Promises in the Dark (16 page)

But the kiss … she was pretty sure that wasn’t a part of the job at all. Then again, it was obvious she knew nothing at all about love and trust. Or kissing. Or life.

And she was trapped—cut off from her former life and completely unable to help the military, stop DMH from using her program.

As much control as she’d fooled herself into thinking she had over numbers—or anything—she now realized she barely had a grip on anything.

And this man … he could swallow her whole in one bite … and something trilled inside of her, as if to let her know if that was to happen, she would enjoy every second of it.

He looked completely in control, and her life had been so utterly the opposite when her father had been alive, she longed for stability.

Dale had seemed to understand her need to mourn her father.

It hurt to admit that during the last years of her father’s life she’d been very close to hating him.

He’d left her with a mountain of debt, shitty credit and a general distrust for most people. Of course, on that she had to agree that he’d been right.

She’d let her guard down with Dale—she should’ve known better. The relationship didn’t devastate her, but it left her far more wary than she’d already been. She’d waited a heck of a long time to give her virginity away to someone far more interested in his own pleasure. But, just the way she’d taken care of her father for years and gotten so little in return, she’d continued that pattern—although not consciously—and much to her dismay when she finally had realized it.

Now there were firewalls around her heart.

Why did she feel like Cael could breach them with a single touch?

Why did she want him to try?

“Do you think DMH can track me there, the way you just tracked Doc J?”

Zane’s jaw clenched and then relaxed. “I’m sure they could—but the missionaries wouldn’t reveal that intel to just anyone. Dylan served with the guys who provide the protection, that’s the only reason they revealed anything.”

She nodded, having no choice but to trust that. She knew Doc J had a former soldier who indeed worked inside the clinic, providing protection and shuttling visiting doctors and such back and forth to the harbor and into the main parts of town.

“My brother’s making arrangements with Doc J,” he said, had flipped his phone open again and was punching in a few numbers. He spoke quickly and she caught a couple of words, like
transport
, and then there was only silence, deep and dark. The pit of her stomach ached again from fear and she hoped this would work out.

When he hung up, he said, “Someone from Doc J’s camp will meet us. There’s a place an hour from here. More like three, the way we’re traveling, but we don’t need to be there until first light. We should have plenty of time,” he muttered, more to himself than her, and then, “Why the hell are you trying to get rid of me?”

“I’m not, Zane. I just want to make sure you’re safe. That if I stay, you’ll get out of this country unharmed.”

“Too late, Liv,” he told her. “DMH has my picture. I’m in this as deeply as you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I found my picture on the guy’s phone—the one outside your house. He’d transmitted it already.”

Ama’s face flashed in front of her eyes. Ama, who’d gone to the States for medical school and then come back to Africa in order to use what she’d learned to help her own people. The woman had taken Olivia in, cared for her, didn’t worry about her own safety.

There’s no safety in Africa
, she’d said.
There’s no safety anywhere, Olivia. Fear isn’t going to help you
.

Now Ama was dead. Tortured. And even though Olivia hadn’t been there, hearing what had happened from Ama’s friend had been horrifying.

“When?” she demanded now of Zane.

“The night I came to you. That guy arrived right after I did—or before, I’m not sure.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“DMH knows who you are?”

“By now they’ve got a pretty good idea,” he said. “I’m not telling you to make you feel guilty. You just need to know that I’m a target too.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m not going to hide, that’s for sure.”

She bristled. “I can do a lot of good here.”

“If you weren’t scared for your life, sure.”

She hated him then, because he’d basically told her she was a coward. She’d fought for so long to be anything but, and in the end it didn’t make a damned bit of difference. “I can’t get taken again.”

He didn’t say anything right away, continued to watch her with those eyes that told her he knew everything she was going to say, every argument and justification, and he’d still wait patiently and listen anyway.

Having people who helped her getting in major trouble had become a pattern she did not want to repeat. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier about the picture?”

“Everyone needs their secrets.” He shouldered her bag along with his own. “Ready?”

“Tell me.”

“DMH has Zane’s picture.”

Hearing that was truly like getting socked in the gut, and both he and Dylan remained quiet for a few moments, the severity of the situation weighing heavily enough for Caleb to feel the need to sink into the nearest chair.

Dylan spoke first. “He’s okay. He took the guy’s phone, but the picture had already been sent—I didn’t know if you guys could do anything with the e-mail addresses.”

He rattled off the address and IP and Caleb wrote them on the legal pad he’d been drawing on. “I’ll pass it along to Gray.”

“Good. Zane’s headed to a clinic with Olivia. She’s not ready to come home yet. He said he’s giving her some rope and letting her run herself out.”

“Give her some rope,” Cael repeated. “What the fuck, Dylan?”

“He’s playing it right. The doc’s worried about coming home. Thinks that she’ll bring retribution to anyone close to her.”

“Yeah, that’s my big goddamned concern as well. So we’re on the same page.”

