by Janie Crouch
Oh, no. All of this was about the evidence that Derek had brought in yesterday. Concerning the Chicago bombing.
He touched her cheek again and Molly forced herself to hold still. “You, my dear, were supposed to have died in the fire, in case you knew anything. But you somehow made it out.
“Once we found out you had survived the explosion, he needed you questioned. And that couldn’t take place on US soil, so he asked me to bring you here. He needs to know what you found yesterday in the lab and who you told.”
“I don’t know anything—”
His backhand nearly knocked her to the floor. If his henchmen hadn’t been on either side of her, she would’ve fallen. Molly tasted blood in her mouth, the pain compounded by the bruise she already had on her face.
“You see, Ms. Humphries, I don’t have time for responses like ‘I don’t know anything.’” He shook his head almost apologetically. “So I’m going to need you to give me specific information about what was in the lab.”
He nodded briefly to the henchman on the left. Before Molly even knew what to expect, his fist came piling into her midsection.
Molly doubled over as pain stole her breath in a way she didn’t even know was possible. She tried to sob, but no sound or air came out. Almost immediately the other henchman pulled her back upright by her hair.
“Let’s be honest with one another.” Belisario’s tone was almost bored. “You are small, delicate. A scientist. You’re not the type who will be able to bounce back quickly from severe questioning. From torture.” He grabbed her jaw again and squeezed it painfully. She felt tears stream down her face. “I need specific details, Ms. Humphries.”
“I—I...” Molly tried to get her thoughts together, to get her breathing under control now that her airways seemed to be working. “The agents brought in something from a fire, a building that had burned down earlier in the day.”
He released her face. “Yes. Very good. Continue. Which agents brought it in?”
Molly didn’t care if they hit her again. She wasn’t giving this psychopath Derek’s or any other agents’ names. She thought fast. “Steve Rogers was the main agent. I can’t remember the other guy.”
She felt a cruel yank on her hair. “Details, Ms. Humphries.”
“He’s new, so I’m not sure. I think his name is Bruce something. Banner, maybe.” She prayed none of the men were Marvel comic or The Avenger fans, since she was basically just listing characters now.
“And?”
“I didn’t have a chance to get to any of what they brought in. The lab was backed up. I was planning to work all night. I had stepped out to get a bite to eat, that’s why I wasn’t in the lab when the explosion happened.” That was the truth.
Belisario nodded at the man standing behind her holding her hair. He brought her arm behind her back in a cruel twist that had Molly crying out.
“Just the slightest pressure from Henrico and your arm will break in quite a nasty way. So make sure you answer completely—did you talk to anyone about what was brought in by the agents? Does anyone know anything that could come back to haunt my partner?”
“Not from me, not from our lab. Everything was destroyed. I promise. If there was anything more to tell you I would.” Molly could feel her arm being inched up behind her back. Henrico was definitely looking forward to doing damage.
Belisario looked at her for a long moment, then thankfully shook his head at Henrico. He let her go and threw her away from him, anger in his eyes when she glanced at him, rubbing her aching shoulder.
“You see? Not so difficult when you provide the right details,” Belisario said. “And I believe you, because I’m sure you can imagine what will happen to you if I discover any part of this is a lie.”
Molly shuddered and Belisario laughed.
He ran a finger down her cheek again and Molly blanched before she could help it. This earned her a slap. “I’m supposed to kill you now, that’s what my partner wants, in case you talk to anyone. But like I said, he can be a bit overdramatic. There’s no need to kill you yet. I’m sure I can find other uses for you.”
His finger trailed down her shoulder and Molly looked away.
“Plus, we want to check all those details you gave us. Make sure they were true. And if even one small part isn’t, then we’ll start this whole questioning process again.”
Molly struggled not to vomit right then. It wouldn’t take long for whoever Belisario’s partner was to figure out that the names she’d given were fake, even if everything else was true.
A phone rang in Belisario’s pocket and he moved away from her. “I have business to attend to now. But we’ll talk again soon.” He turned to his men. “Take her back.”
It was dark outside as they returned her to her room.
“I’m sure the boss will let us have our turn with her after he’s done,” Henrico said to the other guy.
Molly choked back a sob. She was hungry, thirsty, tired and ached all over. The thought of these men touching her was almost more than she could handle. When they opened the door to her room, Henrico reached down and squeezed her buttocks.
Molly elbowed him in the stomach and jerked away, making the other henchman laugh.
Enraged, Henrico threw her down on the floor. He kicked her with one booted foot in the thigh. Molly cried out in pain and scampered backward to try to get out of his reach. He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and brought her torso off the ground.
“And when the boss lets me have you, you will beg me for death.” He backhanded her across the face and threw her down.
Although that hit wasn’t as hard as the others, it was too much for Molly. She just let the blackness consume her.
