There was a knock at the door. They froze.
No, Farrah silently begged. Finish that thought. Please!
Oliver sighed. He squeezed her hands and then released him. “It could be about Luke,” he whispered.
Farrah’s heart dropped and guilt swept away any thought for herself. “Of course,” she said quickly. “Answer it.”
They’d heard nothing about Luke since his departure with Jayden, and the anxiety Oliver felt over his friend’s well-being was ever present.
Oliver’s footsteps moved to the door. As it opened, Farrah recognized the soft cadence of Jericho’s voice. “Do you have a minute?” Jericho asked.
Oliver hesitated. “A quick one. We were about to eat supper.”
“I can make it quick,” Jericho said, but something unidentifiable in his tone made Farrah frown.
“Be right back, baby,” Oliver called to her.
She barely managed a strained smile before the door closed. What was that about? Something was going on, and the first shiver of worry she’d felt in weeks tracked up Farrah’s spine.
***
“You promised quick, let’s see it.” Oliver’s attention was still behind him with the beautiful woman he was coming to care far too much about.
He’d been about to ask her to stay. Confess that there had been no real reason for the current delay—the bank transfer went through before Oliver had even told her about it—as well as confess that he was falling for her and the thought of living without her, even in the life he’d fought so hard for, no longer held any appeal to him.
“It can be as quick as you decide,” Jericho said.
Slowly, Oliver turned his head toward the man and looked him in the eye. “Well, that was cryptic as shit.”
A muscle ticked in Jericho’s jaw; the man’s eyes held sympathy. Oliver’s gut wrenched sideways on him, and he fought himself to keep from placing a hand over it.
“We’ve intercepted a call to your apartment two separate times in the past hour.”
Oliver closed his eyes, knowing what Jericho would say before he said it.
“It’s from that number in Afghanistan,” Jericho said softly. “Each time we’ve picked it up to record it, whoever is on the other end hangs up.”
“Damn it,” Oliver muttered.
“What do you want us to do?” Jericho asked. “We’ll go with it. Whatever it is. Within reason.”
Within reason. In other words, they were going to do something, whether Oliver wanted them to or not. Which meant, according to Operation: Middle of the Garden, Farrah was still considered a threat.
“Damn it,” Oliver repeated.
“I’m sorry,” said Jericho. “I know you two have been getting along lately. Has she mentioned anything to you about…well, anything?”
Oliver shook his head, both answering Jericho’s question and denying Farrah was anything they needed to be worried about. There was no way that Farrah was dangerous or privy to anything their enemies had done. She may not have divulged any secrets in the past two weeks, but he was getting to know her. She cried for God’s sake when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite. If that wasn’t a judge of character, he didn’t know what was.
Besides, he’d taken her virginity. What kind of woman who was supposed to use her sexuality to destroy an enemy was still a virgin? It didn’t make sense. She had been innocent in body; perhaps she was innocent in all ways. “There’s no way she is one of them.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Jericho replied in a tone of voice that assured Oliver he was anything but sure.
Oliver gritted his teeth. “Fine. Let’s prove it.” He felt a flare of caution from the Voice, who had been blessedly silent the past two weeks, and it was enough to give Oliver pause. When the Voice didn’t say anything, however, Oliver proceeded. “Let the call through. Record her. And when it’s nothing but a buddy from her hometown, you will all apologize to her and proceed to kiss her ass for as long as I deem necessary.”
Jericho’s face split into a grin. “You’re keeping her, then.”
Oliver scowled. “She’s not a puppy.”
“You loooove her.”
Oliver jabbed a finger his direction. “Your wife is a bad influence.”
“Compliment accepted.”
Oliver switched fingers, and Jericho chuckled. “You want to come with?” Jericho asked, turning toward the main room.
Oliver looked over his shoulder once more before looking back at Jericho. “Actually, yeah,” he said, surprised he would choose anything over spending more time with Farrah. “I want to see your face when you realize you’ve maligned my lady.” Yes. That was why he wanted to go with Jericho. Not because there was the slightest sliver of doubt in Oliver’s mind. “Quickly,” Oliver said. “You promised.”
“That I did.”
They set off down the hall, Oliver pushing their pace. They arrived in a small black room that housed the compound’s media operating systems—telephone system included. At the doorway, Jericho stepped into the room, but Oliver stalled out, suddenly paying more attention to that feeling of caution from the Voice. It was one thing for them to doubt Farrah, but would she forgive him if she found out he doubted her? Their…relationship—if he could call it that yet—was tenuous at best. The stories of how the others had alienated their mates in their courtships were well-known to Oliver, and he’d already done the two of them plenty of damage by propositioning his virgin mate for sex. They might not survive this, too.
“You know what? I’m good.” He leaned against the wall beside the door. “You go ahead and do your thing, but I’m going to wait out here. Let the call through the next time it comes.”
Jericho looked him over and gave him another of those annoying-as-hell grins. “You got it, Romeo.”
“Oh, so much fuck you,” Oliver said. “Do we really want to compare degrees of being whipped here? Because we both know how that would go.”
“Like that’s a bad thing,” Jericho muttered, disappearing into the utility room and closing the door.
