by C. J. Miller
Hyde snapped pictures so she wouldn’t miss anything. She and Finn could review them later and the West Company could look in detail at the photos.
Four men climbed out of the small boat. Three were built tall and broad across the shoulders, like bodyguards, and from the bulges around their sides, they were heavily armed. One couldn’t stand still, looking around and shifting on his feet. They surrounded the fourth person. Sydney? Whoever he was, he didn’t trust Barnett. Without the bodyguards, the man was easy pickings for a sniper attack.
Hyde watched, wishing she could get closer to hear what they were saying. The beach provided no cover.
Another man came into view on the beach, driving a dune racer. Hyde snapped his picture. Was it Barnett? Her photo software could sharpen the picture to confirm his identity. From the height and build, it wasn’t Reed Barnett, but figures in the dark could be misleading. A detailed analysis would confirm.
Hyde’s phone vibrated and she glanced at it.
A message from Finn. “Get back to the villa. Barnett’s sending guards.”
Hyde wouldn’t panic. She was on foot. The fastest way to the villa was on the beach, but if she ran along the water, she’d been seen. She made the only choice she could.
She ran through the trees and foliage. Her night-vision goggles helped, but she couldn’t stop to be careful. Branches and vines cut at her skin, swiping her chin and cheeks. She stumbled and caught herself, urging her legs to move faster. Her heart was racing and sweat dripped down her back. Long sleeves and pants protected her from bug bites, but made cardio a killer. She dumped her canteen of water over her head as she ran.
She faltered again, twisting her ankle. Precious seconds were lost. She stood, hobbled a few steps, giving her ankle time to stop throbbing and then sprinted, struggling for balance. Her ankle burned and she ignored it. A sprain wouldn’t kill her, but Reed Barnett catching her in a lie would.
When she reached the villa she was sharing with Finn, she approached with caution. She was too late. Two guards were at the door. They were knocking. They had keys, so they’d enter if she didn’t answer.
Her clothes and equipment would give away she hadn’t been on a moonlit stroll.
Circling to the rear of the villa, she looked for another way inside. The bathroom window was open. She jumped for it, catching the ledge with her fingertips and scrambling for a better grip. She fought her way in through the window, squeezing into the narrow space. She braced her arms on the vanity and lowered her body into the bathroom. She stripped out of her clothes, shoving them in the shower stall, and wrapped a towel around her.
For effect, she took a second towel and dabbed at her hair as she entered the main room. They had turned on a light by the door, but the room was shadowed.
She screamed as if startled by the presence of the two guards. They drew their guns and she shrieked louder. “Get out of my room! Who are you? My boyfriend will kill you for this!” She retreated into the bathroom, figuring that was what a scared woman would do.
The men were apologizing in French to her, but she pretended not to understand. Shouting for dramatic effect, she made more threats about her boyfriend and tried not to laugh at her drama. Grabbing her phone, she dialed Finn. “Finn, someone is in the villa. Please help me. I’m locked in the bathroom.” She added an edge of hysteria to her voice, though she tried not to overdo it. The girlfriend of a drug lord would have some confidence in her safety.
Hyde dabbed some makeup over her scratches and then sat on the ledge of the tub and waited.
When Finn arrived, it was with a stream of curses. Hyde also heard Barnett’s voice as he ordered his men to wait outside.
“Finn, is that you?” Trembling voice: nailed it.
“Yeah, baby. I’m here,” Finn said.
Though they were playing a role, the endearment rattled her. Finn sometimes called her baby. And it wasn’t just the word, it was the way he said it, like a caress. The softness in his tone was like a stroke down her body. But desire and attraction hadn’t been and still wasn’t her and Finn’s problem.
Hyde exited the bathroom and threw herself into Finn’s arms. She was playing the distraught girlfriend to the max and it was fun. Most of the time, she was her own protector. “Finn, men were in our room. Thieves. Perverts. Or murderers. I came out of the bathroom and they terrorized me!”
Finn arched a brow at her. He hugged her. “Calm down. It was a misunderstanding. When I told Barnett you were sick, he sent someone to check on you.”
“You could have called and checked on me. I was doing better until this,” she said.
“You didn’t answer the phone in the villa,” Finn said. “He was worried about you.”
Hyde huffed. “I was in the shower and meditating. I didn’t hear it. I’m fine, but look at my hair. I didn’t even brush it. Now I’ll need another bath. I’m tense and stressed out and I look a mess. They better not have taken any pictures.” She patted at her hair as if that was her biggest concern.
“You’ll be okay and you look great,” Finn said, hiding a smile.
“My apologies,” Barnett said, stepping forward. He didn’t feel bad enough to not look her up and down, but at least he’d spoken the words and was pretending to care he had upset her. “I will direct my security staff to be more reserved in the future. I feel responsible for my guests. If anything had happened to you, it would be a tragedy.”
