by Elise Faber
Silence.
Then, “How do you know?”
“I know it like I know without having to think exactly where you’re going to be on a mission, that I don’t have to worry about covering my back when you have it. I know you’re different because you’re devoted and strong and smart as hell, because you always carry a piece of candy in your pocket, just in case we come across a kid who’s scared or sad or just deserves a piece of candy.”
“Those are just little things.”
I sighed and sat back. “Those are all the things, sweetheart.”
“Don’t—”
“Call you sweetheart?” I reached for her boot again, managed to free it from the most swollen part of her ankle. “I know. I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.”
“No.” She hissed when I began working her sock down. “That’s not what I was saying.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t mind it.”
“Don’t mind what?”
“The whole calling me sweetheart thing.” A beat. “You used it at the cabin.”
“Yes.” I carefully set the insoles on either side of her ankle, noting that while it was definitely broken, it was not quite as bad as I had imagined.
“And—” She hesitated for a long moment then sighed. “Why is this so hard?”
“It’s never easy to ask for what you truly want.”
Brown eyes on mine. “Is that what this is?”
I froze, biting back a curse when she hissed as I began wrapping the shoelace, securing the insoles in place. “What you want?” I asked lightly. “Yeah. I hope so. Because I definitely don’t want to be all alone in the want department.”
“I—” She broke off, but not in pain. Her brows were furrowed. “I was going to say I’ve never been afraid to go for what I want. Except . . .”
“Except?”
“Except, I don’t think I’ve ever considered what I really wanted. I’ve worked to make myself strong, to be able to protect myself. I worked to be a good agent, to do some good when my family has done so much evil.” Ava sighed. “But I don’t think I’ve ever actually stopped for a moment and considered what I was feeling in my heart.”
“It was too scary,” I murmured, securing the last of the lace around her ankle and sitting back.
“No,” she said. “Well, yes, that. But also, it was easier to not feel, especially when the only thing I could feel was how broken I was inside. It was safer to not ever look deep into what I really wanted.” She sat up with a wince. “I’m just not convinced that—”
She screwed up her face and cut off her words.
“Look, this isn’t a conversation I’d ever have normally,” she said. “Not even during that week with you. Yes, when we were together. Yes, a part of me reveled in feeling free and shared more with you than anyone ever. But in my head, there was always a natural conclusion to our interlude—us going back to being teammates, you finding someone worthy of you, me carrying on with what I did best. Working.” She bit her lip. “Because I couldn’t let anyone in. But . . . I guess a big part of me—has always wanted someone to be close to. I just don’t know if I’ll ever be the kind of person who can actually do that.”
“You’re telling me that the strongest woman I know is just going to give up?” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Because that’s bullshit. You never give up on anything, least of all simply because you’re scared.”
“Ugh.” A frown pulled her brows together. “You know you’re annoying, right?”
“It’s a gift.” I slid close to her, took her hand. “But you know you’re a woman I respect, one I care about, one I like a whole hell of a lot.” I bit back anything more than that, knowing I was already in dangerous territory, that we’d already taken about five steps forward. “And even though you’ve done your best to keep me firmly away, completely locked out, you’ve made yourself at home in my heart anyway.”
She inhaled sharply. “Dan.”
“Too much?”
A shake of her head.
“Good.” I lay down next to her, careful to not jostle her. “Now, tell me again why you think, for some insane reason, that vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate.”
A blip of quiet before her mouth curved up. “Next, you’ll be asking me to explain why the movie versions of books are better than the actual books.”
“Blasphemy!”
“Okay,” she said. “Then try to convince me otherwise.”
So, as the sun began to descend in the sky, we stayed locked in that cell, talking about movies.
Twenty
Southern Italy
Unknown hrs local time
Ava
They came for us when the sun’s light had dimmed in that sliver, leaving us in the muted glow of approaching dusk.
We’d talked for a long time, moving on from the heavy stuff and back to the lighter topics that had filled our days in Georgia. But it wasn’t all just old mission talk or pop culture. It was . . . more.
I’d told him more about Isa, how she used to always sneak me dessert—after my father had declared I was getting too fat and would be going without. I’d told him about how I’d loved putting just my toes in the ocean and hated getting my hair wet. Oh, we’d definitely argued about our opposing opinions of books versus movies, but it hadn’t been the sole thing connecting us.
I’d shared.
And so had he.
He’d told me about Brit and how she was starting to think about what her career might look like after her playing days were over. I’d told him how I’d hidden during those years after leaving this home, pawning jewelry I’d stolen, stretching cash until I’d made it over the border to Germany and had been able to find work. He’d told me about a recent visit to his parents.
It was give and take, allowing those walls down enough that he could creep in.
And . . . not being terrified.
Okay, only halfway terrified.
But a girl couldn’t have everything, could I?
Case in point, I’d just rested my head on his shoulder—go baby steps!—when we heard them coming down the hall again.
This time, however, they took both of us.
