The Guardian

by Donna Grant

  “Because I have to,” he stated in a soft voice.

  Eden looked out the window, digesting their conversation. She liked facts. It was part of her job to find facts and gather evidence against others. But there was another part of her who fell into those classified as conspiracy theorists. She considered herself intelligent enough to get the facts about things, and yes, her secret addiction was ancient aliens.

  The naked truth about extraterrestrials was out in the world, even though so many discounted it for one reason or another. But if they just opened their minds to the possibility, they would see the truth for themselves.

  Were the Saints the same thing? Was she purposefully trying not to see what Maks was attempting to tell her because she didn’t want to believe it?

  “Tell me something they’ve done,” she implored as she looked at him.

  Maks didn’t hesitate when he said, “They developed a bioweapon called Ragnarök that they intended to deliver all over the world to control the population. It was designed to make women sterile without an antidote, only given to those they deemed to have the genes necessary to continue our species.”

  Eden felt as if the ground had been yanked out from under her. She had asked, but she hadn’t expected…this. Though she wasn’t sure what she had expected. Obviously, something less extreme.

  “I have no proof to give you,” Maks continued. “Another group of people in Texas stumbled upon all of that and stopped it from happening. I joined in at the last moment when there was a battle on their ranch.”

  Her eyes widened. “A battle? Like…a battle?”

  “Of course. It didn’t make the papers or any news, but there is footage of it. I can get it to you if you want to see it. To check my facts.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” she admitted.

  He shrugged. “You might need to.”

  “Possibly.” Was she really getting into this? Did she really want to?

  Eden faced forward again, her mind running through the two paths before her. She could take the out that Maks had given her. She would be detained and questioned for hours, if not days, and it would mean that she would be watched for the rest of her life. But she could be free of the fear that currently knotted her stomach.

  Or would she? When catastrophes happened, wouldn’t she always wonder if it was the Saints? She would, without a doubt.

  So…that left her with the other path. One that meant constantly looking over her shoulder, hiding, and worrying that anyone she interacted with might be a Saint. However, she could be a part of taking them down.

  The world wasn’t a perfect place. Nothing could be. But no one had the right to choose if someone was allowed to become pregnant or not. No one should be able to dictate who was elected for public office, or who won wars. Humans were supposed to have free will. Many people had given blood, sweat, and tears for their countries to be democratic and have the right to vote on who they wanted in office.

  All of that was being threatened on a scale that was bigger than she could fathom. And yet, very few knew what was happening. The fact that it was all done behind the scenes terrified Eden because that meant the changes happening could be done with an ulterior motive.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Eden saw Maks take out his cell phone and text someone. She didn’t think anything of it as her mind continued down a spiral of anxiety that made her realize that she had no other choice but to go with Maks and see if what he said was the truth.

  If it wasn’t, then she’d still take the other path. If he was a liar, then she wouldn’t hesitate to throw his handsome ass under the bus to save her own skin.

  But if he was telling the truth, then she had a responsibility to help him. To sit idly by and hope that someone else would take a stand was not what America had been founded on. Hundreds of thousands had lost their lives for her to live in a free world. As a woman, she stood on the shoulders of others who had come before her and fought for her right to vote and have a voice. How could she, as a woman and a human, not take a stand? How would she ever look at herself in the mirror again?

  “Here,” Maks said and handed her his phone.

  She briefly met his vibrant blue eyes and took the cell. His face gave nothing away, but her curiosity was already piqued. She looked down at the screen to see a video that was paused, overlooking a fenced-in, rolling field. There were small groves of trees, and she spotted what looked like several men hunkered down together, holding rifles and getting ready to shoot.

  Her hand shook as she raised her finger to press play. The volume was turned down, but she still jerked at the sound of rapid gunfire from a rifle. She couldn’t look away as she watched the battle playing out on the screen. There were explosions, screams of pain, and the spray of blood that was clearly not fake.

  It was raw, gritty.

  Chilling.

  Eden didn’t know how long the video played. She saw the different camera angles looking out over the field, towards a barn, and even the area between a house and an outbuilding. She wanted to think this was some part of a movie, but the moment she spotted Maks, she knew she couldn’t.

  Her gaze was riveted on him. He moved like someone used to finding himself in such situations. He was calm, methodical, and determined. When the video ended, she sat there in silence before handing the phone back to him.

  “That was several months ago,” he said.

  She blinked, unsure what to say.

  He switched to something else on the phone and handed it back to her. “Here is the information on the Ragnarök virus. You don’t have to read it, but it’s here if you want to know more. You’re a smart woman. I shouldn’t have pulled you into this. For that, I’m sorry. But we need people like you. Those who are appalled at what’s happening right under everyone’s noses.”

  “I’ve seen movies with such storylines.” She met his gaze. “Do you know how many times the woman who helps out is killed?”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She twisted her lips and snorted. “You can’t promise that.”

  “I can, and I am. I’m very good at what I do.”

