Fighting For Olivia

by Zoë Normandie

  With her back to Jake, the woman, her hair and frame modestly draped in dark-grey fabric, quickly slid a note along the counter. It was such a delicate movement—a flick of the wrist—that Jake barely noticed it. The immigration agent behind the counter picked up the note within a split second, glanced and it, and looked up, disturbed. Frazzled. Nervous.

  Jake narrowed his eyes, scanning.

  Something was fucking wrong.

  The agent pushed back from her desk and disappeared behind the walls of the embassy.

  As Jake prowled closer, trying to catch a scent of what the fuck was happening, the European man’s shoulders flexed tighter. He looked ready to rip Jake’s face off.

  Jake found his way to the garbage bin to dispose of his coffee cup, but he positioned himself between the security door and the woman. The woman was watching the security door to the inside of the embassy with the same expression Jake wore when he’d first jumped out of the back of a plane. Her bright brown eyes were frightened and uncertain. And Jake realized that he knew her from somewhere. He’d never forget a face like hers. It was stunning. But where did he know her from? Her soft, heart-shaped face, softly tanned skin, and sultry eyes wouldn’t be easily forgotten. Never mind those pert red lips.

  Her hands, still tightly clenched on the embassy counter, whitened. Jake took a step toward her.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice sounding foreign to himself. He was clearly out of practice with the whole human-relations thing.

  Before he could say anything more, the European man stepped forth. “Move on,” he growled darkly, with a heavy French accent.

  Jake’s eyebrow cocked, and he decided that after that display of male aggression, he absolutely wasn’t going to fucking move on.

  He dismissed the man and looked directly at the beauty in front of him. “Are you okay?”

  She took a few steps toward him, and her mouth opened to form words, but before she could get them out, the big metal security door behind Jake clicked open. He turned in slow motion to see the embassy agent motioning the woman forward.

  “Come this way.” The employee spoke in urgent tones.

  Jake’s brain was trying desperately to fire on all cylinders—to remember her, to place her—and failing.

  Having spotted her moment, the woman in grey walked past Jake. She looked like she was doing everything in her power to still her movements and keep herself calm, but Jake would bet anything she wished she could break into an Olympic sprint.

  “Back off,” said the French voice from the side. When Jake looked back, he saw a man ready to fight.

  As the woman passed through the door into the secure internal area of the embassy, Jake spied Charles, also standing in the secure interior. So Jake looked back, shot the European man a wink, and sifted right on through, casually following in the woman’s wake. He heard the European man run up to the door with a growl, but the heavy security door clicked firmly shut between them.

  Inside the secure area of the embassy, locked away from the public, the marble floors shone so brightly you could brush your teeth in them. As Jake moved down the hallway, keeping an eye on the woman in grey up ahead, he observed marines analyzing security footage in their side offices, and regular federal employees performing their end-of-day rituals.

  In hushed whispers, the embassy agent ushered the woman down the corridor. They moved quickly and with purpose.

  No one had given Jake a second look as he’d slipped through the door—he was a regular contractor there, after all. But it was funny, Jake thought, appreciating the crowded halls, that there seemed to be a higher-than-average security contingent working today.

  Jake nodded to Charles as he approached. “What is going on here?”

  “This, my friend, is a story that you are not going to believe.” Charles spoke in his casual French way, crossing his muscled arms across his chest.

  French SAS turned French intelligence upon retirement from combat, Charles’ heavily inked arms paid tribute to a time when France fought more than just terrorism. An old-school parachute marine, Charles ran his private security contracting business high and tight. His connections were second to none.

  “Try me,” Jake replied, leaning against the marble pillar behind him, crossing his own jacked and inked-up arms. “I’ll believe any of your crap, you know that.”

  Charles let out a husky chuckle. “Be nice, my friend,” he joked in return, toying with his tongue. “What do you think of her?”

  Jake raised an eyebrow. Charles only ever had one thing on his mind.

  “Fuckable,” Jake said sardonically. “But not wife material.”

