Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 02]

by The Second Betrayal

  “Any breaking news on Hagstedt?” I pictured his face before and after the mutilation.

  “We’re going to need you as well as the two girls who were in the suite to ID him on hotel and airport security tapes,” Donovan said. “You three are the only ones who have seen his face—before it was mutilated. Once you ID him, we’ll know where to start looking. Even if he changes his appearance and identity.” The air in Boston usually smelled good to me, but right now everything seemed foul while thinking of Hagstedt.

  “We’ll get him,” Donovan added.

  “Soon,” I said. “I can’t believe Ai survived.” I remembered her motionless body by the helicopter. “If it wasn’t for her, I’m not sure what would have happened to all of us.”

  “You would have found a way, Steele,” Donovan said.

  “Yeah, I would.” I caught sight of the transport for the long-term parking. “I’d better go. I’ll catch up on the rest after I see Mama.”

  “She’s going to be okay,” he said quietly.

  “I know.” I nodded as I said it, even though I was scared to death that neither of us was right.

  During the drive to my parents’ home in Cedar Grove, I probably broke a dozen traffic laws.

  When I parked and climbed out, I didn’t bother to lock the door of my Jeep. I bolted from the Cherokee and ran up the walkway to the blue-trimmed white house. I cut across the fall-yellowed grass and hurried past the basketball hoop where I often played three-on-three with my brothers and new sister-in-law. I ran up the stairs without bothering to knock and I let myself in through the front door.

  Neither Mama nor Daddy was in the family room and I ran straight through the swinging door to the kitchen. I came to a stop. My mother was using a pair of hot pads to take a baking pot out of the oven. I caught the wonderful smell of her rice pudding.

  “Lexi.” Mama beamed as she set the baking pot down and left the white-and-blue-checkered hot pads on the counter. “I made your favorite. Rice pudding.”

  “Mama.” The word came out choked as I ran to my mother and fell into her warm embrace. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, pet.” After a huge hug, Mama drew away and stroked the side of my face, her look tender and concerned. “Is everything all right?”

  It was hard to meet her gaze. It was so hard to see the dark green cloth wrapped around her head, hiding the fact that her hair must have fallen out from the chemo. I didn’t want to picture her beautiful gray hair falling out in chunks, leaving her bald.

  And she was thin. Way too thin.

  “Of course I’m fine.” I tried to smile, for her.

  That’s what she wanted. She didn’t want everyone to walk around worried and afraid. That had never been her way, and I knew that in my heart. But I didn’t think I did a very convincing job of not looking worried or afraid.

  And angry. My anger at the cancer that was inside her was eating away at me, too.

  She frowned as I met her blue eyes, and her Boston Irish accent was strong. “Don’t you go moping around on me, you understand? I want to see you out there playing basketball with your brothers and Willow, kicking their arses.”

  I hugged her again, feeling the softness of her clothing, breathing in her familiar scent. Apples along with the spices she used for cooking.

  “I could use your help, pet.” Mama put her hands on her hips as she looked at me. “Start peeling those potatoes on the cutting board by the sink. I’m putting together a couple of Irish lamb and potato hot pots.”

  “I’m on it.” I can’t cook, but peeling potatoes I can do. I went to the sink and picked up the potato peeler, then glanced back at her. “Do you like your doctors at the cancer center?”

  Mama gave a nod and smiled. “The doctors and nurses at Massachusetts General are fine indeed.”

  My stomach turned at the thought of her having to go there. I turned and started peeling a potato. “What do the doctors say?”

  “The cancer is shrinking.” The sound of cabinets opening and closing followed her words as I still faced away from her, making myself focus on the potato. “It may be soon enough that the doctors will go ahead and perform the surgery,” she said.

  I stared at the potato and stopped peeling it. The ache behind my eyes made the pressure in my head almost unbearable. “How much longer before they can get the cancer out?”

  “Pet, stop.” Mama rested her hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at her. She smiled. “Your brothers are coming over for dinner, so I need your attention on getting those potatoes peeled.”

  I tried to smile back, but failed miserably. “Okay.”

  “Now tell me about your trip to Stockholm.” Mama moved to the fridge, and cool air brushed my bare arms. She grabbed two bunches of green onions before closing the door. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

  I studied the potato in my hand. “Not this time.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  Black ops. Blacker mistakes

  “I missed your cooking.” I leaned back on the couch and patted my stomach. We were in Donovan’s living room in Back Bay. The brownstone he had bought was incredible. It looked like he’d hired an interior designer for his floor and for Kristin’s. “That Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream was a nice touch.”

  He spooned the last of the banana ice cream with walnuts and chunks of chocolate into his mouth before answering. “You only missed my cooking?”

  “The sex.” I grinned at him. “I definitely missed the sex over the last week while you’ve been wrapping things up in Manhattan.”

  “That’s what you always say.” Donovan set the empty container and spoon on the serving tray by our plates. “You miss the sex when we’re not together.” He brought his hands to my face and cupped my cheeks with his fingers, which were cool from holding the ice cream container. “I wonder if you missed me.”

