by Hope Anika
The question, small and hesitant, jolted through him. Rafe turned to look at her. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t not like her. He just didn’t know her. Didn’t know anyone.
“I like you fine,” he mumbled.
“No, you don’t. I can tell.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because your face is like this.” She scrunched her features into a hideous expression that almost made him laugh.
“I’m just…tired,” he said.
Sasha smiled at him, so piercing and brilliant Rafe feared he might go blind. “That’s okay,” she told him and hurried to take the chair beside him. “You came from far away, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re my cousin, you know.”
Rafe arched a brow. “How’s that?”
“You’re my Aunt Cheyenne’s son, so that makes you my cousin.”
Rafe was pretty sure Cheyenne wasn’t this girl’s aunt, but then he remembered that family didn’t have much to do with blood and said nothing.
“Your mom died, huh?”
She was staring at him with those beautiful eyes—as blue as the sky, flecked with odd bits of silver—her expression serious.
“Yeah,” he said again.
She nodded and turned to point at the mountains. “You see that one there, like with the kinda square top? That’s Mount Moran. That’s where my dad died.”
Rafe looked over at the mountain she pointed to—which did have a kind of square top compared to the sharp peaks of the rest of the range. “What happened?”
“He was climbing,” she said solemnly. “And he fell.”
“I’m sorry,” Rafe told her.
She shrugged. “I was only three. I don’t remember him. Do you remember your mom?”
For a long moment, Rafe didn’t reply. Then, “I remember her.”
Sasha watched him, her gaze alarmingly astute. “What was she like?”
He said nothing. There was nothing good he could say, and the last thing he wanted to do was to talk about his ma. Or his pop. Especially with this perfect, doll-like little girl who might as well be a Martian for all they had in common.
But Sasha laid a soft hand on his arm and leaned toward him and said. “It’s okay. I don’t like to talk about my dad, either. We don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want.” She sat up and smiled at him again, pure human sunlight. “Are you going to go to Kid’s Camp? Me and Kendall are gonna go. It’s so cool. We go swimming and hiking and to the museum! There’s games and bird watching and bike rides!”
“I don’t ride bikes,” Rafe replied, for lack of anything better.
She looked scandalized. “How come?”
“I don’t know how.”
She blinked. “You don’t?”
Bikes hadn’t been exactly plentiful where he’d come from, and her incredulity made him defensive. “No. So what? I don’t care.”
“Don’t worry,” she told him and patted his arm. “I can teach you.”
Rafe stared at her. “Yeah?”
“Sure!” She nodded enthusiastically. “I’m good at bike riding.”
“You’re probably good at everything,” he muttered.
“No, I’m not. I’m bad at math. And I always burn the toast.”
Which made him smile, in spite of himself.
“I didn’t know people could have two different colored eyes,” she continued conversationally. “My grandma had a cat once, Samson. He had one green eye and one brown one. And his tail was crooked because my grandpa ran over it with the wheelbarrow.” A gusty sigh. “So…do you wanna be my friend?” She tilted her head and offered him another blinding smile. “I’m very charming. Everyone says so.”
That, Rafe could believe. He looked over at the mountains, aware of Sasha’s small hand on his arm. He thought about the friends he’d left behind, a handful of kids just like himself—latchkey, poor, struggling for more—and understood that here could be different.
He could be different. We decide. Not them. And he could decide whatever he liked.
“Okay,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Did you just get in?”
The hair at Will’s nape bristled, and he wondered how the hell it had happened, that he hadn’t heard—hadn’t felt—what was so obvious now. Had he been that fucking lost? That this asshole could play him like a fiddle from beginning to end?
Adrift in blood and sand and death.
“No,” he replied, his voice even. “This morning. The Airport was on lockdown—they just opened the doors.”
