The Warrior: DERRICK (Cover Six Security Book 4)

by Lisa B. Kamps

  She turned, started back toward the old house when angry shouts split the night air. The urgency twisting her gut morphed and grew, changed to cold fear.

  No! No, it couldn't be. It was too soon. They should have had more time—

  The shouts grew louder. Her father's voice, strong and angry, almost confrontational. Then a scream. Her mother's scream, filled with fear and horror and pain. Piercing, never-ending—

  Until it was abruptly cut off by a barrage of gunfire that echoed in the still night.

  No!

  Lidiya jerked awake, her body covered in a chilled sweat, her limbs shaking from fright. She squeezed her eyes closed, sucked in several deep breaths to calm the heavy pounding of her heart. Anguish choked her and she coughed, felt bile rise in her throat and quickly swallowed it back, the same way she forced the nightmare images back.

  How long had it been since the memories of that night had haunted her dreams? A year, at least. Maybe more. She thought she had put that awful night behind her, thought she had moved on. She hadn't forgotten—she would never forget, would always recall every single detail with sharp clarity—but she had managed to distance herself from it.

  Or so she thought.

  Lidiya wiped her face, surprised to find her cheeks dry. In the past, whenever she had jolted herself from the nightmare, she would be crying. How could she not, when her mind insisted on replaying every horrific detail of that awful night when her parents were murdered? When she knew she had barely escaped a similar fate?

  Guilt assailed her. She should have forced her parents to leave with her. Should have insisted. Should have refused to go without them, should have stayed until her father changed his mind. If she had...

  If she had, she would have suffered their same fate. Only the knowledge that her parents had sacrificed themselves to keep her safe kept the guilt from weighing so heavily on her that she couldn't function.

  Lidiya sometimes wondered if it wouldn't have been better if she had stayed behind. Yes, she was alive—but she wasn't living. She was alone, always alone—

  Except she wasn't.

  Her eyes shot open when she realized the strange sensation wasn't from the lingering nightmare—it was from being watched. She turned her head to the side, met a pair of searing blue eyes. Intense. Focused.

  And completely unreadable.

  There was no panic when she first saw him, no sense of surprise to find him standing there. There should have been, at least in the first second or two. She was in a strange bed, in a strange house, with a man she had only just met—their online acquaintance didn't count. At least, it shouldn't.

  But maybe it did. Why else would she feel this sense of security after everything that had happened to her during the last two years? Longer, even, going back to her childhood, when she first learned the truth of who she was?

  Lidiya blinked away the last remnants of sleep—and the nightmare's last hold—and brushed the hair from her face. Chaos remained where he was, one shoulder resting against the doorframe, his entire body relaxed as he watched her. It was an illusion, of course, designed to fool the unwary. He wasn't relaxed. Lidiya doubted if he ever truly relaxed. There was something about him, some hum of awareness, of seething energy, that instinctively warned her of his ability to strike, hard and fast, before an opponent ever saw it coming.

  Odd, how she realized that now, when there was absolutely no danger surrounding them. Or maybe she had realized it last night, on some subconscious level that she was only now acknowledging. That made more sense. It even explained the uncharacteristic relaxing of her own guard, the way she had blindly trusted him, blindly followed him and allowed him to take control.

  Because he'd done exactly that, all the way up to the time he'd led her into this house and into this room, where he'd motioned to the bed and told her to get some sleep. Ordered her to get some sleep.

  And she had listened.

  She moved her gaze from his and studied the bedroom—it was safer than being hypnotized by that vivid blue stare leveled at her. The room was well-appointed, masculine but not overly done. Deep, hunter green walls. Polished wood floors covered by an expensive area rug of burgundy and cream. A chair upholstered in dark cream sat in the corner, a matching ottoman sitting at an angle to it. The nightstands and dresser were the same dark wood as the bed, free of extra clutter or dust—so unlike her own small bedroom, filled with books and supplies and cast-off computer equipment. This room was a refuge, an oasis from the outside world.

