Running the Risk

by Lea Griffith

“Team is always easy.” Rook threw in his two cents.

  Jude said nothing, just stared at her.

  She blew out another frustrated breath and reached down to pull her heels off. They were sinking into the snow anyway. “I’m in. Damn it. For now.”

  “Hooah,” she heard Rook mutter.

  Jude still said nothing.

  “We’re here for the night. Nothing to be done for it. We’ll head out on a transpo plane at 0600,” King told them. “Bed down. Stay quiet. Rook, you’ve got first watch.”

  “Who’s after me?” Rook asked.

  “Me,” King replied.

  Rook glanced at Jude. “That give you enough time to work things out?”

  “Screw you, Rook,” Jude responded, but there was a smile in the heat of it.

  “You are such dudes,” Ella bit out and pushed past Rook to enter the small farmhouse.

  She entered a musty, dank structure that was falling down around their ears, but it was warmer inside than out. She took the stairs and headed up, entering the first door on the left at the top and finding a sagging bed in a wrought-iron frame.

  She threw her duffel down and headed to the window that looked out over the front yard. From her vantage point, she could see Jude speaking with Rook and King. Her gaze roved over him. She started at his Wellcos and worked her way up over long, firm legs encased in black cargoes. She wished he’d turn around so she could see him from behind.

  “I’m in so much trouble,” she muttered. Still she continued to look.

  He was a big man, no two ways about it, but he wasn’t too heavy with muscle. He was lean with thick thighs, chest, and arms. His shoulders were broad, and from experience she knew they could carry her entire world.

  Jude looked up, as if sensing her perusal, and when their gazes met, Ella had to lock her knees to stop from going to him. He undid her.

  His eyes narrowed, but something King said drew his attention again. He’d lost weight, and it showed in his face. He wasn’t gaunt by any stretch of the imagination, but he was leaner…meaner. His face would never be classified as beautiful, unless you spoke with Ella.

  To her, he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. There was a scar bisecting his right eyebrow and one just above his lip from a bottle he’d taken to the face in a bar fight at seventeen. She still didn’t know what he’d been doing in a bar that young.

  What she did know is that she loved licking that scar because it made Jude’s hands clench on her body. And that scar in his eyebrow was proof that he’d fought hard and taken his fair share of licks. Yet here he remained. Strong. Stalwart.

  Hers?

  Ella shook her head. It was folly to head down that path. She had to get back to Dresden. But first?

  She changed clothes, balling up the Givenchy gown and stuffing it into the tiny closet. She put on her own pair of black cargoes and a black thermal, and paired them with an equally black sweatshirt. She sat down on the bed and pulled on thick socks and combat boots. Then she located her sat phone, took a deep breath, and dialed Dresden.

  He answered on the first ring. “So Markov is dead?”

  “He is.”

  “And Segorski? Did you take care of him as well?”

  “He escaped.”

  A long pause. Never good with Dresden. “I’m going to have to kill Jude.”

  Her heart stuttered. “Do what you must.”

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t know what happened in that meeting as it went down?” he asked her softly.

  “I know you have eyes everywhere, Dresden. I did what I could. Markov was handled, and your interests were protected as you requested. Your deal with the prime minister will go down exactly as you want.”

  “If I hadn’t had eyes on that meeting, you would already be dead. As it is, I know you used Endgame to escape. You’re better alive than dead to me, so I appreciate their help. But he will die, Ella. He’s an end that must be tied up.”

  “Again I’ll say, do what you must.” She rubbed her chest and wiped the single tear that escaped. She had to get Jude to safety, and that meant returning to Dresden. “I have more news I can’t share right now.”

  “What is it?” Dresden demanded.

  “I’m not secure. I’ll be home”—she almost choked on the word—“tomorrow evening.”

  “Yes. Come home, Ella. We need to talk.” Then Dresden disconnected.

  She threw the phone down and walked back to the window. The three men of Endgame were still there, talking.

  Ella would take tonight, talk with her former team, give Jude some truths. But come tomorrow, she’d have to continue the game. She needed a name. Just one. So she would walk once again into the lion’s den.

  And this time she might not survive.

  Chapter 10

  Darkness had fallen, and with it, more snow. Ella had thrown together a quick meal of rice and beans for herself and the men, and now they all sat around a hastily constructed fire outside the house.

  “Dresden is worse than any of you know,” she said as she stared off into the darkness.

  No one replied. So she continued.

  “When the Piper approached me over a year and a half ago, I had no idea what I’d be stepping into. I only knew that everyone I’d ever loved was in danger—hell, my country was in danger—and I potentially had a way of mitigating that danger.”

  She took a drink from her water pack and leaned her head on the tire she was reclining against. “I was recruited by Gray Broemig for the CIA while I was still in college. When the opportunity to insert me into Endgame showed itself, he jumped on board with both feet. Broemig wanted access to Endgame via one of his own—someone on the inside who was willing to manipulate Endgame Ops to be a tool for him. I wasn’t that person. Once I settled in, actually became Endgame, he recognized my allegiance had shifted and he backed off, but the expectation hung over me.

