by Amy McKinley
The cut would bleed but wasn’t dangerous—it was more of a surface wound. Sounds filtered my way, invading my mind’s analytical catalog. I locked on to her voice.
“I’ll send someone for cleanup. Go inside and check to make sure there isn’t anyone who got in.” She spoke in Spanish, but when we’d fought during the hostage rescue, she’d used English. It didn’t matter which she language she used—we were both fluent in many.
“I have orders to remain out here,” the guard protested.
Kara stepped closer. “I gave you an order. He was the only threat, and now he’s dead. Go, or you’ll draw your last breath. Send Ricardo to help me. He doesn’t have a problem with orders.”
There was no rebuttal. The swish of the grass told me the guard slunk away. Kara bent down as I opened my eyes. Lines bracketed her mouth, and her gaze darted to the shrubs. “Hugo tipped off Ahmed. You have to leave before Ricardo gets here.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “And when he does arrive?”
“I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Ahmed will be informed that you’re dead.”
“Where did he go?” I had to work to suppress my anger about being stabbed. More than anything, I wanted his head.
“I don’t know. I have to get inside. I’ll be downtown tomorrow. Find me.”
She shoved at my shoulder, and I rolled to the cover of the trees. When I was clear, I watched as she jogged back to the house. Where the hell are the rest of the guards? Everything had happened in a matter of minutes, with no real alarm raised. The entire thing was odd.
From my peripheral vision, I saw Jack and Hawk sprint to me as I cleared the shrubs. We didn’t have long before the guards would circle our side of the yard. Jack’s hand snaked around my bicep, and I let him pull me to my feet.
We had to get away before the guards arrived. Why they hadn’t remained was a puzzle that I needed to solve. Past the brush, I shoved Jack and Hawk off me and motioned for us to leave. “I’m okay. Nothing major was hit.”
“There’s a lot of blood,” Hawk snapped under his breath as we cleared the fence and broke into a sprint.
“It’s a surface cut.” I ignored how Jack’s gaze jerked to mine for a split second. I was sure he was remembering what I’d done during an interrogation when we were searching for Stella, who had become Hawk’s wife. There had been blood everywhere when I’d interrogated one of the men about Stella’s abduction, which I’d done more as a scare tactic than anything else. But the guys hadn’t known that at first and assumed I’d snapped. I hadn’t. We were taught well, and Kara knew what she was doing when she stabbed me. When I realized the ruse, I’d played along with her. After all, there was a lot at stake.
“You need to tell us everything.” Jack’s no-nonsense tone caused a barrage of unwanted images of what I’d have to relive while I shared my truth with them to slip through my mind. It would be a long couple of hours, and I worried about how they would react. It could shake the foundation I’d built with the guys, the only family I’d known since my parents were killed.
We were close to our base of sorts, our room, when Jack’s cell buzzed. He shot us a wary glance then answered. After a few short words, he disconnected. We continued to our destination. Once behind closed doors, he spoke.
“That was Rich. A National Assembly leader collapsed after a meeting with the Venezuelan president and his advisors. He was actively opposed to the president and the dismal state of the people. He’d planned to back anyone who ran against the president in the next election. They’ve determined the cause was a small puncture wound like the drones would have made. Our timeline has narrowed due to the upcoming US meetings about the president.”
“When is that scheduled to take place?” Dread pooled in my gut. The drones and who possessed them were our new mission’s top priority. If nothing else, at least we knew they were still here.
Jack ran a hand through his short hair. “We have seven days.”
9
Keegan
Jack’s call with Rich rolled around in my head along with our newly adjusted timeline and the conversation I was about to have with my team about Kara and my past. I hadn’t even said anything, but I already felt exposed. There was no other way to describe how that one incident in Ahmed’s perimeter had catapulted into the disaster that would ensue. My uncle knew where I was, the name I hid under, and that Kara was a weakness, and only death would follow.
I stayed still while Hawk cleaned, butterflied, and bandaged the cut on my chest. I wished the lie she told Ahmed would trickle to Hugo, masking the fact that I still lived.
Time felt warped, and at that moment, I was back in the desert, living a hell no kid should. Hugo’s voice anchored me to the years I’d spent learning that death was a luxury I was not permitted.
A hot blast of air tumbled me back in time. My heart regulated to a slow, steady thump as I pressed against the back of a sand ledge, the natural overhang protecting me from sight. As hot as the desert was during the day, it was equally as cold at night. I only wore threadbare tan pants, better to blend into the stark surroundings.
Sand granules shifted beneath the camels’ hooves. Still, I waited. A few feet away, the small party would pass in a matter of seconds. Then I would strike.
No one spoke. They passed, and I sprang into action. There were four of them. One target. All would die.
It was them or me.
I sucked in air, willing the past to stay where it belonged despite the looming battle with my uncle and most likely Jamal, who had been my jailer, in a sense.
I blinked rapidly and shook off the memory.
It hadn’t taken long to return to the hotel room with Jack and Hawk. We gathered around the small table, and I forced myself to stay seated rather than pace the room like a caged tiger while I invited them into the world I came from.
