Sizzle

by Liliana Hart

  For six of those eight weeks Shane had been in a coma, every day a new roll of the dice. The swelling around the brain had worried the doctors more than anything, and they’d warned Shane’s family that his mind might never be the same.

  Archer had known Shane a few years now, and he couldn’t imagine what the former Navy SEAL Commander was going through. Shane was meant for active duty, and according to Shane’s older brother Declan—and Archer’s boss—Shane wasn’t fighting very hard to live.

  The MacKenzie family had been taking turns at the hospital, making sure there was always a familiar face for Shane to see. Declan had set up a makeshift office in the little lounge area attached to Shane’s room, and more often than not, there were other MacKenzies in and out as well. The security company was a family business after all, and Declan was the heart of it. Anyone who knew anything about MacKenzies understood that they always stood together, through the good times and the bad. And this definitely constituted as bad.

  Dec had called while Archer had been lounging on a beach in Hawaii with his daughter, Stella. She’d just turned sixteen and was growing up before his eyes, and he’d wanted to give them both a memorable vacation before she started back to school the following week. He wouldn’t have too many more years to enjoy her all to himself. She’d grown into a beautiful young woman, but she lived with her mother—his ex-wife—in Northern California, and between his job and her school schedule, their time together was much too infrequent.

  The door that led into Shane MacKenzie’s suite of rooms was open, but Archer knocked before he stepped inside. Declan MacKenzie sat behind a desk that had been set up in front of the group of windows that looked out on the parking lot. He commanded it as if hospitals were his normal place of business—his laptop open and the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbows as he talked softly into his cell phone.

  The MacKenzies were all cut from the same cloth. When you saw the five siblings together, there was no doubt they were related. They all had hair as black as pitch and an arresting combination of physical features that made you look twice in their direction. Dec’s eyes were gray as fog and one didn’t have to look at them long to know that he wasn’t a man to be messed with. The scar that ran along his jawline only added to the sense of danger.

  Declan nodded at Archer when he came in the room and pointed to one of the chairs in front of the desk. Dec looked like a man who’d had too little sleep and too much worry.

  It had been Declan’s fiancé, Sophia, who Shane had been protecting when the missile had exploded. She was safe now, and the man who’d tried to kill her was dead, but Shane’s future was still very much in the air.

  Dec hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair with a sigh, rubbing his hand over his face.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I’m sorry to cut your vacation short.”

  Archer settled back in his own chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. “I figured if you were calling me back from vacation, then it was probably important.”

  “How’s Stella?”

  “Pissed you cut her Hawaiian vacation short.” Archer grinned at Dec. “She says you can make it up to her later though. She suggested you give me a raise so I can buy her the car she’s been begging for.”

  Declan snorted out a laugh. “Christ, I can’t believe she’s driving. Seems like yesterday she was asking for piggyback rides.”

  “That’s what happens when you get old. Don’t worry, it won’t be too long before you have your own kids asking for piggyback rides.”

  The look on Declan’s face was content, despite the stress of the last weeks. He’d finally ended up with the woman he’d loved for years, and Archer was happy for his friend. Declan wasn’t just his boss. Archer had worked many a black ops mission with Declan before they’d both decided to get out of the game. It had been a no brainer to follow Declan when he’d opened his own security company.

  “How’s Shane?” Archer looked to the connecting doorway that led to Shane’s hospital room. The beep of monitors was soft and he could hear the low hum of the television in the background.

  Dec’s face said it all—the worry and anguish were plain to see. “His body is healing. The doctor said the area where they amputated is healing well. They were able to save the knee, which will be helpful when he’s ready to wear a prosthetic. His other leg has had two surgeries already and pins were put in, but everything is looking fine there. They don’t think he’ll have to have any more surgeries on that leg, just a couple of skin grafts. The ribs are still giving him a little trouble, but the doctor said that was to be expected since they were cracked. His last brain scan was clear.”

  “But?”

  Dec blew out a long breath. “He still isn’t speaking. To any of us. He’s shut himself off, just staring at the T.V. or the wall. My mother is in there with him now. She reads to him and talks to him. We all do. But he never responds. He won’t talk to the trauma psychologist that keeps coming by or the doctors who monitor his progress.”

  “It’s understandable, Dec. He’s had his whole world taken from him. Commanding that team was his life. And he’ll never lead them again.”

  “I know. And he’s so fucking angry I just keep waiting for him to blow. You can’t see it by looking at him, but I know my brother. His eyes are dead. I’ve seen men who had eyes like that, and nothing good came from it. And that terrifies me. His rage is festering beneath the surface, and until he lets it loose he’ll never start to heal. At least on an emotional level. I don’t know what to do for him.”

  For the first time Archer could recall, Declan looked helpless, and he had no idea what to do for his friend to make it better.

  “You know I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  Dec pulled a file from beneath the massive stack of papers on his desk and tossed it to Archer. “Yeah, well, that’s why I called you back early. I need to stay close by for now and I think you and I are the only two people suited to this job.”

