Drew twitched. A muscle in his jaw tightened and released.
From within the bag, Roman drew a manilla envelope. Nothing was written on the front. No indication what might be inside. Beyond, where the bag gaped, the available light glinted off metal, capped syringes and other instruments of torture that promised a painful end to Drew's stubbornness.
With smooth, controlled motions, Roman opened the manilla envelope and withdrew just one thing. He kept the eight-by-eleven paper turned toward himself rather than Drew.
“Are you absolutely sure that we know all there is to know? Think about your answer before you speak, Drew, because if I have to waste my time taking the other route, only to find there is more to the story, you will lose more than a few body parts.” Roman delivered his ultimatum with quiet, controlled confidence. He turned the paper around so Drew could see it.
There in black and white, was a recent photocopy of Drew's wife and three daughters leaving elementary school. They looked happy, unaware. Oblivious that their lives might be in danger.
Drew sucked in a surprised breath.
“Unless you tell me the whole story, everything I need to know, we'll take out the oldest one first. They'll send a digital copy of her murder to me, which I'll make you watch, so you can see that you were ultimately responsible for your daughter's death. Then we'll take the second oldest, if you still resist, and finally, the last.” Roman watched Drew's reactions with hawkish intent.
Sweat ran in rivulets down his forehead and his fingers had laced together so hard his knuckles were white. He looked more nervous now, less sure of himself. Roman knew Drew was trying to decide how viable a threat Roman was to his family and whether or not he would really resort to murder to get what he wanted. Drew must have believed he would do exactly as he said he would do, because the agent broke without any more threats having to be delivered.
“Yes, there's more. Don't let anyone hurt them. They're innocent,” Drew said, looking from the photograph of his family to Roman's eyes.
Roman smiled and carefully replaced the picture into the envelope, which went into the bag. He zipped it closed in silence, punctuating that Drew had made the right choice.
The daughters would never have been murdered for this cause, because the Templars did not kill the innocent. All they needed was for Drew to believe they would, and he did.
“They won't be harmed as long as you start talking,” Roman said, pressing to a stand. He stood close, forcing Drew to look up while he started his confession.
“The US government has known about the DOE for a long time--”
“Daughters of Eve?” Roman interrupted for clarification.
“Yes. Or, I should say, that a faction of men who control the government have known. They're the ones that pull all the strings, who fund the research. They're the ones that pay Thom and I to chase down any leads.”
“Thom is your partner?” The agent they were holding in another room.
“Yes.” Drew made a slight face at giving away his partner's name so easily.
“Who are these men exactly?” Roman asked. He didn't have to worry about remembering all the details; there was a camera in the room recording it as it happened.
“Some of the richest men on earth. Bankers, like that.” Drew licked his lips.
“All right. So how did they know about the girls?” Roman inquired next. He could get names, if the agent knew them, later.
“I don't know how they knew. I'm telling the truth,” Drew said with haste. Then added, “Thom and I took over for two other agents who were reassigned four years ago. We knew then about the group within your group, the Templars who were hunting the DOE. So we watched them, followed where they went, logged their calls. We had a plan already in place when, if they ever found them.”
“At what point did you make contact with Christian, and why did you choose him to use as your inside man here?” Roman asked.
Drew looked away for the first time. He seemed nervous about the question, hesitating to answer.
“Drew?”
“We researched all of you. The regular Templars. Christian was the man with the most to lose.”
Roman suppressed an instant surge of unease. “What do you mean?”
“Christian has a son. He's six. The thing is—he's not under Templar protection. We figured Christian didn't know about him for a while, and then didn't tell anyone when he learned the truth. So we were able to get access to the child and his mother and use them to convince Christian to help us when the DOE were located and captured.”
The news rocked Roman. Many of the Templars had family, it was a way of life, how they kept the Knights so close knit. But the wives and children were all under heavy protection provided by the Church, their identities all but impossible to discover from the outside. Christian must have gotten a woman pregnant without realizing until long after the boy had been born.
It explained so many things.
Careful not to let any emotion show, Roman encouraged Drew to go on. “So you compromised his son and he fed you information when he discovered the sect of Templars had located the girls. How far did his involvement go?”
“We only intended for him to get the girls and transfer them to us. Then we were instructed to kill him.”
“I'm guessing Christian wasn't informed of that.” Roman resisted the urge to glance toward the viewing window. He knew Dragar was watching.
Drew's lips twisted with his sardonic reply. “Of course not. He was told his child would be returned unharmed and that would be the end of it.”
“What did these men plan to do with the women when they had them?” Roman crossed his arms over his chest, feet spaced just so for better balance.
“They didn't lay out all their plans,” Drew said. He was sweating profusely.
“You have to have some idea of how far they're willing to go to retrieve them,” Roman pressed.
Drew laughed and licked his lips. “How far will they go? All the way. They've got power, money, military, and every resource you can think of at their fingertips. You people have just started a war they intend to win.”
