by Amy Olle
The breath left her body and a sharp, revolting pain rushed in to fill the void.
Leo clambered to his feet. “Hey, are you okay?”
Her vision blurred as his fuzzy form moved toward her.
“Breathe,” he murmured, smoothing a hand down her back.
She dragged gulps of air into her lungs. How could she have slept with a man who would do something so horrific? She’d thought she was in love with him, and he was a monster.
Her hands shook with the shock and repulsion banging through her body. She wanted to scream and cry and throw up, all at once.
Crouching before her, Leo peered into her face, and his fingers came up to touch her cheek. “Wow, you’re really upset by this.”
“I’m just so… so….” She pulled off her glasses and rubbed her wet eyes. “Angry.” Her voice broke over the word.
He sat carefully on the edge of the coffee table. Elbows on his knees, his compelling gaze pierced her.
She rubbed a hand across her forehead, but when her tears escaped she used her palm to hide her face. “And disgusted. It’s disgusting, right?”
“It makes me sick.”
“Me, too.”
Something like sorrow, or regret, touched his features. “Is that all that you’re feeling?”
“Maybe?”
Reaching out, he caught a tear with the pad of his thumb.
When he began speaking, he seemed to pick his words carefully. “I know we agreed not to show each other all our ugly parts, “but I think your ugly parts might be relevant to our current situation. Am I right?”
She shook her head, but when he frowned, her head shake morphed into a bob.
The corners of his mouth lifted and lines appeared around his eyes, but he wasn’t smiling. “If you could go ahead and show me those ugly parts now, I’d really appreciate it.”
She swallowed with an audible gulp.
“Would it help if I promise not to be a judgmental prick about it?”
“You can’t promise that,” she whispered. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I don’t need to know. I know you, and that’s all that matters.” One of his hands found hers and he laced their fingers together. “Whatever you say, it won’t change anything, but I need to know the whole story.”
“I did not lie to you.”
“I’m not saying you did.”
She squirmed. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Prue, honey, I’m kind of freaking out here. Can you give me a clue where this is headed?”
She didn’t want to freak him out, but she struggled to find the words. How did she relay the story of what had happened in a way that wouldn’t lead him to conclude the worst about her? Her heartbeat thrummed, rushing past her ears with a deafening throb.
But there was nowhere to hide, not from him, or from the truth.
The fortifying breath she drew into her lungs wobbled. “I was a nerd.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“I mean, I am a nerd,” she corrected. “But I was one in high school and college, too. No boys showed any interest in me. Ever.”
A smug smile touched his mouth. “Morons.”
“Which is why it was so bizarre when this guy in my organic chemistry class at MIT suddenly asked me out one day.”
His satisfied smile mashed into a thin-lipped line.
“Aron King, he was the guy.”
He quickly concealed his reaction behind an unreadable mask. “I didn’t know he went to MIT.”
“He didn’t.” The sharp bite of his treachery stung again. “It was a lie. A scam. All part of the act.”
“What act?”
“He pretended to be a dual major, like me, working on his PhD. He was the first guy who ever paid any attention to me, so I overlooked the fact that he sucked at science. He sucked at sex, too, but I’d never been with anyone else and didn’t know it could be so… different.” Warmth touched her cheeks. “So much better.”
“He’s why you don’t trust men.” Leo’s statement held a lethal edge.
“Men, yes, but also myself. I was supposed to be so smart, and when it came right down to it, I was just a stupid girl.”
“You weren’t stupid, you were conned.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes. A big one. How old were you?”
“Twenty-one.”
The cold fury in his eyes now seethed white-hot. “And that made him, what? Thirty-one? Thirty-two?”
“Thirty-three.”
Outside, heavy rain droplets began to plop to the ground in a steady stream.
“What happened?” he asked gently.
“He fucked me and dumped me. Broke my heart. I would’ve gotten over him easily enough, except….” Knots wrenched her stomach. “It was three days before I realized he’d stolen my laptop.”
His fingers still entwined with hers, he squeezed her hand.
“I’d finished my organic chem project early, and the first tests had gone even better than I’d hoped. I was so excited. I’d made a fertilizer that helped grow vegetation in some of the driest conditions. I thought I was going to end world hunger or something ridiculous like that.” Her bitter laugh died in her throat. “I should’ve applied for a patent, but I didn’t know what I had, and… well, he stole the formula. Made a ton of money when he sold it to a Russian lab.”
Lifting her hand, Leo pressed his soft lips to her palm.
“They tweaked it a little, but it was basically my formula.” She stared down at their linked hands. “They weaponized it.”
“Jesus. Prue…?”
Emotion tightened her throat, and painfully, she forced out the words. “It was used exactly one time before it was banned.”
“King did it. He used it in that village in Iraq.”
“Almost a year after he stole my laptop. He killed eleven people. T-two children.” Her tears spilled over and she wiped at them with the back of her hand. “I-I-I saw pictures.”
“Oh my God, baby.”
