by Wendy Byrne
He slid open the window and listened before helping her through. She waited outside and eased him through seconds before shots splintered the door. The window shattered, sending shards of glass against his legs, one piercing the fabric of his jeans. He felt the cut and the resulting trickle of blood drip down his leg.
"We've got to hurry. They've sent somebody outside after us." She tugged his arm.
The glass dug into his calf and hurt like hell. With at least one guy breathing down their necks, taking care of it now wasn't an option. Instead, he kept up the pace while blood trailed down his leg and ruined a perfectly good pair of boots.
He glanced behind him and spotted the guy a block away. They should have enough time to get to his car. He took a second to pull the chunk of glass out, and headed for his car around the next corner. Relief lasted seconds—until there was no car in sight. Where the hell was his car?
She screeched to a halt. "The explosion." Evidence of a taillight and pieces of tire littered the street.
"I guess we know what happened to your C-4." He didn't have time to mourn the loss of their wheels, as shouts came from behind, followed by the screech of tires in the distance.
"Somehow they knew we'd head here. Quick." She pulled him again before noticing he was limping. "What—" She stopped and bent down. "My God, you're bleeding. A lot."
"Don't remind me."
"And you're leaving a trail a blind man could find."
His leg was impacting his running even more. Every step seemed to send a line of pain clear up his leg. He'd never been hurt before, even a minor injury like this one.
"Go ahead. I'll catch up." Damn, his muscle started cramping, bringing yet another level of pain to his leg.
She stopped and turned. He could have sworn he saw tears littering her eyes. "I'm not leaving you here. They'll tear you apart if they find you."
"Who says they're going to find me?" He hobbled along.
"My grandmother, if I had one, would be able to run circles around you."
"Okay, that hurt." Every step seemed to bring fire up his calf to his hamstring. "You need to get the hell out of here. They're after you, not me."
"We're either going to shoot our way out of this, which I don't recommend, or get your fine ass in gear."
He couldn't help but smile. "As long as you put it that way."
She was trotting instead of running, so he could keep pace. "Can you get over this fence?"
He rolled his eyes, even though he wasn't sure of anything right now. His leg felt numb. "No problem."
After putting his arms on the top rail and vaulting over, he came down hard on his good leg, leaving him to stumble and come up lame on his injured leg. She urged his arm over her shoulder in order to lean on her.
Pathetic.
Still they kept running—sort of—while trying to track the car that had been dogging them. The neighborhood was sparsely populated, with more than an acre between the homes, which worked in both their favor as well as their detriment. There were no witnesses for the bad guys to worry about.
But he spotted a car in a driveway up ahead. No way was he going to call Jennings for another pick-up. Besides, he didn't think they could evade them forever. "Did I ever tell you I can hot-wire a car in seconds?" His leg was throbbing when it wasn't burning. He couldn't keep up the pace much longer.
Even though he had the car started, all that kept going through his mind was that this woman was no killer. He, on the other hand, had killed several times.
Yet there she was, ensuring he didn't get behind. He was dragging her down and still she refused to leave him, even after he gave her permission to do so. Could he trust his gut this one time?
* * *
"Don't be such a baby. Take off your jeans and let me see your cut." To say Tessa had been scared would be a huge understatement. It had been beyond frightening for more time than she cared to think about.
He unbuckled his jeans while she pulled them down his legs. "Too bad your sexy moves are lost on me right now."
She gazed up at him. "Not sexy. I'm Nancy the Nurse right now."
"Role playing. I can get into that." He sucked in a breath when she pulled his jeans off his wound. "Ow."
"Sorry." She chewed on her bottom lip as she eyed the gaping hole in his leg. The blood had stopped pumping out like a fire hydrant. "You really could use some stitches."
"There's a first-aid kit in the kitchen cabinet."
She stopped him when he started to get up. "I'll get it. Just tell me where. I don't want it to start up bleeding again."
She plunked the box of supplies on the table between them. Rummaging through, she found the skin adhesive and a butterfly bandage. "First I need shave the area and disinfect it. I expect it's going to hurt." She strode to the bathroom, seconds later returning and making short work of the hair around the wound with a razor.
"Bring it on, sista." He grimaced as she swabbed antiseptic into the open wound.
"This should be done by a doctor. It's deep." Despite her disclaimer, she continued to clean it out as best she could. "I don't see any shards of glass, which I guess is good news."
"I'm fine." His jaw was clenched tight when he spoke, and she almost wanted to laugh at his tough-it-out behavior.
She read the directions on the package before adhering the two sides of his skin together. And quickly learned that was the hard part. Between the muscles in his calf and the lack of excess skin, getting the two sides close enough to touch made sweat break out on her forehead. After attaching the strips to keep everything in place, she blew out a breath. Somehow doing this felt more intimate than sex.
"Done. And a pretty good job if I do say so myself." Adrenaline was still coursing through, making her hands tremble.
He twisted his leg in order to see her handiwork, even though he couldn't because of the bandage. "Maybe you should have gone to medical school instead of spy school." He planted a soft kiss on her lips. "Thank you." His eyebrows wiggled up and down, and that earlier weirdness between them seemed to dissipate. "Now, let's have a look at the file and hope this hard-fought scar was worth it."
