Promises in the Dark (33 page)

She’d fixed it. And hopefully, that would be enough to get both of them out of some major trouble.

“It’s done. The safeguard’s in place. If DMH is stupid enough to try anything at the power plants, we’ll stop them. We might be able to track their location too,” Gray said. “Of course, that’s only a small part of their operation. They’ve been hacking into hospital databases too.”

Organs were a major source of income for DMH, one that funded their other terrorism schemes. Chatter claimed that Elijah was getting tired of outsourcing, relying on different countries to help him in his quest to be a major threat to the United States. With money of their own, DMH could finally have all the power they’d wanted.

A dangerous game. Cyber crimes were on the rise—and the thought of DMH hacking hospital databases, targeting vulnerable patients …

“They lost their biggest and most profitable clinic in the bombing, and they’ve probably had to cut down on the transplants at the other clinics for now, to avoid detection. The clinics are their biggest moneymaker—they needed a way to make up for their lost funding.”

“Looks that way. Shit, they’re hacking faster than the FBI can keep up with them.”

Cael knew how easy it would potentially be for DMH to shut down the electrical grids. Blow them out, because the parts would take weeks to get, since they were all outsourced to China and Japan, thus causing enough chaos for them to do God knows what.

That had happened already, although on a much smaller scale, in Brazil. Two blackouts of unknown origin, thought to be the work of hackers who’d never taken any credit for the mass confusion in the media or in any intelligence chatter.

It could very well have been DMH. Dry runs for something much larger and far more insidious.

The shower stopped and he caught a glance of a towel and a flash of skin.

The good thing was that Vivi would no doubt be cleared of the mess—and her conscience would be cleared as well.

Where she would go from here though, he had no idea. But the United States needed someone like Vivi on their side. If he couldn’t convince her to give the FBI cyber crimes division offer a chance, he wasn’t sure anyone could.

“Noah needs to speak with you,” Gray said, giving no indication as to whether Cael was in a shitload of trouble or not.

It was a pretty safe bet that he was, regardless of the fact Vivi had done what she was supposed to. “You can put him on the line,” he said.

Gray hesitated and then said, “Vivi really pulled it off. Thank her for me.”

“Will do.” He waited through the silence, heard the rustling in the background and then, without prelude, Noah began to speak.

“Vivienne Clare is free to go,” he said, and although it sounded like goddamned good news at first, Cael knew that, somehow, it wasn’t.

“Free to go where, exactly?” Cael asked. “Ace—aka Dale Robbins—and his merry crew are still out there, looking for her. She’s still in some serious risk.”

He’d lowered his voice so Vivi wouldn’t hear and he waited for Noah’s response which, yes, he could’ve predicted.

“There has been no change in her status, but she’s no longer a person of interest,” Noah said, and Caleb was glad he wasn’t there in front of him.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You know damned well what it means. Cut her loose and get your ass back to base.”

“And where the hell do I send her? She can’t go home.”

“Homeland Security and the FBI are looking into it.”

Cael laughed then, a bitter sound that he knew would carry into the next room, and so he bit it back. “That could take fucking forever, Noah, because they’re dealing with national security—she’s their lowest priority. The FBI’s too. You and I both know that the post is the safest—the only—place for her. I’ll bring her in with me today.”

“I can’t compromise the entire post for her.”

Just what he hadn’t wanted to hear—and what he’d known his CO would say. “Noah, give me something.”

“The FBI would still take her. But I have a feeling Vivienne Clare would still stubbornly refuse to get on board with that.”

“Yeah, well, beyond that fact, you got what you wanted from her. Now she’s completely on her own.” Cael knew that getting in his CO’s face like this was way beyond protocol.

Noah’s voice remained impassive. “Like I said, Homeland’s working on it. The FBI’s been notified as well.”

“And until they get off their ass and do something?”

“I know she’s screwed, but there’s nothing else we can really do for her. And while you can stick with her for now, in forty-eight hours I’m going to need you mission-ready.”

“I’m bringing her to post, Noah.”

“Caleb, cut her loose. You’ve gotten attached—that’s obvious. And it’s not a good idea.”

“Then give me another option.”

The click of the line being cut was Noah’s response. Cael cursed and hung up, knowing that calling back for more would be fruitless.

He was surprised when the phone rang again, then saw it was Dylan. Dylan, not Zane, and he cursed and looked at his watch at the same time he answered, saying, “Tell me you have him.”

“He’s fine. He’s back in the States, with the doctor.”

