“Which translates to us.” Griffin knew the game. Saw the fear she wore plain as red lipstick on her pale face. The change in her when Lambert mentioned coming. And the flicker of…whatever flashed through her eyes before she said she didn’t care if they trusted her.
He closed the space between them. “What’s he got on you, Baby Girl?”
Vulnerability coated her features, haunting her and turning her milky skin an even whiter shade. Almost as quick, the tough mask reappeared. “Don’t worry about it.” She removed herself a half dozen feet away. She made it look like a natural maneuver, part of her discourse. But was it? “Tonight there’s a big event, a premier of sorts.” She swallowed. “I have to be here. After it—we’ll be on our way.”
“Just like that?” Right. And I’m white bread.
Kacie didn’t miss a beat. “Stay here, stay quiet. There will be more guards than you can count—all armed. So don’t try anything stupid.” Again, more of whatever lurked in those irises flitted again. Like she was trying to tell him something.
Cowboy shifted and hooked his hands through his belt loops. “Pardon, ma’am, but I don’t know you. And considering what’s happening to me and mine, that means you’re disqualified from mission briefings that include me.” To Griffin he thumbed toward Kacie. “How is she in charge, and why do we trust her?”
“We don’t.”
Kacie bristled. “Trust doesn’t matter. Staying alive does.”
“Naw,” Griffin said, once again closing the distance. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I need to trust that you got our backs, that you won’t sell us out. Spike my water.”
She wet her pink lips. “It was better for you to be drugged than dead”—something flickered in her eyes—“at least in theory. But right now, I’m wishing I’d gone with the latter.”
Even he could tell she didn’t mean that. It was talk. To protect herself. Though he admired her efforts, Griffin found himself wanting to dig under her radar with a backhoe.
“In the future, let’s remember not to choke our allies.” Her words filled his face with heat. “Mumbling in your sleep. Grunting and grimacing. Then you come up swinging.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Something we need to know?”
“Only that one squeeze could’ve ended your life.” He hated that he could’ve hurt her.
“In your dreams.”
“Every night.” Griffin felt a smile slipping into his face.
Kacie’s lip curled up on one side—and it wasn’t a snarl. “You’re a train wreck, Riddell.”
He let the smile take hold. “You’re the driver, Kacie or Kazie or whatever your name is.”
She smirked. “Does my identity bother you?”
“Not an aorta.”
A laugh jumped from her throat.
What?
More laughter amid the words, “You mean an iota.”
Fool. How did she manage to muddle his brain so he did stupid things like that? “Just keeping you on your toes, Baby Girl.” Fingers traced her jaw—and he stilled, realizing they were his own. Where that move came from, he didn’t know.
Surprise spilled into her eyes, illuminating some of the brilliance that laid behind them. Her lips parted as if to say something, but her eyes bounced around his face. Could she feel it? The electric fence that seemed to protect her? The same one that drew him like a bug to the light zapper? Yet, it scared him. Someday he’d get zapped.
Shink-thunk!
Griffin turned, aware the others did the same, as the door opened.
A man with meticulously styled blond hair angled into the room. With two fingers he motioned to Kacie, a withering glare shot at Griffin, then Cowboy. Carrick. Had to be Carrick.
Kacie walked by, her white-blond hair rimming crimson cheeks. Without a word, she walked out.
Fury wormed through Griffin at the obvious death hold the man had on her. He fisted his hands, staring through the door, imagining her walking the dark halls with him. Showed no regret. No hesitation leaving him. This wasn’t what it looked like. Couldn’t be. Or was it? Was she the coldhearted operative she pretended to be?
Cowboy turned to him. “Can we trust her?”
His gut twisted and collided with his instincts. He wanted to trust her. Wanted to protect her. But she’d already abandoned him—twice. She wouldn’t hesitate to do it again if she felt it benefited her or the mission. “No.” And he had a bad feeling about her being able to move about…on a leash. And Carrick held that leash.
That’s what spooked her in Cyprus.