Alone in the quiet of the hallway, Oliver leaned back against the wall and focused on controlled breathing. He lost that focus, however, when he heard a phone ring on the other side of the door.
***
Farrah hoped Oliver would return soon. She’d finished cooking the meal Oliver started, and now it was cooling on the table. Her fingers were clenched together in her lap, and every moment that passed without Oliver’s return found her clenching them tighter.
The phone in the bedroom rang.
Farrah jumped, hitting her knees on the underside of the table and gasping at the hot flare of pain.
No one had used that phone in the past two weeks. Whenever someone needed to contact Oliver, they called or texted his cell phone.
It was Ibrahim.
She leapt from her chair, but then warred between running to the phone and sitting back down again.
The fact that she warred over something she’d been waiting for her entire life spurred her into motion. She walked quickly into the bedroom.
With a shaking hand, she answered the phone. “Hello?”
“I found her,” Ibrahim said quickly.
“Oh my God,” Farrah whispered.
Ibrahim rattled off the location of a fine house in Kabul, which Farrah committed to memory. “I do not have much time,” Ibrahim said, “but, there is something you should know.”
“I…do not have much time either,” Farrah managed to say. Her mind was rioting; her heart was lifting. Her mother. At last.
“Farrah—”
The line went dead.
Farrah gasped. “Ibrahim?” When he did not answer, she shouted “Ibrahim!”
The line remained silent. She dropped the phone back in its cradle, wringing a chime from the inner mechanisms.
“Oh my God,” she said again. She knew where her mother was. She had to get there. Ibrahim had something important to tell her and was cut off before he could. Was her m
other in danger?
There was no time to waste. She had to get there as soon as possible. Would the angel take her back?
Oliver. She needed him. His help and his presence. She would tell him. Tell him everything, and then he would help her save her mother and bring her back. Yes, that is what she would do.
She whirled around the bedroom, collecting the few things she had set aside and hidden for her journey.
The fruit!
The most important item for her journey and her mother’s key to immortality. She whirled toward the corner and the plant that hid the fruit.
***
Oliver lasted five seconds leaning against that wall before he had second thoughts. He jerked toward the door and pushed it open. Jericho was leaning over a panel of controls.
“Cut it,” Oliver said.
Jericho’s head snapped up. His gaze found Oliver’s, but his brows were drawn.
“Cut it!” Oliver shouted. “Now!
Jericho launched into motion and slapped a button near his hand, jerking the headphones off. “What happened?”
“This is wrong.” Oliver shoved a hand through his hair. She would never forgive him for invading her privacy like this. For suspecting her like this.
“Oliver, we have to know—” Jericho said.
“Stop,” Oliver said loudly, cutting Jericho off. “I know, all right?” Fuck! “I know we do. I’ll just…ask her.”
The caution from the Voice vanished. Just like that. Relief flooded him instead. Asking her—what a novel idea.
He could walk right up to her, kiss her, tell her he wanted her to stay, and then ask her to confide in him. “Yes,” Oliver said out loud.
“Uh….” Jericho looked around the room and then back at Oliver. “You all right there, killer?”
“Give me…thirty minutes. Can you do that?” Oliver shifted anxiously from foot to foot. He wanted to get out of here. Get back to his girl.
“Of course we can give you that.” Jericho removed the headphones from around his neck and laid them on the controls. “You gonna talk to her?”
Oliver jerked a nod. He was going to do much more than that. He was going to lay it all out there. Abandon his goal of getting his old life back…forever.
He felt both sick and jubilant.
“You look a little green,” Jericho said.
Oliver swallowed.
Jericho burst into laughter. “Welcome to married life, my friend.”
Oliver felt himself blanch, and Jericho’s laughter kicked up a notch. “Your face right now.” He wiped a tear from his eye.
“No one’s getting married,” Oliver blurted.
“You lie,” Jericho returned just as quickly. “I give you a month, tops, before you’re begging her to run to Vegas.”
Oliver paused. That sounded…pretty wonderful, actually. “Fuck.”
Jericho was still laughing as Oliver sprinted down the hallway. He skidded into the living quarters wing and ran full-out for his apartment, his plan on repeat in his head. Kiss her, ask her to stay, ask her to confide her secrets.
He flung open the door to the apartment, looking frantically around the living area for Farrah. Their supper was on the table, but she was nowhere to be seen. His head snapped toward the bedroom. He could hear her moving around in there.
He was there in an instant. Farrah was across the room, bending over a plant that Oliver did not even remember being there. “What are you—”
She spun around, one hand over her heart, one stretched out and cradling something that caught and refracted light.
The fruit from the Tree of Eternal Life.
Oliver’s world imploded.
24
“What…the fuck…is that?” The question had started at normal volume, but by the last word, Oliver was shouting.
Farrah stumbled back. Her face drained of all color before his eyes. “O-Oliver,” she stuttered.
Oliver’s vision darkened at the edges. “You—” He clenched his lips, swallowing whatever it was that he was getting ready to say.
One of them. There was no other explanation. She was a spy. All of his stupid assumptions about her innocence, and here she was sneaking a piece of the fruit after receiving a call from Afghanistan. She had to have been involved in his torment over the past years.