With the doctor
meant still in danger. This day had gone from shit to worse, and Cael wondered if he could take Vivi to Mace and then get on a damned plane and get all of this figured out. “Dylan, if you’re lying to me …”

“He’s fine.”

Cael still couldn’t bring himself to fully exhale. Zane home on U.S. soil was exactly what he’d wanted. “Tell him to give me a call.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s on the tippy top of his to-do list, Cael.”

Caleb snapped the phone shut. One worry taken care of; another, still a big problem, with no solution in sight. At least not an easy one.

He sketched a picture of Vivi, smiling, the way she had been that morning after they’d made love, for what seemed like the thousandth time, because he couldn’t keep his hands off her. The thought of being mission-ready sounded damned good and horrible at the same time—he never thought he’d be sorry to leave a woman behind when the call came in.

Especially a woman who was still in as much trouble as Vivi. But hell, he was in so much trouble already, so what was a little more?

Your goddamned career
.

He sighed heavily. Noah had already let one transgression go—and the fact that Cael had disobeyed a direct order to bring Vivi to the FBI was a big one. Now, reading between the lines, Noah had given him the go-ahead to stay with Vivi for another couple of days, but that was all.

It was time for Cael to get his ducks in a row.

Vivi had dressed quickly, was listening to music using his iPod, didn’t hear him call her name at first. He glanced down and saw she was listening to “Thunder Road” by Springsteen, her foot tapping in time with the music, eyes closed, lost in some kind of daydream.

There was certainly magic with her in the night, so yeah, Bruce knew what he was talking about.

He tapped her shoulder lightly and she jumped. Smiled, and then it faded when she saw his non-poker face. Back to serious, Army business. Maybe it would go easier that way.

“What is it?”

“I just heard from my CO. You’re free to go.”

“I’m free to go,” she repeated. “To what?”

“The Army thanks you for your service.”

“That is such bullshit and you know it.” She jerked the earbuds out of her ears and stood, her eyes flickering with anger. “Unless you’ve taken Ace into custody?”

“Rest assured, it’s being worked on. We can drive you to—”

“Where?” she challenged. “In the past forty-eight hours, I’ve been shot at, threatened, kidnapped by the Army—although I guess that’s better than the alternative, because I’d be in DMH’s hands—and now you’re telling me that threat isn’t eradicated, that there’s nothing to stop DMH from coming after me, but I’m free to go.”

He nodded, because what else could he say? Her shoulders slumped, the argument nearly gone—he should be glad, but he wasn’t.

She looked up at him, eyes wide, voice soft. “Cael, don’t do this, not to me. Please.”

“I’m not the one doing it, Vivi.”

She swallowed. Stopped arguing, because she wouldn’t beg—he knew that about her. “Fine. Where will you take me?”

“There’s a safe place you can stay in the meantime.”

“Then take me there.”

“It’s my apartment,” he told her, after she’d turned her back to him and begun shoving her borrowed clothing into her borrowed bag.

She dropped what she was doing and went over to him. “That’s going to get you in trouble again, isn’t it?”

“I don’t give a shit. We’ll figure something out.” There was no way around it—Vivi Clare was staying in his life, for now, and the relief that spread through his body told him he’d made the right decision.

“Most are. Dylan and Riley set this place up as a safe house for themselves and the people they help,” Zane explained.

“Who do they need protection from?”

He shrugged. “Depends on the day.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know more about Dylan and Riley’s business—more than she already did, that is, because she’d had an up-close-and-personal view.

She stared out the tinted—and, from what Zane said, bulletproof—window. The house was alarmed to the nines, Zane was armed, there was a rifle near her … and she still couldn’t settle in.

She started to make some grilled cheeses for both of them, assembling them and putting them in a pan on the stove to cook. Zane had been through his own personal hell and he didn’t deserve her falling apart. He’d always partially put her back together—the least she could do this time was fix herself.

Suddenly she felt his hands on her shoulders. “Want to talk about it?”

She put her cheek against his hand. “I want to talk about anything but.”

“The CIA will put the intel you gave them to good use.”

“Yes, and they could hand me over to the Moroccan government to be indicted for the bombing.”

“That’s bullshit, and they know it. Like Dylan said, those CIA agents are just making sure you’ve told them everything, Liv. And you have, so try not to worry.”

“I have to—they’re coming here tomorrow.”

Dylan had forwarded the safe house intel to the CIA agents who were following her case with DMH, and he’d just informed her that they’d be paid a visit by the CIA at this new house tomorrow.

“Okay, but we have the day and night to ourselves, right?”

“I guess.”

“Maybe we can have that piece of normal we talked about in Africa, then?”

