Deadlock

by Cherrie Lynn

  “No.” She shook her head furiously. “I would never go.”

  “You would if I said the word. You wouldn’t have the choice.”

  She glared daggers at him. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

  Sighing, he ran a hand over his head and got to his feet. “Eat, Lindsey.”

  She picked up her fork and went through the motions, but he’d already shattered the mood to hell and gone. Maybe it was for the best, maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been a dumbass. He doubted it would be the last.

  All at once, his door flew open and Sully burst in, and if he’d had a gun on him he might have aimed and fired without a second thought. Her eyes were wild and furious as she took in the both of them, pure disgust brimming in her expression. “We’ve been fucking found, Jace.” She stabbed a finger in Lindsey’s direction, punctuating each syllable. “Her code had a traceback that led them right. Fucking. To. Us. You obviously just fucked the enemy.”

  Then again, maybe he’d been a dumbass for the last time in his life.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about, I swear to God. You have to believe me.”

  He’d shoved Sully back out the door almost as fast as his teammate had burst in, exhorting her to let him handle this. Lindsey’s face had been awash with numb horror as soon as he had made it back to the kitchen, but he hadn’t let that move him. He’d placed her on his couch, sat across from her on the coffee table, and said little as he stared her down, watching her every expression as she asked him to believe her.

  He wanted to. Oh fucking hell, how he wanted to believe her. She was extremely convincing, but then he’d wondered at the very start if she was little more than a fabulous actress.

  “Why would I do this? Why would I compromise my sister, put her in danger?”

  “I don’t know,” he said coldly, though it shredded his heart to speak to her in that tone. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “You can’t believe I would do this on purpose. Maybe I made a mistake, or someone manipulated the code once I was done with it. Maybe someone hacked into my computer and did that, Jace. They want to turn you against me, or to hurt you. After last night, how could you possibly think—”

  “That because you fucked me you would never betray me? That’s a riot. Tell me another one.”

  “I didn’t do this.”

  “All this time, I’ve wondered how it’s possible that you and Lena could share the same DNA. It’s all becoming clearer now, isn’t it? You’re exactly like her. To the marrow of your bones, you are your sister’s clone. Actually, I take that back. You might be a little worse than she is. At least she didn’t spout a bunch of bullshit about how much she cared about me before she tore my world apart with her bare hands. Maybe it’s you who taught her.”

  “Jace!”

  “Maybe the two of you cooked that up all those years ago. ‘Hey, that unsuspecting son of a bitch looks like an easy mark. Let’s fuck him up, why don’t we?’”

  “You cannot believe that.”

  He leaned closer to her, bracing his elbows on his knees. “You don’t get to tell me what I can’t believe. I couldn’t believe it when she—or you, or both of you—did that to me. I came to believe it pretty fucking fast, though, when I was facing jail time. Jail time, Lindsey. They would have locked me up for it. The Air Force saved my ass, but you know what? There were days of my service when I wondered if maybe I wouldn’t rather be sitting in a cell somewhere with three hots and a cot, instead of bullets flying past my motherfucking head.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said miserably, shaking her head. He had to give her credit: she never looked away from his eyes, which he’d been told in the past housed pure evil when he was angry. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Will your sorry give me back my fucking life?”

  “No, but I didn’t do anything—”

  “Will sorry help when Rhys kills us all? Wipes out my team? Tortures them? Will sorry help then?”

  “Jace, I don’t have any reason to do this. And you know that, if you would take a single minute and think about it…” Her voice trailed away, her hands going to her mouth as emotion choked off her words.

  She was getting better at holding it back, though. No sooner had those words failed than she drew a deep breath, wiped her dry, bloodshot eyes, and stared at him with a fierce determination that made him think the twins had truly swapped out somehow.

  “You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you if you don’t believe last night was real for me. Fuck you if you think I’m capable of that sort of betrayal. I don’t have to sit here and listen to this, because I haven’t done anything. So unless you have a badge I don’t know about, unless you’re capable of arresting me or detaining me, fuck you, I’m going home.”

  She shot to her feet, shoving him backward in the process, and stomped toward his bedroom, ripping his shirt she was wearing open so that buttons flew everywhere. It slid from her arms and made a sad heap on the floor, leaving her stark naked, that delectable ass swaying with every step. There was no seduction whatsoever in the movement, only pure feminine outrage, but damn if he didn’t think it was the sexiest thing he had ever seen as she disappeared into his room.

  He got up and followed her, feeling like a dog on a leash. When he entered, she was yanking her clothes from the floor. “Lindsey.”

  “Did I not express my fuck you loudly enough? Do you need to hear it again? Fuck! You!” She fought her way into her sweater before realizing she hadn’t put her bra on first, then snatched her arms out and performed some intricate bra acrobatics to get it on without taking the sweater off her head. “Here’s a tip for you, Jace—here’s how you can know I’m telling you the truth about something—I get fucking pissed off. Upset at first, yeah, but when it goes on and on? I give no fucks anymore. I don’t give a shit about any one of you, either, only my sister. I only came here in the first place because of her. And I’ll get her back all by myself if I have to.”

