Elite Ops Complete Series

by Lora Leigh

  And those changes had had their consequences. Her brother had walked out of the hospital when he came with her mother and uncle to see the woman the doctors were claiming was Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington. Jared had sworn his sister would never deny her family to such an extent.

  Why had she done it? Changed so much of herself?

  “There are no answers.” Her mother’s voice cracked with emotion. “Desmond and I have tried to find the answers. All we can find is a woman that lived as though she wanted to die. As though she had lost everything precious to her. And yet we were right here.” A tear slipped down Angelica’s cheek then. “Was I so wrong to keep that from you? Was I wrong to hope you never remembered that you were trying to run away from us?”

  “That wasn’t it!” The words, the emotions, flew from her lips before she thought, before she could understand why.

  There was a memory there, for just a second. For just a fragile moment clarity had almost overtaken her, only to disappear once again.

  “Then what was it?” her mother cried out desperately. “Tell me, Lilly, why can’t I call you Victoria as I once did? Why do you wear leather clothes and boots that make you look like the tramp? Why the changes to your appearance and why the changes to yourself if you weren’t trying to deny the very people who loved you?” Her face twisted. “I nearly died when I thought I was burying my only daughter. Instead you were out raising hell and throwing away everything your father and I tried to provide for you. You left your family, Victoria, for a life that bordered on the criminal and a lifestyle that was little better than that of a terrorist.”

  Lilly stood still and silent, watching the emotions that tore through her mother as she felt something shut down inside her. The woman her mother was talking about wasn’t her. Something didn’t sound right, it didn’t feel right. Something was wrong with the scenario her mother was laying out.

  She hadn’t been a terrorist. She hadn’t been a criminal.

  She looked down at the clothes she wore and felt a shudder go through her.

  “I wouldn’t have turned my back on you,” she whispered as a tear slid down her cheek. “Not like that. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who I am or what I was doing, but I do know my family was everything to me.”

  Sure, her mother was difficult—to say the least. And yes, Lilly had often wanted to run away from all the expectations and rules piled on top of her, but she had never imagined turning her back on her family, pretending to be dead, going through reconstructive surgery, and taking up a life of crime—or something close to it—just to escape it.

  She had followed in her father’s footsteps as an informant for MI5. She had worked diligently to uncover evidence the agency needed to identify terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, and other criminal elements. And she had done it, ultimately, to protect the ones she loved.

  So what had happened? Why had she turned her back on all of that?

  Just then the door opened, and Lilly swung around to meet the furious expression of her uncle. No, her stepfather. God, why had her mother married Desmond Harrington, her father’s half-brother and business partner? Had she missed her husband so much that she had married his brother to replace him?

  “Victoria.” He stopped as his bodyguard came in behind him and closed the door. “At least you made it home.”

  Anger ripped through her, and she had no idea why. She loved her uncle. He had been an integral part of her life from her birth to her death.

  “Of course I made it home.” She had to fight back the conflicting emotions she didn’t know what to do with. “It seems I’m a rather good rider.”

  He wiped his hand over his face as he shook his head, obviously weary and attempting to hold on to his temper. Desmond Harrington was known for his temper, courtesy of his red hair, but he was also known for his compassion and logic.

  “A rather good rider,” he muttered as he rubbed at his forehead before lifting his head and staring past Lilly to her mother. “It seems, my dear, that this hardheaded child has found a new hobby.”

  He pulled his jacket off, handed it to the bodyguard, Isaac, then strode through the foyer to the living room.

  “It’s obviously not a new hobby,” she stated as she followed him and her mother, only to pause just inside the door and watch as he strode to the bar. “A Crown on ice would be lovely,” she suggested as he lifted a decanter of liquor.

  Desmond paused before pouring the desired drink as well as a snifter of brandy for her mother.

  “Crown and ice.” Her mother sounded furious now. “That is not a proper young lady’s drink, Victoria.”

  “I asked you to call me Lilly, Mother.” Lilly stepped into the room and accepted the drink from Desmond before striding to the sofa and lounging back. She smothered a sigh of exhaustion. Lifting the drink to her lips Lilly sipped the smooth liquor, nearly closing her eyes at the pleasurable burn that hit her stomach.

  She watched as Desmond handed her mother her drink then took his seat beside her on the couch. Strange, she had never seen her mother sit with her father like that, close, intimate. They had rarely sat on a couch, they had each had their own chairs instead. But the distance she had always sensed between her parents was present here as well.

  “We need to discuss tonight,” Desmond told her firmly after taking a long sip of his drink, as though needing fortification.

  “What is there to discuss?” Lilly asked him. “I met a friend for drinks. I’m of age, I have no curfew. What we do need to discuss is what the hell you were doing following me at this hour of the night.”

  “What did you do?” Her mother almost whispered the words, as though terrified of the answer.

  “I found her with Travis Caine,” Desmond informed her. “He has a house here in Hagerstown as well. Your daughter somehow acquired a rather racy motorbike and she broke several speeding laws to meet him at a bar, and then followed him to his house.”

