Dangerous Assignment (Aegis Group Book 4) (12 page)

So far he’d only seen the two guards and Abigail—no, Yael’s—ex-husband. Those were two very different women in Luke’s eyes. Abigail would chew that prissy man up and spit him out. Yael needed to remember she was no longer a child bride to a man without morals.

The door swung open and Baron stepped in, holding a fucking McDonald’s bag and two cups of coffee.

They were close enough to civilization that the coffee was still steaming.

“I guessed what you might like.” Baron plopped the bag on the table and set the coffee within easy reach.

The guard hadn’t put the handcuffs back on Luke. He could hurl the coffee at the man, deck him, get a pound of flesh if he wanted to, but then he might lose the ability to move around freely. He could pick the handcuffs. They hadn’t searched him to any great degree.

“What’d you get Abigail?” Luke asked.

“I was hoping to talk about your little road trip.”

“You know Abigail likes meat with her breakfast.”

“You continue to call her by an alias. Why?”

“That’s her name.”

“Her name is Yael.”

“Maybe to you. To me, she’s Abigail.”

“Do you know how many aliases we have on file for her?”

“Do I care?”

“Over sixty. You know the kind of work a clandestine combatant has to do to go through that many names?”

Luke bit the inside of his mouth and leaned back with his arms crossed. This was the divide and conquer routine. They’d trot out whatever atrocities they thought might turn his stomach in an effort to get him to abandon her.

“She’s not who you think she is.”

“Yeah? And who was she when you married her? A kid. You like little girls, huh? We have a word for men like you. Pedophile.”

“I was married to Yael, yes, which only means I know her better than you.”

“She was a kid.”

Baron pulled an enlarged photograph out of a folder he’d hidden behind the bag of food.

Damn the food smelled good.

Sausage biscuit, maybe some cheese. His stomach was starting to gnaw on his spleen. Food would be heavenly right about now. But unless Abigail was also getting fed, he wouldn’t eat a crumb.

“They pulled Ethan Turner’s body from the rubble, finally. He was beyond saving.” Baron slid a photograph across to him.

The rubble and street were familiar. He could even recall in greater detail what was around it, who’d lain where. But the body the picture was focused on was new. Trails of blood indicated the body had been moved, maybe dragged from under the rubble and placed there. It was too far away for Luke to be certain. He couldn’t even entertain that possibility. Not now.

“That could be anybody.” Luke pushed the picture across the table.

“We have confirmation it’s your friend.”

“Yeah, and the sky is pink.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Sorry, the whole pedophile thing makes it hard for me to listen to your voice without being sick.”

“You seem to be stuck on a nonissue. Yael’s mother arranged the marriage. It was with our family’s blessing. Within our laws, it was legal.”

“You’re sick, is what you are.”

“Mr. Briar, you are placing your faith in a broken woman. Abigail? The woman you know? She is dangerous.”

“One little, tiny woman has you shaking in your boots.” Luke shook his head.

What he wouldn’t give to punch this guy. Right in the face. Break his nose.

“I trained her. I know what she is capable of. You’d do well to work with us. Tell me about the road trip. Where were you headed? Who were you meeting?”

“Santa Claus.”

“Mr. Briar, your cooperation will only speed your return home. I have no desire to keep you, but the longer you maintain this…delusion…that Yael is anything but a traitor the less I can do for you.”

“Do your bosses know you like little girls?”

Baron grit his teeth and the way he stared at Luke was downright hateful.

“She got too old for you, didn’t she?” Luke stared at his nails to keep from having to look at the creep. He wasn’t hungry anymore. No, rage burned up that sensation along with everything else.

He wanted to kill this fucker—wrap his hands around his throat, and squeeze.

“She wanted to be my wife, Mr.—”

Luke reached across the table, grabbed Baron by his smarmy blue tie and decked him right in the face so hard Luke’s hand went numb. Scalding hot coffee splattered everywhere. Baron’s eye’s bulged and he nearly fell to the floor

The cell doors opened and both guards charged in.

Luke released Baron and put his hands up. One guard swung his baton, hitting Luke in the stomach. His rage dulled the pain a bit, but he still went to his knees. The other guard wrenched his arm behind his back and kicked, landing a solid blow against the side of Luke’s knee.

Fuck, that was going to swell.

Baron barked an order, and the guards stopped.

“I hope you got that out of your system, Mr. Briar. Things will not go well for you.” Baron said something to the guards.

The two men hauled Luke to his feet, one on either side of him, and dragged him out, down the hall and pushed him through the door into the cell he’d shared with Abigail. Except she wasn’t there.

“You have that man
wrapped around your finger.”

Abigail stared at the metal table between her and her ex-husband. Though they’d removed her handcuffs, she still felt their presence. She was a prisoner. And she’d given Baron the advantage. She should never have let Luke goad her into talking. They’d exposed too much of themselves in what was not a private moment. Baron was too perceptive to have missed it.

“How did you manage that? You only just met him.” Baron drew on the table with a finger. “You were always good with people though. At least when you wanted to be. I’ll never forget watching you, how you’d just…change. At home you were so quiet I’d almost forget you were there. And then we’d go somewhere. A dinner, maybe. You’d stand back, watch the room, and decide who to be. That’s how I knew you’d make a good agent. Even as a girl, you knew how to read people.”

She couldn’t deny his words.

Abigail had been an awkward teen, so hungry to please this man and her mother. She’d done what she could. She’d been the person she needed to be when she needed to be it.