  “Instead, he settled for having another one of his analysts on your team, under the guise of sharing information with the Piper, but Broemig’s ultimate goal was always to gather as much information as he could from Endgame so he could activate me to go after and eliminate Dresden. It’s why he allowed the Piper to put Nina into Endgame as well. He’d doubled down on Broemig’s bet that he could turn Endgame and make it his. There’s a story there, boys. Something deep, dark, and dirty about why the Piper allowed Broemig—no, asked Broemig—if he could have analysts for Endgame. We’ll have to tackle that soon. But not today, right?”

  She shrugged, took another pull on her water, and continued to stare out into the darkness.

  “I knew Dresden was moving the pieces on the game board, and I knew my time evading the Dresden situation was running out. See, what you may or may not have figured out by now, is that the Piper had recruited me for a little side job. Something similar in nature to what Broemig wanted but a bit different. The Piper didn’t want to kill Dresden; he wanted to insert me into Dresden’s operations. He wanted me to gather as much information as I could so he could begin to dismantle Dresden from the inside out. The Piper had already planned to insinuate me, but it’s important you understand that I never had any idea it would be on that Beirut op. I had no idea that was going down.”

  Silence reigned for long moments. She’d lost her best friend, Nina, another analyst she’d suspected of being a plant for Broemig, the very thing Ella herself had refused to do, but she’d never been able to confirm that. It hadn’t mattered. She and Nina had shared Thanksgiving for two years, both having no family to speak of and glomming on to each other like bees to honey. They’d shared hopes, dreams, laughter, and fears—something Ella had never done with another woman. Her loss still stung.

  And Endgame had lost Micah Samson. Jude had lost his best friend. Those memories were hard to relive. Hard to think about.

  “I knew Nina was sick that day, bu
t I had no idea she’d been poisoned. I don’t know to this day if the Piper was responsible, and I haven’t asked. All I knew was that I was supposed to be support for that operation, not on-site with you.”

  She laughed, and it was mirthless. “I was as surprised as you, Dagan, when King called me up for the op. And I was scared.”

  “You should have been,” King finally said.

  “When we crashed, I came to and found myself facedown in the sand with Brody and Micah on either side of me. Then I saw Savidge gun them both down, and I knew I was next. I could feel you all out there, watching. When he put the barrel against my temple, I knew that was it.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it?” Jude bit out.

  She shook her head and closed her eyes, blocking out the sounds of the gun going off and the red spray blotting her eyes a split second before oblivion took her down. She woke to that sound from her nightmares. She would never forget it.

  “No. When I woke up…well, let’s just say Dresden doesn’t treat his prisoners of war very well. After a few days, I discovered Brody was alive but that they’d buried Micah in a graveyard outside Beirut. It took me another few weeks to h-heal.” She stuttered on that word because she had never fully healed. Not from what Savidge had done to her. She swallowed thickly, refusing to give in here. They didn’t need her memories of that horror. “Then I realized that I had the perfect way in. Hell, I was already in. I just had to make Dresden believe I was his.”

  “The Piper didn’t have to work too hard, did he?” Rook mused out loud.

  It was akin to treason, the words he spoke. Endgame was a private entity on paper, but they were all soldiers to their cores. Insinuating that their creator had been the master manipulator in all of this walked the line of treason.

  More silence, pregnant with all manner of unspoken questions she couldn’t answer and hoped they never voiced. She’d have to tell Jude the truth if she survived. But that was a big if and would be an even bigger one eventually. She wondered if being around him, kissing him, had bestowed her with some kind of false hope.

  Still, she had to give them something. “He got everything he could have asked for when we went down in the desert.”

  She felt Jude’s gaze on her—the hot, tactile caress of it dulling her pain for a few precious seconds. She lifted her head and met that obsidian gaze.

  “I didn’t leave you,” she whispered. “I never left you.”

  Jude didn’t acknowledge her statement, and that was okay. She’d put herself in his place a million times over the last year. She’d have been devastated if he’d done to her what she’d done to him.

  “Where can we find Dresden? What’s his weakness?” King asked, breaking the rising tension.

  “Here’s where we part ways,” Ella replied mournfully. “I can’t give you that. I asked you to talk to the Piper.”

  If she gave these men Dresden, she’d lose all hope of finding out who was in charge of him. After the last year of pain and sorrow, and for all the future horror Dresden could inflict on the world, she would not do that.

  “I told you back in Moscow, you’re either in this with us or out. This is your fork in the road, Banning,” King told her.

  “I can’t give you Dresden. Not yet,” she responded, skirting the line between giving them something and giving away nothing.

  “You’re coming back with us?” Rook asked the question, but she addressed her reply to Jude.

  “Not yet.” Please, don’t give up on me, she pleaded silently. Please.

  “Then there’s nothing to say, is there?” King asked. “We’re done here. You’ll go your way; we’ll go ours.”

  She nodded, and it nearly broke her. The Piper had warned her these men and women of Endgame were no joke. They believed in the team over everything, and leaving them meant she might never be able to return.

  To keep Jude safe, she’d risk everything.

  “Rook, you’re first watch. Then me, then Jude,” King said.