Chapter Four
Evelyn stared up at the dark ceiling of the hotel room. On her back, one arm cocked up behind her head, she studied the way the shadows slanted across the paint from the moonlight filtering in past the balcony doors. It had to be past midnight and yet, she couldn't sleep. It was hard to when she knew Rhett was in the other bed. She argued with herself that they'd already slept together in Egypt, it didn't matter if she crawled in beside him to rest. Saying good night earlier had been awkward; she knew he wanted to find a way to invite her in, or invite himself into her bed, but neither found the right words.
They knew they wanted to try a relationship, yet rushing headlong, forcing situations, didn't feel comfortable. There would never be time to get to know each other like normal couples did, no time to go on dates and discover all their particular idiosyncrasies. Already they'd faced danger and death together, been on the run. The harrowing ordeals they'd survived together made them close on a level that had nothing to do with romance. A bond forged in the sheer act of trying to stay alive.
It didn't mean she didn't think about the rest of it though.
Looming out of the gloom, Rhett surprised her by leaning over her bed. As if she'd conjured him by thought, by will. There was just enough light to see the bristly layer of his golden whiskers, the gleam in his pale green eyes. Because of the danger, he, like she, still slept fully clothed. The only concession were the shoes Evelyn left by the side of the bed. She couldn't stand tucking tennis shoes under the covers.
Lifting a hand, she threaded her fingers through the mane of his shoulder length hair. Planting palms on either side of her head, he stared down at her and she wondered if the same things she'd been thinking were running through his mind.
“Can't sleep?” she whispered.
“Not really. Doesn't look like you can, either.”
; “Too much to think about.” It wasn't a lie.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Not tonight.” Even quieter. She wanted to touch him, to explore the contours of his shoulders, the veins in his arms. His mouth on hers. Like he'd read the desire in her eyes, he lowered his head until their lips brushed once, twice. The lingering scent of raspberry tea toyed with her senses as much as the warmth and texture of his kiss did.
With his tongue, he asked for entrance. A glide against the seam of her mouth, and she let him in. The sensual strokes he lathed left to right took her breath away. Tightening her fingers in his hair, she applied pressure to bring him even closer.
She thought it was her name he murmured between one angle change and another.
The jarring chime of a cell phone broke the spell and she blinked her lashes open, startled. Who was calling at this time of night?
Rhett uttered a curse and stood upright, raking a hand through his hair. “It better be important.”
Evelyn sat up and shoved the covers off her legs while he answered the phone.
“Yeah?” He all but barked into the receiver. One hand settled on his hip, knee cocked out.
She became aware of the change in him by degrees, the haze of his kiss clearing away when she realized tension had made his shoulders tight.
“What's wrong?” she asked, even though he was on the phone.
“Right. What else did he say? Are you positive?” Rhett said. He turned away from the dresser and paced the path at the end of both beds, stalking like an unsettled lion.
Conditioned to react to the smallest signs of trouble after everything that had happened in Athens and Egypt, Evelyn scrambled out of bed and put her shoes on. From the nightstand that sat between the beds, she snatched her I.D., small fold of cash and the new cell phones Dragar had given them before they left. All of it went into the pocket of her jeans.
With a crisp snap, Rhett set the phone on the dresser. Pivoting, he went to the bag of his things in the bottom of the closet and crouched to root around through it.
“Rhett, what's goin--”
“Just a minute, Evelyn.” The gruff rasp of his voice betrayed new tension that hadn't been there before.
When he stood up, he had a folded map in his hands. The white rectangle stood out in the gloom. Snapping it open, Rhett laid it on the bed and flicked on the lamp over the nightstand. Bending, he put his finger on a point and followed some line, a highway she thought, further north.
“Rhett...” His silence scared her.
“Pack up, be ready to leave here in five minutes.”
“But what's--”
“Just do it, please.”
The tension in Rhett's voice galvanized her into action. From the bed she went to the dresser and pulled out the few things she'd unpacked from her bag. Yanking the nondescript duffel off the floor of the closet, she shoved them in and added two t-shirts she took from hangers. The paranoia that had kept her from getting too comfortable here served her well now that they apparently needed to be on the move again. She couldn't fathom what information he'd received and the not knowing put knots in her stomach.
In the five minute time frame he'd given her, Evelyn had every personal aspect packed. Rhett gathered up the map and packed it along with the few personal items he'd left on the dresser that didn't go on his person.
“Remember when you asked me what my gut instinct said?” he asked.
“And you told me you thought the worst was yet to come.”
“Well. It's coming.”
***
Taking a tight turn, running against a red light, Rhett downshifted with a coordinated press of the clutch and a smooth shift of the stick. Made for this kind of driving, the sleek vehicle hugged the corners like latex on voluptuous curves, and accelerated with enough velocity to make the city a blur out Evelyn's window. Empty of traffic, the long avenues of asphalt glowed under streetlamps lined up in front of shops that wouldn't open again until sunrise. The tires ate up another two miles like it was nothing, sending them to the outskirts of town and then onto a winding road that took them into the foothills.