Her chin trembled as her words came faster. “After that, I sort of went into a downward spiral. Everyone assumed I was heartbroken over him, and I didn’t say anything to correct them. I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone what I’d done. My doctor prescribed something to help me sleep, but one night, I was drinking and…. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, but that’s what everyone thought.”
“Prue.” Every single emotion wrapped around her name.
“The thing is, I didn’t care. I knew I shouldn’t mix the pills with alcohol. The warning was right there on the bottle, on a bright yellow label. But all I could think about were those kids. Their little faces.”
With a tug on her hand, he pulled her to him.
She slipped onto his lap and buried her face in the side of his neck. “I didn’t care what happened, I just wanted to get those pictures out of my mind.”
His fingers pressed lightly under her chin, tipping her face up, and his soft lips brushed over hers. The kiss was unbearably tender and contained more healing than the years of therapy she’d gone through.
When he broke the kiss, he pressed his forehead to hers.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.” His hand buried in her hair, he cradled her head. “Please believe me when I say, if I ever have a chance to make it right for you, I will.”
She dropped her head to his shoulder and they fell quiet, listening to the rain.
“Does it freak you out?”
“That you’re a chemist?” His lips touched her forehead with a light kiss. “No, it doesn’t freak me out.”
Her smile faltered and she pulled back so she could see his face. “It’s been years. I don’t see things that way anymore. I’m… stronger now.”
“You’re amazing.” His hand massaged the tight muscles of her neck. “And you don’t have to explain it to me.”
“I don’t?”
Intolerable pain filled his eyes, the agony so deep
and dark, it snatched her breath. “I’ve never wanted to die, but I know what it is not to want to live anymore.”
The confession notched a wound on her heart. “You have?”
“I can’t describe it.” He pushed his fist into his chest. “But it sits right here. All of it.”
“Like a black hole,” she said softly. “It sucks everything in until it’s impossibly heavy. Eventually, it collapses in on itself.”
“Yes.” His answer leaked out as a hoarse whisper.
“You try to pretend it isn’t there, or to forget about it for a while.” Her voice wavered with the memories of those months where darkness and despair devoured her. “But everything that replaces the emptiness is a thousand times worse.”
A flash of lightning brightened the gray sky, and an angry rumble of thunder followed.
His hands moved to her thighs and he shifted her so her legs straddled his hips. The hard length of his erection nudged against her core. He gripped her nape and pulled her head down to his.
“Not everything is worse,” he murmured against her mouth.
Chapter Eighteen
Leo frowned at the computer screen. “This guy here, Alexey? How do we know him?”
Her small teeth chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t remember that name. What’s he done?”
They’d spent the previous day combing through the information Claymore had sent, and started back at it first thing that morning, but by noon, they were struggling to integrate the new data with Prue’s research. The web of connections overwhelmed.
With a defeated sigh, Leo tossed the notebook on the coffee table as his latest attempt to map the network of players once again trailed off the page.
“He and King met last year.” On his feet, Leo pointed at the computer. “Keep reading. I’ll be right back.”
In the kitchen, he rummaged through drawers until he found a pad of tattered Post-it Notes. Back at the sofa, he scrawled each name from his notebook onto a separate Post-it, then crossed to the wall on the opposite side of the room and began arranging the notes. Soon, yellow squares plastered the white wall.
He glanced over his shoulder to find Prue gaping at his handiwork. “That is so hot,” she said.
A smile on his face, he surveyed the arrangement of notes as she came to stand beside him. For the next hour, they worked together, adding names and events and linking them with lines he drew in pencil directly on the wall. He needed to paint eventually anyway.
When her stomach let loose with an angry growl, they took a break to make dinner. He started the grill while she prepared the potatoes and cut up some vegetables. Food cooking, he left her lounging in the hammock and slipped inside to clean the tongs that he’d dropped in the sand.
As he headed back to the patio doors, the chime of his cell phone drew him to the coffee table.
Claymore’s number displayed on the phone’s screen, and he accepted the call.
“Hey, man. Thanks for the information. I don’t want to know how you got your hands on so much so fast.”
Claymore’s deep chuckle had a sinister ring to it. “I’m about to send you the rest of it.” He hesitated. “There’s one file I wanted to explain to you, ear-to-ear, so to speak.”
“All right.” A frown pulled at Leo’s features. “What’ve you got?”
“It’s about Owen’s sister. How well do you know her?”
An image of Prue riding him, her breasts bouncing in his face, came screeching to his mind. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well enough, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
“There are some interesting rumors out there about her.”
Alarm rippled through him and he stole a glance outside to see Prue swaying gently in the hammock, her laptop propped open on her stomach. “What kind of rumors?”
“You know, the usual stuff—drug abuse, alcoholism, questions about her stability and sanity.”
Leo made a sound. “What? None of that is true.”
He knew what an alcoholic looked like, and she wasn’t it. Had he seen her drink at all? And questions about her sanity? Seriously? It might be the most absurd thing he’d ever heard.
