Promises in the Dark (3 page)

Now he just had to convince her he had nothing to do with DMH.

He’d heard her sharp intake of breath when she’d found her picture in his pocket.

And when he’d opened his eyes and told her she was beautiful, he’d meant it. She was. Tanned. Wild.

She’d survived against all the damned odds, and asking if anyone else had been there looking for her had simply served to freak her out further.

But she was in imminent danger and it was time for him to get her back in the game. He opened his eyes and stared up at her, his hands tied tightly, but not all that securely, behind his back. He could get out of this easily—if and when he wanted to.

Now was not the time, not when Liv still had that fierce look in her eyes and the heavy skillet in her hand, and fuck, his head was going to hurt like a mother for days.

She looked a little remorseful. But still angry. Her dark hair was longer, framed her face now that she’d taken it down from the cloth she’d had wrapped it in earlier, but her eyes still glittered.

It was so much fucking better than a photograph. “Olivia, I’m a friend. I’m here to help you. You need to come with me.”

“You’re not exactly in the position to tell me what to do,” she pointed out.

He shifted on the dirt floor so he was up on his elbows. “I’m not going to hurt you—you know that.”

“Either way, you’re not doing me any favors. In the morning, I’m leaving, but not with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you not understand English? I don’t need your help, if you’re really here to give it.”

He blinked in disbelief. Shook his head even, as if he wasn’t sure he was hearing correctly, then looked around the small house with its bare walls and lack of windows, plumbing and other niceties. “I know being captured can fuck people up.”

“You’ve been captured?”

He didn’t answer and she probably took that as a resounding no.

“You were saying something about how you think I’m fucked up,” she continued.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you didn’t know me before, so how can you tell if I’m different?”

Okay, yeah, the woman had a point. But who the hell would want to stay here? “Your parents are—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t tell me—worried sick?”

Of course they were. He’d hated going to the house, speaking with them. The police and the FBI had already been there, as had the CIA. But Zane had been the only one whose hope they’d clung to. “They miss you. They want you home.”

She was shaking her head, her eyes not meeting his, and something was really wrong. He’d rescued many people before and all of them were happy to see him.

This couldn’t be Stockholm syndrome, since she’d escaped from her captors already. “We’ve been looking for you a long time—since the beginning.”

“Why?”

Why? Because he’d heard her yelling and had been helpless to stop her from being taken. “I heard you scream the night you were taken from the house in Minnesota by DMH’s men.”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her.

“We didn’t have enough manpower to save you then. I wasn’t at the house, but if I were, I would’ve tried.”

“You’re absolved of your guilt.”

“What?”

“I forgive you.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, turned her back and walked through the open doorway to another room in the small house.

She was packing.

“You’re coming with me, then?” he called.

“No, I’m shifting locations so you won’t keep bothering me. Someone will come by and free you when I’m gone,” she assured him.

He lowered himself back down to the ground, his head throbbing from both the blow and frustration. He hated the idea of rescuing her against her will, but he’d do it. When they got back to the States, a psychologist could help her deal with everything that had happened.

It wasn’t every day a woman blew up a clinic. God knows what else she’d been made to endure. Everyone had their breaking point. But Olivia didn’t seem broken. No, she seemed … determined.

And then he stopped thinking and went still, his instincts screaming.

Someone was outside the house.

In seconds, he was out of the bonds and moving across the floor slowly, his weapons back in hand from where she’d left them.

He moved silently into the bedroom, where she was still throwing clothing and supplies into an old bag. Pressed his body to hers and put a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream.

“It’s just me. Don’t make a sound,” he whispered against her ear and then moved his hand from her mouth. She turned, looked stunned that he was free.

“Stay here. Don’t move,” he told her. “There’s someone outside.”

She nodded, fear in her eyes. He moved out the back door and wound around to the front, using the thick brush that surrounded Olivia’s hideaway for cover.

There were three other houses in front of hers—making it impossible to see from the road. You wouldn’t know her house was even there unless you were told specifically where it was.