  “Caine?” Wide-eyed, Angelica turned to Desmond. “My God.” She turned back to Lilly. “He’s a suspected terrorist, a man known to associate, if not partner with criminals! Victoria…”

  “Lilly.” Determination surged inside her. She hadn’t been Victoria for six years. She was Lilly.

  “Why are you doing this? Do you want to be taken from us again?” Her mother ignored the reminder. “You’ll be arrested for sure!”

  “I rather doubt there’s a warrant out for my or Travis’s arrest,” Lilly objected.

  “There’s a warrant for your arrest in China, should you ever reenter their sovereign borders again, for theft of a government artifact, which they can’t prove to America. There’s a warrant for your and Caine’s arrest in Iran for the suspected death of a militant who was related to the current ruler. There’s also a warrant to bring you in for questioning in Spain for the death of a Spanish militant suspected of being part of a radical extremist group protesting against the government.”

  Had she killed?

  She had. Lilly felt that knowledge bleeding through her, bloodred and stained with guilt.

  Had she killed in cold blood? She couldn’t imagine that. She had a healthy respect for life, more for others’ than for her own. At least, that was the thought that flitted through her head.

  How would she know these things? And why was she suddenly so frightened at the thought of her mother or her uncle knowing the full truth about her?

  “From what I’m hearing, if I did kill, then it was no one that didn’t deserve it,” she informed them both with an air of unconcern.

  She was aware that she would have never made such a statement six years ago.

  “Victoria…” Horror rippled through her mother’s voice.

  “Mother.” Lilly shook her head as she leaned forward. “I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know who I was, or what I did. But I do know I wasn’t a criminal.”

  “I have the report on you, Victoria,” her uncle said. “The governments may not have proof, but I have eno
ugh evidence to substantiate, at the very least, a strong suspicion that you did kill.”

  There was something in his gaze then, some thread of compassion, perhaps? Understanding? What was she seeing there, and why did it bother her so much to see it?

  Lilly wanted nothing more than to run now. To escape the judgment and the disapproval she could feel coming from the mother.

  She didn’t know if she could live much longer without somehow figuring out who or what she had been and why she had killed.

  “I want this report you have on me.” She rose to her feet and stared at her mother and uncle. “Then, I want to know how the two of you ended up married, and why the hell my father’s murderer was never found.”

  That was the source of her anger. Her father was dead, murdered, and his killer had never been caught. From what she gathered since she had been back, the search for his killer had been less than enthusiastic.

  With that last warning she strode from the living room, ignoring her mother calling out to her, and her uncle’s almost silent curse.

  She needed answers. She needed to know what had happened and why. And then she needed to figure out just why the hell Travis Caine felt more like a lover than a trainer, more like a friend than an enemy.

  Travis sat in the underground room Wild Card had been assigned as the Harrington’s driver and listened to the confrontation as it played out in the Harrington living room.

  Wild Card, a.k.a. Noah Blake, sat at the small table across from him, earbud attached to his ear, listening as well.

  Travis watched the small, portable monitor as Lilly stalked from the room.

  “Have the file sent up to her.” Lilly’s mother rose jerkily from the couch, her expression and her tone icily furious.

  “Angelica, she doesn’t need the file yet.” Desmond sat forward, his expression concerned now. “She’s barely healed physically. The shock could be detrimental.”

  “And what of the shock to the family?” She turned back, her pale face furious. “She’s determined to bring this family down to the same level she’s existed at for the past six years. Let her see the damage she’s risking by continuing along this path.”

  Travis’s lips thinned at the judgment in Lilly’s mother’s voice.

  Desmond sighed wearily. “She’s been through a lot, Angelica.”

  “And you think I don’t realize this?” Angelica’s voice roughened. “My God, Desmond, the thought of that report destroys my soul. Why? Why did she allow us to believe she was dead? Why live the life she lived rather than returning to us?”

  “That’s a question only Lilly can answer.” Desmond rose to his feet. “And the doctors fear it’s a question she will never be able to answer.”

  He glanced back at Angelica as he made his way back to the bar.

  “She was always so damned stubborn,” Angelica stated, tears filling her eyes. “I tried to tell Harold that if she were not dealt with properly when she was a teenager, then she would only harm herself.”

  Desmond seemed to stiffen before turning back to her.

  “The clinic was not the answer, my dear,” Desmond sighed.

  “You are as ineffectual where she is concerned as Harold was,” she snapped.

  Desmond’s voice hardened. “This is not an argument I will have with you tonight.”

  “You never wish to discuss it,” Angelica said. “It’s as though you want nothing more than to bury your head in the sand and pretend this situation does not exist.”

  Desmond stared back at her coolly. “I can think of nothing better than burying the entire matter for good.”

  With that he tossed back his drink, slapped the glass on a table, and stalked from the room.