“I assume it’s King and his bot army trying to sow doubt about her, but I wanted to get your take on it.” Claymore’s tone remained flat, as though he merely recited the daily brief to his commanding officer. “Though there does appear to be a history. I haven’t confirmed it yet, but a few years ago, she overdosed—or attempted suicide maybe…?”
The knot twisting Leo’s stomach wrenched. “It was accidental. She mixed a prescription with alcohol.”
“Ah, okay. King will probably seize on that to create a narrative. He’s already crying about harassment. Says she’s unstable and obsessed with him, has been for years.”
“He’s scared shitless, isn’t he?”
“It certainly smells like it. He’s also threatening to sue her.”
Leo exploded. “For what?”
“Who knows? I think defamation was the latest charge floating around the internet.”
Curses fell from Leo’s lips. “I didn’t think her Twitter following was that big.”
At that, Claymore snickered. “The point is to scare her, use his endless stack of dirty money to bankrupt her and generally make her life miserable. There’s really no downside for him.”
“He’s going to file all these lawsuits from halfway around the world?” Leo’s gut churned with anger and dread.
“He arrived in the US two days ago.”
Leo stilled. “Can you track him?”
“I’m looking at him right now.”
“Where are you?”
“DC.”
“Let me know if he moves?”
“You got it.”
Leo disconnected the call and went outside to check the food on the grill. In the hammock, Prue’s fingers toyed with the end of her loose braid while she stared off into space. By now, he recognized her dreamy expression and knew she worked away at one of the puzzles in her mind.
For a moment, he stared, struck by the beauty of her dainty features and the sensual promise of her long, tanned legs and smooth, bare shoulder, left exposed by her T-shirt’s wide collar.
As he tended to the food, his cell phone vibrated against his hip. He closed the lid to the grill and retrieved Claymore’s message. Monitoring the hammock out of the corner of his eye, he sifted through the new batch of files until he located the document titled “P.Lockhart.”
He dragged and dropped it into the junk folder.
When he approached Prue, she remained lost in her thoughts, so he reached out and tapped his finger lightly on her nose.
Her eyes fluttered and a warm blush heated her cheeks as she smiled up at him.
Unable to resist the sweet bloom of her mouth, he bent down and kissed her. She tasted good, familiar, and the overpowering heat of her response singed him. He could kiss her like this forever and never grow tired of it.
With an aching reluctance, he pulled back. Big blue eyes ate him up and at the lustful yearning in them, one corner of his mouth lifted. She was lovely and passionate, and completely sane. If he was wrong, well then he’d happily drink of her madness.
Her fingers touched the side of his face. “What is it?”
“Claymore sent the rest of the files.”
She sputtered and scrambled out of the hammock.
Inside, he sat on the sofa while she positioned her laptop in front of him. Connecting his phone to the computer, he transferred the files.
All except one.
He opened the first document, then stood. “I’ve got to get the food off the grill.”
She scooched into the spot he’d vacated on the couch. When he returned with their overloaded plates of food, setting them on the coffee table while he skirted around to sit beside her, she leaned close to the computer. He pulled his plate onto his lap and started to read over her shoulder.
Just then, she lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “Oh my God,”
she whispered.
“What?’ He swallowed his bite of potato, only half-chewed. “What is it?”
“He’s a traitor.”
“What?” Leo set down his plate and slanted closer to the computer.
She surged to her feet. “He’s selling weapons to known terrorist groups.” Her hands sliced wildly through the air as she spoke. “Terrorists who kill innocent people. Who—who—who fight American soldiers.”
She exhibited none of the devastation from the previous day, when they learned about King’s human trafficking crimes. Today she was simply pure, pissed-off female.
And it was glorious.
He settled back in the cushions with his dinner plate and, feet propped on the coffee table, prepared to witness the full force of her outrage. Arlo, who’d been sleeping on the sofa back, lifted his head to watch with him.
Before them, she paced. “That lying, no good, low-life traitor.” She whirled on him. “Omigod, Leo, he’s a traitor.”
“I don’t know the legal definition….”
She turned on her heel and resumed pacing. “Are all private military contractors turncoat mercenaries?”
“No. Most are patriots. Retired or former military, good at what they do, willing to risk their lives to get the job done. Aron King gives them all a bad rep.”
“He was a SEAL, wasn’t he? How does he go from the highest levels of our military to fighting against them? My God, he’s arming the enemy.”
“I’ve seen it before,” Leo said. “Guys who feel slighted or betrayed by their country sometimes switch sides.”
She stumbled to a stop. “He feels betrayed? What the hell did we do to him?”
“Our government put him on trial for war crimes.”
A frustrated growl vibrated in her throat. “I can’t believe I let that man touch me. God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Stop that.”
Her eyes touched his face with an unbearable softness. “Thank God I met you again. If I’d died having only ever slept with that pig, I’d be so disappointed.”
The laugh that trickled from him sounded rusty from lack of use.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
He slid his plate onto the coffee table and stood. “For starters, we need to gather more facts.”