  “Spying?” she retorted. She wasn’t angry at him, and she shouldn’t be taking it out on Maks.

  He briefly lowered his gaze. “I was an elite soldier who went to work for the CIA because I had an encounter with the Saints. I saw for myself what the organization was about and knew it had to be stopped. I’d thought I would have to do it on my own, but then I discovered that I wasn’t alone in this. I have people I can trust, friends and allies who have my back. And I have theirs. I’ll continue having theirs. No matter if you help me or not, we’ll watch over you and do everything we can to throw the Saints off your trail.”

  Eden hadn’t expected such words from him, and they affected her deeply. More deeply than she wanted to admit. She took the phone from his hand once more. “Let me see this.”

  On the first screen, she found herself reading the components of a virus. When she got to the bottom and saw that the desired outcome was indeed to control the world’s population by preventing women from getting pregnant, her gut clenched. She scrolled back to the top of the page and saw the seal of the office of the president in Russia.

  “It’s not faked,” Maks said.

  She nodded slowly. “I know. I did research on a couple of people in the Russian government not too long ago.” Her head swiveled to him. “Why was Russia developing this?”

  “It’s one of the headquarters of the Saints.”

  Now it all came together. “You’re part Russian, aren’t you? That’s why you went to the CIA, because you knew they’d use you to get to Russia, and it would allow you to gather intel.”

  His mouth curved into a smile that made her blood quicken. “I knew you were smart.”

  10

  “We lost contact with our agents on the train.”

  Janice stared at the screens that filled the wall before her, each one depicting a different point within
the Wien Hauptbahnhof train station. Those working in this room had been locked on tracking Eden Fontaine since she left her flat that morning.

  With one agent having gone missing not long after Eden left her flat, and the other two silent since the train had taken off, there was only one answer: someone was helping Eden.

  Janice had been the one to recruit her from the States. Eden was good at her job. So good, in fact, that the Saints wanted to make sure they could control what she saw and who she dug into. It hadn’t taken long for Eden to agree to the job offer, making Janice’s job that much easier. And everything had gone exactly as planned from the moment Eden arrived in Vienna.

  Every employee working for SynTech was monitored daily. Their whereabouts, who they spoke with, their communications, and anyone they interacted with. Only a few had been upgraded to having their homes bugged with audio and video. Eden had never gotten to that point, and Janice now realized that had been to their detriment. Had the surveillance equipment been in place, they could’ve known what she had done in her flat after she left work the previous day.

  “Ma’am?” the technician nearest her asked.

  Janice looked down at the skinny white male that would forever be classified as a dork no matter what clothes he wore or the position he held. It was in his bearing, his very essence. He’d told her his name a dozen times, but she’d never remember it. And it was him and others like him in the office that allowed the Saints to stay ahead of their enemies. At least, for the most part.

  “Walk me through it all again,” she ordered him.

  He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Put video 2C on the main screen,” he told someone.

  In a blink, the monitors shifted. Janice crossed her arms over her chest as the CCTV footage began to play.

  “This is the south entrance of the station,” he told her. “In four seconds, our target will come on screen.” Once that happened, he snapped his fingers, and the next video popped up. “From there, she walks through the station and to the terminal with the train headed for Budapest.”

  “Does she stop and talk to anyone?” Janice asked.

  The guy shook his head of brown hair parted to the side and slicked back. “No one. We have clear shots of her here,”—he clicked a button—“here,”—he clicked another button—“and here. No one bumps into her, stops her, and she doesn’t speak to anyone.”

  “That we know of.” Janice said it more to herself than to anyone else. “Next.”

  He shifted in his chair. “We pick her up right as she enters the terminal. The train is just getting there, so there’s little time for her to interact with anyone.”

  Janice’s gaze took in every face around Eden to see if she recognized any of them. As explained, the train got there seconds after Eden, and she quickly boarded. “And our agents?”

  “One is a few people behind her,” the nerd said.

  She nodded when she spotted him. “And the second?”

  “We picked him up two cars behind her, here,” he said as the screen changed to show the second agent.

  Janice barked, “Stop. Back up the recording a little.” Her instructions were immediately followed. She peered closer at a man who bumped into her agent. It seemed harmless enough, but at this point, she couldn’t take the chance. “Can we see the man’s face? The one who ran into our agent?”

  The nerd began issuing orders, and the room hurried to comply, each doing their best to give her what she wanted. Minutes passed as she watched and rewatched the footage of the man jostling her agent.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the nerd finally answered. “The guy is wearing a cap, and none of the cameras can get a good angle of his face. Not even using the windows as a mirror.”

  “I see mobile phones out,” she said. “Check social media and see if anyone got a hit on his face.”

  Once more, the room erupted in a flurry. There was a really good chance that she was chasing nothing. But there was also a chance that this could be something.

  “Got it!” a female shouted a few minutes later.

  Janice jerked her head to the side at the sound of the voice. The large screen in the middle of the room was filled with a profile that she recognized instantly. Maks Volkov. She’d had a feeling that someone was helping Eden, and now she knew for sure.

