by Cindy Dees
You’ve changed my life. The words swirled around him, glowing in the air. He’d heard those words before.
The room spun around him, growing indistinct, no more than revolving shadows of light and dark. And at the center of it, a pair of dark, seductive eyes, luring him ever onward toward the abyss.
The towering, black wall of memory smashed into him with such force he thought it might shatter his skull. He gasped for air, drowned in cloying darkness. Cold. So terribly cold. He shuddered uncontrollably, frozen until his body was tortured by a thousand ice picks of agony.
Dear God, what was happening to him? Was this what it felt like to die? To drown in the depths of the abyss that was his soul? He struggled against the thick, suffocating weight of it, fighting desperately to surface. To breathe.
An image slammed into him. A jungle. Lit up by gunfire. Simon, lying in a pool of black blood across a suicidally wide expanse of lawn, his body gutted, his throat slit. There’d been no question who was going to make the run to recover him. Not only was the downed man his brother, but Dutch was the biggest, strongest man on the team, and his wounds were the lightest. Doc had hastily patched up the worst of his bleeding, taping a pressure pad over his leg wound and pants.
Under a withering blanket of suppression fire from the rest of the Blackjacks, he’d sprinted out of the jungle and picked up Simon like a baby, cradling him in his arms. Miraculously, Simon was still alive. The bastard who’d sliced him to shreds was apparently motivated more by rage than actual skill at gutting human beings or properly slitting throats. Oh, Simon’s larynx was shredded, and he was bleeding terribly, but the fucker had missed the jugular vein and any major arteries.
Every step of that endless run was agony as Simon gasped for air, drowning in his own blood. Between ragged, sobbing pants for breath, Dutch had begged Simon to hang on for a few more seconds. He had no memory of zigzagging across the lawn, but he must have done it. Either that or Providence had looked out for him as he rescued his brother, for he took no more bullets even though Ferrare’s men were firing everything they had.
Back under the protective cover of the rain forest, Doc was waiting, his trauma kit unpacked and ready to go. A pitifully small assortment of medical supplies to throw against his brother’s staggering injuries.
Doc had worked frantically, swearing and imploring and finally shouting at Simon to live. But it wasn’t enough. Simon’s shock was too deep, he’d lost too much blood, his body was too mutilated to repair. Doc finally rocked back on his heels. He had looked up at Dutch and shook his head in mute apology.
Dutch remembered the soft squish beneath his knees as he had dropped to the ground beside Simon.
It was only a few seconds. A couple of shallow, rattling gasps, and then it was over. Simon was gone. Quietly. Without any fanfare.
And Dutch’s heart had broken in two.
Funny that now Simon was gone he’d had no tears to shed. Dry-eyed, he’d looked up at the four men and one woman standing silent watch around him. “We’ve got to get out of here. Ferrare will send his men out looking for us once he figures out we blew all our ammunition on that last barrage.”
Captain Foley’s hand had come down. Landed on Dutch’s shoulder for just a moment. A quick squeeze, and then it was gone. A promise that there would be time for proper mourning—and payback—later.
Foley spoke briskly. “Howdy, Mac, you help Doc rig up a litter and the four of us will carry Simon. Dutch, you stick with Julia.”
Painfully, like an old man, he’d stood up. Turned. And saw his immense suffering mirrored in her dark gaze.
Behind him, Foley murmured quietly, “Time to move out. We’ll take the lead. You two follow.”
More dead inside than alive, he’d nodded. Heard the faint rustle of the others heading into the jungle.
“Let’s go,” he had mumbled to the woman before him. She was the one decent thing to come out of this nightmare. The one tiny spark of light in a great, black void that made him believe someday life would be worth living once more.
And then she’d whispered, “I can’t go.”
He hadn’t heard her right.
“C’mon,” he’d insisted. “It’s time to get out of here. Your father’s men will be here soon.”
