SLEEPER (Crossfire Series)

by Gennita Low

  “A call I made…” She frowned. “Oh no, the hotel manager…they must have gone to the hotel and questioned him. Who told you this information, Reed? How do we know it’s the truth?”

  “Simple. Call Tatiana yourself. Here.” He pulled out his cell phone and handed it to her. “If she answers, ask her where she is.”

  Lily stared at the phone for a long moment, not taking it. He frowned. Her face had turned chalky white. She reached for it, then snatched her hand back as if the phone were a snake. “I…can’t,” she finally said.

  “Lily?” Something was definitely wrong. He suddenly remembered the calls he’d made to her and how she’d lied, saying she hadn’t heard the ringing. She had him call Tatiana for her. He cursed softly. “That’s how it works on you, isn’t it? Through the phone. We’ve thought it was just the phrase itself, but saying that didn’t get any reaction from you at all.”

  She looked up, startled. “You know?”

  Reed nodded brusquely. “About your…condition, yes.”

  Her eyes searched his. “How much?” she asked. “How much do you know?”

  His answer seemed important to her. “Enough to believe what you did wasn’t entirely your fault, Lily,” Reed said. “The only thing we were all unsure about was whether you knew you were stopped from following through with your orders and whether you were deactivated.”

  “Deactivated,” Lily murmured bitterly. “So that was the word I’ve been trying to come up with for my condition. Like a damn computer program.”

  He’d tried to imagine what it would be like, to know part of his mind was in someone else’s control. It was an impossible subject to grasp, much less explain to someone. Lily had somehow figured out how it’d been used on her and she’d sought to avoid being trapped that way again. What was astounding was the fact she’d had to resort to doing things in a roundabout way these last few months and hadn’t lost her focus one bit.

  The phone, after all, was the easiest way to contact the people who would have helped her get the girls out of their dilemma. He was astonished at her resourcefulness, at her taking care of so many details without the one thing that seemed to be running the world these days.

  Another person might have given up and told the girls to fend for themselves. Not Lily. He felt a fierce pride and admiration for her. The woman had a core of steel.

  “Lily…”

  She turned away, but not before he saw the frustration on her face. “Everything I’ve done has hurt somebody. I thought if I got the girls out, that’d be one thing I did right. Instead, I’ve endangered them even more. They want me so badly, they’ve taken my girls. How am I ever going to get them back, Reed? I don’t even know you…you’re some guy named Mylos…. I don’t know anyone in this stupid tangle I’m in.”

  He took her by the shoulders, pulling her into his arms. She leaned back, a sigh escaping her lips.

  “You do know me. I’m Reed,” he told her. “It’s my middle name and that’s what my friends call me. You’re not alone in this, Lily. There’s Amber Hutchens and Hawk McMillan.”

  She stiffened in his arms. “Yeah, two people I’m sure love me to death,” she said sarcastically.

  “We all have one goal and that’s to stop the weapon device from getting into the wrong hands.”

  “So you guys came after me,” Lily said. She cocked her head, a stubborn expression forming, one which he was beginning to recognize. “You understand I can’t give it to you till I see my girls rescued.”

  He’d expected as much. “Everything’s being arranged. We’ll talk more about this later, after we get the girls back. I’ll make the calls, get the logistics and get everyone on the same page. Is that okay with you?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she asked bleakly.

  He turned her around. She looked defeated, and he didn’t like it. He wanted to see some of the feistiness back. He shook her lightly. “Not for this one,” he told her. “They went after the girls because they knew they would get you through them. If you want to have the girls rescued, you have to trust me on this, Lily. But…you do have a choice about one thing.”

  “What?”

  “About us. About what you want to do with us when this is over.”

  She stared at him as if he were out of his mind. “You’re Mylos Vincenzio, you know—wealthy heir to some huge fortune,” she said evenly. “I’m Llallana Noretski, someone with nothing, not even a future to look forward to.”

  He shook her harder. “If I had time, I’d take you back upstairs right now and show you all the things you can expect to look forward to, but we’ve to be on our way right now. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Aren’t you going to tie me up or something?” she asked. “After all, I have something you want.”

  She was thinking about the weapon she’d stolen, but her words conjured up images that had nothing to do with the present emergency. He ran a possessive hand down the side of her arm, then cupped her breast. She jerked at his touch.

  “Later,” he told her and knew from the look in her eyes she’d gotten the message.

  * * *

  Lily listened quietly as Reed discussed the situation over the cell phone. It was interesting to hear things from his perspective. She realized, for the first time, he was actually concerned about her. The first thing he brought up was how she didn’t use phones anymore.

  She bit back her frustration. It doesn’t matter now, she wanted to shout. She would be going to use one soon enough. Reed confirmed her own suspicions.

  “Galbert will be waiting for Lily to call up Tatiana. If he’s the one who activated her trigger, I’m going to say he’ll do it again and this time get her to bring him the device.”

  Galbert. She now had a name. That voice had a name.

