Liam's Witness Protection (Man On A Mission 4) (4 page)

When had she decided to become a model? Was it when she’d shot up four inches between seventh and eighth grades, adding another three inches in ninth? When the other girls in her school had gazed enviously at Cate’s luxurious golden hair, her face, her slender figure, her graceful walk? The desire to excel at
something
—to stand out from the crowd—the way Angelina always had and always would?

Cate hadn’t been jealous of Angelina, but she
had
wanted to impress her—easy to see that now. But Angelina had stayed safely in Zakhar—accepting the limitations staying there placed on her as a woman, yet working within the system to effect change. Cate had been impatient with those limitations, those restrictions, especially the ones placed on her by her parents. Restless to break free, to escape the tedium of school—where even her popularity with her fellow students hadn’t been enough to satisfy her—and seek fame and fortune as a model.

And when her parents had died unexpectedly in a car accident, sixteen-year-old Cate suddenly saw it was possible. She’d thought the promised modeling contract in the US was her one-way ticket out. Had believed the work visa provided by the US embassy—but paid for by the man who’d dangled that modeling contract in front of her starstruck eyes—was her escape from middle-class mediocrity. Who could have known she would escape...into hell.

* * *

Dinner was still twenty minutes away and he’d already meticulously cleaned his SIG SAUER, so Liam called Alec again. He’d spoken with his brother twice since he and Cate arrived at the safe house, but both times had been strictly business. Now he needed to talk to his brother about Cate—and the things Alec knew that Liam knew nothing about. He told himself it was important to the case, and maybe it was. But in his heart he knew that wasn’t why he was asking. There was just something about Cate he couldn’t shake off. Cate...and her relationship with Alec. His brother. His newly married brother.

Come on,
he rallied himself.
You know Alec inside and out. There’s no way he’s fooling around. Not Alec.

Cate was a different story. He knew almost nothing about her, and what he did know wasn’t...encouraging. So his attraction to her was unexpected, unwanted and totally out of character. He’d always been drawn to sweet young things, ever since the transition from junior high to high school, when he’d first noticed girls were different. Wonderfully different. But he’d always gone for the wholesome girls back then, the girl-next-door type. And when he’d grown up, things hadn’t changed all that much. He was still attracted to women he wouldn’t be ashamed to introduce to his family.

He didn’t know how or why Cate had become a prostitute, but even when he’d been in the Marine Corps stationed overseas he’d never picked up a hooker. Never paid for sex. He had a healthy libido—okay, more than healthy to tell the truth—but he drew the line at paying for sex. It was degrading to both the man and the woman.

Besides, even though he and Alec didn’t have the looks in the family—Shane and Niall had a corner on that—they did have something even better. Charm. Charisma. And a way with the ladies that had become almost legendary in the DSS, though neither brother was the kind to kiss and tell.

So the fact that he was attracted to Cate—and damn it, he
couldn’t
shake it off—meant he needed some answers from Alec. Fast.

“So tell me about Cate,” he said as soon as his brother answered the phone.

“Cate? You mean Caterina?”

“Yeah. But she says she doesn’t go by that name anymore. Except in court.”

Silence at the other end. Then, “When did she tell you this?”

Liam let out his breath long and slow. “This morning. When she told me she doesn’t use Mateja anymore, either. When she told me about going underground. About picking an alias.”

“Must have been quite the conversation.”

“Not really.” Liam laughed ruefully. “When I asked her why she went underground, she told me that you know, but I don’t have a ‘need to know.’ Right after I explained the concept to her.”

“And
do
you have a need to know?” Alec asked pointedly.

Liam thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Silence hummed between them, and Liam knew his brother was reading between the lines, hearing what he
wasn’t
saying. Finally Alec said, “Not a good idea, Liam. She needs protection. Not some guy hitting on her.”

“I’m not ‘some guy,’ and I’m not hitting on her.” Liam held on to his temper...barely. It was so unlike him, it gave him pause. “And I know she needs protection. That’s why I’m here.”

“As long as you remember that.”

“You don’t have to tell me how to do my job.” His temper threatened to get away from him again, and Liam knew his brother could hear the edge he couldn’t keep out of his voice. “That’s what she is. A job. That’s all,” he insisted, but an insidious little voice in his head asked,
Are you trying to convince Alec? Or yourself?
He ignored the little voice and said harshly, “Just tell me what I need to know, damn it.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Why did she go underground? What was she running from?”

“Not what. Who. Aleksandrov Vishenko. One of the defendants in the case.”

“She mentioned him. Said he was the one trying to kill her.”

“With good reason. She can put him away for life. Not to mention what her testimony can do to the other defendants.”

“What does she know?”