“He’ll get through it, Cael. He always does.”

“How many chances does one guy get?”

“As many as he deserves,” Dylan said before he clicked off.

Cael sat holding the phone. Sat and stared at the four walls that felt like they were closing in on him.

Someone had to talk some sense into Zane.

Someone needs to let the boy run free. That’s the way he’s happiest. The way you’re all happy
, his mother used to say, without anger or judgment. In fact, out of all of them, she might’ve been the one who needed to run the most, and she’d found the perfect match in their father.

As he heard Vivi tapping on the keys, he texted the information he’d gotten from her about the three men she’d dated—putting extra emphasis on Dale—to Mace. Mace texted back that they were still waiting for the fingerprint IDs they’d taken from Vivi’s house, both before and after the break-in.

Satisfied with that, Caleb then texted Gray the intel he’d gotten about Zane, and received a terse
I’m on it
message back. Now he just had to try not to jump out of his goddamned skin while he waited to see exactly how far DMH would go to trace Zane.

She was moving as quickly as she could, her head down, but every step seemed to echo in the early evening quiet. He ground his teeth together and said nothing.

Short of carrying her, that couldn’t be helped.

He was also pretty damned annoyed with her. Felt like she’d fucking used him.

You slept with her pretty damned willingly
.

Because he’d been thinking of nothing else for six months. Maybe Caleb was right, maybe it had simply grown into an obsession born of guilt and pride.

And maybe Zane knew that he’d fallen damned hard for Olivia Strohm—and he didn’t want to come down from that just yet.

“Stay here, out of sight,” he told her, handed her a rifle. “I’m going to stake out the truck.”

She nodded, the strain evident on her face.

He resisted the urge to kiss her. Which seemed really hard to do, and so he turned away fast and made his way toward the shed.

Once in position, he got down on a knee to scan the area. Noted that even though the shed was closed, the grass that surrounded it was tamped down far more than it had been earlier—and not because of the rain. No, there was a path from the other side of the clearing, clearly man-made.

They were here, waiting for them to come get the truck. Which
they
, he wasn’t sure, of course, so why tell Liv any of it and scare the shit out of her.

Instead, he went back and lied.

She’d been sorry ever since he’d come back and told her their truck had been stolen, had been deep in thought for the hours they’d been walking, trying to figure out what she was doing. Her mind tracing circles around everything that had happened to her over the past months … and still, her body was prepared to do anything to get back underneath Zane again.

Her mind, her heart, wouldn’t let it be that easy though.

Zane was so hard, dangerous—and he moved as if he belonged out here, blending into the backdrop of this wild place with his own primitive nature.

Moving like this with him, she could appreciate that, for the first time since her escape, she wasn’t flying blind. Wasn’t completely alone.

As uncomfortable as his agenda made her, she was still grateful. Never more so than now as she waited behind his tensed body, so stock-still that she was barely breathing.

They were close to the meeting place—or at least they should be. She didn’t know if Zane had circled them back in an attempt to throw people off their track.

People. Soldiers? DMH?

“Run,” Zane whispered against her ear and the command—and the fear—broke her stillness.

She did, aware that she was jerked in every direction by the thick brush, the hidden ropes of vines along the floor of the forest, the wet ground spongy under her feet.

She was happy for the darkness even as she was bruised and scratched and poked, even as her legs began to protest and her breath came in short wheezes. But she wouldn’t stop. Her life depended on it, and the renewed strength from that thought pushed her on for the next while, legs moving seemingly of their own accord, hands fisted, shoulders tensed.

She bit her tongue at some point, the metallic taste of blood sharp in her mouth. And she was back in the woods, nine years old, scared to death.

The feelings were just as intense now, surged through her with an extra burst of adrenaline even as the tears began to course down her cheeks. She hadn’t realized she’d slowed, but Zane had, and she let herself get half dragged along next to him. By the end, he was practically carrying her, until they came to a halting stop, where she tried to catch her breath. There was a stitch in her side, and dammit, she was so out of shape, had never been this weak before, this unable to keep up.

She was jealous of his conditioning, that both his physical and mental strength seemed endless, while hers appeared to be sliding away.

She’d been fine until he arrived … or at least she’d gotten really good at pretending.

Now there was no more fooling herself. She was in trouble.

She
was
trouble.

Zane didn’t let her inner pity party go on for long before he pushed her to the ground without warning and lay on top of her. Facedown, he lightly covered her mouth to remind her to quiet her breathing.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she waited, aware she was trembling. And then she heard muffled shouts, footsteps. How many men, she couldn’t be sure, and she stayed under Zane, his heart beating against her back as the men ran by. And she prayed.

They remained in place for at least fifteen minutes. She’d counted every single second until things got quieter. Until Zane shifted and urged her to turn over and face him.

DMH has his picture—because of you
.

She hoped for the best, that they were simply off course, but safe now.

She couldn’t see his face at all to reassure her, and she still knew that they were anything but.