  “What about me?” Ella asked before she could stop the question from escaping.

  King simply looked at her and didn’t reply.

  Ella stood then, grabbing the shredded shards of her heart, and headed inside, up the stairs to the sagging bed. She placed her gun within easy reach beside the bed and lay down. She needed to rest because tomorrow she walked back into hell. For tonight, she took refuge in the fact that she slept in the company of soldiers.

  She closed her eyes and prayed for a sleep uninterrupted by nightmares.

  * * *

  Jude opened her door as quietly as the rusted hinges would allow and stepped into the room. She was asleep, the steady rise and fall of her chest obvious in the moon’s light. He strode to the bed softly and sank down beside her, the bed sagging in the middle so badly that she slid back into his body.

  He wrapped his arms around her as her body conformed to his, sinking into his hard places, her butt into his hips, her head finding purchase on his bicep. He waited for her to wake, but she didn’t.

  He didn’t know if he was relieved or frustrated. Besides two nights before when he’d carried her on the car ride to the other farm, he hadn’t held her in well over a year. His body screamed at him to take her, to make her his again.

  His heart demanded a different wooing.

  Always with Ella, his hardness could find no foothold. She softened him, made him easier. He’d accepted it before that last mission. Now it came perilously close to pissing him off. But even in the midst of that burgeoning anger he held her close, protecting her the only way she’d let him.

  He wanted to follow her tomorrow. He would follow her. Because everything she’d left unsaid earlier haunted him. Dresden had to know by now that she was still Endgame. When Jude, King, and Rook had spoken earlier, they’d decided that Dresden most likely had had that entire meeting wired and knew how everything had gone down.

  But they hadn’t been able to figure out Ella’s part in everything. It was frustrating because King had said that the Piper categorically refused to give him anything when it came to Ella’s mission.

  Before he’d come up here, Jude had spoken with King. He’d told his team leader his plans to follow Ella. King had been against it, but in the end, he’d given in because Ella was still Endgame whether she admitted it or not.

  “Jude?” she whispered, her breath feathering his skin.

  “I’m here, Ella. I’ve got you,” he whispered in return, pressing a kiss on her neck.

  She was his. She always would be.

  She settled at that and Jude breathed her in, knowing he was going to let her enter Dresden’s on her own, but also knowing he’d be close if she needed him. Jude had an ace in the hole meeting him tomorrow in Ukraine.

  Ella could run. But she’d never be able to hide from him again.

  Chapter 11

  “I am so glad you’re back,” Dresden said from his perch beside the enormous blazing fireplace.

  “Do tell,” she responded as she walked into the room and sat down across from him. She was so brittle that she was about to break. She had to shove thoughts of Jude to the back of her mind. It took a force of will that she would have doubted she could achieve.

  She’d left the farmhouse separately from Jude, King, and Rook. Alone. She’d left alone.

  “You know I’m going to punish you?” the monster asked softly.

  She shrugged. She might be scared he’d break her again, but she’d be damned if she’d show him her fear.

  “Being with your team has made you bold,” he said, his tone unchanged. “That doesn’t bode well for you.”

  “Segorski isn’t an ally. He needs to be eliminated,” she responded, refusing to engage with Dresden. He liked that, and she didn’t want to give him anything he liked.

  Dresden rose and walked toward her. “We’ll talk about Segorski…
after.”

  “After what?” she asked, infusing the appropriate amount of caution into her tone.

  “I’ve got something to show you,” Dresden said with a smile.

  Ice washed through her veins. This could not be good. She’d expected something twisted, but normally he crowed about things before showing her.

  She followed him down to the cells. She’d spent a fair amount of time there. She remembered the smell, the cold, the fear, and the pain. God, how she remembered the fear and pain. As they descended the metal steps, her trepidation grew. She didn’t get the feeling he was going to hurt her—not physically anyway, not yet.

  He flipped on a light as they came to the bottom, and all of the space he used for torture was revealed. There were five doors around the edges of the large circular room. The doors were made of heavy wood and impenetrable from the inside.

  Ella knew; she’d tried at one time to escape.

  A man stepped forward from behind them, holding a ring of keys.

  “Open the door,” Dresden ordered.

  The small man scuttled to do as he was bid. Ella tensed, afraid suddenly of what was about to be revealed.

  The man opened the door and stepped back. Dresden stepped forward and entered the room. He exited after only a few seconds, pushing a small, blond woman ahead of him toward the center of the room. The left side of the woman’s face had a large bruise, but the rest of her body, dressed in a simple though dirty shift, was untouched. She didn’t fight, didn’t make any noise at all when Dresden grabbed her arms behind her back and forced her to kneel on the cold stone floor.

  Ella winced as the woman’s knees bounced against the stones. All of Dresden’s moves were to belittle and show his captives that ultimately they had no power. Whoever this woman was, she was in trouble.

  “Do you know who this is, Ella?” Dresden asked as he walked to Ella and stroked a finger down her cheek.

  “I don’t,” Ella replied, keeping her gaze on the woman, looking for signs of life besides simply existing. Other than the shallow rise and fall of the woman’s chest, there was nothing.