“You can’t do it,” I said, gesturing for her to kneel facing away from me. “I can control you like a puppet. “Didn’t you two know this? I mean...Russia wants me? It has to be because of this?”
“Yes,” she croaked out. “It is. We knew. They don’t have all the facts but they think you were a CIA agent, once. We thought I could stay out of range.”
“Wrong.”
Me? CIA? And my name was Magnus Wolfe.
I rolled that around, saying it in my mind. It sounded right and good. Yet shocking too. CIA?
Jesus H.
This was like the tooth fairy delivering unexpected presents but pulling a few extra teeth because she wanted to. Good teeth. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.
“Not many women can resist what I do.” I finished the wrist tie and started on her ankles.
Then I dragged her over to her hog-tied partner, the silent one who glared. I double-checked his bonds.
Though I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of what I’d do with them, I’d had a fair bit of time to think on the way over.
“Start with this police thing,” I instructed Guera. “What’s that about?”
“Your woman fired a shot and argued with a man about something. There’s an old skeleton, a grave site your dog found, and the man saw it too. He drove off erratically and we watched him from here. If you know where to look, you can see the gash where his car left the road.”
“He crashed? At a fresh landslide?”
“Yes.”
“So, you didn’t shoot him or anything? With a sniper rifle?” I gestured at a few long bags lying around. At least one looked to hold a rifle.
“No. The shot would be impossible.”
“He’s just a bad driver,” Damian added. “Stop messing with us.”
“Messing?” I snarled out. “After you bruised Kiara’s face and threatened to kill us both? I’ll mess if I want to.”
Damn him.
“What were you two going to do with me?”
The man clamped his mouth into a line.
Guera however... “Kill you and obtain a sample of your brain tissue.”
“Uh huh. Woohoo. Nice. A pair of murderers.”
So was I, if my nightmares were based on reality.
The rangers here would notice the landslide. There’d be people crawling everywhere soon in any case. We had to get out of here. They’d find the man’s car. This was going to cause a fuss. These two though?
If I killed them, their superiors would likely figure out Kiara was around still, and with me, and alive. There’d be DNA evidence all over the cabin and the cops were already after us. That might result in harm coming to her family.
If they thought she was dead, that’d be better. Arranging that sort of subterfuge would be near impossible and we had to leave here ASAP. There wasn’t time for fanciness.
If I killed these two, their bodies might be found, in a year, a decade.
If alive, they were sneaky enough to work out how to get out of the zip-ties. Though it’d take them time.
Guera could testify to her superiors as to how I could make a woman do anything. That might help Kiara’s family...except they’d seen her act like a free woman, without me around too. I needed to do something to make them see she wasn’t free, even if she was. That she was a victim too, even if she wasn’t, anymore.
I needed to make the danger very real.
“Well.” I rubbed my chin. “Seems like I have to do something you two won’t like. Just to show you I mean business.” I rose, with the hunting knife in hand – the knife I’d used to cut Kiara’s ties. “I’ll make it quick, but it won’t be painless. This is what I do to people who disobey me or try to hurt me or Kiara. Or just annoy the fuck out of me. Kiara is mine, my property.”
I tested the blade on my thumb. Sharp enough to cut air.
Funny how you got used to people screaming.
Chapter 33
CIA, Langley
Hardinger noted the email coming in and the high priority, logged on, and read.
Hardinger. Your eyes only.
Please decide on further action.
Request from NYPD for DNA identification of a tissue sample from the alleged Andy Carruthers. Sample has been found identical to the DNA of Magnus Wolfe, a previous CIA operative, seconded to aid in a high security research project in Thailand eleven years ago. Details of this research are no longer available.
Wolfe was suspected of involvement in the disappearance and possible murder of his wife, Amelia Wolfe. For undisclosed reasons, the subject was allowed to leave the USA to participate in the research project.
Magnus Wolfe had been declared missing, presumed dead.
Facial recognition from provided photographs also confirms with a 95.6 % probability that this is Magnus Wolfe.
Subject therefore confirmed as Magnus Wolfe.
He is believed to be currently in the USA and is sought in relation to alleged kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, and various vehicular charges.
Hardinger made his chair squeak as he thought, rotating it a fraction of an inch this way, a fraction in reverse.
No matter how secret the project, this Wolfe should be apprehended. Who could he put on this?
The request by local law enforcement would be denied, of course.
He accessed the file of available agents and began to scan them.
Chapter 34
Kiara
Waiting was scarier than knowing. I didn’t want him to kill them, no matter how bad they were. I didn’t know how angry he was at me, but I’d sensed I was partly his target.
The wall under my shoulder was cold and I leaned my forehead into it, letting the cold penetrate and wake me with the icy shock. I couldn’t run from him and I still didn’t want to.
When I heard him come in the door, then watched him descend the spiral staircase, tears of relief sprang into my eyes. I didn’t care what he meant to do; I just needed to see him alive and well.
“Don’t ask,” he growled as he came to me. “I won’t tell you.”