  A guest room? Maybe, but she didn't think so. How many guest rooms had a king-size bed? How many guest rooms would be filled with personal items, like the shirt draped over the back of the chair, or the small pottery dish filled with coins?

  But if this was Chaos's room, where had he slept? Or had he slept at all?

  She glanced back at him, looking for signs of the exhaustion that had pinched his eyes and mouth when they first arrived here just as dawn was coloring the sky the palest pink and orange. Those signs were gone, replaced by a fresh alertness that sent a jolt of awareness through her. He'd showered recently because his thick hair was still damp and his jaw scraped clean of the dark stubble that had been there this morning. Instead of the clothes he'd had on earlier, he was now wearing a pair of worn, faded jeans that hung low on his lean hips and a fresh shirt that clung to his broad chest and arms.

  Seeing him standing there, so fresh and alert and so purely masculine, made her recall that flash of attraction, of interest, that she'd felt last night, when she had first seen him.

  Heat filled her face as soon as she realized she'd been staring at him. At his chest, his waist, his legs. She'd been drinking in the sight of him, like a parched woman who had been stranded in the middle of a desert for far too long. It also made her more keenly aware of what she must look like, with sleep-tangled hair, wearing the ill-fitting clothes that she'd slept in.

  Better to think of that than the aching awareness and warm need that blossomed low in her belly.

  She yanked her gaze from his and lowered her legs over the side of the bed. A soft chuckle made her pause and she turned back to him, frowned at the amusement flashing in his eyes.

  "I'm not going to jump you so stop worrying."

  Her eyes widened in surprise at the words, then quickly narrowed with indignation. "I never thought—"

  "Yeah, you did. It was clear as day, right there in your eyes." He pushed away from the doorframe and stepped into the room. One corner of his mouth twitched in a small smile, transforming his face into something filled with boyish charm. Another illusion, Lidiya realized, one that could be just as deadly as assuming this man was safe.

  That boyish grin quickly died, making her wonder if she had imagined it. The amusement in his eyes changed, morphed into brief concern before his expression became unreadable once more. "You had a nightmare."

  It was a statement, not a question, but Lidiya answered anyway. "It was nothing. I've had it before."

  He was silent for a long minute then stepped back, giving her space she hadn't realized she needed. Funny, considering he hadn't even come close to her.

  He nodded his head to a partially open door on the far wall. "Bathroom's in there. We'll get you some new clothes later. For right now, I threw some sweats on the countertop for you. Take your time. When you're done, I'll throw together a quick dinner and we can talk."

  She ignored the bit about talking and instead looked out the window. The blinds were pulled down, closed tight against the outside world. "Dinner? Don't you mean lunch?"

  He chuckled again, the sound low and warm and dangerous. "You slept straight through lunch and damn near missed dinner, too. I was coming in to wake you up when you called out."

  She wanted to ask him what he'd heard. How much had she said in her sleep? Had she screamed, or said anything that would give her away? But it was too late because he was already leaving. If she wanted to ask, she'd have to chase him down.

  Then she realized sh
e didn't want to ask him at all, because she suddenly understood that flare she'd seen in his eyes just before he turned away.

  Not concern. Not curiosity. Something else, something that left her chilled.

  Something that warned her about sharing too much with the man who called himself Chaos. Something that made her wonder if she hadn't already done that without realizing it.

  Chapter Ten

  Dinner was fast and simple: spaghetti and garlic bread. It was the only thing left in the house that didn't need to be thawed. He'd told Lee that he'd been on the road for the last few weeks and hadn't had time to restock. True enough, as far as it went. She didn't need to know "on the road" meant in a fucking shithole on the other side of the world. Just like she didn't need to know that "restock" usually meant hitting a select few favorite restaurants. He wasn't like Mac, who took some kind of perverse fucking enjoyment in piddling around a damn kitchen. Derrick hated fucking cooking. Yeah, he could when he needed to—tonight's dinner was a perfect example of that—but why go to all that fucking trouble for just himself?

