by S. M. Butler
Bea stood behind him, arms crossed and scowling. But that was par for the course for her.
The final member of their team was Jack Allen, an ex-NSA agent. But it wasn’t his time with the NSA that made him valuable. It was the fact that he’d worked for Alex Giroux for nearly a decade, first spying for him as a member of the NSA, then as his personal lapdog enforcer after that.
Chris hadn’t wanted him. He’d questioned how loyal a traitor could be, but Nathan was big on second chances. Jack had his attention on the tablet in front of him, oblivious to what was going on in the room, but then, that was Jack. He didn’t give two fucks about any of them.
“Nathan’s coming,” Jordan replied easily as Chris turned away from the table.
Fuck. He needed to talk to Nathan, but he didn’t really want to do this in front of the team.
“Nathan is here,” came the irritated voice. Chris turned just as Nathan swung his fist. The impact snapped Chris’s head to the side, pain blossoming on his cheek and spreading fast with the flow of his heartbeat as it increased. He resisted the urge to hit back because it wouldn’t solve anything. “Explain to me exactly why I have a senator’s daughter locked up in the infirmary?”
Nathan’s dark eyes flared with leashed anger. Chris knew he had probably held back on that punch. Nathan was every bit as deadly as the men and women he recruited. He’d spent a decade honing those skills, long before the Reapers were ever a thing.
“You told me to bring her here. I did.”
“I told you not to reveal your true mission here.”
“Then you tell me why her car blew the fuck up as soon as I so much as opened the damn door!” Chris growled back, gently touching his lip as he felt the trickle of blood.
“I have the Ghosts working on that. Early reports indicate there was a localized charge wired to pressure movement near the door itself.”
“You didn’t do it?” Chris asked. “To make sure she stayed?”
“No,” Nathan snapped. “I asked you to make contact and get her to trust you. Not to endanger our operation here.” He paused, his nostrils flaring with rage. “I told you not to reveal your true mission to her.”
Chris wiped away the blood with the back of his hand. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Like hell, you will,” Nathan snapped. His fist clenched again, and Chris watched him carefully. If he tried to hit him again, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself this time. “You have potentially compromised us all.”
“She doesn’t know anything yet. She’s not even awake. I sedated her.”
He pointed toward Jordan. “She recognized Jordan.”
“Because you sent him to that coffee shop and she put the pieces together!” Chris roared back. “Now, I said, I’ll handle it.”
“No,” Nathan said. “Maybe Jack should. Certainly would be more effective.”
Jack grinned, a satanic, gleeful grin that had Chris shaking with rage. He knew what Jack’s role was more than anyone else’s.
“No.” Chris blew out a breath.
“Daniel Lewis is not a man that will just let his daughter walk out of his life,” Nathan said. “He’s got investigators, mercenaries, and half the FBI looking for her right now.” He shook his head and blew out a long breath. “I needed her off the game board delicately, but it’s been given the treatment of a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.”
“Nathan, I will fix this. Okay? Let me try.”
“I’m still in favor of putting a bullet in her head,” Jack growled.
Chris’s anger spiked and his fists clenched tightly. Nathan put up a hand and every one of them stopped cold. “Hold on. This might still work in our favor. Let’s put her through her paces. Limit her access, but let’s bring her into the fold. Slowly.”
“Mr. Hardy will facilitate her induction. Let’s keep the exposure to a minimum.” Nathan turned to the rest of the team. “Mr. Muldoon, we need a full medical workup, including DNA tests, please.”
Scott nodded, grabbed his laptop, and left the room.
“Is that really necessary?” Chris asked.
Nathan’s eyes flared with carefully contained rage. “Yes, it is.” he turned to Jack. “Mr. Allen, I need you to do a full background on Miss Abigail Lewis.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Enemies. Discrepancies. Anything to identify who might bomb a car, particularly one that is Company owned, and no one should have known she had.” Nathan sighed. “It’s possible she was tagged. Mr. Levi, sweep her for bugs, please. And Miss Li,” he turned to Bea. “Run interference with Mr. Martinez. He’s more plugged into the town than you are. I’d like you to see if our big boom made the town rumor mill. Do what you can to keep it out.”
As the rest of the team shot out of the room, each on their personal task, Nathan rounded on Chris, his eyes burning with anger.
Chris straightened his shoulders. “I did what you asked. I couldn’t let her walk into town bleeding with half her clothes singed off. I made a judgment call.”
Nathan nodded. “I know. I shouldn’t have put this on you. It’s too much, considering your struggle.”
“There’s no struggle. I kept up my promise.”
“Did you?” Nathan asked. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I know that I asked you to contact her. It was a misstep on my part. You’re never going to adjust to this life as long as you have a tie to your old one.”
Chris drew in a sharp breath. “We had a deal, Nathan.”
“Yes. I know. It’s time to change it. It’s time Christopher Hardy meets his death.”
“You lying son of a bitch,” Chris spat. “We had a fucking deal.”
Nathan stepped toe to toe with Chris, his eyes dark and deadly behind his glasses. “Each of you is alive and well by my grace. In a heartbeat, I can take that away, and bury you so deep, no shovel on Earth will be able to dig you out.”