  A throttled, furious scream erupted from Lilly’s mother’s throat as she flung her glass at the door and watched it burst into fragments.

  A tear slipped down Angelica’s cheek as Travis turned from the scene and leveled a look at Noah. A soundless whistle pursed his lips as Angelica left the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Travis pulled the earbud from his ear and dropped it to the table as Noah activated the cameras throughout the house, tracking Angelica’s movements.

  She stalked to her bedroom; minutes later, a manservant knocked. Angelica appeared at the door, handed a thick file to the servant, and pointed to Lilly’s suite.

  “Hell of a thing for a woman to have to face at four in the morning,” Noah stated quietly.

  “At any time,” Travis growled.

  He hated that damned report. Hell, he had never agreed with the cover those girls had been given. They were called security “escorts.” Military trained, exceptionally lovely, and dangerous as hell. They were “hired out” to men who required beauty and brains in a deadly package.

  They were rented to legitimate businessmen as well as criminal bosses and cartel leaders. Sexual services were not part of the package, but few of the men who paid for their services admitted that. They thought they were hiring discretion and protection. They had no idea they had hired highly trained operatives who reported back to an agency created for secrecy and efficiency.

  To the world, though, the girls Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly handled were no more than well-armed whores.

  And that’s what Lilly would read in that file.

  Would she believe it?

  “Everyone is now in their respective rooms,” Noah reported as he continued to scan the house. “Nik is slipping through the garden now.”

  Travis stood with a quick nod and moved to the single bed where he’d placed his bag earlier.

  Noah eased the door open, stepped into the hall, and waited, while Travis quickly packed the gear needed into the pockets of his mission pants.

  As he pushed a small tool pack into the pocket at the knee of his pants, Nik stepped into the room ahead of Noah.

  The door closed silently as Noah stepped back inside. Nik carried a small backpack, filled, Travis knew, with the electronics needed to finish bugging the house for sound.

  He handed the bag off to Noah and moved to the table where the portable monitors waited.

  Travis slipped out of the room with Noah, moving silently through the house to the office both Desmond and Angelica Harrington worked from.

  They had yet to get camera or audio in the room. Each time they had attempted it, Harrington or his bodyguard, usually both, had been too close, if not in the room itself.

  This time, the office was empty.

  Moving to the door, he attached the security device to the lock, activated it, and waited as the alarm was bypassed.

  When the green light blinked, he turned the doorknob and they slipped in.

  He reattached the device on the other side, reactivated the alarm, and then he and Noah went to work. Noah began installing video and audio while Travis moved to the desk.

  There was no time to check the computer, that would come later. Picking the lock to the file drawer at the side of the desk, Travis began searching files and papers instead.

  The drawer held nothing of interest. The desk was scrupulously neat. Working silently, Travis searched the room. There were business logs, files, contracts, all as boring as hell. Rifling through them, Travis was ready to move on when he glimpsed a thick narrow envelope tucked into a file regarding real estate in the D.C. area.

  Pulling the envelope free, he opened it quickly and pulled out several pictures and a three-page report dated a little more than a year before. The report wasn’t signed. It was handwritten. The last line held an account number.

  Travis pulled a small digital camera from his pants and quickly snapped pictures of each page as well as the pictures.

  Pictures of Lilly.

  Each one had been taken in a different location for a different assignment. If he wasn’t mistaken, part of the report also held the name of the plastic surgeon who had supposedly changed Lilly’s face.

  The same doctor who had been killed the day before Lilly had taken a bullet to the s
ide of her head.

  Desmond Harrington had known Lilly was alive long before he had been contacted by the hospital. Renewing his search through the files, Travis found two more similar envelopes, recorded the contents, and quickly replaced them.

  It was nearly dawn before he and Noah finished. They were moving for the door when the sound of the alarm being deactivated had them racing for whatever cover they could find.

  Noah headed for a heavily curtained windowseat while Travis ducked into the closet to the side of the desk.

  Isaac Macauley stepped into the room silently, closing and locking the door behind him before moving to the desk.

  Through the cracks in the folding doors, Travis watched as the bodyguard opened a drawer, pulled a device free of the desk, and opened it.

  Well, now, there was a problem. That particular device was extremely difficult to come by and could block even Noah’s little electronic bugs.

  Activating the device, Isaac pulled a satellite phone from inside his jacket pocket and keyed in a number. An international number if the amount of keys he hit was any indication.

  “Harrington gave her the file,” Macauley stated, his voice low. “There was no chance to delay it.”

  Macauley waited for whatever response came.

  “Not as far as I can tell,” he answered moments later. “She appears less than stable now that Caine has shown up.”

  Travis’s brows lifted. He thought Lilly was very stable.

  “I’ve advised Harrington to deal with the mistake,” he reported after another silence. “He seems a bit squeamish at the idea, though.”

  Strange, Macauley’s reputation was impeccable. This didn’t sound like an innocent conversation, though.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Macauley stated. “I’ll let you know when they arrive.”

  The call disconnected.