One way or another, this is the end of the road, honey. You’ll have done everything possible. Everything Cole would have done and far more than he’d have ever asked you to. It’s time to let others help.”
“There’s still a price on my head—”
“Mine too,” he countered. “But at some point, we have to stop running. Once Parker can access those files, we’re going to have names and then things are going to move fast. It’s time.”
“I can’t. Not until it’s done. Not until it’s safe. Even if we can eliminate the contracts, I can’t risk drawing Cole to my family. My sister, my parents, they’re innocent. Defenseless.”
“But my family isn’t.” He pulled her close, pressed his mouth to hers in a promise she could taste. “My sister’s a marine. Her—ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this—but her boyfriend is a tech genius with more government contacts than IQ points, and trust me, that’s saying something. My best friend? Navy SEAL. They can protect themselves, Coop. And they want to protect us, too.”
“Why are you pushing this?” she asked.
“Why are you fighting it?”
She didn’t have a good answer for that. Just a vague sense of dread that things were racing toward a conclusion she couldn’t see or predict or control. Going home . . . it meant that she’d arrived at the end of the line. That she’d exhausted all her options and resources. That she had to find a way to let go.
And suddenly, that thought was damn terrifying.
She sucked in a breath, her chest hitching with a rush of anxiety she hadn’t expected. Even if things worked out, even if she and Will exposed the traitors within the CIA and by some miracle brought Cole home, what then?
“I’m scared,” she whispered, the realization fresh and new and throbbing like a bruise she couldn’t remember getting. “I can’t just . . .” Get on with it. Go back to normal. Resume life as if the last eighteen months had never happened.
“So am I.”
“Why?” He’d face a hero’s welcome. He’d survived, and that was all anyone would care about.
But Cooper . . .
Cooper had done things. Made compromises and decisions that she
’d live with, but never be proud of. “The things I’ve done . . .”
“Will stay with you,” he agreed. Will tucked her hair behind an ear, let his fingers trace across the arc of her cheek, skirting faded bruises she’d nearly forgotten about. So much had happened in so little time. It set her mind spinning and made it hard to keep her feet. “They’ll hurt, and they’ll haunt and sometimes, sometimes they’ll make it hard to stomach normal and ordinary and life.”
She looked into his denim-blue eyes. “How . . .?”
“Survival comes at a price, Cooper. You know that better than anyone.” He sighed and stroked his fingers through her hair as if that alone had the power to soothe him. “And I wasn’t a saint.”
“No one would blame you for anything you did on that mountain.” She grabbed his hand and turned her head to kiss his wrist. “They’d understand.”
“Would they though?” he asked, his voice roughened by a question that stiffened his shoulders. “I killed people, Coop. That was the choice they gave me. Fight to live. Fight to eat. Fight to keep going one more day.” This time, he tried to pull away from her. To retreat into himself.
And as he’d so readily done for her, she kept him close, held him still, and offered what support she could. “They didn’t give you a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” He sighed, his tension leaving his body as his confession left his lips. “It was a game to them. Make the Special Ops guy fight. See how many men he could take. See how much pain he could handle—”
“Then they fucking deserved it.”
He grinned at her, his beard flexing with the effort. “You’re a little bit ruthless, you know that, Coop? I like it.”
“They started those fights, Will. No one could blame you for finishing them.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “And maybe those kills were justified. But there was an innocent, too. And that . . . that I don’t know how to live with.”
“What do you mean?”
“Six months in, a few new guys joined the camp. With them was a fifteen-year-old kid.”
Cooper sucked in a ragged breath. She’d spent enough time in the South American slums to know how that story started—and where it ended.
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 24