We finish our beers in silence, and when I walk him to the door, he clears his throat. “I never stopped loving her, Dax.”
“Then you’ll get her back.” I reach out and find his arm, squeezing once—about all the physical contact I’m willing to have—with anyone. “But until we know more, don’t tell Evianna I’m involved. No need to worry her until we know there’s something to worry about.”
Confusion mars his tone, but he doesn’t argue. “Whatever you say. I’ll see you in the morning.” He’s halfway down the hall when his footsteps stop, and he adds, “Thank you.”
6
Dax
Two hours later, after another beer, I pick up the phone. “VoiceAssist: C-call…fuck.” After I punch the couch cushion, I try again. “Call Ryker.”
One ring. Two. Three. My stomach clenches, and I’m about to hang up when his rough voice carries over the line. “Dax.”
“Ry.”
Silence stretches between us. God, I wish I knew what to say. “How’s Wren?” I finally ask.
“She’s…good. Any news from the Roxbury drug ring?”
I can hear the concern in his voice. No. More than concern. Love.
“They’ve been quiet. Ford called one of his contacts in Vice last week. Wren’s safe, brother.” The word slips out, and Ry’s breath catches in his throat.
“Thank fuck.” After a pause and a few murmured words, he returns to the line. “Dax, I…don’t…I wanted to call…every damn day…but…”
“I didn’t think you were coming back.” The admission rushes out before I can stop myself. And suddenly, I’m back there, huddled in the dark, dirty cell, my eyes swollen and infected, and so fucking scared I couldn’t think straight.
“What?”
Memories tighten my throat. “After you escaped. Even with all those tricks you taught me, I never had your memory. With the fever…I was in and out. And after Kahlid…my eyes…I lost count of how many days—”
“Ten. Ten of the longest days of my life.” After a pause, he blows out a breath. “I was so fucked up they wouldn’t let me back out any sooner. One of the guards shot me twice before I snapped his neck. And when I got to the surface…I didn’t know where I was. Crawled through the snow and dirt, fell halfway down the fucking mountain. When Sampson found me, he thought I was dead. Scared the piss out of him when I grabbed his arm.”
I manage a choked laugh. I’ve only met the man a couple of times, but West Sampson’s one of the calmest guys I know.
“He and Inara were part of a joint op to try and find us. The last one CENTCOM would authorize.” His voice roughens, even more than his usual low rasp. “I fought them, Dax. Begged them to go back with me to get you out. But…we got attacked. Inara took a fucking bayonet to the thigh. And then I passed out and woke up in the field hospital two days later.”
“Kahlid told me you’d been shot. Four times. Tried to get me to tell him how we’d planned to escape. Said he’d find you and take you to a hospital. I told him to go fuck himself.”
This…despite the pain the memories still cause…this I can do. It’s like a movie in my head. One that still has pictures. Unlike the rest of my life.
“Fucker lied. But twice was enough. Once in the leg. Another in my shoulder. If I’d moved faster, done…anything different…maybe…”
I take a long swig of my third beer of the night, needing the buzz of the alcohol to loosen my tongue and keep me from shutting down completely. “You got out. You couldn’t have known…what he was going to do.”
“When?” The question is no more than a whisper. “When did it happen?”
Dropping my glasses on the couch, I trace the chemical burns under my eyes. “I think…it was the second day after you got out. Maybe the third.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Dax.” Ry’s voice thickens, and it’s so like the night he escaped, I’m back there in a heartbeat.
Three taps rouse me from my pain-induced haze. I struggle to open my eyes—not that it does me any good. It’s pitch black inside my cell. The canvas our captors tack over the bars keeps us in the dark. Except when they bring us our infrequent meals or come to drag one of us away to be beaten or interrogated. Another series of taps, and I try to concentrate enough to piece together the words.
“We have to go.”
Mustering what little strength I have left, I respond with five taps of my own. Our code for no.
I can’t walk. Can barely focus. This is our only chance. Ry’s only chance. Mine disappeared as soon as they broke my leg.
Another series of taps. He’s not going—won’t leave me.
