by CY Jones
“There was an explosion. You grabbed me and jumped out the window, shielding my body with yours to protect me from getting cut by the glass.” I stop, taking a closer look at the man in front of me. This isn’t the same man who saved me. “Wait. No, not you.”
The man in front of me has no cuts on him, and he seems sterner, more serious than the other somehow. My brain already identified him as Conner, at least that’s what I’ve been calling him in my head. Well, that and New Dad. But I can now see that’s a mistake.
“You’re Caleb, I presume. Conner was the one who saved me. After the bomb went off we jumped from the building through the window. On the way down something grazed my arm, burning me as we fell into the water, and then I blacked out and just now woke up to you two arseholes.”
Caleb gazes at me in amazement, and a probably rare for him a smile graces his smug face, making him look more like his brother. “You’re smart, just like your mother. How could you tell I’m not Conner?”
Sighing, I shrug and decide to answer truthfully. “You have no cuts on your body from the glass, and you have more frown lines on your face, probably because you’re the stern twin while your brother is the more carefree one. Plus you insist on calling me by my birth name when Conner kept calling me sweetheart.”
“Clever duck,” he whispers.
“I aim to please,” I retort sarcastically.
I don’t need his praises. I’m here for father-daughter bonding time. I want to find my brother so we can get the hell out of here.
“A sniper hit Conner after the explosion. He’s currently in a coma in one of the other rooms in this facility,” Caleb says, dragging me from my thoughts. That tidbit of info surprises me. I know for a fact no guards were on patrol at the compound, considering how easily I breached it, so who the fuck shot at us?
“Shot by who?” I question.
“I have a lot to explain, but first, you should get dressed. Hunter and I will wait for you outside your room. Just step out when you’re ready.” Caleb says, not giving me a chance to argue. He just gets up from his chair and walks out the door with Hunter trailing after him.
What the fuck? That arse still hasn’t told me where I am or where my brother is. The bad feeling that woke me only grows stronger, pushing me to become more agitated. I spot a pair of skinny jeans and a soft cotton t-shirt in my size folded on the chair near the bed.How do they know my size? I don’t like this. My whole life has gone by with no one knowing anything about me except for my brother, and yet it seems like these people know way too much information, but how? I’m starting to feel less like a ghost and more like a child. Putting the clothes on, I look around for my shoes and shake my braid free running my fingers through my tangled hair. It was long enough now to reach my ass. I realize it’s impractical for an assassin, it’s the only thing I’m really vain about.
Giving up on trying to finger comb through the tangles, I open the door and step out into the dimly lit hallway.
Five
Do you plan on locking me in a tower?
“Well now, maybe I should call you Rapunzel instead,” Caleb says, as he eyes my long hair.
“Do you plan on locking me in a tower?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
He shrugs. “Depends.”
Fucking asshat. “Depends on what exactly?” I ask, grinding my teeth. He’s trying my patience, and I’m getting annoyed. I can already tell Caleb is the arsehole twin. I dislike being in a position where I’m at someone else's mercy. It goes against everything that makes me, well, me.
“On how our little chat goes, clever duck,” he answers, already walking away and leaving me with no choice but to follow.
“After you, princess,” Hunter says with a sarcastic half bow, which only serves to annoy me further. I wonder if I kill him, will they lock me up? Smiling at the thought, I hurry after Caleb thinking it would be worth it.
The room they take me to, if you want to call it that, looks more like one of those interrogation rooms you see on some crime show on TV. A long metal table sits bolted to the floor in the windowless room, with only a couple of metal folding chairs that look quite uncomfortable. The door is also metal and appears heavy, with a wide, reinforced bolted lock and control panel. If I somehow manage to get away from these two, it would be impossible to escape without someone letting me out from the other side.
“Sit,” Caleb says, pointing at one of the chairs.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not a bloody dog,” I snap.
“Remy, nobody’s going to hurt you here,” Caleb huffs.
“You could have fooled me,” I say, waving my hand around the room, Vanna White style. “As far as I can tell, you’re taking a page straight out of the Patrick O’Donnell’s parenting handbook.”
Apparently Caleb doesn’t like the comparison to Patrick, judging by the way he grinds his teeth and glares daggers at me. “I’m nothing like him,” he spits, slamming his fist on the table.
Clearly Caleb is more upset than I first thought. Good, that makes two of us.
“Why don’t you share what it is you want, so I can be on my way?” I ask, flopping down onto the chair. Drained and still exhausted from my near death experience, I want answers so I can find my brother and get the hell out of here.
“What makes you think we want anything from you, princess?” Hunter sneers. The cocky arse is really grating my nerves.
“Because, I’m still here, arsehole. You must want something from me.”
Before the ass can respond, the door opens and another pretty boy steps into the room carrying a laptop. Seriously, where do they find these guys?
This one has light, shaggy blonde hair, long curly lashes that frame bright azure blue eyes, and a tall muscled body. He’s hot as shit, and he knows it from the air of confidence he exudes. Not that he overshadows Hunter’s gorgeous emerald green eyes and plump luscious lips by any means. He may be an arse, but still, I’m not blind.
