Elite Ops Complete Series

by Lora Leigh

  She was silent for long moments. He’d learned over the years that Lilly didn’t accept compliments as an agent nearly as well as she had as a socialite.

  “Did Nik figure out the makeup of the explosive used?” she asked, ignoring his compliment as she moved closer to the slot the motorcycle had been parked in.

  “He knows it misfired,” he stated. “The metal explosive cap wasn’t intact. If it had been, it would have exploded while you were on the interstate.”

  “Wow, there would have been no coming back from that one, huh?”

  Travis made his way to her, sweeping the light over the cement floor as he searched for even the smallest trace of something that could have come from the cycle or the explosive.

  “You have a problem taking compliments from me, or just anyone, Lilly?” he asked her as he stooped and began searching under the vehicles that surrounded the area where the cycle had been.

  “Pretty much just anyone,” she answered blithely, her voice muted as she bent down to check beneath a sleek, metallic red Lamborghini.

  Once, she had been smooth, charming as hell. Not that she couldn’t be charming as Lilly Belle. She could be, but that charm was usually layered with a frozen smile and ice chips in her gaze. And more often than not, one of those damned dangerous modified Glocks was in her hand.

  “Who else beside Desmond was in the house today that could have wanted me dead?”

  Lilly lay on the cement floor to shimmy as far as possible beneath the Lamborghini, which truly wasn’t far, and shine the flashlight over the area, especially around the tire areas.

  “I should be asking you that question. You live here.” Travis slid beneath a Hummer, his own light scanning the floor thoroughly.

  “Don’t play games with me, Travis.” She rolled to the next vehicle, slid beneath it and searched again. “Tell me what I need to know.”

  What the hell was she remembering?

  Travis stared at the glimmer of her light as suspicion began to form inside him.

  “Now isn’t the time to tell you what you want to know,” he finally told her. “Suffice it to say, I’m having several of your guests investigated.”

  “And you didn’t tell me,” she stated.

  “I haven’t yet had time.”

  Their voices were still barely high enough for the comm devices they were using to pick up the sound.

  “Perhaps you could find the time later?” she suggested, and Travis almost smiled.

  That sounded more like an order to him than a suggestion.

  “Perhaps I could.” They both rolled to the same slot at the same time.

  The motorcycle had been parked close to the entrance to the main house. The space was currently occupied by a Lexus SUV. The four-wheel-drive luxury vehicle sat high enough from the ground that they were able to slide easily beneath it, both lights gleaming on the small spot of fluid below where the cycle’s motor would have been located.

  “The explosive was placed in the oil pan?” She rubbed her fingers against the fluid before bringing it to her nose and sniffing slightly.

  Travis did the same, then rubbed his fingers together to test the feel of the fluid.

  “That’s not gas or oil,” she stated.

  “Nope. Not.” His eyes narrowed on the spot before he reached to his front jeans pocket and pulled free a sterile bag and swab.

  Tearing the swab open, he rubbed it against the spot, then pushed it into the small bag and sealed it. He was aware of Lilly watching, her eyes narrowed, her posture cautious, before she began to scour the garage floor beneath the Lexus for anything further.

  Remaining quiet, Travis did the same. He was moving his light over the floor where the tires of the SUV sat when he heard her murmur a little hum.

  “You have another of those bags? Tweezers?” She was tense, her light trained on a metallic glimmer as he pulled the required sterile bag and the tweezers from his back pocket.

  “At least one of us came prepared,” she murmured as she accepted the items.

  Travis watched as she picked up the metal and slid it into the bag before sealing it and handing it to him.

  “Nik gets that?” she asked, nodding toward his hand where he was tucking the bag in his pocket.

  “He’ll take good care of it,” he promised her.

  “Interesting.” Her expression, from the dim light he had to see by, was equal parts confusion and suspicion.

  “Interesting in what way?” Travis asked, often intrigued by the fact that Lilly was more open now than she had been during her years as an agent.

