The Darkest Corner

by Liliana Hart

  “There are waves of terrorism,” he said. “And for several years we’ve seen an uprising in attacks from Russia. Many times they don’t take credit for it, so other terrorist organizations step up and claim responsibility. But Russia has been a sleeping giant for years. They’ve been patient, and their agents so ingrained in our country that it’s almost impossible to distinguish them unless there are definite red flags.”

  She felt hollow inside. “I guess there’s a reason you’re telling me all this now. You tell me all of this and say flat out that Eve has had an interest in me and my family, and I’m just supposed to believe there’s no coincidence that you finally decided to make your move. You must think me pretty pathetic. Poor Tess Sherman, with her gambling addict mother, colorful grandmother, and her ex-fiancé who decided to dump her in front of the entire town. Plain, boring Tess Sherman who wants to live in peace, so she lets people like George Jessup, Eve Winter, Deacon Tucker, and her own mother screw her over again and again.” She dashed a tear from her cheek, hating that she mad enough to cry. “Dammit!” she said, getting to her feet. “I went through therapy so I could learn how to deal with stuff like this. You’d think after having your mother steal your life savings that it would be about the lowest point in a person’s life. Yet I keep finding out other people can dig the hole deeper. This is why I prefer my own company most of the time. This is the perfect example of why I need to get the hell out of this town.”

  “Now, hold on,” Deacon interrupted. “That’s not true. I’ve had the hots for you for two years. And what I told you today has nothing to do with the other. You’re the one who wasn’t ready to see me. I hated with all my soul to watch you put on a brave face while all your dreams were ripped away. I hated watching how you’d walk into a crowded room and people would whisper about you the minute you turned your back. You had your guard up as high as it would go. I was waiting until the right moment.

  “Not to mention that there’s more at stake for me and you both if we become involved. It’s one thing to have a quick fling and be done with it. It’s another to have a relationship. You think there’s no loopholes or consequences of having a relationship? I want you more than I can ever remember wanting anything, Tess. And to want you and act on it means that both our lives are forfeit if my identity is ever discovered or I’m ever captured.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said, throwing her arms up. “Why are you telling me all this now? Why are you allowed to? You just told me you’ve spent your entire career lying, even to your own parents. You must think I’m an idiot for it to not cross my mind that you’re lying, for whatever reason, to me right now. If this is a covert ops group that not even the president is aware of, why are you telling nobody Tess Sherman from Nowhere, Texas?”

  “You mean the funny, smart-ass, brilliant, kind, sexy Tess Sherman? The one whose taste is on my tongue and who I want to be inside of more than I want to breathe?”

  Tess swiped a tear from her cheek, her face heating at the intensity of his words. “Why are you breaking the rules for me?”

  “Because you’re worth it. Because we are currently facing down the single most horrific terrorist attack the world has ever known, and I’d rather have you by my side than far from me. Because you’re brilliant. Because you speak Russian and you could be an asset. Because you crave adventure and something more than Last Stop can offer you, but you feel duty bound to stay. You don’t really want to leave. This place is in your blood. It’s your heart. And lastly, because I need you. I’ve chosen to ignore orders and tell you more than I should have. It wasn’t a chance I even took with my own parents. But I can’t, and won’t, lie to you. You’ve been lied to too much in your life.”

  “How? How did you know what I’d told Miller? About my past with men?”

  He sighed and she wrapped her arms around herself protectively.

  “We’ve got cameras everywhere. Inside the house, around the property, and at points of entry into the town.”

  “My bedroom?” she said, bringing her hand to her mouth.

  “No, the third floor is a dead zone. The camera range only extends to the top of the stairs on the third floor. It’s for everyone’s protection.”

  “You were protecting me by listening in on private conversations between me and my best friend?” Now she was really fuming. “You’ve been listening all along?” She practically screamed the last two words, her vision going slightly blurry with rage.

  “No, we haven’t,” he assured her, but her anger was too great. “Colin had the volume up because you were baking and you have a tendency to set things on fire. But that’s no excuse. I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. I can promise it won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of it. We all feel protective of you. When you started talking about Henry . . .” He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

  Tess was going to commit murder. “I don’t give two figs about Henry. I never did. The only reason I agreed to marry him was because I had this idea in my head of what a family was supposed to be. And I wanted it. I want a bunch of children who will one day come home for Christmas and bring their families. I want a husband I can share things with and talk to. It might not have been the great passion of the century, but I’d hoped we could at least be friends.”

  “You deserve the great passion of the century. You deserve all those things. I’m asking you to stay, Tess. There’s a place for you here, in our own unusual family. You belong here until you’re ready to make your own.”

  She blew out a breath and relaxed her arms. A cool head was what was needed now, so she took a couple more breaths and released them. The sun had all but disappeared, leaving nothing but violent streaks of pink as it vanished behind the lake.

  “I honestly don’t know what to tell you right now,” she said. “I want to go home and get warm. And I want some time alone to think. I can’t talk about any of this until I think.”

  “However much time you need,” he said. “Just knock at the carriage house when you’re ready to talk. We’re prepping for a mission now. We actually leave for Russia next week. Those Russian terrorists I was telling you about are Mafiya. You could help us do a lot of the prep work. We speak Russian, but there are words and phrases we’re unfamiliar with.”

