“Fine.” He dug through her clothes and pulled out jeans, a t-shirt and cotton underthings, snagging them with his fingers and throwing them onto the bed. “Do these all fit?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
“Understand this, Sophie. Veronica. Whoever you are. What you want doesn’t matter anymore. Until we get to where we’re going, I own you.”
“You don’t own me.”
“I do,” he said, leaning over her. His size was enough to quell her arguments. “You’re full of brave words for a woman who I’ll probably end up wasting at our last stop, but I need you to shut the fuck up while I deal with this.”
“I will not leave this hotel with you.”
For the first time, he smiled. “Yes, Sophie. You will.”
Aidan’s smile chilled her bones and fear, thick and sour, gathered in her stomach. But there was something she didn’t expect: gratitude. She was grateful that he’d decided, for whatever reason, not to kill her. She could work with that.
From the moment he’d surprised her in the bathroom, she’d believed he wouldn’t leave her alive. The man had gotten the better of her, and Sophie had promised herself long ago never to let that happen again.
But he was throwing her clothes on the bed, and the rebellion drained out of her. The deep-set instinct to fight ebbed and let her assess the situation. Sophie didn’t want to die, though she supposed she would for the people she loved or something she believed in. But not here or now. Not at the hands of this man.
“If you fight me, I’ll put a bullet in your head,” he said, using a knife to cut her bonds. Her muscles aches and she ran her good hand up and down her arms to soothe.
“Thank you,” she said, cringing when she realized what words had escaped her mouth.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. Before she could blink, he’d taken her hand, twisted it back and popped the first finger back into the socket. Acid ate through her at the motion, but before she could pull back, Aidan had seized the second and popped it back in too.
She fell back against the pillows, biting her lip hard to keep from screaming. Sophie didn’t want to agitate him. “We’ll have to get something to set these,” he said, examining her hand.
“Thank you for your concern,” she said, drawing back her hand. Her fingers could move again, but it was excruciating. “Can I please get dressed now?”
He bowed his head and stowed the knife in his boot. Sophie wanted to slam her good hand into his mockingly handsome face, but resisted the urge. She reached for the pink panties he’d thrown on the bed and slipped them on. Having a barrier against his gaze felt good, no matter how thin it was.
Sophie pulled on the light pink bra, t-shirt and jeans. When she bent to slip on her socks, Aidan busied himself by looking through his pack. As soon as she sat up, he snapped a bracelet on her wrist.
“What’s this? Gifts already?”
“If you take it off, it will detonate. If I hit the transmitter, it detonates. Don’t run from me. Don’t fight me.” Sophie’s eyes widened.
“I don’t want to wear this.”
“It’s this or a bullet. Put on your shoes.”
Aidan finished packing her suitcase while she tied her tennis shoes. It was difficult with her fingers so swollen, but she refused to ask him for help.
“How old are you?” The question surprised her, and she looked up at him.
“24,” she said. His face went blank.
It wasn’t possible that she was only 24. He’d been chasing Veronica for seven years at least—first in Delta Force, though he hadn’t known it at the time. Then in Second Division. If Sophie was telling the truth, then she didn’t deserve any of this.
“How is it possible that you lecture at universities?”
“I finished college very early,” she said.
“Easy enough with the money Wells has,” he sneered.
“I guess,” she said with a shrug. “I’m cold,” she continued, gesturing to the window. “Can you please hand me my jacket?”
He crossed the room and removed the light blue jacket from her closet, throwing it to her. When Sophie winced at the contact, Aidan’s mouth tightened. He hadn’t thought about her having to catch it with her messed up hand.
“Sit,” he said. She did, and he emptied out her purse on the mattress. “Do you need any of this?”
“My inhaler,” she said timidly, pointing at it. “Maybe the eye drops? Or the mints?”
“Fine.” He put the items she requested back in her purse. “Anything else?”
“How long am I going to be with you?”