The bushes tangled around his legs, forcing him to move more slowly than normal. His night vision was pretty good, developed from years of missions that forced him to depend on his own senses, rather than equipment that was heavy to carry and could break easily.

The air carried the scent of aftershave his way. He pulled his knife as he got closer to the spot he’d checked out earlier—the perfect place to watch the comings and going from the small house.

A man was there, waiting in the dark, watching the house, wearing night vision goggles, and Zane wondered what had taken him so long to get from the other village to here.

But he didn’t stop to ponder that for long. Debated the merits of capture versus kill and decided on the latter. Getting Olivia home was the mission—everything else would follow once she was safe.

Closer … closer … he came up behind the man, who didn’t notice a thing, so intent on checking the house and playing with the BlackBerry he held in his right hand that he made Zane’s job a hell of a lot easier.

He dropped on his knees and had the man in a headlock before he could make a move to fight back.

“Coming in second does have its benefits,” Zane growled, right before sticking the KA-BAR into the man’s carotid for a silent, fast kill.

The man’s head dropped forward and Zane left him there, to scout the area. He found the man’s car parked close. No signs that he’d brought anyone else with him, and what the hell was that all about? If he was with DMH and they wanted her back that badly, why hadn’t they sent in a team?

He went back to the dead man and rifled through his pockets. Found no ID, but several weapons, and the BlackBerry, which was high grade, an international phone with a high-powered camera. When he scrolled through, he found pictures of both Olivia and himself, taken earlier on her porch. Saw that they’d actually been sent to an encrypted e-mail address.

They were watching Olivia. Waiting for … something. But what?

Whoever this man worked for had pictures of Zane now. He was as marked as Olivia was—and if his picture leaked to DMH, he could be as good as dead.

“Come back, please come back,” she murmured, well aware of the irony of what she asked, when moments earlier all she wanted was him to be gone.

The sounds got closer. She squinted and saw a figure—Zane—coming around the back of the house.

Relief flooded through her, but it was short-lived when she noted he was dragging a man behind him up to the back door.

If Zane was part of DMH and wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now
. The thought was oddly comforting.

“I can’t leave him out in case he’s being followed,” he explained. “Do you recognize him?”

She stared down at the dead man. He looked to be in his early twenties, a kid. A kid with weapons strapped to him. Caucasian, red-haired. Dressed similar to Zane. “No. I’ve never seen him before. How did you know he was here?”

“The man two villages over who told me where to find you said I wasn’t the first to ask.”

The picture. She’d forgotten about it, had shoved it back into Zane’s pocket in order to pretend it didn’t exist. But no doubt he’d shown her picture and of course the locals recognized her. She was an anomaly and not all of them necessarily wanted to help her.

It hit her then, that if Zane had the picture, he might know about her past, because she’d tucked the newspaper article, written years earlier about her, in the frame. She blanched at the thought of being more exposed than she already was and wondered how far she’d get if she ran out the back door and kept running until her legs gave out.

But he was behind her now, holding her up.

She hadn’t realized her legs had sagged.

“When was the last time you ate anything?”

How long? “I’m not sure.”

“Come on, lie down, Liv.”

Liv
. Normally she despised the shortening of her name like that from a stranger, but hearing it from him, it felt right. As if he’d been doing it her whole life.

She’d been without food longer than she’d thought if she was thinking like this. Ridiculous. She wasn’t sentimental. Needy. No, she was logical. Serious.

God, she was so confused. And so she listened to him, lay down on the bed while he did God knows what with the dead body and then came back in. He’d washed up from the pump at the side of the house.

With his blond hair slicked back from his face, his cheekbones appeared even more chiseled.

He strode into the kitchen area like he owned the place, came back to her with bread and chicken and soda she kept in the ancient icebox.