"Sit and put your leg up. I'll grab the stuff." She pulled the file out of the inside pocket of his jacket and brought it to the couch.
She sat down beside him so they could look through the file simultaneously. The first couple of sheets verified the information that Jake had already told her about Alex's background and family. They had some transcribed interviews with his siblings and parents, all of which were unremarkable in content. Even though it was no longer new information to her, she couldn't help but bristle about his deceit. There was only one reason to lie to her, and she'd been gullible enough to fall for it—hook, line, and sinker.
He'd played her like a fiddle. He gave her what she longed for her entire life. Was it some kind of game he wanted to play?
"Wait. It says here that Alex's dad was ex-CIA. That he did some highly classified jobs for them after leaving the military. Did you know—" He stopped and shook his head. "No, obviously you didn't, since nothing he told you was honest."
"Do you think that plays into this somehow?"
"I'd be more shocked if it didn't."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm not sure yet, but let's dig a little farther." He shuffled through the papers as they handed them back and forth. "See anything else?"
Her breath caught in her throat. "Reddog. His father's code name was Reddog." They had confirmation of the connection now.
Trusting Jake felt right but terrifying as well. She barely knew him, but at the same time she felt like she'd known him a lifetime. If divulging all that she knew came to bite her, so be it. There was nothing she could do about it now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jake shuffled through the remainder of the file's contents before distributing the mess between the two of them. All he had found so far were random notes scribbled on paper, and in no particular order. "You find anything else?"
"Just some textbook scenarios they put us through at The Farm. The usual 'What do you do if…' kind of thing." She shrugged, but her finger hovered over a spot on one of the papers. "Except…" Her eyebrows drew together and her face turned ashen. "This is too weird. Don't you think?"
He grabbed the paper from her and read though the scenario.
You become close with another operative creating a history that makes them believe you're of similar backgrounds. That operative is now implicated for taking bribes from the enemy. How do you pretend to ferret out the truth when you're the guilty party, not them?
"Parts of it align with what we know." The possibility that this had been an elaborate setup from the start tunneled through his brain. What-ifs followed. Had she been Alex's ace in the hole? He needed to take a step back and regain his objectivity. "Do you remember ever getting this kind of case to untangle?"
She shook her head. "Nothing this weird or complex. Yes, we were told to align with the operatives we connect with. Yes, we were supposed to know them inside and out, backwards and forwards, mostly for our own protection. And yes, occasionally we might threaten them with potential repercussions if they didn't go along with the plan, and they were left without our assistance. Yes, we were taught the art of manipulation, but nothing like this." She hung her head and rubbed her hands down her face. "I need to get a grip." She sucked in a deep breath. "John is dead because of these notes." She turned over the sheet and pointed to something on the back. "It gets worse. It says Alex C. A handwritten note below it says, 'Shows tremendous promise, but raises some red flags for me.' John signed it."
She passed the paper to Jake. He examined the message and realized the implication. As farfetched as it seemed, Tessa had been set up from the very beginning. She was their fallback in case things started to go south. What was the trigger?
"During your training did you have to make up your own possible scenarios of what you might encounter?"
She slowly nodded. "I vaguely recall an exercise in the beginning of training where we did. But my scenario looked nothing like this." The realization seemed to take over her body as she slumped forward. "And when we shared our scenarios for discussion, nothing even remotely like this was brought up."
"Someone knew or recently figured out John had squirreled away these notes. Was he blackmailing them?"
"John wasn't the type. If he kept these papers in the freezer, he knew there was a possibility he might need them." She said the words deliberately. He could nearly see the wheels turning inside her head. "This whole thing is crazy." She walked toward her bag. "There's something else. Can you scan this photo to your headquarters and have them run it through their facial-recognition software? I need to know who this woman is. I took it from Alex's house. I found it in a drawer in his office." She said the words quickly, as if she didn't want to lose her nerve. "I don't know who this woman is with Alex, but I have a feeling she might be significant. It has to play into everything that's happened."
If she was lying, she was damn good at it. Everything about her body language and facial expression spoke of the betrayal she felt—from the downward shift of her gaze to her slumping body posture.
"Why didn't you bring this out while we were at Aaron's? He has all that equipment he could have used."
"I wasn't sure if I could trust you." She shrugged. "Not that the sex thing proved that I could. I'm just saying I've reached a crossroads, I guess. Like it or not, I've got to trust somebody, and, well…let's face it, you seem to be the only candidate for the job right now."
"Not exactly a ringing endorsement." He shook his head and wondered if this was all part of the act as well. The possibility of that was getting more remote by the second. "Are you saying you need me?"
She nodded as a quirky kind of smile lit up her face. "Damn it to hell, but I guess I am."
While he hated to think like a man at a time like this, she was one beautiful woman. Objectivity was the key. He had nothing solid yet, only a whole lot of possibilities. He couldn't let that interfere with what he had to do. At this point, he needed some kind of sounding board to filter through all the conflicting information he had stored inside his brain. And he had to contact Jennings about the need for another car, anyway.
