Black Jack (20 page)

hard body covering hers, as the explosion suddenly ripped through the air.

Her motorcycle.

“Move!” Travis was scrambling, his fingers brutally tight on her arm as he dragged her the

short distance to the entrance of the garage. A line of flames was licking at the sleek black

frame of his own ride.

They fixed their clothes hastily, their hearts racing, adrenaline pumping through their

bodies.

There was no time to get to the cycles or to stop what was coming. Wild-eyed, Lilly was on

her feet, choking on the fumes as the garage door opened slowly, too fucking slowly. She

watched as the greedy flames licked at the gas tank of Travis’s cycle now, the interior of the

garage, moving higher.

“Get out!” The garage door opened just enough to allow them to drop and roll to the other

side.

They were on their feet, racing for the side entrance of the house, when the second

explosion tore a huge hole in the side of the garage, catapulting debris and flames. Lilly dug

her feet into the grass and sprinted for the door.

Turning at the doorway, they watched as wood, metal, and sparks rained down on the yard.

The garage had little in it to burn. Thankfully the Hummer he kept in there was out for service

and the Jag was parked out front or the resulting explosion would have taken out part of the

house.

“Get in.” The door opened and Travis was pushing her inside as he jerked his phone from

the holder at his side. “It’s Travis. Get the fuck over here.”

He disconnected the call and turned to face her as he pushed her into the kitchen.

Nik and Henry were racing through the hallway, coming to a hard stop at the sight of them.

“Stay here, Henry,” Travis barked. “The bikes just went up in flames. I’ve called for a

cleanup crew.” He turned to Nik then. “Explosives. Get out there and see what you can find.”

Nik moved past her, his pale blue eyes like frozen chips of ice, his hard corded body

pumped for action.

She turned to Travis, realization suddenly racing through her. “Attempt number three,” she

whispered. “I’m starting to get the feeling someone doesn’t like me, Travis.”

And that someone had to have been in her home, the only place her cycle could have been

accessed. The only place anyone could have planted the explosives.

And once again she had been damned lucky. Someone didn’t know what the hell they were

doing obviously, or she and Travis both would have been dead.

As Lilly turned, stared around the kitchen and fought to get her bearings, she began to

wonder if she would ever be safe, and if this was the reason she had deserted her home, her

family, and her way of life for six long years.

To live.

strike two.

Lilly stood in Travis’s kitchen, her arms folded across her breasts as she leaned back

against the counter, one ankle crossed over the other.

She lounged, she thought, and she watched.

She especially watched the black-garbed, black-masked men that moved through the garage

and the house. No law enforcement personnel were present. The situation was being carefully

contained.

And that didn’t surprise her. She was standing back, munching on a stalk of celery,

watching, waiting, thinking.

This was the third attempt on her life. First, there had been the night her father had been

killed, then a gunshot to the head, now her motorcycle. And it wasn’t just any motorcycle

either. That had been her baby even if she couldn’t remember where she had gotten it from.

Lifting the celery stalk to her lips, she bit off another piece and listened to it crunch.

“Someone didn’t know what the hell they were doing,” a dark, slightly accented voice said.

Lilly turned her head to stare at the figure that entered the room. Black eyes, a peak of

black hair beneath his mask. He was foreign.

It was becoming a game to stand, to watch, to let knowledge roll through her mind.

He was Maverick. She couldn’t remember the name he went by, the identity he used, or the

agency he belonged to but she knew the code name.

“That, or they didn’t have the time they needed to wire it right.” Wild Card. Deep, dark

navy blue eyes. He was different, she thought, different from the others somehow. He wasn’t a

killer. He was a hero.

But did that make the others killers?

No, not killers, but they were harder, more lethal, for some reason.

But once upon a time, Wild Card too had been a killer. Now, he was a lover, a man who

returned to home and hearth every chance he had.

Maverick had changed over the years as well. Just as Heat Seeker had. Heat Seeker was

watching her now, his dark gray eyes thoughtful, intent. As though he saw more than she

wanted him to.

Could he see that she knew things she was aware she shouldn’t know?

“It’s been a hell of a few months for you, hasn’t it, Lady Harrington?” he asked, his voice

low, dark, and a bit amused.

“Seems so.” She popped the last piece of celery in her mouth and crunched before smiling

tightly.

His head gave a small nod of sympathy. “Seems a shame. What could a pretty woman like

yourself have done to piss someone off so bad?”

She swallowed, then inhaled slowly, evenly. “Perhaps it was because of my vocation,” she

suggested with an edge of mockery. “A jealous wife perhaps? Who knew the life of a high-

priced whore could get so dangerous?”

Silence filled the room. Every man there stilled, turned, and leveled their gazes on her.

Even Travis. His gaze was dark, his jaw tight as she straightened and moved across the

kitchen.

“I need a ride home,” she informed him. “I have a party to get ready for, as do you.”

She stopped in front of him, and for a second, just a second, her body became sensitized,

her heart raced. She had been so close in that damned garage. So close to losing more of

herself than she already had. She was losing more of her soul, each time he touched her. Her

heart was already gone. It belonged to him, but now, she was risking the rest of her spirit to

him.

For what?

What was she risking herself for? The man who loved her, or the man who would end up

betraying her?

“Nik?” She spoke to the bodyguard as Travis stared back at her silently, warningly.

“Yes, Lady Lilly?” He was forever reminding her of her title.

“I need a ride to the house, please. It seems Travis is a bit tied up for the moment.” Her

head turned, her gaze going unerringly to the intense blue eyes and commanding stance of the

masked figure that stood on the other side of the room.