The emptiness of his eyes reached into Chris’s for several long seconds. The warmth that Abigail’s brief touch had given him crumbled as tendrils of ice slithered into his body.
Then Nathan marched out of the room like the ghost he was.
Chris’s entire body shook with rage until he couldn’t contain it anymore. He screamed and his fist flew out and hit the wall behind him. Drywall crumbled, his fist leaving a dent, surrounded by cracks in the surface. Specks of blood rested among the cracks but he didn’t even feel the pain in his hand.
Chapter Eight
Chris leaned back in the chair next to Abigail’s bed, where she was lightly snoring without a care in the world. He stretched out his fingers on his right hand, then clenched his fist again. He repeated the action a few times, wincing as he pressed to the limit of the injury. Already the knuckles turned disgustingly deep blues and purples, even where he’d broken the skin.
Abigail’s strawberry blonde hair splayed out across the pillow, making her look like an angel in sleep. Chris couldn’t reconcile this woman with the skinny teenager he’d rescued. That girl had had braces, frizzy hair, freckles, arms that were too long, and legs that were too short.
Now everything on her was perfect.
Her hair was smooth, probably used a straightening iron. She still had the freckles, but they’d blended more into her overall look. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup that he saw, just a little eyeliner and mascara. Her tank top had fallen on one side, exposing even more of her freckled skin. He tried not to think about how far down those freckles went, though at this point, there wasn’t an inch on her that wasn’t covered in freckles. It wasn’t just adorable. It was sexy as fuck.
He envied her ability to sleep so deeply, even though he knew it was because of the sedative he’d injected. But her dreams also weren’t marred by old battlegrounds or fights with evil men. Her sleep was peaceful.
Chris hardly ever slept these days. Every time he closed his eyes, he got shot again, or someone he loved did. He frequently relived that day on the train when Jean Giroux shot him and took his sister a
way, while he bled out, unable to help her.
Not sleeping was far less terrifying than reliving that nightmare.
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. His first mission lay sleeping, not two feet from him. He couldn’t even bring himself to leave the room.
“I shouldn’t have hit you, Mr. Hardy.”
Nathan’s voice was barely above a whisper behind him. He knew the man had entered a few minutes before, but both of them had been content to sit in silence. Chris didn’t care about what Nathan wanted to absolve himself of. They were past the point where he wanted to discuss it.
“I have spent half a lifetime putting this operation together, creating an unbeatable team.” Chris didn’t turn or answer. His fingernails dug into his palms instead. He kept his eyes on Abigail’s sleeping form.
“The others that came after you. I didn’t give them the choice to keep their lives as I did you.”
“I know that, Nathan.”
“You don’t know why. That’s what I’m telling you now. I didn’t give them that choice because I realized it split you.”
Chris stood and faced his boss. His fists still clenched tightly at his side. He wasn’t sure that he could relax them and not lose the tight control over his anger. “Split me?”
“Being here… it wasn’t a clean break for you. You came here confused and emotional.” Nathan sighed. “I made a mistake involving you in this and in letting you keep your old life.”
“It was my decision. I couldn’t let my family think I was dead. It would devastate them.”
“Is it any better not speaking to your sister, with her knowing you’re out there somewhere in the world and she doesn’t know where or what you’re doing?” Nathan blew out a labored breath. “You’re supposed to be moving on here. This…” he glanced at Abigail. “She’s part of your old life.”
Nathan shook his head. “I knew the risks, and I took it anyway. I played with your life and I think it shattered you completely to see her again.”
Chris narrowed his eyes. “I can handle this, Nathan. I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Nathan’s eyes searched his curiously, thoughtfully. “There’s so much conflict in you. Assigning you to contact her… It was a calculated decision. Now, I think it’s a step backward for you. In the wrong direction.”
“Stop trying to analyze me,” Chris growled. He squared himself, facing his boss. “I have done everything you’ve asked of me for the last two years. I’ve never faltered.”
“Yes, you’ve done well. Better than I hoped. So why hesitate now?” Nathan came around to the opposite side of the bed. His dark hands brushed a stray hair from Abigail’s face. Chris’s knee-jerk reaction was to grab that hand away from her, but he resisted.
“She knew me when… before it all. She remembers who I was. Who I used to be.” The words tumbled out of him before he realized he said them.
“You can’t look back anymore, Chris. It’s not healthy. You are why I changed the parameters of the program. I don’t need broken agents.”
“Yeah, I know.” Chris pressed his lips together tightly.
Nathan’s eyes narrowed as he studied Chris. It was disconcerting when he did that like he was dissecting his mind all over again. The training for Reapers was extensive, and he was the guinea pig for most of it. The procedures had been written through trial and error on him.
Maybe why that was why he was so fucked up in the head. He was the culmination of years of research, a prototype, really. The procedure had not just fixed the bullet holes in his chest. They had given him heightened senses, a better perception of the world. It had hurt like a mother fucker, too. But in the end, it worked out, and he’d survived it, a completely different man on the other side.
