by Lili Valente
Looking at Clay now, seeing the sunlight filtering through the trees catching his sandy blond hair, transforming it into a golden halo, she wondered if maybe she’d finally found rock bottom.
Lucifer, the king of hell, the prince of lies, was supposed to be beautiful, wasn’t he? Like Clay?
Beautiful and smooth and seductive until the moment he betrayed you to the death and worse. It was the beauty that made the betrayal truly heinous, which made it so exquisitely terrible when he took your hand and led you into the fire.
Chapter Six
Harley
“A deal.” Harley forced a smile, already knowing she didn’t want anything he had to offer. “What kind of a deal?”
He was lying. She could feel it in her gut, no matter how solid his poker face. He was here without permission and any promises he made weren’t worth the paper they were written on.
“The best thing we can do for Jasper is to make sure Marlowe never finds him,” Clay said, his voice thick with worry. “We need him to disappear and I can make that happen. I have the connections to change his name, his appearance, and erase all connections to Marlowe or anyone else who might want to hurt him. I can keep him safe and give him a chance at a normal life.”
A normal life.
Even knowing Clay was incapable of delivering on that promise—Marlowe wasn’t so easily escaped—the phrase still sent a sharp pang through her chest. It was all she wanted for Jasper, all she’d ever wanted.
Clay eased closer, sending the familiar smell of him sweeping through her head. “All you have to do is tell me where he is.”
“And in exchange?” she asked, fighting to hide her hurt and anger. He had mentioned a deal and she was curious what Clay assumed was a fair price for handing her child over to a man who had nearly killed her.
“In exchange, I destroy the file I have on you.” Hope flickered in his eyes, there and gone in a second, but long enough for Harley to see how much he wanted this to be over. She might have been the one in the cell, but Clay hadn’t enjoyed torturing her. Apparently he hadn’t become a complete sadist in the years that they’d been apart.
Someone should give him a medal.
A big, heavy one, swung straight into his handsome face.
“I haven’t shared what I have on you with anyone else in the agency,” he continued. “It can go directly into the trash and you can go free. I can even help you find a place to hide until Marlowe is in custody and it’s safe for you to show your face again.”
“Safe for me to come see Jasper,” she said, arching a cool brow. “And help give him a normal childhood.”
Clay’s jaw tightened. “We can never be sure that we’ve captured all of Marlowe’s associates. His network is too wide. I know it will be painful for you, but the best thing for Jasper is to let him go.”
She kept her breath long and smooth, refusing to shout or let this devolve into a rage fest the way it had the first time he’d told her that she would never see her son again. This time, she would use logic, appeal to the compassion he felt for his son, and hope that Clay had cooled down enough to listen to what she had to say.
He didn’t seem as angry as he had that first day on the island. Maybe the two weeks she’d lost would be worth something, after all, if they gave her a shot at making him see reason.
“I told my share of lies when we were together,” she said, keeping her tone even, reasonable. “But I wasn’t lying about my mother. She abandoned our family when I was ten years old. One day she was there helping with homework and teaching my sister and me to cook from this old French cookbook and the next day she was just…gone. Even knowing that she’d left of her own free will didn’t keep me from loving her, needing her, and praying every day that she would come home and be my mother again.”
Clay’s lids dropped to half-mast. “That must have been hard.”
“And then she came back,” Harley pressed on, needing him to know the whole story, to see the bigger picture. “But she wasn’t the same. She didn’t want to look at me, let alone teach me how to make French pastry. It sickened her to be in the same room with my sister or me and that never stopped hurting. Never. Even now that I know why she came home fucked up and stayed that way, the fact that my mother decided to stop loving me tears me up inside.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Clay said, “but I don’t—”
“I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me.” Harley stood up straighter. “I just need you to understand that I know firsthand what it’s like to lose a mother. It’s not the sort of thing you grow out of. It’s the kind of thing that damages you and leaves you believing that you’re not good enough. That you’ll never be good enough or worthy of being loved for the person you are.”
She paused as a warm breeze swept between them, setting the leaves to rustling overhead, the light clatter of the palms seeming to echo her plea for compassion. “Is that what you want for Jasper? To be abandoned by the only parent he’s ever known? And to blame himself for it? Because he will, Clay, it’s what abandoned kids do.”
He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes searching her face. For what, she wasn’t sure, but she lifted her chin and let him look. She had nothing to hide. She was speaking the truth and if he could step away from his anger long enough to think clearly, he would see that she was right.
“What’s he like?” he finally asked, the question breaking her heart a little.
It was sad that Clay didn’t know his son. It was even sadder that the wonderful man she’d once known had become someone she would be reluctant to leave alone in a room with Jasper.
“He looks like you,” she said. “But he keeps his feelings close to his chest like me. He’s incredibly smart and curious, but he hates to make mistakes. He likes to do things right the first time. When he doesn’t, he gets angry, but in a quiet, private sort of way. He doesn’t lash out or get aggressive like some boys. He’s…very sweet.”
