Promises in the Dark (4 page)

Resisting her whispered invitation would kill him, especially when her hands traveled along his shoulders and then massaged the back of his neck in a way that made his body tingle with need. Except, her sleeping with him, it would be like her dismissing him. What had she called it?
Absolving him
.

For some odd reason, rather than comforting him, it pissed him the hell off. He propped on his elbows but remained on top of her as he spoke. “You’ve suffered through terrible things. And you’re scared, but—”

“But what? You’re going to tell me it’s okay? And if I go back, then what? DMH will magically leave me alone?” She waited patiently for his response, and damn, why did she have to be so logical?

“There’s protection. Official protection.”

“So I’ll be on the run. Looking over my shoulder. Tell me, how’s that different from what I’m doing now?”

“You’ll have running water.”

A small smile played on her lips. “It’s harder for them to find me here.”

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, his body still keeping hers in place. His head ached and he was sleepy.

She reached up then and touched the side of his head. “I’m really sorry I hit you.”

“Makes me feel good you can protect yourself,” he admitted. “But it’s not enough.”

He debated the merits of kissing her again, when he heard a rustle in the bushes just off the porch.

It was where he’d hidden earlier, and he quickly brought up his Sig, pointed it in the general direction of the noise and prepared to pull the trigger.

“No.” She held his wrist, attempted to pull his arm down so that his gun wasn’t pointed in the direction of the bushes. “Someone’s coming to see me. A patient.”

“You never said you were expecting anyone.”

“I wasn’t expecting that man—but her, I was.” Just then, a very pregnant woman emerged, holding her belly in obvious pain and walking toward them. Zane still kept the gun out, but at his side as he let Olivia scramble out from under him.

This was not good.

And still, he let the women go into the house together while he waited outside, scanning the area.

It was all quiet, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t last long.

After about ten minutes, Olivia came back outside with a large pot in her hands, practically running.

“Are you going to hit me again?” he asked.

“It’s tempting. But I need your help more.”

Finally, she was seeing the light.

Except, she shoved the pot in his hands. “Fill this. Then heat the water—warm, not hot.” She barely glanced over her shoulder at him as she walked away. “I’ve got a baby to deliver.”

Son of a bitch. He’d been on countless missions in many hot spots, and a single woman was going to be his hardest one yet. “We’ve got to get out of here now.”

“She can’t travel—she won’t make it.”

“We don’t have the time for babies, Olivia.”

There was no answer.

“Seriously, we need to move out.”

This time, a scream answered him. Not Olivia’s. No, the mom to be’s. And it didn’t sound like a cry of happiness.

She hadn’t told Zane that she wasn’t sure Ida would make it even with them staying put. The woman had waited too long, traveled too far—and maybe none of that would matter in the end, but the heaviness in the pit of Olivia’s stomach told her otherwise.

The labor was moving quickly. She’d have to turn the baby or attempt a cesarean, although that choice rarely worked, especially here. If the blood loss didn’t kill Ida, the infection that was sure to follow would.

She comforted the woman in a low voice to reassure her, just as the sounds of gunfire slashed through the night. Ida screamed.

“No,” Olivia whispered fiercely. “Not a sound.” She pushed a towel into Ida’s mouth for the woman to bite on and Ida nodded, understood, bit down hard on the cloth in fear and pain.

A hand on Olivia’s shoulder made her whirl sharply.

Zane didn’t say a word, just surveyed the scene in front of him, a heavy machine gun in his hand and another hanging from a long strap across his body. Where he’d gotten them from she had no idea, but she was grateful when he handed her one.

He held the pot of water with his other hand, and he placed it on the floor before he motioned to her to come closer.

“Tell me what the deal is with this woman,” he growled.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a small army coming this way. I’m assuming it has something to do with your guest.”

Before she could answer, there was more gunfire—this time, not as distant. She stifled her own scream and swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “She’s the wife of a warlord. She was sold to him.”

“And he’s not happy she left him,” he finished, his brow furrowed in concern, although it seemed more directed at Ida and the baby than the soldiers that were coming toward them. “I’ll take care of it.”

“All by yourself?”

“I know, doesn’t seem fair to them, does it?” He didn’t smile when he spoke. “Take care of her.”

He was going to leave her alone in here and she fought the ridiculous urge to beg him to stay.

What had she gotten them both into? She grabbed his arm when he began to walk away.