Chapter Ten
This was not how Derek liked to go into a situation: totally blind. But he didn’t have much choice. He and Liam poured over all of the intel they could get their hands on about Belisario’s home—which was more like a compound—as Jon flew them down to Colombia.
Derek liked to have the tactical advantage in all professional situations. He even liked having it in personal ones. But he had to admit there was no real tactical advantage for them here.
“Covert entry is pretty much our only option and our only advantage,” he said to Liam. “If we have to go in guns blazing, our chance of success is pretty darn low. We just don’t have the manpower needed to take down Belisario in his own nest.”
“Quiet, it is.” Liam was leaning with his head back against his seat, eyes closed, but Derek knew the other man was aware of everything going on around him. “My kung fu is strong.”
Using night as their cover, Derek and Liam would be parachuting out to land closer to Belisario’s property. It was risky, but it would get them there much faster. Derek was willing to risk just about anything to get them there faster.
Every additional minute it took them to get there was a minute Molly was left alone in heaven knew what type of situation.
Jon would have to land the plane almost ten miles from the property in order not to be seen. It was the only place in the dense rain forest with enough clearing for a landing strip. He would have the plane ready for takeoff upon Derek and Liam’s return with Molly, backup firearms ready in case they were coming in hot.
Although hostage rescue was Liam’s specialty and jumping out of planes into questionable situations was his particular forte, it had been years since Derek had done this sort of thing.
“You’ll do fine. It’s just like ’Stan, only greener.” Derek found Liam looking over at him. They’d both been in Special Forces in Afghanistan for multiple tours. Both knew what it was to take a life, to make the hard call, to do things that left scars on the soul. Even though Derek didn’t use that training any more in his day-to-day duties, his time there had made him into the man he was.
&n
bsp; As Special Forces, both he and Liam knew how to infiltrate silently and deadly. That’s what they’d be doing here. Because if they got caught, there wouldn’t be anyone coming to help them. Omega would not be able to acknowledge Derek’s mission in any way. The official word would be that they had acted on their own.
“Besides, I know how to speak Spanish, so that gives us an advantage,” Liam said.
Derek studied Liam. He’d known the other man for a lot of years and didn’t know he spoke Spanish. “You do?”
Liam shrugged. “The important stuff. Hola hermosa bebé, creo que deberíamos pasar la noche juntos.”
Derek was pretty sure Liam had just called him pretty and asked him if he wanted to spend the night. Derek rolled his eyes. Knowing Liam, he wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only Spanish the other man knew at all.
Of course, Derek also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the man spoke it fluently. You just never knew with Liam.
“Thanks, Liam,” Derek said.
“Thanks for calling you pretty?” Liam winked at him.
“For doing this. I know the risks. I know you do, too.” Their lives, their careers. Everything. Without Jon and Liam, Derek’s chances of getting Molly out alive would be practically zero.
The odds with them weren’t terribly higher either, but at least they had a chance.
Liam was serious now, a rare occurrence. “I assumed Molly was irrelevant to you. I think we all did.”
Derek stared at the other man for a long minute. “No, she’s never been irrelevant to me. The opposite.” He hardly had words for what Molly was to him. “She’s my light. Pure and lovely and...” Derek shrugged. He wasn’t good with words.
“She’s everything you’re afraid of dragging down into your dark and dirty world. Extinguishing the light.” Liam finished for him. “So you’ve stayed away. Made everyone—including her—think you don’t care.”
Derek nodded. All of that was exactly right.
“Good thing I didn’t ask her out like I considered. I had grand dreams of being the one to help her get over the stupid jerk who didn’t seem to appreciate what was right in front of him.” And just like that Liam’s seriousness was gone. “Would’ve sucked to have my nose broken when you punched me in the face.”
To be honest Derek wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if Molly had gone out with someone else. Especially a friend.
Liam was back to serious. “You’d do the same for me, if I needed help, Derek. And all of us would do anything for sweet Molly.”
“Ten minutes till we’re in the drop zone,” Jon called back from the cockpit of the small plane.
“Roger that,” Derek responded. He turned to Liam. “Any questions about our plan?”
“Rendezvous with each other on the ground. Get into the estate at the weak spot in the wall near the northeast corner. Find our girl and get her out. All undetected.”
That was the plan. Now all they had to do was pull it off.
* * *
MOLLY DIDN’T PARTICULARLY like autopsies. She did have a degree in forensic pathology, was a certified medical examiner, so not liking autopsies was probably a little odd. But she had never been able to distance herself from the body on her table, and sympathized about what had happened to them.
And since she worked at Omega, most autopsies she performed were often pretty gruesome deaths. Most of the time Molly was able to foster out the autopsies to one of the other two pathologists employed by the lab; neither ever seemed to mind.
But sometimes, like now, it had to be Molly. It was late in the evening, everyone else had gone home. The two bodies in the morgue were Omega agents who had been killed in a hostage rescue situation. She knew them. Not as well as she knew some of the other agents, but enough that what she was doing—removing bullets that would later be used in the case against the criminals who did this—was harder. But she wanted to get it done as soon as possible so the bodies could be released to the grieving families.