About the Russians? That was all he thought of? “Are you angry at me?”
He unclipped the chain, gathered it and tucked it into his pocket. “I was. I came to see how things should be between us. We can be normal, as a couple. I’ll leave you your secrets, if you leave me mine.”
“Normal?” I smirked at the tail end of the chain he was shoving back in his jacket pocket.
“Yeah.” His grin was good to see. Then it faded and the look he gave me stirred me again to fear.
“What is it? We have to leave now? I know that.”
There was something else. His forehead settled into a frown as he picked up my hand and smoothed his thumb over the backs of my fingers.
“I have to do something to you.” He locked eyes with me. “It’s necessary to make your Russian friends believe you’re my victim and not my friend. Will you trust me?”
My heart was doing a frantic knock against my ribs. This was bad with many exclamation marks, I could tell, feel it.
I gulped down the fear. “I will. Now tell me.”
“I think I will need your nurse skills. Yes...” He sniffed, cleared his throat. “We have to be fast but I want to be safe. Tell me what to get, what to use to help you afterward. Just this...I think I can take some of your pain.”
“Pain?” I stared.
“I’m going to cut off one of your fingers and leave it here.”
Fuck.
“What about just blood?” Say yes to that, for fuck’s sake.
“It won’t be enough. Not unless you lose some life-threatening amount.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “An ear might do, but I don’t want to disfigure you that way.”
An ear...and here I was choosing which. He was right though, I decided, sickeningly. A part of a finger would convince them he was a mean, fucked up man who hurt me just...because...he wanted to. I flexed the fingers he held. Which?
Get it over with.
He could take some of my pain? If that were so, I could do this.
Wolfe took a knife from the sheath at his waist. Guera’s perhaps? I didn’t recognize it.
A knife would be best. If clean.
My heartbeat counted out the seconds while I summoned some calmness.
“Okay.” I thought furiously, pretending this wasn’t for me. I stared up at the ceiling while I rattled off my ideas. “Get bandages, something to use for a small tourniquet, you should sterilize the knife in fire, if you can. Faster than boiling water, I guess. Maybe tie my hand down somehow, so I don’t jerk away.”
This was going to hurt like fuck. Wolfe took my left hand pinky in finger and thumb. “This one?”
I nodded and swallowed back rising bile. Best not to take a more useful digit. “At the joint but not just the tip as that’ll look suspiciously nice.” Haha.
“Hmmm. Okay.”
“Pull back the skin toward my hand, really tight. See if you can leave some skin that can be stapled or stitched. Try not to cut bone. That’d make a mess.”
Not like Amelia. I laid my head on his arm. “And be quick.”
“I will.” He stroked my hair. “Should I clean your skin with iodine? I have some.”
Now that would really look odd to forensics. “No. We’ll have to trust to antibiotics, afterward.” And find a doctor to fix the mess.
And so it was done. He left me to gather everything and when he returned, serenity cloaked me. It was him, helping me. I surely didn’t mind. When he laid the knife across my finger, I shut my eyes.
Thank god, he was right. He did take some of the pain. Into himself, I guessed, though I was too busy sobbing to see what effect it had on him. I wasn’t numb, but I could stand the pain.
There was blood everywhere.
As a nurse, I should’ve been able to handle that. Seeing it was my blood splattered on the rug, on him, on me, and that was my finger lying on the floor – no. While he applied the tourniquet, I threw up, copiously.
If he’d tourniqueted it before cutting that would’ve looked odd to the cops too.
There wasn’t time or the materials to stitch the wound. I’d have to make do with a bandage after the tourniquet came off. There was something very wrong about seeing a part of yourself missing.
“Kiara,” Wolfe said in the swaying distance. “Tell me how to bandage this. Now! Do not faint.”
His presence splashed into me like fire and ice. I jerked my head up. “Okay. Umm. Sure.”
We managed.
Wolfe gathered our gear, what he could find and load quickly, and we drove off with me cradling my bandaged hand and applying pressure when the bleeding started again. At the last, the stump had gone numb.
Wolfe was better than a local anesthetic.
God, I’d left a finger back there.
“This had better be one time only,” I muttered.
Wolfe chuckled. “Of course.”
Partway down, I glimpsed the landslide through a cutting. It truly was massive and a ranger’s vehicle was parked at the bottom. Lower down the slope, though beyond where they could see easily, was a smashed vehicle. It must’ve been heading down the mountain when it crashed, from the looks of it.
The visitor. Had the Russians observed the accident? I figured that was why they knew he wasn’t returning with cops.
There was no regret in my heart. No sadness. Maybe too much violence had happened today? Maybe my soul was numb at the moment. Or maybe, I was becoming hardened to the idea that sometimes you had to sacrifice others if you wanted to live life your way.
Bad things happened. Best if they happened to others.
Chapter 35
Wolfe
I could hear Lily snoring in the back seat. The dog had a switch that let her sleep anywhere, anytime.
Kiara was quiet now, and lay with her head on my thigh, rocking as the SUV went over rough spots on the road. The handbrake must’ve been digging into her side even with my jacket cushioning it.