“You can do this, Liv,” he told her, and she let go of him. But he didn’t leave then; instead, he pushed the heavy wooden table over onto its side, and then he picked up the mattress, with Ida on it, and carried it, placing it behind the cover of the table and away from the doors and windows.

“Stay low,” he told Olivia. And then he was gone.

She heard male voices—shouts in Krio, and English. And then there were screams—women from the village. Some bullets ripped through the thatched roof and she threw her body over Ida’s, who’d passed mercifully into unconsciousness.

When the firing stopped momentarily, Olivia checked on Ida’s progress. Nine centimeters. The baby would have to be turned now, or neither mother nor child would have a chance.

As the fighting picked up again, she urged the baby to turn, her gloved hands working as if guided by some unknown force. The room had become stifling, almost unbearable, and the constant firing was impossible to block out.

Ida woke briefly, stared at her with a look Olivia knew all too well.

She wasn’t going to stay and fight.

Olivia couldn’t blame her, but the baby still had a chance. She took off the gloves, wiped her hands and waited as she took Ida’s hands in hers. “It’s okay, Ida. You can go.”

A small moan and Ida was gone. Now that the woman would feel no pain, Olivia cut and pushed and pulled, knowing what little time she had left was crucial. The smell of blood overpowered her, her ears rang and the room began to spin as she heard screams.

She was certain some of those screams came from her.

The baby was finally out and she held the boy for a moment before a cry tore from her throat. Rage and frustration boiled over, and she took a deep breath to push those emotions back before she lay the baby down on the bed next to his mother and unwrapped the cord from where it had wrapped tightly around his neck.

She reached into her bag and used the instrument she’d gotten from a local clinic last month to clear his mouth. Nothing.

She had failed. That had happened more often than not over the past months. DMH had taken something from her, more than she’d wanted to admit.

The hand was on her shoulder again but she was busy wiping the baby down with the warm water, would not leave him like that.

And then suddenly, she noted that the infant was stirring with tiny breaths.

Minutes later, he gave a healthy cry and she realized tears streamed down her face as well.

When she turned to Zane, she swore his eyes were wet too.

“I think you might be my good luck charm,” she told him, although she could barely get the words out.

His smile was small, but it was there. “We still need to leave, Liv. It’s going to be tough going for a newborn.”

“I know just where he’ll stay.” Dahia’s faced flashed in front of her as Ama’s words echoed in her ears—
When something is taken away, something is always given in its place
. “I know someone who will love him. Keep him safe.”

“That’s all anyone can ask for,” he said. He moved forward to cover Ida’s body with a sheet, gently. Respectfully. And then Olivia let him guide her out of the house, the baby in her arms.

He’d never bothered to learn her name, but he remembered Olivia Strohm’s. It haunted him, as did her large, dark eyes that had stared at him with a mixture of contempt and pity.

Now her eyes were haunted. The hair was longer and the body thinner, but it was most definitely Olivia on the screen of his BlackBerry, standing on the porch of a small house.

His man, Kieran, had transmitted the pictures and the report and hadn’t been heard from again since nine
P.M
.

Kieran, his twenty-three-year-old cousin who’d flown to Africa to work and train with Elijah. Kieran, who believed in DMH and looked up to Elijah.

“What happened to him?” Elijah demanded.

“Give me a minute—I think I know,” Ace said.

Elijah put his feet on the floor and began to pace the bedroom. He’d thought Kieran was ready. Wanted him to be. But now the feeling of dread grew with every passing moment.

As the head of DMH, he’d been making a major name for the group in recent years. DMH dealt in terror camps, drug trafficking, black market weapons, black market organs, skin trade, human trafficking … and the list went on.

Elijah’s problem was getting Dr. Olivia Strohm back—and under control. He now had her entire file, things he hadn’t known about Olivia Strohm when he’d had her in his grasp.

Until recently, he’d believed her dead, killed in the clinic bombing. Had believed the override destroying the building had been a mistake.

He should have known better. Olivia was smart and strong. Perfect for him. And she knew far too much about the operation. Knew key names. Doctors from major U.S. hospitals who were involved in the black market organ operation. And because she knew, they were all compromised. It was threatening to grind the operation to a halt, because the doctors were afraid they would be exposed—or killed, as Olivia had pulled the switch to the bomb in the clinic in Morocco, killing most of the staff and exposing the illegal nature of the operation.