Hawk was eerily still, which was in his nature and made him a hell of a good sniper. Banked energy rolled off Jack and amped up my aggression. The temperature had climbed to the mid-eighties and held. As we approached evening, the sun shone at an angle where light spilled through the window.
Sitting was a lost cause, so I got up and grabbed three waters. I limited my movements enough to give the butterfly bandages time to adhere properly. The wound barely registered. It was shallow. I’d had much worse. After tossing Jack and Hawk each a bottle, I downed half of mine. No more stalling. I paced to the window and back, compelling the words to leave my mouth.
“You know that hostage that got away during the rescue? Henry Adams? Well, he’s really Hugo Chavez, my uncle, and he is not a good man. And he’s got the backpack with the drones. It changes things… like how we go after him.” My muscles tensed, wanting a fight, but there wasn’t a target there for me to take my aggression out on.
“We’ll have to let Rich in on some of this,” Jack interjected.
God, no. “Only what we need to. I won’t admit we’re related or anything that ties to my past. This has to stay between us. The dynamics are going to become skewed.” I didn’t want to tell them everything, but they had to know how bad things would get.
“We’ll figure it out,” Jack said.
Hawk followed. “You know where I come from. Our blood doesn’t define us, not since we formed our crew in high school. That’s the family I claim. We all do.”
My mind whirled. I can do this. “I’m counting on that for what I’m about to tell you.” I dropped into the chair and met their gazes. “My real name was Max Chavez, before I met all of you. After my parents were murdered, Hugo became my guardian. For six months, we lived in his apartment in New York while he ignored me. At the time, I thought that was the most difficult thing I’d faced.”
“That type of abandonment is never easy.” There was a kindred soul in Hawk, and I nodded to acknowledge what he’d said.
“Those first few months… I should have run away, and I would have if I’d had any idea what was coming. I should have
had a clue that things were going to go to hell when Hugo looked at me for the first time since the day he picked me up from social services. A bag was tossed at my feet that held a few pieces of clothing and nothing else. We boarded a private plane to the Middle East.”
The cooling evening air wafting in from the window took on the quality of the desert. My skin crawled as the emotions from those years scratched along every inch of my body: fear, desolation, and finally fury. The last had paid off, but it had taken years.
I wouldn’t share the details of my first meeting with Jamal, the leader of the Dark Wings, or what it meant to belong to the organization, to be trained by them, to kill for them, to be owned by them.
To leave had been a death warrant, one they would surely call due.
“My uncle left me there in the desert with a group of mercenaries. I was there for four years. It was… brutal. Death would have been a kindness. That part, Rich cannot know about.” I yanked myself from the images and met their gazes, and some of the tension slid away at the resolve I read there. They had my back. I only hoped that would continue when they found out everything.
“How do Kara and Hugo fit in?” Jack asked.
Good. That was better than sifting through memories and deciding what to share. “I met Kara while I lived in the Middle East. Ahmed brought her to be trained so that she wouldn’t be a target—and oddly enough, to be his shield.”
“He left her there or transported her back for training?” Hawk crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward.
“He struck a bargain with Jamal, and she remained for several months. I never paid too much attention, as her father, Ahmed, was only there at select times and for Kara. My radar consisted mostly of those I dealt with daily.”
“So Hugo and Ahmed know one another, are in business together,” Jack concluded.
“It appears so. Hugo was tipped off about me by Ahmed. Ahmed learned about me from tapping Kara’s phone.” This is so messed up. “I didn’t recognize Hugo that night or from the picture because of the burn scars on the right side of his face, the drooping eyelid, and the beard. I should have.”
“It’s been twenty-odd years, and it was dark. I can understand why you didn’t.”
I agreed with Jack, but they needed to know. “The drones in Hugo’s hands are a problem, and I would bet he was meeting with Ahmed to sell them to him.”
“And if he sells them to Ahmed, since he’s one of the Venezuelan president’s trusted advisors, we could be facing a terrorist attack.” Jack ran his hands through his hair in an angry swipe.
“I’d bet on it.” It was going from bad to worse.
“And Kara? Can she be trusted?” Hawk asked.
I wanted to say yes. “I’d like to think so.”
“She knew you as Max five years ago in Washington, DC. Wouldn’t she have given you away then if she was a risk?”
Hawk brought up a good point, but trusting no longer came naturally to me. I relied on the guys and their wives. No one else made the cut. Aside from our family, I had no use for others. When you’d been burned as badly as I had, letting anyone in was a risk. But Kara had always been a problem for me.
In the dead of night, she’d come to me for protection, and I’d thrown caution to the wind and let her in. Images of the night flooded my memories, and I was at once there again.
My eyelids snapped open, and I went from asleep to awake and alert. Darkness permeated the tiny room. I scanned the shadows for threats. Nothing, at least not within those four plaster walls, but something in the hall. Someone was trying to sneak up on me. In my world, that could only mean death. It wouldn’t be mine.
Rolling to my feet, I crept to the doorway and flattened against the rough concrete. The noise was barely audible, but I’d learned the hard way to wake ready to fight. My vision adjusted to the small amount of moonlight that filtered from the high, barred window near the ceiling. I could make out a slight form crossing the threshold.
