by Janie Crouch
“Good job, man. Very smooth transaction.”
“As always, Fin. That’s what I do.”
Cameron wanted to demand to meet Fin’s boss, but knew that any request on his part to meet the man would push him that much further away from a meeting. He had been patient up until now. He could be patient awhile longer. Although with the Ghost Shell encoding technology becoming Cameron’s prime mission objective, he couldn’t be patient much longer.
Fin nodded. “It is what you do, Cam. And Mr. Smith, my...um...boss, has become well aware of that.”
Cameron straightened, his interest piqued. He doubted Mr. Smith was the boss’s real name, but this was the first time Fin had ever openly talked about him directly to Cameron. Finally, the slightest progress.
“Well, I’d like to meet Mr. Smith someday.”
Fin slapped him on the back again. “And you will, buddy. Soon, in fact. Mr. Smith may need your help in setting up some meetings for some new stuff.”
Cameron hoped that by new stuff Fin meant the Ghost Shell technology. Fin didn’t have an expansive vocabulary, unless it came to dirty jokes.
“But now, let’s get back to the house so we can see that weight lifting you were talking so much trash about on the way here.”
Cameron followed Fin down the stairs. Two of the other three minions were already at the car. The third, Marco—the one sent to patrol the inside of the warehouse—wasn’t there.
Dread pooled in Cameron’s stomach.
“Where the hell is Marco?” Fin demanded of the other two. Neither knew.
“He’s probably in there smoking or on the can. I’ll go find him,” Cameron offered. He had a bad feeling.
“Fine.” Fin shooed Cameron annoyingly with his hand again. But again Cameron didn’t care. “Hurry up.”
Cameron made it to the warehouse door, just as it opened. Through it came Marco, dragging a terrified Sophia behind him.
Chapter Three
Cameron knew he had to think fast. A single word from Sophia, any sort of gesture that she knew him, would mean both their lives. In a split second, Cameron made a decision.
But he knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
He stormed up to Marco and grabbed Sophia out of his grasp. “What the hell, Marco? Is this a cop?”
Cameron pushed Sophia, probably a little rougher than necessary, face-first up against the warehouse wall. He heard her indrawn breath, but steeled himself against any thought of her pain or fear.
It was going to get much worse.
Cameron kept his hand pressed against Sophia’s back, keeping her forced against the wall. Behind him he heard Fin and the other guys draw their weapons.
He willed Sophia to keep quiet.
Marco, a little shocked by Cameron’s aggressive behavior, stuttered, “I just found her inside. She said she was an artist and was taking pictures of the warehouse.”
“Did you check to see if she was wearing a wire or anything?” Cameron demanded.
Marco looked sheepish and shook his head. Cameron made a big show of running his hands all over Sophia’s body, as if looking for surveillance equipment. Behind him the guys made a couple of catcalls. Sophia shuddered.
When his body search led to her hands, he could feel Sophia press some sort of card into his palm—he wasn’t sure what. He moved so he more clearly blocked her from Fin and the men’s view, and palmed whatever she had given him without looking at it. As he turned, he slipped it into the pocket of his jeans.
“She’s clean,” Cameron said as he spun her around. Sophia attempted to straighten the clothes Cameron had lifted and moved during his search, her face burning.
“Listen...” Sophia began.
Cameron backhanded her.
Oh, God. He pulled the slap as much as he could without making it obvious, but he knew it still had to hurt. Her head flew to the side. He watched as a bit of blood began to ooze from a split in her lip. Cameron thought he might vomit.
But if she had said his name, they would both be dead, or at the very least his undercover work would be blown. He couldn’t take the chance.
He stuck his finger in her face. “You shut the hell up unless I ask you a specific question, got it?”
Cameron prayed as he had never prayed before that Sophia would keep quiet. He felt a bit of relief when she nodded slowly, staring at the ground.
“Whoa, Cam. I didn’t think you had that in you.” Fin chuckled.