  Lee didn't seem to mind. In fact, he doubted if she even paid much attention to his excuse. She was totally focused on eating the meal, on savoring every bite of boxed pasta and jar sauce and frozen garlic bread. She wasn't attacking it—her manners were impeccable and there was almost a reserved hesitation about the way she was eating—but there was no doubt that she was definitely savoring it.

  It made him wonder when the last time was that she'd had a decent meal. A real meal. He'd noticed that same reserved enjoyment last night a lifetime ago when she'd been eating the frozen pizza the bar heated up and charged three times what you could buy it for in the damn store.

  He briefly wondered how much she got out, period. Derrick hadn't exaggerated last night when he said her place looked like mission control for the zombie apocalypse. Between the extensive computer set-up and the hoard of supplies, it looked like she was more than capable of hunkering down in her small apartment for a year. She had told him she didn't get out much but he'd thought she'd been joking.

  Only now, he had to wonder if she'd been telling the truth. Now that he thought about it, there hadn't been much humor in her eyes at all when she'd said it. Then again, he hadn't seen humor in her eyes, period.

  Jesus.

  What the hell was he, some kind of fucking shrink now? Of course there hadn't been any humor in her eyes. Why the hell should there be? She'd been shot at, whisked away, admitted to a complete stranger that someone was after her and that she should be dead. Then she'd been forced to run from her apartment because someone was watching her—ostensibly the same someone who wanted her dead and had taken that shot at her earlier.

  Humor? Hell, it was a wonder she was coherent at all instead of having some kind of blubbering breakdown. Derrick was the one with a warped sense of humor, able to turn it on and off at whim. Not just his sense of humor, his entire damn personality. Being able to switch moods at will had saved what little sanity he had left. Compartmentalization was his saving grace, the only thing keeping his head above water when sometimes all he wanted to do was say fuck it and let the currents pull him under.

  The past twenty-four hours was a perfect example. He'd gone from curiosity to amusement to anger to irritation to lust to being pissed off to concern to lust to curiosity to confusion to wariness to downright irritation. And yeah, maybe he should throw lust in there another time or ten because looking at Lee now, he kept thinking about that damn kiss he'd given her back in her apartment.

  Not even a real damn kiss but shit, he couldn't seem to stop thinking about it, which only made him more pissed off about what he'd discovered while Lee had been sleeping.

  Or rather, what he hadn't discovered.

  He watched as she chewed the last bite of spaghetti and washed it down with a sip of iced tea. She dabbed at her mouth with the paper napkin then carefully folded it and placed it next to the plate. Only then did she look up at him, a cautious smile on her pale face.

  "Thank you. That was very tasty."

  Tasty? It was fucking spaghetti. And who the hell said tasty anyway? It was good, maybe. Or it hit the spot. Nobody said it was tasty.

  Derrick leaned back in the chair and studied her, counting the seconds until she started squirming. One. Two. Three...

  He made it to ten before she dropped her gaze and fidgeted in the chair. Hunh. He'd expected her to look away sooner. Maybe she was becoming more comfortable with him.

  Yeah, well, shame on her, because that nonsense was about to stop.

  He reached under the chair and pulled out the small envelope that had been in her backpack then tossed it on the table between them. Her gaze darted to the envelope then shot to his. Wariness flashed in the depths of those gray eyes for several seconds before she blinked it away. She didn't reach for the envelope, didn't grab it and try to run away, didn't even avert her gaze from his.

  "Who are you?" He threw the question at her, the words clipped, his voice cold. She didn't even flinch, which surprised the hell out of him.

  "I told you who I am: Lidiya Stephenson."

  "Lidiya Stephenson doesn't exist."

  "And yet I'm sitting right here in front of you, aren't I?"

  He leaned forward, his voice dangerously quiet. "Bullshit. Who are you, really?"