“I know. You need to leave. Quickly.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.” He had felt dense, dumb. What was she talking about?
“Dutch. I’m not going. I’m staying here. With my father.”
“But he’ll kill you. You set him up.”
Her gaze had been desperate. Cruel in her urgency to get through to him. “No, Dutch. I set you up. My father made me do it. He made me bring you guys here. To this ambush he laid for you and your team. I’m so sorry…”
He’d stared, dumbfounded. She stepped close and gave him a little push. “Go! Get out of here before he finds you and kills you, too! I’ll delay my father’s men as long as I can.”
She’d betrayed them? Set them up? His brother died in an ambush she’d led them into? Understanding finally exploded across his brain like a supernova. The pain of it pierced his eyeballs until he nearly reached up and gouged them out.
Rage roared through him.
And something else. Something insidious that burned a hole in his soul.
He’d known.
There’d been hints all along. Little slips of the tongue. Furtive glances when there should have been direct stares. Evasion when there should have been honesty. She’d given him all the clues that should have told him it was a setup.
And he’d been so god damned besotted with her he’d refused to see it all right in front of him.
Like a lamb to the slaughter, he’d let her lead him and his whole team into Eduardo’s trap.
He’d betrayed the Blackjacks. He’d fallen in love with a deceitful woman, and he’d betrayed his whole team. And Simon. Dear God, Simon.
Chapter Thirteen
Julia didn’t know exactly when Dutch slipped away from her, but she became aware of a creeping rigidity in his body.
Alarmed, she propped herself up on an elbow to look down at him. His gaze had turned inward and gone as empty as it had during that first blackout back at the ski resort.
“Dutch?” she murmured.
Nothing. He’d gone from her, lost in the dark recesses of his mind. She lay back down beside him, continuing to hold him, to share her presence and her body heat with him. Maybe at some level, it comforted him. She snuggled close to wait it out.
One moment he lay there, stiff and unmoving, and the next, awareness vibrated through his body. She sagged in relief. Thank goodness.
But no sooner had the thought entered her mind, than she knew something was terribly wrong. He was squirming beneath her, scrabbling away from her toward the headboard, struggling to get away from her touch as if she were a leper. Wildness glinted in his eyes and it frightened her. She’d never seen him like this before. He looked left and right, as if seeking an escape route.
“Dutch! What’s wrong?” she cried out.
Instead, in a blindingly fast move, he reversed their positions, looming over her, his hands pinning her shoulders flat to the bed. Cold fury filled his gaze. Death glowed, inhuman, in his eyes. She recoiled from the sight of it.
His voice terrible, he snarled, “You made me betray my teammates. My own brother.”
Julia’s mouth went bone dry. Oh God.
His hands flexed against her shoulders, as if he was seriously considering putting them around her neck. Fear blasted into her. Her breath came short and fast.
He was acting as if he’d just realized who she was and what she’d done. But how could that be? Unless…that blackout on the mountain…those odd little gaps in his memory…was it possible? Did he suffer from some sort of memory loss? It made sense.
She jumped as he leaped out of bed and snatched up the pistol he’d left lying on the kitchen table.
She stared into the tiny black bore of the gun
and knew he’d have no compunction whatsoever about pulling the trigger. Arguing with him was useless. Finally, it was all going to come full circle. The man to whom she’d entrusted her body, her heart, her very life, was now going to betray that trust. As she’d betrayed him.
Apparently, his memory was doing just fine, now.
There was a certain poetic justice in it. Inexplicably, a sense of calm came over her. Maybe this was why she’d sought him out in the first place. Maybe she’d known at some deep, subconscious level that it would all come down to this in the end.
She sat up in bed and swung her feet to the floor. Slowly, she stood up and walked toward him, holding his gaze the same way she had a few minutes ago when they’d been making love. In this final moment, too, there should be no walls between them.
Her limbs felt heavy, weighted down as if she was walking through cold molasses. In slow motion she made her way to him. She nodded slowly, vaguely registering that tears were running down her cheeks.