  Meaning that the job required black ops training. Archer raised an eyebrow at that. “I’m listening.”

  “What do you know about Oblivion?”

  “Just whispers really. Only that it exists. It’s an off the books spook organization. The areas they work are murky at best and always dangerous. Even my security clearance didn’t allow for much more information than that.”

  Dec nodded as if that’s what he expected. “Three years ago, team members of Oblivion were contracted to find and terminate Proteus.”

  Archer let out a low whistle between his teeth and felt his adrenaline surge. He and Dec had both had run-ins with the terrorist known as Proteus in the past. They’d never won against him.

  “Oblivion was able to link Proteus to a man named Francois Renard. Renard was a broker, and the one Proteus most often used. Somehow Proteus found out about the link and had Renard taken and held in an abandoned military base in France.”

  “A leak on the inside?”

  “Suspected, but never proven. Oblivion knew Renard had been taken and had a team sent out to observe and assess whether an extraction was possible. It turns out Proteus was always a step ahead of the ops team. He’d planned that the team would try to rescue Renard and booby-trapped the whole place with explosives.

  “It was run as a standard op. The scouts went in first, taking out guards and clearing the areas. Two agents were assigned to go in specifically for Renard and bring him out. Agents Jonah Salt and Audrey Sharpe.”

  “Oh, damn.” Archer felt his blood run cold. Bits and pieces of what had happened on that mission had trickled to different parts of the agency. It was impossible to keep everything quiet. But they’d done a pretty good job of it. Whatever happened in France had been sealed and buried deep in the CIA vaults.

  “Making a long story short, the base was blown to shit and so were most of the agents inside. A couple made it out with critical wounds. Salt and Sharpe had barely reached the perimeter when the blast went off, no doubt a timing
miscalculation on Proteus’s part or we’d have found their body parts along with the other agents. They made it out and managed to get back to their safe point to wait for extraction.”

  “I remember hearing about parts of this before they swept it under the rug.” You couldn’t belong to the agency without knowing who Jonah Salt was.

  “Yeah. The two of them missed their meet for extraction, so undercover agents were dispatched to check out the scene and see what had gone wrong. They found Sharpe’s body. She’d been shot three times in the chest and was hanging on by a thread when the team got there. The room had been ransacked and Salt was nowhere to be found. Sharpe died twice on the table during surgery.”

  “But she’s alive?”

  “She’s alive. They never found Salt’s body. His car went over the side of a cliff and there wasn’t anything left to find. They pulled parts of the wreckage up, but there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence to show tampering. There was, however, evidence of another car being involved, an extra pair of skid marks along with Salt’s that went to the edge of the cliff. Someone knew who they were and hired a hit on both of them.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t call me in to search for Proteus. I’m good, boss, but I think that’s a job for more than one man.”

  “Hell, I’d trust you to take Proteus out before any of those new recruits they’ve replaced us with. Jesus, they’re infants.”

  Archer grinned. It felt like they’d barely been older than that when they started.

  “But no. That’s not your assignment. I want you to bring in Audrey Sharpe.”

  Archer raised a brow in confusion. “Bring her in for what? Isn’t she the agency’s problem?”

  “She resigned her position with the agency while she was still in the hospital recovering. And then as soon as she was able, she disappeared. Oblivion has been looking for her, but not with much enthusiasm. They never got to fully debrief her. They figured she was PTSD and it was best to let her go.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think she’s as capable as ever. Her background is impressive. She was Mossad before she was recruited by the agency. Kidon.”

  “Jesus. And they just let her go?”

  “She’d been shot three times and left for dead. And that’s after she’d already survived being tortured by the Syrians some years before. They thought she’d be ineffective.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “No. I want her for MacKenzie Security. We need another agent and she’s more than qualified. And Oblivion might not be worried about what she knows, but she knows something. I’ve been following her pattern. She’s hunting. Trying to stay off the grid as much as possible.”

  Declan smiled when he said it and Archer let out a short laugh. Dec could find anyone, anywhere. It didn’t matter how off the grid they were.

  “All of the information is in the file. You’ll pick up her trail. Convince her to come back with you.”

  “And what about this personal mission she seems to be on?”

  “Help her if need be. Or see if she’ll abandon it altogether. We need her, and the sooner the better. I’m taking myself out of the field. The idea of being away from Sophia and a warm bed isn’t all that appealing. And the business has reached the point where I do more good behind a desk than in front of it.”

  Archer ignored the pang of envy he felt whenever he looked at Declan. They’d shared similar lives and worked for the same organizations, but Archer didn’t feel the same contentment that his friend did. His marriage had failed—because his wife couldn’t handle not knowing about the secret missions and whether he’d come back alive—and he’d been young and arrogant enough to not bother trying to convince her that what they had was worth fighting and working for.

  Now his daughter was being raised by another man. Granted, his ex-wife’s husband seemed like a good guy and he was good to Stella, but Archer was jealous that the other man was the one getting to see his daughter grow into a woman.