“She’s in trouble.” Why did he feel powerless all of a sudden? What could he do that she couldn’t do for herself? She didn’t need him. Didn’t want him. And the stab of that revelation cut deeper than he’d ever admit to anyone, to himself.
“What do we do?”
“Get our own plan.”
The metallic sweetness of blood squirted through her mouth. Kazi flinched as pain radiated up her cheekbone and into her temple. She grunted, suffocating her urge to fight back, find a way to break the hand that pinned her neck to the glass desk. With her own palms, she gave counterpressure so he couldn’t push her face through the glass.
“What, did you think I wouldn’t figure out your little game?” Carrick’s chest formed against her bent body, his hot, liquor-drenched breath skidding into her nostrils.
She winced at the foul odor as the years of being under Boucher’s grip, then Carrick’s, leapt through her mind. Tina. Remember, Tina. Remember what he did to her. Resolve coiled around her panic, swirled into anger, and hardened into a heated, burning retribution.
“Have you forgotten, love, that I know everything?”
Kazi’s jaw clenched, pushing against the skin-warmed surface. Fog bursts formed on the glass. “I have not forgotten anything.” Her gaze surfed his desk, the notepad he never wrote on, the Waterford ashtray clock, a watch—he never did like actually wearing one, but the Rolex added to his appearance—the teak pen and pencil set. One hole in the wood block sat vacant. Letter opener. She searched for the matching item. There. Too far away. She’d have to distract him.
“Especially Tina,” she said with a growl.
Carrick’s nose pressed into her cheek. “Now there’s an example of a puppet…”
Kazi blocked his soliloquy regarding his power. The man was drunk on himself. She didn’t care. As long as she could sever his hold on her. Permanently. Her fingers trickled across the top. But even as her fingers made the trek over the surface, she reminded herself she couldn’t kill him. Not here. It’d be like trying to steal the crown jewels in broad daylight.
Cold metal met her fingers, which closed around the opener. She fought the muscle in her face that almost smiled against her will.
“…so terrified. Hickson tells me she screamed till the last drop of blood fell from her lips.”
Fury tightened her hold on the opener. She shouldn’t kill him, but she’d give him one doozie of a wound to write home about. Her arm raised.
Thud!
Pain exploded through her forearm and squeezed a yelp from her chest.
Carrick jerked. His weight lifted, and Kazi twisted, her other hand reaching for the fire licking through her arm.
Hickson stood with a death hold on her, pinching the soft spot under her arm. He ripped the opener from the soft flesh of her palm, cutting it. Fire raced through her hand, followed by warm wetness.
Kazi hissed at the searing pain—like a paper cut with lemon juice—as he shoved her backward. She stumbled but caught her balance.
“She nearly drove this into your neck.” Hickson passed the bloody weapon to Carrick.
Shock never looked as good as it did on the face of the man who had suffocated her life. Controlled her every move. Hammered a stake through any hope of a happy ending to her story. “I see I have yet to make my point to you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But I made mine.”
With an incredibly graceful but powerful move, he flung the l
etter opener in her direction.
Kazi refused to flinch as it flew, end over end, past her head and thunked into the wood paneling. She wasn’t worried about that blade, or the blood dripping off her hand. What worried her was the unnatural calm that washed over Carrick as it left his hand.
Wariness clutched at her as he plucked the handkerchief from his impeccable suit pocket, strolled toward her, and took her wrist. He wrapped the linen around the wound, his gaze never straying from hers. “Who are these men, Kazimiera?”
When he tugged on the ends, pinching her injury, she knew better than to wince and kept her face neutral. “A job.”
“I watched him take out two men in less than five seconds. They are skilled warriors. They move with intent, with decisiveness. Not ordinary men, absorbed in their own world. Those men are prepared—and no doubt preparing—for a fight.” He tugged the ends tighter. “Now tell me who they are.”
“Men with more honor and skill than you have in your pinky.”
He clucked his tongue in a chiding way. “Shame, Kazimiera.” Carrick pouted. “It’s unlike you to resort to petty insults.” He motioned widely with his hands. “Action! That is your mantra, or it was.”