  “Like anyone would fucking marry you,” Charles jeered, stabbing Jake in the ribs.

  Jake threw him a look of warning for no other reason than because he didn’t like to lose.

  Charles stifled a laugh with his hand, trying not to ruin the calm of the hall, and Jake’s mouth widened into a passable smile. The feeling was strange on his lips.

  “You missed an interesting show in that lobby,” Jake continued. “A woman fleeing for her life? With a bodyguard in tow? A prison guard? I don’t know yet.”

  Charles nodded, and the two men calmly assessed the pair of women nearing the end of the hall, deep in hurried conversation. A group of suited individuals met them at the end of the corridor, and the conversation changed to a debate in swift, concerned tones.

  Jake clicked his tongue softly, shaking his head. It was all coming together.

  “You begged me to meet here,” Jake pointed out. “The embassy. Not the pub.”

  “I didn’t beg.”

  “You said, come work one last contract. That’s what you said.” Jake’s arms tightened across his chest. “You said it would be a walk in the park.”

  “I didn’t fucking beg.” Charles gritted his teeth.

  “I told you I was heading down stateside. Ryder’s back from the Sahel. It was a bad tour. He’s hurt.” Jake’s voice trailed off as he thought about his best friend down in Virginia. His best friend who needed him.

  Jake knew that feeling. He knew what it was like to come home roughed up—physically and mentally.

  If he weren’t so disciplined, Jake would have jumped out of his skin when several loud bangs sounded from the embassy lobby. For thirty seconds, Jake felt lifted from his body and transported back to Iraq. He heard RPGs volleying in the distance. He felt sand and wind whipping across his face, and he saw the lonely vista of war-torn Mosul on the horizon. He wasn’t there anymore, but he wasn’t anywhere.

  Coming to, Jake blinked rapidly before realizing he was in Canada, at the American embassy. Gasps and murmurs echoed throughout the area, and marines flowed out of their offices and toward the lobby security door to investigate the loud noises.

  “What the hell was that?” Jake growled at Charles, turning swiftly toward the threat.

  “Not gunfire, not explosives,” Charles answered quickly, concerned. He blocked Jake’s advancement, stilling him in place.

  Not RPGs.

  “This way.” Charles turned toward the group in the corridor, which was beginning to funnel through an open doorway.

  Jake followed, feeling more awake than he’d been since arriving in Canada. The first touch of danger he’d felt in an entire year lifted the fog of hangover, and he found clarity in his suddenly renewed focus. Something always kicked in when he felt a threat. Then he operated on instinct, smelling blood in the water, emerging from hibernation, and exposing the hungry predator within. Once a warrior, always one. Some skills don’t get unlearned, even after being out for a year.

  And that’s why Jake found himself working on contracts with Charles. So many organizations needed ex-SEAL skills set to get things done right—a situation that worked for Jake, since he had no other employable skills. Kill counts and choke holds weren’t great interview fodder. He’d learned that the hard way. The manager at Best Buy would never be the same.

  Plus, all the contracts he’d wor
ked for Charles were laughably easy nonsense—nothing real, nothing even remotely dangerous.

  Jake followed Charles into a large conference room where others were congregating. ‘United States of America’ was embossed in gold on the wall behind a long board table. Jake recognized group of US federal employees from different outfits standing before the table. No one chose to sit. Everyone in the room looked panicked except, of course, the two retired Special Forces guys who had just joined the edges of the group.

  As if sensing him, the woman in grey lifted her gaze slowly, and Jake felt everything stop. The air grew thick in his lungs. He credited his cool nerves and years of training for not betraying his reaction to her: a profound, undeniable attraction. In the blink of an eye, Jake liked everything he saw, and he felt the intensity dripping off of her. Intensity in the way she locked eyes with him, in the way her lips parted just slightly, in the way and her body turned toward him.

  Taking a step back as if the distance would help, he couldn’t rip his eyes away. And the feeling seemed mutual because those saddened eyes blinked right back at him—assessing, processing. Suddenly, no one else was in the room except her. Jake didn’t hear the prattling debates of the embassy agents or Charles’s annoying French accent. He stopped hearing anything but his own heartbeat in his throat.