Had she laughed as she watched him scream himself to death?
Ask her, the Voice urged. Oliver took a step toward her, his fists tightening. “Tell me,” he growled. “Now. And don’t leave out a thing.”
Her eyes were enormous. She was practically crouching in the corner, clutching the fruit to her chest. Her every mannerism screamed guilty. Guilty of trapping him in a death cycle. Guilty of authoring his torturous existence. She confirmed his suspicions when she shook her head.
He felt like exploding. “You won’t explain yourself?”
She hesitated, but shook her head again.
“Get out,” Oliver said.
She seemed frozen to the spot, completely unable to move. He needed to get away from her—now—or he would say something he would regret forever.
“It’s not important anyway,” Oliver said with a calmness that belied his feelings. “We both got what we wanted from this. It’s over now. I’ll leave.”
Farrah made a wounded noise that caused Oliver to pause, but only for a moment. She must just be aware of how grave a mistake she made going against them. Must be worried about what would happen to her next.
If she was found guilty for her crimes, there was nothing even Oliver could do for her—as if he would want to, and that was certainly not a burden from which he currently suffered.
He stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him so hard a picture crashed to the floor in the living room. He paid it no mind as he left the apartment.
He pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed Jericho’s number. “Post guards at the apartment,” Oliver said as soon as the other man picked up. “Review the tape and start gathering evidence for a war-crimes trial.”
“Wait…what?”
Oliver jerked his phone from his ear and dropped it in his pocket, barely resisting the urge to crush it in his fist instead.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Oliver skidded to a halt and closed his eyes. He did not need this right now. He turned around. Sexpot demon leaned one shoulder against the wall while examining her manicure. “You,” he pointed at her, “get away from me right now.”
“Ooo.” She straightened. “Anger. My favorite,” she said breathlessly.
He clenched his jaw, nearly cracking his molars.
“Last chance to ally.” The demon stalked toward him on those killer stilettos. “Bad shit’s about to go down.”
The little control Oliver had over himself vanished. “You think I care about an apocalypse right now?” he roared.
The demon stopped in her tracks, her lips forming a perfect O.
“My life’s over anyway! Bring on the best you’ve got. I…don’t…care.” He was shaking all over.
A slow smile spread the demon’s lips. “Fascinating. Well, that was easy. Not to be dramatic or anything, but you may regret this missed opportunity.”
A heavy weight settled in Oliver’s gut, and he took a step toward her. Before he could take another, she vanished.
Oliver stretched his hand out toward the spot she’d just been, but as soon as he realized what had happened, the rage rushed back in.
Another woman manipulating him. He roared to the ceiling and then stormed off, not quite sure where he was going, but knowing it needed to be anywhere but here.
***
Bile crawled up Farrah’s throat. She shook in the corner, listening to Oliver yell for guards, and knew she’d very narrowly escaped calamity.
Trust him with her secrets?
Thank God she had not.
Internally, she knew that he would not care about her mother—that had never been the reason for keeping the secret. Ibrahim’s life w
as on the line as well as hers if certain people in Afghanistan, who would view her as escaped property, knew what they were doing.
But even more dangerous, Farrah swallowed, was the idea that Oliver could use that information against her. One did not have to care about the information to completely annihilate another person with it.
Her mother was a weakness that Oliver could jab with a hot poker until she was completely at his mercy, and she had been on the verge of telling all.
Get out now. Her mind was screaming at her. Guards were on their way. She had minutes—maybe even just moments—before she was guarded again. In his rage, Oliver had momentarily left her alone, and she needed to strike. Now.
Getting to Afghanistan alone? Her gut sank. She had already begun to rely on Oliver’s assistance to get there, and now she had nothing.
Doubly nothing.
The whole point of the “deal” with Oliver was to make sure she was financially stable for the rest of her life. Now she had no money and the added burden of a broken heart. Not to mention the ramifications for stealing the fruit. She had gambled and lost. Lost big.
Worried that she would start sobbing any moment, Farrah forced herself into action. Action could always delay emotion if it was frenzied enough. She strapped everything she could to herself beneath her loose-fitting clothes. It would leave her arms and legs unhampered if she had to fight, and—given Oliver’s anger when he left—she very well may have to fight to regain her freedom.
She had to have been clutching the fruit to her chest when he burst in. Of course she was. And then his sudden explosion of anger had surprised her so much, she was unable to gather any thoughts, much less defend herself against accusations that he didn’t even verbalize. That she had done something that had set him off was obvious; what, exactly, that was, however, was not clear. But one thing was clear: she could not trust him, and so her life here was over.
She slid the fruit into her hijab and crept to the door. She pushed her ear against the cool wood and heard no sign of anyone standing guard yet. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, however. She eased the door open a crack and waited for some sort of exclamation or order to return to her rooms. When none came, she opened the door the rest of the way and proceeded to walk at a clipped but normal pace toward the exit. If she looked confident, she knew her chances of escape were more likely. Luckily, looking a certain way did not depend on how one felt, because inside, Farrah was a gooey, sniveling mess.
Of Blind Fate (Operation: Middle of the Garden Book 5) Page 19
