Athena Force 7: Deceived

by Carla Cassidy

  He eased away from her. “I’ll be right back.” He slid from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Lynn rolled over on her side and stared toward the window where the moonlight filtered in through the sheer curtains. Her body tingled with the warmth of their lovemaking, and she had no regrets about what they had shared. She was glad it had been Nick who had introduced her to the pleasure of lovemaking.

  He returned to the bed and gathered her in his arms. She snuggled against him although she knew she should get up and go back to her motel.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice a soft whisper in the darkness as he tightened his arms around her.

  “That I’m glad we made love, that I’m glad we had this night together because tomorrow I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving? What do you mean?” He leaned away and gazed down at her.

  “As soon as you and your men arrest Jonas, I’m leaving Miami.”

  “Why? Lynn, there’s no reason you can’t build a life here. With your computer skills you could find a job easily.”

  “I found out I have a sister.”

  “What? Where?” He reached out and turned on the bedside lamp.

  She sat up as she realized she wanted to talk about it. She wanted to tell him some of the secrets that Jonas had wanted her to keep to herself. “In the last twenty-four hours I’ve discovered some things about my past, about where I came from. There never were eccentric millionaires who were my parents and who were lost at sea. That was just another of Jonas’s lies.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “So how did he get you as a baby?”

  Lynn told him about being kidnapped as a baby and that her biological mother was dead. She didn’t tell him that Dawn was responsible for her escape from the police station. She certainly didn’t want to cause Dawn any problems.

  “I guess Jonas wanted a baby he could raise and train to do his dirty work,” she said.

  His dark eyes were filled with speculation. “Lynn, I know now you pulled off a lot of robberies for Jonas. I also know that the men who tried to catch you said you were like a superhuman phantom, able to accomplish physical feats that were nearly impossible.”

  “I was well trained,” she replied, but she was unable to hold his gaze.

  “Well trained,” he repeated flatly. “You know, I saw signs of your unusual quickness that night at Sensations when you defended yourself against that drunk. It was more than mere training that I saw. You have amazing abilities. Talk to me. You can tell me. You can trust me, Lynn.”

  “I do have some unusual abilities,” she finally agreed.

  He touched her cheek. “And you aren’t telling me everything, are you?”

  She looked at him once again. “No, I’m not. But I can’t, Nick. I don’t have all the answers yet.” She was suddenly exhausted. She hadn’t expected the emotions that flooded through her as she gazed at him, as she thought about leaving both him and Miami behind. “Maybe we should get some sleep,” she finally said. “It’s late and tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.”

  He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but instead he turned off the light and once again gathered her in his arms.

  As she molded herself against his warmth in the darkness of the room, she realized that by making love to her, he’d not only won back her trust, he’d also won her heart.

  But she’d told him she wanted nothing more from him than this night. She’d insisted she needed no promises, no tomorrows, and he hadn’t offered any.

  Chapter 14

  She awakened just after dawn to find herself alone in the bed. She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. It was betrayal day.

  Today she would betray the man who had raised her, the man who had fed her and clothed her for all her life, the man who had seen to it that she had the best education, the best of everything.

  Today she would betray the man who had given her everything but the truth, the man who had kidnapped her and used her to further his own criminal activities.

  She was surprised to discover that she felt little regret over what she was going to do. She only hoped when they put Jonas behind bars that Richard Dunst would share the same quarters.

  This wasn’t just the day she’d betray Jonas, it was also the day she would say goodbye to Miami and follow Dawn to an unknown place to discover the mysteries of the past.

  Today was also the day she would say goodbye to Nick.

  Nick. Her body still felt the memory of his sensual touch, his demanding kisses. Her heart still felt the wonder and magic of their lovemaking.

  It would have been easy to say goodbye to him if she still felt betrayed by him, if she still tasted the acrid flavor of bitterness where he was concerned. But her anger had left, taking with it any bitterness that might linger behind.

  The scent of fresh-brewed coffee wafted in the air, and she pulled herself out of bed, grabbed clean clothes from her suitcase and headed for the bathroom and a shower.

  As she stood beneath the hot spray of water, she remembered each and every moment of their lovemaking the night before. She would never forget last night.

  Nick had made her body sing with his heated caresses and fiery kisses, but he’d also made her heart sing with his tenderness and caring. Saying goodbye to him was going to be more difficult than she’d thought.

  Minutes later she entered the kitchen to find him at the table. “Good morning,” she said.

  He smiled. “Good morning to you. Coffee is ready. I left a cup on the counter for you.”

  “Thanks.” She walked over to the counter and poured herself coffee, then carried the cup to the table and sat down across from him.

  “You ready for today?”

  She nodded. “As ready as I’m going to get.” She took a sip of her coffee, then continued. “I don’t have any regrets about setting up Jonas.”

  “And no regrets about anything else?” His dark eyes held her gaze.

  Her cheeks warmed, but she held his gaze. “No, Nick. No regrets at all.” She took another sip of her coffee. “Even though I was angry with you, hurt by the fact that I thought you’d used me, I wanted last night with you.”