“Come.”
How? Frankly, it was a miracle I was standing. Already, the narrow space was spinning around me, my makeshift splinted ankle throbbing, making me waver as I attempted to balance on one foot.
Dan shifted behind me, taking a position at my back, covering my blind spot.
My heart. The organ I’d thought long frozen over, or maybe shattered into pieces that could never be reformed, swelled, filled with hope, with . . . feelings, okay? I was feeling all the feelings, after talking about all the things, after experiencing all the emotional events of the last hours and days.
Insanity.
But that was life.
Maybe it was the kissing. Maybe it had melted my brain in that elevator.
Or maybe . . . it was just inevitable.
As in, perhaps being in Dan’s presence was enough to enact an inescapable erosion of my walls, not just because of the spark of desire between us, but because he was a good man. Because I respected him. Because he never looked at me like I was broken or wrong or evil.
Even after knowing all of the bad.
He just treated me like a normal woman, even after he’d found out I’d grown up among the Toscalos, after I’d told him about Isa.
Focus.
Right. I know I’d been spending all this time with my feelings and being all . . . well, human.
But now wasn’t the time for Human Ava.
It was the time for Icy, Focused, Kickass Ava.
Lifting my chin, I faced the group of men in front of me. Three were familiar faces—my cousins—and the two I didn’t recognize looked to have barely reached adulthood.
I took a halting step in the direction my cousin indicated, attempting to ignore the pain shooting up my leg and torso.
Movement at my back
had me stiffening.
Then, “Me,” Dan whispered, as he scooped me up into his arms.
One of the goons shifted as though he were going to stop Dan, but Dan just held me closer and said, “She’s injured and won’t make it far. Do you want us to go with you or not?”
Silence.
Then a brusque nod.
And I decided to play up the weak woman angle. Perhaps the fuckers would underestimate me. Maybe they would think me too hurt and wouldn’t pay attention, and then we’d have our way out.
Of course, it wasn’t hard to play up the weak woman angle.
Not when I was hurting and dizzy from blood loss and the pain.
“Focus, Ava,” Dan hissed.
I nodded. “I am.”
“Your—”
“No talking,” one of the men snapped. He turned and started walking, leading us through the series of corridors I knew all too well. Down. Guiding us farther into the twisted maze of rocks. My father loved this castle on the hillside, loved the ancient hallways and tangled passageways, the small cells, the dark, damp space.
I’d played in these halls when I was a child, hiding and seeking and laughing like a lunatic anytime I was spotted by one of my father’s men.
Until I’d realized that the halls led to cells.
Fun times.
Tearing my gaze from the walls, I glanced up at Dan. He held my gaze and tapped the inside of my elbow, where the tracker was implanted. I knew it was his way of reminding me that though we might feel like they were alone, KTS would have our backs. The tracking chips were another new technology, so at least there was a good chance they wouldn’t be compromised, if it truly was the former KTS agent, Daniel, who was the one feeding information and working with KTS’s enemies.
And we had a chip outside the heavy rock walls, so even if my signal was compromised, Dan’s wouldn’t be.
I covered his hand with my own, squeezed lightly.
Then I rested my head on his chest and pretended to be out of it.
Sadly, it was all too easy.
Twenty-One
Southern Italy
Unknown hrs local time
Dan
My ribs throbbed, my mind spun, and Ava in my arms was all too right.
And we were being led deeper into some sick fucker’s dungeon.
A sick fuck whose household she’d grown up in.
I wanted to refuse on principle to follow them, refuse to go anywhere near that room I’d been taken to before, refuse to carry Ava down this fucking sicko path.
Her father, Frankie, was on the top of KTS’s list of bad guys to take down. He’d ruled southern Italy with an iron fist, single-handedly driving out progress and better opportunities for the people who live there by expanding his criminal enterprises. He looped in young boys, got them running drugs and laundering money. Families living there had to pay protection money from their meager earnings, making it extremely difficult to move away, to find better and safer opportunities.
And Frankie used them as fodder.
Not giving a fuck if they were killed or injured, not giving a damn for the families left behind.
All while he lived in an expensive castle above the glittering Mediterranean Sea.
The Italian who’d ordered us to follow him stopped in front of a familiar large wooden door, knocking once on the thick board. A voice called from inside, and then the panel was pulled open.
And then we were face-to-face with Frankie Toscalo himself.
Ava’s spine stiffened, tension invading every part of her body that was touching mine.
“Bella,” Frankie said.
Ava shifted slightly in my arms, and I got the message, carefully setting her down, not liking the way her cheeks went even paler, nor the fragile way she held herself. But her voice was steady. “What do you want, Frankie?”
The man was plump and balding, the buttons of his white silk button-down slightly bulging, the remnants of his hair nearly white. He leaned against the wall across the room from us, arms casually overlapped, smile unaffected by the disdain in his daughter’s voice.
“I’m your father, daughter.”
“You stopped being that a long time ago,” Ava spat.