A partial truth, because Will was certain Red already knew which flight he and Brodie had flown in on and the exact time they’d landed. Lying about it would only tip Red off, and Will wanted him as ignorant and confident as possible. The airport had been on lockdown for the last five hours, because of an unknown terrorist threat, but Will and Brodie’s military IDs had gotten them through security—and out of the airport—a mere fifteen minutes after landing.
The cache was now in the hands of General Roland Pierre, safe and sound at Bagram. Where it would go from there, Will didn’t know. And didn’t care.
Explaining why he hadn’t turned them into his own Senior Chief hadn’t been pleasant; connecting Ethan to Georgia Humboldt had been unavoidable, although Will had done his best to be discrete. Mostly because the whole goddamn situation sickened him.
“Where are you now?” Red wanted to know.
“On the road to Jalalabad.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but Will wasn’t worried about Red knowing the difference; the base’s techies had ensured his calls couldn’t be traced.
In actuality, Will and Brodie—and the five Army Rangers the General had supplied them with—sat at various points both within and outside of the warehouse where Will and Brodie had found the cache. Ali’s truck was parked outside. Ali, however, had not accompanied them, because no way in hell was Will letting him get anywhere near what was to come. He’d graciously loaned them his truck—because it drew far less attention than any military or American vehicle—and then gone to his daughter’s house for dinner.
“You sure you don’t need any help?” Red asked lightly, but Will could hear the fine tension that thrummed through him.
“Actually,” Will told him, “I do.”
A sharp breath. Then, “What can I do to help, brother?”
And Will wanted to reach through the phone and choke the shit out of him.
“The coordinates,” he said, trying not to grit his teeth. “I can only get a general position with my phone. If I give them to you, can you get me an exact location?”
“Send them.”
A dark, bitter smile curved Will’s mouth as he emailed them to Red. Merry Christmas, asshole. He wondered where Red was. Jordan? Pakistan? Or closer—Kabul?
Because he would have left as soon as Will told him where the cache was. And considering Red—allegedly—ran his Unnamed operations out of Berlin, he was a hell of a lot closer than Will had been.
“Bih Sud Road. There’s no street number.” Red sounded more than a little frustrated by that. “How the fuck is anyone supposed to find anything?”
“Welcome to the third world, brother,” Will drawled. “No worries. I’ve got it from here.”
He cut the connection, slid his phone away and sat back to wait.
Cheyenne was standing in her kitchen, kneading dough when her cell phone rang. She glanced over at the screen—Whitney—and ignored it. She was elbow deep in flour and pie crust, and besides, ever since she’d shared what was happening with Rafe and Will and Georgia damn-her-hide Humboldt, Whitney had put her permanent freak on.
This is insane! Bombs? Bombs! I told you you would regret this. Why couldn’t you just walk away? Bombs! And where’s this Will guy? Why did he abandon you? What kind of person is he? I knew this was a mistake. I KNEW IT. Have you called the Sheriff? You should call the Sheriff.
And on and on it went. So Cheyenne had sent
Whitney and her girls home.
“Don’t come back until I tell you,” Cheyenne had told her. The girls had protested—especially Sasha, who’d taken a strong liking to Rafe—but in the end Whitney had bundled them into her gleaming silver SUV and gone home.
It wasn’t safe, anyway, not until Malik was dealt with.
Choo-choo! sang her cell, indicating Whitney had—of course—left a message. Thirty seconds later, her house phone began to ring.
“Go away,” Cheyenne muttered and continued to knead.
Three rings and her brief, brusque message sounded. Leave a message. Or not. Whatever.
“Holy shit-balls, Cheyenne!” Whitney’s voice burst into the quiet kitchen like the sudden, frantic yapping of a miniature poodle. “You need to see the news NOW. My phone is ringing off the frigging hook. Call me!”
Everything within Cheyenne went still. Whitney was always high strung—but that was borderline hysteria, an extreme, even for her.
Son of a nutcracker. What now?
“Hey, Rafe,” she called, still kneading.