Nathan headed for the door, seemingly satisfied with whatever conversation they’d just had.
“Nathan?”
The man turned back, pausing at the door.
“I’m not ready to die,” he whispered.
“I know,” Nathan replied. A sad smile drifted over his face like a ghost, soft and almost impossible to see before it was gone. “Make your peace with it. It has to happen, Mr. Hardy. Not just for your safety, but for the people you love as well.”
Chris had never been more grateful for the switch from Chris to Mr. Hardy before. Nathan only called him Chris when he thought he was potentially breaking.
He wasn’t in danger of that, yet.
“Oh, and Mr. Hardy?”
Chris faced Nathan. “Yeah?”
“I know we’ve had a bit of a partnership these last few months while we were building this team… But make no mistake. I am in charge. Defy me again in front of the team, and I will bury you in a hole so deep, you will wish you chose that miserable existence that day in the hospital. Are we clear?”
Chris’s anger spiked inside his chest. He clenched his jaw shut and glared at the man across the room. He could have killed Nathan with a sweep of his hand. But that would be if Nathan was anyone but who he was. The man had the support of nations, spider-like connections, and he was absolutely right. He was in charge. Chris had signed on the dotted line two years ago, and Nathan owned him, lock, stock and barrel for another eight.
“We are clear,” Chris spat out, his voice rough and raw with the fury inside him. Nathan’s eyes coasted over him as if he were trying to ascertain if Chris was lying or not. Then he nodded without another word and left the room.
Pissing off Nathan wasn’t his best idea yet, but Chris was involved whether he liked it or not, and he needed to know what Nathan wanted with Abigail as much as he needed to know what secrets Abigail kept inside that fiery head of hers.
He pulled the chair he’d been sitting in before Nathan came in over to the bed, the back of it facing the bed and straddled it as Abigail stirred to life. Her bright blue eyes fluttered open, a guttural groan escaping her delicate lips as she attempted to sit up. She only made it an inch before she fell back to the pillows, her hands covering her face.
“You shouldn’t sit up so fast. Head trauma is no joke.”
“You,” she ground out between her teeth, almost in a growl. She tried again, and finally managed to get herself to her elbows, her head kind of floppy as she woke herself up.
“But of course, you’re going to do it simply because I said you shouldn’t.” He shook his head. At that moment, she reminded him of his sister. Addison would have tried to sit up too.
He banished that thought as quick as it came. He couldn’t afford to miss his family right now. Not with Nathan on his ass and a senator’s daughter in his secret underground lair.
He leaned over to the table next to the bed, grabbed the glass and held it out to her. “Drink.”
She took it without a word, still blinking her way back to consciousness. She sipped it delicately and frowned. “This isn’t coffee.”
He laughed. “Just drink it anyway, princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” she slurred and took another sip, then another.
“I make no promises,” he shrugged. Water dribbled down her chin. He followed the droplet all the way down her slender neck, wishing he could follow it with his tongue. His gut rippled with want, his jeans got unbearably tight.
Fuck.
“So…” she croaked once she’d taken a few more sips. “My car blew up. That happened.”
“Yeah,” he said. He watched her carefully as he said his next sentence. “We should contact your father and get your security down here to pick you up and take you home where it’s safe.”
She scoffed and set the water back on the table. “I’m not going back to my father.”
“Well, it’s obviously not safe for you here.”
A sarcastic smile slid over her expression. “I’m not intending to stay here either. You drugged me.”
“It was just a sedative so you’d rest. And how exactly are you intending to leave? It’s two hours to DFW, there’s no buses
or trains here. It’s a small town.”
“I’ll find a way,” she replied.
“You’re serious,” he said. He stared at her while she nodded. “You need help.”
“Well, certainly I don’t need it from you,” she spat. “What was in that thing you gave me?”
“It was just a sedative,” he said again.
She glanced around the room. “Quite the setup here. I don’t recall you being a doctor.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why have this place? It’s like… you’re expecting to need to treat injuries.” Her eyes speared him in place. “What is it that you do again?”
He marveled at her ability to compartmentalize the fear he saw inside her. His body tightened as she jutted her chin out in obvious defiance. No longer was she that scared, traumatized teenager he’d had to talk down to get her to come with him to safety. Replacing her, was this gorgeous, independent woman he wanted nothing more than to devour.
He rolled his shoulders back, pushing the desire to the back. “I’m a mechanic.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
He didn’t answer. There were too many answers he could give. He wanted her touch, he wanted to touch her. Nathan wanted to keep her here, so by extension, he had to. And he wanted to distract her from ever trying to leave.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” she said. She took a breath like she’d decided something important. “But you can’t call my father.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s the one trying to kill me.”
~*~*~
Abigail hadn’t known what Chris’s reaction would be, but this wasn’t it. His body stilled, his muscles taut. Tension filled the room, and for a moment, she wondered if she’d just made a mistake. She wanted to back away even though at the same time she knew the fury swirling around him was for her, not at her.
“Kill you? Why would your father want to kill you?” The words were quiet but full of anger and promise.