She felt eyes on her from across the room, and looked up. There was Derek standing silently watching her.
It had been two years since that night he’d shown up at her house. The night she thought about all the time. The night that had haunted her dreams and caused her to wake up aching for Derek. The night that had changed everything for her.
The night the two of them had never once spoken about.
When she’d awakened the next morning—after multiple bouts of lovemaking, since every time she’d even slid away from him, even when he’d been sleeping, he’d pulled her back to him and tucked her against him—he’d been gone.
Molly thought maybe he’d been too drunk to remember what had happened. But medically she knew that was highly unlikely. If Derek had been sober enough to...ahem, perform...that many times, then he hadn’t been inebriated to the point of blocking the night out of his subconscious.
Then she had feared even worse: that she’d just been a one-night stand, a conquest Derek would boast about to his friends. The thought had made her ill. But there had been nothing that anyone had ever said or did—no knowing glances or sideways winks—that had insinuated that Derek had spoken to anyone about it. Since that night, Derek himself had been polite, respectful.
Distant.
He never touched her. Not even casually like he had before. He was very deliberate in the not touching her, although Molly didn’t think anyone else noticed. It wasn’t as if they’d walked around arm in arm before that night. But now, nothing.
And Molly, pansy that she was, had developed some sort of stutter anytime he was near. She’d always been a little awkward around him, but after that night she was a complete moron. Everyone assumed that she was just a socially awkward scientist who got tongued-tied around a super-sexy, mega-hot agent she had a crush on. Which was true.
No one suspected her body remembered every single touch and lick and nibble from their night together causing her to go into overdrive every time Derek was around. Which was also true.
Derek did an excellent job of being distant and making sure no one suspected what had happened.
But every once in a while, Molly would catch him watching her with a look in his eyes that melted everything inside her. There was only one word for it.
Heat.
He was quick to blank his face, to school his expression back into its blasted neutrality as soon as he realized she’d seen him. He was so good at it that soon Molly would wonder if she had seen the heat at all.
But now, looking at him across the small morgue attached to the lab, she could see the heat. He didn’t do a thing to hide it. She took off her gloves and laid them on the nearby table. He walked over to her without taking his eyes off her face.
And enfolded her in his arms.
She could feel his face buried in her neck, his arms crossing low across her waist and hips. His big body was almost doubled around hers, he had her so close. Molly extracted her arms, trapped between their bodies, so she could wrap them around Derek.
The two dead men had been his colleagues, his friends. As hard as it was for her to have those bodies on the table, it had to be much worse for Derek.
She stroked her hands up and down his back saying nothing. Neither of them said anything. Derek didn’t know how to ask for comfort now, for a gentle touch, any more than he’d known how to ask for it when he showed up at her condo two years ago. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need it.
And Molly would give it, would always give it if it was in her power to do so.
But her leg hurt so badly. And her face.
She moaned. No, pain wasn’t part of the memory. There had been no pain in the long minutes where she’d held him before he had gently disengaged himself, kissed her on the forehead, and walked out as silently as he had arrived.
Oh no,
she was dreaming again. And was about to wake up to the living nightmare surrounding her. She didn’t want that. She wanted to stay here in Derek’s arms where she was safe.
“Molly.” His finger stroked down her cheek. She felt so secure here. Like nothing could ever hurt her again.
“Molly.” The voice was firmer now. She knew she was waking up because everything hurt and Derek hadn’t talked to her, he’d been silent.
Well, if she was waking up, she was going to get a kiss in first. She’d always wished she’d kissed him that day in the lab. She drove her hands through his hair and pulled him down to her, not giving him any choice. She kissed him.
And, ah, it felt so good. So real. She so should’ve kissed him that day. She felt his fingers slip into her hair and pull her closer before moving away. She felt cold without him.
“Molly, sweetheart, I need you to wake up. We’ve got to get out of here.”
She decided not to fight it anymore. She had to wake up and try to find a way out of this. But she wanted to stay in the dream with Derek. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered to her dream.
“I won’t, honey. I promise. But I need you to wake up.”
Molly reluctantly opened her eyes to find herself looking in Derek’s blue ones, her fingers threaded in his hair.
Chapter Eleven
Molly was alive.
When he’d first seen her lying on the floor at such an awkward angle, Derek had feared he’d been too late. But then she’d moved just the slightest bit and relief crashed through him.
He rushed over to her, cringing as he saw the bruises covering her face, picked her up and laid her on the small cot. She wasn’t dead, but that didn’t mean she was going to be able to assist them in getting her out of here.
Time was of the essence. The man who had been guarding her door wouldn’t be bothering anyone, but all it would take was one person coming to check on Molly and all hell would break loose.
“Molly.” He stroked a gentle finger down her damaged cheek. She moved just slightly.