“You have to. If not, we both die.” A combination of morse code and our own special language developed over fifteen months spent in this fucking place, the taps let us communicate without our captors knowing what we’re saying. At least…we hope. We change things up every couple of weeks.
“I will come back for you.”
I want to laugh, but I don’t have the strength. “Go, brother.”
Brother. I can’t tell Ry how much he means to me. Can’t thank him for protecting me. For keeping me sane. For keeping me alive all the times I wanted to die.
Clawing my way towards the cell door, I dig my fingers around the edge of the canvas, forcing one corner up so I can stick my hand through the bars. The dim lights from the tunnel almost blind me, but I wait until I hear a metallic click—Ry picking the lock on his cell with a shard of metal he shoved under the skin of his forearm weeks ago. How he didn’t end up with sepsis, I have no idea. My leg won’t last much longer. I can smell the infection, and the fever hasn’t let up in days.
As a shadow heads for me, I snake my arm out and grab his ankle. His skin is cool. He’s barefoot—we lost our boots months ago. Hell, Ry doesn’t even have a shirt anymore. The last strip of it is tied around his left arm and the knife wound Kahlid gave him the last time they took him.
He reaches down and covers my fingers with his. “Stay alive, brother,” he whispers. “Please. I’ll come back for you.”
“Hooah.”
And then, he’s gone. The tears I haven’t let fall in fifteen months burn my eyes, but before they escape, I pass out.
“Dax? Say something. Yell. Tell me what a piece of shit I am. Tell me you never want to hear from me again.”
“No.” I clench my fist around the bottle until my knuckles crack, and I’m back in that cell. Sobbing as I listen to the only family I have leaving me to die. “I can’t. I don’t know how to do this. What to say. But…don’t disappear again.”
The hoarse sounds carrying over the line send me sliding off the couch and onto the floor, my head between my knees, beer in one hand, phone in the other. Ry’s never broken down. Not once in all the years I’ve known him. Not even when they carved up his face.
“Never…fuck.” He pauses, clears his throat, and then almost growls, “Never. I…I almost lost Wren in Russia, Dax. When they took her—it was like they took a part of me. The best part. The only part that mattered. If we hadn’t been able to get her out, I was going to go into that fucker’s fortress with enough C4 to blow a hole in the world.”
Images of Ry—what he used to look like anyway—with packs of explosives strapped to his chest, back, arms, and legs flicker in my mind, and a rough laugh escapes as I swipe the back of my hand over my cheeks. “Sounds like something you’d do.”
“Then Sampson and Inara show up spouting all this shit about family. I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t…” His voice cracks, and when he continues, his words take on a quiet, reverent tone. “You’re family. And…family doesn’t disappear. I understand that now. I want to fix this, brother. Let me try.”
The lump in my throat is now so large, I’m scared to even try to talk, but I have to. Because he’s right. We’re family. “Tell me,” I rasp, “about Hidden Agenda.”
“Started it not long after I left the army. Didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t go back to teaching. Not looking…the way
I do. Wish I’d had you with me. Your instincts. You were the best. Pretty sure you still are.”
“You ever think about…Ripper? About what happened to him?” After our Communications Sergeant disappeared from Hell, Kahlid stopped limiting our torture to arms, legs, and torso—body parts that could be covered in any propaganda video. And he started in on Ry’s face.
“One of Kahlid’s men killed him,” Ry says quietly. “Sampson’s team captured three of ‘em when we came back for you. Ahmed copped to it. Said he tossed Ripper in the hole and broke his neck.”
We let a moment of silence pass for our fallen comrade. “Crazy son of a bitch,” I mutter. “Probably jumped, yelling ‘geronimo’ the whole way down.”
“Damn straight.” He chuckles, clears his throat, and sighs. “Got three people on my team. Sampson, Inara, and a new guy—Graham. But… I fucked up, Dax. Big time. Had another guy for a while. Coop. Never took orders, went rogue in Colombia, and Sampson almost bled out. And we thought Coop had died. But the People’s Army tortured him. And when he finally escaped, he came after Inara. Almost killed her guy.”