Jake wasn't sure if he should be happy or feel even more guilty about this new development. And not to be sensitive, but what did she mean about by that reference to the "sex thing" between them?
He glanced at the photo she'd handed him and gulped back the bile. Somehow he managed to speak despite the war going on inside his head. "I need to send this to The Alliance." And what in the hell was he going to do about it?
This whole thing had just gotten real.
* * *
Tessa wanted to make this crazy situation to go away. Nothing seemed to make sense, while at the same time everything needed to make sense. Confronting Alex was the only way she could rest. She wanted to know what Jake was thinking, while at the same time she didn't want to hear the words spill out.
Instead, she blabbered, hoping that something would right itself inside her head. Feelings she'd been suppressing forever surged to the forefront. "When I said I never knew my father, I meant my mother told me nothing at all. I didn't know if he'd been a one-night stand, a fling with a coworker or a married man, or if she'd been artificially inseminated by some random sperm donor. Every time I asked, she'd look nervous and change the subject. Except I always felt somehow inferior to other kids. I wonder if that's what Alex so easily capitalized on. He recognized a weakness in me that he couldn't help but jump all over." The shame she'd always felt on the inside seemed to be leaving a stain on the outside now.
"You shouldn't make assumptions." Jake had seemed distracted ever since he'd seen that photo. Getting it off to Jennings didn't seem to help.
"Everyone where I lived was brought up in two-parent homes where the fathers went off to work each day, and they played sports on the weekend or did dance class or something. I always thought I was weird. Undeserving. Alex pretended to be like me. Made me feel normal. Alive or dead, I'll despise him for that."
She sucked in a deep breath, as the words didn't seem to want to stop flowing. "I always had a sense of paranoia about life. Was it something my mother ingrained in me? Was it of my own making? I'm really not sure. Nothing was ever mentioned about grandparents or other relatives. I had no cousins who came to visit. Holidays were spent alone with my mother. Not that they weren't happy memories, but they were vastly different than other kids' experiences."
Jake wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I don't know what to say."
"I grew accustomed to being alone, so that it was my refuge. It seemed unnatural to rely on someone else to help negotiate through my troubles until Alex came along and offered something else. I must have been ripe for the picking. That had to be why they targeted me."
"We won't know if or when you were a target."
She turned. For some reason, she felt the need to look him in the eye when she spoke. Would she see pity? Anger? Disgust? Somehow she needed to know.
"I was a target. I can feel it in every fiber of my being. I had no family. I had no one to trust to bounce things off. I was perfect for their purposes and played right into their hands. Alex and his father must have rubbed their hands together in glee."
She shook her head and fought back the tears. "At one point, the CIA said they found my father. I still don't know if it's true, or they made that up to mess with my head. It was sort of like a carrot that wasn't a carrot at all. It was more like a carrot that turned into a pile of crap. They traced my mother's dating history back and found out she was involved with a known member of organized crime. They'd suspected he was my father, even though they couldn't prove it without DNA."
"What an odd thing to tell you."
A shudder passed down her spine as the memories clutched at her heart. "I should say Alex told me. Now that I know everything about him is a lie, why would he be truthful abo
ut that?"
She sucked in a breath as long-suppressed emotion threatened to stop her in her tracks. "But this whole setup did something important from their perspectiveit obliterated any other family in my life. He knew I wouldn't explore the idea of having a crime boss as a father. The idea was so objectionable I couldn't fathom wanting to know his name." She shrugged, trying to dispel the weight of the world from resting on her shoulders. The mind games she'd been subjected to had been more involved and far-reaching than she'd ever realized. "Alex and the CIA made themselves my family. That's how it had been designed from the get-go. They wanted to be my only recourse, which is why this whole thing feels like a stab to the heart. No one is on my side anymore or has my back. Now I know they never did. Everything was an illusion from the start."
* * *
"Do you really think they set you up?" Jake's experience had been so similar it was no wonder they'd bonded so quickly. Except for the fact he had two siblings, which helped filter through the noise of Petrovich's brainwashing to help him make sense of what was happening. No matter what, he knew his siblings would be there for him, regardless of their break from Petrovich.
"It's taken me a while to figure it out, but yes. There's nothing else that makes any sense. It was like they set a target on me. As much as it pains me to think this, Alex must have been a part of it from the beginning." She shuddered. "He may have been the orchestrator of the whole thing."
He spotted the pain reflected in her eyes. She'd been betrayed. The betrayal ran so deep that it was hard for her to recognize what had happened. They'd used her emotions as a means to an end. This wasn't the manipulation of the CIA, it was an evil mastermind.
He drew in a breath to steady himself. It would the first time he'd ever verbalized what had been simmering in his gut for years.
He trusted too much, his brother trusted too little, and his sister was somewhere in the middle with a cynical edge. Their upbringing had a hand in it. Being orphaned at a young age had upped the ante. Meeting Petrovich had sealed his fate. Forever they'd be bound by a man who'd been dead for a while now.