  “Are you still angry and hurt?” His expression told her that her answer was important to him.

  She hesitated a long moment before answering. “Maybe a little hurt, but you’ve made me believe that using me was difficult for you, that it was something you had to do. You’ve made me believe that what I thought we had when we were together was real.”

  This is what she truly believed, what she desperately wanted to believe, yet she also knew it was possible he was still using her. Until Jonas was in his custody, she was useful to Nick and she couldn’t forget that fact.

  “It was real, Lynn,” he said. “It is very real.”

  She sat back in her chair. “What’s important now is that we get Jonas.”

  “That’s important,” he agreed. “But it isn’t all that’s important. I want you to understand what the last couple of weeks with you have meant to me.”

  She held up a hand to still whatever more he would say. She didn’t want to hear this, not now, not with goodbye so very near.

  He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but at that moment a knock tapped at the back door. Nick’s team had arrived and the time for personal talk was over.

  There was a total of five men who would be responsible for arresting Jonas. They had arrived early to be in place for the meeting between Lynn and her godfather.

  Even though it was a little more than three hours before the ten-o’clock meeting, the men each took a post inside the house to wait. Two were stationed on the outside of the house, hidden on the property next door. The other three took positions in each of the two bedrooms and one in the bathroom.

  Nick moved his car down the road so it wouldn’t be in the driveway to spook Jonas, then he and Lynn sat at the table, listening to the clock tick by the minutes.

 
; “When he gets here, I’ll stay out of sight,” Nick said. “As soon as he gets into the living room we’ll move in to take him down.”

  “I want an opportunity to speak with him,” Lynn said. She needed to tell him that she knew how he’d used her all her life. She needed to look into his eyes and see if there was any love, any affection at all for her.

  “I can’t make any promises, Lynn. We’ll have to see how things go down. At the very least, once we have him in handcuffs, I don’t see why you can’t have a word or two with him.”

  Handcuffs. It was almost impossible for her to imagine Jonas in handcuffs. She remembered the bite of the cuffs around her own wrists, and her heart hardened.

  It had been Jonas who had placed her in a position to be arrested and handcuffed. It had been his lies that had prompted her to steal and ultimately be caught. She would weep no tears for his arrest.

  As the minutes ticked by, she felt a growing tension inside her. What if he didn’t show up? What if he’d already left the country? She tried to tell herself he wouldn’t leave without the precious urn he thought she had. More important, he wouldn’t leave once he found that the passwords on his accounts had been changed and he could no longer access any of his money.

  “I wonder if he ever loved me,” she said aloud.

  Nick knew about whom she was talking. “He probably loves you as much as a man like him is capable of loving.” He sighed. “My mother used to tell me that my father loved me despite the fact that he beat me about every other day and ignored me the rest of the time.” He smiled, a sad, rueful kind of expression. “I used to think it was a good thing he loved me, because if he didn’t I wouldn’t have survived him at all.”

  “It’s sad, isn’t it, how much we as children need to believe that our families love us, how much we need to believe they would never do anything to hurt us.”

  “Things could be worse, Lynn,” he said. “I could have become just like my father and you could have become just like Jonas.”

  “Never,” she replied fervently. “The only way he got me to steal for him was by lying, by telling me we were accomplishing something good.”

  She glanced at the clock on the oven. One more hour and everything would be over. She gazed back at Nick. “You know, I felt good when I was stealing those things. I was pleasing Jonas, but I was also pleasing myself. I enjoyed the challenge and I thought I was doing something good.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Lynn. You were manipulated by a master.”

  “I should have known better.” She got up from the table and carried her cup to the sink, then turned back to face Nick. “I should have asked more questions, demanded better answers. For the past several months my instincts kept telling me something wasn’t right, but I ignored my instincts and instead followed Jonas like a docile lamb.”

  He got up from the table and walked over to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, his gaze intense. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s done. It’s over and you’re doing the right thing now. He belongs behind bars, and within the next hour or two that’s exactly where he’ll be.”

  He pulled her against his chest and willingly she went. She closed her eyes as his arms encircled her. “You’re a good person, Lynn,” he whispered against her hair. “Don’t let him make you question yourself and the kind of person you are. If you do, then he wins.”

  She nodded, loving him more at this moment than ever before. She knew he was right, but she also knew it would be a long time before her regrets over what she had done for Jonas finally went away.

  For a long moment she remained in his embrace, her face turned into the fresh scent of his shirt. She drew in the smell of him, capturing it in her memory for the nights of loneliness she knew lay ahead. She memorized the feel of his hands on her back, those beautiful hands that could be so gentle.

  She eased out of his arms and forced a smile to her lips. She had to leave. “This is difficult, you know. Betraying Jonas,” she said, focusing on the task at hand. “But I know it’s the right thing to do.”

  Nick’s eyes shone with approval. “That’s what we all want, Lynn. The world will be a better place if he’s not working it.”