  She was still Night Hawk, but not as hard, not as distrustful as he had been over the past six years.

  “Interesting in the fact that he seems a jack of all trades.” She shrugged. “Yet, none of those trades really ring true. Tell me, Travis, exactly who is Nik Steele?”

  He grinned. “A jack of all trades, essentially. He’s a mercenary, in fact. I’ve been lucky to purchase his time over the past six years, though there are occasions when he takes other jobs to break the monotony of working with me.”

  Suspicion filled her gaze now. “Sure, Travis,” she finally muttered. “That’s as good an explanation as any.”

  It wasn’t a lie, exactly. That was Nik’s cover, and he was damned good at playing his part.

  “Remind me to be sure to check any further facts you give me on my own life, okay? I have a feeling that the line between truth and lie with you can get rather blurred.”

  There were times, he would completely agree with her.

  He was in a hell of a position. He knew the truth, he had the answers she wanted. If she hadn’t remembered who and what she was, she at least suspected there was a hell of a lot more about her than she was being told.

  How could she help but resent him for not telling her the truth? The truth could kill her, though.

  “Is it the explosive cap that was missing from the cycle?” she asked as she stared back at him.

  “I’m not sure.” He shook his head, staring back at her. “I’m into negotiations, baby, not explosives.”

  “I’m sure I knew that,” she said as she began to slide out from under the SUV.

  They both froze at the sound of the small beep of the alert Lilly had programmed that signaled that the door into the house had opened.

  He hadn’t thought about setting an alarm there, but she had.

  That signal had most likely saved their asses.

  “The cycle was parked over here,” Desmond’s smoothly accented voice commented harshly as the door closed. “Did you bring the flashlight?”

  “I have it, Lord Harrington.” Light gleamed on the floor and moved closer as Lilly and Travis quickly rolled from beneath the SUV and moved several car lengths away.

  They each took a position against a tire of a Hummer, crouched and listened closely.

  “When did you hear about this?” Desmond’s tone was furious.

  “I received the report an hour ago,” his bodyguard answered. “The man we had on her lost her once she left the house, but he had a fairly good idea that she was headed to Caine’s house. He arrived after the explosion and it took a while for him to learn the reason for the commotion after he arrived.”

  “Were the police called?” Frustration and disgust filled Harrington’s voice.

  “No, sir,” Isaac answered as they stopped next to the Lexus SUV. “No police were called, but a team moved in. Black vans and identities hidden by black masks, no identification. The vehicles they arrived in were registered as rentals, presumably still on the lots they were registered to. We were able to get no information on them.”

  “Did anyone attempt to follow them?” Harrington barked.

  “Yes, the investigator followed one while his partner moved in on another. They were professionals, Lord Harrington. My men weren’t able to keep up with them.”

  Desmond cursed furiously. “Son of a bitch, what the hell is that girl going to get into next?”

&nbs
p; “I’d be careful tempting fate by asking that question,” the bodyguard grunted.

  Lilly peeked around the tire, bending to see beneath the Hummer to the SUV where the flashlight gleamed on both Isaac and Desmond as they stared at the floor of the garage beneath the Lexus.

  “It’s a logical question.” Desmond harumphed irritably.

  “It appears to me that the girl was into too much before her return as it was,” Isaac stated. “She should take a break.”

  Lilly rolled her eyes at the rueful tone of the bodyguard’s voice.

  “There’s a fluid stain on the cement.” Isaac didn’t answer the obvious question. “This isn’t from the Lexus either.”

  “From the cycle?” Desmond asked.

  “I’ll need to send a sample off,” Isaac stated. “There’s nothing else here, Lord Harrington.” The light continued to sweep across the cement.

  “If someone messed with that damned death machine of hers, then this is the only chance they would have had,” Desmond growled.

  Lilly’s brows lifted. So her uncle hadn’t been involved in this attempt on her life? Or maybe he was just acting in front of Issac. He could have assigned Issac to keep tabs on her, but that didn’t mean Issac knew he was trying to kill her.

