by Lora Leigh
She slid to the floor of the tub, pulling her knees to her chest, and lowered her head, the sobs tearing through her as she rocked herself.
My witch. Go síoraí. Love me, Sabella. Love me forever.
His voice drifted through her memories and the cries came harder. She loved. She loved until she couldn’t understand how she drew a breath, second by second, without his presence in her life. Without his touch, his kiss.
Six years. She sobbed at the thought, her head falling back to the shower wall as the water pounded around her. Hot as her tears. But neither eased the blistering guilt burning inside her. Her husband had been dead for six years, and still the vows they had shared held her, tormented her.
The tears left her hurting more, because the tears didn’t help. She could cry an ocean of them and Nathan wouldn’t suddenly be there, pulling her into his arms and easing the grief that sometimes seemed to eat her alive.
And now, the guilt.
She picked up the washcloth and soap and she washed again. She scrubbed until she felt raw, and still, another man’s touch was on her flesh, and still, she was swollen, aching for release.
“You left me, Nathan,” she finally sobbed into the steam gathering around her. “You promised, Nathan. You promised you would never leave me.”
He had sworn he would always hold her, always surround her. He wasn’t holding her. For over six years he hadn’t held her and still the pain could rip inside her, as though it had been yesterday. As though he had betrayed her and just not returned to her. As though he still breathed, and didn’t touch her.
And the tears poured, like rain, like sorrow. Like the need for the touch, the kiss, and the release from another man.
When no more tears could be shed, when the water grew cold and she knew she had to move, Sabella dragged herself from the floor of the shower. She wrapped a towel around her and stepped onto the thick fluffy rug that covered the floor.
She moved to the mirror and looked into it. She saw then why Rick had stared so hard at her face. The reddened rasp on her skin from Noah’s beard. There was the faintest hint of blue where he had bit her. The thought of that bite sent a surge of sensation pouring into her womb, into her sex. She licked her swollen lips and stared at her neck and her knees weakened. She carried his marks down her neck to her breasts. Faintly red, little brands from his touch, his kiss, his nips.
She hadn’t wanted gentle, she had wanted hard. She had wanted to loosen the dark, furious need she hadn’t even known had been building inside her. She had wanted it free, and he had freed it.
It was more than obvious she was canceling her date with Duncan tonight. There was no way she could face him like this. No way she could let him see this. And it was even more obvious that she wouldn’t be seeing him again.
Shaking her head, she dried her hair, dropped the towels to the floor, and tugged on her robe before going back downstairs and making the call to Duncan.
He wasn’t pleased. It was short notice, and he was irritated with that. Duncan liked to stay on schedule, and she had just messed up his little schedule. When she hung up the phone she sighed wearily at the thought of the frustration in his voice. She would have to break things off soon. Companionship was no reason to keep him hanging on. And companionship wasn’t enough anymore. She had tasted hunger again, and she wanted more.
She craved more.
Sabella wandered around the dimly lit house, finally finding herself in the living room, in front of the large window, where the long table held her and Nathan’s wedding photos.
How handsome he had been. She picked up the picture of them together. Her in the long white gown he had bought for her. Her head was against his chest, his dress uniform stiffly starched beneath her cheek. His hands gripped her bare shoulders and he stared down at her as though he had found something in her that he had never found anywhere else.
She had been his Bella. His Southern Bella he used to call her because of that Southern drawl she had never even tried to get rid of.
His eyes had been brilliant. So blue. So filled with life. She touched those eyes through the glass, slid her thumb down his face, then lifted her gaze to the window.
The throttled purr of the Harley could be heard from the garage that sat within sight of the house. She watched as the single light pierced the darkness and the motorcycle headed to the main road.
Noah was just a shadow, as was the cycle as it gained in power and disappeared from view. She watched the taillights until she couldn’t see them any longer then looked down at Nathan’s smiling face once again.
A tear splashed on the glass covering his face.