“I act when it’s necessary.” Her insides shifted.
Tidying his appearance, he sauntered to a liquor cabinet. Poured himself a drink, his blue eyes combing over her, assessing, dissecting…After a whiff of the gold liquid, he lifted a snifter from a shelf. “You’ve changed, Kazimiera.” Ice clinked in the glass. “And that concerns me.”
“The only thing that should concern you is that I do my job.” She flashed her eyes at him.
And Griffin’s little confession to the cowboy about not trusting her made things oh-so-much easier. He thought she was in trouble and was ready to cut ties to save her own skin. Why did it hurt so much? Men who’d done that were countless.
Featherlight, the touch against her cheek felt like a punch.
Kazi flinched.
Carrick’s chuckle weeded her resolve. “One of them has gotten beneath your skin, hasn’t he?” He drifted around her. “The man you lifted today from Security Services is named Colton Neeley. He’d been picked up at Heathrow one month ago before boarding a flight to Dulles. Charges were terrorism.” Remote in hand, he aimed it at a wall-mounted television, accessed a secure menu. Seconds later, a video sprang to life.
The grainy, low-res image showed the man Griffin called Cowboy clearing security, donning his cowboy hat, then striding down the concourse, duffel in hand. Calm, casual. Nothing about him should’ve set off the authorities. She should know—she’d had similar training to recognize body language to protect herself. Yet halfway down, a dozen Security Services agents swarmed in, weapons pointed. Cowboy dropped the duffel and eased his hands skyward.
Carrick tossed the remote on the desk. With two fingers, he rubbed his jaw, then motioned to his bodyguard. “Hickson, what amazes me is that from our vast network of connections, other than being a ranch owner in Virginia, this man is as loyal and American as Yankee Doodle. In fact”—Carrick slid his hands into his pockets—“his record is clean. Pristine.”
With a grunt, Hickson said, “Too clean.”
“Precisely.” Carrick circled back around to his desk and leaned against it, folding his arms and crossing his legs. “Which tells me that this man means a lot to someone.”
“His family,” Kazi offered.
“I’m afraid not. This man is an arsenal of trouble, and someone wants him out of the way.” Rubbing his chin again, he sighed. “Whoever it was, they went to a lot of trouble to create problems for him. They weren’t willing to kill him. That intrigues me.”
“The person was just too scared to draw the fire back to himself. These men just want to protect their own”—Kazi tensed realizing she’d given a morsel away. Quickly she added—“families.”
“I agree that he wants to protect something, but I am not convinced it’s family.”
“Why?” She spun to him, emotion choking her. “Because you’ve never had family you wanted to protect.”
Carrick sneered. “No, love, that’s your story, not mine.”
His dagger nailed her heart. She turned back to the Thames. Her thoughts zigzagged to Carrick. He hadn’t flinched over her mention of their families. Which meant—
“Why are you drilling me full of questions when you know who these men are?”
Quiet draped the office as she watched traffic lumber across Waterloo Bridge and the muddy-looking waters of the Thames. Beyond there, the London Eye seemed a portal to another dimension. But it wasn’t that obnoxious circle that captured her thoughts. It was the beast-of-glass-and-steel station below it. Waterloo Station could spirit Griffin and Neeley to safety. If she could somehow get across the murky river…
First, they’d have to escape Carrick.
“Death is the only ‘out’ once you belong to me, Kazimiera.” Air shifted close by as the ghost of that moment repeated Carrick’s warning, chilling her.
Manila and thick, an envelope slid into view. “Here, love.” Once she took the proffered propaganda—that’s all it could be coming from him—Carrick eased around in front of her and propped himself against the window, watching. Waiting.
Peering up at him through a tight brow, she worked the fastener, easing her defenses up, preparing herself to see the worst. Dumped the contents into her hand—photographs, by the feel of them. Her stomach cinched. She hated being a pawn, hated being played, and that’s exactly what he was doing. After Tina, she dreaded what truth or consequence the images held. No matter how long she glared at him, he wouldn’t tell her. Games kept him in the position of one-upmanship. In control. The way Carrick liked it.