“Shit. And…that’s why you came back to Boston?” The realization that I never gave him a chance to tell me why he showed up after six years hits me hard.
“Yeah. Didn’t know where else to go. You were the only person in the world I thought would understand.”
“And I kicked you out.” Draining the last of my beer, I let my head fall back against the couch cushions. “Tell me what happened.”
By the time Ry finishes talking—about Hidden Agenda’s K&R work, the mess with Coop, and how hard it was for him to go to Sampson and Inara for help, his voice is hoarse, and it must be well after midnight.
I run a hand through my hair, wondering when it got so long. “I almost didn’t call tonight.” The admission lifts a weight from my chest. “But…I’m glad I did.”
Rolling my head from side-to-side, I cringe at the three loud pops. “I get migraines sometimes. What’s left of my vision, the TBIs…I need to crash. But, maybe—”
“I’ll call you in a couple of days?” The hope in his voice mirrors the emotion choking my throat, and I swallow hard before I can answer.
“Yeah. And maybe next time, you’ll let me get a word or two in, asshole.”
His deep laugh reaches one of the shattered pieces of my soul, and my eyes start to burn.
“Maybe I will, brother. Because I want to hear about Second Sight. About the migraines. About…what happened when I escaped.”
“Give me a little time for that last one. But…keep asking.”
“I promise,” Ry says.
Wren taught us both that one. The importance of the word promise. When I hang up, the tension I’ve carried since he walked back into my life weeks ago, washes over me in a violent wave, and I drop my head into my hands and let it out in loud, choking sobs until there’s nothing left.
7
Evianna
At precisely 7:00 a.m. the next morning, the burner phone on my counter vibrates.
Ford: I’m outside. Two blocks south. I’ll be behind you the whole way to work.
Kyle didn’t show last night, but he sent another series of increasingly angry email messages from several anonymous accounts. The last one warned me if I sent the cops after him again, I’d regret it. And he included a fun little animated GIF of a woman being stabbed through the heart. I sent it to Ford, but it’s just one more piece of evidence the police can’t do anything about.
I don’t understand what he thinks I did. Besides firing him. And that’s on him. Noah keeps telling me to ignore him and he’ll go away, but I can’t help feeling like there’s more to this. Kyle never struck me as…unstable. Eccentric, sure. High maintenance. Had to have his electrolyte-enhanced water, ate Sweet-Tarts like they were all he needed for a balanced meal, talked to his code sometimes. But this is a side of him I’ve never seen.
My walk to the T station is surreal. When I turn corners, I catch sight of Ford. All six-foot-ten inches of him. With a briefcase in his hand, he looks like all the other commuters around me—except for his size and the way he’s constantly scanning the crowd.
The phone vibrates again, and I stifle a snort as I read his message.
Ford: Stop looking for me. Act normal.
After I’ve swiped my fare card and make my way down to the platform, I respond.
Evianna: Being stalked isn’t exactly “normal” for me. Neither is having a bodyguard. You try acting normal with a giant, lethal-looking dude following you.
Ford: Think of me as a really tall teddy bear. Who knows how to fight. Dax and Trevor are the lethal ones.
On the train, I scan through my email. Nothing new from Kyle, but one of our test machines is throwing errors every few minutes. Great. This is going to be a stellar day.
I nod to the security guard on my way into the building. Ford slips into the elevator with me at the last second and punches buttons for the second, third, and fourth floor. “Sorry. I needed to talk to you for a minute.”
My heart skips a beat, and I swallow hard. “Is something wrong?”
“Not exactly. It’s nothing to do with your case. But I have an emergency I have to take care of. You’re not leaving the office today?” His hazel eyes carry a deep sadness, and a hint of something else, I think. Worry.
“No. It’s crunch time. We’re getting sandwiches delivered and it’s all hands on deck. I won’t leave until eight.” I heft my briefcase strap a little higher on my shoulder. “Hell, if I didn’t have to worry about scheduling with you, I might stay until midnight. But I can pack up at eight and finish up the night at home.”