She ate in silence for a bit, sitting up with her legs crossed Indian style. Zane remained standing where he had a view of both front and back doors. When she finished, she walked past him to put the plate and the bottle back in the wash bin. “Are my parents okay?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“Good, that’s good.” She’d worried that they’d be in danger, whether or not she was in touch with them, but her gut had told her that no contact with them would be best, no matter how painful it might be for them.

Zane was next to her then, handing her an envelope she hadn’t found when she’d searched him earlier. It was from her parents. Written in her mother’s handwriting … and there was a picture of her parents standing with Zane. They looked fine. Not like they were under duress at all.

“I couldn’t think of any other way to get you to trust me,” he said after a few minutes. “I didn’t know if it would work, but I figured, between that and the note from Skylar …”

He trailed off and she wiped a tear away with her fingers and looked up at him. All she could do was nod.

“I hated giving them false hope, but they understood. Look, Liv, we’re leaving in a few minutes. DMH typically sends in men alone, but they’re usually much better trained than that guy. It’s tripping all the alarms in my head that he
wasn’t
working alone, that backup’s not far behind.”

She knew she didn’t really have a leg to stand on anymore. No, she needed him, and while she didn’t like that at all, she appreciated it. “I’ll go with you tonight, yes. But tomorrow, I’m going off on my own again, so you can call off your team.”

Zane’s expression hardened. “I’m not prepared to negotiate. And it’s just me.”

That stopped her in her tracks. This man had come here by himself. For her.

“Who sent you? Was it my parents?”

“They didn’t hire me.”

“I don’t understand … you’re doing this all by yourself?”

Zane took a step toward her, a grim pull to his mouth. When he spoke, his voice held a barely couched edge of anger. “I’ve got some help, but for now, we’re on our own. You need to follow what I say so I can get you to a safer place.”

“But you are with the military, aren’t you?”

This time, he simply nodded.

“But you’re not here in any kind of official capacity.”

He didn’t answer her question and she continued. “You said before, you’ve been looking for me from the beginning. And the picture … you found it?”

“Yes.”

“You were in my apartment, then. You took my picture from the frame all by yourself,” she heard herself whisper, and he confirmed that with a nod.

Yes, he knew. Everything. She hated that and she hated him all at once.

It was his turn to speak. “I know about the bombing of the clinic. I know you’re wanted in conjunction with that—both by law enforcement and DMH. You have to come out of hiding to explain. Talk about what you know—it’s your only chance.”

Yes, she had chances—knew things that could both help her and hurt her at the same time. What kind of odds were those?

And Zane, done answering her questions, told her, “Let’s go, Olivia,” in a tone that was at once controlled and commanding. Made her want to follow him.

She realized he would not let her win this one. He’d also brought too many links to her past for her to ignore him. But if anyone stayed with her, they would die. She would not be responsible for more innocent people’s deaths.

She stared between him and the open door just beyond him as the tension mounted between them, the air heavy with it.

“Don’t even think about it. I’ll have you pinned before you even get close.”

His words were both a threat and a challenge. She was prepared for either extreme.

All she could think to do was run, which she did, out the front door.

She made it as far as the porch, and probably only because he’d allowed her some rope before he’d made a move. He tackled her, but somehow gently, and because she’d turned to fight him, she ended up under him, his body on hers.

God, he was so handsome—and a thrill ran through her, coiled and unfurled deep within her.

Here, it was all about saving lives. Looking for mercy.

It would be so easy to give in …

His breath was warm, her body, weighted with his, legs tangled under the night sky.

“You. Are. Coming. With. Me.”

She didn’t argue then, simply wound her hand into his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. Because it felt right. Because it was inevitable.

Because it was all she could think of to do.

He responded without hesitation and it was better than she could’ve hoped for—the best, actually, like a million sparks catching dried brush to start an unstoppable fire.

She’d thought she was dead inside. Feelings, urges, shut down.

But now all she wanted was her would-be rescuer right where he was, wanted him to pull her clothes off and take her until her cries pierced the night air.

When he pulled back, she heard herself murmur, “
please
.”

She had not begged once for anything in the past six months. She was begging now.