“I deserve your retribution. I lied to you. Led you into that trap. Your injuries, your brother’s death, they’re all my fault.” Ah, Carina. I tried. I did my best to break the chains our father put upon us. I’m so sorry, little sister…
Why didn’t Dutch kill her and be done with it? His gaze was turbulent. Violent. The pistol wavered, turning in his hand. Away from her. More toward himself.
Nonononononono! Not him. She deserved to die. But not him!
Growing impatient, she burst out, “Just do it! Go ahead and shoot me. Or if you need the satisfaction of blood for blood, slit my throat and watch me bleed. Gut me or shoot me, but one way or another, please get it over with!”
He took a staggering step back from her. And another. “What are you talking about?” he demanded hoarsely. “I told you. I’m the one who betrayed the team.”
She watched in dismay as he grabbed his clothes, flung them on and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked, startled.
“I’ve got to get out of here, or I’m going to do something stupid.”
Like kill her. Or maybe in his current frame of mind, stupid meant…she gulped as the door slammed shut behind him.
No. He couldn’t be contemplating suicide.
Sudden silence echoed around her as panic erupted in her breast. She was so alone.
She leaped for the door. Tore it open and shouted his name.
Nothing. The bitter, crystalline cold of the night was silent. Undisturbed. Ice picks of cold stabbed her naked flesh painfully, and she backed inside and closed the door. Shivering violently, she shrugged on clothes and huddled in front of the fire to warm up. She would go after Dutch right this minute, except if he didn’t want to be found, there wasn’t a chance in hell she would be able to find him.
Too agitated to sit still, she jumped up and paced the cabin, which at least warmed her up. The walls closed in on her as she waited, pressing in until she wanted to scream.
Then an idea hit her like a thunderclap. There was something she could do. Something to strike a blow back at her father and maybe give him pause before he murdered Carina.
Fumbling in her haste, she found Dutch’s laptop computer, put it on the table, and turned it on. She ransacked the machine, desperately seeking the information she needed. She had to find the account number of a Blackjack bank account—now.
Once she found Dutch’s private files, it boiled down to getting past his password. That took a while, but eventually she found his operating system’s back door. And then it was a simple matter of opening the file labeled, ‘bjmoney.’
What looked like a Swiss bank account number, a password, debit and credit card numbers, and wire transfer instructions flashed up on the screen. Hallelujah.
Crossing her fingers but without much hope that the Internet would work in this weather and in this valley location, she attempted to sign on to the Internet. Huh. A wifi signal was available, and it was even linked to this laptop. Dutch’s sat phone, maybe? Did that mean he was nearby? God, she hoped so.
Quickly, while she had a good wifi signal, she accessed her father’s secret bank account in Hong Kong, the one she’d found a couple of days ago.
The screen loaded with ponderous slowness. Finally, it blinked open. She sagged in relief. She was into her father’s secret account. She typed in the Blackjack’s account number frantically and hit the button requesting a funds transfer. A second strike of the enter button to confirm that she did, indeed, want to transfer the entire contents of the account, and it was done.
In another hour or two, when her father woke up, he would see a notification that half a billion dollars had been emptied from his bank account..
It was her last ace in the hole. If this didn’t stop her father from killing Carina, nothing would.
Exhausted, she shut down the computer. She’d done her best to buy her sister a normal life. Only time would tell if she had succeeded or not.
She looked at her watch. Dutch had been gone for almost two hours. Panic hovered very close to the surface, but she pushed it down as best she could. She didn’t have the luxury of freaking out. The Jeep was still outside, and she doubted he would leave his laptop behind for anyone to find—not to mention her body. He was too careful to be that sloppy.