“Yeah?” he replied from somewhere in the cabin.
“Bring your laptop here, would ya?” Because Cheyenne didn’t have TV—at least, not in the traditional sense. She streamed everything she watched from the internet, which meant no local or national news unless she went online.
Rafe appeared a minute later, his Mac in hand, up and running.
“Go to NewsWeb,” she told him.
He set the computer down, careful to keep it out of the flour and pulled up the NewsWeb site. And there, in HD, was a frozen still photo from Georgia Humboldt’s personal porno with the headline ‘Busted Brass: America’s Highest Officials’ Orgy of Shame.’
“Hells bells,” Cheyenne said and grabbed a towel to wipe her hands.
“Is that….is that my ma?” Rafe asked, his voice tight.
None of the participants in the video were redacted—although all of their body parts had been blurred. Georgia wore a blissful expression and a fuck you smile.
A legacy where she screwed everyone over—literally.
“Yeah, I’m afraid it is,” Cheyenne replied with a sigh. “Play the video.”
Rafe hesitated. “Do I want to know?”
“Probably not.”
He scowled and hit play.
“The nation was rocked this morning by the contents of a package delivered to the Washington Post yesterday afternoon.” The newscaster, a svelte, beautiful blond smirked. “The package, which was addressed to the Posts’ political editor, Ed McNeal, contained the following video—which we will warn you, is not appropriate for young viewers.”
Cheyenne hit the pause button and looked at Rafe. “Close your eyes.”
The insult he felt was instant and apparent. “Why?”
“Because it isn’t appropriate for young viewers,” Cheyenne said sternly. “And you are a young viewer.”
Rafe watched her with hard eyes, and Cheyenne saw the boy who’d grown up in the innermost reaches of the city. She’d wondered when they would meet.
“Why?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Because they’re having sex? I know what an orgy is.”
Something Cheyenne really didn’t care to think about—let alone discuss. “Rafe.”
He muttered and stomped his foot, but in the end he obeyed, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Cheyenne knew he would just pull the video up when he was alone and watch it—hell, the unedited version was probably already floating around on You Tube—but that didn’t mean she had to allow it.
She hit play again, and a clip of the video she and Will had watched in the shadow of Devil’s Tower began to play. Remembering the moans and groans, Cheyenne muted the sound, watching as Georgia, Malik and Ethan Scott got down to business. The video cut off, and the blond returned. Cheyenne hit the mute button and paused it again.
“Okay,” she told Rafe. “You can open them.”
His beautiful, bi-colored eyes opened and shot daggers at her.
“Thank you,” she told him, unwilling to bend.
Not on this.
“I’ll just watch it later,” he muttered.
She looked at him for a long moment. “I know you will; that’s not the point. It’s my job to try to protect you, Rafe. You don’t need to see this—no one needs to see this. There’s nothing of value here—just people’s lives being ruined. Your mom might not have cared about whether or not you’d see this, but I do. Because it’s nothing more than a weapon designed to destroy people.”
He held her gaze. “I want to see it.”
“Why? You know who she was. What she was. And watching this won’t make you feel any better.” Cheyenne leaned back against the kitchen counter and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “The best revenge is a good life. It took me a long, long time to understand that. Don’t make the same mistake I did—don’t hold on to it. Because you’re the only one who cares. She never did. So fuck her, Rafe. Let it go. Be better.”
He blinked, but said nothing. Cheyenne sighed and resumed the video.
“Participants include Andrew Malik, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, United States Navy Senior Chief Ethan Scott, Army General Robert Forsyth, and Florida Congressman Alexander Wentworth, just to name a few. The woman is reportedly a CIA agent named Georgia Humboldt, who was killed earlier this month while on assignment. Our technical people assure us that the video has not been Photoshopped in anyway—and Washington is reeling beneath its disclosure.” Another smarmy smile from the blond. “In addition to the video, the package to Mr. McNeal also included a birth certificate for a child born to Ms. Humboldt, a boy, just ten years old. The man listed as the boy’s father? Ambassador Andrew Malik. It should be noted that the Ambassador has been married to Elena Abadi, sister to the current Saudi Price Ahmed, for the last twelve years, and they have three children. According to our sources, the boy is currently in the custody of his legal guardian, wildlife artist, Cheyenne Elias. Stay with NewsWeb for more from this breaking story as it becomes available.”