  “You’re out of your mind if you think that,” he said flatly. “You’re being irrational.”

  “I suppose rational is actually believing I could be involved in some intricate plot to take you down?”

  “You understand I have to be on guard for all possibilities. Maybe you aren’t involved in a plot. Maybe they made you a deal. Betray us and you get her back?”

  “Oh, sure. I was lying in wait for someone else to suggest something that I could manipulate to my best interests. You have to know how stupid that sounds.”

  “Explain the traceback, then.”

  “I tried to! But you won’t listen to anything I say, so I’m at a loss. I have no motive to hurt you.”

  “I don’t know who to trust anymore,” he said, the admission lifting her gaze to meet his. Sighing, he sat on his bed, the bed still unmade and unkempt from their feverish lovemaking all night. If he put his nose to her pillow, he bet he could still smell her there. She would haunt him long after she left.

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” Lindsey jerked her jeans up her hips and fastened them.

  “I woke up this morning, and all I wanted to do was stay in bed with you all day.”

  “Good thing we didn’t,” she remarked snidely. “That would have been even more embarrassing when Sully busted in your door. So what’s your point?”

  “It’s funny how shit can change from one minute to the next, I guess.”

  “How insightful.” She wound her scarf around her neck. “And now I’m leaving.”

  He raised his eyes to meet hers. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lindsey felt her nostrils flare as she glared back at him. The nerve. “I’d like to see you make me stay.”

  “You leave here, and you put yourself and every one of us in danger. That’s something I can’t allow.”

/>   “I think we’re all in danger whether I leave or not,” she pointed out. He had to see that.

  At least he’d calmed somewhat from his barking-drill-sergeant routine, which had only been to try to break her down…and it had worked. She was mad as hell, but not so much that she couldn’t see he had a team to protect.

  Still, having her word questioned was unfamiliar territory for her, and she hated it. She’d always been the good twin. It was Lena who was the liar. The Jace who had cornered her moments ago was the same one who’d answered her very first knock at his door, and she had never wanted to see that version of him again.

  He looked her in the eyes for a long time, then let his gaze travel down the length of her body. Despite herself, it gave her a shiver.

  “I’ll do my best to make your stay as pleasant as possible,” he said.

  She crossed her arms, rolling her eyes. “How? Because I know you don’t think you can screw me into submission every hour or so.”

  “Can you think of a better way?”

  No, not really. Damn you. “If I stay, you have to keep Sully away from me. She looked at me like she wanted to rip my head off. And like she could.”

  “She could. That’s why I got rid of her.” He shoved a hand back through his hair and sighed heavily. Just like that, all the fight seemed to have drained out of him, too.

  “Please tell me at least part of you believes me,” she said softly. “Please.”

  His dark eyes flickered back and forth between hers searchingly. Whatever he was looking for, she hoped he found it. “Part of me believes you,” he said, and she closed her eyes in relief, but that only blocked out his face, and she couldn’t have that. She opened them again.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t test me, though, Lindsey. Stay here with me. Do what I say. Don’t give me any more reason to doubt you.”

  “I can try to do that. Until everything is sorted, anyway.”

  “I can’t have you going near my computers, either. They’re key-logged. If you touch them, I’ll know.”

  Well, she had ways around that. But she only allowed herself to stare at him and give him a doe-eyed nod. “I have to be able to stay in contact with my parents, though.”

  “You can do that, but I want to hear every conversation you have.”

  “Jace—”

  “No exceptions. You want this to be over with, this is how we get it fucking over with. You stay close, you do right, you listen to me.”

  She had to bite down on a retort berating him for the parts of him that still didn’t believe her. Hell, she wouldn’t believe her, either, if what Sully said was true. And here was Sully, a member of his team for who knew how many years…and Lindsey, a girl who showed up on his figurative doorstep one day with an unbelievable tale of identical twin kidnapping. Who was he going to trust? She didn’t have to be Einstein to figure that one out.

  “I’ll stay close, and I’ll try to be good,” she said coyly.

  Some of the tension around his eyes smoothed out. Nodding, he got to his feet. The irrational part of her needed him to come over to her and—do what? Do something. Anything. Hug her. Tell her it would be all right, that they would sort this mess out. But he didn’t. He walked to the door, and only her voice stopped him.

  “Can we at least go get some more of my clothes?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was glum. “We can do that.” He left her standing there, feeling like a criminal in the same room where he’d made her feel like a queen.

  …

  He wasn’t the only one. Everyone stared at her with cold, accusing eyes, and since the table they were sitting at in the large conference room Jace had led her to was round, there was no escaping every baleful glare. They cut into her like razor blades. She’d never handled confrontation well. She’d never been able to stand making mistakes or believing that someone was angry at her.

  These people were fucking pissed off.

  Worse, today their superior sat among them. They called him the Captain, and while he had an almost grandfatherly look about him, darkness lurked beneath his surface. She sank under the weight of that stare in particular. Keep your head down. Shut up. That proved difficult when every instinct screamed at her to defend herself.