  “Don’t pressure me,” she said. “I’m through being nice and accommodating. I’m going to do what I want to do for once, and to hell with everyone else. I’ve gotten mean.” She narrowed her eyes and tried to look tough. More than likely she probably looked like a deranged leprechaun.

  “I’m going to go home and drink a gallon of hot tea and read until my eyes fall out. I’m going to avoid my mother, the sheriff, and anyone else who knocks on my door tomorrow. Because thanks to you and the way you paraded me through town on the motorcycle, everyone is going to think I’ve won the bet on getting you into bed.”

  Deacon’s eyes twinkled. “Technically, you could probably claim the prize. Oral sex is still sex. You’d have to ask if a motorcycle was acceptable instead of the bed. But it’s basically semantics.”

  “Watch it, buddy. I will let my mother loose on that carriage house and laugh with evil glee as she practices her wiles on all of you,” she said. “Before she’s done, I guarantee at least one of you will have given her money or will take her to the nearest casino. Theodora could convince the pope he was Jewish. She’s tricky.”

  “Wow, you have gotten mean.” He handed her the helmet and got on the bike.

  “Thank you,” she responded primly, hopping on behind him. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Your mama’s gone again,” Tatiana said in Russian.

  Every Monday morning, Tess woke up at the crack of dawn and drove to the Back Acres Retirement Village for yoga with her grandmother. It didn’t do a lot for her pride to sit in a room full of seniors who were sixty-five plus and be breathing harder than they were by the end of each session. But she did it anyway so she could spend
time with her grandmother and stay relatively healthy at the same time.

  It wasn’t doing Tess a lot of good to be in Prayer Pose and talking about her mother. Theodora wasn’t good for relaxation techniques. Not to mention there was always a small part of her that held out hope that Theodora had changed. That she was happy running the Clip n’ Curl and that she was content to stay and live a normal life with her family.

  “Where’d she go?” she asked, keeping their conversation in Russian so the others couldn’t eavesdrop.

  “I’m not sure, but she left with Carl Robinson.”

  Tess gasped and broke her pose to stare at her grandmother. “Are you kidding me? Carl wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  “Your mother has spent her life making men stupid as long as they feed her addiction. You know that better than anyone.”

  Tess sighed and took a deep breath. Then another and went back into Prayer Pose. Meditation wasn’t going to work for her today. “It’s just that she seemed to be doing better. She was fine when we were at the salon on Friday. And it’s been months since she’s been to the casino.”

  “That doesn’t mean she hasn’t been feeding her addiction in the meantime. There’s online gaming and scratch-offs at the gas station. She just hasn’t had the cash flow to make a big trip. And apparently she found the cash flow with Carl. She called me Saturday night, and I could tell she was upset about something. She’d heard about your joyride with one of those hotties you’ve got working for you.”

  Tess was a little taken aback at her grandmother’s use of the word “hotties,” but mostly she was just confused. She moved into Warrior Pose and said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You know how competitive Theodora is. Part of her problem is she wants what everyone else has, and she thinks she’s entitled to it. It’s part of her sickness. So once she heard the news about your ride through town, she automatically assumed you got him into bed and won the bet. She was counting on that money, you know.”

  Tess knew that was part of the sickness as well. Because a normal person wouldn’t have counted on money that was never theirs to count on. They all moved to Downward Dog and Tess felt the blood rush to her head. Her hair was up in a bun, but sweaty tendrils were sticking to her face. She wasn’t a good sweater.

  “But what about Carl?” she asked. “He should know better. They should all know better. It’s not like Theodora doesn’t have a reputation.”

  “It’s a competition to her, and Carl or the sheriff would be the next best thing to the men who work for you. My guess is the sheriff didn’t bite, so she called Carl to come fix a leaky pipe or something. I heard it all from Janet Rhodes, who lives next door to Carl and Tamara. Janet said Carl left for a plumbing call early Sunday morning at Theodora’s, and she said there was plumbing going on, but nothing to do with leaky pipes if you get my drift.”

  Tess’s lip curled in disgust and they switched positions again, this time down into a push-up and then immediately into Child’s Pose. She was already winded and sweaty, but her grandmother looked like she’d just stepped out of an AARP magazine. Even in her yoga clothes, she was still wearing her pearls, and her hair was perfectly in place.

  “You know Carl is well-to-do,” Tatiana said. “He ought to be charging two hundred dollars for ten minutes of unclogging a toilet. And money and how to get it is all Theodora would have in mind when she invited him over. How she got him to go off with her is a mystery, but she managed to do it. She’ll be back when his money runs out, without a lick of remorse. Whether or not Carl has the guts to come back with her will be the question. Word has it that Tamara is fit to be tied. Their whole savings account is gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sheriff has to get involved when Theodora comes back. Tamara isn’t one of those women to stand by and let people get away with stuff like that. It’s disgraceful.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tess said, repeating the positions for the second circuit. “Aren’t you embarrassed? She’s your daughter. How can you stand all the gossip?”