Finally, she dropped her attention to the pictures.
Heaven and earth shifted as she took them in.
Green, rolling hills on the perimeter. At the center, a column of trees leading to the white fence…rather, it used to be the color of snow. Now brown and in disrepair, it sagged like an aged sentry.
Kazi steeled herself for what would be next. Slowly, she drew the picture aside and tucked it at the bottom of the stack, letting the envelope flutter to the ground.
Breathing became a chore. The farmhouse. Nothing immaculate or fancy. Her father had built it with his own hands, growing it with the family. As memories assailed her, Kazi slid her eyes shut but forced them back open. “Don’t let him win, Kaz.” Tina’s warning was little help against this. The home wasn’t blue, Mamo’s favorite color, but black. Blistered. Destroyed and consumed by fire.
“What did you do?” she ground out. Instead of handmade shutters dangling from the second story, embers drooped into what had been the living room. Or was that the kitchen?
Her hand trembled as she forced herself to look at the next one, her mind ravaged. Were they alive? Had her mother and siblings survived?
“Why…?” Her voice cracked as she went to the next photo.
A sob leapt from her chest at the charred doll. Face half melted, the purple velour outfit—unburned—a stark contrast against the black-white-gray of the ash and debris. Hair singed but still white-blond.
“She looks like you, dziewczyna,” her father said, dragging a thick finger over the doll’s long blond hair as they sat on Kazi’s bed late one night after he’d returned from the city.
Her sisters Izolda and Zuzanna. “Are…are they alive?” What of Kazpar?
“Don’t do this, dziewczyna,” Kazpar begged as they walked to the fence. “We can pay it back. This is not right.”
She spun to him. “How, Kaz? We have not been able to even buy grain for bread since Tata…” She let the words fade from her lips about their father’s death as she tugged up the torn collar of his well-worn wool coat.
“Besides, this is better, yes? I am free of Boucher.”
“But you are not free.”
Snow crunched behind her before the man’s voice reached out and smothered hope as threadbare as the coat
her brother wore. “Kazimiera.”
Like a time warp, she snapped back to the present. To Carrick. Her chest rose and fell like the heaving waves of the ocean. “Are they alive?” She held up the pictures.
Carrick remained impassive.
“Did you kill them? Are they dead, Carrick?”
He stood, slid his hands into his pockets, and came toward her. “It is good to remember who we owe, is it not, my love?”
In a quick move, she stepped back, braced on her left leg, and drove a roundhouse kick into his chest.
Crack! Eyes wide as he flew backward and face screwed in pain, Carrick cursed.
A force shoved Kazi sideways. Pain exploded across her face. Into her stomach. By the time she blinked, she lay pinned to the cement floor beneath Hickson.
Holding his side and grimacing as he picked himself off the floor, Carrick spit. “Maybe I have your attention now, Kazimiera. Your family is dead, and if you don’t follow my every instruction, I will make sure those men die, too.”
CHAPTER 22
Vaughn Residence
Thunk. Plunk.
Marshall’s gaze dropped to the hardwood floors where the mirror tumbled. He jerked to the safe. Alarms shrieked through the house. “Get the pictures!” He closed the safe, spun the lock, and reset it to the numbers he’d noted when opening it. Behind him, he heard the scritching of Rel stuffing pictures back in the envelope.
When he pivoted, he froze. His heart dropped to his toes as he looked across the rug imported from Tunisia. The hand-carved oak bar sitting along the right wall. Past the relief of George Washington. To the door, slowly closing under the watchful eye of Melanie Sands.
Click.
Marshall flinched so visibly as the lock bolted that he felt an aftershock. Then another when his sister smiled.
“Melanie, what are you doing here?” He hurried to her side, concern flooding him. Where were his nephews? And Nate? Why wasn’t she being attended? “You should return to the house, stay with Nellie.”
“Smellie Nellie all about. Hatin’ Nat’an beds about. Angry, beatin’ he unleash. Killing to save, the beast.”
Firethorn (Discarded Heroes) Page 22