He hadn’t spoken much, and never in front of her.

Live Wire. His code name hinted at the dangerous personality she could be dealing with.

“Take her home, Nik,” Travis ordered, but his gaze never left her.

As she turned back to him, their eyes locked and emotions surged and twisted between

them enough to make her chest tight, her heart heavy.

“I’ll be early,” he warned her. “Make certain you can find a private spot for us to discuss

this.”

Lilly shrugged. “Never fear. I’ll just have the butler show you to my bedroom. It doesn’t

get much more private than that, does it?”

She strode from the room, to the far hall and then out the side entrance of the house that

they had fallen through as they escaped the explosion in the garage.

She needed to get away from the eyes watching her, the hidden thoughts, the suspicion. As

though they were watching, waiting, poised to punish her for remembering whatever she had

forgotten.

Memories that she hoped returned soon. The dual personalities were beginning to get on

her nerves.

Travis turned back to the men in the kitchen as the masks came off and he faced the team that

had come running at the first word of increased danger.

Jordan, John, Noah, and Micah watched him as he pushed his fingers through his hair and

blew out a hard breath.

“That was Night Hawk,” John stated, his voice decisive. “You know, come to think of it, I

haven’t seen much of the woman you described as Lady Victoria Harrington, Black Jack.”

Neither had he.

Once, he had belonged to England’s high society. London was his playground, royalty were

his peers. He had drunk, partied, and done business with the world’s most elite social set.

He’d been the last of a family line that had been incredibly frugal with the inheritances that

had been passed down. They had been built upon, saved, hoarded. Until Travis. Until he’d lost

everything because of the deception of a faithless woman.

Travis had known Lilly then as Lady Victoria Harrington. He’d danced with her at parties,

and fought against whatever it was that had drawn him to her at the time.

She had been so young, so innocent. Even then he’d found it hard to believe that her father

was allowing her to participate in his activities with MI5.

“No, she’s no longer Lady Victoria,” he said, as the others continued to watch him

expectantly. “Six years as a black op, living a double life, she’s not the young girl she was

anymore.”

“Santos and Rhiannon are going to be at the party,” Jordan informed him then. “I’ll be

there, as well as Ian and Kira Richards, and her uncle Jason McClane. You better get a handle

on her before she enters the fray, Travis. Because the woman I just witnessed is a clear

product of the Elite Ops. No one would mistake her for a silken-handed member of

aristocracy, nor would they mistake her for a call girl. She was too damned tough.”

“She was surrounded by the team she has been able to trust for six years,” Travis argued.

“Even more than her own team, Elite One was home to her, Jordan.”

“Elite One has been home to all those girls,” Maverick pointed out. “That doesn’t change

the fact that they’re not a part of Elite One, Travis. She’s an agent without backing now,

which means her commanders are going to be hot to cover their own asses.”

And that was damned hard to believe, of Santos especially. The commander had babied

those girls since they had walked onto his base. Rhiannon not so much, she was cooler, but

she had always seemed concerned, at the very least.

“Elite Command can’t risk exposure. Santos can’t risk lying to them,” Jordan continued. “If

she breaks, then it falls at his feet. We’re responsible for our agents, no matter which

commander they’re working with at the time.”

“You would turn on us that easily, Jordan?” Nathan asked, though they all knew the answer.

Jordan would give his own life before he’d turn on the men he commanded.

He shook his head as he rubbed the back of his neck wearily with a tight grimace.

“This isn’t about me, Noah.” Jordan finally shook his head. “It’s about Lilly and Elite Ops.

If she doesn’t hold the cover and accept the background the investigator reported, then we’re

all fucked. Think about that. Remember what I told you earlier. If the Ops falls, we’re all

dead.” He looked to Noah, Maverick, and John. “We fall, and our families will fall with us,

when our enemies strike. I don’t think that’s a chance any of us want to take.”

And it wasn’t a chance Lilly would take. She would never risk those she had fought with,

especially the girls she had worked side by side with for the past six years.

“I’ll head to the Harrington estate,” Travis told Jordan. “I’ll meet with her and see how

things stand after this little explosion. My own personal opinion based on watching her during

training and over the years she’s fought beside us is that at the moment, Lilly’s coming to

terms with the instincts she didn’t know she had. She doesn’t have the memories, Jordan, but

she does have the instinct and intuition we taught her to listen to. We can’t take that from her,

it’s too ingrained.”

“Get over there.” Jordan nodded. “I’ll run interference. I have to report the explosion, but I

think I can cover her reactions to it. One thing is for damned sure, this isn’t going to help the

situation.”

But then again, there wasn’t much that could help things now. Lilly had a killer after her,

and whoever it was, they were slick. They weren’t experienced, he had to give them that.

Experience, professionalism, and she would have already been dead. A trained assassin would

have taken her out with the bullet, and even barring that, there was no way they would have

screwed up the explosion on the cycle.

“We need to get backup in order to protect her,” Noah suggested. “This is the third attempt

on her life, Jordan. The next one could kill her.”

“I’ve already requested the backup team and have been denied,” Jordan informed them, his

jaw tightening. “The risk is too great. If she’s going to survive outside the Ops, then she has to

do it on her own.”

“That wasn’t Senator Stanton’s decision,” Travis growled. “He wouldn’t have voted for

that.”

“All decisions made by Command are unanimous,” Jordan reminded him. “It doesn’t

matter how he feels personally. How we all feel. The Ops has to be protected, Travis, at all

costs.”

Even at the cost of their agents’ lives.

Travis shook his head at the thought. A part of him understood, but a part of him didn’t

understand a damned thing about it.