She smile. “I can handle that.” She flipped the sandwiches and plated them. “I like your brother. He’s nice.”

He snorted. “Yeah, he’s a real sweetheart.”

“He was worried.”

Zane sat on the counter and took the grilled cheese she handed him, took a bite and chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. “My brothers have worried about me since I came to live with them. Since I became part of the family. It wasn’t easy integrating, you know? But I remember the time when I was twelve and my parents took me and my brothers on a trip to Disney. And look, they were like, bigtime adventurers, you know? And they went to Disney. For me, mainly, although Dylan and Caleb loved it too. I have pictures of them wearing those stupid Mickey Mouse ears. Was planning on bringing those out when it could embarrass them most.” He smiled at the memory. “It was so goddamned normal. I couldn’t believe it.”

She scooted up on the counter next to him. “My first back-to-normal moment came on my birthday, about eight months after the attack. I hadn’t gone back to school, hadn’t seen my friends—didn’t want to either. I wanted to be someone else. Anyone else. And I begged my parents to change my name. I didn’t want to be the girl who was attacked for the rest of my life. But they wouldn’t change it. They told me I needed to be proud of who I was. But they took me out to dinner an hour away. And we sat in the restaurant and no one recognized us. No one pointed. For that night, I was me again.”

“Normal.”

“Normal,” she agreed softly. “And safe. Times like that are some of the best memories.”

“My father built me a tree house,” Zane said. “Right outside my bedroom window, it was my escape route if I ever needed it. I always had a way out. And it was all mine—my brothers stayed out of it, like they knew I needed something of my own.” He blew out a breath and then laughed. “They probably knew everything. I just didn’t realize it until much later, when we finally talked about it.”

She pictured Zane in that tree house, waiting, watching, looking for a reason to escape and finding none. Sometimes, that could be more frightening than actually finding something to run from. “I didn’t have a tree house. My room felt safe enough for a long time, though. I came in long before it got dark and slept with the light on. And then one day, there was this dinner my parents were having with some friends, on the back deck. I was the only kid and I was out in the hammock reading, and I didn’t realize that it had gotten dark and that I was reading by the outside lights. Or maybe I did and just didn’t care, but I was outside for an hour after dark and I forgot. For that hour, I forgot that I was supposed to be scared of being alone, of the dark … of everything. And I can still remember how happy I was that night.” As she spoke, he’d reached down for her hand and she squeezed his. “I feel that happy now. I never thought I would get that feeling back, so I held on to it, just in case it never happened again. But it did.”

“You don’t have to hold on to this moment that tightly, Liv,” he said, and she froze until he continued. “There will be moments like this every damned day. I want them to become so regular to you that you forget they’re supposed to be such a premium. I want you to be this happy every single day.”

“With you,” she whispered.

“With you.” He tightened his hand on hers. “I feel safe with you, Liv. So safe.”

She wondered how long metal doors and bulletproof glass could hold them so securely, and decided she didn’t want to know.

She finished her sandwich, let go of his hand and hopped down from the counter in an easy movement. “I’m going to do some laundry. I never thought I’d be so grateful for running water.”

“I’ll help,” he offered, and she cocked a suspicious eyebrow at him. “What? You’ve never heard of a guy doing laundry?”

“Not when someone else is offering.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t need to be so suspicious. Maybe I like doing laundry.”

She shook her head and went to collect the clothing, brought it into the small room off the kitchen, where he was waiting.

Naked.

“My clothes need to be washed,” he said innocently.

“You just put them on a few hours ago, and they were clean,” she pointed out.

“I tend to get dirty fast.” He shrugged, opened the washing machine, let her put the clothes in as he turned the water on. “You do too, you know.”

“Is that right?”

He was tugging at the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head, and she didn’t bother protesting. Her body had begun to respond the second she’d seen him naked. Her sweatpants—actually, his sweatpants, which she’d borrowed—went to the floor. She hadn’t bothered with underwear and his eyebrows lifted approvingly.

She poured in the detergent and he closed the lid. Then he lifted her up and placed her on the cold machine, pressing her thighs open as he did so he could fit between them. His mouth traced a path along her neck, his hands sought her breasts. Her nipples grew taut under his touch and she wound her arms around him, pulling him in closer, her ass tilting off its perch so his erection could rub against her sex.

“I should’ve known you had ulterior motives,” she murmured as the spin cycle began to rock the machine under her thighs in a satisfying, vibrating motion.

“Want me to stop?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said against her neck. “Because laundry’s so underrated.”

She had to agree.