“You left me,” she whispered again. “What am I supposed to do, Nathan? Tell me.” Her breathing hitched as her stomach cramped with the pain of loss. “Tell me, what am I supposed to do now?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Noah pulled the Harley into the hidden bay that housed the individual vehicles of the Elite Ops Unit, turned off the ignition and pulled in a hard, deep breath. Damn, he hadn’t wanted to leave. He’d wanted to stomp straight up the hill to that house and spend the night sparring with the wife who made him hotter than a fire in winter and mesmerized him now, more than she had six years ago. He shook his head. Getting to know her again, seeing all the things she had hidden from him when they were married, only reinforced the fear that he had made the mistake of his life when he believed Sabella couldn’t handle the horror of what had happened to him.
They were waiting on him, and he was late. Late because he’d stomped around that damned apartment, swearing he could feel Sabella. Sworn, he would have sworn it on a stack of Bibles that he heard her whisper his name. But it wouldn’t have been the first time. It had happened too often over the past years.
Nineteen brutal months of hell with Fuentes. He swore at times that his Sabella was with him. Wiping his brow, her eyes confused, her voice agonized as she begged him to let her help him. Then he would touch her, and he would see his own hands, bloodied from his attempts to escape or the guards he tried to kill. And she would cry. In those ragged nightmares she always cried.
He tightened his jaw at the memory of that as he stepped into the briefing room and closed the door behind him.
“ ’Bout time.” Jordan stood from his chair and darkened the glass with a flip of a switch as Noah took his chair. “We have intel on the names we’ve pulled in over the past week of suspected BCM members.”
Jordan wasted his time asking why he was late.
“We have Mike Conrad, manager of the town’s largest bank, also the bank that we’ve managed to identify as possibly a central location for the laundering of large funds to support the BCM.”
Mike was on the LCD screen hanging on the wall.
“I knew him,” Noah said quietly. “Mike would fit the paramilitary profile. Even when I lived here, Mike was very vocal about immigration laws and the nation’s inability to pass the right ones, or to enforce the ones they have. He was a proponent of stricter laws and militias to enforce them.”
“And the two of you were friends?” Micah asked curiously.
Noah shrugged. “We grew up together. I didn’t have to agree with him to like the man he was at the time. That was over six years ago. Evidently, he found a way to follow his vision.”
“They all do, mate,” John Vincent grunted, his rugged features concerned as they flipped open the files Tehya was passing out.
“As you read, you’ll see that two of the mechanics working at the Malone Garage, Timmy Dorian and Vince Steppton, are both suspected lower-level members of this militia.” Their pictures came on screen. “We’ve been tracking them,” Jordan continued. “They make frequent trips to Gaylen Patrick’s ranch as well as Mike Conrad’s home outside of town. We’ve also been tracking Conrad and his contacts.” Several pictures came up; one of them was Duncan Sykes.
“I tried to hack Conrad’s computer the other night.” Tehya stepped in at Jordan’s nod. “Spectacular work,” she sai
d, sighing. “Someone has attached a very advanced system to his connection. Sykes has the ability and the knowledge for such security. When I couldn’t get in without tripping his security I tried Patrick’s. We have the same setup there. We need someone on-site to upload the program I’ve written that will let me bypass the security entirely.”
“I can get that done.” Noah nodded. “I helped Mike build his house. He made an addition to the plans he bought that no one but the two of us knew about. A small escape tunnel and entrance into his study. He wouldn’t have changed it after my ‘death.’ He’d feel more secure than ever.”
“Good.” Jordan nodded before breathing out wearily. “We have a report of another hunt that took place in the past week as well. Border Patrol found the bodies last night.”
Those bodies were on the monitor now. A young man and woman, blank eyes, expressions twisted into lines of horror as they stared sightlessly from ravaged faces.