The night grew deeper and colder around her, and she hauled in more wood to put on the fire. How was Dutch standing the cold for this long? Or maybe he wasn’t standing the cold at all—
She broke off that thought. It wasn’t in his nature to run away from his problems. He would never take the coward’s way out. He wanted her and her father dead far too much to kill himself now. He would take care of them, first. Maybe she could get word to his boss to keep a close eye on him, maybe get him some therapy once she and her father were out of the picture and before he harmed himself.
Midnight came and went, and her apprehension blossomed into full-blown terror. But not for herself. For him. It was far too cold and isolated outside for a man alone to survive for long in weather like this. Visions of him lying in the snow, injured and half-frozen, tortured her.
She might not have the skill to find him, but there were others who could. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the long phone number to Blackjack Ops. Static filled her ear. It beeped to indicate no connection had been made. Damn! Hers wasn’t a fancy satellite model like Dutch’s. She needed to be clear of the surrounding mountains for her phone to work.
She had no idea how to contact the Blackjacks over the Internet. They surely had an e-mail address, and just as surely, she wouldn’t find it in any search engine anywhere.
She had no choice. She would have to hike high enough up out of the valley for her cell phone to function. She bundled up in layer after layer of warm clothes, tucked the cell phone inside her sweater to keep the battery warm, and headed for the door.
The night was still and black and the stars glittered like shards of carved crystal in the frigid air. Her breath hung in thick clouds, and within seconds, her teeth ached from the cold. An insidious chill penetrated her clothing. She needed to get moving if she wasn’t going to freeze to death.
The snow lay in a deep blanket, deceptively flat, hiding dips and drifts that made her stumble every few steps. She headed up the driveway toward higher ground. It was slow going, and in places, the snow was waist deep.
Ice and snow slid inside her collar and the cuffs of her gloves, miserably cold against her skin. But fear for Dutch kept her plodding forward. She had to call for help and find him before something terrible happened to him.
How long she struggled through the nearly impassable snow, she had no idea. But her hands and feet went numb, and her face was half frozen. It couldn’t be much farther to the main road. Once she reached it, she would hike toward the summit of the nearest mountain until the phone worked.
The trees on either side of the narrow driveway towered dark and menacing around her. Every whisper of wind made her jump, every creak of a tree l
imb made her whip her head in its direction. She was so bloody tired of being afraid.
An icy wind brushed over her skin, chilling her bones until they felt brittle enough to break. She had to keep going. Reach her destination and get help for Dutch.
She passed under a particularly thick stand of pines, into shadows so black that even the snow disappeared before her. A dark shape moved beside her. She lurched away from it, but the deep snow hampered her, clutching her feet and legs so she couldn’t run. She floundered away from the apparition, flailing as an arm wrapped around her neck. Human muscles jerked her backward against a hard, living body.
They’d found her. Her father’s men had caught up with her. Damn it, her sister still needed her, and she had to save Dutch! They couldn’t kill her. She wouldn’t let them! She fought like a wildcat.
But the man at her back was too big. Too strong. Inexorably, he subdued her. She subsided for the moment, but vowed silently to fight again at the first opportunity.
“What the hell are you doing out here? Running away?” a voice snarled in her ear.
Dutch. She sagged in relief, limp in his arms. “Thank God, it’s you,” she gasped.
“You didn’t answer my question. Where are you going?”
“I was heading for higher ground so I could call the Blackjacks.”
The arm around her neck lurched. “Why do you want to call them?” he asked suspiciously.
“I was worried about you. I thought you were hurt or lost out here. I was hoping they would come and help find you.”
“I don’t ever get lost,” he retorted disdainfully.
“Yeah, but my father’s men could’ve found us and attacked you.”
He didn’t reply to that one. Instead, he turned her loose. “Let’s get you back inside. It’s too cold for you to be out here.”
“But it’s not too cold for you?” she retorted.
“I’m used to living exposed to the elements. You’re not.”
She followed him silently as he led the way back toward the cabin. The downhill trip through the trail she’d just broken went much faster. In no time, they were back at the cozy little cabin.