He strolled toward us, goons at his back. “Ah, you wound me, bella.” He stroked a hand down Ava’s face then cupped her cheek. She jerked away and stumbled several paces away.
I stepped closer—or tried to anyway. Hands gripped my arms, wrenched me back.
“I cared for you. I provided food and love—”
She laughed darkly. “You never loved me.”
I didn’t expect him to move so fast.
One second he was standing a foot in front of Ava, his eyes darkening, and the next, he had burst forward and punched her in the stomach.
She crumpled to the floor, a cry of pain escaping.
I tore my arms free from my captor’s grasp and jumped forward, moving between them, blocking her father when he would have kicked out at her, and earning a blow from the goons behind us for my trouble. I pushed Frankie back then spun, knocked one of the fuckers on his ass, reached out for another, but I couldn’t do more than that because—
Click.
“Don’t fuck with me.” Soft, deadly words that nonetheless easily reached my ears.
And sent a cold chill down my spine.
I slowly rotated back.
Frankie didn’t lower the gun from where it was pointed at Ava. “How did KTS know about the hotel?”
Silence. From both me and Ava.
A gunshot rang out.
I lunged forward again, trying and failing to put my body between her and the bullet.
But I couldn’t outpace gunpowder or a piece of metal flying three times the speed of sound, and the sound it made sinking into Ava’s flesh was fucking sickening.
Then I heard the click again.
“How?” he repeated.
Ava spat.
The gun never wavered, Frankie’s finger tightening—
“We had a source,” I said.
“Who?”
“He’s dead.”
Click.
A bullet exploded from the gun, hitting the stone floor next to her shoulder, sending chips of rocks flying up into the air.
I straightened from where I’d thrown my body over Ava. She’d gone quiet and deathly still, and panic was tearing through me. “You can put as many bullets as you want into me,” I said. “Into your daughter, but that won’t change the fact that the man is dead.”
Silence.
Frankie stepped closer, pressed the gun to my temple. I could disarm him in an instant, but I held my ground, knowing the other men in the room had weapons that could be drawn before I could do anything to get us to safety. “Our source told us that something big was going to go down at the hotel on that date,” I said. “We had no other information besides that.”
Frankie’s eyes were so much like Ava’s.
A deep chocolate brown.
Except where Ava’s had a warmth I could sense, even when there was ice on the surface, Frankie’s were like looking into a black fucking hole. There was no soul inside, no caring.
He’d end us without a second thought the moment we weren’t useful.
Silence filled the space, no one speaking, the only noise breaking the quiet Ava’s rasped out breaths.
The sound both frightened and calmed me.
She was still breathing.
She was having a hard fucking time breathing.
Frankie kicked Ava’s ankle, eliciting a sharp cry from her. “What is the name of—”
A rumbling shook the floor.
For a second, I thought it was an earthquake. I hadn’t felt too many of those growing up on the East Coast, but I’d been through a handful while visiting my sister in California and several more on various deployments.
Frankie frowned, glanced at the door, the floor.
But unlike the earthquakes I’d be through, this one didn’t
go on, a wave of movement with a slowing end. This one stopped abruptly, the shaking cutting off.
Right before more rumbling began.
Only this time, closer and sharper.
And . . . I knew the cavalry was coming.
I launched myself forward, knocking Frankie to the ground. The older man dropped the gun and it clattered along the stones, out of reach of both of us. Shouts rang out, boots coming toward me, hands gripping my shirt, pummeling at my back, even as I fought to control the man beneath me.
Frankie was older and fatter than me and a hell of a lot meaner.
Or, at least, a much dirtier fighter.
Because I was feeling pretty fucking mean.
I took a blow to the back of my head that made my ears ring, my temple throb, black edge into my vision, and barely missed the fist Frankie threw up.
Another gunshot rang out, and the pressure on my back stopped.
I pinned Frankie in place with an elbow, risked a glance to my left, and saw that Ava was sitting up, the gun held in her hands. She had one eye shut, and I watched as she fired off another shot and took down another of the men.
Frankie bucked, nearly tossing me off, and I redoubled my efforts, applying firm pressure to his carotid as more shots rang out. Too many to be from one gun, but the rapid pop-pop-pop ended after a few more seconds, right around the same time that Ava’s father finally slumped into unconsciousness.
I hopped up and ran over to Ava.
“I’m okay,” she rasped. “Tie ’em up.”
Nodding, I hauled ass, luckily stumbling onto a pile of cable ties on a table to make it easier to restrain the men. I could unfortunately surmise their purpose, and it was infuriating to think what Frankie had done already and had intended to do to his daughter in this room. But for the moment, I pushed the anger away and concentrated on restraining any of the men with a pulse, binding wrists and ankles with the cable ties.
Then I moved back to Ava, yanking at the tongue of my boot and pulling out the emergency bandage and clotting agent.
I lifted her shirt, assessed her wound.
Frankly, it wasn’t a great assessment.