“Good news,” blondie says, excitement evident in his Australian accent. “I saved the flash drive and extracted the data from it.”
Coming inside, blondie sets the laptop down on the table and extends his hand to me.
“Good day, mate, I’m Cody,” he says, smiling widely.
“Nice to meet you,” I reply mirroring his accent and making him blush. He really is a cutie, and I can’t help the smile he draws out of me.
“Are you two done?” Hunter interrupts, dampening the mood.
Who the fuck spit in his wheaties? If I didn’t know better, I would think he was jealous, but that’s ludicrous. I’m a stranger to him. One he clearly hates.
“I’m curious,” Caleb starts, breaking the sudden tension in the room.
“You know what they say about curiosity?” I quip, breaking my stare down with Hunter to smile wickedly at him.
Ignoring my smart ass comment, Caleb continues. “What do you really sound like?”
I blink, taken aback. His question actually catches me off guard. I’ve played the language game for so long, that at this point, even I’m not sure. I’m fluent in six different languages, always adapting to my surroundings like a chameleon. Becoming whomever I needed to in order to get the job done, but there's no way I’m telling them any of that. It seems too personal, and I did not do weakness.
Keeping up the Australian accent, I give him a nonchalantly shrug.“I sound and look like whatever I want, whenever I want. After all, I was trained to be a ghost, to blend in and all that jazz,” I answer, wiggling my fingers.
“You’re too beautiful to just blend in,” Cody says, this time making me blush.
“Oi, enough of that,” Caleb barks, causing Cody to lower his eyes, looking like a chastised child caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.
Bringing us back to the matter at hand, Caleb asks, “Do you have any idea what your brother has been up to the last couple of years?”
“Should I?” I ask, wanting to know what he’s getting at.
“Just answer the question, duckie.”
Annoyed at his new nickname for me, I fold my arms over my chest and take up a defensive stance. Again I weigh my options, and since the odds still tilt in their favor, I decide to answer his question.
“Rowen has been acting strange lately, but I can’t say it’s been going on for the last couple of years. Maybe for just a couple of months. Why?”
“Did you know, that for the last two years, your brother has been working for us?” Caleb answers, shocking the hell out of me. Out of all the things I expected him to say, that was not it.
“What do you mean by working with you?” I press, drawing out each word.
“I mean just that, duckie. He’s been working as an informant and feeding us information.”
Immediately I start shaking my head. “No. You’re lying. Row would never endanger us like that,” I shout, jumping out my chair, ready to bolt. Why should I stay here just to hear them spew lies at me?
“Sit back down,” Caleb shouts, his face turning red.
“No.” I walk over to the door and start pounding on it.
He has to be lying. Row would know better than to do something so stupid. He knows more than anyone how Patrick O'Donnell handles disloyalty, and it’s not pretty. I keep pounding on the door, so lost in my need to get the fuck out of here that I don’t notice when the door suddenly opens, and I fall forward into a hard muscular chest.
“Calm down, sweetheart. Are you ok?” Conner asks, holding me tightly to his body.
“No. I want to leave. Where is my brother?” I tell him, shaking and cursing at my own weakness. I feel like a child crying in their father’s arms.
“What’s going on in here, Caleb?” Conner growls, glaring at his brother. “First Doc tells me you woke her against medical advice, and now I hear her pounding on the door and screaming like a banshee in a room where we interrogate criminals,” Conner shouts while he rubs my back.
“She’s in here because until she accepts the truth and agrees to work with us, she can’t be trusted, and she was screaming because she doesn’t believe her brother has fed us information for the last two years,” Caleb explains.
“And as I told you before, you’re lying. Row would never toy with our lives like that, he’d never risk my life like that.” I break out of Conner’s embrace and stomp back to my chair. They have five seconds to tell me where the hell my brother is before I go ape shite on their arses.
“I’m afraid he’s telling the truth, sweetheart,” Conner says sadly, taking a seat in the last open chair.
When he sits I notice how pale he is and the bandages stuck to his chest. He was shot, put in a coma, and he came running straight over here when he heard me screaming, worried I was in trouble. For that reason alone I decide to calm down and hear them out.
“I need you to start from the beginning if you expect me to believe any of this,” I tell them, still breathing hard from my outburst.
“Rowen found us about two years ago,” Conner says looking me straight in the eyes. “He said he always suspected O’Donnell wasn’t your biological father. The details you two were told surrounding your mother’s death didn’t add up to him. He took it upon himself to investigate and dig deeper. Once he learned the truth, he was understandably pissed, so he began feeding us intel, hoping we could take O’Donnell down.”
My training taught me how to tell if someone was lying. There were signs to look for and Conner wasn’t showing any which made me come to the unsettling conclusion that he was telling the truth. This can’t be. How could I have missed this? Row and I were each other's shadows. I thought there wasn’t a single thing I didn’t know about him, but apparently that wasn’t true.
“Seeing that O’Donnell is still running free, spreading fear and misery in his wake, you obviously haven’t upheld your end,” I snap. “So what the fuck have you two done besides put me and my brother in danger?”
