by Sydney Croft
“Tell me about Alek.”
She appeared to consider that. “Tell me about Melanie.”
“What about her?”
“What’s she told you?”
He snorted. “Nothing. Yet.” He put on his best liar face. “Seems that you and our father have terrified her to the point that the harder we are on her, the more she clams up.”
Phoebe’s lips peeled back in a silent snarl. “You’re hurting her?”
“You care?”
“It’s my body. Of course I care.”
“You a little sore?” If she was, it would be because Stryker had used her hard and not because of torture. Oh, Dev knew what was going on, but since things were going well, he’d hold off chewing Stryker’s ass for disobeying his order. And yeah, he really didn’t want to be thinking about his agent boning his sister right now. Putting the thought out of his head, he slapped his palm against the fireproof glass. “You haven’t seen anything yet. She’ll talk.”
Phoebe yawned. “Won’t matter. If Alek couldn’t break her, you can’t. Besides, in about thirty-six hours, it’ll be too late.”
“Why’s that?”
“Let’s just say that our father is going to make a very big statement.”
We’ve got chatter. Something big’s going down. City in Europe, probably Great Britain. Within days.
The email from a source at the CIA earlier in the day had set off Dev’s alarms, though he wasn’t sure why. Then Wyatt’s wife, Faith, who was in charge of TAG, had come to his office with intel from her agents … credible information that London could be a target for a terrorist attack. The warnings were too vague for anyone to do more than put law enforcement on alert, which meant that either the chatter was just that—chatter—or whoever was planning an attack was running such a tight ship that no one would know anything until it was over.
Itor could pull off something like that. But how?
“You look worried. Same frown Daddy Dearest gets when he’s freaking out about something.” Phoebe’s eyelids drooped, and she leaned back against the wall. “He authorized me to kill you, you know. How’s it feel to know your own father wants you dead?”
“I don’t know. How’s it feel to know your brother wants you dead?”
Phoebe didn’t hear. Before he finished the sentence, she was asleep.
“Mel will come out if you call for her.” Stryker’s voice came from behind him, and Devlin didn’t bother to turn around. Instead, he kept his gaze on the woman, who looked so deceptively innocent while sleeping.
“Has she said anything about Itor striking a big city?” Dev’s voice was rough. God, he was exhausted. Maybe Gabe was right. Maybe he needed more help than he thought. Set the ego aside and all that shit.
“If she’d brought up something that important, I would have told you.” Stryker’s voice was as rough as Dev’s, but for a different reason.
Dev shouldn’t press. But he did. “If she knew about a pending strike, would she say anything?”
“I don’t like what you’re implying.”
“I don’t like implying it.”
Stryker palmed Devlin’s shoulder, yanked him around. “Dammit, Dev. You need to give her a chance.”
“No,” he said, “I don’t. You want to? That’s fucking great. Real sweet. But you don’t have hundreds of people relying on you. People who could die if you trust the wrong person just because they share some DNA with you. My own father broke into my head and fucked me. So why should I think that a sister who grew up under his thumb would do anything different?”
“Because Melanie is different.”
“I want to believe that.” He lowered his voice, willed himself to calm down. “But I can’t afford to. Not yet.” Though he was a little closer—he’d had Faith come in to dig around in Mel’s brain a little … the agent couldn’t read thoughts, but she could probe psychic centers and read brain waves. She’d come up against a boxlike section in Mel’s brain that she couldn’t access, an area she assumed contained Phoebe. Later, when Phoebe was in control, Faith had repeated the procedure, this time able to get inside the formerly locked section but finding an identical area she couldn’t access on the other side, confirming Mel’s story that each sister controlled a section on opposite sides of the brain. It seemed that whoever’s box was open was in control of the body.
He’d also had Samantha, ACRO’s most powerful psychic, try to get a read on Mel and Phoebe, but she’d gotten nothing.
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell her the truth about you being her brother?”
“That’s exactly what it means. And you aren’t telling her either.”
Dev could practically hear Stryker’s teeth grinding, and damn if he thought it was good or bad that his agent had fallen so hard for Melanie. If Stryker was right, she needed him, and Stryker needed her. But if he was wrong …
Fuck.
“Wake her up.”
With a curse, Stryker barked Mel’s name. She sat up, blinking, and Dev was sure it was Phoebe until Stryker smiled. “Hey,” he said. “You ready for breakfast?”
Her eyes lit up. “Mmm … food.” She blinked again, her gaze shifting to Dev, and she lost the happy expression even though Stryker had entered the cell to bring her out.
Well, if that didn’t make him feel like a shithead. “Mel, I was just talking to Phoebe. She said something was going down soon. I’m guessing we’re looking at an attack of some sort. Do you know what she was talking about?”
“No.” She yawned. “They never tell me anything.”
“Do you know if Itor has been working on a special weapon?”
“Weapon?” She took Stryker’s hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “They’re always working on something. But …” She bit down on her lower lip.
“But what?”
“Just before we went to the jungle, we were in Mexico. Phoebe and some Itor people spent weeks searching through some old ruins. I heard one of the guys talk about something called the Izapa crystal. Later, when I was at Itor, I overheard Alek discussing a device that the crystal completed. He was eager to test it.”