  He kissed me before I could say anything in return. His kiss was soft, sweet, delicious. He tasted like banana ice cream and chocolate.

  When he drew away, he rubbed his thumb over my cheek. “Are you sure you want to know about my past?”

  Surprise made me blink. He was offering to tell me?

  “You were right.” Donovan brushed strands of hair from my cheek. “You shared your past with me, and I should be willing to do the same.”

  “About damned time,” I said with a pretend grumble. But in some ways I was worried for him because of that cryptic thing he had said the last time we talked.

  He gave me a half smile. More a sad smile. Probably because of what he was going to tell me.

  “As you know, I was a SEAL before I left the Navy to take care of my sister when our parents were killed,” he said.

  I nodded, studying his brilliant blue eyes.

  “No one knew, but I was still active duty while I raised Kristin.” He lowered his hand from my face and leaned back against the couch. “I did local jobs that wouldn’t take me away from my sister.” He paused. “As a mercenary. Mostly I did private security work guarding senior U.S. diplomats, but there were other more secretive operations that I took care of.”

  “Mercenary,” I said, the word seeming strange when it came to Donovan and the United States, not some foreign country. “But that changed when your sister graduated and went to college? Or did you continue your work as a mercenary?”

  “When Kristin headed off to Harvard,” he said, “I went into black ops.” Donovan shook his head. “It was like being a mercenary ten times over.”

  I put my hand on his knee and squeezed, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Our missions were quietly approved and funded by a branch of the military,” he said. “My job was recovery. To rescue specialist kidnapped soldiers and kidnapped operatives that no one knew existed. I didn’t just recover people, though. I recovered objects, military secrets—anything that needed recovery.”

  “That’s probably one of the reasons why Oxford wanted to hire you so badly.”
After all, we were RED, the Recovery Enforcement Division.

  Donovan nodded. “I was good at what I did. Damned good.” His brilliant blue eyes seemed to dim as they clouded with what had to be memories I wasn’t sure anymore were something I wanted to know about. “Too good,” he added softly.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He looked down at my hand, which I’d rested on his knee. “One of our ops had to do with going after a major terrorist responsible for . . . tragedies that we as a country still have not come to grips with.”

  Chills prickled my spine. I didn’t know what was coming, but it wasn’t going to be good.

  “Except we weren’t supposed to just recover him.” Donovan met my gaze again. “We were ordered to eliminate him.”

  “Something went wrong,” I stated.

  “We were fed bad intel.” His eyes seemed even more clouded with pain. “I was captain of our squad and I trusted our source.”

  I held my breath.

  Donovan looked at me with so much remorse on his face that I wanted to bring him into my arms and hold him tight. “I should have had my men do some of our own recon.”

  He blew out his breath. “We were given a building and a specific time that the terrorist would be meeting with followers in an Afghan village.”

  Christ. Here it came.

  “My squad prepared hours ahead of time,” he said. “We had that building wired with so many explosives, they wouldn’t find any pieces left to identify.

  “One of my men was ready to blow the whole fucking place with the single remote.” Donovan’s throat worked as he swallowed, and my chest was hurting like an elephant was standing square on it. “I picked up my long-range binoculars and adjusted them so that I could see better.

  “It wasn’t until then that I saw the children being herded into the building.”

  Horror built up inside me, welled like boiling water in a pot.

  “I yelled at my man to abort, as loud as I could.” He gritted his teeth before he continued. “I didn’t give a shit who heard me even though there were Afghan soldiers all around us who hadn’t been aware we were there.”

  I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming.

  “My operative didn’t hear me.” Donovan’s throat worked again. “And we blew those children all to hell.”

  Donovan braced his elbows on his thighs and put his face in his hands. I didn’t know what to do. What to say. The horror of what his team had done, what he’d had to live with, was too great.

  “The Afghan soldiers captured every man on my team,” Donovan said when he raised his head. “We were beaten, tortured. A couple of men were killed. For a while I was too numb to care. I felt like I deserved it.

  “After a while I realized I had to get my men out of there. I couldn’t let them continue to be brutalized.” He shrugged, a very noncasual shrug. “I escaped, helped to get every one of my men out of there. My men who were still living.

  “I never saw the children’s faces. The children we killed.” Donovan looked at me again. “But I see faceless children in my dreams and my waking thoughts. Every single day of my life.”

  I buried my face against his shirt and slid my arms around his waist and held him. Soon he gripped me tight in his arms and we clung to each other for a long time.

  We slept together that night, but all we did was hold each other.

  In the morning I woke to see Donovan propped up on his elbow looking down at me. His face was so serious as he met my eyes. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, Lexi,” he said, and I knew he was really serious because he’d used my first name. “But I care for you in ways I’ve never cared about another woman.”

  “Donovan,” I started, but he put his hand over my mouth.

  He moved between my thighs and spread them apart before he thrust his erection into me, hard.

  He took me so deep and fast and so unexpected that I came within moments. My cry surprised me, and with every stroke my body vibrated.