A smile trembled across her face. “He always has been. Since the day he was born. And I’ve done everything I could to help him stay that way. To help him grow and learn and be happy.”
She sniffed, fighting tears as she pushed her hair away from her face, suddenly so exhausted it felt like the light breeze drifting in from the ocean might blow her over.
She was so tired, so very fucking tired. She’d been worn down, worn out, and desperate for a break in the non-stop drama and danger before she ended up here. All she wanted was peace for her and Jasper and if the only way to have that was to cut a deal, then maybe she and Clay could work something out.
But not his deal—hers.
Jasper truly was an extraordinarily sweet, clever kid. He wouldn’t do anything to provoke Clay, and Clay seemed to want to keep Jasper safe—surely that extended to protecting his son from his ugly new temper.
“Listen, I know you hate me, and you have every right to.” She clasped her hands together in front of her, not too proud to beg if that’s what it took to find her way back to her son. “But I never meant to keep Jasper from you. I didn’t even know you were alive. Now that I do, we can work together to give him the best life possible. I’m willing to cooperate, even share custody if we can come to an agreement that works for both of us, but I can’t desert him. I won’t. I know he needs safety and stability, but he also needs his mother.”
Clay shook his head slowly back and forth. “You are…a piece of work.” He sounded nearly as tired as she felt.
Her shoulders sagged. “Not a good piece of work, I’m assuming.”
“You would have been an amazing spy,” he said, not bothering to answer her question. He didn’t have to. It was clear from the flat look in his eyes that he didn’t believe she had anything to offer Jasper.
“I don’t want to be a spy,” she said bitterly. “All I want to do is get out from under my father’s thumb and Marlowe’s thumb and find a safe place for Jasper and me to build a life. I’m trying to work with you, Clay, even though you
’re clearly out of your damned mind. Why won’t you at least try to—”
“You’re the one who’s crazy if you think happily ever after is in the cards for you.” He lifted the Taser, pointing it at her chest. “I told you the day we arrived, you’re not calling the shots. You have no power here and you will never convince me that you are anything but walking, talking poison.”
Harley fought the urge to lunge for him and pound her fists on his stupid, stubborn chest. Touching him was dangerous—awareness still simmered in the air between them, underscoring the anger like a relentless drumbeat—and she didn’t want to get sucked into another encounter unless she had a plan to use his attraction for her to her own advantage. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to do much damage with her fists before he Tasered her again, and she couldn’t afford to lose any ground she might have gained in the past ten minutes.
Clay hadn’t changed his mind, but at least he’d listened to what she had to say and refrained from trying to kill her.
At this rate, by the time Jasper graduates from high school, he’ll be down to slapping you around once a week.
The thought sent a sour taste flooding through her mouth.
“These are your options,” Clay continued in a tight voice. “One, you tell me where Jasper is right now, this very second, and I let you go free. Two, you keep fighting me, giving Marlowe time to find Jasper, and when I get the information I need from you—and I will get it, make no mistake about that—you will go directly into CIA custody. And by then, our son might be dead.”
Harley’s heart stuttered and her blood went cold, but she refused to let Clay scare her.
Jasper was with Dom, and Dom, for all his goodness, didn’t fuck around. He had plenty of experience dealing with bad men and dangerous situations. He would do whatever it took to keep Jasper safe. He would keep his guard up and Jasper out of harm’s way and even if she were out of the picture for a while, he wouldn’t be in any hurry to drop Jasper off with Jackson and Hannah.
Thank. God.
Jackson was Clay’s friend and wouldn’t hesitate to hand Jasper over to his biological father. No, sending Jasper to Hannah wouldn’t work. Not anymore.
Which meant that Harley had to survive, get out of here, and get to Dom. And then she could plan what to do next, even if that meant spending the rest of her life running from Marlowe and Clay and anyone else who tried to take her son away from her.
Life on the run was its own kind of hell, but she would rather go through hell with Jasper than escape to heaven without him.
Drawing on the last of her strength, she lifted herself up as tall as she could stand in the heavy combat boots Clay had found for her and met his hard gaze. “There are never only two choices. Fate is too fickle to make life that easy for you or anyone else. There are always other options. Always.”
“If you’re hoping I’ll shit myself to death, you’ll be waiting for a long time,” he said. “I haven’t been sick a day since I was discharged from the hospital after the accident.”
“I’m rarely sick, either,” she said calmly. “I’m too stubborn.”
“I know you are,” he said, his expression softening the tiniest bit. “But I’m not playing games, Harley. This is your one and only chance to have this end well for you. I won’t offer a deal again and every second you spend fighting me is a second that Marlowe gets closer to our son.”
“I’m not playing games, either.” She stared up at him unflinching, willing him to see that he’d met an immovable force and put them both out of their misery. “I won’t let you scare me into abandoning Jasper, and if something happens to him, it will be on your head as much as mine. Compromise is the only way forward. If you can’t bend, we’re both going to break and take an innocent little boy down with us.”