“It was a three-way conspiracy. A group of Zakharian criminals were luring young, pretty Zakharian women to the US under the guise of modeling contracts. The previous two regional security officers at the embassy—the one I replaced and the one before him—and several Foreign Service officers were fraudulently providing US visas for the women. Many of them underage girls, really. And Aleksandrov Vishenko’s branch of the Russian mob was taking delivery of the women and forcing them into prostitution. Making a fortune selling some of them to gangs across the country, or pimping them out themselves.” Alec paused for a moment. “Caterina saw it all. She lived it. And she had evidence.”

“How’d she get the evidence?”

“If you believe Vishenko, she was his willing mistress for two years.”

Something cold and hard gripped Liam. “And if you don’t believe him?”

“She was his prisoner for two years. His personal sex slave.”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Yeah,” Alec said dryly. “That’s what I said when I first heard about it. Made me sick to my stomach. Literally. Then I wanted to cry. For her.” He didn’t say anything for a minute, letting that sink in. Then he added, “I can’t tell you any more than that. It’s her story. You would have heard all about it in court tomorrow—if Vishenko hadn’t tried to kill her. But for now, you’ll have to get the rest from her. If she wants you to know...she’ll tell you. But let me say this. You really
don’t
want to know. I wish I didn’t. Because knowing what I know, well...it makes me think vigilante justice might not be such a bad thing after all.”

Guilt slammed into Liam as he realized he’d made assumptions about Cate based only on what little he thought he knew about her...most of it false. He tried to figure out why he’d been so quick to judge her, then shook his head when it dawned on him he’d
wanted
to think the worst of Cate...to counteract his totally unexpected strong attraction to her. It hadn’t worked. And now he could add guilt to the equation.

Chapter 4

A
voice from the bottom of the stairs called Liam and Cate to dinner, and Liam started down the staircase. But when no sound came from Cate’s bedroom he turned around and tapped on her door, thinking maybe she hadn’t heard the call. When she didn’t respond he rapped harder, but still no answer.

He tried the doorknob and it wasn’t locked, so he twisted the knob and opened the door a few inches. “Cate? Dinner.”

The room was shrouded in darkness, and there was no movement, nothing to suggest she was even in there. Suddenly concerned—
she wouldn’t just take off, would she?
—he pushed the door open all the way. That’s when he saw her huddled in the center of the bed, the bedspread pulled around her slender body. Fast asleep.

He trod quietly over to the bed, hesitated for a second, then touched her arm lightly. “Cate.” She jumped as if he’d shot her, jerking upward so quickly Liam was startled back. “Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to tell you dinner’s ready.”

She pushed her hair away from her face and blinked at him. Then she rubbed her eyes—tired eyes, he saw now. Sad eyes. Ancient eyes that were the window into a soul in torment. How had he missed it before? “It’s okay,” she said finally. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was just resting my eyes, and...” She stared at Liam through the shadows in the room. “Thanks for waking me. I wouldn’t want to miss dinner.” She smiled, a slight movement of her lips that came and went so quickly it almost couldn’t even be called a smile. “I’ve been smelling that roasted chicken for hours, it seems.”

Any other woman Liam would have offered a hand to help her off the bed. But Cate wasn’t any other woman. And now that he knew—well, he didn’t know exactly what he
knew
, but his imagination was working overtime, supplying details he didn’t want to think about. Not about Cate, or any woman. So no way was he going to touch her. It made sense now why she hadn’t wanted him to touch her before. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t
Liam Jones
she was rejecting—she didn’t want
any
man touching her. And he didn’t blame her. Not one bit.

* * *

Dinner wasn’t the silent affair Liam had expected. The agents, who went by the last name of Morgan, carried on a conversation between the four of them by sheer will. They refused to let Cate withdraw within herself, and asked a series of innocuous questions designed to put her at her ease. She answered haltingly at first—as if she wasn’t in the habit of carrying on dinner conversation—then with increased confidence. And Liam was convinced that whatever else she was, whatever else she’d been, she was well-read.
Self-educated?
he wondered. Cate let something slip that made him suspect libraries were her only recreational outlet...in large part because they were free.

Liam answered when questions were addressed to him, but in between he watched Cate. Surreptitiously. He remembered watching her that morning—was it only that morning?—arguing with the prosecutors. Her hand gestures graceful and fluid. Now he watched her hands close up, fascinated by everything she said and did. And that’s when he saw it. It wasn’t obvious—just a slight darkening of the skin. But it shouldn’t have been there. Not twin bands circling both wrists in almost exactly the same location. And suddenly he knew what they were. And how she’d gotten them.