  "I told you: Lidiya Stephenson."

  Irritation exploded inside him and he quickly swallowed it back. He straightened, fixed her with another glare designed to frighten her. She didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't even look away.

  What. The. Fuck.

  It was like this wasn't even the same woman he'd first met almost twenty-four hours ago. Hell, not even the same woman who had been in his bed, whimpering from some hell only she could see in her dreams. Yeah, he'd detected some steel and sass beneath that meek exterior but like this? No fucking way. This was an act, it had to be.

  Or maybe she'd been acting for the first twenty hours of their acquaintance. No, he didn't buy it. He would have been able to see right through it. Her reactions had been too real, her emotions too pure to be an act, not for that length of time.

  So who was she, really? Was she acting now, keeping a mask of cool detachment and bravado carefully in place to...to what? Throw him off track? Confuse him? Distract him? Keep him from asking questions?

  Yeah. Not happening.

  "Lidiya Stephenson doesn't exist," he repeated. And he should know—he'd spent the last six fucking hours looking for any trace of her. He'd even hacked into the damn bank listed on her checks. "Everyone leaves a cyber footprint, Lee. Everyone. Nobody is good enough to erase themselves completely."

  "I am."

  The confidence in her voice was genuine—which only meant she believed it, not that it was true. The hacker he knew as Lee was damn good, he'd admit that much. Hell, he'd known that long before she had hacked into a secured program that even he couldn't get into. The program had belonged to the Senator who'd been behind the trouble chasing TR almost a year ago. The fact that it had been so secure had sent up a dozen red flags for him—and it had pissed him off to realize he couldn't figure out how to get inside.

  But Lee had. It had taken her a few days, but she'd done it.

  That didn't mean she was good enough to erase all traces of her existence.

  Derrick wanted to argue with her some more, to keep at her until she broke and confessed the truth: that her name wasn't Lidiya Stephenson, that she was hiding something. Hell, he already knew she was hiding something—he wanted to know what. And he wanted to know why.

  He threw another question at her instead, one instinct told him would shake that cool mask loose.

  "Who killed your parents?"

  Bingo.

  Her careful mask slipped, revealing pain and shock and even a flicker of fright. She looked away on a shaky breath, the faintest hint of anger and sorrow staining her cheeks. The mask slipped another inch when she looked back at him and dammit, he didn't want to feel sym
pathy for her, had to restrain himself from lunging across the table and pulling her into his arms and assuring her that everything would be okay.

  It was those damn eyes of hers, so big and round and sorrowful and trusting and filled with hurt. He curled his hands into fists and pressed them against his thighs until the insane urge—the irrational and completely uncharacteristic urge—subsided to a manageable level.

  He expected her to deny it, of course. To tell him that nobody had killed her parents, that they had died in a car accident or plane crash or hell, during an avalanche while climbing Mt. Everest. It would be a lie, of course—instinct told him they'd been killed and not in any accident. The way she had hesitated earlier this morning when she told him her parents died, that hitch in her voice and the shadows that filled her eyes. Yes, he fully expected her to lie—but she didn't.

  She pushed her empty plate to the side and straightened in the chair then carefully—precisely—clasped her hands together and rested them on the table in front of her. She looked straight ahead, not quite meeting his gaze. Her voice held a hint of emotion when she spoke, the words halting and unsteady.

  "My father—" She hesitated, as if searching for the right word, "—discovered some information that someone else wanted. He refused to give it to them. My parents were gunned down because of that refusal."

  Derrick kept his gaze focused on her face, her eyes, looking for any telltale sign of lying. Her pupils remained fixed, her eyes still staring straight ahead as she blinked away the moisture filling them. She was telling the truth. At least, as far as she believed it. But she was also leaving one hell of a lot out.

  "Were you there?"

  A small shudder wracked her body as she nodded. "Yes. I—my parents had just forced me to leave the house."

  Another truth, but one that hid so much more. "Who shot them?"