Aidan raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t an answer she’d be getting.
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Fine. I need the birth control from the bathroom. There are also some muscle relaxers that I might have to take. Get the Lorazapam, too.”
“You take a lot of pills?”
“I get bad cramps, if you must know. I also get anxious easily.” She looked away and he wondered if the admission made her feel vulnerable.
“I wouldn’t have guessed you had anxiety. You’ve stayed pretty calm here tonight.”
“Well, I don’t usually have dislocated fingers to focus on.” She waved her injured hand weekly in the air. “It’s still cold.” He crossed to the window and fit the glass back into the pane, securing it with the tool he kept in his pack.
Then Aidan stalked into the bathroom after giving her a stern warning about what would happen if she moved.
He pulled gauze, tape and the pills she’d requested from the cabinet. The prescriptions were made out to Sophie Green.
Grabbing a tube of sunscreen, he added it to the pile. The sun was hot and they had a long way to go.
Once he got her back to Oliver, though, a sunburn might be the least of her problems. Even if she really wasn’t Veronica, her knowledge of Aidan might make her too much of a liability.
As soon as he’d disappeared into the bathroom, Sophie inspected the cuff on her wrist. The seal was metal, and it was thick enough that it really could contain some kind of explosive. Whether or not Aidan was telling the truth, she wasn’t willing to risk her head trying to pry it off.
He strode back out moments later, and Sophie hadn’t accomplished anything except making her fingers throb worse. Aidan spotted her holding her hand and took it into his own, running one rough finger over her bruised knuckles. Pain flared, but it was already less than it had been moments before.
Still, she resented him for it.
“I’m making sure nothing is fractured,” he explained. Sophie said nothing, just watched while he wrapped her two fingers together with a length of gauze. He was more gentle than she’d have believed a monster could be.
Each loop of gauze put more pressure on the place where she’d been injured. Unwilling to show pain, she closed her eyes and accepted the ache. Once she’d given in to it, it receded. When Aidan was done, he looked at her admiringly and sealed the gauze with medical tape.
“We’ll get something more permanent once we’re on the road,” he said.
“Will I live long enough for them to heal completely?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he reached for a bottle of water from the fridge and untwisted the cap. “It’s going to hurt worse later unless you take something now.” He handed her four orange pills that she recognized as over-the-counter painkillers, then tilted the water bottle so that cool, fresh liquid spilled over her tongue, forcing the pills down her throat.
Again, shadows gathered in his eyes when she winced at the motion of her hand. It was insane of her to think in that moment that his man cared about her pain—but a part of her did. Regret still showed in his motions, his expressions. When he pulled her to her feet, his touch was delicate.
“When is your friend coming back?”
“I don’t know.” She really didn’t. It could be ten minutes or the next morning.
“We need to be gone before she gets back. I can’t allow her to see me.”
Any soft thoughts she’d had for Aidan evaporated.
“You can’t touch her. I won’t let you.”
He had the gall to look amused at her threat. “Write a note. Tell her you met someone and that you’re leaving with him. Tell her you’ll meet her back home.”
“She’s never going to believe that. In one million years, Adele would never believe I’d leave with a man I’d just met. Not without saying goodbye.”
“Better be convincing then.” He pulled a few creamy sheets of paper from the desk, then a pen. “If she or anyone else follows us, I can’t promise they’ll be safe.”
Biting back a sarcastic retort, Sophie nodded. She thought for a moment, then leaned over the nightstand and wrote.
Dear Adele,
I hate to do this to you, but I met someone tonight. He’s everything I’ve been looking for in a man. Seriously, you’d pop if you saw him. He’s asked me to visit Egypt with him, and his flight leaves in three hours.
Oh, Adele, it’s silly. Like you always say, though, it’s important to live a little. I guess I’m going to now. Visiting the pyramids has always been a dream. Enough justification—I’ll be alright. Relax and enjoy the rest of your trip.