  “Just find out what that fluid is from,” Desmond ordered him. “Then see what your investigator can learn about that damned Caine. There’s more to him than we have so far, I can feel it.”

  “What more could there be?” Issac asked. “I’ve worked with him. He arranges things, Lord Harrington. Is your business ally attempting a takeover? Don’t want to commit murder? Call Travis Caine. Need to build an army? Call Caine. Want to take over a small country—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, call your bloody Caine. I get it,” Desmond snarled back as Lilly turned and lifted a brow in Travis’s direction.

  A small country, huh?

  He flashed a smile back at her. A rakish, wicked smile that had her stomach tightening and her clit swelling. He shouldn’t be able to induce such a quick, heated response. There was something just not quite right about that. Something that warned her that she was only going to end up hurting in the end.

  Because she loved him.

  Good God, just what she needed, to love a man that facilitated the invasions of small countries and the takeovers of cartels. No wonder her uncle was so bloody not excited over this relationship.

  She grinned back at him. She was going to end up with a broken heart, there was no doubt, but damn if she wasn’t having more fun now than she had before he showed up.

  “Hell, let’s get out of here.” The shuffle of bodies moving could be heard. “I need to reassure Angelica. She’s having a damned fit over this Caine situation. She called Jared tonight and he refused to even discuss his sister, which had only incited her further.”

  Lilly jerked her head back, lowered it, and steeled her heart against the pain. What was that trick? She was slowly learning it, or was she simply slowly remembering it? There was a way to keep it from hurting. Especially where Jared was concerned. There was a way to block the pain, a place to put it where she could take it out and deal with it only when she had to. She didn’t have to deal with it now.

  “I have to agree with him in a way.” Issac sighed heavily as they moved away. “She’s not the same woman that disappeared six years ago. She changed.”

  “What created those changes, though?” Desmond asked. “That’s what I want to know, Isaac, and I want the truth this time. That report was so pat it sickened me. Victoria was no call girl. She was no terrorist’s girlfriend. There’s something that stinks about this entire deal and I want to know what the hell it is. And I want to know quickly.”

  Lilly seconded that motion. She wanted to know herself what had created her, why she had become the woman she was.

  The door closed behind the two men, and the lock snapped into place.

  “Jared took one look at me in the hospital and sneered,” she said softly. “He told Mother, ‘That’s not my sister,’ and he walked away.”

  She remembered watching the back of his head as he left the hospital room and crying. She had cried like a little child because her brother didn’t love her.

  She wasn’t crying now.

  Straightening, she kept her face turned from Travis as they made their way quickly back to the narrow window and then to her room. Sliding past the balcony doors, she came to a quick, hard stop.

  “Damn, this night is just getting better and better,” she stated, noticing that Travis hadn’t moved in behind her. To face her mother. The coward. She had a feeling he was still hiding on the damned balcony.

  “Dear Lord, you look like your great-uncle Marcus, dressed to go a-thieving.” There was anger filling her tone. Angelica wasn’t trying to be amusing, but Lilly couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I don’t remember Great-uncle Marcus.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and tilted her head to the side. “Tell me about him.”

  “He was a damned thief,” Angelica snapped, her blue eyes sparking with anger. “He was arrested so many times that the shame was nearly unbearable for the family. He was royalty. We are royalty and you are dishonoring every drop of blood inside your body that binds you to the greatest history on earth.”

  “Oh Lord, this lecture again?” Lilly clapped her hand over her mouth, astonished that the words had actually slipped from her lips that time.

  Her mother’s face was a bit worse than astonished. Outraged anger filled it, darkening her blue eyes and flushing her porcelain flesh.

  “This lecture again?” Angelica repeated. “Never, Lilly, never in your life have you spoken to me in such a way, with such disrespect.”

  “And I’m sorry, Mother.” She tucked her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers. “I’ve just been stressed out. I haven’t been feeling well.”