  Relenting to his fate, Jake held her gaze. She didn’t look away. Her face remained expressionless except for a hint of despondency. Her long, glossy black hair snuck out from the scarf that she wore loosely over her hair, and it contrasted stunningly with the light glow of her skin. Skin he imagined was as sweet as it was soft.

  And then it hit him.

  Of course he had recognized her. He was surprised it took him that long to put two and two together. He had seen pictures in intelligence briefings of her family and heard many legendary things about her, but he had never once seen her in person. Not in all the tours he had in the Gulf. Not in any of the trips he made to the Emirati of Yoman—a small, incredibly wealthy country beyond the southern tip of Yemen. Almost no one had seen her, in fact.

  She was the Princess Aisha of Yoman.

  Known to be a prisoner in her own kingdom.

  Held in captivity by her extremely wealthy and powerful father, the sheikh of Yoman.

  But she was a prisoner no more, Jake realized. No doubt she was not supposed to be here. Her father was off meeting with the Canadian prime minister and other world leaders for the G20. And here she was, all alone, surrounded by federal agents, in the middle of the American embassy in Ottawa. Jake saw fear in her eyes, but also courage.

  It brought him back to those noises in the lobby. Someone was trying to get to her, and they were going to break the goddamn doors down: an impossible feat for any man, but he didn’t want to tempt fate. And who the fuck was that French expat with her?

  “I’m defecting. I’m leaving him.” The princess broke her silence and broke her gaze with Jake. She spoke to no one in particular, wringing her hands.

  A predator circling his prey, Jake observed her with rapt interest. It wasn’t just because she was insanely beautiful, he argued to himself, or because she was in distress.

  Why, then? he asked himself. Why, indeed.

  Jake recognized an executive in a navy suit as Kate Vukasovic, the CIA’s station chief for Yoman. She put her hand on the princess’s arm. “Sheikha, I gave you my word. Our agreement still stands.”

  An agreement? Things were getting interesting.

  “She can’t stay here,” Charles grumbled, his grey hair glistening under the pot lights. “Kate, I don’t know what she’s got on the sheikh, but he is going to tear this embassy down to get to her.” Several officials in the room nodded along with him.

  “I will tell you anything you want to hear,” the princess pleaded to the suited officials. “Please let me stay.”

  But she jumped when the sound of shooting ricocheted through the public lobby and echoed up the hallway toward their conference room. The noises threatened to bring Jake back to Iraq again, back to a dark time in his deployment, but he willed the shift away, even though he could still taste the sand in his mouth.

  “We need her. And we need to keep her safe.” Kate turned to Jake. “That’s where you come in.”

  The princess looked back and forth between the officials and Jake. He wondered what was running through her mind, especially when she looked at him.

  Kate stepped forward, putting her arm in front of the princess protectively. Jake knew her from the Gulf, and knew what she was capable of—the CIA station chief was certainly an experienced powerhouse. But to shelter a princess defecting from her controlling and powerful father? That was more than ambitious. Even for the CIA.

  It was a fucking death sentence.

  “Let’s get her out of here. Now.” Charles was motioning toward the alarms that had started going off in the embassy’s interior.

  “Let’s?” Jake challenged.

  Charles looked over at him presumptively, raising his eyebrow. “We need to do something.”

  “Is that the royal we?” Jake tone was dark.

  An awkward silence followed, and Jake realized that several pairs of eyes were looking at him, waiting for him to take the ball and run with it. Fuck that.

  Despite the rising fury in his chest, Jake made his face emotionless, unwilling to show his cards. Unwilling to get involved. His response to the noises validated everything his doc had been telling him: if he put himself in the line of fire before he was ready, he’d risk undoing all he’d been working toward. This was exactly the type of high-octane shit doc wanted him to stay away from.

  One of the suited men put his hand to his ear, listening through his earpiece. He motioned to Kate. “Ma’am, the lobby is under attack. And more armor-plated vehicles are showing up outside. Security can’t hold them much longer without calling in the local police.”