  At nine-thirty Lynn sat in the living room alone, waiting for Jonas’s arrival. Nick was in the kitchen. The other men were in place and hidden from sight. All they were missing was the guest of honor.

  As she waited, her thoughts went back in time, through her childhood and adolescence. Surely Jonas had loved her just a little? Surely he’d cared about her. But even as she thought this, her mind refused to embrace it.

  It was a parent’s job to teach their children how to have wings, how to stand on their own, depend on themselves and grow into independent people. That’s how people loved their children, by preparing them to leave the nest.

  Jonas had done just the opposite. He’d taught her nothing about freedom, had kept her bound to him through fear. He’d wanted to keep her a prisoner forever, using her until she was all used up. That wasn’t love.

  She heard a car approaching in the distance, and every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation. As the car noise grew louder, Nick stuck his head out the kitchen door and gave her the thumbs-up sign, then disappeared once again.

  Lynn stood, heart thumping loudly in her chest. This was it. Her final showdown with Jonas. She went to the front window and looked outside as a black sedan pulled up and parked in the driveway. Jonas got out of the driver’s side.

  She saw him look around, obviously making sure there was no reason for concern. She stepped to the door and opened it to make sure he could see her.

  “Uncle Jonas,” she said. She hated even calling him Uncle but knew it was important that she act as if nothing had changed between them. If he sensed anything wrong he’d never come inside, and their plan might fall apart.

  He hurried toward the door. “Lynn, thank God.” She stepped aside so he could enter the living room. She’d expected Nick’s men to move in immediately, but everyone stayed in their hiding places as Jonas hugged her, then stepped back from her.

  “It’s so good to see you, baby. I was worried sick when I heard that you’d been arrested.”

  “It was awful.” She forced a shudder.

  “It’s all over now,” he replied. “Within hours we’ll be safe. Do you have the urn?”

  “It’s in the bedroom, but before I get it for you I need to know what’s going on. Where are we going, Uncle Jonas?”

  “So you’re coming with me?”

  She hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Last night I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe I could stay here in the States, but I realize now I can’t. I’m a fugitive from justice,” she said. “I can’t stay here. I sure don’t want to go to prison.”

  “What did you do to my bank accounts, Lynn?”

  “I changed the passwords,” she said truthfully. “I didn’t want you to leave without me.”

  “I wouldn’t have left without you unless it was absolutely necessary,” he replied. “Just because things got screwed up here doesn’t mean we can’t continue our work someplace else.”

  Where were Nick and his men? “I’d like that,” she said. “And don’t worry, I know the new passwords. The accounts are safe.”

  “Then get the artifacts and let’s get out of here,” Jonas said. “We’ve got the jet waiting for us. We can be in Puerto Isla by nightfall.”

  “I don’t think so.” Nick stepped into the room from the kitchen, gun in his hand and pointed toward Jonas. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “What’s this?” Jonas looked from Lynn to Nick, then before she could guess his intent Jonas grabbed her by the hair and pulled her against his chest. She felt the cold steel of a gun barrel at her temple.

  Lynn’s heart crashed against her rib cage as Nick cursed. “Let her go, Jonas,” he said, his features taut. “You don’t want to hurt Lynn.”

  “Of course I don’t want to hurt Lynn,” Jonas agreed, his voice smooth as silk. “
But I will if necessary. Sorry, baby, but there’s no way I’m going to prison. Now, put your gun down, Nick, or I’ll shoot her in the head.”

  Nick’s features were tortured, but he bent down and placed his gun on the floor in front of him.

  Jonas backed up toward the door as the other three agents stepped into the room from the hallway.

  “Hold your fire,” Nick exclaimed. “Dammit Jonas, it’s over. Let her go.”

  “You aren’t locking me up,” he said and tightened his hold around Lynn. “Tell your men to drop their weapons. If you have men outside, you might want to tell them that with my last breath I’ll pull this trigger. You’ll get me, but she’ll be dead. Can you live with that?”

  Nick glanced at one of the other men. “Go tell them to hold their fire. Hold their fire, dammit.” The agent ran toward the back of the house while the others placed their guns on the floor.

  As Jonas half dragged, half carried Lynn out the front door, she felt as if she’d fallen into the middle of a nightmare. The shock of the realization that Jonas would kill her to save himself had her numb.

  She hadn’t realized until this moment that a small part of her had clung to the belief that Jonas loved her just a little.

  They reached the porch, and still the barrel of his gun drilled into her temple, telling her exactly the extent of his love. He would gladly sacrifice her life to save his own. He would shoot her before he’d allow himself to be taken into custody.

  “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Nick yelled as he followed them onto the porch.

  As Jonas yanked her toward the car, she knew that if he managed to get her inside, then Jonas would get away and the odds of Lynn surviving were minimal.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Jonas said. “But you shouldn’t have done this. You shouldn’t have set me up like this.” He opened the driver’s-side door, and as he did, Lynn summoned all the strength she’d ever known.