The intruder took one step in, then two. I moved behind and wrapped my hand around the intruder’s neck. There was a small, feminine squeak. The scent of lilies swirled in the air. In a quick spin, I shoved her against the wall and pressed a forearm into her windpipe, my knife to the side.
“It’s Kara,” she rasped.
“Why are you here?” I couldn’t trust that she wasn’t sent to commit harm.
“I was scared. Some of the others...” Her voice trembled with raw fear. “Around you, I feel safer.”
I remembered what it was like when I’d first come to the Dark Wings years before. At fourteen, a year younger than my seasoned fifteen, she was new to the ways of Jamal’s mercenary camp. I understood her terror. The unexpected nightly visits were full of torture. They would drag me out of my room, barely awake, only to beat the hell out of me. It taught me to be aware. Vigilant. Then there were the chains. I glanced at her unbound wrists. Our initiations had been very different.
Toward the end of my first year with the sadistic mercenaries, I’d learned some tricks of my own. As I’d grown, I’d become faster, meaner, and more able to predict their next strikes. Then, after the bloodbath that resulted when one of them put their hands on me, they thought twice about those nocturnal visits. At the slightest sound, I would wake, ready to do serious damage.
I understood Kara’s predicament. I wasn’t sure how much influence or control her father had over the mercenaries there. Jamal’s word was law, but there were a few who were evil to the core.
I eased off her, dropping my forearm from her throat, and she sucked in a full, unencumbered breath. Trusting her was a risk. But I’d shown her basic moves earlier that day, and she was inexperienced. I doubted she would be a threat.
Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over her long lashes. My heart squeezed in sympathy—an emotion I was shocked I’d retained. I led her to the corner where I’d been sleeping. The mattress on the ground was a luxury, one I’d earned through blood. After patting her down for weapons—there weren’t any—I waved to the makeshift bed. “Sit.”
She lowered to the bed and wrapped her thin arms around her tiny waist. Sitting next to her, I sorted through what to say, but she beat me to it.
“One of the trainers told me he looked forward to my first night here. The way he said it…”
Something inside of me flared to life, and the overwhelming need to protect her filled every fiber of my being. Where that’d come from made no sense to me.
I thought Jamal had killed anything decent long before.
I knew who she was talking about, and I would take care of him during sparring the next day. “He can’t get to you through me. You’ll be safe tonight.”
I hoped that I wouldn’t come to regret it. But her shell-shocked amber eyes and the tremor that shook her small body imbedded in my conscious. “You have to play the game. During the day, don’t let them see you cry. Be tough, no matter what. They’ll try to break you. At night”—what the hell was I doing?—“I’ll keep you safe. Then you can break down if you need to.”
On a shaky breath, she inhaled. “Thank you.”
“Get some rest.”
She stretched out on the mattress, and I did the same, the knife secure in my hand in case anyone entered. Her scent was driving me crazy. How she could smell like lilies in that hellhole was beyond me.
“Is it always like this?” She shifted, turning her head to look at me.
“Like what?” I’d been there for four years. I didn’t know anything else.
“Awful. Scary. And… dirty.” Raw fear dripped from her voice.
“Yes.” That was to put it mildly. “Why are you here?” I didn’t understand, as I was ordered to train her for combat.
“My mother died a few months ago. She was murdered. My father is worried I’ll suffer the same fate. He told me this is where I’ll learn to defend myself.”
“This isn’t the place for you.”
“I don’t like it, but I don’t want to die.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Our voices were barely above a whisper. “You shouldn’t be staying here.” I was afraid there was more to the story. “Why would he leave you?”
“He’s traveling for business. I’ll only be here long enough to learn to fight.”
“What’s long enough?” I was surprised her father would leave her there. It wasn’t safe.
“Four months.”
For her, that would be a lifetime. “Get some sleep.” As she settled beside me, I couldn’t help but consider the timeframe. In five months, I would be leaving against my will with Uncle Hugo. I couldn’t let that happen. I had been forming a plan to escape for some time. As her leg pressed against mine and her breathing deepened from sleep, I knew I’d make my exit correspond with hers.
I stood again to shake free of the past and jammed my hands into my jeans pockets to keep from punching something. When my fingers curled around something metal, I stopped wearing a path on the floor and pulled it out. A silver locket dangled from a chain in my hand. What the hell is this? With care, I pried the two halves of the locket open to reveal a picture of Lily nestled inside.
Lily looked so much like Kara, with her black hair and smooth, tan skin. Her daughter had a sweet smile while Kara embodied exotic dreams, a balm to the senses. She affected me in the way the heat of the day ebbed, ushering in the evening where shadows lengthened, time slowed, and a mix of color smudged across the sky.
Mother and daughter shared the same high cheekbones and perfect mouth. The only difference was their eyes. Kara’s were whiskey on a summer’s night, framed in smoky lashes. Lily’s were the same almond shape with spikey lashes, but the color leaned toward the shade of Samir’s hazel ones.
I set the opened locket on the table so the guys could see. “I think we can trust her. Both she and Samir are frantic about Lily.”
“We need to get her out, then.” Hawk’s mouth set in a grim line.