Please get Daisy from the kennel if you head to Rome before me. I love you so much. I’ll be safe. I promise.
Love,
Sophie
She signed the night in a large, light scrawl, then thrust the paper at Aidan. “Leave it wherever you want.”
“Who’s Daisy?”
“My dog,” Sophie said. “She’s at a kennel in Paris, near my apartment. She’s going to Rome with me soon.”
He nodded. “Time to go.”
“Will we be going out the window?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “We’re going to walk out the lobby. If you care about your friend, you’d better smile like it’s the best moment of your fucking life.”
“What? Why?”
“In case she asks someone about you leaving.”
“She won’t—.”
“In case.”
Aidan helped Sophie secure her purse over her shoulder and then picked up her suitcase. He had nothing of his own to retrieve. Being ready to move immediately was important. Once they were both ready, he set the note down on the counter, and then tucked her injured hand gently into his.
His large, hot palm covered the gauze on her fingers. “For show,” he said.
Sophie took a last look at the heels she’d kicked off when she re-entered the suite. They were cheerful, fun, and she might never see them again. Such a stupid thing to worry over, she thought, but she regretted leaving those heels more than she should have.
He reminded her of the consequences if she decided to run, but he didn’t have to. The gun in his waistband and the bracelet on her wrist were inducements enough even if she’d planned to run. Which she didn’t.
Chapter Four
He kept her pressed against him in the elevator. Aidan told himself that cameras were everywhere—and it was true. The darker truth was that he liked the sweet perfume of her skin and the heat of her slight body tucked against his. Her hair was almost dry and every breath he took was filled with its scent.
Sophie was nervous, he knew. Scared of him. She’d be stupid if he wasn’t, but every tremor that shook her body made him more aware that he might have made a huge mistake. What if the calls that had helped him find her were just innocent calls to the adoptive father she didn’t know was more of a monster than the man standing next to her?
He just hoped to God she didn’t do anything stupid in the lobby. So much more was at stake than just his identity, and if she wasn’t Veronica then he had no idea how he was going to stop what would happen. Without the documents, there was no cure. Oliver had made that clear. Agents were scouring every corner of the word for Lyle, who’d conveniently disappeared when the cure was stolen.
Maybe he was losing his edge, Aidan thought bitterly. It would have been easier to wait for her friend to come back, shoot her and then finish his interrogation until he was sure beyond a doubt that she wasn’t Veronica. That the thought occurred to him made him wonder if it wasn’t time to cut ties with Second Division for good. He wanted to return to Delta Force, where his hands at least felt clean, but his superiors hadn’t been able to give him the time or agency to find and kill Bartek.
Of course, killing the friend would have been simple. It’s not like his hands were clean of blood, he reasoned. It was the nature of the business. Bystanders died. Witnesses, too, sometimes. Aidan did all he could to avoid it, even when others didn’t. Part of him still clung to that Oklahoma upbringing and remembered what it was like when his sister didn’t make it home from the bus stop.
He didn’t want to do that to anyone else’s family. Picturing a family huddled around a phone, waiting for any news made him feel sick. Never getting any news was even worse, because you never really had closure. Aidan missed his sister, and the loss of her was what drove him into the Army and Delta Force.
Besides, Aidan didn’t want to see the look on Sophie’s face if she had to watch her friend die.
The elevator opened and he studied her before stepping out. Her face was still red. Clean of makeup, she had a freshness that he rarely saw in women. The bruises on her face were there, but they weren’t yet dark enough to draw the attention of someone who wasn’t looking for them.
Without meaning to, he rubbed his thumb over her palm. It was so soft. Softer than a woman who fought with her bare hands and weapons for ten years would have. Sophie cringed at the contact, but he knew he wasn’t hurting her. He didn’t let go; it was better if she was scared of him. Better for her to shake and tremble. If she defied him, he knew all his better intentions would be muted.
Then he’d still have to find his way out of the hotel.