The video ended, and a commercial for internet dating began to play. Cheyenne stared at it blankly, her head buzzing.
“She was talking about me,” Rafe said. “Wasn’t she?”
“Yes.” And they were skirting the line by talking about his age. They couldn’t release his name or his date of birth—but Cheyenne was a realist. It would hit the web in a handful of hours.
If it hadn’t already.
“So…what does this mean?”
Cheyenne looked over to find Rafe watching her, his gaze pensive.
“It means the world now knows who your father is,” she said.
“So…does that mean I’m safe?”
“Most likely. If he moved against you now, it would be suicide—in more ways than one. I think that, right now, he’s probably far more concerned with damage control.”
Rafe’s gaze flickered to the screen. “I bet his wife crapped a brick.”
Cheyenne smiled. She couldn’t help it. “Quite possibly.”
But it was Malik’s in-laws he was going to have the biggest trouble with. Not even the U.S. government would be able to compete with—or prevent—the punishment the Saudis would mete out. Andrew Malik would no longer be Rafe’s problem.
“And his kids…my sisters. Half-sisters. They probably hate me.”
“You don’t know that.” Cheyenne shook her head. “And you shouldn’t assume that. For right now, this is just something we’re going to have to swim through. But later…you never know what life will bring, sweet pea. Trust me on that—because I never expected you. Not in a million years.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“All the shit I came with.”
“None of which is your fault,” Cheyenne pointed out. The impulse to hug him gripped her, and she gave in and wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight. “It’s going to be okay, Rafe. I promise.”
“Even Will?”
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Her heart lurched. “I hope so.”
“You still haven’t heard anything?”
“No.” Which pissed her off. She’d texted Will when they’d gotten home—just like he’d asked—but she hadn’t gotten jack in return. Nothing. So she’d texted him again. And again. And again.
Which now made her his official stalker. But he hadn’t responded. No call, no text, nada. And that fucking terrified her. Luckily, being angry was a lot easier than being afraid.
Story of my goddamn life.
The landline rang again, but Cheyenne didn’t answer it. Whitney’s voice, even more agitated than it had been during the first call, sounded. “What the hell should I tell these people? Everyone wants a comment! I need a comment! Call me back, damn it!”
“What do you think we should we say?” Rafe asked. He stayed locked in her embrace, unmoving.
Cheyenne shrugged. “What do you want to say?”
“Nothing,” he muttered and shuddered against her.
“Then we say nothing.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“I’ve got four bodies headed toward you. Another two still in the vehicle.” Brodie paused, and the radio crackled, and in the rafters above, the pigeons cooed. “Mercs, I’d guess, by the foul look of ‘em. Armed for bear and wearin’ armor. Be careful, boys.”
Will’s heart beat like a drum in the hollow of his chest, and his forearm ached like a son of a bitch. Probably because his hand was wrapped around his gun like a stripper around a pole.
“Roger,” he said into his radio unit.
“Shoot to kill?” clarified Beckham.
Fuck yes. The words rose in Will’s throat and locked there, almost choking him. Outside the warehouse, footsteps sounded.
“Nah, might be some valuable intel there,” Brodie replied. “Best just disable.”
Which was, of course, the right response—no matter how much Will wanted different. That was one of the reasons he’d chosen Brodie. Brodie had been through his own kind of hell, and he understood exactly where Will’s head was at. It spoke to the man Brodie was that he had no problem picking up Will’s slack—and wouldn’t hold it against him.