A chill went right up Dev’s spine. “Test it? When?”
“I don’t know. The end of the month, I think.”
The chill turned to ice, and he couldn’t blame Mel for that. The end of the month was thirty-six hours away.
“Pack your bags,” he told Stryker. “We’re heading to Australia.”
They arrived at Phoebe and Mel’s Australian house as four different groups in the middle of the night, using the cover of darkness to move all the agents inside—but only after Ryan, who possessed some sort of ability to manipulate electronics, ensured that all surveillance bugs and cameras in the town had been disabled.
By the time everyone was in the house, it was packed to the gills with forty ACRO and TAG agents. And still more were already moving to the ranch, where they would use their unique skills to hide until the attack went down.
Now that ACRO was poised for an early morning raid, and everyone was in place, Dev asked Mel to take a seat at the kitchen table and discuss details with the agents on an individual or team basis. Everyone had a specific job, and it was up to Mel to instruct them about the most advantageous way to handle it.
So she sat there with Stryker on one side, his hand on her thigh in a comforting gesture, and Dev on the other, all serious and stiff. She’d love to see him relax, but she had a feeling that would never happen around her. Not unless Phoebe could somehow become a non-issue.
The dream was nice, but not very likely.
First up was the animal whisperer in charge of ACRO’s Animal Division, Zach Taylor. Apparently, Ender’s wife, Kira, had wanted to be the one to come on this mission, but Ender had put his foot down. According to Stryker, he didn’t do that often with Kira, but Ender hadn’t wanted his wife, the mother of his three kids, to be anywhere near the kind of battle they were facing.
So Zach was there to ensure that no animals were
injured in the taking of Itor and that the guard animals were kept from harming agents.
“Guard dogs are kept here”—Mel pointed to positions on the map of the ranch—“here, here, and here. There are six more that patrol either on their own or with handlers. I can’t tell you where they’ll be, but nearly all of Itor’s working dogs are either German shepherds or Belgian sheepdogs that can pull double duty as herders or guards.”
“Any other animals I need to know about?”
“Besides the sheep and horses, no,” she said. “Get the dogs on our side, and we should be clear.”
Next up was Ender, who still eyed her as if she was going to spring a trap, though he seemed more sad about it than angry, and for the millionth time, she wondered what had prompted his change of attitude.
Then came a dark-haired ex-SEAL named Remy, whose ability to manipulate the weather was going to give him a major role in the initial assault. As he sat, he bumped fists with Stryker and then got right to business.
“I’ll roll in a storm from the west,” he said in a thick Cajun accent. “The wind and rain will drive everyone inside and allow for us to approach the main ranch house without being seen.”
Stryker studied the map. “It’ll also herd everyone into groups and make them easier to take out.”
“Hell, yeah.” Remy fingered a sketch of one of the outbuildings. “What’s this?”
“Agent quarters,” Mel replied. “To outsiders, it appears to house ranch hands.”
A slow, lazy smile at once softened the hard lines of Remy’s face, and gave the impression that the guy enjoyed his job maybe a little too much. Which was scary. “I’ll take that out with a tornado. Any other buildings I can demolish?”
She pointed to another building that housed agents, a guesthouse, and a storage barn. “These, but the guesthouse is really close to the main building …”
“No problem.” Remy’s slow molasses voice dripped with confidence. “I’m pinpoint accurate.”
“Even at a distance?” Mel hoped her skepticism didn’t come through, but his situation was odd. He and his meteorologist wife, Haley, had left their son with Kira so Haley could be here—even though, as Mel understood it, she had no special skills. She was to hang back with Remy and somehow assist him as he worked the weather.
Weird.
“Even at a distance,” Remy drawled.
Stryker snorted. “Easy there, Gumbo. Save some action for me.”
“There will be enough work to go around, boys,” Dev said grimly, and the light mood in the kitchen went dark.
After Remy, the steady stream of agents continued with psychics, excedosapiens, snipers, and even transportation and medical people. Finally, at four in the morning, an hour before attack, Mel finished with the last agent, a man named Logan, whose company had, in the past, supplied Itor with weapons. He’d spent the last few months developing countermeasures, and he’d go in to deploy a concussion wave device that would jam the enhanced pistols his company had sold to Alek.
Dev stood. “Thank you, Mel. We couldn’t have done this without you.” Before she could reply, he gestured to Stryker. “Gitre wants to see you to go over his geology report.”
Stryker gave her a squeeze and a reassuring smile. “Andrew is our head geologist. He’s going to help me find the best and worst places to rip into the earth during the assault, and then once we find out where the machine is.”
That was one of the many things Mel couldn’t help with. She’d never been shown the facility that housed the machine, and it was very possible there were a lot of other hidden buildings on the ranch that she didn’t know about.
Stryker left, and suddenly Mel was stuck in the kitchen alone with Dev. There was a long, awkward silence, and then Dev moved to the sliding glass door. “Join me on the patio?”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
Swallowing drily, she followed him out. A bench ran the length of the railing, and he sat, invited her to do the same.