Cameron smiled a little bit and rolled his shoulders as if he was getting rid of tension. “Yeah. Well, I hate cops. But it doesn’t look like she is one.”
Cameron took Sophia’s digital camera and brought it over to Fin. Together they looked through the pictures. Cameron relaxed a little when they were all shots of the doorway of the warehouse.
“What are you, a photographer?” Cameron asked her. He hoped she wouldn’t bring up the Bureau.
“Yeah. A graphic artist.” The answer came out as little more than a whisper from Sophia. She was still looking at the ground.
“What were you doing here?” Fin asked.
“Taking pictures for a computer drawing I’m doing of old warehouses.”
Cameron breathed another sigh of relief when she didn’t mention law enforcement. Good girl; smart thinking.
Cameron walked back over to her. “Did you know we’d be here?”
Sophia shook her head, staring at the ground. Cameron grabbed her chin and forced her to look up at him—more theatrics for Fin and the guys’ benefit, but Sophia was paying the price. “You had no idea we were here?”
“No,” Sophia spat out. “I thought all these buildings were abandoned. I just needed some pictures.” She was glaring at him, but Cameron could see the terror lurking just behind the anger.
“Yeah, I’m all for woman’s lib, but I guess nobody would be stupid enough to send one tiny female with no backup or weapons to arrest all of us.” Cameron leered at her. “No offense, sweetheart.”
“Marco, did you find any ID on her?” Fin asked.
“Her purse was in her car, which was sitting out front. I moved the car inside the building just in case someone else drove by,” Marco informed them.
Well, that answered the question about why Sophia’s car hadn’t been out front when Cameron had looked the second time.
Marco brought the purse to Fin. Fin glanced inside the bag, evidently finding nothing of interest, pulled out her wallet and let the purse fall to the ground. Fin took her driver’s license out.
“Sophia Reardon. Twenty-seven years old. Alexandria address.” Fin looked through the rest of her wallet. Cameron held his breath, knowing Sophia must have some sort of FBI identification, even if she wasn’t an agent. But Fin didn’t say anything, just dropped her wallet into the purse on the ground.
Cameron thought of the card Sophia had slipped to him when he was searching her. Feigning as if he was looking around, Cameron slipped the card out of his pocket and glanced at it. Sure enough, Sophia’s FBI credentials.
A smart and gutsy move on her part—one that had just saved her life. If Fin had seen FBI anywhere on her or in her possessions, they wouldn’t have cared if she was just a graphic artist and not an agent. As far as they were concerned, anybody employed by the Bureau was their enemy.
Cameron caught Sophia’s eye. He patted his pocket and gave her a slight nod. He had no idea if she understood what he was communicating, but she had done a good job.
Cameron walked over to Fin and leaned back against the SUV, knowing he had to play it casual. “So what do we do with her?”
Fin didn’t answer immediately. That wasn’t encouraging.
The hardest part of undercover work—especially in a situation like this—was figuring out how far you could take your bluff. Pull out of the game too soon and lose eight months of undercover work with only a couple of low-level arrests. But play the game too long and take a chance of somebody calling your bluff...
Which in this case would end in S
ophia’s death before Cameron could stop it.
And this situation was all the more complicated due to this new damn Ghost Shell technology DS-13 had. If Cameron blew his cover now, Omega would be hard-pressed to acquire that technology before it went on the black market. That could result in the loss of thousands of lives.
But Cameron wasn’t going to let Sophia die. Not here. Not today. He was leaning very casually against the SUV, but he had slipped the safety off on his weapon, although it remained concealed under his shirt.
But just like Cameron, everyone here had a weapon. If this came down to a firefight, the odds were definitely not in his favor.
“Let’s just let her go, Fin,” Marco said. “Smash the camera, break her phone, slash her tires so she can’t get anywhere. By the time she walks to the nearest phone, we’ll be long gone.”