  “Easy,” Tatiana said. “I moved to the city where no one knows or cares who she is. You think these old people give two hoots about Theodora Sherman? They’re too busy keeping their meds straightened out and regulating their bowel movements.”

  “That doesn’t help me a whole lot,” Tess said.

  “Buck up, girl,” she said. “No one has to answer for Theodora except Theodora. She doesn’t define you, and you shouldn’t let anyone make you feel that way. Hold your head up high. She is what she is, and you are what you are. One has nothing to do with the other.”

  The instructor called for the Bridge Pose, and Tess muttered, “Good grief,” under her breath, and then worked her way awkwardly into a back bend. She glanced over at Tatiana and saw she’d reached the position easily. “Ridiculous.”

  “Hey, can you keep it down,” the old guy next to her said. “I can’t concentrate with all that foreign yapping. This is America for God’s sake.”

  She and Tatiana both responded in kind, neither of their replies something they would’ve said in English. Fortunately for the old guy, the poses were getting harder and Tess needed all her concentration and air. Old people yoga wasn’t for the weak.

  When they were finished, Tess lay on her yoga mat and wondered why she put herself through the torture. The only thing that got her up off the floor was the fact that everyone else was already up and out the door, going about their active lifestyles. She crawled onto her hands and knees and then pushed herself to her feet.

  “Come on, girl, you’re embarrassing me,” Tatiana said. “I’ve got a reputation here.”

  Tess thought it ironic that she was the embarrassment instead of her mother, but that was the point of distancing oneself she guessed.

  “If we hurry, we can still make breakfast. They stop serving at eight-thirty to get ready for the lunch crowd. I could use some pancakes.”

  “Right, sounds good,” Tess lied, thinking she’d throw up anything she put in her mouth.

  They made it to the little restaurant just in time for breakfast, and the hostess didn’t look too happy about the fact. The sun was shining, but it was already close to ninety outside, despite the fact it was still early morning, so they opted to sit inside in the air-conditioning instead of on the covered patio.

  Tatiana would occasionally dab at her temples with the blue towel that was draped casually across her shoulders, but that was the only sign she’d spent the morning working out. Tess’s yoga pants and tank top were soaked through with sweat, and she’d caught her reflection in one of the windows as they’d walked by and it wasn’t pretty. Her face was beet-red and her top knot had slipped to the side of her head. She immediately drank the ice water that was put in front of her and waited for it to be refilled.

  “Do you ever think about your time in Russia?” she asked her grandmother. Deacon’s words had been on her mind, about how their upbringing and language were different because of their Mafiya ties.

  “Of course not,” she said dismissively. “Why would I?”

  “Maybe because it’s where you came from. Those are your roots.”

  Her grandmother’s lips tightened into a fine line and she got that steely look in her eye. “There’s not much about those days worth remembering. We lived like royalty. My father was a very influential man. But things change. Politics change. People change. And their alliances change. Much the same happened during the Romanov era. In Russia, people who are in power can fall very quickly. One day we were royalty, and one day my father was dead and we were escaping with only our lives and nothing else. I was just a girl. My life has been here.”

  “You never keep in . . . contact with anyone from that time?”

  “Who’s to keep in contact with? Everyone is dead. I’m an old lady.”

  “I keep hearing the Russian Mafiya has moved back into power,” Tess said carefully.

  Tatiana was very still as her hot tea was served. How anyone could drink h
ot tea in this heat after a workout, Tess wasn’t sure, but her grandmother lived on the stuff. She took her time adding lumps of sugar and stirring it precisely.

  She finally stopped stirring and looked at Tess with those clear blue eyes. “I think you’re watching too much television. This is my country now. What happens there no longer concerns me, and it’s a time I choose to forget. I had to live with memories of those days while your grandfather was alive. And I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but it was a big relief when your grandfather died. He courted trouble wherever he went. I’ve had almost thirty years of blessed peace, and I’m not looking back.”

  Their food was served, and Tess wondered why she’d bothered to work out at all. The calories sitting in front of her probably doubled what she had burned.

  “Now tell me about this motorcycle ride you took,” Tatiana said, waggling her brows. “I bet it wasn’t just the motorcycle you rode. You’ve got that look about you. I bet he put that Henry to shame. I never did like that boy. I told you when you were engaged, you can’t trust a man who carries a Waterpik in his pocket.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Deacon left Tess alone for three days. He avoided her on the cameras, and he didn’t venture into the house. Fortunately, there was plenty of work to keep them busy, but it was a long three days.

  They were working on a deadline, trying to trace the quartet to ground and get a bead on the different batches of XTNC-50 that could be entering into the country from different points of entry. Headquarters was beginning to feel a lot like prison. He’d scarcely left the carriage house or HQ, afraid he’d accidentally run into Tess and she’d make a rash decision.

  His temper was on edge, and when he wasn’t sitting in front of a computer or tracking satellite images, he was beating the hell out of punching bags and lifting weights until his muscles burned.

  They’d been at it since early that morning. Their time was limited, and they still didn’t have a clue as to the targets for the Den’ Sud’by—the Day of Destiny—though they were slowly putting pieces together.