  “It might be a moot point,” Sully said sourly after a slight lull in the arguing. “We’ve been compromised. Her people could hit us at any time.”

  “They’re not—” Lindsey caught herself and fell silent. Anything she said was useless, anyway. None of them believed she wasn’t complicit in this. She tried to tell herself that she only cared what Jace thought. And he, while not happy, was at least not being openly hostile toward her. Let all the others say what they would.

  As she watched him scrub a hand over his face, her heart wailed in pain, and she wished she could just fly off the freaking planet. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. They were supposed to still be celebrating her success. Instead, she had opened them all up to attack. And she didn’t understand how.

  “All right,” Jace said, “enough. It’s done. I don’t give a shit how we got here. We need our next move, and we need it fast.”

  “Five minutes alone with this one and I could get the truth,” Sully said, her cold expression leveled right at Jace. “Stop thinking with your dick and wake up to reality here.”

  “Sully!” he all but roared in a monstrous voice that made Lindsey jump. It had the desired effect. Sully sat back and fiddled with a long black fingernail. Lindsey found herself irrationally wondering how she typed with those things. It was better than dwelling on the fact that this woman wanted to torture her.

  “I say we go in and get those fuckers,” Helix said. “We know where they are. What are we waiting for?”

  “If anyone’s going, I am,” Jace said, and as the protests began anew, he lifted a silencing hand. After his outburst a few seconds ago, no one was going to disobey. “I got us into this,” he told them all. “We’re in this situation because of my dumbass decisions. So I’ll get us out.”

  “No one’s doing anything rash,” the Captain said with long-suffering patience. “It will be a team effort. You like to forget, but I’m in command here. You’ll get your assignments.”

  Everyone fell silent at that, but they looked relieved. Lindsey chewed her bottom lip, wondering what those assignments would be—certainly, she wouldn’t be privy. She was surprised she was here at all.

  My dumbass decisions, Jace had said. Her mind was stuck on that, replaying it over and over. He was talking about her.

  “Don’t blame yourself for this,” Drake said to Jace. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “No. It’s entirely my fault. I’m not only talking about agreeing to get involved. It goes back much further than that.”

  Oh, she thought.

  “What are you talking about, Jace?” the Captain asked sharply.

  Watching Jace squirm under that inquisitive stare was heartbreaking. “I did something. To Rhys. I’m not proud of it.”

  Helix sat back and covered his eyes with one hand, rubbing hard at his forehead. Drake and Sully looked confused. The Captain sat as still as an ice sculpture, but he said nothing, prompting with only his silence.

  “I beat that son of a bitch until I thought he might be dead,” he confessed, dropping each word like stones in a still pond. There was a thunderous rage written across his face that said if he got the chance, he would do it again. And worse. “If he has a vendetta against anyone at this table, it’s me. I’m the mark. He only brought in people who have history with me.”

  “Nothing he didn’t deserve,” Helix put in, finally dropping his hand to the table.

  “Definitely,” Sully agreed after a moment.

  “Funny you should say that,” Helix fired back at her. “You were the one fucking him.”

  The news didn’t seem
to shock anyone at the table, but, suddenly under the gun, Sully seemed to blanch beneath her tattoos. “I ceased all contact with that bastard after what he did. You guys know that.”

  “Are we sure?”

  “We can’t start turning on one another,” Drake said helplessly as accusations began to fly anew. He seemed to be the peacemaker among the group, Lindsey had noticed, though he was often drowned out.

  “Funny that you were the one who discovered her traceback, isn’t it?” Helix had come half out of his chair, leaning over the table to get in Sully’s face.

  “This is exactly what he would want, you realize,” the Captain said solemnly, no louder than Drake had been, but Helix put his ass back in his chair and shut his mouth. Sully put her elbows on the table and shoved both hands through her hair, shaking, trying to compose herself.

  Lindsey felt sorry for her, despite any threats of torture. It had to be hard to find out a man you’d been intimate with was a murderer.

  “All of you turning on each other, not trusting each other, is exactly how he would tear you apart.”

  Could it be? Lindsey wondered, watching Sully closely. Maybe the traceback had been Rhys’s attack on his former girlfriend’s vulnerabilities?

  “I want you to compose yourselves. Jace, thank you for this information. While I think it’s pertinent, I still don’t think you’re the catalyst here. As I said, you’ll all get your assignments. Thank you.”

  One by one, everyone got up and filed out of the room, avoiding Lindsey’s eyes as if merely the sight of her could give them the plague or something. Everyone except Jace and the Captain.

  “I trust you won’t mind being our guest until all this is sorted?” the latter asked her, not unkindly, and with a sideways glance at Jace.

  Guest. A euphemism if she’d ever heard one, but much prettier than captive. “No, sir,” she assured him. “I won’t mind.”

  “We’ll find your sister, Ms. Morris.”

  That brought her gaze up. He believes me, she thought, holding on to that. But why? She would never have gathered the courage to ask, and he got up and left them alone then anyway.