“You should have your seatbelt on, and be sitting up.” I murmured. “It’s safer.”
“Not now, please. I need to touch you. It helps.”
“Okay.” I reached down and caressed her head, feeling her soft hair shift. “I love feeling you too.”
Her amused snort was unexpected.
I shook my head, smiling. “Wasn’t meant to be dirty.”
“Suuure it wasn’t.”
“Though come to think of it, you’re a few inches away from a blowjob.”
“Hmmm.” Her breath warmed my skin through the denim. “Maybe later.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m serious. Strangely. It’d take my mind off this.” She raised her bandaged hand.
Even now the blood made me scowl. “I’m sorry. Sorry we had to do that, Kiara.”
Her sigh was long. “Me too.”
“The painkiller helping any?”
“A little. Though you’re the best painkiller.” She turned onto her back and kissed my palm.
I nodded, feeling blessed that I could help her.
“I found some wildflowers for you, on the way down the mountain earlier.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said, her voice husky.
“Really?”
Tears shone in her eyes.
I steered us around one of the long curves that led down the mountain.
“Guess I’m feeling fragile.” She sniffed and I glimpsed her wiping her eyes.
“That’s okay. I’d kiss you better if I could. The flowers. They’re in the glove box.”
“You picked some? Wow.” She sat up and opened the glove compartment. “Awww. Pretty.”
“Just some bluebells and some red flower I don’t know the name of. Hope they’re not poisonous.” I grinned as she put the small ragged bunch to her nose.
“They smell nice too. You’re a gorgeous man.”
“I can be.” I patted my thigh. “Lie down again.”
Her look said she liked both the idea and that I wanted her there. When she was again lying with her head on my thigh, I ran my finger under the black collar I’d left on her.
“You going to take that off?”
“You can wear it a bit longer. I like it on you.”
“Mmm. I guess. I don’t mind.”
I resumed patting her.
We’d get there. Find our way. I had plans for leaving the USA. We’d work our way down south and once on the coast, I had memories that told me how to work the system and get onto a boat without being stopped.
Thailand?
Wasn’t sure I wanted to go there again, even if it might clear up my past.
I’d talk it over with Kiara and figure this out.
I had this vision of us being married under the sun of a tropical country, confetti raining down, and people smiling and generally being happy. That was going to happen. I would make it so. The more I found out about myself, the more confident I was of this power.
I steered around another long corner then flexed my fingers into the leather steering wheel cover. My strength reassured me.
We could do this.
We had a good future coming.
I wondered if to Kiara this was her twu love. For me, I figured it was.
“The pain coming back?” I could feel the twinge. “Need me to take it away?”
Sleepily she murmured a no. Stubborn girl. I kissed my hand then applied it to her cheek. “Have a second-hand kiss.”
“Mmm.”
She was falling asleep. It’d been a very big day.
The pain taking away thing...
I remembered.
I’d done it with Guera too. Not all the way as I figured they both needed to feel pain – seeing they deserved it. They’d hurt Kiara, meant to kill me. Assholes. Even if it was their job.
They were in love, though. It was part of why I hadn’t done more.
I’d carved a W into the man’s back.
Like I’d decided, Kiara didn’t need t
o know. Only that I hadn’t killed them.
Guera...
The ziplock plastic bag was in my jacket pocket, the one next to the door.
Four fingers.
I’d taken some of her pain.
I should probably throw those away when Kiara was asleep.
Something had compelled me to keep them.
Wouldn’t hurt to hang onto them for a while longer. I was curious about my reason. Always good to know why I did things. My past was such a fucking mystery.
Chapter 36
Kiara
Three months later. Cuba.
For two foreigners getting married in Havana, Cuba, we’d done well. Though we couldn’t have a full church wedding, due to our needs for secrecy, or indeed a true civil marriage for the same reasons, Wolfe had done us proud.
The walls had lost their original color, flaked away by years of the elements. The ornate curled decorations, the baroque architecture, the wrought iron – all gave this location a delicious flavor of decadence and history.
We’d arrived here weeks ago. The go-fast boat, as they called it, that’d brought us from Florida to Cuban soil had been the simplest part of our journey. Normally they took Cubans to US soil, or maybe drugs.
We were in the courtyard of a crumbling Spanish colonial house owned by a cousin of the owner of our casa particular – Karel. Or maybe a cousin of a cousin. It had been an exuberant gesture of his to sort this out for us. He’d been aghast at our lack of celebration, as had his wife, Athena.
Was it natural or Wolfe’s doing? Athena had no doubt had much to do with this.
They were some of the friendliest people I’d ever met, but... Wolfe had perfected a subtle control method so I could no longer tell what he’d made happen and what came naturally.
With the encouragement of Karel and his young wife, a local band had materialized too, along with chairs, tables, and a supply of alcohol and food. We were paying for this, but prices here were so low it’d barely make a dent in our cash.
The chance to participate in an impromptu reception cross party had seemed infectious.
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