  Angelica’s eyes narrowed. “Well enough to dress in black and be slipping in and out of windows. Running around riding a motorcycle like a hoodlum. What would you do if the paparazzi caught wind of this? We do not need your face splashed over the newspapers again.”

  “Such as it was when you found me?” Lilly suggested. “I’m terribly sorry my return has been such a hardship for you, Mother.”

  “A hardship?” Angelica gasped. “You believe it a hardship? No, the hardship comes in trying to figure out why the life you’ve been given isn’t enough for you. What in heaven’s name makes you think you can throw it all away for a past you seem determined to return to?” Frustrated anger filled her mother’s voice, her expression.

  Angelica had always loved her life, the life of an English lady. She was considered a premier hostess; she wasn’t just related to the Queen Mother, she was also a friend. She had luncheons with the woman, for God’s sake.

  Of course her mother couldn’t understand.

  “It was bad enough your father had to get himself killed, he nearly had you killed as well, and for what, Lilly? For God and country? God might care, but let me let you in on a little fact. Your bloody country couldn’t give a damn one way or the other, and sometimes, God has to blink. The next time you die you may not be nearly so lucky as to have the option to return.”

  She hadn’t had the option to return last time.

  Lilly caught her breath at the thought, the knowledge. She wasn’t supposed to return. She was never to have returned.

  “I don’t want to discuss this, Mother.” She sat down on the bed, lifted one foot and unlaced a boot.

  “As stubborn as always,” her mother snapped, stepping closer. “You were always too hardheaded. Always too determined to have your own way, weren’t you? Just call you Lilly.” She sneered. “Lilly, as though you’re no more than a common little tart.”

  “Good God.” Lilly rolled her eyes and let her foot fall to the floor. “Mother, have you lost your mind somewhere? One of the names you gave me is Lillian. And don’t you think ‘tart’ is a bit of an outdated word to use?”

  �
��Have I lost my mind somewhere?” her mother burst out. “You’re, you’re sneaking into your room at nearly three in the morning, consorting with criminals, and doing God only knows what.”

  “God knows everything I do.” Lilly sighed, wondering if she could possibly continue to hold back the tears. The censure in her mother’s tone broke her heart.

  “I want this to stop!” Angelica demanded. “Immediately. You will cease to consort with that terrorist you’ve taken up with. You will cease consorting with anyone that you’ve known in the past six years. You will be Lady Victoria Harrington, Lilly if you insist.” Her mother’s arms straightened, her shoulders stiffened. “You will not embarrass this family further.”

  Lilly pulled the first boot off. As she lifted the other to her knee, Travis stepped from the balcony to the bedroom. Leaning against the door frame, he leveled a hard, silent look on her mother.

  Angelica Harrington wasn’t easily intimidated. She had stared down two husbands, a son, a mother, and, it was rumored, the Queen Mother at one time.

  “I’m tired, Mother,” Lilly said softly as she untied the boot and ignored the silent battle going on between her mother and her lover. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”

  She wasn’t going to cry, she assured herself.

  “I’ve tried to be understanding, Lilly.” Tears glittered in her mother’s eyes, and Lilly felt her own throat tightening. “I’ve tried desperately to be patient, to find some part of the daughter I lost six years ago.” She shook her head as a tear slipped free. “Perhaps you did die that night with your father.”

  Lilly didn’t speak. She stared at the floor as her mother turned and stalked from the bedroom, the door slamming behind her.

  Lilly breathed in slowly and deeply before returning her attention to the boot. She unlaced it, pushed it from her foot, then removed the socks she had donned with them.

  Standing, she pulled the T-shirt off, then the jeans, leaving herself dressed only in the light lacy white camisole and panties she wore beneath.

  She suppressed the chill that tried to race up her spine, and the sense of cold, depressive despair. Her mother had never spoken to her in such a way. She was reputed to be brutal to others, even friends. She had heard her parents argue through her life and her mother had been like sharpened steel slicing through melted butter.