“A young Mexican family. Illegals slipping across the border, we believe.” The picture of the young couple was horrifying. The young woman had obviously been raped, tortured. Her husband had been sliced open in so many places he looked like a patchwork quilt. “The baby that the relatives claim the family had with them is missing. We have no pictures. Three months old, a birthmark on its left hip. That’s all we know.”
“We have reports these murders are taking place during illegal hunts,” Jordan stated. “Several couples, legal and illegal, that have gone missing between Dallas, Houston, and the surrounding area have turned up here, in Big Bend National Park, showing signs of flight, and of having fought their attackers. As you’ll recall from our last meeting, the Federal agents that were killed received a tip of a hunt taking place the night they disappeared.”
“Border Patrol involved?” Micah Sloane, the former Mossad agent, asked Jordan, his black eyes cool, calm. The Israeli was one of the deadliest men of the group. The training maneuvers he had taught the rest of them had only added to the strength of the unit overall.
“Not that we can substantiate. Various bodies have been found over the past two years by Border Patrol, Park Patrol, ranchers, hikers, and a few cowboys. Never in the same area twice. They spread them out,” Jordan informed him. “Do we have anything new to add?” He looked around at the others.
“I begin mechanics duties tomorrow.” Nikolai grinned as he leaned back in his chair. “It would seem Rory Malone has finally managed to get his coowner to agree to a trial period of work.”
Noah snorted at that. Rory had fought Sabella tooth and nail for it. That boy was more stubborn than Noah had suspected.
“I’ve stayed pretty much to the shadows,” Micah informed them. “There’s a lot of rumor. I put that in my report. A lot of talk, but nothing conclusive yet.”
“No shit, mate,” the Australian quipped. John Vincent could be a sarcastic bastard. “Those bars and hangouts I’ve made my way through are a waste of my friggin’ time. Nothing but a bunch of too curious little girls and too drunk cowboys. From what I’ve seen of the few I suspect myself, they meet, then leave to discuss whatever they have going.”
“Watch the accent and the attitude, John,” Jordan told him coolly. “Micah, stay in the shadows, see if you can’t follow some of those walking conversations. We need to determine who our main points of interest are and who are just lower-level glory soldiers.”
“Those hunts are professional,” Nikolai said. “Those aren’t glory soldiers. My guess would be those soldiers may know of them, but they aren’t high enough for involvement.”
“A lot of those glory soldiers as well as Duncan Sykes make a habit of showing up at the garage and finding time to talk to both Timmy and Vince, the BCM mechanics we have there,” Noah told them. “You’re blond and look American enough they might talk to you.”
Nikolai grunted at that.
“Have you made many contacts?” Jordan asked Nik.
The big Russian shook his head. “First name as Nik only. A few drinks, no heavy conversations with anyone. My American accent seems to be working well enough.”
But, Noah knew, Nikolai had had practice with that accent a long time before he came into Elite Ops.
“Nikolai, you’ll be going by Nikolas Steele, you’re a California native,” Jordan informed him before turning to Tehya. “Get his papers together. Do a family tree back to the frickin Mayflower. Let’s give them an impoverished blue blood son of America.”
Tehya grinned as she winked at Nik. “I’ll have it before you leave, Nicky.”
He grimaced at the playful nickname.
Jordan looked back at Noah sharply. “Are there any other issues at the garage?”
“None I didn’t anticipate.” He shrugged. “I intend to have Rory fire the mechanic Timmy just to shake things up some.”
The mechanic was ineffectual, and even worse, he didn’t know a wrench from jack. Why the hell Rory or Sabella had hired him Noah hadn’t figured out yet.
Jordan nodded at that. “Our mission parameters are simple. Identify, capture if possible. Contain if captured until they can be extracted by the bureau and taken care of. If all else fails, we eliminate. That’s a worst-case scenario only. We need information on this one, we need top-level names and organization leaders. This militia is spreading and we need it contained. To contain it, we need information. See if you can find a way in and get what we need. Let’s take care of it.”