“It’s not that simple, sweetheart,” Conner argues. “O’Donnell is a very dangerous and well connected man. For as many good agents as we have, there’s just as many crooked ones covering O’Donnell’s tracks. He has countless law enforcement, politicians, and crime syndicates working for him that bringing him down will take time,” Conner says, pleading with me to understand.
“Duckie, your brother knew what he was getting into when he started helping us,” Caleb adds.“You know your brother well enough to realize he wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to do.”
I ignore his comment because I know it’s true. I hate that these two seem to know us so well from information my own brother fed them. Without my knowledge. Fucking arseholes, the whole lot of them.
“Where is my brother now?” I ask through, gritted teeth.
The three of them exchange dodgy looks and avoid looking at me. Nobody wants to answer my question, which does nothing but put me further on edge.
“We don’t know,” Hunter, of all people, finally responds.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” I say slowly, stretching out each word and fighting to remain calm.
“Duckie, that mission turned into a catastrophe,” Caleb explains. “Nothing went as planned. Best we can determine, O’Donnell caught on to what your brother’s was up to well before Rowen realized. O’Donnell waited for Rowen to disable our security systems, then had his men plant bombs in the surrounding area, taking out the whole damn compound. He had snipers laying in wait to pick us all off one by one, and they nearly succeeded when they shot at you. We were lucky to escaped with our lives in tact.”
For maybe one second I feel bad. Conner literally took a bullet for me, but just as quickly my anger takes over any guilt I may have had. Old habits really do die hard.
This was all their fault. Theirs and my stupid brother’s. How could he be so thick headed to think that they could take on a man like Patrick O’Donnell? My brother should have known better. No wonder he never told me what he was up to. He knew I wouldn’t condone or help him, and that I would have kicked his arse for being so stupid as to even consider getting involved. Not our circus, not our monkeys. A motto we live and die by. Rowen knows better.
Reaching into his pocket, Caleb throws a device the size of a grain rice onto the table. “Do you know what that is?”
“A tracking device,” I answer. My brother may be the hacking genius, but I’m no slouch in the tech department myself.
“Yes, and did you know that this exact tracker was embedded in your arm?” he plows ahead without waiting on a response. “Rowen deactivated it the same time he disabled our security systems back at the compound, and we removed it from your arm when you were unconscious.”
Words could not begin to describe what I was feeling, but it all came down to the same conclusion. Patrick O’Donnell was a very dangerous man. The first lesson he ever taught us came to mind - mind, body, and soul, we were his. His to control, to do with what he pleased. Learning that he implanted a tracking device in me without my knowledge doesn’t really surprise me.
“What did you expect? This is Patrick O’Donnell we’re talking about. The sick fuck always covers every angle. You make one move, and he’s already three steps ahead of you. You’ve put us in more danger than you can even begin to realize. I need to get out of here and find my brother before they do,” I cry out.
I don’t have time for this. They don’t know O’Donnell like I do, and my gut is telling me my brother is in over his head. The cocky bastard is going to get himself killed.
“How do you know they haven’t already?” Cody asks quietly. He doesn’t sound like he’s trying to be cruel. It seems like he genuinely wants to know, and for that reason only I decide to answer.
“Because, I would just know. I would feel it in here,” I answer, pointing to my heart. “If Row was hurt or dead I would know, and then no one on this earth would be able to stop me from getting to him or exacting my revenge,” I tell them, my voice growing colder with each word.
“I under
stand how you feel, sweetheart. There's nothing I wouldn’t do for Caleb, and being a twin intensify that feeling tenfold. I love you and your brother. I would never willingly put either one of you in danger if I didn’t think you could handle it. Your brother was insistent on staying and helping us no matter how many times we insisted on getting you two out sooner. If it were up to me and Caleb, we would have had you both back here two years ago, right after Rowen first found us. Why don’t we see what’s on that drive your brother gave us, and after that we can make plans on how to move forward.”
Conceding for now, I nod in his direction, and Cody types something on his laptop. A hidden panel in the wall slides open, uncovering a large flat screen TV. Row’s face fills the screen, and all I can do is stare, surprised by how angry I am at him. My mind flashes back to when I saw him last on the plane and how weird he acted. How unsure of the plan he was. I brushed it off, chalking it up to nerves. We were finally going to take down our mother’s killers, but all that was a lie. The whole mission was nothing but a big fat lie. He was stressed because he knew he was caught. When he said keep your eyes open, he was warning me. Oh Row, you stupid, cocky fool.
The image flickers and clears back up, and I can see enough to know that Row was at our flat in Scotland when he made this video. His beautiful face, one that looks so much like the two men in front of me, stares back at me sadly.
“I’m sorry, Rem, I know you’re probably pissed at me right now. I’ve kept things from you, and for that I’m sorry, but I will never apologize for finding out the truth or doing whatever I needed to in order to keep you safe. Even if it cost me my life. If you’re watching this without me, then my perfectly laid out plan went south. If that’s the case, I’ve executed the contingency plan, and I’m on the run, circumstances preventing me from taking you with me. I’ve always known Patrick O’Donnell wasn’t our father. He’s never loved us and probably never gave a shite if we lived or died.