They were halfway to the gilded front doors when he heard a woman call out. “Sophie!”
Aidan’s grip on her hand burned like hell, crushed her already-abused fingers together and she wasn’t even sure if he was aware of it. For one wild moment, Sophie considered screaming. Ramming her knee between his legs. It was one thing to decide to go with the beautiful, terrible man.
It was another thing to actually do it.
He walked faster than she did, his long legs eating up the tile. Sophie had to scramble to avoid getting dragged behind him. People in expensive jewelry pushed past them on either side, and all she could think was that they’d sleep well tonight. She might be dead tomorrow.
She’d accepted that from the moment he’d twisted her first finger from its mooring. Sophie knew pain, had experienced it regularly beginning with the first time she fell out of an apple tree at her neighbor’s orchard. But she didn’t court it.
Brave people were all well and good, but she’d never wanted to be that woman. That was for better people.
Then she heard Adele call out her name. She turned automatically, and felt Aidan drag her up tighter against his side. His muscled leg pressed against her softness and Sophie remembered the knife he’d slid into his boot.
This wasn’t a reprieve. The lean, sinewy arm he’d wrapped around her shoulders would stop her from getting away. Aidan could easily overpower her; that much was obvious.
It hadn’t truly terrified her until she heard Adele’s voice.
Her friend crossed the blue and green lobby confidently, drawing eyes as she went. In her wake was a man with a smile like he’d just hit the jackpot.
“Believe this,” Aidan said in a harsh whisper. “I will shoot her in the head if she tries to stop us. Do you think anyone in the lobby will recover quickly enough to stop me from dragging you out of here?”
He let his arm relax so she could turn to Adele, but he kept his hand on her, a tangible reminder of his presence.
Sophie forced a grin over her dry teeth and shot up her uninjured hand. “Adele!” Her merriment sounded forced to her own ears.
“Convince her,” Aidan bit out just before Adele reache
d them.
“Where are you heading, darling?” The woman had a cultured voice, he thought. It was oddly devoid of accent, too. He couldn’t place her country of origin. Not surprising, Aidan thought, since her passport had been even thicker with stamps than Sophie’s.
Adele shot him a curious look, but there was no malice in it. Her fingers wrapped around Sophie’s wrist and pulled her away from Aidan just a little. His body went taut, but neither woman went far. “What happened?” Adele asked. “Have you been crying?”
“Listen, Hel—.” Sophie trailed off, seemed to waver as she searched her friend’s eyes. Aidan’s hand tensed.
She must have seen the slight movement, because her next words came out in a rush. “I’ve met,” she said, lowering her voice, “an amazing man. This is Aidan,” she continued, nodding at him.
“I thought you were going to stay in the room tonight?”
“I was going to, but I actually hurt my hand on the way to the room and he took me to the clinic.”
“What happened?” Adele looked down at Sophie’s fingers.
“I tripped,” she said with an artless smile. Her blonde hair fell over her face when she looked down shyly and Aidan was impressed at how convincing the whole thing was.
“Okay, but what’s with the suitcase? Why are your eyes so red?”
“I cried when I fell,” Sophie explained. Aidan noticed that her uninjured fingers fluttered when she spoke. It was oddly charming. “The suitcase, well, I left you a note in the suite.”
“What did it say?” Adele’s eyes narrowed and darted over Sophie’s shoulder to lock on Aidan.
“He’s going to Egypt for a meeting,” said Sophie. “I’m going to go with him. He promised to show me the pyramids.”
“Do you really think that’s safe?”
“Of course,” Sophie said. Her smile looked a little manic—too many teeth—but Aidan couldn’t fault her tone. “He actually knows Professor Quelton, from Suffolk.”
“Really?” Adele’s lips loosened a little and she smiled for the first time since spotting Sophie’s hand. “That’s exciting. What a coincidence.”
Blacklisted: Blacklist Operations Book #1 Page 4