  Kate’s features became sharp, commanding. “We can’t have the local police getting involved and making this an international problem,” she ordered the group. “They will find a way to get bureaucrats in the way. The police will call the prime minister’s office, and you know he won’t have the backbone to disobey pressure from the sheikh and a major trading partner. He will fold to economic interests.”

  Charles nodded his head quickly in agreement. “This would be a calamity during the goddamn G20. We’ve got to keep this quiet and move her.”

  Jake scoffed. Of course Kate didn’t want her asset getting ripped up in an international political pretzel. Make no mistake, the princess was an asset—a great fucking asset if she was willing to snitch on her father. And Jake had worked with the CIA long enough to know how selfish they could be. They didn’t do anything that didn’t benefit them directly.

  Turning to Jake, Charles pressed, “Are you busy this afternoon?”

  “Yes,” Jake replied. He crossed his arms, sending a whole lot of fuck-off energy toward the Frenchman.

  Charles gave him the most skeptical look possible, but said nothing. Few people had the balls to do that.

  It didn’t matter, though—guilt was rising in Jake’s throat. It was pretty damn clear what Charles was getting at. They got paid to transport people like the princess. Vulnerable people. People who needed help. Hell, Jake had just transported a flipped agent for Kate two weeks ago.

  Kate nodded solemnly. “You are our best.”

  “Do we have cover? Resources?” Jake snapped at Kate, the constant sensory triggers making his ire rise. “What exactly were you planning here?”

  Kate’s mouth parted in shock at his challenge. Contractors didn’t usually question high-ranking CIA officials.

  Jake gritted his teeth, feeling his eyes narrow on the tall blonde’s tired face. She was overworked but insanely dedicated, and he’d never known her to do anything other than piss excellence. It was fucking odd that she didn’t have the whole thing tied up in a neat bow.

  “She’s arrived… earlier than expected,” Kate explained
slowly, telling Jake everything he needed to know. It was a flaming wreckage of shit. Kate hadn’t even known the princess was going to show up that day.

  “Am I supposed to send her away?” she continued.

  Fuck.

  “Then what the fuck do you expect me to do?” Jake snarled back, his frustration rising.

  “Drive her. Protect her,” Kate said, pushing harder. “You’re the ex-operator—you’ve got the necessary skills for this… situation.”

  The insinuation was clear: there was a serious fucking danger, and Kate needed someone who knew what they were doing. They wanted him to be the fucking hero. Well, that was one thing Jake couldn’t help them with. He wasn’t a hero. He was a bad dude. He was an asshole. He was a washed-up ex-SEAL with nightmares and tics.

  “He can’t be allowed to find me,” the princess said desperately, focusing her pleas on Jake. “He will kill me. Now that he knows I’ve run away, I’m not loyal anymore.”

  Shouting rose in the room as desperate officials tried to make plans to move her, all while Jake tried to regain focus and shake the pain away. He couldn’t help her. He wouldn’t. He just… She’d be better off without him.

  The princess’s eyes were wide and hopeful, but with each passing moment, Jake detected more panic and anxiety in her face. She pleaded silently with Jake, and all he wanted to do was tell her that he would help her. Save her. Make it all better.

  Was that a glint of a tear in her eye? Jake averted his gaze, seeing flashes of every vulnerable child that he’d lost in Mosul. He’d tried to help them, and failed. He couldn’t fail her too.

  But he couldn’t sit back and watch her fail alone, either.

  “You. Come with me,” Jake spat out, pointing at her.

  A hush fell over the room.

  Despite his brash demeanor, her heavily lashed eyes relaxed in gratitude and relief. Jake didn’t miss the breath she released. He felt something in his own chest release too.

  “Perfect.” Charles clapped his hands together and nodded toward Kate as shouting and questions engulfed the room again.

  Regretful, Jake avoided locking eyes with the princess again, but he couldn’t ignore the intensity of her gaze in his peripheral vision, and prickles spread on the back of his neck.