  “Right. I second the idea.” Reed turned to Lily and gave Tatiana’s number. He then put the phone next to her mouth. His gray eyes looked intently into hers. “Say something in Croatian or Serbian into the phone, Lily.”

  “Why?” she asked, frowning.

  “Nikki wants to modulate the pitch of her voice to fit yours, so that when she calls Gunther, he won’t suspect anything.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” When Reed didn’t say anything, Lily said, in Croatian, “I would like the opportunity to kill this Gunther Galbert myself, please, before your agency locks me up. Please bring the girls back safely.”

  “Why do you think you’re going to be locked up?” Reed asked.

  “You don’t think they’re going to let someone like me walk around free, do you?” she asked. “Don’t think there’ll be much of a future, Mr. Vincenzio.”

  “We’ll see,” he said and got back on the phone. “Is that enough to work on, Nikki? Yes, will stand by for further instructions.”

  “What’s going on?” Lily asked when he hung up.

  “We’re going to stay put and wait for Nikki to call back. Why do you think Gunther’s waiting for you to check in on the girls?”

  What was that word he’d used? “To…activate me,” Lily said, tapping her head. “Then he’ll tell me to bring him the missing weapon.”

  Reed nodded. “That’s right. He’ll pick you up, and by that time we’ll set a trap to get him.”

  “What about the girls?” It all seemed too easy.

  “Nikki says we have an extraction plan ready and are waiting for the interior layout to be forwarded to us.”

  “Who’s Nikki?” Lily asked. “Is she your boss or something?”

  She recalled those looks they’d given to each other in the big van. Had she imagined it or had they been warning looks? Maybe they were lovers too and Nikki was worried how intimate Lily and Reed were. Of course, if the situation had been reversed, Reed would have been a dead man already. Lily wasn’t that sharing a person.

  “Nikki works for an agency called GEM. I’m on a SEAL team that’s part of a joint venture with it. We’ve been targeting this weapon you have for months now.”

  “Hawk McMil
lan’s on your team,” she said.

  “He’s my commander,” Reed acknowledged. “He was too injured to continue with the mission.”

  Lily bent her head. Hawk must have been more injured than she’d thought when he’d gone off to save Amber. Another person she’d inadvertently caused pain.

  “What do I do?” she asked resignedly. She had to make things right somehow. These people had a mission and she had been in the way. Now they were taking over her problems without even making sure she really had the weapon. “I’ll give you the device now. It’s safer out of my hands anyway.”

  His hand caressed her face, and she resisted the urge to turn to seek comfort. When had she gotten to need him so much?

  “There are people over my head who will be reading debriefings and reports after this,” Reed said softly. “An act of faith on your part will show them you weren’t against them.”

  “Just misguided?” she countered.

  “Hey, look at me.”

  She didn’t want to. Looking at him directly weakened her resolve not to feel anything, especially about him.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  She pursed her lips, then met his eyes determinedly. He saw too damned much. She knew he could see all the feelings she was trying so hard to hide, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “I don’t hold you responsible for what you did,” he said. “A group of people inside the CIA took advantage of you. You weren’t given a choice in this, so don’t beat yourself up because of it. I know what it’s like to wake up and have the whole world as you know it taken away from you, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It’s still you inside.”

  He tapped his forehead, mimicking the way she’d done it to herself earlier. There was a hint of emotion in his gray eyes which were usually so unfathomable. He spoke with the sincerity of someone who had gone through a similar pain. She cocked her head.

  “I want to know one thing. Who betrayed you?” she asked quietly.

  For one heart-stopping moment she thought he would refuse to answer her. He put a hand on her shoulder.

  “My mother,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen how she is. When she’s without her medication, her behavior becomes more erratic, to the point where she has disappeared for weeks. Before she was diagnosed as bi-polar, she did exactly that. When she returned, she was pregnant. With me.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected that. “You mean, your mother was…raped?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing that melodramatic. My guess is she met somebody who made her forget whatever it was she was trying to run from. It’s hard to explain, Lily. She just did it and then she came home. I was born and didn’t know about this till I hurt myself surfing one day and needed a blood transfusion.” He fell silent for a second, then continued. “Things became clearer after that incident. I never understood why my father always seemed to avoid looking at or talking to me. It was always ‘your mother’ or ‘your son’ in the conversations.”

  “I’m sorry, Reed,” Lily said. “I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell me your family secrets.”

  He shook his head. “It’s okay, I want you to know. It’s not as devastating as being implanted with subconscious triggers, but I want you to see I understand about deception and how it can hurt when you know you’re the cause of it. Father took care of me like I’m his, but there was always something missing. He loves my mother very much, and I think he’s forgiven her for what she did, but I was a physical reminder of it every day, so he avoided me. I made it easier for him after I found out the truth. I drifted away. I joined the Navy and seldom returned home. I haven’t gone into the family business. My two other brothers—half brothers, I should say—are probably relieved I haven’t.”