His eyes roamed her face, but he didn’t speak, and in the silence, the drumbeat of attraction pulsed louder. She didn’t know how it was possible, but she still wanted to pull his mouth down to hers and taste him, even now, when he had proven that he was a stubborn madman intent on putting Jasper’s life in jeopardy.
It would make her hate herself if she wasn’t already there.
She’d hated herself for longer than she could remember. She’d hated herself as a child for not being able to win her mother’s love, she’d hated herself as a young woman for her sick compulsion to destroy every man who came into her life, and she hated herself now for creating this living hell that she was trapped inside. The legacy of her sins was inescapable, and if it were only her life to consider, she might have given up on it a long time ago.
She’d given up on romantic love and a relationship with her sister and love from her parents and recognition for her art and everything else she’d secretly, or not-so-secretly, craved when she was younger. Giving up on breathing wouldn’t have been far behind, except for one little boy and the promises she had made to him, promises she refused to break, no matter what fresh hell came seething into her life.
“All right,” Clay whispered. “Then break it is.”
Without another word, he turned and led the way into a darker part of the jungle.
Chapter Seven
Clay
They traversed the five-mile trail leading to the other side of the island in silence. Clay had no idea what Harley was thinking, but his thoughts were a steady mantra of don’t fuck this up.
This was the moment when their course would be set, one way or another.
Clay had been involved in enough interrogations to recognize a turning point when he was in the middle of one. By the end of today, he would have either broken Harley’s resolve or she would have double-downed on her silence and committed to seeing it through to the end.
Maybe even the bitter end.
He didn’t plan on using enhanced interrogation techniques beyond what was available with the sensory stimulation cell—that kind of torture didn’t work; no matter what a few idiots in the FBI seemed to think—but even if he did, at this point he wouldn’t put it past Harley to do exactly what she’d sworn to do. She might let herself be water-boarded to death before she gave up Jasper’s location.
She was so fucking stubborn.
That’s why you have to make today count. Push slow and steady. She’s exhausted and vulnerable and worried about Jasper.
This is your shot; don’t fuck it up.
Don’t. Fuck it. Up.
“Turn right,” he said when they reached the third fork in the trail. “We’ll take this loop up around the cliffs by the sea and then back around the other side of the island.”
Harley obediently turned right, but her boots dragged in the dust as they started up the incline toward the cliffs. He’d found several pairs of tennis shoes in an old storage room, along with scrubs in various sizes and female uniform pieces he could have given Harley to wear, but he’d chosen the boots instead. They were heavy and would wear her out faster, and his boxers and tee shirt clinging to her sweat-soaked skin would help remind her that she was powerless. She was under his control, dependent on him for everything from the food she ate to the clothes covering her nakedness.
But she wouldn’t be enjoying the privilege of even humble clothing for much longer.
A part of him hated that it was going to come to this—the fact that he was even considering what he had planned for when they reached the falls on the other side of the cliffs proved he was off the rails. But the other part of him was simply grateful for an excuse to be skin to skin with her again, to take things slow this time and memorize the way it felt to fuck this woman who affected him like no other.
Love her or hate her, Harley got to him. Got under his skin and in his head and drove him fucking out of his mind with wanting her.
He’d been semi-hard all day, just the smell of her drifting to him as he walked behind her on the trail enough to make him ache. It had been hard enough to resist her when she’d been an image on a monitor. With the flesh and blood woman close enough to touch, the temptation to get he
r naked and underneath him was overwhelming.
Visions of the way she’d looked with her hand working between her legs and her nipples pebbled tight beneath her fingers haunted him, along with fantasies of the way she would arch beneath him as he pushed inside her heat. But this time, imaginary Harley wasn’t crying or fighting or cussing him. She was as eager and turned on as he was and just as relieved for a break in the tension vibrating between them.
The shift in the direction of his fantasy world was a positive sign for his psyche but bad news for the success of this mission. Harley wasn’t the only one weakening. For a split second this morning, he had been tempted to see her side of the situation with Jasper.
The flash of doubt had only lasted a moment before he’d reminded himself that it didn’t matter if she loved Jasper or if she was right about what losing his mother would do to their son. She was a monster who had lived stupidly and dangerously and put her child in unforgivable danger. Now it was time for her to pay the price for her mistakes.
She should have been behind bars years ago. He wasn’t doing anything to her that the American justice system wouldn’t do as soon as she was taken into custody. She was going to lose Jasper no matter what.
At least he was going to give her freedom, and a chance to build a life for herself as long as she stayed away from Jasper. There was nothing else he could offer her. More importantly, there was nothing else he should want to offer her. He couldn’t allow himself to feel pity for a monster. If he did, the monster would only use his empathy against him and Jasper would end up paying the price.
“Can I have a drink of water?” Harley asked, her voice rough.
He’d caught her eyeing the canteen slung across his shoulders several miles back, but she hadn’t said a word and he hadn’t made any offers. He wasn’t here to anticipate her needs or provide for her comfort, something he would do good to remember when they reached the falls.
“In a few minutes,” he said. “There’s something I want you to see about half a mile up when the trail curves back into the jungle. We’ll stop there.”