He ended his statement with a drip of sarcasm and Hyde wondered if a threat didn’t hide in his words. Hyde pretended to be soothed by his statement. “I was shaken up by two strangers in my villa. We’ve had incidents before...” A girlfriend of a drug lord would have experiences with potentially deadly situations. That didn’t mean she had to be calm about it.
“Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll stay here with you for the rest of the night?” Finn asked.
She didn’t want Finn to miss anything important that transpired with Barnett. “No, no, please go back to your guys’ night. I’m fine here,” Hyde said. “I’ll be presentable when you return.”
“I planned to call it a night soon anyway,” Finn said.
He was begging off from more time with Barnett. They were on the island to learn as much as they could about him and cement their business relationship. Wanting to spend time together wasn’t the plan. Her heart banged harder against her ribs.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion. Finn, we’ll speak about those matters in more detail tomorrow. Good night to you both,” Barnett said.
After he left and Finn locked the door behind him, Hyde shivered. She maintained a healthy fear of Barnett. He was phony, nothing he said could be trusted and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill either of them if they crossed him.
She returned to the bathroom, feeling like she needed a shower for real this time. She sat on the edge of the oversize tub.
“That was well played,” Finn said, following her. He closed and locked the open window.
“If the window hadn’t been open, I would have been forced to manufacture another lie. I doubt it would have been as believable.”
“Quick thinking,” Finn said.
She would need to plan better in the future. Barnett was keeping his eyes and ears on them. “I saw something at the beach. Before you messaged me, I snapped a couple of pictures of a conversation.” She reached into the shower stall and handed him her camera that was waded in the pile of clothing.
“Did you see anything change hands? Money? Guns?”
“It was dark and I had to leave in the middle.” She checked her weapon and night-vision equipment for damage. She removed her clothes from the stall. Turning the shower on, she let the water heat and she stepped into the stream, slid closed the glass door and removed her towel.
The casualness in which she had gotten almost naked in front of Finn struck he
r. Granted, a shower door was between them and she had been distracted, thinking about the mission.
Being naked with him felt natural. Hyde wasn’t prudish, but she was usually more reserved around men she had no intention of sleeping with.
“Did you send the pictures to the West Company?” he asked.
“I did while I was waiting in the bathroom for you. I want to take a look at the pictures myself, though, and see if my photo software can do anything to sharpen the images.”
Finn chuckled. “I have to say, I never realized how good of an actress you were.”
She was a chameleon. “I lived as a man for almost six months in a prison, remember?” Her jailbreak was how she had met Finn. Lowest point in her life. She hadn’t showered in months, she had been starving and thirsty and had a broken rib from a prison fight in which someone had thrown a table at another inmate, but it had struck her. Living in the prison, she had felt close to death several times, and it was only through alliances and luck that she had survived.
“That you lived in that prison is unbelievable. How could someone think you were a man?” He’d expressed similar thoughts before, though he rarely brought up her prison time. It was a source of anxiety for her.
It was a time she didn’t like talking about. She was grateful she had pulled it off. “I can do anything to survive. It’s a unique talent.” She had blocked out a number of events from her time in prison. Being imprisoned had made her rely on her animal instincts. All that had mattered was protecting herself and surviving. She wouldn’t live like that again.
“Is there room for someone else in the shower?” Finn asked.
Hyde froze. She’d showered with Finn before, as a time saver and for pleasure. She wasn’t ready to confront her feelings for him tonight. She chose the safe option. “Give me a minute. Then the shower is yours.”
He left the bathroom and closed the door. It snicked shut firmly. He was mad. Finn hadn’t been mad at her before. She needed to say something to defuse the tension. When she’d had relationships in the past and they went bad, she’d ended them. She and Finn needed to get along for this mission. She couldn’t tell him goodbye and beat feet and allow Simon’s killer to be free and clear.
Hyde hated conflict in her professional relationships. It made her uncomfortable and unsure. Though she and Finn were dedicated to the mission, their private life was interfering.
Finn wanted reasons why she had erected a wall between them. She wasn’t ready to talk about Munich and the baby she had lost. A pregnancy she hadn’t known about until she was eleven weeks and had started bleeding. The miscarriage had landed her in the hospital during a mission. The doctor had said that “these things happen.” He had been matter-of-fact about it. Hyde had tried to hide her emotions and had pretended she was fine with it.
She hadn’t been taking prenatal vitamins or sleeping eight hours a night or being especially careful with her body. She had been running and lifting weights, as was her routine. What if she had caused the loss? She was devastated to have lost something she hadn’t known she’d wanted.
She’d considered calling Finn and telling him about the baby, but black ops agents weren’t easy to reach. More than that, it wasn’t a conversation she’d wanted to have over the phone.
Spies kept emotions locked away. Spies learned to handle them in private in their own way. Finn couldn’t reasonably expect her to bare her soul to him. Hyde struggled to be honest with herself about what had happened and her feelings about it.
Hyde shut off the water and grabbed a fresh towel. She wished she had thought to bring clothes into the bathroom with her. Facing Finn fully dressed would have made her feel more in control.