  When he climaxed, he shouted out my name. He throbbed inside me and I kissed his jaw as his breathing came in ragged puffs. A drop of his sweat splattered on my chest.

  Donovan rolled over onto his side, bringing me with him. “I love you, Lexi,” he said, his voice soft, quiet.

  Shock rolled through me. I couldn’t move.

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was close my eyes and pretend he hadn’t said those words.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING

  My accounts are fictionalized, but the truth is human trafficking is a very tragic fact of life around the world.

  As of this date, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Web site states:

  “Trafficking in persons—also known as ‘human trafficking’—is a form of modern-day slavery. Traffickers often prey on individuals who are poor, frequently unemployed or underemployed, and who may lack access to social safety nets, predominantly women and children in certain countries. Victims are often lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives, and then forced to work under brutal and inhuman conditions.

  “It is a high priority of the Department of Justice to pursue and prosecute human traffickers. Human trafficking frequently involves the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation, a brutal crime the Department is committed to aggressively investigating and prosecuting. Trafficking also often involves exploitation of agricultural and sweatshop workers, as well as individuals working as domestic servants.”

  The most recent information on the Federal Bureau of Investigation Web site states:

  “According to the State Department, up to two million people are trafficked worldwide every year, with an estimated 15,000 to 18,000 in the U.S.”

  You can report suspected instances of trafficking or worker exploitation by calling the Department of Justice or contacting the FBI field office nearest you.

  As an author, my hope is that by making more people aware of human trafficking, we will have the strength to save more human lives.

  FOR CHEYENNE’S READERS

  Visit Cheyenne’s Web site at www.CheyenneMcCray.com. Please feel free to e-mail her at chey@cheyen nemccray.com. She would love to hear from you.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek

  at Cheyenne McCray’s

  LUKE

  An Armed and Dangerous Novel

  Coming soon in trade paperback

  from St. Martin’s Griffin

  Hair prickled at Trinity’s nape, as though she was being watched from a totally different location, and a slight shiver skittered down her spine. She knew she was acting slightly rude to Guerrero, but she couldn’t help pivoting, searching for the source of the sensation—and she came to an abrupt stop.

  Caught her breath.

  Heard Navaeh’s voice bouncing through her mind, whispering, One gorgeous hunk of cowboy.

  Okay, yeah, this must be the guy.

  Because he was the most rugged, most handsome cowboy she’d ever had the pleasure of viewing.

  He was standing a few yards away from her, sometimes hidden from view by the flow of the crowd. The look on his face was nothing short of feral.

  Instinctively she took a step back, bumping into Guerrero, who caught her and her wine both this time. He didn’t keep hold of her, and Trinity noticed that he seemed angered by the cowboy’s scrutiny.

  “My apologies,” Guerrero murmured. “I had no idea you were attached. Please forgive my boldness.”

  He was gone before Trinity could correct the mistake, not that she could have managed a single word with the cowboy staring at her so intently.

  She raised a trembling hand and drained her wine.

  The cowboy moved toward her.

  Was it her imagination, or was the crowd parting for him?

  You’re losing your mind, Trin.

  He came closer, closer, a few feet away from her. Now a few inches. She tried to back away again, but in a quick movement he caught her wrist, drawing
her closer to him. Her flesh burned where he held her, and her mind went entirely blank. She would have dropped her wine glass if the cowboy hadn’t slipped it from her limp hand and placed it on a server’s tray.

  His expression was so intense that Trinity’s knees almost gave out. And those blue eyes—God, the way he was looking at her made her feel like he was making love to her right on the spot.

  She tried to pull her wrist out of his iron grasp. “I—let go.”

  The man shook his head, the look in his eyes possessive and untamed. “No, Sugar,” he murmured, his liquid-hot Texan drawl flowing over her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Sensual heat scorched Trinity in a rush. It shot up her thighs and waist, straight to her breasts, and on up to the roots of her hair. He had to be the one she’d seen getting out of the truck earlier. Even without the cowboy hat and duster, he seemed just as dark and dangerous. Maybe even more.

  Dang, the man was tall. And sexy. He had a strong, angular jaw line shadowed by dark stubble, and the most intense gaze that refused to let her go. And God, but he smelled good. Like spicy aftershave, the clean scent of soap, and a hint of malt beer. The way the man was looking at her, she could just imagine his touch, his mouth—

  Hold on. Who the heck did he think he was, telling her she wasn’t going anywhere?

  Yet she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

  Like a deer trapped by headlights . . . only what had captured her was a pair of wicked blue eyes and a steel-vice grip on her wrist.

  The man pried the wine glass from her hand and set it on a table beside them. “You keep some hazardous company, Sugar.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Guerrero.” The man nodded in the direction Guerrero had taken. “All hat and no cattle—but lots of guns and drugs.”

  The man’s expression faltered, like he hadn’t meant to say exactly that. Then he seemed to come to some decision, and added, “Francisco Guerrero is a dangerous man. If I were you, I’d stay far away from him.”