The files were opened. Another two hours were spent going over scenarios and ideas. Jordan sat back, listened, and commented when he needed to. The group worked well together. Noah was confident this mission would proceed just as the others had in the previous years. Dangerous. Bloody.
They were trained to work alone until they had to work together. Trained to disassociate or come together as needed. In this case, disassociation would work best with the exception of Nik in the garage.
There was no doubt in Noah’s mind that someone was trying to sabotage Sabella and Rory’s business. Rory had admitted the previous night that before Sabella took over, vehicles were going out not quite finished. Sometimes dangerously so. She had taken to going over the finished repairs herself and checking for any anomalies before signing them out.
Noah’s neck itched whenever he thought of the problems she’d had with the garage. He couldn’t help it. It had been itching ever since Mike Conrad had shown up. Drunk, insulting, violent. He hadn’t seen Mike like that since they were teenagers, and the fact he had abused Sabella with it had shocked him.
But Sabella had never liked Mike. He should have trusted her instincts rather than the lifetime he had spent being pushed in Mike’s direction by his father.
The Conrads were friends of the Malones. Mike and Nathan were the same age, had been raised together. They had hunted together, fished together. Noah had always thought that they would raise their families together as well. He’d have to ask Rory if Mike’s father and Grant Malone were still friends.
“Tehya and Macey are running communications and electronics here at the bunker. I’ll be at the Malone ranch for a while today and part of tomorrow. I’m hoping I can get some information there. Keep your cell phones secured. Micah and John, you’ll stay on backup. Right now we have Durango team, except for Macey, in the park watching things there. They’re last resort only,” Jordan stated.
The Elite Operations Unit was specially designed and trained to run bare-bones. The fewer who knew who they were and what they were doing, the less likely the leaks. The better the chance they remained “dead.”
The lights came back on as the meeting drew to a close. Noah didn’t waste time. Sabella had claimed to have a date tonight, and he intended to make certain she got home without getting pawed by that bastard Duncan.
“Noah.” Jordan caught him as he was swinging his leg over the Harley, his fingers on the key, ready to turn it.
Noah watched his uncle approach, wondering, not for the first time, why Jordan had chosen him specifically for this unit.
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“I had a call today,” Jordan announced.
“Yeah?”
“Rick Grayson, the sheriff.”
Noah stared back at him.
“Grant gave him my number. He said there’s a stranger in town.” Jordan’s lips quirked. “Working at the garage. He said that stranger was manhandling Belle and he thought someone from the family should check him out.”
Noah twisted the key in the Harley slowly, never breaking eye contact with Jordan as he kicked it in neutral and eased the cycle back until he could turn around, kick it back into gear, and ease it from the parking bay into the little canyon that ran for over a mile in two directions.
Big Bend National Park was filled with canyons, gullies, cliffs, and mountains. He kept the headlight off; the brake lights were set in a switch that allowed him to ride, totally dark, as long as he needed to.
Once he reached the main road, he flipped the lights on and headed back to the garage. The house that sat on the rise above it was dark and shadowed. There were no lights, nothing to indicate life. But Sabella wasn’t sleeping. She was watching. He could feel her. And Duncan’s car wasn’t there, that meant Sykes had obviously not been asked in for a drink.
He parked the bike, swung off it, and stared up at the bedroom window. Their bedroom. Their window. She would still sleep in their bed, he knew. Did she still hug his pillow to her? Or had she laid it aside?
Shaking his head, he moved up the steps of his apartment, knowing even before he turned off the cycle who waited for him at the top.
“You’re already causing trouble,” Rory accused him as he stepped to the deck.
His brother shifted in the plastic chair that sat next door, rising and staring back at Noah with a scowl as he unlocked the door and stepped inside cautiously.
It was silent, empty. Just as it should have been. The cobweb-thin string was still stretched between the door frame and at the other door he caught the faintest hint of the piece of toothpick that still stuck from the door lock there.