Ford nods and runs a hand through his sandy hair. “Okay. The Dunkin’ Donuts right next door is open until ten. I have to coordinate with the rest of the team, but I’ll send someone there at eight to meet you. I’ll text you their photo once I figure out who’s free.”
The doors slide shut on the fourth floor, and the next stop is Beacon Hill. “Ford?” He meets my gaze, and I reach out to give his forearm a squeeze. “I hope everything’s okay.”
“Me too, Evianna. Thanks for understanding.”
I leave him on the elevator, and my last glimpse of him ties a knot in the pit of my stomach. Things are definitely not okay, and I worry they never will be again. Not for him.
Dax
The three raps on my door aren’t unexpected. “Come on in, Ford.”
“I got the call.” My visitor chair creaks as he drops down. “Nomar found four bodies outside of Batash. Two local bodyguards, one doctor, and an aid worker. All men. The others in the group were women. Joey, a twenty-four-year-old medical tech on her first oversees assignment, and a twenty-three year-old junior resident from Cedars-Sinai.”
“And no sign of them?” Unease crawls up my spine. That area of Turkmenistan is known for sex trafficking, and if whoever attacked them killed the men, things for Joey could get dicey. Fast.
“No. But the locals told Nomar stories of their daughters going missing. Being taken to Basaga and then disappearing.” After a pause, Ford swallows loudly. “Nomar’s waiting for me at the Uzbeki border.” Pain infuses his every word, and even his breathing sounds strained.
“Take Trevor with you. And…I’ll call Ryker. If anyone’s got Joey, he and his team…they can get her out.”
“Dax—”
“I talked to Ry last night. Couple of hours after you left. This is what he does, Ford. K&R. Let me help. I can’t…go with you. But I can do this.”
“Let me get there first. Get the lay of the land. I’ll take Trevor. He’s got contacts all over the Middle East. But…” A sigh, and Ford scoots the chair closer. The scrape of the legs on the hardwood floor pierces the stillness of the room. “We were already understaffed this week. And if I take Trevor, there’s no one to watch Evianna. Unless you want to pull Ronan or Vasquez off nights.”
Shit. He’s right.
“Ronan’s too green. He’s only been w
ith us for a month. He’s fine as a backup to Vasquez, but not on his own. Not with a guy who’s escalating to violence.” I rub the back of my neck, trying to ease the stress gathered there. “You do realize asking a blind man to step in as bodyguard is fucking ridiculous, right?”
Ford’s choked laugh breaks a fraction of the tension suffusing the room. “Maybe. But from the little bit of research I did last night, this Kyle’s never been in trouble before—other than some stupid college pranks.”
“So why is he threatening Evianna? People get fired all the time and don’t go batshit crazy. Vasquez didn’t see anything on watch?”
“Nope.” Ford’s phone buzzes. “Shit,” he mutters under his breath. “Nomar arranged for transpo from Turkey. But I have to be there in thirty-six hours. I typed up the case notes first thing this morning. They’re in your inbox.”
I stand and skirt my desk, waiting for Ford’s hazy outline to rise before I hold out my hand. When he wraps his fingers around mine, I pull him in a little closer so I have to tip my head up to have any hope of him seeing my expression. “Promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t go dark on me. Check in, and if you need help, you let me call Ry.”
Ford wraps his other arm around me for a single breath and gives me a hard hug. I stiffen at the contact, but this is my friend, so I force myself not to pull away.
“Be safe,” I say as he releases me and heads for the door. “And get her back alive.”
“I’m going to try.”
The office feels empty. Ford. Trevor. Wren. Clive. It’s just me, Ella, Hailey, and Bastian, and they’re all tied up on their own cases. Holed up in their offices. No client chatter. Even Marjorie’s quiet. Down four people, I made the executive decision to close Second Sight to new clients for the next week.
Stretching my legs out under my desk, I pull out my phone. “VoiceAssist: dial Wren.”
“Dialing…Wren,” the calm voice says.
Second Sight: An Away From Keyboard Romantic Suspense Standalone Page 6