Evelyn hadn't asked about the phone call back in the hotel. There hadn't been much time after packing and checking out. Rhett, single minded and intent, only wanted them away from the hotel and on the move. Arms crossed over her front, she regarded the black landscape with a pensive frown, wondering where he was taking her.
A half hour later, after two turns onto smaller side roads, Rhett pulled the car off a beaten path that was smoother than it should have been considering it was all dirt. Trees grew thicker here, a few of the heavy branches long enough to scrape the doors of the car. The forest opened up into a clearing where she was shocked to see two other vehicles waiting.
“...who is that and why are we meeting them in the middle of nowhere?”
“Your sisters, my brother and father, and we're out here because it's a gray zone,” he replied and braked to a stop. Rather than cut the engine, he left it running and glanced across the car. “Let's go.”
“Wait—I thought we were--” But Rhett disembarked and Evelyn undid her seat belt. Following him out of the car, she saw her sisters, Dracht and Dragar exit the others. Each engine idled as if this meeting was meant to be as quick as they could make it.
“Hey guys,” Alexandra greeted them.
“Hi.” Minna added hers, leaning against the trunk.
“What's going on and what's a gray area?” Evelyn forewent standard hellos in favor of questions.
“We can't be tracked or overheard here,” Dragar answered. “It's a blind spot for satellites for another four hours.”
Evelyn glanced up at the night sky, then down to the others as they gathered in a loose circle. The balmy evening felt close against her skin as if a bank of thunderheads were nearby. Nothing but the stars and a sliver of the moon shone overhead.
“Why do we have to worry about what satellites are doing?” she asked with growing dread.
“I'm going to bring you all up to speed at the same time,” Dragar replied, taking the lead like he usually did. He was the head of the Order, the one with the most information. Like Dracht and Rhett, he wore dark clothing that blended with the evening. Dark hair pulled back into a severe tail at his nape, he had a neatly trimmed goatee and eyes so dark they looked like chips of obsidian.
Dracht, Dragar's son and Rhett's brother, was his mirror image.
“An interrogator had some success with one of the agents earlier today. He discovered that there are a faction of men, powerful men with broad connections and dangerous resources, who have known about your existence for a very long time. They've plotted and planned for the day someone found you and compromised Christian to get an inside track to the group of Templars that kidnapped you in Athens.”
Evelyn frowned and glanced at Rhett. His instinct had apparently been right on.
“Well isn't that wonderful,” Alexandra said with a derisive snort. The tomboy stood with her hip cocked out, arms over her chest. Like Evelyn, she wore jeans and a tee shirt for easy maneuverability. The long, dark mane of her hair fell loose around her shoulders.
“This is going to make what the Templars did look like child's play,” Dracht added.
“Yeah. They'll stop at nothing to get what they want, and what they want, is you.” Rhett pointedly looked at each surviving sister.
“But wasn't that just like the Templars, though? I mean they froze my bank account and put tracers on me,” Evelyn said. She didn't immediately see how it could be so much worse.
Rhett made eye contact. “They've got the DoD, the CIA, and every other agency, known and not known, involved.”
“If they had them involved, and it's so easy for them to track us down, then why don't they have us already?” she asked.
“They didn't want to draw that much attention to their motivations and movements at first. That's why they used the Templars to locate you, doing their dirty work for t
hem, and why they compromised Christian to take you after they'd rounded you all up. Now they'll bring out every shred of technology they have. Hunters, mercenaries, the best trackers in the world. The whole deal,” Dragar said. “They underestimated us the first time, but they won't make the same mistake twice.”
Evelyn had a glimpse of their future: running, always looking over their shoulder, changing hotels and cottages and foreign locations every other night. Days, weeks, years of never feeling secure or safe. It made her feel small and vulnerable in ways she didn't like.
“So...what do we do? Stay on the run? Hope they don't find us again? Where do we go? All the airports, train stations, big cities with cameras—any time we go near a populated place, we run the risk of them finding us,” she said, more than a little frustrated.
“There is only one place we can go to keep you safe.” Rhett looked displeased and edgy.
“Where?” Evelyn frowned, scrolling through all the possible scenarios. Nowhere, eventually, would be out of reach. Systematically, they would be hunted until they were caught.
Or killed. Like Genevieve and Galiana. Like too many other sisters over the centuries.
Rhett never looked away when he said, “Eden.”
***
Eden. That sacred place was supposed to be the locale of last resort. The sanctuary they retreated to when there was no place left to hide. Had they come to that point already, so suddenly?
Evelyn wasn't prepared to cut herself off from humanity. From Rhett. Taking him there to appeal to the Guardian of the East Gate, Ashrael, for a piece of the fruit from the Tree of Life to extend his life was a long shot.
But he wouldn't be allowed to go in and live there with them.
Minna, the diminutive woman with delicate Asian features and Alexandra, the wild one of the siblings, had both been born there, too. One look their way told Evelyn that the thought sat ill with them as well. Minna wore a disconcerted frown and Alexandra looked angry.
Daughters of Eve Collection (Books 1, 2 & 3) Page 28