Cameron could’ve hugged the big lug. That was exactly the suggestion he had wanted to make, but couldn’t.
Fin looked over at Cameron, but Cameron just shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him a bit what happened to Sophia.
“No,” Fin finally said. “No loose ends. Kill her.”
Cameron heard Sophia’s indrawn breath and he looked over at her. Full-blown panic was visible in her eyes now. She looked as if she was about to make a run for it. Cameron hoped she wouldn’t. He didn’t think he could take out all four of the other men before someone got a shot off at her.
A quick plan came to Cameron. God, he hoped this would work. He pushed himself away from the car lazily. “Aw, come on, Fin, can’t I at least have a little fun with her first? Take her back to the house so there’s something for me to do instead of looking at your ugly mugs all the time?” Cameron used his most cajoling tone.
That got a couple chuckles from the men, but Fin wasn’t convinced.
“I thought you didn’t like her?”
Cameron smiled easily. “I don’t like cops.” Cameron walked over to Sophia and trailed a finger along her collarbone, just above her breasts. “But her, knowing she’s not a cop? Hmm.”
Cameron licked his lips and moved closer to Sophia. She shuddered and stepped as far away from him as she could. A tear fell from the corner of her eye.
The guys all laughed at her reaction to him. Cameron pushed her back against the warehouse wall angrily, as if she had embarrassed him. “Well, obviously I’m going to have to teach her some manners. But I’m up to the task. Maybe I’ll know some dirty jokes when I’m done.” That got more laughs.
Fin shook his head. “She’s too skinny for me. I prefer women with some meat on their bones.”
Cameron grinned and reached out to stroke some of Sophia’s hair. She wouldn’t even look at him. “Plenty of meat for me.”
The guys snickered. Fin looked down at his watch. “Whatever. Do what you want with her. I don’t care,” Fin told Cameron. “But she’s your responsibility. And you have to get rid of her when you’re done.”
Cameron felt marginally better now that the immediate threat to Sophia’s life seemed to have passed, and his undercover work was also relatively safe. But he was pretty sure the look in her eyes would haunt him the rest of his life.
One last finishing touch to the show. He grabbed Sophia by the nape of the neck and hauled her roughly against him. He brought his mouth down heavily on hers, and wrapped his other arm around her hips. For a moment Sophia did nothing, then without warning she exploded into furious action, pushing away from him and squirming in his grasp.
Cameron brought his lips up her jawline to her ear, holding her body firmly against his. Quietly, so no one could hear him but her, he whispered, “Whatever you do, don’t let anyone know you know me.”
Sophia was attempting so hard to get away from him, Cameron wasn’t sure if she heard him. He hoped she did. He brought his lips back to hers. This time she bit his lip.
The men howled in laughter when Cameron jerked back from her.
“Ow, you little hellion. You’re going to pay for that.”
He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the car. Someone opened the door for them and Cameron all but threw her in, then climbed in after her. It broke his heart to see how Sophia scrambled as far away from him as she could get in the confines of the SUV.
He had saved their lives for now, but the danger was far from finished. And he hoped the trauma he’d dealt Sophia wasn’t too much to repair.
* * *
SOPHIA WAS JUST trying to keep it together. She slid all the way over in the seat to try to get as far away from Cameron as possible. If she could’ve curled herself into a tiny ball, she would have.
Normally she didn’t like being in the backseat of a vehicle, especially when there were no windows she could roll down. But right now her claustrophobia would just have to get in line behind all the other things her brain had to freak out about.
Like the fact that she had just been kidnapped by some gang that her ex-boyfriend seemed to be part of.
Except she didn’t know if he was really part of it or not.
Undercover.
It would answer a lot of questions if Cameron was working undercover. Like why he had tried to get her out of the warehouse and hadn’t said anything about her FBI credentials.
Of course, it could also be that he was now a member of this organized crime group, or whatever it was, and just didn’t want his ex-girlfriend’s brains to get splattered all over the pavement.