  She leaned over the nerd and typed in Maks’ name, pulling up and image of his face. “Go back to our target leaving her flat and check all cameras for any sign of this man, Maks Volkov.”

  But despite her request, they found nothing. There were too many streets without cameras to see everything. However, the train station was a different story. Maks was seen following about thirty feet behind Eden. There could be an argument that they were working together. Maks wasn’t seen leaving her apartment, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there.

  Janice spun around and left the room. Once outside, she dialed a number and brought her mobile to her ear. “I need a team at Fontaine’s house immediately. Take prints. If there’s a sign that anyone but her has been in that flat, I want to know who it was.”

  She hung up and made her way to the lift to head back up to the top floor. Kyle had found footage of Maks in Amsterdam, but no one had been able to find another trace of him until now. And had Eden not done a search on the Saints, they might never have found another sign of Maks for several weeks.

  He was good at what he did. Very good.

  And she should know. They’d briefly been lovers.

  11

  Maks was torn about involving Eden in his fight against the Saints. On one hand, he believed that anyone who didn’t know who the Saints really were should be informed and pick a side. On the other, the fight brewing between him and the Saints was one that could potentially be catastrophic to anyone associated with him.

  He was prepared to give his life, but he couldn’t say the same for anyone else. Especially Eden. And his promise to protect her was one that he took seriously. No matter what, he would do everything in his power to ensure that the Saints didn’t touch her.

  Maks knew from firsthand experience how ruthless and merciless the Saints could be when they went after someone they believed was a threat to them. He was more than a threat. He was the very thing they had feared for years. To compound matters, they had helped to create him and develop his skills. And he was going to use every one of them on the Saints.

  “Are you sure they didn’t release this bioweapon?” Eden asked.

  Maks looked at his watch to check the time. It took two and a half hours to reach Budapest from Vienna. They still had a little over an hour before the train pulled into the station. “I’m sure. The Loughmans helped to kill the scientist who engineered it. On top of that, Orrin Loughman, the father, was responsible for stealing the only vial of it after a mission into Russia. He was meant to be a scapegoat, but Orrin is smart and realized that something was up almost immediately. He managed to escape his team that turned on him.”

  “I gather they were Saints.”

  Maks nodded. “Orrin sent the vial to Mia for safekeeping, which was a good thing because he was taken prisoner by Yuri.”

  “The general you worked for.”

  To say Maks was impressed at how she was keeping up with names was an understatement. “That’s right. I didn’t know then that the Loughmans were waging a war on the Saints, but as soon as I did, I helped out as I could. The FSB had been worried about Yuri and whether he would come on board as a Saint. The CIA wanted to know where Orrin was.”

  Her brows shot up in her forehead. “I’m guessing you didn’t turn over any information to either agency?”

  “I gave them enough to keep them happy. The CIA knew we were in the States, but I told them Yuri kept us moving. In fact, we stayed in one spot. As for the FSB, I told them Yuri was after Orrin, wanting to get retribution on an American who’d invaded his homeland. It worked because it was the truth.”

  “Did you not know Yuri would join Orrin in the fight?”

&nb
sp; “I had an idea that he might. Yuri didn’t trust anyone, not even those closest to him. He kept his feelings and thoughts close to the vest. People like that usually have a plan, and Yuri seemed the type. Besides, he had the opportunity to kill Orrin and he didn’t take it. They had a feud that went back decades, each believing the other had betrayed him. Turned out, they’d both been betrayed. When they figured that out, they joined forces.”

  Eden tucked a strand of her dark blond locks behind her ear. “If this virus was made once, it can be created again.”

  “It can be, but it’ll take some time. I plan on dismantling the Saints before that happens.”

  “That’s a lot for one man to do.”

  He grinned at her. “I’m not alone. I’ve got the Loughmans, and then there’s a mob boss I helped out not too long ago. Lev is with us, and so is his woman. And she was undercover in the Saints for five years.”

  “Sounds like you have a plan.”

  “Not a plan so much as hope. Because the Saints are everywhere and embedded so deeply in communities, we need to make sure that the information gets out to the right people before anyone can stop it. But first, I need to ensure that what I have is enough. I’d hoped to get more, but my cover was blown the day before yesterday.”

  Eden frowned, her brows drawing together. “What happened?”

  “I had a burner phone that no one knew about. At least, I didn’t think anyone knew. Somehow a high-ranking FSB official that I’d had limited contact with sent me a text on that burner phone minutes before he was killed.”

  She blinked, startled. “What did the text say?”

  “Watch yourself.”

  “I don’t understand,” Eden replied, puzzlement filling her expression.

  Maks glanced at the goon to make sure he was still knocked out. “My theory is that he found out something about the Saints. He was on a train out of St. Petersburg. I don’t know if he was leaving the country, but my guess is that he was. Whatever happened, he was spooked enough to contact me.”