Scars. Scars left by something bound tightly around her wrists, bindings she must have fought against until her skin was raw and bleeding. Repeatedly. Then he heard Alec’s voice saying,
“...Made me sick to my stomach. Literally. Then I wanted to cry. For her...”

Bile welled up in his throat as his stomach churned violently and he wanted to cry for her too, despite his deceased father’s long-ago strictures on crying. But more than that he wanted punish the man who’d done this to her. He wanted to pummel him into a bloody pulp, wait a few minutes, then come back and do it again. And again. Until the man had paid for those scars, and what they had to mean. As if he could erase his own mistaken thoughts about Cate by exacting two years’ worth of vengeance. For her.

Shaken more than he cared to admit, Liam swallowed hard and glanced away. His eyes caught those of Dave Morgan across the table, and knew the other man had spotted the same thing he had. Was having the same kind of reaction any decent man would have to the knowledge that Cate had been abused. Bound. And most likely raped—repeatedly.

Guilt slammed into him again. Guilt that he’d judged her from the beginning, that he’d wondered how and why she’d become a prostitute. That he’d been baffled by his attraction to a woman of the streets, even one who looked like her.

Now he knew that whatever she’d done, it hadn’t been by choice. She hadn’t
chosen
her life any more than she’d
chosen
to have those scars inflicted on her by Aleksandrov Vishenko.
Has to be him,
he reasoned.
Who else it could be? No wonder she despises him. No wonder he’s afraid of what she’ll say on the witness stand and tried to have her killed. And no wonder Alec wishes he could exact a little vigilante justice. I do, too.

Liam’s new cell phone suddenly shrilled, startling him out of his reverie. The ringtone wasn’t his usual one, so it took him by surprise. He quickly excused himself from the table to answer the call.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me. Cody. Just wanted to let you know we were right. The agent you gave your cell phone to used it, on my orders, just to see what would happen. And sure enough, someone in the FBI was triangulating on the signal.”

“Shit.”

“No kidding. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad. Could be they’re just trying to locate you to bring you in for routine questioning in the shooting—you’d be cleared of course, but they have to follow procedure. Get your statement and match it to the statements of the other witnesses, not to mention Alec’s statement. Do ballistics tests on your gun. The whole nine yards. Or it could be they just want to bring Caterina in for safekeeping—she’s still a key witness in the conspiracy trial. On the other hand, it could be someone trying to track down the two of you...for Vishenko.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“So D’Arcy wants to change the plan a little. We’ve got Alec and his wife in protective custody—and boy, the FBI was pissed about
that
, especially when D’Arcy refused to divulge their location to them. We want to ensure the same for Caterina and you—but the FBI knows about the agency’s safe house in Fairfax. Don’t ask how—it’s a long story. So D’Arcy wants to move you to another safe house, one outside Fayetteville, North Carolina. If you leave now you can be there in just under five hours.”

Liam was tired—he’d had a long drive yesterday from New York to DC, today had been another long day and his body had used up its store of adrenaline already—he wasn’t looking forward to a five-hour drive. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Safety was the primary concern. Cate’s safety.

Cody was still talking. “Don’t use your credit cards to get there—pay cash. The Morgans will give you enough cash for anything. And new identification and credit cards for both of you will be waiting at the next safe house, just in case we have to move you again. Oh yeah, and swap GPS units with the Morgans.”

Surprised, Liam blurted out, “They can track us by my GPS? I didn’t think that was possible, not without—” He stopped abruptly, realizing that law enforcement was constantly coming up with new and improved surveillance techniques, some of which the public was completely unaware. And if it could be done at all, the FBI would know how.

Silence at the other end. “Think about it,” Cody said finally. “But don’t think too long. We want you out of there in the next fifteen minutes.”

“What do I tell Cate?”

“At this point I think you’re going to have to tell her the truth. At least some of it.”

“I already told her about the death of the other witness.”

“I told you not—”

“She knew,” he said flatly, cutting Cody off. “She figured it out, so there was no reason not to confirm it.”

“How’s she holding up?”

“She’s keeping it together, at least on the surface. I don’t know what she’s feeling inside, but it can’t be good.”

“She’s still planning to testify, right?”

Liam grunted. “Don’t worry. Whatever Alec told her, it must have resonated. So yeah, she’s still planning to testify. No matter the cost.”

* * *

They drove through the night, a night that—thanks to the full moon and the steady stream of traffic—wasn’t all that dark. But it was anonymous, and that’s all Cate cared about. She hadn’t hesitated when Liam told her they had to move on to another safe house. Moving on was something she did on a regular basis, so it wasn’t unusual for her. She’d packed the few clothes and other essentials the Morgans had given her into a small suitcase—also provided by the Morgans. She’d been ready in less than five minutes.