So far, Elijah had managed to do enough damage control that the organ trafficking at the clinic seemed like an isolated incident. But if Olivia talked to the CIA, DMH would be in some serious trouble. It could devastate that branch and potentially cripple the rest of the organization for a time.

He’d gotten far too invested in this woman for his own good, but would admit that only to himself.

“This man is what happened to Kieran—picture number four,” Ace said tightly, a definite sense of blame in his tone as he pressed a button on his phone that transmitted an e-mail with pictures attached to the large screen of the computer in front of Elijah.

Elijah flipped through the rest of the e-mailed pictures quickly until he got to the one that interested him—the man in the combat fatigues, turned to stare directly into the camera, Olivia standing behind him.

“Find out who he is. Now,” Elijah barked to Ace. “I don’t care what it takes. Run his picture through the military databases—use our sources. Check the CIA and FBI as well.”

But the man was military—Elijah could smell it. He had the cocky look of someone who was trained well and could handle anything.

Almost anything. This man would regret getting involved in DMH’s business. Elijah would make sure of it.

They’d taken more ammo to put down. The next four—well, that had nearly cleaned him out.

Granted, now he was the proud owner of all their ammo and their guns. Spoils of the victor.

“Zane—I want to wash my hands before we bring the baby in to Dahia,” Olivia whispered. She’d stopped at the water pump along the side of the house. “You need to hold him.”

He freed his hands by placing the weapon and bags on the ground next to him and took the baby—impossibly small in his hands, and so damned helpless.

And sleeping. Soundly.

He looked away from the tiny face to watch Liv shove her hands under the pump to scrub the mess of childbirth from them. The baby’s blanket was dense but soft and she’d cleaned him off well; his skin shone with health.

Again, total and complete chaos had followed Zane. He’d grown up in it, at least for the first eleven years of his life, and was surprised he was still drawn to it, moth to flame, Icarus burning his wings, in spite of the memories it dredged up.

Memories that remained hazy, no matter how hard he tried to put a straight edge to them.

He could’ve done more about the atrocities that happened to him and the other boys he’d known when he’d come of age. Gone back to the scene of the crime, searched people down. Demanded answers.

Thing was, he was pretty damned happy with who he’d become.

But the thought that there could’ve been grieving parents out there, still mourning for him … well, that knotted his gut almost as badly as knowing Olivia had still been out there.

The infant stirred in his arms and Zane brought him closer against his chest so the baby could feel his heartbeat—Chris, his SEAL teammate and the team’s medic had taught him that. Zane had been on the receiving end of a few deliveries by Chris’s side. Granted, those always ended in a moment of joy between the baby and the parents.

When he’d gone to see Olivia’s parents, he’d expected anger and grief, but not the raw pain that had given him a brutal slam to the chest. If he hadn’t already been committed to this journey, meeting them would’ve sealed the deal.

“I’ll take him now, Zane,” Liv whispered, and he surrendered the bundle to her, snapping to and rubbing his face hard, to wake himself from the reverie. Now was not the time to take a walk into the past.

And he refused to think of Olivia as the past. No, she was present and future and there was no way he would leave a woman to wander around in chaos.

Within minutes, they were at the back door of a mostly hidden house. Zane remained outside, listened to the urgent, whispered Krio, the tears, the thank yous.

When Liv came out she was smiling with tears in her eyes again.

“Ready? We’ll have to go on foot.”

“What about the car?”

“They blew the tires. And the engine,” he said. “Probably figured it was yours.”

“Damn.”

“I’ll get us another as soon as I can. We’re probably safer not driving tonight anyway.”

“My neighbor about a mile down the road has a truck—maybe we can borrow it?”

“She’ll most likely never get it back,” he said.

“I’ll make it up to her somehow. I’ll leave her money to buy a new one,” she urged.

Grabbing her bags and the old rifle she’d been using, he led her along the back of the houses in the dark—swift and silent, prepared to carry her if she couldn’t make it.

But she was all one foot in front of the other, no stopping. She moved like a machine, but not like she was heading to freedom. He had a sinking feeling he was nowhere near done attempting to convince her that she needed to leave this place. Even as the nagging in his gut told him she was not safe—and never would be as long as DMH existed.

Now he was in the thick of it.

Identifying him would be easy if they had access to classified military files. And somehow, he knew they did.