  He shrugged and scratched the back of his head, as if he was a little embarrassed at how much he’d revealed. This was probably the most she’d ever heard him talk. A lot of things made sense now. His adamancy about protection. His aloneness.

  Lily slipped her hand in his and squeezed. He smiled that rare smile that always left her a bit breathless.

  “Feeling sorry for me now, are you?” he teased.

  She nodded. “Poor little lost boy,” she said and stood on tiptoes to meet his descending mouth.

  “Poor little lost girl,” he murmured against her lips.

  It seemed so right, at that moment, they’d found each other.

  CHAPTER 18

  Time seemed to speed up when one was no longer alone. Lily looked around her, feeling a little bewildered. Reed had gotten the call to meet up, and they’d driven to a location just outside the city. It’d looked like a factory from the outside, but once they’d driven through the fenced yard and into a warehouse, the door had slammed behind the car and everything had gone black.

  She heard a loud humming, and everything vibrated as the bottom of the car moved. It was, she realized, some kind of lift. They were going underground.

  “You okay?” Reed asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “I thought we were going to the place where Gunther Galbert wanted me to meet him.”

  “Not yet. We have a team here and everyone needs to be on the same page, including you.” The lights came on. “Come on, everything’s going to be all right.”

  Lily got out of the car and followed Reed. There were armed men, dressed in black, none of whom were paying attention to her as they moved things around the meeting room. Nikki came in from the other door, also dressed in black. She was talking to someone using a wireless mic. She waved at Reed.

  Reed set his weapon bag on the floor by the table and went to pull up some chairs. Lily looked at the charts stuck on a board. Maps. A picture of the car in which she was last seen. There was one of it now—a total wreck.

  Lily scowled. She’d released the brakes and let the car roll off the cliff that night. She hadn’t gone very far, had she? All these months—these people had been following her moves, anticipating her decisions, trying to figure her out, and she’d thought she’d been all alone.

  She turned away from a photo of herself and froze. Amber was walking toward her. Her former friend didn’t look angry, like Lily had thought she would. She should be. If it’d been the other way around and it had been Amber who’d betrayed their friendship like Lily had, Lily would have taken a gun right now and shot Amber. She took a deep breath. Released it.

  They stood several feet apart. The commotion in the room seemed to recede into the background. Lily didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t thought she’d ever meet Amber again. She’d drugged and given her friend to an enemy. Saying sorry was quite inadequate.

  “Nothing I say will ever erase what I did. You can do whatever you want to me after this,” Lily finally said, “but only after the girls are safe. They don’t know what happened, so please—”

  She stopped. Please…what? Please don’t tell them? She deserved every bit of hatred from everyone for what she’d done. She wouldn’t plead for herself.

  “They’re my girls too, Lily,” Amber said. Her eyes always turned an intense blue when she was emotional about something, and Lily could see the tears she was holding back. “We don’t have time to talk now, but I want you to know I’m still your friend.”

  Lily stared at Amber. “Don’t say you forgive me,” she whispered. “It’ll make me feel worse. I much, much prefer hatred. Do something. Hit me.”

  “Too bad. I’m a missionary’s daughter, remember?” Amber gave her a small smile. “I know what’s on your mind. I’m okay. Hawk came in time.”

  Lily closed her eyes. Night after night she’d imagined the worst to punish herself, that Hawk had rescued Amber after she’d been tortured and used by Dilaver and his men. She’d returned to the city to get the girls that night and had heard the huge firefight going on. Later, she’d gotten news about people being flown to another base because of injuries. And she’d known it had to be Hawk and Amber.

  “It doesn’
t hurt any less,” she said. She opened her eyes. “You were my best friend and I loved you like a sister. I can’t explain how I could just suddenly forget that and let someone order me around. I can’t forgive myself for not having put up a fight. I keep thinking a part of me would recognize I was hurting you, but—”

  She stared down at her clenched fists. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe she’d done what she did.

  “I’ve done a lot of research on what they did to you, Lily. I’d to because I couldn’t believe you could have done that to me willingly. And you did put up a fight. You drugged me, remember? You told me you didn’t want me to go through the whole thing conscious. Part of you didn’t want to hurt me.”

  Lily glared at her friend. “Don’t give me the easy way out, please,” she exclaimed. “You’re supposed to yell and call me names. Kick the shit out of me. Tell me not to ever come near you again.”

  “First you’re going to have to endure a hug,” Amber told her.

  Lily shook her head and backed away. “Don’t,” she said.

  Amber calmly came to her and put her arms around her. The hug turned fierce. Lily swallowed back the tears stuck in her throat. “I’ve been friends with the real Lily for four years and she’s the most generous woman I’ve ever known. She did everything for a bunch of girls who had nowhere and no one to turn to. You don’t think, when she has no one now, I would abandon her, do you?”

  Lily could only hold on, her heart in her throat. She looked over Amber’s shoulder. Reed stood by the table, quietly taking in the whole scene. His eyes were just as intense as he studied her reaction to meeting Amber.