“You’re going to get him killed, you know that?”

If only Luke would at least appear to betray her. But he wouldn’t, and damn him for it. The silly, loyal man needed to tell the truth. Why couldn’t he do that?

“Look at me, at least,” Baron said.

She let her gaze slid from the table to his hand and up.

Baron had aged. He’d been a handsome man, and as he aged he’d only become…more distinguished in his appearance. He was still handsome, but the silver at his temples and in his beard made him seem wiser. He had a brilliant mind, but it’d come at the sacrifice of his heart. There wasn’t enough of it for anything but his work. It was something she’d grown to understand, how this job was more than that. It was a calling, and she’d been good at it.

But she’d wanted more.

She’d loved Baron because he was a good man who did a good thing. But he’d never loved her back. Not once.

“There you are, my pet.” One side of his mouth curled up. “Just tell me what I want to know and all of this can be over.”

And by
over
he meant her life. It was over, but who would her death protect? Who was still out there? Was Baron in on it? Could it be someone they knew? Someone who’d invited her over for Shabbat? Until she knew that, she couldn’t tell anyone anything. The weight of it pulled her down. She was so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of living. Just—tired.

What was she doing here? Why was she holding out? Because her mother
might
be alive?

There was a solid fifty-fifty chance she was gone. After her husband passed, Abigail’s mother had never quite been the same. Her will for living hadn’t been there. It wasn’t hard to imagine she was gone.

Then what was she doing? Why was this her fight anymore? If Baron was right, then she’d wasted the last few years.

She could tell him everything. The deception. The blackmailing. The traitor. But what if Baron was behind it all? What if it was someone else?

But—Luke.

If she gave up, if she told them everything, they’d have no reason to release Luke. The Israeli government would not want to explain why they’d kept a former Navy SEAL in a dungeon for…however long they’d been down here. If she gave up now, they’d sweep it all away, and both she and Luke would disappear.

Unless…

Unless Luke rolled over on her. If he gave up information, they’d be forced to cut a deal. Let him go.

Except Luke wasn’t going to.

Not unless he thought doing so would save her.

Abigail swallowed.

Baron continued to watch her, and that one side of his mouth hitched higher.

He knew what she was thinking. Where her reasoning was taking her. He was steering her. Again. Damn it.

It didn’t matter what she said or did, it only mattered what they got Luke to say and do.

Shit.

She sucked in a deep breath.

Abigail knew what came next. The only way to get Luke to talk was to make him think her life was in danger.

“Who have you been working for?” Baron’s voice was low, warm, familiar.

“No one.” She leaned back in the chair, concentrating on taking deep, even breaths. “You might as well get on with it. This line of questioning will get you nowhere.”

“I know.” Baron stood.

She shivered.

“But you are right.” He began unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt, rolling them up to his elbow.

She swallowed.

“You think you’re—what? Protecting that man? You’d be better served telling me what I want.” He rapped on the door with his knuckles.

Was that her imagination, or could she hear the sound of water sloshing?

Abigail gulped and slid her hands between her thighs.

There was nowhere to run. No way to hide.

She sucked a deep breath down and bit her lip as the cell door groaned upon opening.

Luke paced the cell
and rubbed his stomach. The pain would go away. He didn’t regret what he’d said or punching Baron. He’d do it again, over and over if he could.

Abigail could tell him how Baron had saved her, how he’d been a kind person, but it didn’t change the black and white facts that she’d been a teenager. A kid. Forced into marrying a man at least twice her age, and for what? To put a roof over her head?

He hated that man.

He began counting, one step a second, around and around the room, ticking off the minutes.

What were they doing to her? Where was she?

Luke tried to keep his worry at bay. So far they hadn’t gotten physical. But the torture was coming. He needed to figure out a way to escape before it got that far.

He stared straight ahead. With every pass, he got exactly fifteen seconds to study the door, then forty-five to break it apart in his head.

His best guess was that the door was steel, the middle hollow. It’d be heavy. The hinges were outside. There was no door handle inside. The only imperfection in the design was the slot through which someone could pass a plate of food if need be.

Luke slowed his pace and stopped, facing the door.

Were they out there watching him now?

He got down on one knee, wincing a bit, and pushed the flap up. It was long, and wide enough to allow him a decent view of the hall.

The empty hall.

He turned his head, listening.

Whispers of sound he couldn’t make out. Otherwise, the silence was deafening.

For kicks, he wiggled his hand through the slot. He could fit most of his forearm out, but his bicep was too thick and the door handle too far away.

Abigail could reach it.

Where was she?

He sat on the stone floor and watched the hall, waiting for some sign of movement, anything.

Luke lost track of how long he sat there. His foot and ass went numb. He got a crick in his neck, and the muscles in his back knotted up.

The sound of locks scraping was too loud.

Luke pushed up and nearly fell on his butt, thanks to his still-sleeping foot.

He stumbled back, hyperaware of the sound of footsteps and something dragging.

The cell door opened, and the two guards side-stepped in, Abigail hanging limply from their arms.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Luke stepped forward, only to stop short.

The smaller guard held a Taser. A small Taser, but it had enough kick to make Luke think twice about getting close.

The guards placed, more like tossed, her on the closest bed, and backed out of the cell. Luke waited only for a bit of distance between them before diving for the bed. He knelt next to her, smoothing her damp hair out of her face.