  But he’d blown his chance. Which was why Declan was sending him on this mission and not one of the other agents who had a family. He’d bring Audrey Sharpe back with him and then he’d go on the next mission, and then the next after that. And he wouldn’t think about being content. He’d think about surviving.

  “I’ll bring her in for you,” Archer finally said, grabbing the file and opening it. And then he felt the air whoosh out of his lungs and his heart pump faster. The photograph was taken from her CIA file, but there was nothing ordinary about the woman in it. Her face was clear of cosmetics or any enhancements, and still he had trouble believing what he was seeing.

  Audrey Sharpe was the most breathtaking woman he’d ever laid eyes on. In the photo, dark hair was pulled back from an oval face. Her cheekbones were high, her chin slightly pointed, and her nose small and straight. Dark brows winged over almond shaped eyes the color of melted chocolate, and he felt his body stir as he scrutinized the photo and looked for flaws. There weren’t any that he could see. Her lips were full and ripe and he wondered what they’d feel like against his skin. His cock spiked to full attention and his balls drew tight against his body, and he repositioned the file in his lap so he was covered.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said, looking at Declan’s amused grin. “No fucking way was this woman Mossad or a member of Oblivion. She’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Don’t be deceived by her looks. Mossad has a long history of recruiting beautiful and deadly women for just that purpose. I’d pit her skills against yours and mine any day.”

  “I have a feeling I’m going to hate this assignment.” He’d never reacted to a woman, much less a photograph, like he had when looking at Audrey Sharpe. He couldn’t imagine what the impact would be when he saw her up close and in person.

  Archer turned the photo facedown, hoping to get the image of her out of his head, but there was another behind it. It took several seconds for him to comprehend what he was seeing.

  “Jesus Christ.” Where her face was a study in sheer beauty, her back was gruesome in its display of cruelty. Thick white scars marred almost every inch of skin where she’d obviously been flogged. Scars on top of scars. And along her ribs the skin was puckered where it had been burned.

  “From her time with the Syrians,” Declan explained. “She didn’t talk, so the torture went on for almost seventy-two hours before U.S. agents were able to extract her.”

  Cold fury slid through Archer at the thought of what she’d endured. But he turned to the next photograph, wanting—no needing—to see it all. The next photograph showed the front of her torso. The burn scars extended to the front of her ribs and just beneath her breasts, though her breasts remained untouched and smooth, making the scars seem all the more monstrous.

  This photograph must have been the most recent, because three white bandages were placed over the wounds from where she’d been shot. It was a miracle the one in her upper chest hadn’t pierced her heart.

  Archer nodded and looked at Declan. “This much injury can damage the mind as well as the body.”

  Declan looked beyond him to the room where his brother lay. “Sometimes it can. But there are special people in the world that are worth pulling out of the abyss. I believe she’ll be worth it.”

  “She’s not going to want to come with me. If you say she’s hunting, then she’s got an agenda and nothing will make her stray from that.”

  Dec’s lips twitched. “I guess that means you’ll be helping her. Call me if there’s trouble and I’ll spare a couple of extra men, but I think she’ll be more agreeable if it’s just you. We wouldn’t want to scare her off.”

  “A woman who’s been tortured and left for dead isn’t likely to scare easily.”

  Dec smiled again and the scar along his jaw tightened. “Just make sure you’re not the one with your tail tucked between your legs at the end of it. MacKenzie Security has a reputation to uphold.”

  Archer shot Dec the fing
er, making him laugh. “It takes more than one woman to have me running scared.”

  Declan waited until Archer was out the door before murmuring, “We’ll see, my friend. We’ll see.”

  ***

  Shane MacKenzie listened to the conversation his brother was having in the next room. Declan was wrong. There wasn’t rage inside of him. There was nothing—an emptiness that was so vast he couldn’t believe it didn’t reach up and swallow him whole.

  You had to be alive to feel anger. And as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t alive. His life had been the SEAL team he’d commanded. The men who’d become as close as his brothers. The men he’d have died for. What good was he now? Half a man and useless at that. And now his team had a new commander and they were back out of the country on a mission Shane would never know about. He’d been discharged. Honorably and with valor. But what fucking good did medals do when all he wanted was to get up and walk again—to lead again?

  Weakness invaded his body. He could barely move. Couldn’t even take a piss without someone there to help him. His mother sat in the corner, glancing at him occasionally with worry and helplessness on her face. He’d heard her crying when she’d thought he was asleep.

  He turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at her and stared at the opposite wall. The machines continued to beep, but he noticed the one that monitored his pulse was moving faster than normal. Maybe he was a little angry after all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  For three years, her sole purpose in life had been to track down Proteus. And kill him.

  She made no excuses for what she’d decided to do. She only knew the man known as Proteus had to be stopped. It was easier to think of him as Proteus and not Jonah Salt—former mentor and lover. And she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that revenge at what he’d done to her didn’t weigh in on her decision to take him out. But it was only part of the reason.