Now, as she watched Liam driving at a steady pace—the speedometer just barely nudging the legal limit—she considered asking him the questions that had been percolating in her mind since his sudden announcement right after receiving the phone call.
Who called you? Was it Alec? He’s a witness too, so is he safe? And Angelina. What about my cousin?

But she wasn’t in the habit of asking too many questions. When you started asking questions, people had the unfortunate response of thinking that gave them the right to ask questions in return. And Cate didn’t answer questions. Not as a general rule. The less people knew about her, the less chance there was that Vishenko’s men would find her.

Alec had asked questions. So had the FBI and the men from the US Attorney’s Office. She’d had no choice but to answer those questions. And she would answer any and all questions put to her in court. Honestly. But for some reason she didn’t want Liam asking her questions. Especially about her past—she didn’t want him to know. Anything.

And why is that?
a little voice inside her head asked. The answer was one she didn’t want to acknowledge.
You don’t want him to think badly of you. But you don’t want him to think of you as a victim, either. You just want him to think of you as a woman. A woman he’s attracted to. Admit it.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Liam said. “You okay?”

“Fine. I’m just thinking.”

“Worried about this move?”

She shook her head, but realized his eyes were on the road and he couldn’t see it. “No. Not really. I’m used to it.”
I’m used to moving from place to place,
she thought.
Whenever I got the feeling Vishenko’s men might be close, I always moved on. Why do you think I’m still alive?
But she didn’t say any of this to Liam.

The long silence that followed was broken when Liam said, “Cody—my brother-in-law—said the FBI knows about the safe house we were just at. That might not mean anything, but Cody’s a damn good poker player. First rule of thumb—never give away anything, especially an edge. Not if you don’t have to.”

“‘Need to know,’” she said. “I understand.”

“Exactly.”

“So where are we going now?” she asked.

Liam hesitated.

“I do have a need to know,” she said softly, but putting determination behind it. “It’s my life—not only do I
need
to know, I have the
right
to know.”

“Okay, yeah,” he agreed finally. “The agency has another safe house in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Cody and his boss think we’ll be safer there than at the one in Fairfax.”

“Why?”

He told her. Flat out. Not trying to sugarcoat anything. When he was done she said, “Thank you for being honest with me.” She considered everything he’d said, then asked, “So Vishenko has the FBI infiltrated?”

Liam shook his head. “We don’t know that. It’s only one of several possibilities they’re considering. But in the meantime, the agency doesn’t want to take any chances. Not with you.”

Cate thought of something. “Alec is a witness, like me. And Angelina. Are they being guarded, too?”

She could tell her question bothered Liam somehow—it wasn’t anything he said, just a feeling she got.
Is he worried about his brother’s safety?
she wondered.
As I am?

“Don’t worry. The agency has them in protective custody,” he said curtly. Then he asked, “What do you mean Angelina’s a witness, too?”

“Not a witness in this case—the conspiracy. But she would be a witness against Vishenko if he’s extradited to Zakhar.”

He glanced at her for a second, as if puzzled, then shifted his attention back to the road. “I don’t get it.”

“For the attempted assassination of the crown prince,” she explained patiently. “Don’t you know?” She added a few specifics regarding the assassination attempt in St. Anne’s Cathedral in Drago during Crown Prince Raoul’s christening ceremony the year before, an assassination attempt foiled by her cousin, Angelina and Liam’s brother. “If Vishenko gets off in this trial, he still has to face justice in Zakhar. Alec told me the extradition paperwork has already been processed on Zakhar’s end. They’re only waiting for the outcome of the conspiracy trial here before pressuring the State Department to turn Vishenko over to them for Zakharian justice.”

“Alec didn’t mention it.” And there was an edge to Liam’s voice that said he was upset he’d been kept in the dark.

Cate put a hand out to touch his arm in commiseration, then drew it back. Instead, she said, “At first I asked Alec why I needed to testify. Why I needed to risk my life to put Vishenko behind bars in the US when he will be tried in Zakhar for what he nearly did to the crown prince. One of the shooters has already confessed, naming Vishenko as the man behind the attempt. The man who supplied the money.” She breathed deeply. “But Alec made me see it is not just Vishenko, although he is key. All the men in the conspiracy must face justice—the Zakharians who lured the trafficked women and the men from the US embassy who provided the false visas are just as guilty as the men from the
Bratva.
We cannot bring them down unless Vishenko goes down.”

Cate was silent for a moment. “Whenever I’m afraid—and I’m often afraid—I remind myself that even if Vishenko escapes justice here he will be tried in Zakhar. And the courts in Zakhar are much quicker than they are in the US. Justice is swift. Punishment harsh.” Her voice dropped a notch. “Even if he kills me he will not escape. And that is a very comforting thought.”