“Alek killed my parents,” Dev said, without preamble. “He also broke into my mind and used me against my own agency. Because of him, a lot of good people died, and ACRO could have fallen.”
Mel’s stomach churned. This was the part where he would explain that Alek was so evil, right down to his DNA, that his offspring couldn’t possibly be any different, and thanks for the help, but when this was all over, her usefulness was done.
“I’m sorry,” she said, for lack of anything else to say. “He’s ruined a lot of lives.”
His intense gaze caught hers. “Including yours.” She must have looked as confused and stunned as she felt, because he cocked an eyebrow. “You expected me to say something else?”
She nodded. “You have every right to hate him and everything associated with him. Including me.”
“You can’t help who your parents are. And you had no say in how you were raised.”
Blowing out a long breath, Mel looked off the deck at the scrubby trees that shrouded the property in privacy. “I could have fought harder when Phoebe decided to take over the majority of control.”
“And what would that have gotten you? More beatings?” He shrugged. “You did what you had to do to survive.” He brought one foot up on the bench and threw his forearm over his knee to brace himself. “What else will you do?”
For a moment, she stared, not understanding what he was getting at. And then she inhaled sharply. “You’re afraid I’ll betray you at the ranch.”
“Back in Rome, you told Stryker you’d take whatever side could keep you alive.”
Damn. Her and her fool mouth. “I did say that. And at the time I meant it. But that was before I knew all about ACRO. And Stryker.” Before she’d fallen for Stryker. But she wasn’t going to tell Dev that.
“I want to trust you, Mel. Hell, I need to trust you, for a lot of reasons, some you don’t know about. But between the agents I have here and the ones who are staging in Kiev, Madrid, and Tokyo right now, most of ACRO is involved in the biggest battle we’ve ever faced. I’m playing my best card, throwing all I have at Alek, and if I’m wrong about you, if you betray us, I’ll have lost everything, and killed a lot of people who are probably even now questioning this move.”
She couldn’t begin to comprehend the pressure he was under, and something made her want to give him a hug. Which made her laugh, because he would probably rather hug a porcupine. The best she could do was offer a lame “You don’t have to worry.”
“I hope not.”
The door opened, and Stryker stepped out. As usual, her heart went a little crazy at the sight of him, especially now, dressed in desert camo BDUs. “We leave in half an hour. Dev, can I have a minute with Mel?”
The way Dev looked between them had Mel thinking he was going to refuse, but he finally nodded and strode through the door. The second it was closed, Stryker grabbed her, hauled her against him, and held her like he would never let her go.
Mel, as always, fit in his arms like she was born to be there.
According to Oz, she was. Maybe one day Stryker would let her know that they were pretty much fated. Although it kind of freaked him out, at least he knew he was with the person he was supposed to be with.
Even if he hadn’t known, it still felt fucking completely right.
“I’m proud of you,” he murmured against her cheek.
“And you want me too.”
“Well, yes.” He licked the side of her neck. “Could only help your powers.”
“We can’t do anything right now. Everyone’s watching us,” she mumbled.
“They’re jealous. And I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Mel went up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. It was a soft, hot kiss and it turned molten quickly, and yeah, they would either have to do it right here or he’d have to back off.
He did so reluctantly. “It looks like you and Devlin are getting along.”
“He seems to understand … he hates Alek as much as I do.�
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Stryker’s gut twisted, and he wondered when—if—Devlin would ever reveal his connection with Mel. “Yeah, he does.”
She brought a hand up to stroke his face, her palm cool against his cheek. “I’ve been worried about you. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk on the flight over here. But I heard what happened—between you and the agent who had a baby.”
Shit. “Who told you that?”
“Everyone’s talking about it. The conversation stops when I get close, but I have ears.”
“Annika has … trust issues.”
“With good reason, I guess.” She inhaled deeply. “I don’t remember seeing her, but she must have been in the jungle, right?”
“Let’s not do this right now, Mel. We’ve come pretty damned far in a short period of time. We’ll need to let everyone else catch up.”
“We’ve definitely come far.”
His hand stroked her hair. “You’re going to have to promise me you’ll stay safe during this.”
There was so much riding on her. Almost too much, for any agent—but for Mel, who was just learning to control her powers and was often at the mercy of her alter ego, the burden was crushing.
“You really do trust me,” she said softly.
“I do.” He tugged away from her. “Come on—I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“What?” she asked as she followed around the side of the house, to the far end of the balcony that wrapped around the building. She stopped short when she saw the table—he’d managed to bribe the handful of ACRO support staff they’d brought with them into creating a breakfast that went beyond the instant powdered eggs and dehydrated hash browns they’d made for the assault teams—and while it wasn’t much, he hoped it would do the trick.
“It’s not what you deserve—it’s a little late to pull together what I wanted—but I figured you might need some fuel to calm your nerves,” he told her.
She was so entranced by the sight of pancakes on the table she didn’t even thank him, just walked over and began to eat, a peacefulness in her eyes, illuminated by the soft candlelight. That was all he needed to see. And even though they’d be in a dangerous situation sooner than later, Stryker pulled up a chair and joined her at the table.