Shoring up her confidence, she entered the main room. Finn was gone. Disappointment struck her. She wasn’t interested in fighting with him, but she wanted to resolve their issues before they spun out of control. Though she was grappling with her emotions, she was sure she could find a way to explain how she was feeling, if not why.
Hyde dressed in a white sweat suit the West Company had provided. It was impractical, but surprisingly comfortable. She stepped out onto the front porch. The wind was blowing gently and the smell of salty air made her feel alert. Finn wouldn’t have gone far. In the dark, she scanned for him. He was sitting on the small porch in a wood chair, watching the water. His elbows were resting on the chair’s arms and his hands were steepled together in front of his mouth.
Hyde debated going back inside, but instead, pulled the other chair closer to him and sat beside him. “Want to talk about it?”
He didn’t look at her. He stared at the water. It was a knife hit to the heart. She had been freezing him out to protect herself. Having that treatment turned on her rattled her. “Come on, Finn. You need to talk to me.”
“I’ve been asking you to talk about it since Montana,” Finn said.
She had explained as much as she could. She tried another way. “Have you ever been on a mission that changed you? Deep down, changed you? Made you a different man?”
He tapped his heel in an even beat against the wood porch. “Every mission changes me.” His hands dropped from his mouth.
Hyde touched his elbow. Though she had his attention, she wanted him to look at her. His eyes met hers and emotion slammed into her. She couldn’t name the emotion that accompanied the intensity and heat, but she felt it burn through her. “Then you understand. I was on a mission and it changed me.” The unbearable loss and the heartache haunted her.
“What mission and what happened? Because I’m thinking the worst. Almost anything you say would be better than what I’m imagining happened. For you, one of the world’s best spies, to suddenly decide she wants out, I know whatever it was, it was bad,” Finn said.
He was probably thinking about altercations with enemies, near loss of life. “I’m okay. I am handling it,” she said. She struggled to find the right words.
“Being here with you makes me worry,” Finn said. “I know you can protect yourself, but since I don’t know what’s going on with you, I feel like I need to do something. Step up and be overprotective to make sure you’re okay.”
“This could go sideways at any point. I won’t give you the disturbing details of the stories Barnett told tonight, but he is a psychopath.” Finn sounded distressed and Hyde was sorry that she couldn’t tell him more. She wished he would accept that she was fine and would talk about it when she was ready.
“Promise me you’ll consider talking to me,” Finn said. “You’ve confided in me before. I can be a friend.”
Hyde didn’t want his friendship. She was looking for more. Hyde caught her breath. That truth had hit her like a ton of bricks. Nowhere near ready to be finished with Finn, she wanted more from him than they’d had in the past. It was a long shot, but she was clinging to the dream of a future with him and she’d need to let that go to move on with her life.
* * *
Finn adjusted the phone on his ear as he poured his coffee. He’d slept terribly the night before. Too many worries and not enough solutions weighed heavily on him.
“We’ve been running the facial recognition software. No matches, but we’re cleaning up the images and removing shadows to see if that helps,” Abby said. Abby was their contact at the West Company. She had been assigned to provide remote support in whatever manner she could while Hyde and Finn were in the field.
It was probable that the people Hyde had seen on the beach were in the United States’ facial recognition system as special agents, special ops or wanted criminals. In addition to international criminal tracking systems, the West Company had access to the United States’ Department of Motor Vehicles systems from each of the fifty states, and their analysts had run the picture against those images.
Finn couldn’t imagine a more trustworthy person than Connor West wielding so much power. As
the leader of the West Company, Connor was the definition of a patriot and he wouldn’t abuse the power bestowed upon him. He had been tossed around by the government when he had worked as a spy years before. Those experiences laid the groundwork for his commitment to running honest and fair operations.
After Finn hung up with Abby, he found Hyde in the bathroom doing something with her hair, twisting it and clipping it with flowers. He had never seen her take such care with her appearance. She was a naturally beautiful woman and adding a dress, high heels and the hair and makeup, she was breathtaking. She leaned forward over the sink to adjust her hair, and her profile was feminine and alluring. Her hair was gathered at the side and the ends were curly. With the print of her dress and the way it moved around her legs, she reminded him of a dancer.
It was driving him to distraction that she had shut him out of her life. She was here with him, but she was slipping away. He couldn’t bridge the distance with her. When he felt close to her opening up, she shut down.
Hyde patted her hair and slid another clip into it. “Ruby messaged me this morning. She wants us to meet her and Barnett for brunch. I think he’s planning to tell you about his loyalty test.”
Given what Finn knew of Barnett, the test would be twisted.
As she turned from the sink, she winced.
He caught her expression in the mirror. “What’s the matter?”
She lifted the hem of her green dress and showed her swollen and bruised ankle.
“Did that happen last night?” he asked.
She nodded. “I cut through the trees and I fell a couple of times. It ached last night, but it hurts pretty bad now. I had some light scratches on my face and neck, but makeup covered those.”
“Do you want to cancel the meeting with Barnett and Ruby?”