So back to square one.
Sophia peeked over at Cameron to find him watching her with a decidedly malevolent look in his eyes. Sophia shuddered. That leering look was not something she had ever thought she would see from Cameron. Maybe he really was a criminal now. Sophia tried not to panic. If that look from Cameron was real, she was in big trouble.
But then Sophia glanced up and saw the leader guy, Fin, watching her and Cameron in the rearview mirror. Maybe Cameron suspected that they were being watched and was playing a role.
Undercover.
Please, please, please let him be working undercover.
After Cameron had told her to go, she had done exactly what he had asked: gone straight to her car. But when she had gotten to the door, her car wasn’t there. The big guy—Marco?—was driving it inside. Sophia cursed herself for leaving the keys in it, but she had thought there was no one around for miles.
Sophia had tried to sneak outside without Marco seeing her, but hadn’t managed it. The next thing she knew he’d grabbed her and had dragged her out the back exit of the warehouse.
Where Cameron had proceeded to scream at, strike and humiliate her.
And maybe save her life.
Sophia touched her lip—it still hurt, both from the slap and his mouth-grinding kiss. She had no such misconception that she was really any safer now than she had been while at the warehouse. But at least nobody had a gun in their hands now.
As the men around her chatted and generally insulted each other, Sophia tried to watch out the window without looking as if she was watching out the window. She didn’t want to give anyone—Cameron included—a reason to think she was a threat. But if she had a chance to get away, she planned to take it, and knowing where she was would help.
They were still pretty far outside of DC when they turned into a residential area. Definitely not high-end, the houses were old, but pretty large. They were far enough apart that neighbors wouldn’t be forced to see what the other was doing unless they were deliberately trying to. All in all, probably a good location for people selling drugs or weapons or whatever else. Although it wasn’t too promising, maybe Sophia would be able to call for help when they parked and got out of the car, and someone would notice.
Their SUV pulled up to the house on the corner. Although the house was probably built in the 1960s, someone had obviously refurbished the garage door with a contemporary opener. The SUV pulled straight into the garage and the door shut quickly behind them.
Sophia bit back a sigh. So much for calling out to the neighbors for help.
&
nbsp; Cameron’s scary, black look was back. And even though she hoped he might be a good guy, Sophia was frightened. Everyone got out of the car, but Sophia couldn’t force herself to move. She shrank back into the seat when Cameron reached for her.
“Get out here right now,” Cameron told her through gritted teeth.
She could hear the other men laughing in the doorway. Fin called out, “Regretting your decision already, Cam?”
“I’m not regretting anything, but someone else is about to.”
One of the other men whose name she didn’t know offered to come help Cam get her out of the vehicle, listing in very crude detail what he would do to her while he was assisting.
Cameron glared at Sophia through narrowed eyes for a moment before calling back over his shoulder, “Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea, Rick. Why don’t you come on in here?”
Sophia immediately scooted over to Cameron and out the car door. All the men doubled over in malicious laughter in the doorway. Cameron grabbed her arm and dragged her forcefully out of the garage past the men, and toward the back of the house into what obviously was his bedroom. Sophia could still hear the other gang members laughing.
Once inside, Cameron turned and locked the door. Then Sophia watched, standing in the middle of the room, as he went over and grabbed a wooden chair that was leaning against the far wall. He dragged the chair to the door and propped it under the doorknob—added defense against anyone entering.
Cameron turned from the door and walked slowly over to Sophia. He stopped only when he was just inches from her. He reached up and touched the split on her lip.
They both winced.
“I’m sorry for everything that happened today, and everything that’s going to happen tonight,” he told her softly. “But right now I’m going to need you to scream like you’re terrified out of your mind. Or else I’m going to have to force you to do it.”
Chapter Four
Cameron wasn’t sure if this situation could get much worse, but the look Sophia gave him made him think it probably could.
“Wh-what?” she stammered, backing away from him.
